Gravity

by Leanne Lieberman

  “You didn’t like that color?”

  “I thought I’d go back to this one.” She lifts a bottle of burgundy polish with the tips of her fingers. “More subdued. You wanted to ask me something?”

  “Oh...I wanted to ask you...do you think people can change?” I twist the polyester edge of my skirt, lean on one elbow.

  “Can you do my right hand?” Bubbie holds out the cotton swab. “What do you mean?”

  I rub off the polish. “Well, just become different.”

  “Your mom certainly has changed,” Bubbie says. “From Eaton’s and her scarf collection to that convent thing and now this, this new plan.” She draws burgundy polish over her thumbnail in one long stroke. “And your sister is determined to change.”

  “Yeah, maybe. That’s not what I really mean. Besides, Neshama isn’t changing that much.”

  “No?”

  “Well, she’s always wanted to be different.”

  “I guess so.” Bubbie holds out her fingers.“ Do you like this color better?”

  I nod yes, chew on a hangnail.

  “I’ll do yours if you like,” Bubbie offers.

  “Neh, I don’t think Abba would like it.” I kiss Bubbie’s cheek. “I gotta go.”

  “Stop by again soon.”

  I jog back home through the ravine.

  Neshama and Ima are slowly transforming day by day, Ima into her own self-styled prophet, Neshama into Bubbie.

  Lindsay wants to become a stripper instead of a private school girl.

  Me, I just want to be normal.

  AT HOME IMA is typing in her and Abba’s office. “Hello,” I call to her.

  She looks up, says, “Oh, hi,” and goes back to her writing.

  I join Abba in the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” I ask.

  “Salmon. Can you set the table?”

  I nod and start pulling dishes out of the cupboard. From the corner of my eye I watch Ima pounding on her typewriter. She pulls out the paper, reads it over, then leans forward and licks the words, one long reach of her tongue from the bottom of the page to the top. I watch her rip off a corner, put the scrap in her mouth. She rests back in her chair, chewing.

  I sigh and turn back to Abba. “Can I ask you something?”

  Abba starts washing small red potatoes. “Shoot.”

  “Jews are chosen, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, what if you do something that makes you un-chosen?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, let’s say, you’re like Bubbie—not religious.”

  “You’re still chosen.”

  I pull out place mats from under the counter. “What if it’s something worse, like...like you’re a leper?”

  “A leper?” Abba turns to look at me.

  “Just say someone was.”

  “Lepers are still part of the chosen. Jewish lepers, that is.”

  “Okay, what about if you do something the Torah says you shouldn’t do, and you do it regularly and know it’s wrong?”

  “You’re still part of the chosen, you’re just not living up to your potential. What’s this all about?”

  “Oh, nothing really.”

  We are quiet a few minutes. I finish setting the table. “Abba, do you ever find a part of the Torah you can’t follow?”

  “Like what?”

  “Um...well, oh, forget it.”

  I decide to bite the inside of my cheek where no can see, and to memorize the periodic table of elements whenever I think of Lindsay. I’m not keen on psalms.

  SUNDAY MORNING I get up early, and Abba drives me to the Ontario Science Centre. Other than the ravine, this is one of my favorite places.

  “So, what are you going to see today?” Abba asks me.

  “Ima found me these shells in Israel in the desert, in Mitzpe Ramon.” I pry open the lid on the canister of sand and show him the white swirls. “I want to learn more about them.”

  “Shells in the desert?”

  “Yeah, water used to cover everywhere, even Israel.”

  “Interesting,” Abba says. “Do you need a ride home?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m meeting Becca later.” Becca has convinced me to sneak into Dirty Dancing. Neshama started rumors at school, hushed whispers about the bulge in Patrick Swayze’s pants. Becca has been talking about it all week.

  Abba drops me off, and I head up to the natural science exhibit. The shells Ima found are actually a fossil called ammonite, part of a squid-like marine animal that existed from the Paleozoic era to the end of the Cretaceous era. The Egyptians considered the fossils to be divine and called them ammonite after the God Ammon.

  On the bus to the movie theater, I think about the patterns the sea would have left on the sand as it receded. The sea was there before Abraham and Sarah, before there was even the Torah. No wonder the Egyptians thought ammonite was divine. If we still prayed to the sea, loved it the way Jews loved Hashem, we wouldn’t dump toxins in our lakes, or overfish our waters. We would pray for the sea’s health and abundance. I shiver at the thought of a Divine Sea. Out the bus window, all I can see are endless concrete buildings and asphalt roads. I could take the subway all the way down to Lake Ontario, but, there too, it’s just a concrete shore. All I have is where water used to be.

  Up at the cottage there were hummingbirds whirring around the feeder and bluebirds cawing for peanuts. And in the lake Lindsay swam, her bare arms and legs glimmering wet, her hair alive, like rippled grass down her back. Lindsay. I bite my cheek and glance at the elements I copied onto my wrist: Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium.

  I meet Becca at the theater at Yonge and Eglinton. She giggles with delight. I keep glancing around us nervously. We don’t see anyone we know. The theater lights go down and the music comes on. Becca fixes her eyes on Patrick Swayze’s swiveling hips. I keep mine on Baby’s.

  That night at home I lie in bed and flip through my geology book. Inside are the words I’ve been looking for: molten, estuary, erosion. Pages and pages on volcanoes spewing, landmasses slipping, tide lines ebbing. I can smell the salt of the sea, hear the bubble of lava, feel plates shifting. I imagine Lindsay expertly maneuvering her canoe. I bite my cheek: Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium.

  I read until my eyelids start to close, my mind saturated with sand dunes shifting, glaciers carving paths and leaving lakes behind. Like when I swam with Lindsay, the way she teased me, the delicious scent below her ear. I bite my lip. I must want to change, become the person I was before the summer, the Ellisheva Gold whose name means “God’s promise,” the Ellisheva who wanted to marry the ocean, but would settle for living by it.

  A car passes, the headlights flashing shadows across the wall. Yes, change. I clamp my cheek in my teeth. Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Lindsay. Like breathing oxygen.

  BY YOM KIPPUR, The Day of Atonement, I know big chunks of the periodic table backward and forward. I know which elements form ionic bonds and which are least reactive. Since I can rattle helium to lithium and think about Lindsay’s hips at the same time, I’ve decided to memorize the Latin for echinoderms instead, starting with sea stars: Sunflower Star, Pycnopodia helianthoides.

  At shul, I sit between Ima and Neshama at the back of the balcony. The fans swirl warm air above us, the men’s chanting rising from below. Neshama slumps in her chair, her head tipped back, silently counting the lights in the ceiling. She absently pats her growling stomach, licks her lips. Ima stands to my right, swaying, quietly mumbling prayers with the rest of the congregation. Neshama and I purposely led her to the back, just in case. She stood all of Rosh Hashanah, singing and swaying. She didn’t sit down except for the sermon.

  For once the women’s section at Beth El is quiet. People are tired, hot, hungry, faint from fasting, perhaps even engaged in prayer, asking God to forgive them for their sins. Whispered greetings are the only conversation. Requests for forgiveness, the response nodded. “All the best for the New Year.”

  “You too,
have an easy fast.”

  Not even Mrs. Bachner notices Ima. She’s busy with her daughter and her five grandchildren visiting from New York.

  We stand for the confession, Neshama wiping her forehead and sighing for the zillionth time. The shul is always too hot on Yom Kippur and we’re always overdressed in our new fall clothes. My tan jacket with the shoulder pads and big buttons rests in a wrinkled heap on the back of my chair. I chant, God and God of our fathers, pardon our sins on this Day of Atonement. Forgive us the sin of disrespect for our parents. Forgive us the sin of licentiousness, unchastity, wanton looks. Forgive us the sin we committed by unclean lips. Forgive me for holding Lindsay’s salty shoulders, kissing her minty lips, wanting to stroke the curve of her waist.

  My eyes jolt open, my cheeks burn. My tongue flits to the raw sore in my mouth, making me flinch. I reach my hand around to the back of my head, twist a strand of hair around my index finger and pull, the hair ripping at the roots.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  Neshama picks a hair off my shoulder. “That thing with your hair.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She holds up a dark strand. “This.”

  “Just forget it,” I whisper.

  After two weeks of cheek biting my mouth was so raw, blood oozing, I decided to pull my hair out instead.

  Neshama shrugs and focuses on pushing back her cuticles.

  I open my book again. Please forgive me for girl lust. Please help me change. Please.

  We stand for the Torah reading, a quiet chorus of women’s voices. I hear Neshama on my left, and from my other side, Ima’s voice, pure and clear. She sings out, her eyes closed, her hand across her heart, her voice round and whole, but breathy at the edges as if she’s singing with all the air from her lungs, her chest pushing out.

  Ima’s voice soars louder and louder, sending shivers down my spine. In it I hear true contrition. Mrs. Zissler glances back at us, then Mrs. Blume. Mrs. Bachner turns and makes a tsk-tsk noise. My shoulders tense. I look at Neshama nervously.

  Neshama whispers, “Ima?” Still Ima sings.

  Mrs. Bachner’s daughter turns around and stares. She wears a long navy suit buttoned all the way up to her chin and a high-collared white blouse, but her left eye is swollen closed. The skin is a fresh blue, almost purple, fading to green at the edges. I draw in my breath.

  Ima hits a particularly high note, and Neshama finally pokes her in the ribs. Ima’s eyes fly open, her voice breaking off. She looks startled.

  “You’re too loud,” Neshama hisses.

  Ima looks around as if trying to recollect where she is. “Am I?”

  Neshama gives a quick nod.

  Ima blushes and straightens her blouse. She tucks a strand of hair more firmly under her hat, opens her prayer book again, mumbles quietly under her breath. She sits when the rest of us do.

  Throughout the Torah service, my fingers reach up to the base of my skull, trace the spot where I’ve been pulling at my hair. I imagine Lindsay’s hands, first just touching my neck, caressing my head, and then when she pulls me closer, she tugs on my hair, her lips teasing my ear. I grip my prayer book tightly, flick my tongue against the sore in my cheek. I skim the portion, trying to follow the chanting. After the Torah service I excuse myself and go down to the bathroom.

  In a bathroom stall, I lean my forehead against the plaster wall, take some deep breaths.

  I hear Sari Blum whisper to her mother by the mirrors, “Mrs. Bachner’s daughter is here without her husband.”

  “Really? Alone for yontif?”

  “Wouldn’t you be with that eye?”

  On the way back I pause at the open doors of the main sanctuary. I peer into the men’s section, at the sea of bobbing white backs, rows of kippah-clad heads. Men and boys, this is what I’m supposed to like. Danny Durshiwitz, the cantor’s son, walks back my way. We used to play tag at recess even though he made speeches in class about the inner workings of the brain. I haven’t seen him since we went on to high school. I should have a crush on a boy like him: tall and dark, although he isn’t exactly handsome. He’s too thin, and his face has broken out in crusting zits. He catches my eye, and I quickly step out of the doorway and head back upstairs.

  Six

  Every year at Halloween, Neshama and I begged to go trick-or-treating. We would choose costumes from the dress-up box at Bubbie’s, then wait to ask Abba.

  “Abba, can we please go trick-or-treating this year?” Neshama asked politely. She wore a ballet tutu with a turtleneck underneath and her thick navy school tights. I was a cat with paper ears attached to a headband, and a painted-on nose and whiskers.

  We sat on the edge of the bathtub watching Abba trim his beard. Our bathroom had an old mauve toilet and matching sink. The tiling in the tub had started to drop off, dotting the tub and whoever was in it with bits of plaster. Ima had tried to make the room more inviting with mauve floral wallpaper and matching towels, but the accumulated steam and lack of a fan made the paper peel at the corners.

  Abba looked at us in the reflection of the mirror. “Trick-or-treat? And have the whole community see my girls like goyishe children asking for candy?”

  Neshama clasped her hands to her chest. “Abba, please. We’ll go near Bubbie’s house. No one will see us.”

  “Ima got to go when she was a kid,” I added. “We saw the pictures. She was a princess one year, and a bride and—”

  “No.” Abba’s voice was muffled as he trimmed the hairs near his nostrils.

  “Just for half an hour? We won’t eat anything until we show you.”

  “No.” Abba put down his scissors and held the door open for us to leave.

  “Just one street?”

  “Out!” We scurried to the door. “I can’t understand how you want to have a holiday where they throw eggs at Jews’ houses.”

  “That was just a prank, Abba,” Neshama insisted, standing in the doorway. Rabbi Abrams’ house had been egged two Halloweens before.

  “Like a pogrom.” Abba’s face grew red, spittle flying out of his mouth.

  “You think the kids went looking for a house with a mezuzah?” Neshama’s cheeks grew equally red, her hands coming up to enunciate her words.

  Abba turned back to the mirror. “Scratch a goy and you get an anti-Semite,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Abba! That’s not true,” I insisted. Mrs. Kilpatrick was my math and science teacher that year. We got to do science fair, and I built a volcano and won the prize for the school. I couldn’t go to the city fair because it was on Shabbos.

  Ima stuck her head into the hallway. She stood behind us at the entrance of the bathroom in her burgundy terry robe, her hair bound up in a towel. “What kind of mishegas are you filling their ears with?” Her quiet, controlled voice made me feel queasy. She pushed past us into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. “You teach our children to hate? Nu?”

  I’ve always thought Abba was religious because of the Holocaust. I once overheard Bubbie ask Abba why he “bothered keeping all those crazy rules.” Abba said that if the Jews had been more observant, the Holocaust would never have happened.

  “Bullshit!” Bubbie cried. “Is that what your parents believed? No!”

  Abba shrugged. “That’s my opinion.”

  When I ask Bubbie about it later, her nostrils flared in disgust. “Ellie,” she told me, “the Holocaust happened because Hitler was crazy and because no one cared a damn about the Jews. Now it’s not like that. Everyone likes us, in Canada anyway. We’re like kosher WASPs.”

  Ima was so angry with Abba she packed us up that Halloween and let us choose costumes from the dress-up box at Bubbie’s. We helped Bubbie give out chocolates, and then we walked around the neighborhood looking at other children’s costumes. We didn’t knock on any doors, but Ima gave us kosher milk chocolate bars. We both chose to be fairies with pink tulle crinolines under our duffel coats.

  “
Can we go walk in the ravine?” Neshama asked.

  “Ooh, too scary,” Ima whispered, her eyes twinkling. She took us to the edge and we looked down into the dark trees. The wind knocked the bare dry branches together and the streetlamps cast the trees into long shadows. The light illuminated part of the path down the bush-covered slope, and the red and gold leaves covering the bushes. A breeze fluttered behind us, sending leaves skipping past our ankles and into the ravine. Chills ran up and down my arms and legs. “That’s where all the ghosts live,” Ima whispered into our ears, pointing down into the dark. Neshama and I shivered, stomped our feet and clung to her hands.

  Neshama and I fell asleep on the white wicker couch in Bubbie’s kitchen, our tummies full of chocolate and milky tea. Ima and Bubbie sat at the kitchen table, drank Kahlua, got drunk and cried.

  Every year when we made our annual Halloween plea, Abba said, “Wait until the spring for Purim. Then you can dress up and eat candy ‘til you’re sick.”

  “Great,” Neshama always said, her voice thick with sarcasm, “another holiday about people trying to kill the Jews. Let’s cel-e-brate.”

  “At least the Jews didn’t get killed that time,” I always pointed out.

  “Yeah, and in the end,” Neshama added, “we slaughtered everyone instead.” We didn’t talk about this part of the story much at school.

  ON HALLOWEEN THIS year I tell Neshama I’m going to the library after school. As soon as she’s out of sight, I head toward the subway instead. On the way I stop at the drugstore to look at magazines. I scan the shelves. Fashion. Home Decorating. Sports. My eyes stop on the very back shelf, caught by the gleaming plastic cover of Hustler. Glancing around me, I lift the plastic-covered corner and nudge the magazine out of its slot. A brassy blond pouts on the cover, her pointy nipples overlaid with a thin layer of black lace descending down her belly to meet in a tiny V at her crotch. The full part of her breasts juts around the thin black strips. “Jordan, a bedroom, a video camera and you.” My face grows hot and I quickly drop the magazine back in place. Boys, Ellie, find some boys. Pecs and abs and bulging jeans. I crouch down and look at the teen magazines. Boys: What Every Girl Wants, the headline of Teen reads. I flip through pages of advertisements and features on holiday dresses (sparkles and stars for you), the new bangs (ten easy steps) and a center section of boys. Pages and pages of shirtless, hairless, glossy boys with pecs, abs and tight jeans.