Gravity

by Leanne Lieberman

  I have been waiting to pray outside. In Toronto, surrounded by paved streets, it seems silly to pray for rain for the crops. Once I sneaked out to pray in the ravine, but people kept coming by, and I didn’t sing out loud.

  I chant, “Ve’ahafatah, adonai.” Love the Lord.

  The screen door slams. Bubbie comes out wearing a long, faded blue T-shirt, her legs bare. She strides down to the dock and sheds the T-shirt, revealing a saggy pink swimsuit. “Take me to the river, wash me down,” she bellows before she dives into the water. The mist has lifted, and the sky and water are cerulean. I close my prayer book and watch Bubbie’s arms scissor powerfully through the water in even strokes. She swims out to the middle of the bay until I can barely see her, just the white of her hair. She waves to me, then swims out of sight. I try to continue my prayers. I keep glancing up anxiously until she comes back.

  Bubbie’s stroke propels her through the water, her arms rotating in an even rhythm. She swims up to the ladder, her breath deep and heavy. Pulling herself onto the dock, her arm muscles flex underneath her wrinkled skin.

  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

  Bubbie wipes water from her face with her towel. “You mean swim?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know I go to the club all the time.”

  I shrug. “I thought you did water aerobics or something.”

  She laughs. “What made you think that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bubbie towels off her hair and bathing suit.

  “I’ve never seen that suit before.”

  She shrugs. “I only wear it here. Are you going in?”

  I shake my head and sigh. “I wish I could swim like you.”

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “Really?”

  “We’ll be here a month. What else are you going to do?” She plucks at her bathing suit straps. “Besides, it’s important to stay in shape. All those rabbis with their bochels and high cholesterol. I’d be happy to help you improve your stroke.”

  Neshama is always going on about exercise too. She and Ima both have tiny bird bodies. Ima really does look like a small white sparrow, her backbones poking through her skin. Neshama works out. Lifts weights. Abba’s always bugging her about what she wears at the gym. Neshama says she wears track pants and a T-shirt, but I’ve seen exercise tights when she does her wash.

  Neshama has a tight little bum and stomach muscles that she can clench together in a hard ribbon down her belly when she leans forward and grunts.

  Bubbie heads back up to the cottage, and I follow behind her, even though I’m not finished my prayers. The sun beats down, and my stomach feels empty.

  The cottage is a dark log cabin with a screened-in porch. The kitchen has open shelves instead of cupboards, and an old stainless steel sink. In the main room a large stone fireplace dominates the far wall. Several old orange recliners and a reddish brown couch droop in the center of the room. A stack of Life magazines from the seventies fills a wooden crate beside the couch. An old lantern and a pair of cross-country skis hang above the fireplace.

  Bubbie pours herself a cup of coffee and grabs a Popsicle stick from a package in a drawer.

  “Coffee?” she offers.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Popsicle stick?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just kidding.” She brandishes the Popsicle stick at me. “They’re so I don’t smoke.” She pops the stick in her mouth and chews with her back teeth. “I will not smoke today.” Her hair is flat on one side, her eyelids bare of eye shadow or liner. I have never seen her without makeup.

  “Bubbie, you quit smoking five years ago.”

  “Yes, but now I’m stuck on the sticks.” She puts bread in the toaster.

  I watch Bubbie chew. “So, what do you do here?”

  Bubbie runs her hands through her hair, rests a hip against the counter. “Swim in the morning, read in the afternoon, obsess over birds. Yellow finch.” She points out over the porch to the bird feeder.

  “You know about birds?”

  Bubbie nods. “What are you going to do this summer?”

  I sip my orange juice and look out the sliding glass doors. “I don’t know. Look for frogs, practice swimming.”

  Bubbie hands me a piece of toast. I get out the peanut butter and smooth it on. I quickly whisper a blessing before taking a bite.

  “You know, you don’t have to do that here.”

  “The brucha?”

  “Yeah, I’m not going to report you.”

  I shrug. “It’s just habit.”

  “Is that why do you do it?”

  I take a bite of toast. “Yeah, and you know, to be closer to Hashem.”

  Bubbie chokes on her coffee. “God?”

  “Yeah, God.”

  “And what do you think that is?”

  I pause mid-bite, my brow crinkling. “Hashem? You know, God is just God. Creator, commandments, all that stuff.”

  Bubbie gawks at me. “You really believe all that?”

  “What’s not to believe?”

  I give Bubbie a fuzzy answer because I don’t really spend much time thinking about God. Keeping kosher and saying prayers is just normal to me. Bubbie has me confused with Ima and Abba, who are reborn Jews. Every ritual they keep is about “loving God” and “being spiritual.”

  God is too big an idea to even hold in my head all at one time, vaporous and, well, enormous. It’s like trying to think about the whole ocean all at once. I can only focus on one mollusk or seaweed tendril at a time.

  AFTER BREAKFAST BUBBIE gives me the new bathing suit, a blue two-piece. “A bikini?” I say incredulously.

  “It’s not a bikini. It’s two pieces, tank style. I thought you’d be too long in the body for a one-piece.”

  I stare at it.

  In the bedroom I pull on the suit, trying to see myself in the small mirror above the wooden bureau. I trace my fingers over the scooped neckline. The bottoms are cut low over the belly and high over my narrow hips. I lift my arms over my head, striking a pose in front of the mirror.

  Down on the dock a gentle breeze laps the water into small waves. I hang onto the ladder, trying to keep my feet out of the weeds.

  Bubbie stands on the dock bent at the waist, arms rotating. “You need to cup the water with your hands and pull back. Two motions: cup and pull.”

  I stand in the muck, circling my arms.

  “Good. Now kick your feet at the same time.”

  “Now?”

  “Sure.”

  I take a deep breath and plunge into the dark water. My arms crash over my head: cup and pull. I gasp for air, hold it, drag the other arm up and over. Feet: kick. Hands: cup and pull. I forget to breathe. Water rushes up my nose. I surface spitting and coughing, trying to keep my feet out of the jelly-like sand.

  “Good,” Bubbie sings out from her deck chair. “Good try.”

  I practice again and again until I am blue and shivering. “Enough,” Bubbie says. “Enough for today.” She passes me a towel, and I collapse into a deck chair.

  “Look at those chicken arms.”

  “What?”

  Bubbie pokes my upper arm. “Chicken arms. You need muscles to swim.”

  I examine my bony arms.

  “You should do push-ups, every day. Then you’ll be cutting through that water like a fish.”

  Bubbie goes up for drinks. I get down on my chest and try to push my body up. I grunt, but nothing moves. I roll up my towel under my legs and try pushing up from my knees.

  “Keep your butt down, back flat.” Bubbie puts a glass of lemonade down on the dock for me.

  I try again, face burning, heart pounding.

  “That’s better. You’ll look like Charles Atlas in no time.”

  Whoever that is. I collapse onto my belly and peer at the dark green shadows the wooden slats of the dock throw onto the water.

  Bubbie picks up a biography of Henry Kissinger, the brim of her floppy str
aw hat shading her face. I drop my head back, let the heat seep into me. I too will dive and swim all the way across the bay.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON I pull out a set of small candleholders and a bottle of kosher wine from the box Abba packed for me. “It’s Shabbos,” I announce to Bubbie.

  “Well, what do you know. I lose track of the days up here.” Bubbie opens the freezer and tosses a bag of challah buns at me. I catch the bag and take out two to defrost. A few frozen poppy seeds flake off.

  If we were at home there’d be a special meal—chicken or salmon fillets—and a white tablecloth. Tonight we’re only having pasta salad and corn-on-the-cob on the picnic table outside.

  When it’s time to sit down to dinner, the sun just starting to descend, Bubbie says, “Okay, let’s do those blessings.”

  I stand up reluctantly and whisper the blessing. I’ve never blessed the Shabbos candles without Ima and Neshama singing beside me. Bubbie watches me, not joining in, her arms crossed against her chest.

  “Are you done?” she asks when I stop praying.

  “You’re supposed to say amen.”

  “Amen.” She goes to get the corn before I can bless the wine or the cold rocks of bread.

  If Ima and Abba were here we’d sing a song before dinner. Abba would bless me, laying his hands on my head and telling me he hoped I’d turn out like Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah. Neshama and I would harmonize zemirot after dinner, and there’d be Abba’s apple cake or rugelach for dessert.

  Bubbie turns on the radio while I’m still chanting the prayer after meals. I glare at her and leave her to finish the cleaning up by herself. Down on the dock I slap a few mosquitoes, then I decide to go up to bed.

  I say good night to Bubbie as I pass her in the living room.

  “Sleep well,” she says.

  In my dark room, I extend my arms, feeling for the bed. I bump my knee against the bed frame.

  “Are you all right in there?” Bubbie asks from the living room.

  “Fine.”

  “Do you want me to come in and turn on the light?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Can I do it anyway?”

  “No, that’s okay.” I climb into bed.

  Bubbie sighs. “I’ll get you a night-light for next week.”

  “Oh, good idea.”

  I don’t turn the lights on because Shabbos, the Sabbath, is a day of rest. All work is forbidden, including driving, cooking and lighting fires. Observant Jews don’t turn lights on and off or use the phone or radio because using electricity is like lighting a fire. We even unscrew the light bulb in the fridge so the light doesn’t turn on every time you open it. We pre-tear the toilet paper because even ripping is a form of work.

  Bubbie thinks this is totally crazy. Neshama also thinks it nuts and has refused to leave the lights alone for ages. She even re-screws the light bulb in the fridge. Ima and Abba just ignore her.

  I like not using electricity on Shabbos. It’s not that I think flipping a switch is work, I just like the different feeling. The weekday rush isn’t followed by weekend chaos, but by stillness and calm. No radio or TV, not even any cooking. Each restriction or change reminds me that it is good to rest. At home we have light timers, so it’s not like we’re stumbling around in the dark.

  In the living room I hear Bubbie playing with the radio and then finally turning it off. She flicks off the lights and the sliver of yellow beneath my door vanishes. I turn over in bed and let the quiet of Shabbos fill the room.

  Two

  I get down in the weeds to watch a small green frog tremble at the edge of the water. Dew soaks through my T-shirt, causing goose bumps to form up my legs. The frog croaks high and light, not soft like the peepers, or throaty like the bullfrog. I edge closer, slowly, shivering in the damp grass, legs tangled in wet skirt. The frog has shiny webbed feet, no definitive spots or stripes, probably rama clamitans. I lie still, watching its tongue dart out; then I reach out, tentative, hesitating. It jumps away, scared by my approaching hands.

  Linnaeus looked at nature, and where others saw chaos, he saw order. Clear lines, hierarchies of phylum, class, all the way down to individual species. Taxonomy. God’s creations in neat sets. Judaism is a lot like taxonomy, even if Bubbie and Neshama think it’s only oppression and patriarchy. It’s also beauty and concision and order. There’s a rule or law for just about everything, an order or right way to do things, from how to get married, to how to put on your shoes. Give me any week, and I can tell you what Torah portion you’re supposed to read, what lesson you should learn.

  Bubbie keeps asking me if I’m bored. I’m not, not for a moment. She shakes her head and wonders aloud how many teenage girls want to spend all day alone or hang out with their grandmothers. I just tell her I’m busy. And I am. For the past two weeks, I’ve prayed each morning in the trees behind the cottage. I mumble through the prayers quickly, my voice muffled by the branches. My voice sounds thin and lonely without the other girls from school or the shul congregation. I rush through without thinking about the words. After breakfast I practice swimming with Bubbie, splashing around, trying to keep water out of my nose and mouth. The rest of the time, I only want to sit and watch and, even more, to listen. I never knew nature was so noisy. The sun heats up, the dew evaporates, and a chorus of croaking frogs, chattering squirrels, squawking ducks and wind-rattled leaves fills the air. Fish gurgle and make small splashes on the lake; the waves lap against the dock. The longer I sit, the more I hear.

  I wade farther into the snarled weeds, water creeping up my skirt and into my bathing suit when I crouch down. Thick mud squishes between my toes. The frog’s eyes move, its cheeks pulsing. I cup my hands, anticipating the webbed feet against my palms.

  “Hey,” a voice calls out across the water.

  I startle, jerking upright. The frog hops into the weeds. A girl approaches in a canoe. I haven’t seen anyone else up here except when we go for groceries in Northbrook.

  The girl calls out across the water, “Hey, where’s Craig?”

  I stand up. My skirt sticks to my legs. “Who?” Shading my eyes, I climb onto the dock. The girl paddles over. She has long blond hair twisted into two loose braids down her back. She is wearing jean shorts and her tank top reveals fair-skinned, freckled shoulders.

  “Hi.” I wipe mud off my hands onto my skirt.

  “Is Craig here?” she asks, pulling up alongside the dock.

  “Craig?”

  “This is his cottage.”

  “My grandmother rented it this month—”

  “Oh.” She gazes across the bay.

  “Um, is that your own canoe?” I admire the glossy red shell, the wood interior.

  “Yeah,” she says, distracted. “How long are you staying?”

  I sit down at the end of the dock. “Until the end of August. I’m Ellie.”

  “Lindsay.” She tosses her hair and looks me up and down. “What were you trying to do over there?”

  “I was...well, I saw this frog. I was trying to catch it.”

  “Catch a frog?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to see what kind it was. I couldn’t tell without picking it up.”

  She laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Are you into science or something?”

  I shrug. A pair of loons surfaces, their white necklaces distracting me. “I didn’t know there were other people around,” I say, staring past her at the birds.

  “Yeah, down the bend.” Lindsay points over her shoulder.

  I rinse my feet in the cool lake water. “So what do you and Craig do here?”

  “Hang out. Fish.” She twirls her paddle in her hands.

  There’s a pole I keep eyeing in the basement of the cottage, but Bubbie says she doesn’t know how to use it. “I’d like to go fishing,” I blurt. “There’s a pole and all, but I don’t know how...”

  Lindsay grabs hold of the dock. “You just cast and reel in. I suppose I could
show you.”

  I lean forward. “Really? That would be great.”

  Lindsay looks up from her paddle. “Well, whenever.” She reaches out to push away from the dock. “See you then.”

  “Wait.” I stand up.

  “What?”

  “Well, if you have some time later, maybe you could...”

  Lindsay sighs. “I suppose we could go for a paddle now. I don’t have my pole.”

  I smile. “I’ll be back in a moment.” I try to walk slowly up to the cottage for a life jacket and paddle.

  When I come back down to the water, Lindsay is standing in the middle of the canoe, floating a few feet from the dock. She looks at me and grins. “Watch this.”

  She leans over and balances her hands and then her feet on the gunwales. I watch, fascinated, as she raises herself to a crouch. She’s stripped off her tank top and jean shorts to reveal just three small patches of white fabric held together with string. All the girls I know dress modestly; even their swimsuits are like my plain old one.

  Lindsay’s breasts hang full and pendulous in the cups, her hips naked except for the little ties. She slowly stands up, thigh muscles flexing, arms outstretched, eyes focused. When she is fully upright, she breaks into a smile and gives her hips a slight toss, rocking the boat. “Now watch.”

  As if I could take my eyes off her. I squint into the sun and hold my breath, staring in amazement as she bends her knees and lifts her arms. She swings them down and hurls her body into the water beside the canoe. The canoe heaves wildly and flips over, and Lindsay lands with an impressive splash. She surfaces, her hair slick against her skull.

  “Neat, eh? I’m trying to do it without flipping the canoe.”

  I nod. She didn’t even check the depth first.

  “Wanna try?”

  “Neh.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s fun.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Lindsay shrugs and dives toward the canoe.

  I couldn’t possibly do that. Besides not being a good swimmer, I have lousy balance. If I actually could screw up the courage to jump, I’d probably bump my head on the boat. And I could never parade around wearing so little.