by Naomi Ragen
She stared at it. She had intended wearing it that evening. But having it selected for her this way was unbearably annoying. With a firm and deliberate motion, she hung it back inside the closet, taking out a wrinkled white cotton blouse and a long, crush-pleated Indian skirt. She showered and dressed quickly, determined to have a word with Gabriel.
Servants in black uniforms with white aprons stopped scurrying as she passed, nodding and greeting her with a curtsy and a friendly “Buenas noches, Señorita Abraham.”
How many were there, she began to wonder in dismay. Didn’t these people do anything for themselves? But the help all looked content and well-fed. Creating employment was also a virtue, she admitted grudgingly.
She wandered though the house until she reached the dining room. The table had been exquisitely set. Crystal, porcelain, and silver—spotlessly clean and polished to perfection—created the feeling of a royal banqueting table from a different age. The centerpiece was a huge silver candelabra.
“My dear!” Auntie Claudina suddenly appeared, her gracious and friendly glance betraying only the most imperceptible surprise as she took in Suzanne’s wrinkled outfit. She herself was dressed in a black suit of silk brocade straight from the couture houses of Paris.
“I’m sorry about the clothes,” Suzanne stammered, filled with a sudden, sharp regret. “I didn’t realize…”
“Never mind,” Claudina patted her arm. “It takes a while to get used to us, I know. But we didn’t invite your clothes, we invited you!” She looked tiny and elflike as she leaned on her cane. “I was just about to light my candles. Won’t you join me?”
Suzanne hesitated.
She hated mumbo-jumbo, the repetition of meaningless rituals performed to satisfy some bullying invisible power—call it “custom,” or “G-d,” or “family tradition.” But then she thought of the consequences. She wasn’t, after all, at home now. She was a guest. And this was someone else’s party.
To her surprise, Claudina walked past the candelabra into an alcove near the fireplace. A small card table was set up in the corner. They weren’t Sabbath candles at all, Suzanne realized, but small glass dishes filled with oil and floating wicks.
“I thought you meant the Sabbath candles.”
“Ah, that, too, soon. But first these. Have you never seen them before?”
“I…I don’t really remember.”
“Your grandmother, perhaps?”
No. Not Gran. She was certain of that. “My grandmother is rather, well, nontraditional in some ways. What are they for?”
“Oh, everything. And everyone. This one I light for my niece who is having an ultrasound on Sunday. They fear something might be wrong with the baby. And this one is for my brother’s boy, who took his law exams today. These are for the souls of my father and mother and my husband, and this for the child I lost in the womb. And this is for the Jews of Salonika who lie in unmarked graves. There were fourteen thousand Jews in Salonika before the war. Twelve thousand were killed. Many were from my mother’s family. Did you know that eighty-nine percent of Ladino-speaking Jews in the world died at Hitler’s hands, many of them in Auschwitz? We are all that is left.” She spread out her hands, including Suzanne. “A tiny, precious few. And this one is for Gabriel. And this one is for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, to light your way in the world, that you might find your true path home.”
What could she mean by that? Suzanne wondered, staring at the candles. “Lights for the living, and for the dead?”
“The dead are with us always no less than the living. The flame gives them pleasure. They know that we think of them.”
Suzanne studied her old hand as it held a lit taper to the wicks. One after another, they burst into flame, hovering like floating gold in the pale, dusky room. Wordlessly, Suzanne took the taper, lighting a wick of her own.
In the pale, golden light, she studied Claudina.
There was something ageless and regal in the lift of her head and the way her eyes smiled with the serene mystery of a Buddha. She seemed to be contemplating some truth that transcended time, a vision both wise and unexplainable.
Suzanne stared at the tiny, leaping flame, thinking of Renaldo.
Your family is right. You will find someone better for you. Someone who deserves you and can truly make you happy….
His dark brown eyes had been full of pain.
And now she’d betrayed him. Betrayed their love.
She’d proven him right.
“And now, the Sabbath candles. These are the most powerful ones of all. They bring perfect peace. Even the souls of the suffering sinners in gehinnom are released on the Sabbath.”
She watched Claudina light the wicks in the beautiful silver candelabra, waving her hands over them, then touching her fingertips to her closed eyelids, whispering the incantation:
Baruch ata Adonai Elohenu melech haolam,
asher kiddishanu be mitzvotav vetzevanu
l’hadlik nar shel Shabbat
She imitated clumsily, repeating the strange words. A warmth came over her, and in the distance she heard music, like the murmur of tiny bells.
“And now you must add a prayer, one of your own choosing, and in your own words.”
“I can’t…I’ve never…”
“Then listen: G-d of my fathers and mothers before me, who has sweetened my life and given me blessings beyond measure, hear my prayer. Bless my children and grandchildren with good health and peace of mind. May they want for nothing, and may they please You always with deeds of kindness and charity. Help my cousin Orvieda find a good bride for her son. Please don’t let the Hassan brothers open a successful store next door to my son Serge’s. Let my psoriasis heal. And may the rains not flood Gibraltar this winter as it did last. Amen.”
Suzanne smiled at the mixture of sublime and ridiculous. She closed her eyes and waved her hands over the kindled lights. “G-d of my fathers and mothers before me, hear my prayer,” she repeated silently. “Bless Gabriel Fonseca, the man I love. Let nothing ever part us. Bring your healing grace to my grandmother in her hour of need, so that her soul find ease. Give me wisdom to help all those who come to me in need. Direct my steps toward good in the world all the days of my life.”
She opened her eyes and stared into the flickering flames, which blurred like watercolors through her brimming eyes. “Excuse me, Auntie. I’ll be right back.”
She walked to her room, closing the door behind her and leaning against it. Slowly, she pulled off her clothing, changing into the green silk dress and twisting her hair into an elegant French braid. She stared at herself in the mirror. “Leave me alone,” she said, shrugging, her mouth twisting in irony.
The lively mixture of adult voices, squealing children, and deep male laughter drifted down to her as she walked back toward the dining room.
“You look exquisite!” Gabriel exclaimed, taking her in his arms. “Your whole face is glowing.”
She touched her flushed cheeks. “Is it?”
He was dressed as she had never seen him before: a dark, beautifully tailored suit, a dazzlingly white shirt, and a blue paisley tie. There was a gleam about him, a wondrous aura of light.
“The whole family is here. The children, especially, adore being together. But I have to warn you, it gets a bit loud.”
“Do they do this often?”
“Every Friday night.”
“And I thought my family was bad getting together once a year for Passover!” she groaned.
“You will like it,” he said with completely unwarranted confidence.
About as much as a root canal, she thought, wondering how she was going to extract him from all this.
“Here, child, sit by me.”
Suzanne followed Claudina dutifully to the head of the table. To her great relief, Gabriel sat down on her left. The room began to fill. Claudina’s son, Serge, and his wife, Orvieda; Orvieda’s sister, Esther, and her husband, Joseph; Claudina’s daughter,
Rachel, and her husband, Moses; and numerous children of all ages.
The men wore impeccable, bespoke Savile Row suits, the women equally English fashions straight out of Harrod’s or Sloan Square. The women, though they looked well-to-do, had nothing in common with the spoiled, nail-wrapped women of her mother’s set. Their faces were more serious, and their clothes expensive, but practical and subtle. They looked, she thought, like the successful, hardworking businesswomen most of them surely were. These busy shops did not run themselves.
And the children: She simply lost count after a while. There were quite a few redheads and blonds, beautifully dressed little girls wearing frilly Laura Ashley—style dresses, bows in their hair, and patent-leather shoes. The boys ranged in size from stringy, shy adolescents to a toddling two-year-old hell-raiser bent on overturning the crystal vases. They wore their holiday best: white shirts and jackets and well-pressed dress pants. A few, but not all, wore black skullcaps.
“Buenas entradas de Saba!” they greeted one another.
“What does that mean?” Suzanne whispered to Gabriel.
“‘Happy entry into the Sabbath,’” he whispered back. “And the proper response is, ‘Shabbat shalom umevorach.’ But don’t worry about it! No one will mind if you don’t join in.”
It was true. Everyone had beautiful manners, even the children, who were curiously friendly, but in a diffident, sweetly shy manner that seemed from a different era. What a well-behaved, happy, self-confident bunch they were! she thought with grudging admiration. Was it growing up in these big, extended families that gave that to them? Being led by their parents’ hands to and from a house of worship every week? These big, festive, holiday meals?
Or were they simply normal kids with punishments hanging over their heads compelling them to put on their best behavior to impress the company?
They probably all hate each other and are just afraid not to show up here, her inner voice lectured. Get to them one by one and they’ll tell you how this one cheated that one, and how they all can’t stand Claudina, who runs roughshod over them, batting them into place with her wealth or her other devious powers.
There is no such thing as one big, happy family.
But it was hard to find any real evidence backing up these silent allegations. Claudina looked as fragile as the pages of an old manuscript, and far too full of simple happiness to harbor Machiavellian plots. And as the family slowly took their places around the table, and Suzanne’s senses took in the scene in its entirety, it seemed even more unlikely.
There was a glow of warmth, a feeling of riches, she thought. Not the material kind, but something else: the sense of growth, of something flourishing and healthy. Like a plant with abundant new leaves ready to unfurl. Alive, vibrant.
And then, without warning, everyone began to sing: It sounded like some Spanish cancionero, something very authentic and old. Even the smallest children seemed to know the words. And the volume! Suzanne thought, shaking her head. Something tribal!
That’s what had always been missing from her family’s holiday meals, she thought. The loud voices of children. It had always been just her and Francesca surrounded by plodding adults with bad bodies and strange hairdos making terrible jokes and strained attempts to encourage an intimacy they hadn’t earned. And even the younger uncles, the ones she wouldn’t have minded knowing, lived too far away to really be part of her life, or she theirs. It was no one’s fault. Once a family spread out like that all over the world, you ceased to really be a family, except in name.
She watched Gabriel take a small, dark skullcap from his pocket and place it on his head.
“Why?” she whispered, surprised and confused.
“Respect, tradition.” He shrugged. “Does it bother you?”
“No, not at all,” she lied.
The maids brought in platters of food. Different kinds of fish, vegetables, and olives prepared a dozen ways. And each time one plate was passed around, another took its place.
“So much food!” Suzanne exclaimed, changing the subject with a little too much haste.
“Too much food? Is that what you said?” Serge, a charming, distinguished older man graying at the temples, leaned over and winked at her with a mischievous smile.
“It wasn’t meant as a…that is…I didn’t mean to…” Suzanne stammered.
Serge snorted with amusement. “My dear Suzanne. The meal hasn’t even begun yet!”
Everyone laughed, but in a friendly, almost self-deprecating way. “We Sephardim have a custom of saying a hundred blessings a day. On the Sabbath, since we don’t have the chance to say our usual number, we have to make up for the loss by saying extra blessings over food. That’s why we add all these extra dishes at the beginning,” Joseph explained with the air of the Talmud student he obviously once was.
She nodded, surprised. She’d assumed it was just the usual family stuff-fest. But knowing this made it seem less a meal than an orchestrated ceremony, with its own choreography and score.
Ritual followed ritual. First, Serge rose at the head of the table and poured wine into a magnificent silver beaker that he held in the palm of his hand. Everyone at the table rose up with him in respect, and even the children were silent as he recited the prayer sanctifying the day as a special one: Baruch ata Adonai…
“What do the words mean?” she questioned Gabriel in a whisper.
“‘Blessed be You, G-d, our G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified us by His commandments and taken pleasure in us, and, in love and favor, given us His holy Sabbath as an inheritance,’” he whispered back.
“An inheritance,” she mused, looking around the table at the rapt, intent faces. Something to pass down, to give, like a gift.
When Serge was finished, the children responded like little soldiers to some unspoken command, walking to the head of the table and bending their heads. One by one, Serge laid his hands upon their bright hair, murmuring blessings over them.
Grandpa Carl, his big fingers warming her scalp as he recited magic incantations to protect her from all harm, Suzanne suddenly remembered. Her turn, then Francesca’s. She’d made him stop, of course, when she got into junior high, embarrassed, not wanting anyone—even Grandpa—to touch her. And then the last time, his breathing so heavy at the end….
She reached up and dabbed her eyes, wondering if the mascara was going to run, feeling like a fool. She was thankful that no one seemed to notice. They were busy again, rising and pouring water over their hands from a silver cup into a porcelain basin, then reciting more blessings over shiny, braided loaves torn into small pieces and dipped in salt.
Bread and wine, she thought. Renaldo would say it’s just like the Sacrament.
Rituals, and more rituals.
Did it really give you anything? she wondered. Or was it just more useless baggage you dragged around until you had the guts to unload it? Like Francesca’s suitcases. She smiled. But then, one never knew, did one, just when such seemingly useless baggage was going to come in handy. She looked down at her dress, wondering what she was going to wear tomorrow.
She looked across the table at Orvieda sitting next to her husband, leaning over to talk to her sister Esther. Further down were their children, all sitting together, the older ones watching the younger, straightening bows and wiping chins.
Francesca and me, she thought. A few years from now, sitting side by side, our kids like brothers and sisters. Everyone helping one another, the table groaning from food, the room filled with voices. Beginning our own family tree all over again.
She looked at Gabriel. He was smiling, relaxed, leaning over to tease the children, especially the smaller ones. There was a marked family resemblance.
He belonged in that picture, she thought. It was his perfect place.
But did she? Or was this exactly what she had been running from her whole life?
She thought about it with a growing sense of panic. And then the food began to arrive in earnest. Platters of roast meat
s, chicken in wine, large bowls of fresh and cooked vegetables delicately seasoned with olive oil and fresh spices. Meat-stuffed grape leaves, and delicate filled squares of puff pastry. There were platters of vegetables stuffed and baked with meat and rice—tomatoes, squash, and green peppers—and numerous dips made of eggplant and red peppers. Everything was incredibly delicious. She ate what she thought were enormous amounts, but the platters kept coming back to her, with a general admonition to do them justice. She tried, until she thought she might actually burst something.
“We have been trying for ages to find someone for Gabriel. How did you two meet?” Orvieda asked. She was a small, elegant woman with the bearing of a true aristocrat. Her question was neither coy nor intrusive, simply the friendly curiosity of an ally.
“Fate?” Suzanne answered, leaning lightly against him.
“What does it matter if she chased him or he chased her,” Serge said wickedly. “You women always have it your own way!”
“Our own way?” Orvieda huffed, frowning at her husband. “I suppose I had it my own way!”
“Now, now.”
“Orvieda could have had any man she wanted, any man at all!” said Esther—a tall, dark beauty—rushing to her sister’s defense, although Suzanne couldn’t understand what needed defending here.
“I just didn’t want to marry on the rebound,” Orvieda explained sorely, obviously assuming Suzanne knew all kinds of things she didn’t know.
“My son Serge just couldn’t make up his mind,” Claudina announced authoritatively. “He was opening one store after the next, making too much money for his own good, and he didn’t see any reason to get married.”
“Now, Madre,” Serge said mildly, leaning back easily in his chair. He turned to Suzanne, his eyes amused. “I had everything I needed. A fine, small apartment with a maid and a cook. I spent plenty of time with my nieces and nephews, what did I need to rush into marriage for? Wives just rule over you!” He nodded conspiratorially at Gabriel.