The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah (10 page)

I'll Always Be with You

Was it really only six months ago? That last visit with Nana and Poppy. Gold's Deli. Chocolate egg creams. The pickles and the doctor's appointment. And me walking behind my grandmother, pretending I didn't know who she was.

Poppy was taking me and Sammy to Grand Central Station to meet our dad and to catch a train back home. It was time for us to go home.

Nana insisted on coming downstairs to say good-bye even though she hadn't put on her makeup. No foundation, no fake eyelashes, not even her eyebrows. She didn't outline with pencil, but she ran her red lipstick over her lips without even looking in the mirror.

“What?” she said. “I know where my lips are.”

I should have known then.

“But, Nana,” I told her. “You never leave the house without your face.”

“Who needs to put on a face?” she said. “When I have my two grandchildren.”

When we walked outside, the sun was shining bright. It was spring. The light fell across the tall buildings and landed only on our side of the street. My grandfather walked to the curb and lifted his hand to hail a cab. Nana and I waited outside the lobby. I thought she looked younger without her makeup, softer. More like my mother.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” my grandmother said. “The world is beautiful.”

“Nana, why are you crying?” I asked her.

“I don't know. Sometimes I miss people. I miss my mother.”

I had never heard my grandmother speak like that. The stories she told about her life, about her family, always sounded like stories. Like books at a far end of the shelf, not real. I had never heard my grandmother sound as she did now, like a little girl.

Like me.

I suddenly turned and wrapped my arms around her waist.

“I'm so sorry, Nana,” I said.

“For what, Caroline? You haven't done anything.”

“For what I did yesterday coming back from the doctor. When I didn't answer you. When I walked behind you.” I shrugged my shoulders like it was no big deal, but I was scared. I had let her walk too far ahead.

“I just wanted to pretend I was by myself. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

Suddenly she laughed. She hadn't laughed all weekend. “Oh, my
shayna maideleh
, that's what children do. That's what they're supposed to do, grow up. Move away. Go out on their own, test the waters…all that kind of thing.”

I reached up and took her hand. “I don't want to go out on my own, Nana.” I told her.

“Not to worry,” she told me, squeezing my hand. “You will always be my
shayna madel
.”

Sammy was shouting to me. They were waiting for me, the cab door was open. Sammy was already inside.

“And I will always be with you,” my nana told me. “Even when we are apart.”

The Truth Comes Out

“You're surprised to see that photograph here, aren't you?” asked Aunt Gert.

After I hung up with my parents and they told me Sammy was okay, I realized I was still holding my grandparents' wedding photo in my hands. My aunt Gert had come into the kitchen and turned on the light.

“A little,” I said. There didn't seem to be much use in lying.

“I love my brother very much, Caroline. I loved your grandmother, too. Things aren't always how they sound. Sometimes they sound worse when they are taken out of context. I think a lot of life's problems are just misunderstandings no one bothers to fix.”

I suppose that was true. I thought about my invitation to Lauren's party. I thought about walking behind my grandmother just so I could pretend to be older. What if I had never talked about either of those things, to anyone?

“Come, let's sit down for a minute,” Aunt Gert said. She gestured
toward a sitting room off the living room. A room that actually looked like someone had used it. There were books and newspapers, a coffee table with a pair of glasses on top. Comfortable-looking, sat-in-looking upholstered chairs in which I sat, and as soon as I did, my back ached and I needed to lean back. My head plopped back on the cushions without asking my permission.

“You're tired,” Aunt Gert said. “Would you like to see where you are going to sleep? There is a bathroom in there as well. I laid out towels and an extra brand-new toothbrush.”

“No, I'm fine,” I said. I wanted to know what she knew. I put the photo down on the coffee table and my aunt Gert picked it up.

“Our father was a very severe man, Caroline.” She ran her fingers across the glass in the frame. “He had worked hard his whole life. He was especially hard on his son, your grandfather. He was not a very loving father. He demanded respect.”

I thought about my mother. She was hard on me, all the time. But I knew she loved me. I never doubted that.

“I should have been married by then, I was older, but, well…I was not particularly pretty. It's hard to explain. My father let me know this almost daily. Men made money and women were pretty. I was never going to get married, so he put all his efforts into his seventeen-year-old son, your grandfather. He wanted his son to marry this young woman, Rita Gordon, I remember, the daughter of one of his business associates.”

As I watched my aunt Gert talking I could see something in her face, almost a version of her younger self. Not beautiful, but strong. What she must have looked like without the wrinkles and the spots. Handsome, the kind of woman they call handsome. Which, I hope, is never me.

She went on. “But my brother was in love. He wasn't going to marry so young, but, well, his father forced his hand. When your grandparents ran off and got married at town hall in Brooklyn, my father was furious. He cut off your grandfather in every way. He threatened to make my mother sit shivah. I had never seen a woman cry so much.”

“Shivah? Isn't that when someone dies?”

“Yes, the mourning period,” Aunt Gert told me. “Mourners sit on boxes so they can't be too comfortable. They cover their mirrors so they won't be vain.”

I remembered the mirrors at my grandparent's apartment draped in sheets. I couldn't imagine doing that just because your son didn't do what you wanted him to do.

“But I thought your family
wasn't
religious. I thought they hated my grandmother because she was too Jewish?”

Aunt Gert took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That was partly it. Not the religion but the class, maybe. Your grandmother—Nana, right? You called her Nana?”

I nodded.

“Your nana was an eastern European Jew, from Russia. Her mother was born there, in Lbov, I believe. My family had been in the country for three generations already, from Germany. My family didn't speak with an accent. We never spoke Yiddish. We even had a Christmas tree. We had done pretty much everything we could not to
look
Jewish.”

Looking Jewish? Like the little boy I saw at the Bronx Zoo with the black hat and the curls of hair? Like getting to mail out bat mitzvah invitations? Like me wearing my Star of David necklace? Being Jewish but not sure I wanted anyone to know?

“It was hard,” Aunt Gert went on. “I don't blame them really. A Jew couldn't make it in the business world. Door were shut to us. Clubs, organizations. Colleges.”

“Colleges?”

“Oh, yes. Colleges. Certain towns, even.” Aunt Gert seemed to be talking to herself almost, figuring it all out. When the sadness took over her face, instead of the meanness, she looked almost pretty.

“So my family just kept their Judaism to themselves. Hoffman is a German name. It didn't have to be Jewish. We were Jewish; we just didn't wear our Judaism on our sleeves.”

Being Jewish came at certain cost. But I already knew that, didn't I? Even before I understood, I had felt it. From Lauren. From Rachel. From the Orthodox boy with the blue eyes. From my grandparents.

And from myself.

“After my brother defied our father and left home, I was more afraid. I was afraid I would be alone forever. I was afraid I would never marry and if I upset my father I would have no one. So I did what he asked. I didn't talk to my brother or his wife.”

“Ever again? How did you get those pictures?”

She smiled. “Well, we spoke when we could.”

“Did you…,” I began. “Did you ever get married? Do you have any kids?”

At this Aunt Gert smiled again. “Yes,” she told me. “I fell in love. I was much older. Our father had passed away. I married my husband and we had eighteen wonderful years. And you know the funny thing?”

Could anything about this be funny? “What?” I asked.

“After all that controversy with your nana's family, I married
a very observant Jewish man. We kept a kosher home. I became
shomer shabbos
.”

I had no idea what that meant.

Aunt Gert went on. “We weren't blessed with any children; I was too old. But we had love.”

I heard her make a little sound, almost a sob, but she swallowed it away.

“My husband was my great love,” she told me. “I was a very lucky woman. And now I am lucky to know you.”

I Am a Bat Mitzvah

My aunt Gert didn't get out of the cab when we got to the hospital where we were meeting my parents. I think it was hard for her to get up and down. She waved at my father and I watched as she leaned forward and spoke to the driver. I watched still, as the yellow car pulled around the circle and into traffic.

The sunshine was taking up most of the world. Even though it was cold, it was clear and bright. It was November, and the snowflakes started to fall. One by one at first, almost as if someone were throwing them from a rooftop, then all at once. The tiny ones that drift and float around right in front of you before they land.

My dad would drive me home and pick up some fresh clothes. Sam was fine but my mother wanted to stay with him. My dad would go back in the afternoon and I could stay at Rachel's.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Nothing.”

We drove back, this time with the Hudson River on our left side. The snow had stopped but it was getting grayer out. Colder.

“Are you taking me right to Rachel's or are we going home first?”

“Home first,” he said.

“Good.”

We were silent for a time. It was always comfortable not to say anything with my dad. I never felt like he was angry if I wasn't talking. After a long while I said, “Good, because I need to get something first.”

Of course, sometimes I wished he would talk a little more.

“I need to get something important.”

“What? What, sweetie? What do you need?”

He was probably thinking about Sam. He was probably really tired. He probably hadn't slept much, if at all.

“I need to get my Jewish star necklace.” There, I said it. “The one that Nana left for me. She wanted me to have it.”

“Oh, yes. I know. I haven't seen you wear it.”

“You know? You know I have it? How do you know?”

My dad shifted gears. He checked his mirrors and changed lanes. “Your grandfather told me about it. He told me he gave it to you. Did you lose it, sweetie? Are you upset?”

“No, I just thought…I don't know.” I was quiet again.

“You thought I'd mind,” my dad said. “You thought if you wore your Jewish star that it would be disloyal to me because I'm not Jewish, right?”

“Something like that.”

I liked riding in the car because I could look straight ahead. I
didn't have to show my face or look at someone else's. I could just talk and just listen. But nobody could leave, nobody could go anywhere.

We were buckled in.

“Caroline. I married your mother. I love everything about her. I love that she is Jewish. You can be and do anything you want.”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Anything?”

“You know what I mean, wise guy.”

“But what about Mom?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“Would she care if I was wearing Nana's necklace? Wouldn't she think I was being silly?”

“Silly?”

I waited, and then I said, “You know, because of the car. Because her mother and father didn't want you two to get married in the first place.”

I had never seen my dad laugh so hard, which was kind of good, since he'd looked so beat and tired a few minutes ago.

“Where did you hear that?” he wanted to know.

“Mom.”

“
She
told you that?”

I nodded. “She said it hurt your feelings.”

“Well, yes and no,” my father said, and then he told me another love story.

This one was about a young Jewish girl in medical school, a young resident whose parents didn't want her to get married. Not yet. And yes, probably they would have rather she married a Jewish man. And yes, they offered to buy her a car if she waited. But my father had won them over with his infinite charms.
Besides, he was clearly crazy about their daughter.

And yes, there was mention of a car. A BMW? Was it?

My dad thought it had been a Jaguar. “Now, a Jaguar she might have thought twice about.”

“Da-ad.” I hit him on the arm.

It wasn't for another half an hour, until we crossed the border into Connecticut and we were almost home, that I spoke again.

“I know I don't need to have one to be Jewish, but
could
I? Could I have a bat mitzvah if I wanted?”

“Yes,” my dad said. “You can have a bat mitzvah if you want to.”

 

I knew my dad would tell my mother about what I said, about me wanting a bat mitzvah. I think I probably wanted him to. She wasn't mad at all. In fact, we started talking more about Nana and about all things Jewish. I told her about the stuff Aunt Gert told me about bat mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs, and my mom told me some stuff too.

 

“You know, Caroline,” my mom said to me. We were alone, sitting on the couch. Our favorite doctor love-show was on but there was a commercial.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, I'm going to tell you.”

“Okay, but our show is going to be on soon.”

My feet were resting on my mother's legs, and her feet were almost touching my chin, but I didn't mind.

“In the Jewish religion, some people believe that the dead are not really gone. That they watch over us. Take care of the ones they loved. During certain holidays there is a special memorial service in synagogue for them. Very religious Jews believe that
our loved ones actually come down into the sanctuary and look for the people who are saying a prayer for them.”

“Like what holiday?”

“Like Yom Kippur,” she told me. Our show was coming on but I turned toward her.

“Really? I thought you didn't believe in stuff like that.”

“When did I say that?” she asked.

I decided not to pursue that one.

My mother went on. “I always thought you could be with someone you loved whenever you want.”

“You do?” I asked. “Like when?”

“Like whenever you remember them,” she told me.

 

I think I understood now.

People become memories but they are still there. They are there to grab on to when you are swimming in the ocean, when you dream that you are drowning. We are all like the links on my chain. Something to connect us to everyone who came before.

And everyone who will come after.