Read You Must Go and Win: Essays Online
Authors: Alina Simone
You Must Go and Win: Essays (14 page)
“They’ll put you in a box in the ground and you will rot there,” she said, raising the two black lines that had long since replaced her eyebrows. “And?”
Papa was Jewish, but only on paper. New Yorkers, thanks to alternate-side-parking suspension days, had a familiarity with holidays like Shavuot, Simchas Torah, and Shemini Atzereth that my father could only dream of. Nonetheless, this didn’t stop him from coming up with his own ideas. When I was maybe seven or eight years old, I asked Papa whether he believed in God. My father, the theoretical physicist, thought this over for a long time; he took philosophical questions, even those from young children, very seriously. (Later, when I was in college, he received a letter from a nine-year-old girl claiming to have discovered the secrets of the universe while watching the toilet bowl drain—she received a long and thoughtful handwritten reply.)
Finally, Papa said, “Well, it depends. Do you mean the kind of god people worship on Earth? Like Jesus, Allah, Vishnu? That kind of god?”
Even as a small child, I knew that something had gone terribly wrong. What other kind of god was there apart from the ones we knew on Earth? I confirmed for Papa, with some hesitation, that yes, I was only concerned with Earth. The planet we lived on.
“Ah, then I guess to answer your question I would have to say no, I don’t believe in that kind of god.”
It was obvious that Papa was holding out on me, so I went ahead and asked the question he’d been waiting for.
“So what kind of god
do
you believe in?”
do
you believe in?”
“You see,” Papa began, “Earth is just one of an infinite number of planets in an ever-expanding universe. Chances are that ours isn’t the best planet. It’s probably, you know, just a really average planet. Average people, average ideas, average gods,” and here Papa paused, lighting up a little. “But of course that means that there are other planets out there that have the best of everything, and maybe one of these planets is inhabited by a being wiser and more enlightened than anyone we can imagine. Maybe this being is already guiding our actions here on Earth. Things that we think we are doing and deciding for ourselves might in fact be the invisible work of this ultimate being.” Papa’s eyes were far away. He seemed to have drifted off to a soft and happy place.
I blinked at him.
This
is what Papa believed?
This
is what Papa believed?
“Are you talking about, like, a space alien from … outer space?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Papa said excitedly.
I thanked him and went away.
In Massachusetts the winters are long and fierce and the houses, both new and old, are stubbornly drafty. Since they don’t hold heat, and heating them is expensive, people have gotten used to walking around wearing three turtlenecks and pretending this is normal. Mine was the only bedroom on the bottom floor of my family’s two-story house. It lay within a special microclimate whose damp, pervasive chill called to mind certain parts of northern Canada. The night that Papa offered me his God-as-space-alien theory, I remember lying in my narrow bed,
watching my breath billow whitely in the air above me, trying to envision the being Papa had described. In my head, the space-alien God looked something like a giant praying mantis. He had massive green eyes the size of satellite dishes that trembled with a luminous, otherworldly understanding, and he was dressed a bit like Papa, who favored slacks from Banana Republic, long-sleeved linen shirts, and the occasional vest or blazer with suede elbow patches. He never said anything but only stared at me unblinkingly, his antennae quivering with wisdom and empathy. Over many months, I did my best to believe in the praying mantis, but in the end, his presence on the very best of planets in a faraway universe just didn’t offer much in the way of guidance or comfort to my earthbound self. That was when I realized that I would just have to settle for a mediocre god, somewhere closer to home.
watching my breath billow whitely in the air above me, trying to envision the being Papa had described. In my head, the space-alien God looked something like a giant praying mantis. He had massive green eyes the size of satellite dishes that trembled with a luminous, otherworldly understanding, and he was dressed a bit like Papa, who favored slacks from Banana Republic, long-sleeved linen shirts, and the occasional vest or blazer with suede elbow patches. He never said anything but only stared at me unblinkingly, his antennae quivering with wisdom and empathy. Over many months, I did my best to believe in the praying mantis, but in the end, his presence on the very best of planets in a faraway universe just didn’t offer much in the way of guidance or comfort to my earthbound self. That was when I realized that I would just have to settle for a mediocre god, somewhere closer to home.
Babushka was the only member of the family who had been baptized Russian Orthodox, and this was something I was always interested in discussing with her. The only problem was that Babushka pretended to be Jewish. She did this because absolutely every one of her friends—practically every Russian émigré of that era—
was
Jewish, and it was uncomfortable for her to go against the grain. She had married a Jew and this provided her with enough cover to pass. She kept a photograph of her grandparents’ traditional Orthodox wedding hidden deep in her underwear drawer and lived instead among the props: the menorah, the Hebrew calendar, some boxes of matzoh meal artfully scattered around the kitchen.
was
Jewish, and it was uncomfortable for her to go against the grain. She had married a Jew and this provided her with enough cover to pass. She kept a photograph of her grandparents’ traditional Orthodox wedding hidden deep in her underwear drawer and lived instead among the props: the menorah, the Hebrew calendar, some boxes of matzoh meal artfully scattered around the kitchen.
A couple of years ago at my mother’s annual Christmas party, Babushka put down her fork to make a sudden and portentous announcement.
“I am a conformist,” she said, looking around the table slowly and deliberately, making sure to give each of us the eye. “I am normal. What all people do, I do too.”
It was as though Babushka had just announced that she was gay. Her look said: This is something about me that is unchanging, something I am proud of, and you just have to accept if you really love me. But the truth was that, at eighty-nine years old, we were all just happy to have her wake up in the morning, slip on a leopard-print dress, and enjoy a few good reruns of
Knots Landing
. If Babushka had instead told us she’d decided to wear only a tutu and eat nothing but whipped cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I would have been on my way to Costco faster than you could say “Cool Whip.” As it was, we all reassured her that a conformist was a very fine thing to be and that she should go right ahead being one. Needless to say, this episode went a long way toward explaining how she felt about religion.
Knots Landing
. If Babushka had instead told us she’d decided to wear only a tutu and eat nothing but whipped cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I would have been on my way to Costco faster than you could say “Cool Whip.” As it was, we all reassured her that a conformist was a very fine thing to be and that she should go right ahead being one. Needless to say, this episode went a long way toward explaining how she felt about religion.
So I was on my own. Clearly the easiest choice, in the liberal suburb where I grew up, would have been just to become Jewish. It felt like a particularly civilized hobby I could mellow into, like joining a curling league. Maybe this was because the rabbi at the reformed synagogue in town, the one all of my Jewish friends attended, was an avowed atheist. This didn’t seem to stir up much controversy; on the contrary, there was an almost palpable sense of relief that without the messy and emotional business of God muddying the waters, the rabbi could finally focus on the more important issue of what it really meant to be a Jew. Jewish friends never mentioned God either, though they maintained an obsessive interest in their Jewish youth group and the overnight trips affording tantalizing make-out opportunities with the exotic Jews of neighboring Winchester. Only once did Papa make a visit to this synagogue, to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish when his father died. He described the experience like this:
“First there was a guy who played guitar. Then another guy came out and warned us not to support President Bush. Then finally this sort of fat, spiritual guy came out and read the Kaddish. That last part was okay. I guess.”
Josh had attended Hebrew School for eight years at this temple, and the only trace left of the whole experience was the perverse delight he took in playing a celebrity guessing game called Jew or Not Jew. (Jon Stewart? Jew! Conan O’Brien? Not Jew.)
Now I know that there are Jewish people somewhere in Crown Heights who would have been happy to introduce me to the rigors and joys of living life according to the Halakha, but these were not the people I knew. Based on my very limited perspective, becoming a Jew meant joining an organization that combined elements of Mensa, JDate, and the world’s most selective book club. But I guess the good thing about growing up without religion is that you can really dream big. I was never subjected to early morning sermons on things I didn’t care about. I was never forced to repeat the inane stuff my parents believed until I snapped one day and we ended up circling a deflated kiddie pool on the front lawn, screaming obscenities at one another while reality television cameras rolled. I didn’t grow up with a desperate fear of my own bodily functions, nor were there videos of me singing embarrassing songs about angels anywhere on YouTube.
So I figured there was no need for bottom-feeding now. Sure, embracing any religion involves compromise and the inevitable adjustment of expectations. But if choosing a religion was like finding a mate, I didn’t want to settle for the spiritual equivalent of a tubby guy named Earl, whose psoriasis of the scalp would keep me busy dusting seatbacks for the next forty years. I could afford to set the bar high, so I did. For example: no houses of worship in strip malls. How could I commune with the Holy Spirit with my thighs stuck to a metal folding chair and the smell of fried chicken still emanating from the stained acoustic tiles overhead? Similarly, I found prayer unlikely in one of those spiritual centers designed to make office workers comfortable, a place with headachy fluorescent lights, Muzak piped into the bathrooms, and an ATM in the lobby. I wanted to worship in a church
that looked like it had been plucked out of a Hans Christian Andersen story, and didn’t think that was too much to ask. Unfortunately, the reformed synagogue in my town also didn’t meet this criterion; it was designed by a fancy architect, with a swooping roof and the kind of airy lobby reminiscent of Ivy League universities or cancer research institutes. This seemed like a good place to debate education reform with reasonable, well-meaning people, but to commune with God? Honestly, where was the mystery? The spontaneous healing? The speaking in tongues? The casting off of demons? Why endure the tedium and strictures of religion without any of the fun stuff? No, I decided, not for me. I was going to hold out. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted unreasonable people believing impossible things. I wanted unicorns.
that looked like it had been plucked out of a Hans Christian Andersen story, and didn’t think that was too much to ask. Unfortunately, the reformed synagogue in my town also didn’t meet this criterion; it was designed by a fancy architect, with a swooping roof and the kind of airy lobby reminiscent of Ivy League universities or cancer research institutes. This seemed like a good place to debate education reform with reasonable, well-meaning people, but to commune with God? Honestly, where was the mystery? The spontaneous healing? The speaking in tongues? The casting off of demons? Why endure the tedium and strictures of religion without any of the fun stuff? No, I decided, not for me. I was going to hold out. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted unreasonable people believing impossible things. I wanted unicorns.
Maybe this was because my family, like the white queen in Alice in Wonderland, had a penchant for believing impossible things. The notion that “certain people have powers” was something calmly and unquestioningly accepted by everyone but me. My grandmother still regretted a particular encounter my grandfather had with a Gypsy who laid a curse on them in 1957. They had just stepped off a train to stretch their legs, somewhere between Babushka’s native St. Petersburg, where they had been visiting relatives, and their home in Kharkov, when the Gypsy approached my grandfather.
“Dorogoy, dorogoy!”
Dear one, dear one, she called out. “Silver my palm and I will read your fortune.”
Dear one, dear one, she called out. “Silver my palm and I will read your fortune.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a fortune,” my grandfather said. “I don’t believe in them.” My grandfather was that kind of cleareyed thinker before he came to the States and discovered scratch lotto.
“Believe or don’t believe,” she intoned darkly, “have it your way, but two blows await you when you return home.” And with that the Gypsy turned and swept off down the platform.
“Don’t worry,” my grandfather assured Babushka. “She’s just trying to spoil our good mood.”
But when they arrived back in Kharkov they found, in a Kafkaesque twist, that their apartment had been occupied by another couple. They waited out the night in the cramped living room of a friend, and the next morning the second blow was dealt: their best friends, a couple they loved like family, were giving up on the Soviet Union and returning home to Romania.
“See?” Babushka would say. “She didn’t say ten blows, did she? No! She said two blows. And that’s exactly what we got—one on the first day and the second on the next. It is proof there really are people who can see into the future. That Gypsy—she was like Nostradamus or our famous psychic Juna, who treated Brezhnev himself!”
I recall a similar discussion with my parents over a paper on the Russian Revolution I was writing for my high school European history class. My father and I were sitting in our usual positions at the kitchen table while the news blared on the television. Mama was at the counter making a salad. I had just returned from the Copley library and had some exciting news to report regarding Tsar Nicholas II.
“I can’t believe Tsar Nicholas refused the Duma’s request to grant a constitution!”
My parents nodded sympathetically. This was something they’d evidently heard about before.
“He fired Grand Duke Nicholas and then totally mismanaged the war!”
My parents agreed: it was true, the last tsar had run the country into the ground.
“And what about Rasputin? The Romanovs, like, believed everything he said. They actually thought that guy had magic powers!”
At this Mama stopped, her knife frozen over the glistening half dome of a tomato. My father turned his eyes away from Peter Jennings, whose voice seemed to recede to a murmur.
“Well,” Papa began, a bit reproachfully, “Rasputin
did
have powers. That much we know is true.”
did
have powers. That much we know is true.”
“Absolutely!” Mama seconded. “He used his powers to cure the tsarevich’s hemophilia.” And with that, the realist who assured me that nothing more than a rotting grave awaits us in death calmly went back to quartering her tomato.
“Seriously, guys—” I began, nervously. But Papa, sensing where I was heading, cut me off.
“Look, some people are really good at math, right? And some people are great violin players, right? Well, then there are people with different talents. Like they are good at healing people with their hands. Understand?”
Then Papa turned back to Peter Jennings in a way that invited no further discussion, and I was left holding the bag again, the irrational pragmatist stubbornly denying things that were obviously true.
The same magical thinking extended to the realm of health. My mother rejected the idea of doctors. She didn’t believe in them. Fevers raged, heavy things fell on her, whatever—Mama kept plowing forward in her crusade against the dubious accuracy of double-blind, randomized, controlled trials with the dedication of a hard-core Christian Scientist. Meanwhile, Papa, the world-renowned physicist, preferred alternative medicine—although I daresay that the “healers” he visited might, with the help of an
Oxford English Dictionary
, be more accurately defined as “witches” or “warlocks.” They ranged from acupuncturists and homeopaths, at the respectable end of things, to people he absolutely refused to discuss with me no matter how much I pleaded or promised not to make fun of him. And then there was
Babushka, with her weird Russian folk remedies and assortment of scarily pungent tinctures lining the shelves of the linen closet. Not long ago she called me, complaining of an infected cut, and when I suggested, with the dumbness of a rubber mallet, that she go see a doctor, she replied, “Don’t worry, Lastochka, I taped half an onion to my arm and it feels much better now.”
Oxford English Dictionary
, be more accurately defined as “witches” or “warlocks.” They ranged from acupuncturists and homeopaths, at the respectable end of things, to people he absolutely refused to discuss with me no matter how much I pleaded or promised not to make fun of him. And then there was
Babushka, with her weird Russian folk remedies and assortment of scarily pungent tinctures lining the shelves of the linen closet. Not long ago she called me, complaining of an infected cut, and when I suggested, with the dumbness of a rubber mallet, that she go see a doctor, she replied, “Don’t worry, Lastochka, I taped half an onion to my arm and it feels much better now.”
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