Under a Red Sky (19 page)

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Authors: Haya Leah Molnar

BOOK: Under a Red Sky
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THE DINING ROOM TABLE
is covered with sheets of newspaper. Tubes of oil paints, a can of turpentine, and a jar filled with paintbrushes and a rag are lying on top of the newspapers. Mama has lined up several carved wooden boxes in front of her, in soldierlike fashion.
“If I were a tourist from the West, I would buy one of these gift boxes as a souvenir. Wouldn't you, Eva?” she asks, holding a carved wooden box close up and painting the stem of a flower on its lid.
“I guess so.”
“Come help me out,” she says. “It's fun.”
I sit down next to her, and she shows me how to use the end of the brush handle to create a pattern of perfect dots on the box.
“This will turn out to be the center of the flower,” she says, dipping the tip of the brush into yellow paint. “If you do a good job, I will show you how to paint petals next.”
“How come tourists can visit Bucharest but we can't go anywhere?”
Mama smiles. “Have you ever met a tourist, Eva?”
“No. Wait a minute, isn't Renée, Beard's girlfriend who gave me my turquoise toiletry kit, a tourist?”
“Yes, I suppose she is,” Mama answers without looking up from her work, “but she came here as a puppeteer. Tourists go places just for fun.”
“Why can't we have fun?”
“We are having fun, darling. We're painting boxes with pretty flowers.”
“I'd like to be able to travel to other countries, Mama.”
“So would I, but you will have to be patient until the Party lets us out.”
We sit together and paint these gift boxes with Romanian motifs until my hands are covered with specks of oil paint and my fingers are numb. I have no idea how Mama got this job or who is paying her, but she says that it's a great way for her to continue to contribute to the household income now that she no longer teaches ballet. When we are done, we allow the boxes to dry overnight. On the following afternoon Mama wraps the boxes in old newspapers and packs them in a shopping bag.
“Let's go deliver these,” she says.
Outside, it's beginning to drizzle, and we don't have an umbrella with us. Mama walks faster, and I keep up with her—until she stops abruptly and turns around as if she's forgotten something.
“What's wrong?” I ask, tugging at her arm.
“Nothing,” she mutters under her breath. “I saw Mrs. Antoniu walking down the street and I didn't want to bump into her.”
“Why not, Mama?”
“Because every time I see that woman, her whiny voice drives me crazy. She always ends the conversation by asking, ‘Do you have enough to eat?' But she never offers help and she doesn't stop talking long enough to listen. I have no use for people like her, Eva. I'm down enough without having her bring me any lower.”
We turn back when Mrs. Antoniu has gone and deliver the boxes to an apartment in a large building. A maid wearing a white apron opens the door and takes Mama's shopping bag. We wait in the foyer until the maid reappears a few minutes later with an envelope. Mama opens it and counts the cash. The maid hands my mother another bag.
“There are twenty-five boxes in this order. The boss says to stick to the floral motifs and the geometric patterns.”
“Fine. I'll keep that in mind. See you next week,” Mama tells her.
“La revedere—until we see each other again,” the maid answers, and then the door latches behind us.
When we're back on the street, Mama squeezes my hand. “Not a word about this to anyone, right, Eva?” she asks.
“Right,” I reassure her.
 
AS SOON AS WE ARRIVE HOME, I grab my jump rope and get out of the stuffy house. The yard is empty, and I'm eager to exercise.
“Can I jump too?” I hear Andrei's voice when I'm in midair.
“Unu, doi, trei, patru,
cinci
…” I count as my feet fly over the rope. I am on a roll, so I keep going without answering him, way past one hundred, at which point I lose count.
“Sure,” I finally tell him and hand him the rope. I am completely out of breath. Andrei jumps for a while, until beads of
sweat break above his upper lip and his cheeks are flushed. Then he sits next to me against the yard wall, his legs stretched out, his socks crumpled around his ankles.
“Andrei”—the question pops out of my mouth—“what would you say if I told you that I'm Jewish?”
“You're joking, right?” he asks, looking up. “No kidding,” he murmurs, whistling softly and crossing himself.
“No kidding,” I tell him as Andrei runs his hands through my hair, feeling for my scalp.
“What are you doing?” I cry, brushing his hands away. Andrei has never touched me before.
“I'm looking for your horns. My father says all Jews have horns.”
“I don't have any,” I whisper, trying to push back my tears.
“Then you can't be Jewish,” he says, relieved.
“But I am.”
“You can't be. Your hair feels just like corn silk to me.”
GRANDPA YOSEF
makes good on his promise. We practice the route to the rabbi's house every day when I get home from school for the rest of that week. When we find ourselves in front of the gray house with the wooden door with the peephole, Grandpa Yosef lights a cigarette and says, “Don't do it now, but on Friday you will knock on this door three times like this”—his knuckles tap my head gently—“followed by just a single knock. Then the rabbi will know it's you and he'll open the door. But you must go in very quickly. You understand?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Grandpa, what is the rabbi's name?”
“It's Rabbi.” Grandpa smiles. “Just call him Rabbi and he'll be happy.”
 
ON FRIDAY when I get home from school, Sabina has my lunch ready in the dining room, but I'm not hungry.
“Eat. You're going to be hungry later,” Grandpa Yosef tells me, looking at my untouched Swiss cheese sandwich. “It's going to be a long afternoon.”
I take the slice of cheese out of the sandwich and nibble on it. Grandpa sits down next to me.
“You'll need something to carry the book that Rabbi will give you. Also a notebook and pencil,” he says.
“What about my schoolbag?” I suggest.
“Not a good idea. That would look odd since you won't be going during school hours,” Grandpa murmurs, deep in thought.
“I could pretend I'm going to Claudia's house to do homework.”
Grandpa shakes his head. “Better not to involve anyone else.”
“I know!” I tell him, running to my room and returning with the turquoise plastic toiletry box that I got from Renée. It looks just like a lunch box, only prettier. It's big enough for a book and a notebook, and is easy to carry by its two sturdy handles. Best of all, it has a little metal latch that snaps tightly shut.
Grandpa Yosef checks it out carefully. “Perfect,” he declares.
Finally, at 3:15, Grandpa stops sipping his tea and says that it's time to go. I take a quick look at myself in the mirror. The nine-year-old girl with pigtails who stares back at me is very determined. I try smiling at her, but she doesn't return my smile, so I stop. I am ready to begin my Jewish studies.
 
GRANDPA WALKS ME to the yard gate. This time he isn't going with me to the gray house. I kiss him goodbye.
“Make sure you come straight home,” he tells me, looking at his watch. “You'd better not be a minute later than seven tonight or I'll have to send your mother and father after you.”
I wave at him without turning my head; my other hand is swinging my toiletry box. I know that if I look back I won't be able
to keep walking. My first impulse is to run. I know my feet can fly to the gray house in less than three minutes flat. But Grandpa cautioned me against running.
Don't run. Walk, I tell myself. My breathing is shallow. I think about Andrei, and my heart starts to pound just as hard as if I were skipping rope. What would Andrei say if he knew that I'm on my way to study with a rabbi?
I try to push these thoughts away and concentrate on the streets. This is the same route I take every single day to and from school. But this time it's different because I am doing it as a Jew, and being Jewish is dangerous. My feet speed up. My right hand is holding the handles of my turquoise toiletry box so tightly, my wrist hurts. My palms are clammy. Everything around me is blurry, except for my racing thoughts.
If Grandpa Yosef had enough courage to cheer the Allied planes on to drop their bombs on Bucharest, I can walk to the rabbi's house. If Mama could come home after an earthquake to find her house had been destroyed, I can walk to the rabbi's house. If Tata could survive the lagers and the Russian gulag, I can walk to the rabbi's house, even if Tata doesn't believe in God.
The words of the horse-and-buggy driver in my mother's story echo in my mind. “If God wants you to die, you will die, but if He wants you to live, you could be in the eye of the storm or in the middle of the raging ocean and you will survive.” But my father's parents hadn't survived. Did God want them to die? What had they done?
I start to run. I run past the rabbi's house and don't even notice. I run straight into a woman walking her dog. She yells, “Hey, watch where you're going!” I stop. Where am I? I look around and
backtrack. This time I walk very slowly, counting every step in my head so that I won't break into a run. I am relieved that Grandpa isn't here to see me screw up so badly. I knock on the door of the gray house three times, rapidly. I wait. Then I knock again, just once. Someone looks through the peephole, and the door opens. A hand grabs my arm and pulls me in. My eyes have to adjust to the dark.
“You must be Eva,” Rabbi says.
I nod my head. He brings me a glass of water. “Sit down and catch your breath,” he tells me.
The cold water is delicious. “So your grandfather tells me you want to study Hebrew.” Rabbi's voice is kind.
I had never said that I wanted to study Hebrew, but I'm not about to argue with him. All I ever asked was “What does it mean to be Jewish?” I wait for Rabbi to continue, but he just sits quietly and surveys me. I start to fidget. I want to take stock of him as well, to take a really good look at his face, but I am too uncomfortable to do it. He has a beard, just like Tata's friend Beard. How does Rabbi get away with that? I wonder.
Rabbi takes a book from the shelf behind me and places it on the table between us. “This is a Tanach,” he says. “What do you have in that box?”
I snap the box open, and my notebook and pencil fly out. The magic metal cylinder Grandpa has given me rolls onto the table.
“Oh, a mezuzah,” Rabbi says, picking it up and examining it.
“What?” I ask.
“I see you have a mezuzah,” Rabbi says, sliding the hidden parchment from its cylinder. “Good. This will be our first lesson.” He unrolls the parchment and lays it flat on the table.
He thumbs rapidly through the thin pages of the Tanach book. “Take a look,” he says, pointing to the beautiful black letters in the book and then back to the little scroll he has just unfurled. The same black letters are in Rabbi's book as on the scroll that Grandpa Yosef has given me!
“This is Hebrew,” Rabbi explains. “If you want to study Torah, you'll have to learn Hebrew first, so today we will start with the Aleph Beit, the Hebrew alphabet. You know what an alphabet is, don't you?”
I nod and finally get enough courage to look up. The skin around his deep-set eyes is thin. His eyebrows are bushy and meet in the middle. He has long, white fingers. He wears a small round hat even though we are indoors. When he catches me staring at him, he smiles. “Come with me,” he says, getting up and leading me back to the door of the apartment. Affixed to the inside of the doorframe is a metal cylinder identical to mine. “A mezuzah is supposed to be placed on the outside of your doorpost,” he tells me, “but these are uncertain times, so God will forgive us for placing it indoors.” He points to my metal cylinder. “I see that you carry your mezuzah with you.”
“I didn't know that it's called a ‘mezuzah,'” I confess, and add quickly, “but I know that it's magic.”
“Magic?” he asks, both his heavy eyebrows going up at the same time. I think about Mama and how her left eyebrow always seems to have a mind of its own. But his are different; they remind me of a giant black paintbrush.
“Yes. Magic. Because it works,” I try to explain.
“Hmm,” Rabbi says. “I never heard of a magic mezuzah before, but I suppose anything's possible. Tell me, how do you figure that your mezuzah is magic?”
“Grandpa says that it contains the Truth,” I answer him.
“He's right about that.” Rabbi smiles. “Let me read it to you.” He unfurls the small parchment and holds it open with two fingers on the table. But he doesn't read it; Rabbi starts to chant: “Sh'ma Yisra'el, Adonai Ehloheinu, Adonai Echad!
V'ahavta
et Adonai Ehlohehcha b'chol l'vav'cha uv'chol nafsh'cha uv'chol m'odehcha.
V'hayu
…”
As his voice rises, his eyes are half closed and his body starts to roll back and forth almost as if he were rocking himself to sleep. His voice is deep and full of feeling, and as the sound resonates through the book-lined walls all the way down to the carpet under my feet and back up toward the ceiling, it seems to stop just above the light fixture and lingers there long enough for me to notice that the glass on the light fixture is trembling. I wonder if the neighbors can hear him and if they will call the Securitate and complain that a bunch of crazy Jews are disturbing the peace. Surely we are about to get into big trouble.
Rabbi's voice stops abruptly with three loud knocks at the door. He gets up and stands by the door in silence. I hold my breath. There is one more single knock, after which Rabbi opens the door quickly and shuts it just as quickly. Three people appear in the foyer. A man with a gray cap, a woman wearing a blue silk kerchief tied around her head, and a young boy, who pulls off his wool cap and shuffles his feet nervously.
“Good Shabbos, Rabbi,” the man says, taking off his cap.
“Good Shabbos,” Rabbi answers, helping the woman with her coat.
“I baked a challah,” the woman tells the rabbi, placing a white string shopping bag just like Grandpa's on the table. “It's still warm.”
She unwraps a blue-and-white checkered kitchen towel from the braided loaf of bread. It smells delicious.
“David”—Rabbi turns to the young boy—“say hello to Eva. She's going to be a guest at your Bar Mitzvah.” David is silent. He nods and looks nervously around the room, avoiding my gaze. Eventually he walks through the archway into the other room, where he sits on a folding chair.
“Make yourselves at home,” Rabbi tells David's parents. “I'm only going to be a minute with Eva.” He turns to me and opens a thin notebook in front of me. “This is the Aleph Beit, the Hebrew alphabet. You are going to study the letter Aleph at home with your grandfather, and when you come back, we will practice pronouncing it again together. I will teach you how to write and say each letter of the alphabet one at a time, and then we'll put them together to form words, sentences, paragraphs, and eventually stories.”
I open the notebook. Each letter is inscribed in black ink on thin, slanted-lined paper. “In Hebrew, we write from right to left,” Rabbi says. “It's not backward, it's just a different way of looking at the world. Now repeat after me. Aleph.” His mouth opens wide as he holds up his index finger.
“Aleph,” I repeat.
“Good. That's very good. You have a good accent. Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the very beginning, and sometimes we also think of it as the number one. Again,” Rabbi says, smiling at me.
“Aleph,” I repeat, looking at his bushy eyebrows.
“Good. That's enough for the first day. Now come with me,” he says, taking my hand and leading me into the other room. “Let's hear David chant his Torah portion for his Bar Mitzvah.”
The room is almost bare with the exception of some shelves filled with books and a few folding chairs. David stands behind a wooden pedestal, his back as straight as if he had swallowed my mother's ballet stick.
Rabbi reaches behind one of the books on the bookshelves and retrieves a box of candles. He takes out three white candles and melts their bases with a match. On the pedestal are two tall silver candlesticks. He places two of the candles in their wells and hands the third to David's mother. She lights them, covering her eyes and waving her hands above the flames with a whispered blessing, “Baruch atah Adonai, Ehloheinu melech haolam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat.” She then secures the third candle on a saucer. Rabbi holds out a glass filled with red wine. He chants another blessing over the wine. Everyone says “
L'Chaim
!” except for me.
Then Rabbi passes the wineglass around. I wrinkle my nose and take a sip. The wine is very sweet. I don't think Mama would approve of me sharing a cup with anyone because of germs, but I won't tell. Rabbi blesses the bread that David's mother has baked, breaking off a piece and passing it around. It's delicious. David's father wraps a white shawl with black stripes and fringes around David's shoulders. The room grows dark, but the candles are bright enough so that I can see. Rabbi goes over to the bookshelves again and takes out more books. Hidden behind the books is a door in the wall, which he opens carefully. He pulls out a large object wrapped in red velvet with two wooden rollers sticking out, one at each end. He holds it in his arms as if it were a newborn baby. Two lions standing on their hind legs and holding up a set of tablets with Hebrew letters are embroidered on the front of the red velvet cover.
Rabbi slides the cover off, revealing a giant scroll. He places the scroll on the stand in front of David and unfurls it by its wooden rollers. Rabbi winks at me. “This is the Torah,” he whispers, pointing to the Hebrew text. I rise up on my toes to get a better look. The writing on the scroll looks like a bigger version of my mezuzah.

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