old boxer from earlier that afternoon still echoing in his head.
“Boxing, Moshe, is just like making music. There's a rhythm to it. And not every boxer can see it. You can though. You’re a musician.”
“How can a musician be a boxer?”
“By being a musician, of course. Isn’t it obvious? The fight is your music. Your fists and your feet, your instruments. Read the fight like you read music and let your fists fly and your feet move accordingly. It's not a race to draw blood.”
“It isn’t?”
Lenny had chuckled at this. “No! A boxing match is a performance, Moshe. When you’re in the ring, imagine yourself performing one of them long compositions written by some famous composer…Beethoven or Bach or whoever...You don't come out flying, guns blazing, throwing everything you have at the guy. No. It’s just like your music. You start slow. You feel your opponent out. What’s he doing? What’s he capable of? You find the rhythm. And then, and only then, do you slowly you build towards your rousing finale: the knockout.”
- 12 -
“Moshe. Come here.”
“Yes, mamma? What’s the matter?”
“You tell me.”
It was the following day and Moshe hadn’t been home from school for more than an hour.
Glancing at his mother, he could see that she was clearly angry. Though it was still simmering. His answers would determine the outcome.
“What did I do? Am I in trouble?”
“Sit down.”
Moshe sat at the table.
“I received a telephone call from Herr Lebowski this morning.”
Uh oh.
“He told me that you haven’t been going to your lessons. Is this true?”
When Moshe didn’t answer, she repeated herself. “Is this true, bärchen? Would you do something like this?”
Moshe looked down at the table. There was a crumb from the toast he’d had that morning and he picked it up with a wet finger tip.
“Moshe. Is it true what Herr Lebowski has told me this morning?”
His mother was speaking German now. It would only be another minute until she exploded.
“Moshe.”
Deciding it best to answer his mother before she got out her wooden soup ladle (perhaps she’ll just yell at me), Moshe nodded slowly, carefully, but not daring to look up from the table, hoping his meekness would keep the worst of his mother’s wrath at bay.
“You should be ashamed!” she seethed. “When your father works so hard for that money! And in his condition! You know how his leg hurts him in the winter!”
“I’m sorry, mamma! But I’ve been taking boxing lessons. It’s only for awhile -”
“Boxing!? What did I say about this boxing!? I said it was violent foolishness! Grown men beating on each other like crazed monkeys! YOU WAIT UNTIL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME AND HEARS OF THIS!”
Moshe would have preferred it for his father to beat him. A few welts on the backside and, as with his mother, all would be forgotten within two or three days. Instead he had to endure the disappointed look his father gave him every time he saw him. That tired defeated one that can be seen on the faces of men who have given up. And try as he might, for the next few days, nothing Moshe said or did would erase that look from his father’s face. Shining his father’s shoes, carrying in the groceries, waxing the floors. None of it. And Moshe couldn’t help but feel as though he’d driven a knife through his father’s heart.
His father’s disappointment however was overshadowed by his mother’s anger. Twice that evening Moshe had endured backside wallops courtesy of her soup ladle and twice she’d threatened to send him to the Hassidic school if he didn’t “smarten up.”
It was with that in mind that Moshe found himself stuck to the sidewalk several days later, caught between two choices. Did he head west on Somerset and catch the streetcar to Mr. Lebowski’s? Or did he turn and head east on Somerset, to Lenny’s Gym? Two choices, two directions, two outcomes.
He certainly didn’t want to be sent to Baal Shem Tov, the Hassidic school on Bell Street. Those Jews wore funny hats and kept their hair in long braids and studied the Talmud for hours at a time. But neither did he want to let himself be beaten to a pulp by James Cooy in front of the entire school.
What to do, what to do…
He wanted his violin back and since he didn’t have fifty dollars, he had to fight. And if he had to fight, he had to train. But if he chose the gym over violin lessons, he’d get another walloping and his mother just might send him to that school.
Agonizing over his decision he didn’t see Lenny come up behind him.
“Hey, kid. You comin’ to the gym today?”
“Lenny!”
“You look surprised. Like you seen a ghost or something.”
The grizzled, old boxer held a milk crate under each arm, both of them filled with groceries.
“No…it’s just…”
Did he tell Lenny what was tormenting him? Would he understand? Or would he see him as being yellow.
“My parents don’t want me to box,” said Moshe finally.
“What was that?”
“I said my parents won’t allow me to box! They think it’s too violent.”
Lenny chuckled and raised one of the milk crates onto his shoulder. “Let me tell you, sonny, ‘was boxing what kept me alive. Bein’ the only Jewish kid on the block back in the day. Course it might be worse these days…”
“Did you get into a lot of fights?”
“Every day,” Lenny answered, grinning widely. “You see kid, us Jews, we have to be fighters. ‘Cause nobody wants us in their backyard. But we gotta live somewhere, right?”
Moshe nodded, glancing to his left as a dozen people de-boarded a bus.
“OTHERWISE, WE GET SWEPT AWAY LIKE THIS!” Lenny yelled as the numerous bodies of those that had just descended from the bus wedged between them.
Lenny was right. And he had a feeling his parents would see it the same way. They just needed to be told by the right person.
When the crowd had finally dissipated, Moshe was able to catch up to the old boxer. “Say, Lenny. Could you do something for me?”
“And so you see Mister and Missus Silverstein, I believe that Moshe here could really benefit from a few months of training with me. I’m not sure if Moshe’s told you, but I used to fight competitively. Back in the day when guys would coat their gloves with lye and bite you if you got too close. It’s a much safer sport these days, is boxing.”
Marthe Silverstein stirred her tea, waiting politely for Lenny to finish speaking.
“Mister Katzman -” she began.
“So it’s your decision to make of course - but if Moshe were my boy -“
“Please. Let me speak. Moshe is my son after all.”
The old boxer nodded. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Have your say.”
All eyes were on Marthe now as she took a deep breath and continued speaking.
“Mister Katzman, as I was saying, we (as she said this she motioned towards Friedrich who was seated beside her) don’t believe that violence is the way to solve problems. And we have raised Moshe to be a peaceful and law-abiding citizen.”
“And what about when the law fails to protect its citizens, Marthe?”
It was Friedrich who had spoken and all eyes shifted to him. Moshe could see that his mother looked surprised.
“Germany. Our country. They made us the enemy. In our own country! Where we were born and raised!”
There was a bitterness to his voice and Moshe was glad to see something other than a look of disappointment on his father’s face.
“Friedrich.”
“Marthe. I’m tired of it.”
His father’s voice was trembling now and his hands, well-worn from years of menial labour, shook forcefully.
“We’ve put up with the closeted racism in this country for too long. It’s nothing like Germany, but it still exists. Remember the story Mister Braunfman told us the other evenin
g? About how his boss left a ham on his desk as a practical joke? And Mister Gilbert. Remember Mister Gilbert? The man who fixed our vacuum cleaner? He was beaten nearly to death last summer by those teenagers.”
“Friedrich - “
“No, Marthe. I’m tired of it. So tired. I’m tired of lying down. My son,” the Silverstein patriarch continued, turning to face Moshe, “can you ever forgive me?”
The boy looked at his father, dumbfounded. Lenny’s expression was equally as incredulous.
“I have shamed you. Shamed you for stepping up and trying to behave as a man would.”
“Father, I was wrong -“
“No, Moshe. I have wronged you. Greatly. You decided to take up boxing to gain control of a bad situation. Am I right? These boxing lessons - it’s for the boys at school - right?”
“Yes, but father, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have -“
“No, my son. I was wrong. You were right. I am a foolish old man who thought he knew best. As it turns out, I was greatly mistaken. Greatly mistaken.”
“Friedrich -“
“Marthe, my wife, mein lieben. Our son is becoming a man. Next year he will become a bar mitzvah. Do we really want our son, our Moshe, to be a victim?”
“No, of course not, but -“
Friedrich raised a hand, silencing his wife. “What he learns now, what happens to him now, will forever shape who he is. Will shape the man he is to become. And my son will not be victimized as I have. As our people have. Absolutely not. My son will learn to fight, and you, Herr Katzman,” he said defiantly, turning to Lenny, “will teach him.”
“One, two, three. Yes. Again. One, two, three. Remember to move. He’s bigger than you so movement is key. Light on the feet, hard with the jabs. One, two,