Davita's Harp (18 page)

Mrs. Helfman was talking to me but I had barely heard her.

“I asked if your mother is home.”

“No. Mama is in Manhattan. She helps refugees from the war
in Spain. She’s not paid for that. But tomorrow she works on a job as a social worker. She says that’s to help pay our rent. My father can’t write now. Can I see the headline in the paper?”

She unfolded the newspaper, holding it against the wind. The headline read
REBELS CLOSE ON MALAGA AFTER HARD
2-
DAY BATTLE.
A smaller headline read
HEART OF MADRID SHELLED.
She tucked the paper back under her arm.

“My father says he’s going back to Spain as soon as he gets well.”

Mrs. Helfman did not respond.

We stepped carefully around a hillock of grime-encrusted ice that had collected around the exposed roots of a sycamore. There was our house up ahead with its front stoop and glass and metal double door and the turrets on the sides that gave it the appearance of a castle. And there was my room in the turret, the window shade raised, the curtain drawn aside as I had left it that morning when I had stood there looking out at the street.

We came into the vestibule.

“Mrs. Helfman?”

“Yes, Ilana.”

“Is David Dinn’s father a relative of yours?” “Yes. I’m his aunt.”

“I see you talking to him when you come out of synagogue on Saturday morning.”

“Yes,” she said. “He is my nephew and a very good and decent person. Well, here we are.” We had come into the downstairs hallway. The door closed behind us with its loud clicking. “Go upstairs and drink something hot right away, Ilana.”

“Mrs. Helfman, do you have a book I could read that would help me with the words? I can’t read the words. The Hebrew words in the synagogue, I mean.”

She looked a little surprised. “Yes, we have many such books. I will ask Mr. Helfman to find a good one for you. Ruthie will bring it up. Now go and get something hot to drink.”

Inside our apartment my father was asleep and Aunt Sarah sat
dozing on a soft chair in the living room. I went to the bathroom and then made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I walked very quietly through the hallway to my room and sat at my desk. How silent the apartment was. My room was very warm. The wind blew against my window. I sat at my desk a long time, listening to the wind.

One night that week I found my father in the living room gazing out the bay window at the snowstorm blowing through the city. He wore a robe and slippers and his crutches stood near him leaning against the wall. The ruddiness had begun to return to his face, but his weight was not yet back and his flesh hung loosely beneath his chin. He saw me in the doorway to the living room.

“Hello, my love. Where do you keep yourself these days? Yes, a little hug. That’s fine. Why do you look so sad? Sure, I’m getting better. Can’t you tell? Tell me about school. Tell me what you’re reading.”

We talked for a while about my schoolwork, which I found boring, and about my classmates, who seemed to go out of their way to avoid me. The work was too easy, I said. The questions the teacher asked were always so simple, I said. No one seemed to like it when I knew all the answers, I said; not even the teacher. I was reading a book of Christian Bible stories, I said. And another book that was teaching me how to pronounce Hebrew letters and words. I wished the winter would be over, I said. I wanted to go back to the cottage on the beach. Was the door harp going to stay always on the bedroom door? I missed it when I went in and out of the apartment now, I said.

“I didn’t know it meant so much to you, Davita,” my father said. “I’ll ask your mother to put it back.”

“I like the music. I like the way the balls bounce up and down and music comes from the wires.”

“Do you? That’s what I like about it, my love. It was a gift from my brother to me. He brought it back with him from Europe
after the big war. I’ll ask your mother to put it back up on the front door as soon as she comes home.”

“Did your brother bring the photograph of the horses on the beach?”

“No. My grandfather gave me that. He owned a farm near a beach on an island in Canada. He lived there a long time and when he became old and sick he came back home and gave me that picture before he died. That was just before the war. I was about thirteen or fourteen. He was a strange old man. Loved to be by himself. Very religious man. Went to church, read the Bible. Loved being alone. He left the farm to me and your Aunt Sarah.”

“Was your brother a soldier?”

“Yes. He came home badly wounded.”

“Did he get well?”

“No. He died. He was my older brother and he died. We were two brothers and one sister. We’ll certainly put that harp back on the front door, my love. Can’t abide seeing you so sad. Did your aunt give you the book of Bible stories?”

“Yes.”

“She keeps trying. Where is your Aunt Sarah, anyway?” “She’s asleep in her room. Papa, what happened to you in Centralia?”

He looked startled. “What? Where did you hear about Centralia?”

“Aunt Sarah said something happened to you in Centralia. Where is Centralia, Papa?”

“It’s a town in the state of Washington, on the other side of the country. My love, we won’t talk about Centralia tonight, if you don’t mind. As a matter of fact, we won’t talk about Centralia until you’re really grown up. All right? Do you like the Bible stories?”

“Yes.”

“My mother used to read Bible stories to us every Sunday afternoon in our living room. My father would start a big fire going in
the fireplace and we’d all sit there and my mother would read to us from the Bible.”

“Why don’t your mother and father come to see you? All your friends come, but not your mother and father.”

He was silent and sat gazing out the window at the snow. “They don’t want to have anything to do with us, Davita. Let’s not talk about it. All right?” He turned to me again. “Why are you reading a book about Hebrew?”

“So I can read and understand the words when I go to the synagogue on Saturday mornings.”

That startled him to the point of astonishment. “What?” he said, staring at me. “What are you talking about, Davita?”

“Sometimes I like to go to the synagogue on Eastern Parkway where Ruthie Helfman goes. It’s nice there and I like listening to the songs. I don’t like the curtain though. But I found some openings and I can see through it. The synagogue is in the school where Ruthie goes. And David Dinn goes there too. Do you remember David Dinn?”

“Of course I remember David Dinn. Ezra Dinn’s boy.”

“Mrs. Helfman told me Mr. Dinn is her nephew and he’s a nice man.”

“He’s a fine man,” my father said, a strange tightness entering his voice. “A decent person. Very helpful. And very religious. So you go to a synagogue. Christ, what happens here when I’m away? Listen, how about a cup of tea and some cookies for your tired father?”

“Did Mama know Mr. Dinn when you met her?”

“She knew him. They’re cousins. Didn’t she tell you? She lived with his mother when she first got to America.”

“Uncle Jakob knew Mama in Vienna, and Mr. Dinn knew Mama in New York.”

“That’s right,” my father said. “The three of us were in love with your mother, and she married me. How about the tea and cookies, my love?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“We’ll put that harp back up on the front door right away. I
don’t need it anymore now. Your old dad is going back to his writing. My brother used to call it a magic harp. Got it from some old European family. The magic didn’t work for him, though. Now go and get me my tea. And for Jesus’ sake, stop looking so sad. Come on, Davita, give me a smile. A real smile. That’s right. Yes. Now
that’s
a smile!”

We were eating supper in the kitchen on a Friday night in February when I heard through the walls and floor of the house the faint sounds of singing from the apartment below. The Helfmans were singing their zemiros together. Like the Dinn family in the cottage on the beach. I sat in my chair, listening to the singing, and heard my mother say, “You’re not well enough, Michael. You’re not. Is he well enough yet, Sarah?”

“We’ll let the doctor decide,” my father said.

“That commissar?” Aunt Sarah said. “He’ll send you back too soon, Michael.”

The melody came distantly through the walls and floor, sweet and slow and joyous. And Ruthie’s high voice and the deep nasal voice of her father, softly singing the Shabbos songs.

“Sarah, did you read the piece I finished last week? The
New Republic
bought it. John called me today. I’ve got my strength back. We’ll see what the doc says. It’ll be another two or three weeks, at the most.”

“You’ll go back when the doctor says you can,” my mother said.

“Agreed,” my father said.

“I don’t trust that commissar,” Aunt Sarah said, “Ilana,” my mother said. “What on earth are you doing? You’ll tip the chair.”

I was leaning back to be closer to the wall and the music. I brought the chair forward. The music was now barely audible.

“If I can get off those crutches and onto a cane, I’ll be all set,” my father said.

“Michael, why don’t you come up to the farmhouse for a few
weeks?” Aunt Sarah said. “You’ve been wanting to write a book. You can start it there.”

“Now is not a time for writing books, Sarah. We’ll have Hitler on our front lawns one day soon if he’s not stopped in Europe. You were there. You know what’s going on.”

I tipped my chair back again and listened at the wall.

“Michael,” Aunt Sarah said, an imploring tone in her voice. “You’re the only brother I have, the only relative I can really talk to. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“We’ll see what the doctor says,” my father said.

“Ilana, please sit straight,” my mother said. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”

“Talk to him, Anne,” Aunt Sarah said. “He listens to you.”

“But I want Michael to go back,” my mother said. “He ought to go back. People trust his stories about the war. He went there at my urging. It’s the right thing for him to do.”

“Absolutely the decent thing,” my father said.

“We will go by what the doctor tells us,” my mother said.

“I don’t like that doctor,” Aunt Sarah said. “I don’t trust him.”

“Ilana, what are you doing?” my mother said. “I asked you not to tip your chair.”

“I was listening to the music, Mama.”

“What music?”

“From the Helfmans downstairs.” The three of them looked at me.

“Mama, if Papa goes back to Spain, can we have Friday night dinner sometimes with the Helfmans?”

“We’ll talk about it another time, Ilana. Are we done? Can I bring dessert?”

They went on talking about Spain. After a while the music downstairs came to an end. My father went to his desk in the bedroom to work on another article. My mother sat in the living room, reading and listening to the phonograph. Aunt Sarah went to bed.

I sat at my desk, studying the book of Hebrew letters and words the Helfmans had given me. The winter wind rattled my window.
Downstairs the Helfmans were singing again. If there was no snowstorm tomorrow morning, I would go again to the synagogue. That was better than sitting home listening to all the talk about Spain and Franco and Hitler and Stalin and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the bombing of Madrid and the battle for the Jarama and seeing in my mind pictures of arms and legs everywhere. It was comfortable in the synagogue and people sang together. And I liked being in the same room with David Dinn and imagining myself back on the beach with him and in the water waiting for the waves. And I knew a few of the Hebrew words now. And the door harp would sing as I went from the apartment. My door harp. Singing.

I sat in the synagogue behind the curtain and watched David Dinn and his father recite the Kaddish. The large room was crowded, the air warm. On the men’s side the windows were foggy with condensation. The murmurous voices, the incantatory tone of the man at the lectern before the ark, the rhythms of the congregation’s singing—I felt a drowsy languor wash over me, felt myself afloat in a warm and calming sea.

On the wintry sidewalk outside after the service I saw David Dinn and four or five of his friends and came over to them.

“Hello, David. Good Shabbos.”

“Hello, Ilana.” He still looked a little embarrassed whenever I came over to him. He wore a heavy dark-blue jacket and a woolen cap that covered his ears. A bitter cold wind blew along the parkway.

“What does the word yiyaw mean?” I asked. “I saw it in the prayerbook. Am I saying it right? Yiyaw?”

“I don’t ever remember seeing a word like that, Ilana,” David said. “Where is it?”

“I saw it a lot of times. Maybe I’m not saying it right. I was reading slowly to myself because I can’t follow everyone else, and I kept seeing these same two letters. I think you say them—”

“Oh,” David interrupted. “Wait!”

“Don’t say it!” one of his friends said loudly. “It’s the name of God!”

“It’s pronounced Adonoi when you pray,” David said. “And you say HaShem when you’re just using it in talk. You never pronounce those letters as they’re written, Ilana.”

“Why not?”

“The name of God is too holy to be pronounced.” “I don’t understand.”

“She doesn’t understand,” one of his friends echoed.

“That’s the law,” David said. “That’s the way you’re supposed to say it.”

I saw his father coming over to us through the crowd.

“Adonoi,” I said. “And HaShem. Is that right?”

“Yes,” David said, looking uncomfortable. “Then why do they write it with those two letters?” “I don’t know.”

“Good Shabbos, Ilana,” David’s father said. He wore a dark winter coat and a dark felt hat. “How is your father?”

“Much better, thank you. He’s going back to Spain in a few weeks.”

“Back to Spain? So soon?”

“My mother says he can go back if the doctor says it’s all right. My mother says he should go back.”

Mr. Dinn stood there, looking down at me, sadness in his eyes. He seemed not to know what to say.

“Mr. Dinn, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Am I Jewish?”

He looked startled. “Of course you’re Jewish,” he said.