The Mystics of Mile End

by Sigal Samuel

  Luckily I didn’t have much to worry about because mostly what I’d written was lists. For example, one list was called “Very Important Qualities According to My Father,” which was an excellent list even though the title was maybe not 100 percent true since some of the qualities were thought up by me and not Dad. I checked it for embarrassing details just in case.

  VERY IMPORTANT QUALITIES ACCORDING TO MY FATHER:

  1. Highly intelligent

  2. Good cook

  3. Easy on the eyes

  4. Likes watching TV on Friday nights

  5. Likes playing board games on Saturday mornings

  6. Very funny

  7. Interested in Judaism but not too interested

  8. Smells nice

  That list looked okay to me. I still wished I’d had the idea to write everything in code, but so far there was nothing too bad and I figured I was probably safe for now.

  I closed my journal and stuffed it under my pillow, but I didn’t turn off the flashlight. Instead I pointed it at my door so that Sammy could see the light from her room across the hall. Then she would come to my room and say, using her most grown-up voice, “Lights out!” or “It’s past your bedtime,” which was this thing she did for me sometimes. Sure enough, a few seconds later my door creaked open and she said, “It’s past your bedtime,” and I said, “Just five more minutes?” and she said, “No,” and I said, “You’re not the boss of me,” and she said, “Yes I am,” and I said, “Whatever,” and then I pretended to be all upset even though I was not. I turned off my flashlight and she closed my door and I smiled up at the ceiling, and when I fell asleep the smile was still on my face, because what I really was right then was happy.

  That Friday, I got home from painting at Mr. Katz’s house and went straight to the kitchen to get a Fudgsicle from the freezer. A minute later, Sammy came in and got a cherry Popsicle and started eating it while balancing on one foot. The red light on the answering machine was flashing, so I pressed Play and listened.

  The first message was from Dad. He said he was going to be at the university late because he was giving a special lecture about evolution and fundamentalism and that we could make whatever we wanted for dinner. I made a mental note to look up fundamentalism in the dictionary, then I hit Delete.

  The second message was from Ira, Jenny’s dad, who taught at the same university. He was calling to make sure Dad knew about the faculty meeting on Tuesday, so I made a mental note to remind him. Then, just when I was about to hit Delete, Ira’s voice started up again.

  “I almost forgot! You’ll be getting an invitation in the mail, too, but I wanted to let you know that Jenny’s bat mitzvah is in just a few weeks! We’re all so excited, and of course we’d be honored if you’d come and celebrate with us. So! June twenty-third, save the date!”

  He hung up, and two things happened: the answering machine beeped, and Sammy lost her balance. The foot that had been dangling in the air fell to the floor. I looked at her face and saw that it was red. She looked at my hands and saw that they were green. We looked at the floor and said nothing.

  Then I had a genius idea. I asked if we had any M&M’s and she said that she had just bought some, so I went to look for her backpack, which was near the front door. I unzipped the biggest pocket and the M&M’s were right on top. When my hand grabbed the package, I felt something soft and velvety underneath. I pulled it out and saw that it was a long blue dress.

  Just then, Sammy appeared in the hallway. When she spotted me holding the fancy dress, she jumped. I thought she was going to yell at me for snooping in her stuff, but she just told me to hurry up. I put the dress back and followed her into the kitchen.

  I took a box of Kraft Dinner out of the pantry. While boiling water, I thought maybe the blue dress was what Sammy was planning to wear to the bat mitzvah. She looked at my green hands and said, “Another project on chlorophyll?” I opened my mouth to laugh but then I had a better idea, so I said, “Actually, it’s for the special thing I’m making with Mr. Katz, which by the way if you want to know is a tree.” She asked, “What kind of tree?” and I put on my best I-have-a-juicy-secret voice and whispered, “Can you keep a secret?” She said, “Yes,” so I said, “You promise?” so she said, “I promise,” and then I told her exactly what Mr. Katz was making.

  My idea was that maybe if I told her one of my secrets she would feel like telling me one of hers. It worked! She said, “Can you keep a secret?” and then she told me all about how she was going to be in the bat mitzvah in a few weeks. I told her it sounded cool. She said that it was very cool, the only problem was that if Dad found out he’d never let her go through with it. The only people who knew were one, Jenny, who would never tell anyone because she was Sammy’s best friend, and two, Mr. Glassman, who was also a safe bet because he practically never talked to anybody unless they were his student and it was class time. She’d been taking private after-school lessons with him at Hebrew School because she had to learn how to chant from the Torah because she had never learned how to do it when she was twelve years old.

  I told Sammy not to worry and that I would help keep her secret safe. Then I asked her if she was keeping kosher and she said that she was trying to and also that she was trying to keep Shabbat but it was hard to do without making Dad suspicious. I said that if she wanted I could do it with her. She gave me a funny look then, but what she didn’t say was no.

  Then we divided the M&M’s into six bowls—blues, oranges, reds, greens, yellows, and browns—and mixed some of the Kraft Dinner in with each, so that the macaroni in each bowl turned a different color. Blues and yellows were okay, but reds tasted best.

  It wasn’t until my third lesson with Mr. Glassman that we finally got to the part about the Tree of Knowledge. We spent half an hour going over it at the kitchen table while Mrs. Glassman stood at the counter baking rugelach and talking to herself. It always confused me when she did that because usually when people talk to themselves it means they’re missing a few marbles, and Mrs. Glassman was a smart woman with marbles to spare. She was muttering under her breath, “If not p or q entails not p and not q, and p is true if and only if r, then we prove that for every r . . .” Mr. Glassman kept right on studying like he didn’t hear anything, so I did the same.

  But by the time the lesson was over I didn’t have any more answers than when I started, only more questions. The story said that eating from the Tree was supposed to make you wise and know the difference between good and evil. But when Adam and Eve ate from it, all that happened was that their eyes popped open and suddenly they realized they had no clothes on.

  Another thing I didn’t get was at the end of the story when it said: Man has become like us to know good and evil, and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.

  I’d never known that there were two special trees in the garden. I thought there was just the Tree of Knowledge. I asked Mr. Glassman what this business about the Tree of Life was all about, but he shook his head and smiled, saying it had to do with kabbalah.

  “Kabbalah is the Hebrew word for ‘to receive,’ yes? It is our received tradition, passed down from one rabbi to the next. It tells us the secret, hidden interpretations of the Torah.”

  “And the Tree of Life is one of those secrets?”

  “The most important one. Centuries ago, it became a very popular kabbalistic idea.”

  “But what does it do, the Tree?”

  “You should better ask, what does it not do! The Tree of Life does everything! It is what God used to create the universe out of nothing. It has ten parts—ten vessels—and when God poured His light down into them, the whole world appeared. And so our holy sages taught that a person who wants to go back up to God has only to climb this same Tree. But this is a very dangerous idea, Lev. You are not allowed to study it until you are forty years old and married.”

  “Why’s it so dangerous?
” I wanted to know.

  “Because, when you are studying it, it is easy to become obsessed,” he said. “Suddenly everything you see looks like a sign from above. Many of our sages, blessed be their memories, lost their heads chasing after such signs.”

  “What do you mean, they lost their heads?”

  “Well, it is not so clear, really. But there is a story, a famous legend, of four great rabbis who entered the Garden and found the Tree. You remember Rabbi Akiva from the story I told in school? Akiva was one of the four. The only one who entered in peace and departed in peace.”

  “What happened to the other three?”

  “The second sage, Ben Azzai, died. The third, Ben Zoma, went mad.”

  “And the fourth?”

  “The fourth . . . well, the text only tells us that he ‘cut down the plantings.’ What that means, I do not know. There are many symbolic interpretations.”

  “What was his name, the fourth one?”

  “The text does not call him by his name. It calls him only ‘Acher.’”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means ‘Other.’”

  I frowned. Other? What kind of name was that? But then I thought of another question. “If the Tree of Life is really so dangerous, like you said, then why would being forty years old and married make it okay?”

  “Because, according to the sages, at that point you are already wise.”

  “Oh. Well, you’re older than forty.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re married.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you studying the Tree of Life, then?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am not wise,” he said, with a funny smile on his face.

  He looked down at the numbers tattooed on his arm. I looked up. And that’s when I noticed that Mrs. Glassman had stopped talking to herself and her hands were frozen in the air, hovering over the balls of dough she was supposed to be rolling into rugelach. She stayed like that for a long time. Mr. Glassman didn’t move a muscle, either. He stared at his arm for so long that I thought maybe he had fallen asleep. My head was exploding with all the questions I wanted to ask, but it didn’t seem right to ask anything else after that, so I just went home.

  I ran up the sidewalk, confused and hungry, and opened the front door.

  “I’m home!” I shouted. “What’s for din—”

  But I never finished my question.

  Just then, I looked down the shadowy hall and saw a door opening fast.

  Jenny burst out of Sammy’s bedroom. Her freckled face was all scrunched up and her eyes were wide. She looked scared or maybe shocked or then again she could have been angry. In the doorway, Sammy tried to grab her wrist, but Jenny was too fast for her. She rushed past Sammy and past me and out the front door.

  Then she was gone and my big sister was standing with her hands dangling empty at her sides. Her face crumpled and her eyes filled with tears. I opened my mouth to say something. I tried to take a step toward her. My body wouldn’t move.

  I couldn’t remember ever seeing her look so small.

  Mr. Katz had almost finished making the Tree of Knowledge but now he had a problem. When I passed by on my way to school one morning in the first week of June, I found him sitting on the lawn with his hands full of dental floss. He was busy tying knots in it. When I asked him what for, he said he was making cradles for the fruit to hang in, and the cradles were coming along beautifully, the only problem was that the Torah never said what fruit.

  When I got to Normal School, Ms. Davidson announced that our grade was going to be competing in a science fair. She would divide the class into pairs and each pair would present one project. All the kids from all the other grades would come, watch, and vote on which project they thought was best. The group that got the most votes would win a secret prize.

  Alex was really happy because the two of us got paired together, which I knew Ms. Davidson had done on purpose and which proved that I was right about her being a highly intelligent person. Dean and Gabe also got paired together. When Ms. Davidson turned to face the blackboard, they whispered that they were going to wipe the floor with us, but I knew we had nothing to worry about because Alex had more brains than the two of them combined.

  After last period, Alex said we needed to go to the library right away. I asked, “Why?” For the second time, Alex looked at me like he couldn’t believe his ears. “Because we need to do research to come up with a winning project. I want to win. Don’t you want to win?”

  We went to the library.

  At a table near the window, Ms. Davidson was grading homework. Ignoring her, Alex marched through the stacks and pulled down every book with radio or astronomy or physics in the title. When he had about thirty, he dumped them all on a table and started reading, his eyes zipping from side to side so fast it made him look like a cartoon.

  After wandering through the library, I sat down across from him and picked up 101 Physics Projects for Tomorrow’s Rocket Scientists. I propped it up on the table in between me and Alex. Then, because I had my own research to do, I slid another book in front of it so that only I could see. It was called Fruit of North America and Beyond: Exotic and Common Species, and I hoped it would contain the clues I needed.

  Seeing Ms. Davidson in the library had given me an idea. So that I wouldn’t forget any of the clues I found, I dug my journal out of my backpack and opened it to a fresh page. Alex looked up and gave me an encouraging nod. From the way he smiled, I could tell he thought I was taking notes on physics, but really I was not. Really what I was writing was this:

  FRUIT THAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN ON THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE:

  1. Apples

  2. Oranges

  3. Peaches

  4. Plums

  5. Tangerines

  6. Nectarines

  7. Bananas

  8. Pears

  9. Grapes

  10. Strawberries

  11. Cantaloupes

  12. Coconuts

  13. Pomegranates

  14. Watermelons

  Just as I finished adding number fourteen to the list, Alex said, “Psst!”

  I looked up to see him waving his book in my face. “What?”

  “Listen to this!” he said, and then read aloud: “Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have the equipment available to make unscheduled ham radio contacts with radio amateurs all around the world on a one-to-one basis during their personal time. With a very limited investment in amateur radio equipment, licensed hams, including students, can make individual contact with astronauts by learning to follow the published orbital schedule.”

  “So?”

  “So! This right here is a winning project!”

  “What is?”

  “We bring in my ham radio on the day of the science fair and call the International Space Station and talk to an astronaut!”

  “Yeah, right. They’re never going to waste their time talking to us. Why would they?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I just read? They talk to students all the time!”

  “Okay, but—” I was about to tell Alex that even if the astronauts were willing to talk, there was no way we’d figure out how to contact them in time, when a movement near the window caught my eye. A tall man with brown hair and a nice smile was walking up to Ms. Davidson. She was so concentrated on what she was reading that he had to tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. But, as soon as he did, her face filled with light and opened up like a giant flower.

  All of a sudden I felt happy and sad and lonely, happy because my mysterious sadness had a reason after all, sad because there was nothing I could do to make the reason go away, lonely because I now knew that I didn’t really have a nameless sickness, and losing that sickness meant losing one more thing that had tied me and Sammy together.

  The reason why the white flower on Ms. Davidson’s bike had made me sad was because what it probably me
ant was that she already had a boyfriend. Long bike rides through meadows was something people did when they were in love with other people. I was only eleven and a half, and so far I had never been in love with any other person, but it didn’t take a genius.

  Trying to get my attention, Alex waved his hands around in my face, but I pushed them aside and shushed him. From behind Fruit of North America and Beyond: Exotic and Common Species, which was behind 101 Physics Projects for Tomorrow’s Rocket Scientists, which was behind Alex and his fort of books, I spied on Ms. Davidson and the man with the nice smile. They walked to the door of the library. She opened it and held it for him and he laughed. Then, just before he walked through the door, he leaned down and kissed her.

  That’s when I realized that, even though Ms. Davidson might be a highly intelligent person, she was not the person who would fill the empty spaces in my father’s heart.

  That Friday, Dad left us a message on the answering machine. He wouldn’t be coming home until very late because of another university thing. We decided that this time we would make pizza for dinner, so Sammy started slicing the cheese and I started opening the packages of Nibs and gummy bears. The kitchen was quiet except for the sound of rain hitting the windows. After a while, the phone rang. We let the machine pick up and a familiar voice filled the room.

  “Hello, David? It’s Ira! Listen, I just wanted to wish you and the family a big mazel tov on the upcoming bat mitzvah! I can’t believe I didn’t know Samara was participating, Jenny just told me now, that’s wonderful news! Sammy, if you’re listening, we’re all so proud of you, we wish you the very best of luck, and we can’t wait to see you on the big day!”

  The machine beeped. I looked at Sammy and she looked back at me and I saw that her eyes were filled with sadness. I hit Delete.

  Then I went back to dividing candy and Sammy went back to slicing cheese. But after a few seconds, she put the cheese slicer down. She said she’d be back and that I should go ahead with the toppings, so I covered one side of the pizza with Nibs and the other with gummy bears.