Snow in August

by Pete Hamill

  She hugged him and put a bill in the palm of his hand.

  “Keep the faith, Michael,” she said, “and keep on dreaming, kid.”

  She pirouetted away and Michael opened his hand. A five-dollar bill. From a nightmare! He’d never had a five-dollar bill of his own before, and his head filled with objects as he hurried on to mass: flowers for his mother, a box of chocolates for her, comic books, maybe a hardcover book. Or he could give the whole five bucks to his mother to help save for a phonograph. Or maybe he could have a date with Mary Cunningham. Take her for a soda. Or to the Grandview when his mother wasn’t working. He’d never gone out with a girl, but he knew about dates from the movies and Archie comics and Harold Teen in the Daily News. And Sonny talked about the things you did with girls. In the balcony. In the park.

  He turned into Kelly Street, skipping along, thinking about girls and the things Sonny told him about them and the mysteries of their bodies. He wondered too what Mary Cunningham thought when she saw him in his new blue suit and what she would think if he talked to her in Yiddish or quoted Latin from the mass. Would she think he was weird? Or would she think he was the smartest guy she’d ever met? He wondered too what it would be like to touch her skin or play with her hair, and then wondered if such thoughts were sins.

  And then stopped near the synagogue as he heard a low, angry, keening sound. A sound of deep, hopeless pain.

  He followed the sound to the corner, and there was Rabbi Hirsch, his face the color of ashes, anger and grief clenching his jaws. He had a coarse towel in his hands and was violently scrubbing the walls of the front of the synagogue. Someone had painted about a dozen red swastikas on the dirty white bricks. The words JEW GO were daubed on the sealed front door. Even the sight of Michael did not ease his pained fury.

  “How could they do this?” the rabbi shouted bitterly. “Who could do this?”

  Michael put his arm around the rabbi’s waist, trying to comfort him, but the rabbi pulled away from the boy, seething with anger, and grabbed the picket fence for support. Michael backed away, feeling wounded and stupid, but also fearful that the wet paint would end up on his new suit. The rabbi reached for a mop and stabbed at the swastikas, smearing the fresh red paint.

  “Wait here,” Michael said. “Don’t go away.”

  He ran all the way to Sacred Heart, fighting a stitch in his side, ignoring the sweat that was dampening his fresh shirt. Each time he faltered, gasping for breath, he saw Rabbi Hirsch in his mind’s eye, and rage urged him on. Outside the church, the sidewalk was packed with people in flowered hats and new suits and newsboys selling The Tablet. It was as if the whole neighborhood were converging on the 10 A.M. solemn high mass that was to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Michael pushed through them, thinking, Move, goddamn it, move, and took the steps two at a time into the church.

  The nine o’clock mass was over, but the pews were almost full of those who wanted to hear the solemn high mass at ten, sung by three priests. Michael glanced up and saw that the choirboys were already assembled in the loft. An usher tried to stop him, but he pushed the man aside and hurried down the aisle and into the sacristy. He was relieved to find Father Heaney sitting on a chair, smoking a cigarette, finished with his own duties. The three other priests were helping each other don the gorgeous gold-embroidered white vestments used at Easter.

  “Father Heaney!” Michael hissed. “Listen, there’s—I gotta—you have to—”

  “Take a deep breath, kid,” the priest mumbled, “then tell me what you’re trying to say.”

  Father Heaney listened as Michael told him the story, his voice hushed, to avoid distracting the other priests, who were busy dressing, talking among themselves. Father Heaney’s face shifted. A deep vertical crease carved itself into his brow.

  “I’ll call the cops,” he said, standing suddenly and going to the sink to quench his cigarette.

  “No, you can’t do that, Father. The cops don’t care, we don’t ever call the cops, they—we’ve got to help him.”

  “Why?”

  Four alter boys suddenly entered the sacristy. Michael nodded hello. The altar boys went to the door leading to the altar and waited. Out in the sanctuary, the choir began to sing. One of the priests glanced at the wall clock, said, Let’s go, and altar boys and priests went out to begin mass as music surged around them. Father Heaney stood looking at Michael. His eyes were more focused now, as if a film of indifference or boredom were being peeled away.

  “We’re not cops,” Father Heaney said, when he and Michael were alone. Outside, the music soared. “Why should we get involved, kid?”

  “Because Rabbi Hirsch is a good guy!”

  “How do you know?” Father Heaney said, in the tone of someone who had seen too much evil.

  Michael exploded. “How do I know? I’m the Shabbos goy at the synagogue! I help him turn on the lights every Saturday morning. I’m teaching him English. He’s teaching me Yiddish. And his wife is dead and he’s alone and he doesn’t need some goddamned Nazi painting his synagogue!” The words clogged, as Michael realized he’d used the word goddamned to a priest, and then rushed forth again. “My father died fighting the Nazis. You saw all kinds of guys die in the war, you—”

  Father Heaney’s slits of eyes opened wider and he stepped back a foot, as if the words had pierced a part of him that had been numb for a long time. He raised a hand, palm out, stopping the flow of Michael’s words. He reached for his coat.

  “Come on,” he said.

  He walked out into the church, pointed at a few men and gestured for them to follow him. He grabbed one of the altar boys from the previous mass, a tall Italian kid named Albert. Some parishioners looked up from their prayer books at Father Heaney as if wondering why he was disrupting the mass. The choir reached a pitch and then stopped. Mr. Gallagher, the owner of the hardware store across the street, arrived late and was searching for a seat when Father Heaney took him by the elbow and guided him back outside.

  At the foot of the church steps, Father Heaney started giving orders like the military man he’d once been. He slipped two dollars to Albert, the altar boy, and sent him to buy some coffee and buns at the bakery. He convinced Mr. Gallagher to open the hardware store and hand out rags and scrubbers and solvents. On the corner near the schoolyard, he saw Charlie Senator, who had left his leg at Anzio, limping toward the church. He whispered a few words to him, and Senator gave him a small salute and fell in line.

  Then all of them were marching down the avenue, carrying mops and rags, pails and solvents. People in Easter finery looked at them in surprise. A few more men joined the line of march, with Father Heaney and Michael out front, as the platoon crossed the great square at the entrance to the park and turned into Kelly Street.

  Father Heaney’s face was now clenched in righteous anger, his mouth etched tight, the muscles moving in his jaws. He didn’t say a word. Michael wondered if he’d gone too far, mentioning his father. His mother never did that, not to the landlord, not to Michael, not ever, and he’d never done it before either. But it just came out, and it was true. Private Tommy Devlin had died fighting these momsers. These lousy pricks. And he suddenly pictured his father marching with them down Kelly Street, going again to fight the Nazis. Then he realized he was the only boy among almost a dozen men. And saw himself with his father’s platoon. Helmeted. Carrying a machine gun. Going to get these bastards who killed babies and old ladies and turned men into living skeletons. Heading for Belgium.

  When they reached the synagogue, Rabbi Hirsch was still poking with his mop at the first swastika.

  “Rabbi, I’m Joe Heaney,” the priest said. “I was a chaplain in the 103rd Airborne. Most of these men fought their way into Germany two years ago, and one of them lost a leg in Italy. They are not going to let this bullshit happen in their parish.”

  “Please,” Rabbi Hirsch said, “I can do it myself.”

  “No, you can’t,” Father Heaney said.

  And so they went to
work. Mr. Ponte, the stonemason, fingered the texture of the bricks, while Mr. Gallagher examined the paint. “Sapolin number 3,” Mr. Gallagher said. “Every moron in the parish paints his chairs with it and then sits down before they’re dry.” Together, he and Mr. Ponte mixed the solvents in a steel pail. Others peeled off their Easter jackets, removed their ties, rolled up their sleeves, and grabbed rags and mops. Father Heaney stripped to his T-shirt. Albert, the altar boy, arrived with buns and coffee, then grabbed a cloth. A police car came along and one of the cops wanted to make a report, but Father Heaney said that he and Rabbi Hirsch would take care of the matter in their own way.

  “We both believe in an Old Testament God,” Father Heaney said. “He punishes all morons.”

  The cops shrugged and drove away. Michael hung his jacket and tie on the picket fence, on top of Charlie Senator’s coat, and joined in the scrubbing. The men said little as they scrubbed and grunted. Their eyes seemed cloudy with memory, as if the things they had seen a few years earlier were driving them to finish. Michael was soon exhausted but pushed himself harder, thinking of the grainy black-and-white images from the Venus newsreels, the skeletal men, the hollow-eyed women, the mounds of corpses. Thinking of soldiers dead in the snow. He kept glancing at Rabbi Hirsch, but the man had retreated into himself, his lips moving inaudibly as he attacked the hated red paint. The word JEW vanished. Then the word GO. And another swastika.

  He must be thinking of her, Michael thought.

  His wife.

  Leah.

  At one point, Frankie McCarthy and four of the Falcons strolled up from Ellison Avenue and stood on the far corner beside the armory. For them, Michael thought, the hour was early. Usually, you didn’t see them until noon. They passed around a quart of Rheingold beer and wore sneers on their faces and one of them said something that made them all laugh. But they knew better than to look for trouble from this group of men. Michael thought: Come on, Frankie, shout something about the Kikes, come on. These guys kicked the shit out of the Wehrmacht, Frankie, these guys beat Tojo. Come on, prick.

  For a moment, Charlie Senator glared at the Falcons, as if he were thinking the same things, then went back to work, putting his weight on his good leg as he bent into the paint with his rags. Lighting cigarettes, jingling change in their pockets, the Falcons watched the Christians cleaning the swastikas from the synagogue and then went bopping away to the park.

  Finally, it was done. The walls were lighter where the swastikas had been painted. But the light patches had irregular shapes and didn’t indicate what had been put there on an Easter morning. Rabbi Hirsch walked back and forth alone, mounted the steps leading to the sealed front door of the upstairs sanctuary, examining the walls, then came back to the men. He was still shaking his head, his mouth a bitter slash. The men had finished cleaning their hands and pulling on their jackets and neckties. Most were sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes and wolfing down the buns from the bakery. They looked awkward now, saying little, staring at the wall or the sidewalk or the sky. In the war, Michael thought, they must have soldiered with Jews. But they certainly didn’t know many rabbis. The synagogue was as strange a place to them as it was to Michael on that first morning of ice and snow. He saw Rabbi Hirsch flex his fingers as if to shake hands, but his hands were covered with paint.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” the rabbi said hoarsely.

  “Here, Rabbi, use this stuff to get the paint off your hands,” said Mr. Gallagher, dipping a rag into the solvent. “It smells awful, but it does the job.”

  “Thank you, and thank you, Father Heaney,” the rabbi said, cleaning his hands. “And Michael…”

  His body shook in a dry, choked way, but he would not weep.

  “I wish to the synagogue, you all could come,” the rabbi said. “To have a big seder together.… But food we don’t have here, just tea, and matzoh, and—”

  “It’s all right, Rabbi,” Father Heaney said. “Some other time.”

  The rabbi bowed in a stiff, dignified way. Michael looked at his eyes and saw that he did not believe there would be another time. They would all go back to their world and he would stay in his.

  “I’ll see you, Rabbi,” Mr. Gallagher said, and grabbed the pail, emptying the solvents into the gutter, nodding to the others to retrieve the mops. “Let’s move out,” he said. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  Charlie Senator glanced at his watch and then at Father Heaney.

  “Well,” he said, “I better go do my Easter duty.”

  “You just did,” Father Heaney said, popping a Camel from his pack.

  22

  That afternoon, after hanging up his suit and taking a bath to wash away the odor of the solvents, Michael handed his mother the five dollars. He explained about Mrs. Griffin but didn’t tell her the details of his dreams.

  “Och, Michael, you should keep it,” she said, holding each corner of the bill with thumb and forefinger. “It was your dream.”

  “No, let’s save it for a phonograph.” He told her about the composers Rabbi Hirsch had mentioned, finding their names written into his notebook. Smetana, Dvoák, Mahler. “We can hear all the music they don’t play on the radio.”

  “Fair enough,” she said, and put the bill in her purse.

  Then they sat down to an early dinner. Kate Devlin did not mention what had happened at the synagogue, so he knew she must have taken the trolley car to the eight o’clock mass at Sacred Heart. If she had walked, she’d have seen the swastikas. But Michael did not want to spoil the meal by relating the events of the morning. The meal was the reason she’d risen so early to go to mass and had then rushed home to scrub potatoes and peel carrots, and prepare the small pot roast for the amazing oven of the new gas stove. That, and one other thing: although she had paid for a new suit for Michael, she did not buy an Easter outfit for herself. “I think I’ll skip the fashion show at the eleven o’clock mass, thank you very much,” she’d said before leaving. Now the kitchen was filled with the aroma of the roast, and before they sat down she toasted the hametz that Rabbi Hirsch had sent to them for Passover.

  “Well, happy Easter, son,” she said, “and to all the others who don’t have food.”

  She said grace then, with Michael adding an “amen,” and they began to eat. The meat was pink and savory and he cut off small pieces and tried to chew them slowly. He still ate much faster than his mother did. He slathered butter on the opened potatoes and the crunchy toasted hametz. He piled more carrots on his plate. She cautioned him about using too much salt. He sipped cold water. Then he told her what a seder was and how Jesus and the disciples were actually at a seder when they had the Last Supper and how next year Rabbi Hirsch wanted them to come to a seder at the synagogue and was going to invite Jackie Robinson too. Kate Devlin thought that was a wonderful idea and said she would cook and they could carry the food up to Kelly Street.

  But when dinner was almost over, he told her what had happened that morning. Kate Devlin was furious about the swastikas and thrilled at what Father Heaney and the men had done.

  “At least they’re not all a bunch of bigots,” she said. “There’s still a lot of decent people around here, no matter what you might think.”

  They talked about how the police had to find the people with the red paint and how it was probably the Falcons, since Frankie McCarthy had come by with his boys to see the results. They usually ate breakfast when other people ate lunch.

  “You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes,” she said, “to figure that one out.”

  But as this was Easter Sunday, and she wanted to make it special for the boy, she didn’t dwell on the story. It was one more terrible event in a sinful world. After dinner, they walked together to the Grandview, where she was working that night. This was a big deal for Michael: because there was no school on Easter Monday, he could sit through the entire double feature, along with cartoons, the newsreel, and the coming attractions, while Kate worked in the box office. And he would go home with her
when the pictures were over. She took him through the lobby to a side door, bought him a box of Good and Plenty candies, and then went to the box office.

  The first movie was a western with Joel McCrea, and although he missed the beginning, he felt as if he’d already seen it ten times at the Venus, with different actors. The other movie was 13 Rue Madeleine, with James Cagney, all about four OSS spies who infiltrated France to destroy a secret German rocket base before D day. The address in the title was Gestapo headquarters, and one of the OSS agents was secretly a German spy. Michael disappeared into the movie, training with Cagney, operating secret radios in barns and basements, moving bravely down dark European streets in a holy mission against the Nazis. When it was over, he felt uneasy. The swastikas were obviously symbols of evil, the Nazis were clearly the bad guys. How could anybody copy the Nazis by putting swastikas on a synagogue? Probably the Falcons. But maybe someone else. Maybe people right here in the RKO Grandview.

  His feeling of unease worsened when the newsreel came on after the coming attractions, just before the Joel McCrea picture was to play again for the last time that night and he could see what he had missed. Part of the newsreel was about Jackie Robinson signing with the Dodgers. It showed Branch Rickey shaking hands with the smiling black player, and film of Robinson in Havana, slashing a ball to left field and dashing to first in a pigeon-toed way, his hat falling off as he rounded the base. Some people cheered. But about half the audience booed. In Brooklyn! They were booing a Dodger!