Without hesitation, I broke the seal of the envelope and took out a thick stack of brittle pages. Unfortunately, the letter was written in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English, which is the way my grandfather talked. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell my father in the letter, and I was frustrated. I returned the papers to the envelope and poked through the contents of the trunk. I found an elegant knife in a sheath about eleven inches long. I held the short sword in my hand. It felt comfortable and familiar in my grip. I could sense there was something important about this sword and felt certain that the secret to its meaning could be found in the writings of my grandfather. I put the sword back into the rectangular box and placed the letter in my pocket.
I was excited about my message from the past. I drove to Temple Israel, the Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Brookline. I knew just where it was on Beacon Street, though I had never been inside the building. I found the rabbi in his sunny, cluttered office. He was a small man with a long, full, salt-and-pepper beard who appeared to be in his sixties. Dressed in black he looked to be a very serious person. I introduced myself to Rabbi Horowitz and explained my reason for my visiting him. I put the letter and knife on his desk. First the rabbi looked at the dagger. He did not remove it from the sheath. “This is a kinjal,” the rabbi said with displeasure. “It was a weapon used by the Cossacks at the turn of the last century. Kinjals killed many Jews. Why would your grandfather have such a weapon in his possession?” I told the rabbi that I had no idea why this Russian dagger had been in my grandfather’s possession and I suggested that the letter might offer an explanation. Rabbi Horowitz opened the envelope and removed the papers carefully and respectfully. He put on reading glasses and studied the writing as he turned the pages. Then he looked at me and shook his head. “I’m embarrassed,” he said, “but I can’t read this. Your grandfather uses Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, and English like they were all the same language. I can understand a lot of the words, but the actual meaning is lost on me.”
“Can you try?” I asked hopefully.
“I can do better than that,” the rabbi said, and got up from his large leather chair. “Follow me, please.”
We went down into the basement of the temple. The rabbi knocked on a heavy wooden door, and I heard a guttural voice respond. The rabbi opened the door, and we entered. I felt like I had stepped back in time. Everything in the dim room was ancient, including a little old man who sat behind a desk with open books strewn in front of him. His glasses were very thick, and he had to squint to see me. “Rabbi Rudolfsky, this young man would like you to translate a letter for him.”
Without asking a question the white-bearded old man motioned for me to come forward and held out his hand. I gave him the letter. He spread it on the desk in front of him and leaned over so his face was very close to the paper. He turned a knob on the desk lamp to brighten the light without taking his eyes from the letter. After a few moments he looked up at us with surprise. “Ani yodea may-ish hazeh.” The old man’s voice was barely audible.
I looked to Rabbi Horowitz for a translation.
“Rabbi Rudolfsky says he knows this man.”
“That’s impossible,” I told him. “The man who wrote this letter was born before the turn of the century and died in 1960.”
“Rabbi Rudolfsky is very old,” the younger rabbi explained. “He is ninety-eight years old and was born in Russia.”
I did some quick calculations. Rabbi Rudolfsky could have known my grandfather but it was highly unlikely. “Ask him why he thinks he knows this man.” I listened to their exchange and saw that the older rabbi was agitated.
“Ani yodea MAY-ish hazeh!” Rabbi Rudolfsky scolded Rabbi Horowitz.
Rabbi Horowitz held up his hands in front of his chest, palms out. “Sha, sha,” he said to the older man, trying to calm him in a polite way. Rabbi Horowitz turned to me. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I misinterpreted his words. Rabbi Rudolfsky actually said, ‘I know of this man.’ He didn’t say he actually knew him.”
“Why would he know of my grandfather?” I asked.
“Hu haya mefoorsam,” the old man responded.
“The rabbi says this man was very well known,” the younger rabbi explained; he listened to the old man again. “He says this man was famous.”
“Famous,” I repeated. “My grandfather was famous?”
The old rabbi spoke again so rapidly I couldn’t make out one word. Rabbi Horowitz translated.
“The rabbi says he was never sure if this man really existed. He thought it might just be a bedtime story his mother told.”
The old rabbi interrupted, still agitated and talking excitedly. The younger rabbi struggled to keep pace.
“Rabbi Rudolfsky says your grandfather was a legend.”
“Is he sure?” I asked. “My grandfather’s name was Hans Perlmutter. Is that who the rabbi is talking about?”
A quick exchange followed. “The rabbi says your grandfather’s real name was not Hans Perlmutter. He says he had a Russian name. It’s right in his letter.”
My heart was racing now. “What was his Russian name?”
The old rabbi ended a brief sentence with a word that sounded to me like Zee-rota.
“The rabbi said your grandfather was called Sirota. It means ‘the orphan’.”
“Hav harog dov ke-shehaya rak yeled.”
The younger rabbi looked at me with respect. “He says your grandfather killed a bear in Russia with this sword when he was fifteen years old.”
I sat in the chair in front of the rabbi’s desk. I was sweating and dizzy from receiving too much information too fast. My grandfather had killed a bear with a Russian dagger when he was a teenager. It was hard for me to accept, although I was reminded of the two murdered men near the zoo years ago.
“Rabbi Rudolfsky asked if you would like him to translate your grandfather’s entire letter?”
All I could do was nod and listen.
My grandfather wrote of a loveless childhood where he lived among people who never accepted him. He wrote of physical and mental abuse at the hands of several of the elders in the village of Vishnovet and of one bully in particular who called Sirota a curse and the cause of all their misfortunes. Sirota became isolated and bitter. One day, my grandfather wrote, out of frustration, he finally fought back against the bully. He retaliated with such ferocity that he nearly killed the man. His savagery alarmed the people of Vishnovet and they shunned him after that. Sirota became an outcast in the village. He moved to a hut separate from the others and made no attempt to enter the inner circle. He convinced himself that he didn’t care about any of them. He decided he would leave the village one day, when the time was right. Then the bear came.
One winter day a starving bear roared in the streets of our village in search of food. The villagers ran screaming from the beast but the rabbi’ young daughter fell in the bear’s path. Her father was in temple and no one else stopped to help the girl. I watched from my hut as the hungry bear approached the girl on his four legs. When he was close to her he opened his enormous mouth, bared his teeth, and roared. The girl fainted and fell to the ground. The bear reared up on its hind legs and stood like a giant over his prey. He roared again and no one dared challenge him. The villagers were all hiding and praying in their flimsy shelters. I had no use for prayer and I was angered and ashamed by the common cowardice of Vishnovet. What was there to fear? Pain was fleeting and death was final. I decided that death was preferable to a life lived in fear. While the others prayed, I prepared. I rushed to my bag of meager possessions and withdrew the Russian soldier’s dagger I had found in the woods over a year ago after a Cossack raid. I had sharpened and polished the kinjal’s blade every night since it came into my possession. I ran from my hut with my weapon. I approached the towering, 500-pound animal from behind. I remember not being afraid. As the bear prepared to swipe at the unconscious girl with a huge paw, I leaped on his back and with all my strength plunged the blade into t
he bear’s throat. I slashed, and slashed and slashed. I heard the beast roar in pain and I felt it thrash beneath me but I could see only red explosions in front of my eyes. I held on to the bear’s neck and stabbed until I could no longer lift my arm. The red bursts were replaced by a sheet of darkness. When I could sense light again I opened my eyes and found myself sprawled on the bear’s back on the ground. The beast was dead. I was alive. The little girl was awake and standing. She was staring at me with large brown eyes. She didn’t seem to be afraid of me. Her father had finally appeared, and she was clutching his hand tightly. Other villagers encircled me in silence. I was covered in the bear’s blood but I had shed no blood of my own. No one in the crowd spoke to me and I had nothing to say to them. I gathered my strength and skinned the bear while the others watched me. I put the bear’s bloody hide on my back for warmth and left his carcass for the villagers to butcher and eat. It was the only way I knew how to thank them for saving my life thirteen years ago. As I turned and walked toward the road that would take me to the wilderness, I heard only one villager cry for me. It was the rabbi’s daughter. I remembered her words. “I don’t want him to go,” she cried. “Who will save us now?” Years later the girl I rescued by killing the bear would become my wife.
“That was my grandmother,” I said, thinking of her loving smile and chocolate chip cookies. Then I recalled my grandfather’s reference to a bear the night I defeated Gino “The Destroyer” Montoya in my last boxing match. “You killed a bear, Eddie. Just like me.” Now, after all these years, I understood what he meant.
Tears filled my eyes as the old rabbi continued reading my grandfather’s words.
I survived in the wilderness by hunting and eating small animals. I knew how to make a fire. I drank melted snow. I learned from people I met along the way that ships set sail for America from the port of Hamburg in a country called Germany. I was told that the streets of America were lined with gold. I decided I would go to America but I had no idea where it was or how I would get there. In an alley in the port of Hamburg, I saw two boys attack a young man who lay helplessly on the ground. I felt compelled to help him. Holding the kinjal above my head I ran screaming at the attackers. I must have been a fearsome sight because the two bullies took one look at me and ran away. When I knelt next to the young man I could tell immediately he was dying. The sunken eyes, the pale skin, the yellow mess coming from his nose and his hacking cough told me that he had consumption. I had seen the same look on children in Vishnovet. They never survived. The boy’s hands were shaking and the papers he was holding made a rustling sound. I saw a ship ticket and immigration papers in his grasp that I knew he would never live long enough to use. The look in his eyes told me he knew what I was thinking. He knew he was going to die slowly and painfully in that alley. He forced a weak smile to thank me for saving him from a meaningless beating and he held out the papers to me. I shook my head “no” but he shoved them into my hand anyway. Then the boy took the wrist of my other hand which still held the kinjal and pulled the blade to his throat. He pressed the sharp tip of the sword against his pasty skin and tried to impale himself. His eyes were pleading with me to take his papers and put him out of his misery. I took the papers. I was crying. He was crying. I put his papers aside and took off the bear skin I was wearing. I covered the boy from his feet to his neck in the heavy hide. He looked at me until I placed my free hand over his eyes. With great sadness but no remorse I pushed the blade swiftly into the young man’s throat. Blood spurted from the wound and splattered on me and the bear skin. The boy gasped and was gone. I continued crying as I removed the bloody bear skin from the boy and took off his clothes. I put them on, replacing the rags that had been clinging to me for months. I wrapped the boy’s naked body in the bear skin and carried him to the end of a deserted pier. I dropped him in the bay and thanked him for his sacrifice as he disappeared into the murky water. The next morning I boarded a ship bound for America wearing a dead man’s clothes and carrying papers that identified me as Hans Perlmutter.
The old rabbi read to me about my grandfather’s excruciating ocean voyage. He read about Elijah Fleischman, Victor Dragoff, and my grandfather’s struggles in the new world. Somewhere among all the words I heard the truth about the two men who had attacked him and my grandmother.
I killed the two men not because they had taken my wife from me. I killed them because I didn’t want them to have the chance to take a loved one from anyone else. I killed to stop more killing.
The ancient rabbi stopped reading and set down the papers. He asked a question of the younger rabbi.
“Rabbi Rudolfsky cannot understand how such an old man could kill two much younger, stronger men,” he explained to me.
“Surprise and arrogance,” I said, understanding everything but explaining nothing.
We were all exhausted. The old rabbi handed me my grandfather’s belongings and I noticed he had tears in his eyes. I stood, thanked them and turned to leave when a question occurred to me. “How do you spell Zee-rota in English?”
“S-i-r-o-t-a,” the younger rabbi spelled slowly for me.
“Oh, it begins with an S. I thought it was a Z,” I said “Thank you.”
I was out the door and into the street before I realized I had uncovered the mystery of my middle initial. The S was for “Sirota.” I was the grandson of a legend from the Ukraine, who had saved an entire village with his fearlessness. To honor my grandfather, I changed his headstone to read:
Hans “Sirota” Perlmutter Legend of the Pale Beloved Husband - Father - Grandfather
When my father’s headstone was displayed for the first time it read:
Harry “Sirota” Perlmutter Loving Husband - Son - Father
Now that I knew my legacy I understood why I was never afraid.
A few days after my visit to the cemeteries I went to the North End and visited a few street corners to say goodbye to old friends. I saw Togo at Mike’s Bakery, and he promised to see me when he came down to visit his brother-in-law, Steve. I exchanged noogies and hugs with Muscles, Doc, and Rats. I couldn’t find Petey but I did come across Sal “The Momzer” and we hugged. I said goodbye to some kids playing basketball in the hot box.
When I returned to my apartment I found my landlord and the new tenants sizing up the space. “No problem renting this place, huh, Angelo.” I patted the elderly owner on the shoulder.
“You kiddin’, Eddie?” he said with an Italian accent. “These apartments are like gold now. Fifteen hundred a month.”
I said hello to the nice yuppie couple who were taking my place, and I wished them luck. I did some final cleaning up while they measured things. I rechecked the bathroom one last time and looked in the mirror. I was fifty-nine years old. Everyone told me I looked ten years younger. Of course, there was the matter of my ninety-year-old limp, but if you didn’t see me moving in the winter, I suppose I could pass for a younger man. I was still lean at five foot six and 140 pounds. If you didn’t focus on my twice-broken nose, I didn’t look that bad. I had most of my hair, though it was flecked with gray. I thought I looked pretty good, considering how lousy I felt. I walked resolutely from the bathroom and said goodbye to my landlord and his new tenants. They were absorbed with inches and angles and waved goodbye without looking up from their work. I wasn’t insulted. They were looking to the future. I was the past.
I carried some of my belongings down the stairs and packed them into the small, overloaded U-Haul I had rented and hooked up to the bumper of my 1997 Mini Cooper (You don’t need a big one to be happy was their motto). The dull-gray Mini, with the dent on the front of the hood, had 90,000 miles on it, but that was nothing for the new, twin-point injection engine Cooper started making in 97. The car was small, unimpressive to look at, and didn’t perform well in the snowy north. But the Mini was sturdy and dependable just like me, and just like me, it was going to be out of place in Boca.
The tribe of Tequesta Indians settled Boca Raton, Florida, 1,000 years ag
o. The tribe of Israeli Jews settled in Boca Raton, Florida, 758 years later. Tequesta artifacts can be found in the Boca Raton Historical Society. Jewish artifacts can be found everywhere.
Within two weeks of moving to Boca Raton I knew the layout of the city. Interstate 95 ran north and south. There were several exits for Boca Raton off I-95 and these roads went east and west. To the east was the ocean. To the west was a kingdom of gated communities, which were common in South Florida. Aside from the self-contained communities, however, Boca was no different than many other cities. If you had money, life could be a bowl of cherries. If you didn’t have money, life could be the pits. Some of the pits of Boca, however, looked like a bowl of cherries to me.
When I first arrived in the area I felt like a stranger in a strange land. I had no frame of reference for a place like Boca or the people who lived there. I wasn’t prepared for all the different ways people spoke English. I knew the Boston accent was strange, but it felt like home to me. The harsh New York City accent made me homesick. The Chicago twang sounded like the Buffalo twang to me. Everyone with a Southern accent sounded like a televangelist. The Philly accent, like the city itself, didn’t affect me one way or the other. I was able to understand the accents after a while, but understanding the people was harder.
After thirty-plus years as a policeman I thought I knew a little about a lot of people, and I did. But I knew nothing about retired people, and now I was surrounded by them. Power walkers were on the streets of Boca Heights at four-thirty in the morning or burning calories in the health club at six a.m. when it opened. By seven, “thick people” joined “stick people,” and all shapes, sizes, and ages exercised at their own pace. The twenty-two tennis courts and two golf courses were filled by eight in the morning. I couldn’t help wonder why retired people started their activities so early in the morning. Where were they going afterward?
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