DISOWNED (3 page)

   "In your imagination, Henry."

   "I'm packing anyway. I'm packing a bag and putting my new suit in it. The blue one with the big lapels. I'm going tomorrow. And I'm packing tonight."

But when tomorrow comes, nothing is packed. Molly knows it won't be, but Rivkah is frightened. "Mamma, where's daddy? Did you see him this morning?"

   "He's just at work. Where else can he go?"

   "Are you positive?"

   Molly takes a little step towards her and smiles. "Rivkah, you don't realize it yet, but we're all very lucky. There is no other place in the world worth living in. Once you've lived here in Borough Park every other place is empty. It's only thin air."

*  *  *

But although Henry can't leave Molly, still he won't give in. He holds his ground as best he can and talks only about what he considers important. Politics. He tries to talk about politics to everyone. No one cares in the least.

These days when he sees two or more people sitting downstairs on the green, wooden benches in front of the house, he runs downstairs, sits with them, crosses his legs and starts talking, much too loud.

Everyone tries to pretend he isn't there. The more they try, the louder he speaks. When Rivkah hears him outside speaking she runs down to the bench. Somebody, she thinks, has to be on her father's side.

Finally, one Sunday afternoon, with the benches full of family and neighbors, Henry makes the announcement that he is running for public office. On the Republican Party, no less. Row A.

   Not one person on the benches even blinks an eye. They don't stop talking or look up. No one says congratulations. Maxie, his brother in law who has moved to Long Island and visits with his family every Sunday, continues eating his bagel with cream cheese and olives, and Zvi Lichte starts humming a tune.

Henry isn't the least bit daunted. "Do you know what my platform is? Freedom. Respect for all people! Individual choice!"

   "Look who's talking about respect?" Zvi bursts out.

But Rivkah gets excited. "I'll vote for you, daddy".

   This is too much for Zvi. "Your vote doesn't count!"

   "Everything counts," Henry calls back. "Thanks, Bekkie. Thanks a lot."

These days Henry refuses to call her Rivkah. "I knew I would get Bekkie's vote. The rest of you can laugh all you want. I got plenty of others, all lined up. Waiting."

A moment of silence falls over everybody. "You don't have one vote," Maxie challenges him.

"Oh no? Just wait and see. You think it matters to me that this neighborhood won't give me its vote? You think I need them?"

He does, and deep inside Rivkah knows it. She even sees the muscle of his left eye start twitching then, badly.

"Nah, I don't need you," Henry goes on. "I have friends of my own. Smart and snappy. Real people too."

Rivkah doesn't have the slightest idea who these real people could be.

"And when Bekkie's just a little older, I'm taking her downtown and introducing her to them. Every single one of them."

   "Yeah, you'll take her!" Maxie explodes.

   "Why shouldn't I take her? She's My daughter, isn't she? Henry's voice rises then like the politician he fancies himself to be. "I'm going to show her who real people are. And I'm going to show her that every one of them is voting for me!"

   "Congratulations, daddy!"

   "You want to take your daughter straight to hell?" Maxie's face is filled with disgust.

   "And I'm getting her a dress like the other girls wear. Not the girls here."

   "It's not necessary. daddy."

   "Bright red. Silk, maybe. Plenty short." Henry's lips are quivering. "Bekkie hasn't seen anything yet! But, believe me, she will someday." 

   His words fly through and through Rivkah like a poison arrow and the warm afternoon starts turning cold. Rivkah wants to get away.

 "I'm taking a walk now, Bekkie. Want to come with me?"

   "Later maybe, not right now."

   "What's wrong with now?"

Rivkah puts her hands up to her head for a minute. Her temples are throbbing very fast. "I don't feel so well, daddy."

  "Doesn’t start like your mother now."

Rivkah rubs her forehead a little, then puts her hands on her hair and pulls it back away from her face. Tight, like her grandmother.

  "And anyhow, daddy, right now I have to go. I'm expected somewhere."

   "You're not expected anywhere. You're running away from me?"

  "Of course not."

"You're telling the world you're not my daughter?"

"Never. Ever. Of course I'm your daughter."

   "So, say it again."

   "I am your daughter, daddy!"

   "Now say it louder so everyone can hear." 

   "I already said it."

   "Not loud enough, Bekkie! Make an announcement!"

   "Of course I'm your daughter. Of course I'm your daughter. But daddy, you've got to remember,"

   "What?"

   "I'm God's daughter too."

For a moment all are silenced.

   "They got you Bekkie," Henry breathes.

   "No, they don't." Rivkah takes a few steps and tries to head away down the block.

   "Run all you want now," Henry cries out in pain. "But the time is coming! Soon you won't be able go to your Uncle Bershky! They won't let you! You won't be allowed." 

  Rivkah turns on her heel and starts moving fast. She has no idea what her father is talking about.

 For now the time has not yet ripened. Rivkah is still able to fly down the block, slip through the hedges, run into Uncle Reb Bershky's study, and sit there, trembling, at his side.

   Later that night, as Rivkah is lying in bed, tossing and thinking of all that has happened, she overhears her father saying to her mother, "get ready Molly. The time is coming. Soon I'm taking Bekkie with me downtown."

   "Over my dead body."

"You watch and see. Why shouldn't I? What have I got here? Nothing! I don't have a wife and I even have the votes of my own neighborhood!"

   "You have a wife," she answers indignantly.

   "Yeah?"

   "Me," she proclaims and her cheeks start to flush.

   But he won't be silenced. "You call this a wife? 'Where is your wife, my friends ask? When are you going to bring her around?' You never come anywhere with me, Molly."

  "Tell them," she answers staunchly, "that I can't. It isn't allowed."

   "You're not the woman I once knew," he answers bitterly.

  But she is. Exactly the same. Nothing about her changes, ever.

    "I'm a poet, Henry," she whispers softly. "Be patient with me, please. I have an artistic soul."

   "It's over, Molly." For a moment he triumphs, goes into the next room and slams the door shut.

   Then the next day he calls her at least three times from work frantically. Rivkah listens into the call.

"Molly, Molly, he begs over the phone, what can I do to make you happy?"

   "Nothing."

   "There must be something."

She hesitates, but only for a moment. "Let me read you some of my poems."

Molly starts reading them to him then. Strange poems they are too, about little birds who are just born, then fall over, tremble and die.

   Rivkah listens and shudders. These birds are nothing like Rivkah, who was born fierce.  I'm different from them, Rivkah thinks to herself, and always will be. I'm a bird who was meant to fly. 

That evening, inside Uncle Bershky's study, Rivkah sits shivering. "Uncle Bershky," she speaks from out of the confusion that is beginning to invade her heart, "I may not be able to stay here with you forever. And what will happen then?"

   He looks up for a sharp moment. "Rivkah, there is one thing to remember.  Only God's will can ever happen for you. Whatever comes, you must say thank you."

CHAPTER 3

 For now, most of the time Rivkah stays downstairs in her grandmother's kitchen, working at her side. Day after day she is right there helping, cleaning, sweeping, cutting vegetables and running back and forth to Ruthie's corner store. The preparation for Sabbath takes days.

"Grandma, I need more time with Uncle Reb Bershky."

"Why? What's so great about Uncle Reb Bershky? There's no greater blessing than to cook for others." Devorah checks the vegetables and moves around the room, putting things in order, taking out pots, preparing the dough. "If you want to bring Messiah, knead this flour into dough."

   Together she and Rivkah roll the dough for the strudel. Their routine is firm and immovable. Devorah opens and closes the huge steel ovens in the walls. Rivkah kneads the dough into Challah on the long wooden table. After kneading the dough, they start peeling carrots for tzimmes, a pudding of carrots, raisins and prunes. 

"We are giving honor to the King," Devorah sings a little. "God is the King. Sabbath is his bride. A huge celebration is being made ready. Honor for the King, honor for the King." She keeps humming this over and over. "If even one person goes away from the Sabbath table hungry or disappointed, we haven't given real honor to the King. Only do everything perfectly and God will give you the wisdom you need."

For as long as she is needed Rivkah stays there helping, but the minute she is finished, she runs out the side door to the alley way. Some bluebells are blooming unexpectedly beneath the hedges. They are blooming by themselves, uninvited. Rivkah stops for a moment and smiles at them.

  "Hello, hello," she whispers, "what in the world are you doing here?"

Today, before Rivkah goes out the side door, Devorah comes over to the window where Rivkah is standing.

   "What's the big rush?"

   "Grandma, look, it's almost spring."

   "So? Rivkah, I have no idea what will come of you, but how can it be good?"

   Rivkah tries to shrug the old lady away.

"I feel it cannot be good. We are all in danger, and no one knows it. I know it though."

   "I'm sorry."

   "And what good is it if you're sorry, tell me?  Does it make our exile easier?"

   "No." Rivkah knows that all Jews have been in the exile for centuries. This has been God's decree. They are in exile for their sins, and for the sins of their fathers. For the mitzvahs they have refused to perform.

  But Rivkah is not thinking of the exile right now. She is thinking of the new flowers outside that are just starting to bloom. She wants to spend some time with them in the garden.  She longs to go over, collect potato shavings and put them into the earth to help the tiny flowers grow.

Devorah leans over to the windows and pulls the curtains over it shut.

   Little trickles of sweat break out on Rivkah's forehead. "Why are you closing the curtains? Look, it's spring!"

   "So what? Spring or winter, I'm on this earth for a reason! How about you?"

Rivkah reaches under her grandmother's arm to the counter and throws the potato shavings in a basket. "Of course I'm here for a reason." She tosses the shavings around.

   "Leave the potato shavings alone." The hard, steel will of her grandmother intersects with the waves of doubt and fear that are forming inside her these days.

   Suddenly Rivkah puts the basket down. "I do what I can, grandma. The rest I leave over."

   For a second Devorah's mouth turns up into a smile. A crazy wild smile. Rivkah jumps away from her and then just as fast, the grin is gone. Devorah's face is somber. "We're naturally selfish, all of us. Grasping, stupid."

   "Not everybody!"

   "We're born that way. Such gifts we have been given, and we throw them away. Like your stupid mother, sitting up there and writing her crazy poems day after day."

   In all of this world there is no one Devorah disrespects more than her daughter Molly. "And who cares about her poems?  Nobody. Sitting up there and dreaming when she should be bringing our exile to an end!"

Fortunately then the front door opens and they both hear Moshe, Rivkah's grandfather come in. He comes straight from synagogue into the kitchen smiling. Smile, grandpa, smile.

Moshe is a small man, slender and sparkly and whatever he sees, whatever he learns, thrills him completely. "Do you know what I learned in synagogue today, little Rivkah?" He comes over and puts his fine, white hands gently on top of her head. Warm, sweet light pours like fresh rain through Rivkah. Every night he comes home and blesses Rivkah this way. And if Devorah is there, she always turns away.

   "What did you learn, grandpa?" Rivkah whispers, moving a little closer to him.

"Never mind," Devorah interrupts them.

   "I learned, that everyone in the world is precious. Each one of us. We belong." He's so happy to say it.

   "Every night you learn that." Devorah tries to get between them.

"Move over, Moshe."

   He doesn't.

   "You're standing too close to her."

   "Shoot me, Dubbie."

   "Everyone is precious, grandpa?" Rivkah wants him to say it again.

   "There is a way to interpret everything," Devorah puts her hand on his shoulder and pushes him to the side.

   "I learned it," Moshe hums cheerily, and pushes back playfully. "A good piece of learning, you can learn every hour. Isn't it wonderful?" Then he turns to Rivkah like a little elf. 

   "Moshe! You want to confuse Rivkah, and isn't she confused enough?"

A silent war goes on between her grandmother and grandfather, but it doesn't faze him at all. He refuses to fight it.

   "A war's not a war if you refuse to fight it," he told Rivkah one night. "It's something else then."

   "What?"

   "It takes two to hate," he is definite about it. "I will not be one of them. Not me."

   "What else did you learn tonight grandpa?" Rivkah pipes up now, loud and strong. 

"I also learned," he continues, "that if your home isn't a place for every single person, then it really isn't a home! For Abraham, his tent was open for everyone!"

Devorah turns her back to him completely now. "We're not living

in the times of Abraham. Moshe! Leave Rivkah alone. I demand it. She's getting older. She has a restless nature. You know what was on her mind today? Springtime! Anyone can see trouble is coming."