My Name Is Asher Lev

  I thought he would be angry at me for drawing my mother while she rested. Instead he simply turned and went quietly from the room. I heard him walk up the hallway and go into his bedroom.

  I put the ashtray back on the table near the sofa, collected my pad and pencil, and went to my room.

  That night, as my father helped me out of my clothes, he said quietly, “I wish you wouldn’t spend all your time playing with pencils and crayons, Asher.”

  “It isn’t playing, Papa. It’s drawing.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t spend all your time drawing,” my father said.

  “Is my papa angry with me for drawing my mama this afternoon?”

  “No,” he said wearily. “No.”

  “I was careful not to wake my mama.”

  “I saw.”

  “Mama didn’t wake up.”

  “Who showed you to use cigarettes that way?”

  “I thought of it by myself. Once I used sand in a drawing and I thought of it by myself, too. It was when I went rowing with Mama.”

  My father was silent a long moment. He seemed very tired.

  “Did I give you your vitamins today, Asher?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  He turned off the light. “Let me hear your Krias Shema.”

  I recited the Krias Shema. He kissed me and started slowly from the room.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, Asher.”

  “I’m sorry for drawing Mama and making you angry at me.”

  He started to say something, then stopped.

  “I wanted to draw the light and the dark,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Go to sleep, Asher.”

  He went from the room.

  I’ll have to draw it again, I thought. Maybe there is something else besides cigarettes I can use. It’s too hard to work with cigarettes. And they smell. There must be something else. I fell asleep. I dreamed of my father’s great-great-grandfather.

  He was dozing in the sunlight in the living room and I was drawing him, when he woke. He went into a rage. He stormed about the room. He was huge. He towered over me. His dark beard cast huge swaying shadows across the rug. “Wasting time, wasting time,” he thundered. “Playing, drawing, wasting time.” I woke in terror, my heart beating loudly. I lay in bed and could not sleep. I went to the bathroom and urinated. On the way to my room, I saw a dim light in the living room. I looked in. My father stood near the window, swaying back and forth. I went silently back to my bed. I would find something other than cigarettes. I would put all the world into light and shade, bring life to all the wide and tired world. It did not seem an impossible thing to do.

  The stores that were run by observant Jews were all closed on Shabbos and open on Sunday. I went with my father early one Sunday morning to the grocery store. It was a cool sunny spring morning. There was little traffic on the parkway. Sunday morning was the only time the parkway rested.

  The store was long and narrow and old. Cans and bottles stood on dusty shelves along the walls. Boxes and cartons were stacked in disarray on the floor. Now the store was jammed with kosher-for-Passover foods. Cartons of matzos teetered on both sides of the narrow aisle that led from the door to the counter. The counter was piled with paper bags, bills, boxes of candy. Behind the counter stood a man I had never seen before.

  He was short and thin, with large bulging eyes, a beaklike nose, and pinched wrinkled features. A dark stubble covered his face. He wore a dirty white apron, an old brown wool sweater, and a strange-looking cap. His eyes had a nervous look. He kept glancing over his shoulders as we went along the narrow aisle between the cartons of matzos. He nodded his head vigorously at my father and wiped his hands on the apron. He said something in a language I did not understand and held out a hand across the counter.

  They shook hands. My father said something to him and he looked down at me and smiled. His teeth were stained and misshapen. He leaned across the counter and extended his arm. We shook hands. His fingers and palms were dry and thickly calloused.

  “Asher,” my father said. “Say hello to Reb Yudel Krinsky.”

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Good morning,” the man said in heavily accented English. “A nice morning.” He had a hoarse raspy voice.

  “Reb Krinsky just arrived from Russia,” my father said.

  I stopped eyeing the boxes of candy on the counter and looked at the little man.

  “I told my son you just arrived from Russia,” my father said in Yiddish to the man.

  “Thursday,” the man said to me in Yiddish, and smiled again.

  “How are you feeling?” my father asked him.

  “How should a Jew feel?” The man peered down at me. “What is your name? Asher? Did you know, Asher, that your father is an angel of God?” He turned to my father. “How should a Jew feel? There we went through the seven gates of hell for matzos. Here I stand in matzos over my head. So how should a Jew feel? You are an angel of God, and the Rebbe, he should live and be well, the Rebbe made miracles and wonders for me. At night, I tell myself it is a dream and I am afraid to wake up. If it is a dream, better I should not wake up, better I should die in my sleep.”

  “You should not talk this way,” my father said quietly.

  “Reb Lev, no man in the whole world should talk this way. But it is the way I feel.”

  They were silent for a moment. Then my father said, “Here are the things I need,” and handed the man a slip of paper.

  “Yes,” the man said. “Right away.” He scurried about for a few minutes. He was putting it all into a paper bag when my father said, still in Yiddish, “You learned the store quickly.”

  “I have learned more difficult things than this store even more quickly,” the man said. “To survive you learn to learn quickly.” He handed the bag to my father. “I wish you a kosher and happy Pesach. And I wish your wife a complete recovery.”

  Outside, I asked my father, “Is that man one of those you helped bring from Russia?”

  “Yes, Asher.”

  “How many came?”

  “Three.”

  “Is he the owner of the store now?”

  “No, Asher. He’s working there during these weeks before Pesach. We’ll find other work for him later.”

  “Is he one of us?”

  “Yes, Asher. He is one of us.”

  “Why does he wear that hat?”

  “He wore that hat in Russia. The Rebbe told him to continue wearing it here. It’s called a kaskett.”

  “Why did the Rebbe tell him to wear it in America?”

  “So everyone would see a Russian Jew who remained a Jew.”

  “Is the leader of Russia bad to the Jews, Papa?”

  “Stalin?” He said quickly in Hebrew, “May his name and memory be erased,” and went on bitterly in English, “Stalin is from the sitra achra.”

  I said to Mrs. Rackover when we came into the apartment, “We saw a Jew from Russia.”

  “Yes,” she said. “The man in the store. He is well?”

  “He looks very skinny,” I said.

  “Eleven years in Siberia,” she said. “It is miracles and wonders he is alive. Reb Lev, your wife is asking for you.”

  My father hurried off to the bedroom.

  “What is Siberia?” I asked.

  “What is Siberia?” Mrs. Rackover echoed. “It is a land like the inside of this refrigerator.” She was putting away the milk we had bought. “It is a land of ice and darkness where the Russian government sends people it hates. Go wash your hands and I will give you a glass of milk and some cookies. What is Siberia? No one should know of it. The Rebbe’s father sat three years in Siberia. I had two cousins in Siberia. One died; the other returned but could not remember his own name. Go wash your hands, Asher.”

  I went down the hallway to the bathroom and stood on the wooden stool. I was short and needed the stool to reach the faucets. In the mirror over the sink I was red-haired and had dark eyes. Short and red-haired with
dark eyes. Dark burning eyes, I thought. I splashed water on my clothes and on the floor. Dark burning eyes. How do I draw a land of ice and darkness? How would Picasso draw a land of ice and darkness? I dried my hands and came out of the bathroom.

  My father was in the kitchen. Mrs. Rackover was putting a cup of coffee and a roll on a tray. My father took the tray and went with it into the bedroom.

  “How is my mama?” I asked.

  “Your mama asked to eat something,” Mrs. Rackover said. “It is a good sign. Did you wash your hands?”

  I held up my hands for her to inspect.

  “You washed your shirt and your pants, too. Sit down. I’ll give you milk and cookies.”

  A few minutes later, my father brought the tray back into the kitchen. The cup was empty and the roll was gone.

  “My mama is better?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” my father said wearily. “Maybe a little better.”

  “Can I see my mama?”

  “Later,” my father said. “Now your mama is resting.” He picked up the newspaper, which he had left on the kitchen counter. “You have something to do with yourself, Asher?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “First you will finish your milk and cookies,” Mrs. Rackover said.

  My father went from the kitchen.

  I sat at the table looking down into the milk in my glass. Ice is white, I thought. White like milk. No, not white like milk. There is blue in ice. And gray.

  “Asher, drink your milk,” I heard Mrs. Rackover say.

  “What color is the feeling cold?” I asked.

  Mrs. Rackover stopped drying the cup in her hands and peered at me closely. “Ah?” she said.

  “The feeling cold,” I heard myself say. “And the feeling dark.”

  “Asher, finish and go to your room. You will make me crazy with your nonsense. Finish and go.”

  Ice is the color blue and gray and white, I thought. Then I thought, No, it isn’t blue and gray and white. I don’t know what color it is. It bothers me not to know that. I felt upset and there was a sense of irritation inside me. Ice is what color? I fidgeted on the chair.

  “Finish,” Mrs. Rackover said.

  I drank the milk and ate the last of the cookies.

  “Thank God,” Mrs. Rackover said, removing the glass and the dish.

  “My mama is really feeling a little better?”

  “I am not a doctor and I am not the Master of the Universe,” Mrs. Rackover said. “I do not know. Go play in your room. Wash your hands and face first. You have as much milk and cookies outside you as you have inside you. Ah, how a six-year-old boy eats! Go, go, go.”

  Inside my room, I lay on my bed with my eyes closed and thought about the man from Russia. I saw his face clearly: the nervous eyes, the beaked nose, the pinched features. That face had lived eleven years in a land of ice and darkness. I could not imagine what it was like to live in ice and darkness. I put my hands over my eyes. There was his face, very clearly; not truly his face, but the way I felt about his face. I drew his face inside my head. I went to my desk and on a piece of blank white paper drew how I felt about his face. I drew the kaskett. I did not use any colors. The face stared up at me from the paper. I went back to the bed and lay on it with my eyes closed. Now there was ice and darkness inside me. I could feel the cold darkness moving slowly inside me. I could feel our darkness. It seemed to me then that we were brothers, he and I, that we both knew lands of ice and darkness. His had been in the past; mine was in the present. His had been outside himself; mine was within me. Yes, we were brothers, he and I, and I felt closer to him at that moment than to any other human being in all the world.

  My mother came into the kitchen as we were having supper and sat down at the table. She did not greet us. Mrs. Rackover put a bowl of soup in front of her. My mother said the blessing over bread and began to eat.

  “Asher,” my father said. “Eat your soup.”

  Mrs. Rackover moved about quietly. From time to time, she glanced at my mother.

  My mother wore a pink housecoat with lace around the cuffs of the sleeves and along the collar. She had on a pretty blond wig. She was gaunt and there were dark circles around her eyes. But the sallowness had begun to leave her face; there were small patches of color in her cheeks.

  I ate without knowing what I was eating. During the meat course, my father reached for a slice of bread and knocked over his glass of water. Mrs. Rackover wiped up the water without a word and refilled my father’s glass.

  At the end of the meat course, my mother said to me softly, “How are you feeling, Asher?”

  “I’m fine, Mama.”

  “Are you making new drawings?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  I saw a faint smile play on her small lips. “Good drawings, yes, Asher?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “I must see them. But not now. Tonight I’m a little tired.” She turned to my father, the smile still on her lips. “Aryeh, what’s new in the world?”

  I saw my father’s eyes narrow. He looked away from my mother a moment, then looked back. “A lot,” he said softly.

  “Yes,” my mother said. “I’m sure.” Then she said, “Aryeh, it is wrong to leave things unfinished.”

  Slowly, my father rubbed the side of his face.

  “You taught me that, Aryeh. It is a victory for the sitra achra to leave a task for the Ribbono Shel Olom unfinished.”

  “Yes,” my father murmured.

  “I want you to remember that, Aryeh. Please remember that.”

  My father was quiet. There was a long strange silence, broken finally by Mrs. Rackover.

  “Will you have tea, Mrs. Lev?”

  “Yes, please,” my mother said, and smiled faintly.

  She joined us in the Birchas Hamozon after the meal. She chanted the words very clearly, by heart. When we were done, she got to her feet.

  “I’m a little tired,” she said. “Good night, Asher.”

  “Good night, Mama.”

  “Tomorrow I will look at your good drawings.”

  My father went with her to their bedroom.

  “Master of the Universe,” Mrs. Rackover was murmuring to herself as I walked out of the kitchen. “Master of the Universe.”

  I came into my room. I was trembling. Mama, I thought. What’s happening to you? I sat at my desk and looked at the drawing of the Russian Jew. The Jew from the land of ice and darkness. I found myself with a crayon in my hand. I could not remember the color of his hair. I began to color the area between the bottom of his cap and the top of his ear. It was a small area. I used a red hue. Now his hair was red. He had dark nervous eyes and red hair. My fingers were sticky with the wax of the crayons. I did not like the drawing. I went back to my bed. I lay on my bed, not moving, feeling the fear like a presence in the dark places of the room.

  When I came back to myself from the darkness where I had been, I looked at my window and saw it was night. I went through the hallway into our living room. The room was dark. The window was covered with the Venetian blind. I adjusted the slats and peered between them to the street outside. A stream of headlights moved slowly along the parkway, warm slashes of light in the darkness. After a while, I found it uncomfortable looking between the slats. I started to raise the Venetian blind, pulling hard on the string alongside the window. It was a very tall window and I got the blind up a few feet over my head, when it jammed. I released the string. The left side of the blind dropped about ten inches; the right side remained in place. I could not move it. I left it that way, a sharp diagonal cutting across the vertical lines of the window. I stood there a long time, looking out at the cars and the people and the houses of the street.

  I did not hear my father come into the room.

  “Asher,” he said quietly.

  “Papa.”

  “It’s late, Asher.”

  “What was my mama saying?”

  “I don’t know, Asher.”

  “Why is God doin
g this to my mama?”

  My father was quiet.

  “Why should God do such a thing?”

  My father turned away from the window and looked at me. I could feel him looking at me. Then he tugged at the cord near the window, and the blind dropped swiftly with a clattering noise. He flattened the slats and shut out the street. Then he bent over me. I turned and saw him bending over me and felt his hands under my arms and I was being lifted to him. He held me to him tightly. I put my arms around his neck. I felt his beard on my face. I buried my face in his neck and beard. He carried me to my room.

  Later, lying in my bed, I said, “Mrs. Rackover told me Reb Yudel Krinsky was in Siberia eleven years.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you be able to save more Jews from Russia, Papa?”

  “I don’t know,” he said wearily.

  “Would you like to travel again, Papa?”

  He looked at me and his eyes glittered briefly. “Yes,” he said.

  “Does Reb Krinsky have a wife and children?”

  “He had. They died in the war.”

  “How did he know about Mama?”

  “Everyone knows about your mama, Asher. Now we’ll stop talking and you’ll go to sleep. Let me hear your Krias Shema.”

  The next morning, I went with my father to his office. It rained all morning, a cold dismal rain that turned the trees black. My father sat at his desk, reading the New York Times. There were few phone calls. Occasionally, he raised his eyes and stared out the window at the rain on the street. His eyes were dark and somber. He seemed very tired. We came home to lunch in the rain. My mother remained in her room. She refused to see me and would not speak to my father when he came in to ask her to join us.

  The rain continued all afternoon. I wandered about the building, spent a while drawing the trees in the rain from the window in my father’s office, then stood in the doorway watching the rain fall into the puddles on the flagstone floor of the porch. It was a steady rain and it fell with soft sounds against the stone and the street. After a while, I watched from inside the rain and no longer knew I was watching.

  My father found me like that in the doorway. We walked home together. My mother was asleep. We ate supper alone. It continued to rain.