About the B'nai Bagels

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Mrs. Polsky had marched onto the field. Invaded the field. Mrs. Polsky was raising her voice and raising her arms and waving a copy of Playboy.

  “This boy,” she yelled to the umpire as she pointed to Franklin P. Botts, “is creating a disturbance.”

  The umpire said, “Madam, you’ll have to leave the field.”

  Spencer added, “Calm down, Mrs. Polsky. Please calm down.”

  The whole audience had moved to the stand behind our dugout.

  “Calm down! I am calm,” she shrieked.

  The umpire said, “Madam, you’ll have to leave the field.”

  “I warned you, Bessie Setzer, that I would put a stop to this if you didn’t,” she yelled at Mother and pointed to the magazine the whole time.

  The umpire said, “Madam, you’ll have to leave the field.”

  “I will not leave until this magazine is in proper hands.”

  “It’s in proper hands right now. Yours,” Mother said. “So, go already, Mrs. Polsky, and let us finish our game.”

  Mrs. Polsky wouldn’t leave. It seemed as if she wanted to make a speech now that she had a platform. She didn’t really have anything more to say. She just kept saying, “I told you I would put a stop to this.” She seemed at a loss for words but not for time.

  Spencer cupped Mrs. Polsky’s elbow in his hand and led her from the field. “Come now, Sarah…” he said.

  “Mrs. Polsky,” she corrected.

  Aunt Thelma shrieked, “Sarah Polsky, get up in those bleachers where you belong so that we can finish our game. You’ve delayed it long enough.”

  And that’s how Mrs. Polsky left the game. With Spencer gently pushing her and Playboy up the bleacher steps.

  The game resumed. I walked. Sonefield and Sidney struck out. Simon, #5, was up next. Simon, #5, hit a home run and gave us a two run lead. Simon, #5, hit left-handed. Simon had never before been a switch hitter. Funny.

  Funny, too, that Simon pitched left-handed against their three powerful left handers in the next inning. He held them to a single hit, and we won the game and the championship by the two runs batted in by Simon, #5. I was one of the runners brought home from my walk.

  The team was jubilant. The whole audience swooped down onto the field like a huge mud sink being drained. Everyone was patting everyone on the back; Mother and Spencer must have felt like tympani.

  There was only one person left in the bleachers, and it was Fortune Cookie Rivera. I left the mob on the field and walked to where she was sitting with her elbows resting on her knees and her chin resting in her hands. I got right down to the subject at hand. “Why would Barry sitting in our dugout watching an exciting baseball game buy a look at a magazine he already has a subscription to?” I asked.

  “Because he knew that Mrs. Polsky would make a big fuss.”

  “Is that when Simon and Sylvester did it?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Must be. They came out of the locker room right afterwards.”

  “Are you sure they did it?”

  “How can I be sure? I couldn’t count their teeth from up here. Could you?”

  “I was trying to get a hit, remember?”

  “Your mother didn’t notice?”

  “I guess not. She was pretty agitated about Mrs. Polsky. She doesn’t know about the teeth anyway. She has a terrible time keeping them straight.”

  “And Spencer didn’t notice either?”

  “Probably not. He was spending his time keeping an eye on Mrs. Polsky and Botts.”

  “And your Aunt Thelma?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “All I know is that neither of my darling twin brothers is clever enough to think of how they could pull the switch.”

  “Someone who knew that Mrs. Polsky would make a big fuss must have planned it,” I said.

  “Who knew?”

  “Barry Jacobs, for one. His mother knew, and she tells Barry everything.”

  “And Botts knew, too. Your mother had called him and told him how upset Mrs. Polsky had been.”

  “But Barry Jacobs knew that he was costing us the game because he hadn’t bunted. If you’re sure your brothers didn’t plan it, that leaves Barry and Botts as the only other ones who knew Mrs. Polsky would delay the game.”

  “And your mother,” Cookie added.

  “What’s my mother got to do with this?”

  “I just mentioned that she was also one who knew that Mrs. Polsky would fuss long enough for the twins to switch.”

  “Yeah, but Barry and Botts both had better reasons for wanting a victory.”

  “Don’t get so excited. I just mentioned that if you’re counting up all the people who had better reasons for wanting a victory, you have to add your mother’s name to the list. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “You’re saying something else, too. Behind the lines, Cookie Rivera. You’re saying that my mother is the only one who knew that we needed a left hander.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. Spencer knew as well as your mother did. And your Aunt Thelma knew, too. Your Aunt Thelma even said, ‘You’ve delayed the game enough.’ And that makes a lot of Setzers who suddenly didn’t notice that they had a left hander pitching instead of a right hander. A lot of Setzers.”

  “My Aunt Thelma is not a Setzer.”

  “I won’t tell you what I think your Aunt Thelma is.”

  “And I won’t tell you what I think your brothers is. Are.”

  “And I won’t tell you what I think your mother is. A Rebekah!”

  “Nah! Nah! You just told me! Rebekah who?”

  “I won’t tell you that!” And Cookie walked away.

  I left the bleachers and walked back into the crowd, which was just beginning to show signs of wanting to go home.

  Everyone came into the house triumphant. I came in worried. Dad was the only one to notice and the only one to ask what was the matter. He had followed me up to my room and was standing outside the door.

  I answered the usual, “Nothing.”

  “Are you maybe disappointed that the season is over?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

  ‘It’s not like losing a friend. Soon there will be swimming,” Dad said as he walked into my room.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Well, Moshe, it was a great season,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Yeah.”

  “Spencer tells me that you’ve become quite a little ball player.” He kicked off his shoes.

  “Spencer tells you! That’s great. That’s just real helpful. Why didn’t Spencer tell me? I can think of a few times it would have helped.”

  “I guess he figures that being good is something you know by yourself. It would have been awkward for him to tell you in front of everyone. It would have seemed that he was playing favorites.”

  I said nothing. Like Spencer I filled in the overlaps with a nothing vocabulary.

  The silence thickened; Dad tunnelled through it with, “Well, you’ll certainly still have enough to keep you busy, getting ready for your Bar Mitzvah and all. How are the Bar Mitzvah lessons going?”

  “Not too bad since I’ve learned fortissimo. The rabbi doesn’t look like he’s hearing a heavenly choir, but at least now he seems as if he’s closer to laughing than to crying.”

  Dad smiled. One of those smiles that is pushed from the inside; it started at his eyes and pulled his mouth upward.

  “Speaking of Hebrew lessons,” I said.

  Dad said, “Yes.” If there’s anything that can make my dad happy, it is if you ask him some questions he can be an authority on. Sometimes I wouldn’t ask him even though I knew that it would save me time and make him happy if I did, and I guess that shows I have a mean streak in me. But right then, I wanted to find out something.

  “About the story of Esau and Jacob,” I began.

  “Yes,” Dad answered, “the twins from the Bible. Genesis, Chapter Twenty-seven.”

  See what I mean about Dad being e
ager to show off to me about his knowledge? Everyone knows that Esau and Jacob were twins and that the story is in Genesis. Only Dad would add the chapter number. But I went on. “Yes, the twins from the Bible. Genesis, Twenty-seven. You remember how Jacob disguised himself as Esau by putting on Esau’s clothes and all, and how he stole Esau’s blessing from Isaac, their father?”

  “Remember? Of course I remember.”

  I continued being patient. “What I want to know is, did Rebekah, their mother, know about the switch?”

  “Know about it? My dear young man, she gave Jacob the idea altogether. She choreographed the whole thing.” That’s another thing about my dad. He uses words like sophomoric and choreograph. He likes words a lot. Maybe they are a relief from numbers for him.

  “What she did was pretty dishonest. How come she got away with it?”

  “Because before she gave birth to the twins, Esau and Jacob, she received from God a message that told her she would bear twins and that the older, who was Esau, would serve the younger, who was Jacob.” And then Dad quoted some passage of the Bible in Hebrew. He sure knows a lot, my father. He ended up by saying, “Rebekah knew that Jacob should have had the blessing; she merely helped arrange things to happen that way.”

  I paused a minute before I said, “Mother talks to God a lot. She’s always saying things to that light fixture in the kitchen. Do you think she ever got a message back? Like that she should win the Little League championship? And that maybe she should put in a Jacob for an Esau?”

  “I’m sure your mother wouldn’t bother the Lord about Little League.”

  “She sure would! She even tells Him when I don’t finish my spinach. ‘For such an ungrateful child you cause green grasses to grow?’ she says. You just don’t listen to her, Dad. She’s been bugging God about Little League ever since she became manager. You should have heard her when Spencer came down with the virus!”

  “Well, son, your mother is an emotional woman. Whatever she does, she does with her whole heart and soul. And her heart is large, and I think that her soul is, too. And the excess spills out in talk. But I don’t think she thinks that she is talking to God in that light fixture. She talks to Him quietly in prayer, and she doesn’t bother Him about Little League or spinach.”

  “She thanks Him for every game we win!”

  “She’s not thanking Him for the game as such. She’s thanking Him for giving her the strength and the stamina. She knows that she, not He, is planning the strategy.”

  “She plans strategy all right, but so did Rebekah.”

  “Your mother has been talking to God ever since we got married. However, I’m sure that if He ever answered back, it’s been by answering prayers. Not viva-voce.”

  More words. “Does viva-voce mean out-loud?”

  “Very good,” Dad said. Another thing about my dad. More than liking to show how smart he is, he likes me to show how smart I am.

  “She keeps sending those messages, and I’m not sure that she doesn’t think she gets messages in return. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mother plotted a Little League victory the way that Rebekah plotted.”

  “If your mother plotted anything, Mark, don’t you think that you would have found out about it? How can your mother keep anything from us? She wears her thoughts on her face like a cosmetic.”

  “She keeps things from us.”

  “Name one.”

  “I’ll name one: the fact that my option price was eight hundred and she bought me for nine-twenty-five. The fact that she blackmailed Spencer into being coach. The fact that she knows I have a Playboy magazine hidden under my mattress. How’s that for one?”

  “That would do for three.”

  “I can count.”

  “How can you say that she keeps things from us when you know all the things that you say she keeps from us?”

  “She thinks she’s hiding things from me, but I listen in.”

  “Why don’t you listen in further and see if you can discover what she’s keeping from you now?”

  Just as he said that, Mother’s voice drifted upstairs. You can hear everything from anywhere in that house. Downstairs my mother was singing, actually singing, “Oh, it ain’t gonna rain no more, no more…” She was singing fortissimo. Her singing told me two things: first, that she was no Barbra Streisand and second, that she was no Rebekah. I also remembered that she had said that winning would be the second nicest thing.

  Dad quietly left the room.

  After he left I noticed his shoes, which he had taken off; I picked them up and carried them into the office. The extension phone was in there. What would Hersch think of his Crescent Hill buddy now? I picked up the receiver and dialed the first three digits of Hersch’s number. But I hung up. I picked up Dad’s shoes again and took them into his room. If they had been any decent, normal style, I’ll bet that I could have borrowed them.

  I went to bed convinced that my mother was innocent. My father had convinced me. I wasn’t sure how he had done it, but he had. I was also convinced that I had to tell Mother and Spence. It would cost us the championship, but I had to let them know. In a way, my telling would make me responsible for our losing the championship.

  And there will always be people who will think that I wanted to tell to show Barry up because about now everyone knows how badly I wanted Hersch back. But I know that’s not the reason because I never finished dialing Hersch’s number. I never told Hersch about Barry then or ever.

  It was a decision to do the right thing. It wasn’t revenge; I could have gotten even with Botts, and never did. And it wasn’t tattle telling. It was a decision I made by myself in bed that night after everyone thought that we had won the championship, and I knew that we hadn’t.

  Even though school was out for the year, Saturday still meant services at the synagogue. I sat alone and walked out alone. In addition to wishing me Good Sabbath as I left, the rabbi also wished me congratulations. I could hardly wait to get home to mope. I moped around all the rest of the day. Mom kept getting called to the phone. Congratulations! Congratulations! Finally, she told me to stop moping around and go read a book. That was her answer to everything: go read a book. I got down the Official Rules for Little League Baseball and looked for a loophole. I couldn’t find one. Mother was so happy that she was bubbling somewhere in her soul. I couldn’t puncture that even though I knew that the longer I waited to tell, the more deflated she would feel.

  By suppertime I still hadn’t told. Mother spooned out the goulash; its burnt flavor hadn’t improved with age. I sang “Happy Birthday” to it, and Dad gave me a nudge under the table.

  Talk about baseball never ends with the season. Especially in our house with our mother. “I sure would like to put Simon and Sylvester in the Tournament,” she said. “But I guess it’s not fair to the twelve-year-olds who are also good and next year it will be too late for them.”

  Spencer added, “They sure beat almost everyone I’ve seen in the League. Maybe the Bagels could sponsor four players. The twins deserve some special kind of recognition.”

  “I think so, too,” Mother agreed. “If we can’t get two extra places in the Tournament Team, what else do you think we could do for them?”

  “How about giving each of them a sock in the nose?” I quietly suggested.

  “Why would anyone want to do that?” Mother put down her fork and gave me a puzzled look. I knew that I was about to burst that bubble in her soul. But I knew that I better do it before too many more days of too many more congratulations.

  “Didn’t you notice that Simon pitched the last inning with his left hand? Didn’t you notice that Simon took his last time at bat, batting left-handed?”

  Mother squinted real hard. Everyone stayed quiet. Mother changed her focus from space to Spence. “Spencer, which of those two boys is the lefthander?”

  Spencer answered, “The one who is number 4.”

  Mother cocked her head to one side and said, “That’s right. That’s right. I think th
at’s right.” Then she went into the dining el and returned with yesterday’s official records. She was nervous; she cleared the place in front of her by shoving the back of her hand against her cup and saucer. I knew how she was feeling; it’s like hearing from some kids after a test about some question you can’t even recognize, and then you have a sinking feeling because you realize that you may have skipped that whole side of the paper. It’s panic until you get your paper back and see what it has done to your grade.

  What a rattling of papers there seemed to be before she said, “Here. See. Simon was pitcher and was last in the batting order.”

  And Spencer said, “That’s right. Simon is number five.”

  “And Simon also happens to have four teeth and Simon also happens to be the right-hander.”

  “What’s the matter with his teeth?”

  “Nothing is the matter with Simon’s teeth. It’s Sylvester who has the extra one. On the bottom. I couldn’t see his teeth anyway.”

  Spencer leaned over and began to gently bang his head against the table. “What’s with the teeth?” he moaned. “What’s with the teeth?”

  “Teeth is the way you can tell Simon from Sylvester. All you have to remember is that Sylvester has five incisors on the bottom, and Simon has four and that is the opposite of their baseball numbers. Also, Sylvester has an e in it and so does left. Simon has an i in it, and so does right. It also helps to know that Simon has an o and so does four, the number of incisors, not the baseball number and Sylvester has an e and so does five, the number of incisors.”

  Dad was the only one who followed my explanation. He said, “Very good. Mnemonics. That’s what it’s called when you find little tricks like that to remember things.” Even in an emergency my dad can’t resist getting a little education into me. But he had understood. “What you are saying is that Simon, who wears number five shirt, should have batted and pitched right-handed but instead batted and pitched left-handed?”

  “That’s right, Dad. Like Jacob and Esau.”