Prayers for the Living

by Alan Cheuse

  “Come and see this,” she says to him, and takes his hand.

  His fingers felt like hot sticks! Her cool touch, almost clammy, it didn’t matter, it set his hands on fire! She leads him, by the hand, the heat rising to his wrist and climbing to his arm, the fire, burning, along the hall and up to the window at the end, the alcove overlooking the river. There’s the moon hanging over all, turning the river to a silvery sliver that looks like water that spilled and then froze between the southern hills. Whenever he studies water, gazes at it, into it, he thinks of his father, tries to remember the ocean passage, recalls his father’s stories about Atlantis this, Atlantis that, the city in the sea, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s telling her all about it, and she’s laughing out loud, telling him how crazy it all sounds, and he draws back from her, a little hurt, a little insulted.

  “And I suppose all your talk about changelings isn’t a bunch of bull?” he says to her.

  She gave him a funny look, a deep look that in a way scared him a little, for reasons we all found out later on, but also a look where he could see a bit of playacting on her part too, a look that wanted to say, so, who can know what we really are after all? and perhaps I really am a changeling, whatever that is. Remember now that he’s been studying Talmud, reading philosophy, history, and doing his accounting, his business practices, his little classes in managing things, all of it very practical each in its own way from the Torah to the economics, and maybe some rabbis they’ve got their eyes on the mysterious, on what God means when He says this or that in one place in the Books of Moses or another, but Manny was never interested in that part of it—in a way he had decided to study it because he wanted something hard but something he could hold on to—he could have the rules from the Ten Commandments, he could have maybe a little fuzziness in some of the arguments from the old rabbis, but there was always the hard and fast rule that you could always figure out one way or another and pretend at least that you knew what was going on in the Bible or in your life or somebody else’s life or all of this at once.

  Like that piece of glass he carried around, something he could feel under his fingers and think, this came from the bottles from the truck that killed my father, and I will always remember that day, and it will never change for me, hard and fast. Maybe it was a little magic trick he used on himself, a little bit of pretending, but he used the glass star as a way of giving himself good luck, of protecting himself against the kind of trouble he could see coming in her eyes. And he had used it before, when he had stumbled into the alley and looked up and saw the pigeon that spoke to him in his father’s voice! The pigeon! The vision! Am I seeing this? Am I hearing things? he asked himself always, and touched his fingers to the sharp-edged souvenir as a way of bringing himself back to the reality of his pain, the loss of his father so young in his life and so early in his father’s life, and the pain would always put him back on the right path, the trail he wanted to take toward making a success for himself in the world both as a good man and as a man who can buy for himself and his family and his mother the things of this world that everyone, unless they’re lying, wants to buy and pile up and keep.

  And through all this thinking and remembering he’s still looking into her eyes and he sees in there some very strange things, first a park or a playground, a schoolyard, like that, with little demon children playing on the swings and push-go-round, and then a shift of light, like a big storm over the rooftops just at sunset when the colors swirl around and turn orange and purple and darker and finally dark, and he sees a garden, and a tree, an apple tree, kinnahurra, a tree from Eden he explained it to me, this is what he saw, which makes her, and makes him, well . . .

  “Come,” she says to him, and takes him by the hand, down the hall, into her room, where her parents are I don’t know. He doesn’t know. If she knows, she’s not telling. Always before this pair, they had done their studying together in the downstairs old-fashioned parlor, where the ship captain who built the house could tell his daughters to sit if they had male visitors, but now they are upstairs—and it’s so quiet it’s as if somebody has turned off the sound on a television or turned off a hearing aid—and they’re going to study, she explains to him, because he looks and there in her hand is a Bible, and in a minute she’s leading him into her room, and she points to the bed for him to sit and she sits on the floor and she tilts her head a little, you know the cute way my Sarah’s got, obviously she got disinherited from her mother who to me has never shown such cuteness but must have had it in her when she was Sarah’s age or just a little older, because this is the time that we are seeing her in right now.

  “Read,” she says.

  He knows just what she means. They’ve been studying together, studying Graetz’s History of the Jews, studying the Encyclopedia Judaica, at whose suggestion his or hers it doesn’t matter by now, does it? Big books, heavy books, but tonight, they’re reading the Song of Songs.

  He clears his throat, feels just the tiniest prickle of embarrassment, since how well does he know this girl though by now it’s been a few years? Not so well. He’s seen her at mealtimes when he’s been invited, but she’s always kept her distance from him, even after the time he watched her coming down the stairs. She’s his twin, she says to him sometimes, twin lost in the woods. And now and then she’d talk to him after services on the holidays at the Union of All Hebrews, since Meyer Sporen liked to keep track of Manny. He had an investment in the boy, of course. His own son, at that time, he considered lost. He was off on the ocean somewhere. Did he write? No. Did he telephone? No. Did he send a telegram? Nothing. And the reasons, well, Manny learned all this soon enough, but not during his first few years there, and not even up until this moment, but soon, and then it was soon enough, and it was enough, too, I’m telling you.

  And my Manny opens to the proper page, and he’s feeling at the very instant that he begins to read the twinge in his you-know-what-and-where that turns his face red. But she pretends not to notice the way he shifts his leg on the bed, the way he leans closer into the pages even as he raises the book closer to his face. He was a boy who had known very little about life except hard work and what love his mother could bring to him, which is a love every boy needs but different of course from the love that comes to a man from a woman, and this he needed, too, without even knowing, and the reddening of his face, the feeling in his legs, his . . . It came from not understanding how much he needed, but she understood, and she was tempting him even with her eyes, with her . . .

  Well, I’ll just show you.

  So he’s opening his mouth to read, he’s wet his lips for the Song of Songs . . .

  I am a Rose of Sharon / a lily of the valleys . . .

  Can you imagine him reading this to her at this moment, alone in the room, alone in the house?

  Catch us the little foxes, / the little foxes, / that spoil the vineyards / for our vineyards are in blossom.

  He looks up, she’s standing, unbuttoning, can you believe this?

  I come to my garden, he’s reading, digging his nose deeper and deeper into the page as though if he tries hard enough he can disappear face first right into the poem and never have to deal with the life that’s going on in front of him.

  I come to the garden, my sister, my bride, / I gather my myrrh with my spice, / I eat my honeycomb with my honey, / I drink my wine with my milk.

  She’s a bony girl, but pretty, the same prettiness you can see coming out in Sarah these days, the slightly knobby shoulders and elbows still available if a grandmother wants to rub them for luck, but also a thickening in the tush and the chest, a reddening of the skin, the knees looking good, the calves, and here she is, standing in front of him, sliding from her shoulders her ruffled blouse.

  I went down to the nut orchard, he reads, to look at the blossoms of the valley / to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom . . .

  And that was that. In a few seconds she removed the book from his hand, pu
shed him down, undid his trousers, slid them right over his shoes. Sister, bride, myrrh, spices, eat the honeycomb with the honey. Before he could turn around my little boy was no longer a little boy, and the Bible study, the famous reading of the big poem from Solomon, it was over.

  Some over, I’m telling you.

  “SO HERE NOW she’s coming, the black girl with the check. The whole time we’ve been sitting she’s been standing, working, waiting.”

  “We’re the last people here—but look here’s more coming in, the night crowd.”

  “Sure, we’re the day crowd. Because when the house is empty you want to stay out day and night, we should be the night crowd too.”

  “I don’t have the strength for that. Day is enough for me.”

  “Day is day and nights are nights, and never the twain shall meet. But how could they?”

  “Day meeting night? It happens once in the night, and night also meets day in the morning.”

  “I can never get used to living alone.”

  “Who can? Could I? When Manny left for Cincinnati, I’m telling you, it was like Jacob died all over again. Except that Manny wrote.”

  “He wrote very nice letters. I’m glad you showed.”

  “I’ll show more. I’ve got it all, all the writings. Come over sometime and we’ll read together.”

  “I would feel like I’m prying. After all it’s not like they’re famous people out of history. They’re just people alive today, the rabbi of my temple, his wife.”

  “All the more you should want to know about them.”

  “Very funny. Very true. But look, darling, here’s your car pulling up outside, I can see it through the window in the light from the parking lot lamps.”

  “You see it? Where?”

  “There, by the entrance.”

  “You can see? I can’t see.”

  “Put in more ointment you can see.”

  “Sure, my ointment. I’ll put it in. I’ll get better.”

  “It could get worse?”

  “Dr. Mickey said we’ll see. Meanwhile we’re trying the ointment. So it could get worse. So what else is new? I don’t know a life where things could get worse? So come on, here’s my driver and we’ll drive you home and next time we get together we’ll have another meeting and maybe you’ll tell me things and I’ll tell you things and we’ll meet in the mall on the moon.”

  “Ladies?”

  “But here she is, so now let’s pay the piper. Piper. Piper schmiper.”

  “This is enough?”

  “Enough is enough.”

  “I’ll give her a little more.”

  “Give her enough. She works for a living. But look, such a handsome fellow the driver is. Manny hires him from his corporation in the city. A legitimate business expense. To go back and forth from here to there. So he doesn’t have to drive himself, or take the bus. The rabbi on the bus doesn’t sound so good, does it? Or the rabbi looking for a parking space? Look, it didn’t used to be that way, but now that he can afford it, I don’t say why? I say why not? And it’s getting dark, and here’s the check, and it’s time to go and I hope I didn’t shock you with my old stories about the famous poems by the King Solomon, the love story, the truth about my family, this life I live?”

  “Darling, Minnie, I see now it’s not such an old story, I’m telling you, to me it’s news, it’s hot news right out of the papers.”

  A Mother’s Prayer

  SINCE I CANNOT STAND UP IN THE SYNAGOGUE OR TEMPLE to pray I make this silent request of You, God, whoever You are, wherever You are—a burning bush, a naked back, a cry in the night, a great big white, flapping, winged bird. Whoever. Whatever. Dear God. Please keep my children from harm, my one child actually, the rabbi, and his child. I did nothing in my life except to make this son and I would ask You now to keep him from harm. He had a rough youth as You know. The life started off just fine. But then he went out with his father on that Sabbath morning—and did You punish my Jacob for working on the Sabbath? I hope not. If You answered yes, I would turn my back on You, God. I would ask You please to leave the house of my life. But say that You didn’t do it—say that You were busy in the synagogue with all of the people, the devout ones who went to shul that Saturday morning, and say that You didn’t see the problem, the taxi leaving the hotel, the fire that got so big and smoky somebody called the fire department, the milk truck starting off on its rounds. I know that God is God and that You have eyes on everything. But say that these people in the shul, the very religious men, the ones who would not talk to my Jacob because he disobeyed Your Laws, say that they diverted Your attention for just a minute, and so even though You knew about the taxi, the milk truck, the fire wagon, and my Jacob and my Manny walking with the cart, say that You knew all this—still for a second, just the tiniest part of time, like the part of the body an eyelash is compared to all the rest, for this eyelash of a split of time You looked away, or You blinked, or—could it be?—You were looking at it about to happen and You let it—no, I’ll think that You were listening to the prayers, watching the men lean forward, rock forward and back, forward and back in their devotions, and You missed the instant, just as You would later miss the killing of the Jews in Europe—were You called away then to another planet? Did You have another world of Jews who wanted You to hear their prayers?—and that was when it happened. Look, learn, understand, You liked the singsong, high-low quavering, wavering of the tunes, who doesn’t like to hear those old-time melodies out of the Orient, the East? It’s beautiful music, maybe not so much American, but then later we will hear lessons about the connections between the Orient and America, the Jews and Indians, and if we beat drums or tom-toms or wore feathers in our hair, the Jewish Indians, would our music be any less acceptable to You, O Lord? You looked away, the crash crashed, and the glass shattered, and the truck came down like a fist on my Jacob’s chest . . . and I want You to know that after all these years I could possibly begin to forgive You, if, a big IF, You take better care of my Manny and his children from now on.

  BOOK TWO

  TWILIGHT

  “Sally! Mrs. Stellberg! I thought you’d never get here! Welcome, welcome to this apartment so high up above the park. And did you think that you were never going to stop once you started climbing in the elevator? And could you catch your breath? Me, I’ve had no breathing problems, not that I ever had such problems, but the eyes, the eyes . . .”

  “It’s very high here, darling, Mrs. Bloch. Me, I prefer Jersey where it’s low, at street level.”

  “Look, I know what you mean, and far be it from me to miss a meeting with you at the mall. But it’s not so easy for me to get around much anymore—I don’t want your sympathy, I’m just telling you the truth—and if you can get around without too much trouble you’re a very lucky girl.”

  “I’m lucky, Minnie, but I’m not a girl no more. No, coming in on the bus today to see you, I decided that I’m not a girl anymore at all at all. A young man, my grandson’s age, he got up and gave me his seat and didn’t say another word.”

  “Romance, Sally, you’ve got romance.”

  “I’ve got veins and arthritis is what I’ve got, Minnie. But talking about sons . . .”

  “Talking about sons, and moons, and daughters, and planets. Yes, so, I invited you here to tell you more.”

  “Other girls . . .”

  “I thought you weren’t a girl no more.”

  “Very funny. Some of the other girls they tell me that you’ve been inviting them here to tell them, too.”

  “Other girls, other grandmothers, it’s true they’ve come to see me ever since it’s so hard for me to see them. Rose Pinsker, Mrs. Applebaum, Tilly Sugar. All of them girls, all of them grandmothers, they come to hear my story, and sometimes they tell me theirs. And you, you didn’t like what I told you so far? You didn’t want to know further?”

  “Of course I want to know. That’s why I’ve come all the way in here.”

  “And they too all wanted t
o know about what happened to my son and their rabbi, and they don’t have a right to know? All the grandmothers, listening to stories, telling their own.”

  “They have a right to know. So don’t get so excited, Minnie. You think that I’m jealous of them seeing you? It’s a long way in here on the bus . . .”

  “Next time—and don’t think I’m getting hoity-toity with you—next time I’ll send for you the car and driver.”

  “Next time you say. So why didn’t you save me the bus trip this time. It cost me four dollars the fare . . .”

  “Sally, you’re complaining about the fare?”

  “Minnie, Minnie, I’m making a joke. Look, it does me good to get out and ride the bus. This time I met a boy, next time maybe a man, a nice young sixty-year-old. Maybe I’ll see one on the way back. We’ll talk a little . . .”

  “You’re such a risky grandmother, such talk from such a respectable woman.”

  “Now I’m a woman. A minute ago I was a girl. So not a girl and I can’t act like a girl?”

  “Act like the grandmother that you are. Go in dignity. Don’t talk to strangers. For you I’ll have the car to take you home.”