“What are the letters, Mama?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What language?”
“German,” she said.
“Mrs. Horowitz has books like that, Mama.”
“What?”
“In her house. She let me see them.”
Her eyes went wide.
“Is it your book, Mama?”
She nodded slowly.
“But I never saw it in the house.”
“I have books in my closet, David. From the years I went to school in Vienna.”
“What is Vienna?”
She told me.
“Did you go to school in Vienna after the war?”
“Before and during the war.”
“Did you meet Papa’s brother David in Vienna?”
The question sent a tremor through her. She put the book on her lap and gazed at me. Her wide dark eyes were suddenly brimming with tears. I had touched the secret pool of sorrow within her. She nodded and turned her head away from me. I went down to the lake, wondering where in our apartment she kept the photograph I had seen in Mr. Bader’s study and which of the faces in the photograph belonged to my father’s dead brother.
After lunch I would rest for a while in my room. Through my window I would hear the scratching sounds of my mother’s pen as she sat on the porch writing more letters. I rested every day that summer after lunch, on the orders of Dr. Weidman. Later, if the day was sunny and windless, Saul would come over and we would splash around in the water for a while. I could not remain in the water too long for I chilled easily. Then he would take me out on the lake in the rowboat. On most afternoons my mother and aunt would go swimming together in the lake. My aunt was an excellent swimmer; my mother swam too, but not well. They would dry themselves and sit on the beach in the sun, talking quietly together until it was time to prepare supper. From the boat on the lake I would watch them swimming and talking. Saul told me they talked a great deal about their families in Europe.
I loved the lake. It was fairly large and vaguely elliptical in shape, with quiet coves and inlets and a shoreline dense with tall grasses and trees and an occasional grotesquely shaped fallen trunk and sudden boulders and schools of small fish that darted about in the clear shallow sunlit water.
“Look, look!” I cried out one day as I peered into the teeming water along the shoreline far from the cottage. “Look at the fish, Saul!”
He peered over the gunwale and smiled and almost dropped an oar into the water.
“There are hundreds of them, Saul! All over! Can you see them?”
He nodded and continued rowing slowly across the shallow water along the shoreline. I saw shiny pebbles and rippled sand and underwater plants, and everywhere the schools of small, dark darting fish. I was reminded of the fish that swam in the pond in the meadow of our zoo. I drifted away from the lake, but only for a moment; Saul’s quiet voice called me back. He had said something about the fish.
“Really?” I said, and looked down again over the gunwale into the water.
“That’s right. It’s in the midrash. They’re the only creatures who didn’t sin. God destroyed everything in the Flood, but the fish just swam around.”
Then I reminded him that he had told me that once before.
“Really?” he said. “I don’t remember.”
He rowed slowly, lazily, stopping every few moments to push his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. The sun shone on his thin face and brown curly hair. His blue eyes were very pale in the sunlight; at times the sun would strike the discs of his glasses at an angle that would transform them into opaque pools of burning gold, and I would be unable to see his eyes at all.
I fell one morning down the two front steps of our cottage and bruised my upper lip. Later, on the beach, a mosquito bit me near the bruise. I ached and itched simultaneously. In the boat with Saul that afternoon I complained about the mosquitoes and flies that sometimes made living in the country uncomfortable. And I wondered why God had created them.
“There was a reason,” Saul said firmly.
“What reason?”
“I don’t know.” He rowed cautiously near the blackened trunk of a dead tree that lay partly submerged in the water. “But everything God created has a reason.”
“Even bugs?”
“Yes.”
“What good are bugs?”
“Everything has some good, Davey.” He had read about that and talked about it with his teacher, he said. Snails are supposed to be a cure for certain infections. Gnats are used against the poison of a viper. The viper cures other kinds of infections and the lizard is used when someone has been bitten by a scorpion.
I regarded him with wonder and awe.
“That’s right,” he said, rowing us away from the tree and skirting a dense patch of water lilies. “Everything was created to help man and to praise God.” We can learn a lot from insects and animals, he said. For example, when a cat makes dirt it always covers it up afterward. That teaches us something about cleanliness. A grasshopper sings all through the summer until it bursts and dies. It knows that it will die. Still it sings and sings. Because that is its duty. And that teaches us that man should do his duty toward God, no matter what might happen to him.
“But what if a bug is going to bite you, Saul?”
“Then brush it away or kill it. But that doesn’t mean that bugs can’t do something good somewhere else.”
I found it deeply comforting to know that everything in all the world was useful and good. And in the nights, lying awake in my bed, I would listen to the loud rhythmic sounds of insect life that came from the lake and the forest and imagine that I could see grasshoppers singing.
Saul was studying very hard that summer. I asked him once, “Do you have to do all that reading, Saul?”
“I want to do it. I like it.”
“Does everyone have to do it?”
“In the higher grades. But most of the kids joke about it and don’t do it.”
“I wish I could read.”
“You’re beginning to read very nicely, Davey. You’re not even in school yet.”
“I wish I could read like you.”
“You will,” he said. Then he asked, “Did your father say we’re going to the movies tonight?”
“Yes. We’re going to the movies.”
My father and my uncle would leave for the city every weekday morning on an early train and be back by late afternoon, often in time for a swim. At the train station, my father always checked the movie placards. After supper that night a big car came for us, and our two families climbed in and were driven to a movie house in the nearby town. We saw a Charlie Chaplin film, in which a poor cleaning man in a bank dreams he has foiled a robbery and is embraced and gently kissed by the woman teller he loves, then wakes to find himself kissing a mop. I thought the movie was funny and sad. It was strange how something could be both funny and sad. No one thing seemed to be the same thing always. My father was stiff and stern; but in the movie he had laughed with delight, as I had. And when we came outside he took my hand and held it gently. He had on the fisherman’s cap he liked to wear when he was away from the city. It gave him a happy, jaunty look. He was so relaxed here, so much at ease, as was my mother, as were my aunt and uncle. Why did we have to go back to that city and that street?
The sky blazed with stars. There was a warm light breeze. We ate ice cream in a nearby candy store. I gazed through the window. The town seemed asleep, its white houses and clean walks and embowering trees tranquil in the early night.
The car came for us. My brother had fallen asleep in my mother’s arms. I curled up in my father’s lap and he held me to him. He cupped my face in his hands and put his lips to my brow. Why did we have to go back to that street? For the first time in as long as I could remember I fell asleep in my father’s arms.
Every evening after supper he would go for a walk. Often I would accompany him. We would walk down the dirt road past my cou
sin’s cottage and the mailbox and out onto the paved road that we had taken to the town with the movie house. The grasshoppers would be singing in the scrub brush by the side of the road.
“Do we have to go back to the city, Papa?” I asked one day as we walked along the paved road.
He smiled indulgently.
“I like it here,” I said. “I don’t like the city.”
“Who likes the city?” he asked. “You think I like the city? Or your mother, who grew up on a big farm, you think she likes the city? But we have jobs to do. Your job will soon be to go to school and be a very good student. How will you go to a yeshiva here?”
I was quiet.
“Yes,” he said. “It would be nice to stay here. It would be a pleasure. But where is it written we are born to pleasure?”
He held my hand, lightly, warmly. We continued along together.
“Papa?”
“Yes, David?”
“Did you come to America together with Mama?”
He seemed mildly surprised. “I came first and after a few months I sent for your mother and she came.”
“Where did you have the money to come?”
“Friends in Europe loaned it to us. I paid them back and helped them to come. And they helped others to come.”
“The friends in your Am Kedoshim Society?”
“Yes.”
“Is it your idea, Papa, the Am Kedoshim Society?”
“Yes,” he answered quietly. “My idea and the idea of my brother David, may he rest in peace.”
“Mama said goyim killed him.”
His fingers tightened slightly around my hand. He said nothing.
“Is America better for Jews, Papa?”
“Yes.”
“But there are goyim here who hate us.”
“The government does not hate us. That is the difference. The government was made by good Christians. A good Christian is better than an evil high priest. Your Uncle Meyer says that. Remember? Why are you asking so many questions, David?”
“I like to know things about my mama and papa.”
“Yes? That’s very nice. But now let’s walk quietly for a while and listen to the birds doing their job.”
“I wish we could stay here. I wish we didn’t have to go back to our street. Isn’t God here more than He is in our street?”
He narrowed his eyes. “God is wherever we bring Him. That is our job, David. I am sending you to the yeshiva so that you will understand that and not ask impossible things.” He was silent a moment, looking at me thoughtfully. Then his squarish features softened with a faint smile. “I know how you feel. I sometimes get tired and say the same thing to myself. But I remind myself that if I had felt that way years ago I would still be in Europe today. Then I am suddenly no longer tired.”
He held my hand. We walked quietly together. The grasshoppers sang loudly in the scraggly brush along the sides of the road.
I lay awake a long time that night, listening to the sounds of the lake and the forest. In the morning I stood at my window and saw my father come out of the cottage onto the screened-in porch. My mother was with him. He kissed her. Then he went down the steps and along the dirt road. My uncle came out of his cottage. I saw them walking together in their straw hats and light summer suits to the road juncture near the mailbox where the bus picked them up to take them to their train. They walked quickly, keeping in step together, my father treading somewhat stiffly, the way a soldier might march. After breakfast that morning, I sat on a chair in the screened-in porch and looked at the Yiddish newspaper my father had brought in with him from the city the day before. My mother’s German book lay on the small round table and I ignored it.
On Shabbat mornings my father would pray quietly on the porch, and then read aloud the Torah portion to himself. His voice rang out in the stillness and I wondered sometimes if it traveled across the mirror surface of the early morning lake and was heard in the summer camp on the other side.
The Shabbat midday meal would be eaten with my uncle’s family in their cottage, and they would eat their Friday evening meal with us in our cottage. Around the table, my parents and aunt and uncle would talk about events of the day. From time to time I heard Mr. Bader’s name mentioned; he was at the Zionist Congress in Zurich. Earlier in the summer he had been to Rome and Geneva. After the Congress he would be going to Vienna, Berlin, and Hamburg. I could not determine from what I was hearing if he was traveling for his export-import business or for matters having to do with Jews or for both.
During dinner in my uncle’s cottage one Shabbat afternoon, I asked, “Where did you meet Mr. Bader, Papa?”
“In my office,” he said as he chewed his meat.
I did not understand.
“He was looking for an apartment.”
“How did you and Mr. Bader become such good friends?”
“I discovered that his father had come from Lemberg and had grown up with my father.”
“A delightful coincidence,” said my aunt urbanely by way of a commentary to my father’s words. “He is a charming man.”
“A useful coincidence,” my uncle murmured with a smile. “Helped into existence by my clever brother.”
“God sent him to help us,” said my mother.
Saul nodded his silent affirmation of my mother’s view of things.
During one of those meals there was a heated conversation between my father and uncle about a man they called Jabotinsky. They seemed to be taking sides together against those who disliked him. It had something to do with Zionist politics and I did not pay much attention to what they were saying. I was thinking that July was over and in a month we would all be returning to the city.
I heard the name Jabotinsky often that summer. Every Shabbat afternoon my father and uncle and all their friends in the cottages along the dirt road would get together for an hour or so under a tree or on a grassy beach. There were only eight men in the group, not enough to constitute a quorum for prayer, but more than enough to enable them to engage in very noisy debates. They seemed all to be followers of this man called Jabotinsky and they were loud in their denunciation of his opponents. Saul would be present at those meetings, listening attentively. I went once, understood almost nothing, and never went again.
On the grass beach one Shabbat afternoon, when both families were lounging in canvas chairs, I said to my father, “Who is Jabotinsky, Papa?”
He put down his Yiddish newspaper. “A Jewish leader,” he said. “A great man.”
“There are people who don’t like him?”
“There are people who hate him. He is not a coward. He could have been a great Russian writer. But he chose to help Jews. He said his job was to help Jews, not write stories. He is a very great man, David.”
Later, I went over to my uncle. “Did you know Mr. Bader before he met Papa?”
He turned to me his gentle younger replica of my father’s squarish face and seemed momentarily surprised. Then he said, “Yes. One of my law partners helps Mr. Bader in his business and told me he was looking for a new apartment.”
“Did you know Mr. Bader’s father came from Lemberg?”
“No. Your father found that out. He is the question-asker in the family.” He peered at me and smiled. “He and his son.”
“Uncle Meyer?”
“Yes, question-asker?”
“Is it hard to become a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Did you study a long time?”
“Yes.”
“In America?”
“Yes. And in Poland. But when I came to America I had to start all over again. In Poland I spent a year studying law in the University of Jan Casimir in Lemberg before I decided a Jew had to be out of his mind to want to become a Polish lawyer. So I wrote to your father and he sent me and your Aunt Sarah the money to come to America.”
“Do you like America, Uncle Meyer?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I like America, David.”
“But there are so many goyim here. And sometimes they hate us.”
“As long as they don’t hurt you. Their hate won’t kill me.”
“But what if they hurt you?”
“Get witnesses and take them to court and the court will punish them.” He looked at me closely. “What’s the matter, David?”
I was quiet.
Down on the strip of sand beach my cousin was chasing my brother. They were laughing loudly and delightedly. There were sailboats on the lake. I saw people swimming off the beaches that fronted some of the nearby cottages: not all of my father’s friends heeded the very orthodox injunction against swimming on Shabbat.
“You don’t have to break heads here, David,” my uncle said. “This isn’t Poland.”
I looked down at the grass. He returned to his book. I sat there, skimming the palm of my hand back and forth slowly over the grass and looking at the sailboats on the lake.
Very early on the first Sunday morning we were there, I was awakened by the sound of the front porch screen door being opened and closed. I peered out of my window and saw my father, wearing a light sweater and dark trousers and his fisherman’s cap, walk down the dirt road and turn into the paved road beyond the mailbox. The sky was pale white; drops of dew glistened on the grass and gossamer webs lay like fine crystal across the lower branches of the elm. The wicker chair in which my mother sat had been left outside and was drenched with dew. I remained at the window, watching and waiting. The minutes passed. Then, from the paved road, a horse ridden by my father came into view. It was a black stallion with a large white mark like a four-pointed star across its head just above the eyes. My father rode at a light trot, sitting easily in the saddle, rolling with the smooth gait of the horse. He came up the dirt road and went a few yards past our cottage. Then he wheeled the horse about and sent it in a sudden wide curving gallop across our beach and into the tall grass. Then he was out of sight. A few minutes later I saw my father come crashing back through the tall grass, the stallion galloping in a sharp, abrupt manner. My father reined in the horse near our cottage, patted its neck, and seemed to be speaking to it. The horse raised its head in response and shook it heavily; tiny waves rippled across its wet black flanks. Then my father leaned forward and raised his right arm, swinging it in a circle over his head, and again the horse went dashing down the beach and into the tall grass. Three times my father made that circuit with the horse: the road in front of our cottage, the beach, the grass, and back across the beach to the road. Then he cantered down the dirt road and was gone. A while later he came walking back to the house. I heard him making coffee for himself in the kitchen.