by Allen Zadoff
I look at Herschel. His eyes are closed and he’s praying.
“Not now,” I say, and I nudge him.
He holds up a finger for me to wait, his eyes still closed.
He finishes, then opens his eyes. He seems calmer. He says to the TSA agent, “Please, sir, may I have a word with you?”
The TSA agent looks him up and down.
Herschel motions for us to step back, and we do.
The TSA agent nods once. He and Herschel step to the side to converse.
Sweet Caroline clasps my elbow, her fingers digging into my flesh.
“We have to hurry,” she says.
“I know, I know,” I say.
I keep imagining Mom getting on the plane, the plane taxiing out slowly, then taking off just as we get there. If we ever get there. It’s not looking good.
The TSA agent argues with Herschel, but Herschel remains calm. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but he keeps talking, smoothing his payis with long strokes.
Just when I think it’s a lost cause, the TSA agent steps back and Herschel motions for us to come towards them.
“I’m Episcopalian,” the agent is saying to Herschel as we get to them.
“God bless you, Edward,” Herschel says to him, and they shake hands.
“Follow me, kids,” the agent says. “Open it, Jerry!”
The gate clicks, and we’re suddenly bypassing the security check in.
“Me plus three,” the agent shouts as we race past a phalanx of police officers.
Before I can even understand what’s happened, we’re running through the airport with the TSA agent shouting, “Clear a path!” to the people in front of us.
People jump out of the way and let us pass.
“Left turn,” the agent shouts, and we race down the corridor.
We burst into the hall that feeds into the boarding gates.
“64B,” I shout, and we head for the gate, the agent leading the way.
When we get there, it’s already empty. The gate agent is closing the door.
“We’re too late,” I say.
“What your mother’s name?” the TSA agent says.
“Rebekah Zuckerman,” I say.
He runs to the gate agent, says a few words to her, and she unlocks the door. He disappears down the gangway. We’re left there looking at one another.
“Is this the right flight?” Herschel says.
“Maybe we missed it,” Sweet Caroline says.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
A minute passes, but it feels like hours.
Mom peeks her head out of the door. She looks around, confused, until she sees us.
“Oh my God,” she says, and she runs over and throws her arms around me and Sweet Caroline.
“I thought I wouldn’t get to say good-bye to you,” Mom says.
“Me, too. I’m sorry, Mom.”
She hugs me even harder. Then she notices Herschel behind us.
“You brought Herschel?” she says. “How did you all get here?”
“It’s a long story,” I say.
I put my hand on Sweet Caroline’s back.
“Give us a minute?” I say softly.
She nods and steps back to where Herschel is waiting.
Mom says, “I thought a lot about what you said, Sanskrit. About the choice I’m making. I thought I knew what I was doing, but I feel confused now.”
“Confused about what?”
“About India. About leaving my family.”
“Really?”
She looks back towards the gate, then at me.
“There you are,” Dad says, jogging up behind us escorted by the other TSA agent. “Jesus H., you can’t pee in this place without a secret service detail.”
“Your father is here, too?” Mom says.
“He brought us.”
Mom looks surprised. She takes a curl of my hair between her fingers. Her skin is cool against my neck.
“I’m lost,” Mom says.
Her voice is small and high like a little girl’s.
“Tell me what to do,” she says.
This is what Herschel was talking about, the moment I can ask Mom to stay. I’m trying to form the words when the guru appears at the gate door with the agent behind him.
I expect the guru to come out and grab Mom, but he doesn’t. He stays there, framed in the doorway. He smiles at me—a kind smile like he’s glad to see me here. But how can he be glad?
I look behind me at Sweet Caroline, Herschel, and Dad.
“Sanskrit?” Mom says. She holds my face in her hands. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
All I have to do is tell Mom I want her to stay. That I need her here. We need her.
She’ll stay. I can feel it.
But then what?
Will she suddenly love Sweet Caroline and me like she’s supposed to? Will she be a mother to us?
Will she be happy?
The guru is watching us, giving us space.
I hate him so much.
But I try to see him through Mom’s eyes. He is her future. Her spiritual partner. Her chance for love.
I can barely think of him like that, but barely is enough. Because it gives me some perspective on Mom. She’s been happy since she met him. I haven’t seen her like this in years.
No. I’ve never seen her like this.
I open my mouth to tell Mom to stay, and something comes over me. A different feeling. Like the feeling I had at Dr. Prem’s.
I feel lighter. I can breathe.
I notice the carpet, that awful pattern you see in hotel lobbies, airports, and other public spaces. I follow the lines of the pattern. All roads lead to Mom. All roads lead away. It depends on your perspective.
Mom is lost. She said it herself. Nobody leaves her kids unless she’s lost.
I pull Mom closer to me, so close that my face is right up against her ear.
“I want you to go to India,” I say. “I want you to find yourself.”
“Do you mean it?”
I nod.
Mom bursts into tears.
“I want you to find out who you are so you can come back and be our mother.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Mom cries so hard that she grabs onto me for balance. She makes blubbering sounds, and snot comes out of her nose. It’s not pretty.
She sinks down to her knees in front of me, still holding on.
“Why are you crying?” I say.
“I’m so happy,” Mom says. “And sad, too. I’m everything all at once.”
Mom pulls me down to her and covers my face with kisses.
“Love and Sanskrit,” Mom says. “That’s how I’ll remember this day. The two gifts you’ve given me.”
The guru comes forward. “We have to go,” he says.
He puts his hands on Mom’s shoulders and she rises. I stay there, sitting on the ground.
“I love you, Sanskrit,” Mom says.
“I love you, too, Mom.”
She kisses me, then goes to Sweet Caroline.
“Don’t go, Mommy! Please!” Sweet Caroline says.
Mom hugs her.
“Sanskrit, do something!” Sweet Caroline screams, not understanding what’s happening.
Mom envelops her in a hug.
The guru and I look at each other.
He presses his palms together at chest level.
“Namaste,” he says, and he bows deeply to me.
“Namaste,” I say.
“Closing the door,” the gate agent says.
Mom and the guru join hands and walk onto the gangway. The agent closes and locks the door behind them. The TSA agent stands by the door, sniffling and rubbing at his eyes.
The hall fills with people. People leave, more people come. It’s the rhythm of the airport. I sit down on the floor as people pass around me.
I feel pressure on my back. It’s Sweet Caroline. She hits me.
“I thought you were go
ing to make her to stay!” she says.
She slams me on the back.
“I hate you!” she says.
The punches become slaps, and then Sweet Caroline collapses into tears.
“She needed to go,” I whisper. “She’ll be back. I know she will.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
She slumps down to the floor behind me and puts her legs on the outside of mine. She hugs me tightly, her arms around my chest. I hear her sniffling and feel her nose running wet through my shirt.
Dad is watching us, unsure what to do. I can see that he wants to help, he just doesn’t know how. He finally takes a step towards us, but I give him the one minute finger.
I shift around so I’m facing Sweet Caroline. We hug each other, curled together on the floor.
“Your makeup is running,” I say.
Sweet Caroline dabs at her eyes.
“Does it look bad?”
“It just looks like you’ve been crying. You shouldn’t be wearing makeup, anyway. You’re only twelve.”
“Give me a break,” she says. “All the girls wear it.”
I say, “If all the girls jumped off a bridge, would you?”
“That’s a lame Dad line,” Sweet Caroline says.
We stand up. Dad waits for us across the way with a big goofy smile on his face.
“I’ve already got a father,” Sweet Caroline says. “Sort of.”
“Good point,” I say.
“But I could use a brother,” she says.
“You’ve got one.”
She holds my hand.
“We have to take care of each other,” I say. “It’s not going to be easy.”
Herschel is talking to Dad now. It looks like one of those man-to-man talks Herschel specializes in.
An engine roars as Mom’s plane pulls back from the gate. Sweet Caroline turns and runs to the window. I join her. We stand together, watching until Mom disappears.
“We’re truly sorry
it didn’t work out.”
This is what the dean says in his office the next day. I would accuse him of grandstanding, of trying to look good in front of everyone, but there’s nobody here except him and me.
It’s my exit interview from Jewish school.
“We had high hopes for you,” he says. “Not just because we wanted you to do well, but because we know how much it meant to your zadie.”
That last part really stings.
“I was a long shot,” I say. “Even I knew that.”
“There are no long shots in God’s world,” the dean says. “If God’s reach is infinite, then what does it matter how far we are from him? The greatest distance is nothing to the Almighty.”
“That’s a nice thought,” I say.
“You don’t believe it.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s where faith comes in, Aaron.”
“Sanskrit. My name is Sanskrit, but you always call me Aaron.”
“Your Hebrew name is also your name. Ah-roan.”
He uses the Hebrew pronunciation.
“No, it’s not. My grandfather pushed a Hebrew name on me, but it’s not my name. My mother gave me my name, and it’s the name I want to be called.”
“I stand corrected,” he says.
The dean stands up, extends his hand.
“I wish you luck, Sanskrit.”
For a moment, I think about walking away without shaking his hand. My grand exit from Jewish school. But the dean is being a mensch, so I will, too.
I shake the man’s hand.
“Thanks for trying,” I say.
“That’s my job,” he says. “It was not so difficult with you, Sanskrit. Not as difficult as you would believe.”
“I don’t know about that.”
I think about Mom, how difficult it was for her to be my mother. I always assumed it was because I was difficult to begin with. But what if the dean is right?
It’s not that I’m difficult, it’s just that Mom has trouble being a mom.
“Good-bye, dean,” I say.
I head for the door.
“Even though you’re leaving us, don’t leave God,” the dean says.
When I get outside, Dorit is sitting at her desk in the main office. She follows me with her eyes.
“What?” I say.
“I rubbed your back,” she says angrily. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Guilty as charged.”
Her face softens.
“Honesty,” she says. “That’s a good beginning for you.”
There’s nothing else to say.
That’s what I think as I walk through school for the last time.
Nothing to say to Herschel. Nothing to The Initials.
It’s all been said.
I walk past my cabinet for the last time.
I go out to the parking lot. I look across to the synagogue.
On one side is the school, on the other the synagogue. Cars in between. The secular and the spiritual, separated by the real world of gas prices.
I walk out to the street, and I stop.
I look back at the synagogue. For some reason, I want to see it again. One last time before I go.
Jewish jail.
That’s what it felt like when I was a kid. My parents would drag me to services on Saturday mornings. Not Mom. Not anymore. But in the past when she and Dad were still pretending to be Jewish for der kinder.
They’d drag me to synagogue for services on Shabbat morning. They’d drop me off in a classroom with the other kids before going into the big synagogue.
We’d have a separate and supposedly fun children’s service, designed to make us fall in love with Judaism.
The Hebrew school’s idea of fun? We sat on a cold linoleum floor, squirming and hating it, while they taught us Bible stories and made us clap and sing Dayenu and other Jewish songs.
When I was finally old enough to be in the synagogue, what did I discover?
A group of adults sitting on barely padded benches, squirming and hating it.
Jewish jail. It’s a life sentence.
That was the real lesson of synagogue. It never ends.
Not true. It ends now. It ends for me.
No more Jewish school. No more services. No more hard floors or benches.
It took me getting thrown out of school, but I’m free now.
Like Herschel said, I could go somewhere else. There are plenty of private Jewish schools that will take me if I can afford the tuition. It wouldn’t have to be in L.A. I could go over to Pasadena or down to South Bay. Up to Northridge. There are other schools, more liberal schools, plenty of places to spend Zadie Zuckerman’s money.
But Dad and I talked about it last night, and he came around to my way of thinking. I’m going to be a public school kid again. I promised him I’d go to a state school and apply for financial aid when it came time for college. That probably means UCLA instead of Brandeis, but it’s a small price to pay for freedom. The dean thinks God has an infinite reach? He never met Zadie Zuckerman. Zadie was reaching all the way from the grave to make me a Jew in his own image, but he failed.
It’s a great day for me. An even greater day for the Tay-Sachs research community.
I walk through the main hall of the synagogue. Portraits of the executive committee look down on me. Then portraits of the building committee. Then portraits of high-level donors. Lots of glaring Jews with white hair.
I imagine Zadie’s portrait among them. What would he say if he could see me now?
On the opposite wall is a Chagall print of a somber Jewish man contemplating the Torah while his goat looks on. An angel dances high above them. A fiddle sits unplayed on the ground.
Man trapped between heaven and earth. In one place, thinking of the other.
Maybe that’s how it was in little Russian villages in the nineteenth century, but that’s not how it is now. At least not for me.
I arrive
at the dark carved-wood doors of the synagogue. I’ve walked through these doors several hundred times in the last two years. I’ve hated every time.
But it feels different now with nobody around. No ushers reminding me to put a kippah on my head. No jostling for the good seats.
I touch the door, let my fingers trace the carved wood.
I go inside.
There’s nobody here.
The pews are ready for services, the prayer books stuck in little pockets. At the front of the synagogue is the raised carpeted bima, the stage where the rabbi and cantor stand. It’s just high enough that everyone in the synagogue can see them. In the Jewish religion, we’re taught that there is no intermediary needed to reach God. The rabbi does not stand above you. He stands among you. You connect to God together.
But everyone wants to see the show, so they have the bima.
Above it is the Eternal Light. The flame of the Jewish people. The reminder of God. It never goes out because it’s connected to a gas line with its own power source.
HaShem is a pilot light. It’s like praying to your stove.
I sit down in a pew. It’s nice in the syngagogue when it’s quiet, when nobody’s around to blow their noses, say stupid things, daven too much, slip mints to their family during the sermon, forget to turn off their cell phones.
I think about the life of the synagogue and the culture that surrounds it. It usually seems absurd to me, a lot of noise that adds up to nothing. But now I think of it a little differently.
Everyone is trying. Herschel is trying. My teachers. The rabbi, the dean, my whole school. They’re all trying.
Outside of school, too.
Mom is trying. Dr. Prem is trying.
Judi Jacobs and Barry Goldwasser. The yoga mommies.
Even the guru.
They’re all trying to feel connected to something bigger than them.
I lean forward in the pew. It’s hard wood. Not comfortable at all.
But I like it in here. It’s quiet. Kind of nice. I never knew that before.
I never knew people were trying, and I never knew it was nice in the synagogue.
“Great Spirit—” I say.
And then I stop. Because I don’t know what a great spirit is. That’s Mom’s word.
“Infinite and Divine,” I say, because that’s how Dr. Prem says it. But it doesn’t feel right to me.
“God,” I say.
I don’t know what God is either, but I don’t hate the word.