2/7/10 – Blog- Copyright © J.B. Drori – 2010
Dear Readers,
Recently, a reader told me he prefers to have available to him completed books rather than waiting for installments. That gave me pause.
I wonder whether this sentiment is prevalent. How do you feel about that? Would you favor to have a printed copy of my novel instead of depending on this blog?
I’d appreciate your input.
ANCIENT STONES
CHAPTER 10
In the winter of 1931, our first year in Brooklyn, an early snowstorm careened down the northeast coast from the frigid Arctic. At the end of December the temperature in our unheated flat fell to freezing. By evening I escaped to bed, my shelter from the bitter cold.
Late that night, deep moans and loud sobs, resounding from a dimly illumined kitchen, shook me awake. I rushed in, dragging my blanket on my shoulders, and stopped cold in my tracks at the door. An apparition, swaying to and fro amidst the long shadows on the walls and ceiling, loomed before me. Ashen-faced Rebecca, half covered by her winter coat, was holding Sarah’s hands and consoling her. My grandmother, her shawl dangling off her shoulders, bobbing back and forth, was wringing her hands and shedding tears.
“What happened?” I asked, exhaling white vapors as I stepped into the long shadows.
“This telegram came a few hours ago,” Rebecca said. “Daniel died today.”
I stole a glance at the telegram lying at her feet.
“Grandfather? Was he sick?”
“Yes. Five months. He died of cancer.”
“Did you know?”
“Yes,” Rebecca said. “Joseph wrote us. We didn’t mention it to you because it didn’t sound serious. About a week ago he took a sudden turn for the worse. Katerina and Joseph have been looking after him.”
I pulled my blanket up, moved closer and placed my hands on Sarah’s shoulder. “How old was he?”
“Sixty nine.”
I stared at the shadows behind them for a long while. Then I slowly backed out of the kitchen and retreated to my bed.
Sarah’s groans and Rebecca’s monotone voice droned on. I pulled my bed-covers over my head, seeking the tranquility of sleep. Instead, my mind active, I stared into darkness. Daniel’s wife and daughter had been indifferent to him when he lived, so how had his death spawned so much grief? Should I, too, be distressed? Even if I don’t feel it? “No! No! I don’t want to pretend,” I muttered and turned on my side.
The hours, freighted down with the crying and sobbing in the kitchen, lumbered on. I finally drifted off to sleep just as glimmers of light flickered in the remote black sky outside my window.
Sarah did not regain her composure for three days. Sunken eyes betrayed sleepless nights, a raspy voice and a listless walk bespoke of a heavy heart. Her sorrow heightened my sadness for her but also augmented my perplexity. What had caused her bereavement? I needed to understand. But one glance at her stony face and hard eyes clamped my mouth shut.
The next day Sarah greeted me at the front door and said, “You must say Kaddish for Daniel.”
I had just drudged up our long street, coming home from school. The sidewalk and the trolley tracks were hidden under heaps of pristine white snow.
I scowled at Sarah. She was demanding of me to go to the synagogue to pray for her husband’s soul. The Kaddish, according to an ancient tradition, enhanced the departed spirit of a parent to reach its haven in paradise. It was incumbent on sons, and daughters only if they chose, to recite the mourning prayer three times a day, morning and evening, except on Shabbat, for eleven months. That was a sacred duty, the last act of reverence offered on behalf of a parent.
“Why me?” I protested. “Joseph is his son. He’ll say Kaddish.”
“Perhaps. But you should, too.”
I turned away from her, removed my coat and crossed the kitchen. What was Daniel to me and I to him? Except for begetting my mother, what else had he ever done for me? Had he tried to fill the place of my father? Did he take me to the synagogue? To a movie? To a ballgame? Did he ever put his arms about me?
“I don’t want to,” I yelled and moved away from Sarah, strangled by my words. ”I didn’t recite the Kaddish for my own father and my mother why should I for him?”
A foggy image of my parents’ tangled crimson bodies on the cold Lvov train station floor took shape before my brimful eyes. “I don’t even know what my parents look like. I don’t even have a photograph. And where are they buried? It’s as if they had never existed.”
Weeping, Sarah unfolded her arms and pulled me to her bosom. “That is why we say the Kaddish, my dear Jacob, so that we don’t forget those who have once lived.”
I felt my inner hardness fall away and break out into sobs as I clung to my grandmother, her tears dripping on my head.
We held each other for what seemed an eternity. After a while, I stepped back, wiped my eyes and poured us some water.
“What about the funeral?” I asked Sarah, placing a full glass before her on the kitchen table. “You are Daniel’s wife. Shouldn’t you go?”
“Rebecca can’t get any time off from work and I don’t have money.”
“You can get some from Joseph. You’ve done it before.”
“No, not this time,” Sarah said, “he has enough troubles.”
I snickered. “You didn’t hesitate to ask for bus money to move from Detroit to Brooklyn.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“To get on with our lives,” she said and got up to make herself a glass of tea.
I put my head on my folded arms on the table and closed my eyes. Surely, I pondered, Sarah was aware of the contradiction in her statements. Wasn’t a funeral as sacred as the Kaddish? So why is she ignoring that? Perhaps, I mused, pretending things are not what they are may be the only way to manage them sometimes.
(To be continued next week)
January 31, 2010
ANCIENT STONES – J.B. Drori
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Blog for 1/31/2010.
Copyright J. B. Drori – 2010
Dear Readers,
Last week I posted the first half of chapter 9 of my novel, ANCIENT STONES. Today’s post is the remainder. I hope you’re enjoying reading it. Your comments are important to us.
ANCIENT STONES
Chapter 9
The principal at Saint Fitzgerald Public School in Detroit had not properly monitored my progress in English, failing to promote me to grade level at the right time.
Consequently I was registered in the fourth grade at Public School 210 in Brooklyn, one month before my twelfth birthday, two years behind my peers. I entered the classroom the next morning and took a middle seat in the first row. The teacher, a slim middle-aged blonde, wearing a long black dress, was in the middle of explaining the grammatical structure of an English sentence. That was the first time I had heard the word ‘grammar’. Almost a full year passed before I finally grasped the structural fundamentals of the English language. That was an enormous boost to my confidence in the use of English and fitting in. I was always grateful to the blonde teacher for her patience with me.
At the end of our first week in Brooklyn, I rose early one day, before Rebecca left for work. She nodded to me as I took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Boker Tov,” I mumbled in Hebrew, as per our usual.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Where is Mama?”
“In the bathroom.”
“Rebecca,” I said, searching for the right words, “can I ask you something?”
My sister looked up at me, raising her eye brows. “What’s the problem? You never ask for permission to ask a question.”
“You told us you’d been writing to Alon from the first week we arrived in America. So, if you liked him that much, why did you push Sarah to leave Tel-Aviv? I sure didn’t want to.”
Rebecca glared at me and sprang to her feet, scraping her chair back.
“Jacob, you ask too many questions,” my sister shouted, putting on her sweater and storming out.
Sarah emerged from the bathroom off the kitchen just as Rebecca bolted out.
“Why did Rebecca yell at you?” Sarah asked.
“She said I ask too many questions.”
“What did you ask?”
“Why she forced us to leave Palestine if she liked Alon so much?”
My grandmother regarded my face, sat down next to me, and took hold of my hands.
“Some questions are difficult to answer. But really Rebecca was angry with herself, not you.”
“If it was so confusing and so hard for her, why did she make us leave Palestine?”
“Feelings cannot be figured out like an arithmetic problem. Emotions and reason, like oil and water, coexist but keep separate. It felt right to her at the time.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Rebecca always had a strong desire to come to America. When we left Odessa in 1920 to emigrate to Palestine, she wanted to go with her father and brother to America. Nine years later, money and papers arrived from Daniel and her dream of living in America came within reach. She was able to overcome her feelings for Alon.”
“So now she regrets that she left Alon and Tel Aviv?”
“Yes.” Sarah interlaced her fingers and puckered her lips. “Rebecca has been miserable ever since our life turned bitter with the loss of Daniel’s house and the breakup of our family.”
“Is that how you feel, Imma?”
Sarah got up and walked over to the sink, her back to me. “Who can know how the future will play out?” Her voice trailed off as she poured herself a glass of water.
“We should have remained in Palestine,” I mumbled.
“Yes, I know,” Sarah said. “My heart hasn’t ceased to yearn for the Holy Land. Still, we must willingly accept whatever the Almighty ordains for us.”
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