Ruth’s brother-in-law carried the child to where Chaim waited.
Chaim with conscious eloquence intoned the circumcision prayer of the first Abraham. When the baby uttered its cry the watchers nodded solemnly.
“Yes,” said Abraham softly to his grandson, “it’s hard to be a Jew.”
“Harder still,” said Isaac as softly, “to be a human being.”
Abraham looked around at his son with a puzzled expression, and then his eyes lit up and he nodded his head up and down vigorously. “It’s true,” he said out loud. “You’re absolutely right, my son. It’s hard to be a Jew, as we all know. But it’s still harder” – and Abraham emphasized his words with a gesture of his hand, glancing over to see that Chaim caught what his son had said – “to be a human being.”
Chaim, whom Abraham addressed politely as “Reverend” for that whole day, handed the child back to Ruth’s brother-in-law, who returned it again to Abraham. Abraham laid it ceremoniously in Sarah’s arms, and Sarah returned it, at last, to the nurse.
The serious part of the ceremony was over. Food and liquor were unpacked, and the little celebration began. Isaac found himself in a corner, trying to think of nice things to say to a much aggrieved Mrs. Plopler. Abraham sought Chaim out among a group of guests who were plying him with liquor. “Well, what do you think of him, Reverend?” He beamed, his face flushed.
“I was just saying” – the Reverend Chaim chuckled, his face equally flushed, “that he is a smallish Jew, but perfect!”
“Perfect!” echoed Abraham.
—
“Absolutely perfect!” Chaim said with a chuckle some two months later. “A perfect little rascal.”
“Well, what did I tell you?” Abraham laughed.
“You were right, thank God.” Chaim was secretly annoyed with himself because he had all along been afraid to believe that it really would be a boy. A lot of good your education does you, he told himself afterward, when you are afraid to believe simply because you might be wrong. And what if it had been a girl? You would have had those nine months of joy to look back on instead of nine months of secret worry. That would have been a little miracle in itself.
But now the time for worry had passed. As Chaim explained to Abraham, the baby had already brought about a species of truce between his wife and his daughter-in-law.
“My Bassieh came and sat with her, and she talked to her, and she told her how it’s the woman that always suffers, and how the men don’t understand anything about it. It was a pleasure to see them talking together so nicely,” said Chaim. “We’re even planning to give up the house and move into a flat,” he added with satisfaction.
—
It was strange, and he and Chaim often discussed it, how all had happened almost as though they had planned it. It was meant to be, there was no doubt about it. Looking at the child, Abraham could not recall a time when his grandson had not been there, implicit in his life.
“Whom would you say he looks like, Isaac?”
“You.”
“Don’t joke with your father. Look at him. Whose side of the family? It’s important to know these things so we should have some idea of his character. The first thing your mother and I used to ask, as with one thought, ‘Is it normal?’ And when we knew that it was physically normal, this would satisfy your mother, but I would always look for a sign of its character. You, for instance, I knew right away were a stubborn one. I would not be surprised if, when Gabriel tapped your mouth to make you forget the Torah before you came into the world, you bit his finger. Hah! I wouldn’t be surprised. With this one, now, it’s different. Just look at him.”
“I can see your character written all over him,” said Isaac. “Look at that chin, that nose – not as large yet, perhaps, but one can see it has ambitions. That forehead –”
“Laugh, laugh; a few people can remember your father as a handsome man yet.”
“I know, and haven’t you a handsome son to prove it?” Isaac’s pale face had assumed a surer look since he had become responsible for the bearing of a son, as though the feat had somehow won him a greater right to be.
“And a handsome grandson, and you’ll have superb great-grandchildren, and if you ever run out of breath your wives will continue to tell the world all about you.” Ruth had come in and busied herself about the red little body in the basket.
“I was just telling your husband,” said Abraham, who was not above a gallant lie, “that it would be well if the child showed some of your characteristics.”
“Oh, I don’t need a full dedication; a footnote will do.”
Abraham laughed with his son appreciatively, although he could not be sure that the joke wasn’t partly on him. An educated girl. She could hold her own.
Ruth picked up the baby and pushed through the curtain into the bedroom. Sarah, who had followed her into the living room, followed her aimlessly into the bedroom, trying to tuck the covers more closely under her arm.
Ruth hugged the child to herself. There was something so personal about holding her baby. Sometimes she wished they could go off somewhere, just herself and Isaac and their baby, for a little while, away from everybody. Lying down across the bed, she cradled her child in her arms and began to croon as she fed him, forgetting her mother-in-law’s presence entirely. Sarah watched her for a moment, then turned and slipped through the curtain.
“I cannot help wondering” – Abraham was musing – “when a child is born, what will be its destiny? What secret message is it that God has written on its forehead?” He let his eyes rove slowly over the features of his son, who sat, his eyes clouded with thought. “What sign will he bring to his people, to the world?” He was handsome, Abraham thought with pride, sitting so deeply in thought.
Isaac stirred uncomfortably. “Why should he bring any sign, and to us in particular?”
“I don’t know,” said Abraham. “I just feel. You must have this feeling too sometimes, in spite of the fact that you like to argue with your father. You in particular…” Abraham let his sentence trail vaguely, suggestively, leaving Isaac with a sense of discomfort, almost of fear.
To break away from it, Isaac began again. “But how can we be a glorious race when we are as sinful as those about us?” he threw out challengingly.
“Why” – Abraham was surprised – “I have never denied that there are villains amongst us, although I do not know whether I would agree with you that we have as many as they have.” He answered sweetly, for some reason unwilling to be provoked.
“We have as many thieves as they,” Isaac went on with some irritation. “Aren’t our exploiters, sinners, and hypocrites as bad as theirs? And to be a villain amongst us is an even worse thing than to be one amongst any other nation, for the eye of the world is magnified upon us.”
“Let them look,” said Abraham comfortably. “You know how well a Jew can do a thing when he sets his mind to it. Why else are we hated? It may seem to them that we have more villains than they simply because one gifted Jewish villain can outshine any three of theirs.” Abraham waved his hand in deprecating acknowledgment of this excess of talent. Then he leaned forward, no longer smiling. “But as the villainies of a few may stand out, so will our faith, our grand desire. It is for this that we are chosen.” He noticed again, leaning forward, the curve of his son’s jaw, the restlessness in his eyes. Remembering that Isaac probably wished to argue, he gave a little half-smile from behind his beard and cocked an inquiring eye. But Isaac, for once, was silent.
—
As Moses began to grow perceptibly from day to day, and every day brought its new story about him, its new anecdote, to be repeated and discussed at the butcher shop and the factory, Sarah began, almost imperceptibly at first, but in Abraham’s eyes at least more clearly, to fade away. It was as though a long tiredness was creeping over her, wrapping her up in its filminess, drawing her in. There were still times when she swept into action, when she swept all before her in a pleasurable frenzy of doing. B
ut these times were sporadic and left her puzzled and tired. Her life had become like a long conversation in which she had somehow said all that she had to say, and to which she was now even forgetting to listen.
Abraham could not remember when it was that he had first developed that feeling about his wife. It was not a feeling that could be put into words. It came upon him at odd times, unexpectedly. When, for instance, he and Chaim, in that long interchange of formal questions with which they greeted each other, had dealt with each other’s health and the health of Mrs. Knopp, and Chaim asked in his turn, “And how is your wife?” – then the feeling came over him. It was as though the strings of his spirit that bound him to Sarah twanged suddenly, spreading through him vibration upon vibration of a feeling that was a confused mixture of fear and sadness and certainty. He would answer merely that she was well, or that she had a cold or a constriction in her chest. Chaim would offer a few words, either of advice or of general good will, while the vibrations rippled down gradually. In the surge of his feeling, while he tried at the same time to listen to Chaim’s words, Abraham would promise himself again that he would cherish her. It was the only protection that he knew against the feeling. If he promised to cherish her fervently enough he could forestall the knowledge that was in him and drive it back.
Chaim’s voice would cease, and Abraham would become aware that he was waiting. It was Abraham’s turn to ask after Chaim’s children. By the time Chaim had come to his counter-question about Isaac the ripples had faded, soothed by the fervent promise. As he gave a detailed description of what Isaac had accomplished lately his spirit would gradually recover, so that by the time his turn came to ask about Chaim’s grandchildren the feeling was a faint discomfort only, in his heart.
And in fact he did cherish her. It was a byword among the people who knew them well, a byword first composed by Mrs. Plopler, that Avrom carried his wife around like on a silver platter. Even Mr. Plopler, when his wife mentioned it to him in her injured way, replied only, in a tone that in any other man might have sounded a trifle wistful, “Well, she’s such a quiet one.”
Ruth, who had gradually come to consider her mother-in-law more as a dependent than as a co-worker in household affairs, looked with a certain sentimental pleasure on the relationship between Abraham and Sarah. Someday perhaps, she supposed, time might add its embroidery of quirks to her own nature as well. Then Isaac might treat her, too, as though she were made of glass. The idea pleased her. It was like a pleasant fantasy, for she could not really imagine herself as a very fragile type. Still, from what they said, Sarah had not always been as she was now either.
It was not easy to be always as patient as she wanted to be with her mother-in-law. Ruth was of a direct and practical turn of mind. She could not help being irritated sometimes. Over the business of the cats, for instance, she had often had to bite her tongue.
“Ruth,” Sarah would call suddenly, apprehensively, “where are the cats?”
“I don’t know,” Ruth would call back, perhaps a little impatiently, for she was used to the question. “I think they’re outside.”
“Are you sure,” Sarah’s voice would resume a moment later a little querulously, “they’re not by the child?” And Sarah would make a room-by-room inspection of the house, peering into the bedroom where the child slept several times on the way.
“Don’t wake him, Ma; the cats aren’t there.”
Shaking her head, Sarah would return to her chair. Cats had been known to strangle children. Ruth was altogether too indifferent.
One day, thinking to put Sarah’s mind at ease, Ruth suggested that Knobble the Second and Pompishke should not be allowed into the house. “Isaac can make a little house for them outside, and we can feed them. They won’t come to harm; animals are tough. And then you won’t have to worry about them harming the child.”
“They’re our cats,” said Sarah slowly. “How can we drive them from the house?”
“It won’t hurt them to sleep outside. Why should you have to worry about them?”
But Sarah would not hear of it. “They’re ours,” she repeated. “We don’t want them to have a grudge against him. Animals understand these things.”
“Well –” Ruth began, a little exasperated.
Feeling for a moment as though all her powers were being called upon, Sarah interrupted her. “Don’t worry. I will watch the child,” she promised.
NINE
Sucking his thumb reflectively, Moses paused for a moment outside the bedroom where his mother and the lady had disappeared. The door was open a trifle, but not enough for him to be able to see. He sniffed close to the crack in the door. A slightly acrid smell made him wrinkle his nose. Pressing himself against the door, he pushed it farther ajar and slipped part way around it. From here he could watch what they were doing to his grandmother.
The yellow blind was pulled more than halfway down the window, cutting the blue light of the winter afternoon and making the room yellowish and shadowy. His grandmother lay, face down, close to the edge of the big bed that was hers and Grandfather’s. Her face was pressed down so that he could see only the gray hair straggling along the pillow. The bedclothes were pulled down to her waist, and her back and arms were bare. His mother and the lady – whom Moses, had he been pressed, would have identified as Mrs. Pyopyo – hovered about the bed, their attitudes intent. Mrs. Pyopyo muttered quietly, words he could not understand, her nose working as though she were getting ready to sneeze. His own nose worked sympathetically.
On a chair beside the bed were laid out on a white cloth several rows of odd little glass cups, smaller than those he drank from, and with curled-back edges. Beside them a white cup stood.
As he watched, the lady took a little stick from the chair and wrapped some white fluff around it. Then she dipped it into the white cup. In the dim light his mother leaned forward and struck a match against something in her hand. The match flared up, and as she cupped it the smell drifted across the room into his nostrils. His mother held the match against the lady’s fluff-wrapped stick. The stick flared more brightly than the match, and for an instant the faces of both his mother and the lady leaped into light with dancing shadows playing across them as the lady moved the stick, so that for a moment they were two grotesque-faced strangers.
The lady seized one of the glass cups from the chair, inverted it, and thrust the taper into it. The taper puffed out immediately. With almost the same movement the lady withdrew the taper and clapped the inverted glass to his grandmother’s back. Moses stifled an exclamation of fright. The odd, sweetish smell of the taper followed the acrid match-smell into his nostrils.
On the bed his grandmother moaned slightly. Moses reached up to the doorhandle and, holding on to it, pulled himself up on his toes, craning his neck to see his grandmother better. He could see that there were several other cups stuck grotesquely onto her flesh. As he watched, the match flared again, and then the taper, lighting up his mother’s eyes, which, because they did not seem to be intent on what was familiar to him, seemed to him to be the eyes of a stranger. Again the taper puffed out in the glass cup, and another cup was clapped onto his grandmother’s back.
Disturbed, Moses forgot that he was not supposed to enter this room. He pushed the door farther open and came forward to his mother’s side. She had just lit the taper again when she felt his hand tugging at her skirt. Ruth looked down into the child’s pleading eyes and uttered a startled “Oh!” Mrs. Plopler, who was about to thrust the taper deftly into the center of the glass, looked up. The taper wavered before it went out, and Mrs. Plopler, automatically completing her movement, clapped the glass down on Sarah’s back.
Sarah cried out in pain. The taper had heated the curled edge of the glass. Louder than Sarah’s cry was Mrs. Plopler’s exclamation. She wrenched away the cup. A red welt formed where the cup had touched the skin. Mrs. Plopler began to wail and wring her hands. Distracted, Ruth pulled away from the child and bent over the bed. Moses, confused, s
ensing that somehow something had happened that was his fault, began to cry loudly.
“Why is the child crying?” Sarah raised herself suddenly so that the glasses with their great gobs of discolored flesh stared at him from her back. Her voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar to him. She twisted about; the side of her face which had pressed against the pillow was red and ridged. “What’s wrong with the child?” Sarah’s eyes glared past him. Her head fell forward and she moaned again. Moses bawled louder still. Ruth seized him up in her arms and carried him from the room, trying to comfort him and calling back instructions to Mrs. Plopler at the same time. A moment later Mrs. Plopler came rushing past them, muttering loudly, to look for some butter to put on the burn. Her distraught appearance, the sounds she was making, the stabbing of her nose, brought forth another frightened howl from the child and helped to imprint on his memory as the first indelible recollection of his childhood the strange, yellow-shadowed scene at his grandmother’s bedside.
—
“I admit,” Mrs. Plopler often said, “that there are few people who can set the cups as well as I.” Mrs. Plopler would go on to enumerate compliments she had received on her setting of the cups. It was true that she was an expert with many cures to her credit. In their family alone she had several times drawn a cold from Isaac and the threat of bronchitis from Sarah. Once she had even effected a partial cure on one of Abraham’s arms when the pains had become particularly strong.
“What can you see with pills?” Mrs. Plopler was fond of asking. “Do you know what the doctor’s giving you? He stuffs your mouth with a pill or a bitter medicine and tells you you’re cured. With the cups you can at least see what’s being done. The cold and the poisons are being pulled out of your body, drawn out straight through the flesh. That’s medicine.”
The Sacrifice Page 15