The window over the sink looks out on the narrow strip of our yard. Next to it, our yellowed fridge hums loudly. Neshama has clipped out pictures of new kitchens and taped them to the refrigerator, hoping Abba will take the obvious hint. He never does, although he did buy an extra freezer to hoard his baking.
Our rickety kitchen table sits between the pantry and the door to the hallway. Above the table is a black and white photo my Uncle Isaac took of Ima. In it she sits in our kitchen, her arms crossed over her pregnant belly. Her cheeks are full and flushed, a band of freckles across her nose making her look almost tanned and robust. Neshama stands on a chair, pigtails sprouting out the sides of her head, whispering to Ima, her small chubby hand cupped to her mouth.
“What was the secret?” Neshama always asks.
“I don’t know,” Ima says. “I only remember Bubba Rosa was over, teaching your father to bake.”
Abba loves to bake. He forgets about his studies and teaching and spreads ingredients out on the counter: room-temperature eggs, butter, bags of flour, poppy seeds, squares of chocolate, tubs of sour cream. Then he mixes, stirs, kneads, licks and tastes. He listens to opera, his beard full of flour. “Raisins,” he sings along with Carmen or Aida, and he dumps a handful of plump raisins into sweet cinnamon twists, or between layers of soft malleable dough. He makes rugelach with chocolate or cinnamon sugar filling, rich and oozing and buttery on your fingers. In his kitchen, blueberry Bundt cakes slide from pans, the slow suck of air hissing steam. He makes yeasty challahs with shiny yolk coating, flaky apple strudel dripping warm raisins and soft apple slices. His thin poppy-seed cookies are delicious with tea. He makes mandlebroit, crumbling and nutty, for dunking in coffee. He bakes yeast rolls and sour-cream coffee cake and chocolate brownies, all of it producing rich aromas that waft through the kitchen and seep into the wallpaper on the stairs. Our kitchen is dingy and uneven, but saturated with the most delicious smells. “Your father bakes love,” Ima says.
When I am done my chores, I wander up to my room and flop down on my bed. My room is similar in size to Neshama’s, but without all the stuff. I have a blue quilt, a whale poster over my bed and gray shag carpet on the floor. Shells Bubbie has brought me from Florida line the window sill. I keep my collection of fossils, polished stones and bits of minerals in my top desk drawer.
A lawn mower drones next door. Abba’s opera blares from downstairs, colliding with Neshama’s radio. At the cottage there was just the water slapping against the shore. Lindsay and I used to paddle through the marsh in the late afternoons. I was supposed to look out for logs, to prevent the canoe from getting scratched or stuck in the shallow murky water. When we did get stuck, I’d watch Lindsay’s arms flex as she maneuvered us off a log. Later when we swam, she’d slide her jean shorts off her narrow hips. My face flushes, the hair on my arms standing erect. Don’t, Ellie.
I pick up my Chumash from the shelf by my desk and flip through Leviticus, searching through the section on sexual taboos and laws about lepers. I’ve skimmed this a zillion times before, red-faced and giggling. We don’t talk about this part at school much. I leaf through the pages until I find this: A man should not lie with a man the way he lies with a woman. It is an abomination and they should be put to death. Leviticus 18:22. I read a few more lines. Nothing about women lying with women.
The drone of the lawn mower grows louder, buzzing inside my head. I check the Hebrew translation. Yes, toevah, an abomination, death. I shudder a moment and flop on the bed. How can a man lie with a man the way he does with a woman? Are people really put to death, or is it like when the Torah says to stone people who don’t keep Shabbos? I close the book and slide it onto my bedside table. My temples throb; my whole body is feverish.
The mower shuts off and now only the sounds of traffic on Eglinton and Abba’s opera waft into my room. I get down on the floor and do push-ups until I’m panting hard on the gray shag.
In the bathroom, I turn on the shower and sit in the tub. I let the water rain down cool on my head, slide down my back, like a rainstorm. I scrub my skin hard with a loofah until it sloughs off in small tawny piles.
I change into the tank top and shorts Lindsay gave me and flop down on my bed with the Toronto phone book. I scan the names until I find a M. McMullen, Lindsay’s mom.
I dial the number, my pulse racing. The phone rings four times; then an answering machine picks up. “Please only leave a crucial and short message,” Lindsay’s mother demands. I hang up without saying a word.
What do I want to say, and how short can I make it? I dial again, gritting my teeth. “Hi, Lindsay. This is Ellie Gold, from the cottage. I was wondering if you could call me back— four eight two-two nine four two.”
When my heart has calmed down, I change into my skirt and blouse and shove Lindsay’s tank top and shorts back into the suitcase. I head down the street to my friend Becca’s house to pick up my fish.
Becca Klein is my closest friend. She’s tiny, with long brown hair and shiny eyes.
She answers the door. “Hey, you’re back.” She puts down her littlest brother, Yehuda, and we hug. Yehuda cries, and she picks him up again.
“Yeah, I got back yesterday.”
“So, how was the cottage?”
“Good, really good. What did you do all summer?”
“Oh, you know, babysitting. Boring, but I made lots of money.”
As the eldest girl of seven kids, Becca spends a lot of time looking after her younger brothers and sisters, as well as her neighbors’ kids. She has more money saved than anyone I know, but she doesn’t know what she’s going to spend it on.
Becca puts Yehuda in a playpen, and we go upstairs to the room she shares with her two sisters.
“How are my fish?” I ask as we climb the stairs.
“Oh, well...”
“They didn’t all die, did they?”
“No, only some of them.” She giggles. “The kids wanted to feed them all the time. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Becca shows me the fish tank. Rashi, Golda Meir and Sholem Aleichem swim around the fake plants and little castle, but Ben Gurion and Hannah Senesh are gone.
“I felt so bad, I taped you this special about giant squid. It was almost interesting.”
“Yeah, what’s it about?”
“Oh, they stick these cameras on whales to go really deep in the ocean. And there’s these really hot guys in little shorts who are scientists.”
I sigh.
Becca helps me clean out the tank and I listen to her talk about the cute boys at the park.
“Were there any guys up at the cottage?” she asks.
“Um, not really.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” I say.
BACK AT HOME we eat a late Shabbos dinner, the light dimming, birds still fluttering outside the windows. I remembered to keep Shabbos the rest of the weeks at the cottage. I recited the blessings by myself, Bubbie watching indulgently. It wasn’t ever the same as home. I didn’t want to leave the lake, but I’ve been looking forward to sitting down with Ima, Abba and Neshama, singing Shabbos songs.
Ima leads us in Shalom Aleichem, her beautiful breathy voice sending shivers down my spine. She closes her eyes and grips the table with a new intensity. When I hear her clear voice, the jigsaw pieces of my life settle back in place.
Ima blesses the Shabbos candles, her face hidden behind her hands. She rocks back and forth, her voice barely audible. Abba blesses the wine and the challah and then he leans back in his chair and chants Eishet Chayil, a song about a woman of valor, to Ima. She hums along with Abba, smiling. Neshama picks at a hangnail. I wriggle back and forth on the wobbly antique chair with the needlepoint cover.
When Ima became religious, she let Bubbie’s canaries out of their cage. So they could be free, she explained. Bubbie found them dead in the yard, trampled, one of them missing a wing.
Ima sings only folk songs or religious musi
c. In the morning sometimes I hear her in the kitchen singing, “We went down and wept and wept, by the water of Babylon.”
“Israel was wonderful,” Abba says to Neshama and me when he finishes singing. “You must see it for yourself one day, perhaps for a honeymoon.” He smiles at us. Neshama looks down at her lap. My throat constricts, and I cough into my napkin.
Abba stretches back in his chair. “It’s good to be home.” He stands up and motions for us to stand beside him. He places his warm hands first on Neshama’s head, then mine and whispers the blessing for children. “May you be like Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah.” I don’t hear the birds or the traffic, just Abba’s words.
“Did you know,” Abba asks, passing out bowls of gazpacho, “that the Talmud says God gave ten measures of beauty to the world, nine to Jerusalem and one to the rest?”
“The old city was really amazing,” Ima sighs. “You have to imagine, first you’re in a modern city, then the next thing you know, you’re walking up this slope to Jaffa Gate.”
“Your mother was so excited,” Abba adds.
“There are ramparts on one side and the city below. I kept thinking of the crusaders riding up to that gate, then the Caliph of Omar, and then finally the Jews.”
“You can’t believe how hot it was. I’ve never shvitzed like that before in my life.”
“When we got to the gate, your father knew exactly how to get to the Kotel—”
“I’d memorized the map on the plane.”
“We went through the Armenian quarter and through Zion Square—”
“I wanted to stop at the Hurva Synagogue, but your mother wanted to go right to the Kotel.”
“So is the wall amazing or what?” Neshama interrupts.
“Well, it was actually smaller than I expected.” Ima leans her elbow on the table.
“There were soldiers everywhere.”
“And the women’s side is much smaller than the men’s—”
“Wait,” Neshama says. “Why’s the women’s side smaller?”
Ima shrugs. “Don’t ask. Anyway, when I got to the wall, I suddenly knew exactly what I had to do.”
Neshama and I exchange looks.
“I had a plan.”
Neshama stops eating. I clench my napkin in my fist.
“I figured it out at the wall.” Ima smiles. “First, I started to daven, but then—I couldn’t believe it—this woman beside me started talking on her cell phone.”
“Can you believe, at the Holy of Holies?” Abba adds.
“And not quietly either. In this loud Russian voice.”
“Then what happened?” Neshama demands.
“Well, I found a different place by the wall, in the shade away from the woman with the cell phone, and that’s when it happened.” She smiles that distant smile again.
“What?”
“I had this wonderful realization. I knew exactly what I had to do.”
I start to slowly shred my napkin. “Which is what?” I ask, my voice hesitant.
Ima braces her hands on the table. She takes a deep breath. “I have to help Jews be more observant.”
I squeeze my napkin into a ball.
“Don’t you already do that at the school?” Neshama spears spinach with her fork.
“No.” Ima clutches her water glass. “It’s going to be more than that. The students at school are okay. It’s those other Jews, the ones who live without Hashem, I’m going to teach them.”
Neshama swallows a mouthful of salad. “Oh,” she says. She reaches for the pitcher of water and fills her glass. She drinks the whole thing down in one long gulp. “I’m glad you know what you have to do. It’s good to have a plan.”
“Yes,” Ima says, “I want to give something back to Hashem.” Her eyes focus. “I want to help others.”
There’s a long pause. “So, what exactly are you going to do?” Neshama asks.
“I’m going to write a book, or maybe only a pamphlet.”
“And?”
“And visitors will come for Shabbos,” Ima says.
“What for?” I ask.
“They’ll learn,” Abba replies. “They’ll learn the laws and understand Hashem.”
“Will you help me?” Ima asks us.
I shift uncomfortably in my chair. “What will we have to do?”
“I need you to be ambassadors.”
I nod uncertainly and curl my toes, looking down at my plate. Neshama has already begun her escape, and I... I push the thought away.
Ima devours another bowl of salad and two slices of corn-bread. After we clear the dishes Abba leads us in zemirot, our voices filling the dining room. I watch Ima sing, her head sliding slightly to the side and back, her words clear, her eyes half closed.
It makes sense that Ima would take on some sort of spiritual leadership. I just don’t get why we have to be involved. I see the way Ima grasps the walls when she prays, the way she slowly rocks. Not like some who pray just to fulfill the commandment, Ima sways slowly, absorbing each prayer. She could spend an hour on a single word, letting it rise up from her toes to fill her body. In other religions she would chant loud, lead congregations and inspire them with her fervor, but not ours. Women aren’t supposed to sing in public because the law of Kol Isha, meaning a woman’s voice, can lead men to think unholy thoughts.
SATURDAY MORNING I breathe in familiar synagogue smells: old moldy books, perfume, furniture polish. I stand in the lobby and inhale deeply. I pause to peer into the men’s section, and look up to the ark where the Torahs are kept in their red velvet dresses and silver crowns.
My heels click on the metal edges of the narrow linoleum staircase leading up to the women’s section in the balcony. In our synagogue, men and women pray in separate sections so we won’t be distracted. I take my seat next to Ima and Neshama and wave at Becca and my other friend, Esther. I survey the women, my gaze lingering over the burning red hair of Tova Suttner. She has the same rippled hair as Lindsay, thick with the weight of curls snaking down her back. I shiver and turn away.
Little girls dance over the red and emerald patterns the stained glass windows throw on the faded carpet. The men’s voices rise from the main sanctuary. Ima, Neshama and I sit at the front of the balcony where we can see the sun shining on the wooden pews below.
When I open my book, the words taste like familiar food on my lips and tongue. My voice resounds with the other women’s, blends in with the men’s downstairs. I sway slightly from side to side.
I have been waiting all summer to pray with other people. At the cottage my voice was swallowed up by the breeze.
Ima and Neshama quietly pray beside me, mumbling the prayers under their breath. Downstairs the men race ahead, bursting into communal song. I skip ahead to quietly join in the singing. I bow to the right, left and middle, take three steps forward and three steps back as if approaching a king. All around me women chatter (“Chicken only three ninety-nine a pound.”) and trade endless compliments on a new hat, a new baby. Downstairs the men sing “God is King.”
When Neshama and I finish praying, we sit down to listen to the chanting of the Torah. I straighten my pale blue tube skirt, cross my ankles. The shul is warm, and I sweat in my white blouse. I lift my hair off the back of my neck, pull it into a loose ponytail with the elastic from my wrist.
Ima doesn’t sit. She stands, swaying side to side, her face buried in her prayer book. Her blouse is modest, her heels of medium height, but everyone else is sitting.
Neshama pokes me. “What’s she doing?”
I shrug.
Mrs. Bachner, who sits by the door, her hooded eyes sliding down the dresses of the women who pass by her to go to the bathroom, stares at Ima. Her thin eyebrows rise. Mrs. Bachner looks for slips showing, for blouses too open at the neck. Her eyes scrutinize children for snotty noses, for sugar cubes clutched in sweaty palms or melting in hot mouths.
Ima inhales deeply, her hands clasped tightly, her lips moving.
Ne
shama tucks her feet tight under her chair, shifts her hands under her knees and scrunches down in her seat. I can feel the eyes behind us bore into our backs, can hear Mrs. Bachner’s tsk-tsk. Ima could at least stand in the back. She buries her face in her book, oblivious to the whispers behind her.
The low hum from the women’s section rises to a strained buzz. I grip the velour edge of my seat. Neshama and I roll our eyes at each other, and Neshama’s lip rises in a sneer.
Ima finally sits when the rabbi gives his sermon. Neshama sighs, her shoulders sinking.
I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. From inside a cubicle I hear Sari Blum say to her mother, “Who does she think she is, the messiah?”
Becca is waiting for me outside the bathroom. She grabs my hand. “What’s with your Ima?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I have no idea.”
Five
Before my parents were religious, they wandered, lured by the city lights.
To hear Abba and Ima talk now, my father’s job as a lawyer on Bay Street was Sodom, and the Eaton’s department store, where my mother worked, Gomorrah. My father was born Abraham Gold, the only son of Rosa and Yuri Gold, Holocaust survivors. My Zeyda Yuri was a diabetic, a small quiet man. Bubba Rosa was even smaller, perhaps more silent. Abba went to university and fulfilled his immigrant parents’ dreams of financial and material success in their new country. Abba never moved out after he graduated, preferring to stay with his parents in their cramped apartment.
My mother, before she became religious and took on the name Chana, was Annabelle. She dropped out of the university after a year and took a job at Eaton’s working in the scarf department, much to Bubbie’s disgust. First Ima was into EST and Transcendental Meditation. Then she almost became a nun in a convent in Carmel, California. Finally a friend invited her to a religious dinner. “It was the music that got me,” Ima always says. “I’d never sung on Shabbos before. Bubbie lit the candles, muttered a prayer, then we ate. At this religious dinner, people opened their hearts and thanked God for their food and the day of rest with the most beautiful songs.”
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