“Finally, we saw the first signs of spring. The snow began to melt, and there, through the cracks, we saw plants, green with yellow flowers. To the guards they were weeds, but to us, they were a gift of color.
“The war ended. Those of us still alive were liberated. I came here, to America. But that orange—it saved my life.”
As he said these words, the bus came to a stop. Using his cane for balance, the old man stood up with his grocery bag, holding out his hand. I gave him the orange.
He smiled, then smelled it one more time. “That happened many, many years ago,” he said, “and from then until now, I have not told anyone about it.” Then he handed the orange back to me. “Remember, young man,” he said. “Remember the sweet things in life.”
With those words, he got off the bus.
I don’t remember what happened on the rest of that bus ride, or the two after that. I traveled home in a kind of trance, with pictures whirling in my mind, of the old man, the dirty snow, the gray food—and the orange, which I kept rolling in my hands. The same way he held on to that orange peel, I held on to his story.
When I finally got home, I placed the orange on top of the piano in my room, then looked through the drawers of the living room cupboard, where I found we had another box of candles. I set them up as neatly as I could—with an orange one for the shammes.
I turned out the lights, and we lit the candles and said the blessings. Then we sang “Maoz Tzur,” but quietly. There was an open window, and just a hint of a breeze. The flames flickered ever so slightly. I looked at my family. They were all exhausted.
My mom looked at me. “Joel, maybe you’ll do a magic trick?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t have any magic left in me,” I said. “But would you like to hear a story?”
“Yes,” said my mother. “That would be wonderful. What would you like to read? Here, I’ll turn on a light . . .”
“No,” I said. “I don’t need a light. Or a book. Just the candles.”
With some effort, my dad settled into the couch beside my mom. Kenny and Howard sat on the bridge chairs. I had read the story of “The First Shlemiel” so many times that I knew it by heart. I pictured the drawing of Shlemiel, Baby Shlemiel, and the rooster on the windowsill, and began. “There are many shlemiels in the world, but the very first one came from the village of Chelm . . .”
I told them of the snow, Shlemiel’s despair, the sense that all was lost. I found I remembered everything in the book, and a few things besides, and I didn’t miss the illustrations, because I had the characters sitting right in front of me. There was Howard, looking like an elder of Chelm, gravely serious, Kenny, another elder, always hopeful. And my mom—the hardworking, long-suffering Mrs. Shlemiel. Then I looked at my father, who is, in his dreams, Shlemiel the King.
I told them of the miraculous recovery. How Shlemiel didn’t die after eating the jam he’d thought was poison, but drifted off to sleep. How he had cried tears of joy when he realized he would go on living. And how, upon hearing the story, the elders of Chelm made a truly wise decision, for once: that everyone should give a little of their own jam to the Shlemiels. Finally, I told them how on the first night of Chanuka, when the family lit the menorah and placed it on the windowsill, there was a flurry in the snow. It was the rooster, who had been lost but, by the light of the candles, had found his way back home. And that year, the Shlemiels had a happy Hanukah after all.
When I finished, there was silence. The stubs of the candles that remained showed just a hint of color, their flames dancing side to side. The one to the far right began to flicker—a moment later it glowed brightly, then faded out, sending up a wisp of smoke. Then another candle—the fifth—flared, then burned out, sending up its wisp of smoke. We watched in silence until there were just two flames left—one on the green candle to the far right of the menorah, and one on the shammes.
The shammes burned lower and lower. After about a minute, the flame was so small, I couldn’t even be sure it was still lit. The green one was bright—lighting up the room as if all the other candles were burning. Then, all of a sudden, it died down. A wisp—then it was gone.
All that remained was the dim light of the shammes. We stared, barely able to make out its faint orange glow. It suddenly brightened, a tiny flame appeared, and light filled the room. Finally, there was a wisp of smoke—then peaceful darkness.
THE SHAMMES: Just Enough
Monday, December 20
My first thought this morning—even before I opened my eyes—was of the old man, how he lifted the newspaper and saw that orange against the snow. When I opened my eyes a moment later, I saw the orange on top of the piano. I stood on my bed and picked it up, holding it for a long time, rolling it between my hands, just as he had done. Then I scraped the peel, closed my eyes, and smelled.
Usually, when I hear a story I like, or a joke, I turn around and tell it to someone. Anyone who happens to be around. I’m not sure why. Maybe because part of me just doesn’t get it until I tell it to someone else. But not the story of the orange. This one I got. And I didn’t want to let it go. It was as though a little star had floated down from the sky, right to me, like that old song my mom sometimes sings—“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away . . .”
That’s what I had: a little bit of light in my pocket. I thought of my grandmother. I wondered if she still had a spark of light somewhere deep inside, or if it’s gone forever. That reminded me of something Rabbi Buxelbaum said in a sermon when I was a little kid. When you look up in the sky, on a really clear night, and see millions of stars, some of them actually burned out long ago, thousands or even tens of thousands of years ago. But because they’re so far away, their light is just reaching us now, and we don’t know which are dead and which are alive.
I don’t know what to think about my grandmother. But I do know that, from out of nowhere, one little speck of light had come to me.
Nowhere?
Well, not exactly nowhere.
“Hey, God,” I said. “It’s me. Look, I know I’ve done a lot of kvetching over the past eight days. I guess you really don’t like being heckled, do you?”
No response, just the sound of Herrmann spinning on her wheel.
“Then again, I’m not sure you want us humans to just sit here quietly and accept everything. Especially us Jews. If you did, you wouldn’t have made us this way.”
That seemed to be a really good point. After all, what’s more Jewish than arguing with God? Like that story in the Torah about Abraham debating with God about whether Sodom and Gomorrah should be destroyed. We don’t just argue with God; we wrestle. Like Jacob, who wrestled all night with an angel. In the end, the angel dislocated Jacob’s hip, which must have hurt. A lot. I’d never thought about it before, but Jacob probably walked like my dad. I wonder—did people laugh at him? Then, before the angel left, Jacob had the nerve to ask for his blessing. He didn’t just ask; he demanded it—which is a gutsy thing to do when someone has just busted your hip. But the angel did give him a blessing, saying he would change Jacob’s name to Yis-ra-el—Israel—which means “One who has wrestled with God.” To me, that proves that wrestling with God is a good thing. I was just about to explain all this to God, but stopped myself. Somehow, lecturing God about Bible stories seemed over the line.
“Anyhow, God, I’m sorry about the heckling. I know I don’t like it when someone calls out the secrets to my tricks. For what it’s worth, your secrets are safe with me. Because I have no idea how your tricks work. All I know is that every once in a while, you come up with a good one. So, I guess what I’m saying is . . . thank you for the orange.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Hey, the guy on the bus . . . was he an angel?”
No response. But I didn’t need one.
“No, he wasn’t. An angel would probably have broken my hip.�
� Then it came to me. “I know what he was—a shammes.”
I put the orange back on the piano.
I was still turning the whole business over in my mind as I walked to school, worried about the assembly, with no idea what to say onstage. And here’s what I realized: The old man’s story would not actually change anything.
Although I had prayed for snow, none had fallen. Nor was it ever going to. Sure, a few flakes of snow might land here someday. They might even come during Kchanuka. But they wouldn’t transform Temple City from an endless grid of streets into some kind of winter wonderland, let alone the village of Chelm.
Nor would his story make my dad a healthy man. Dr. Kaplowski had said that he could try the operation again in six months, but my dad would have to stop taking the prednisone, and that might kill him. Even if he does get golden hips someday, he’ll never again be truly healthy or able to ride a bike, whistling. He’ll never be Normalman’s father.
Nor will my family ever be Normalman’s family. Howard is, to be honest, strange, and getting stranger. He’s not just a grumpy older brother. There’s something wrong with him. I don’t know what it is. But I do know that it can’t be easy being him, even if he is some kind of math genius.
And Kenny. He’s really kind, but filled with hopes that keep getting dashed. He’s like my mom, who still holds on to the dreams that brought her here from Cleveland, no matter how disappointing life gets. I guess she tries not to see it. Maybe that’s the only way she can get by—and take care of us. I was thinking of her this morning as I gathered nine candles, a book of matches, and our menorah. She didn’t go into work all last week. Her boss, Mr. Miller, is pretty good about letting her take time off, but when she doesn’t work, she doesn’t get paid. And my dad sure isn’t making any money. Just before I left for school, I dug the envelope out of my tux jacket and looked at the five twenty-dollar bills. I put two of them in my impromptu box. Forty dollars will be just enough to buy that spring-loaded top hat from Berg’s Studio of Magic, including bus fare there and back.
Looking at the other three bills, I thought about all the magic tricks I could buy. In the end, I folded them up and dug through the pile of stuff in the kitchen phone drawer to find a rubber band, a piece of paper, and a pencil. I wrapped the bills in the paper and slipped the rubber band around them. Then, while my mom was in the shower, I snuck into her purse, took out her wallet, and stuffed them inside.
On the paper I had written Happy Hanukkah.
Because that’s how I’ve decided to spell the word from now on: Hanukkah.
H-A-N-U-K-K-A-H. Hanukkah.
I know what you’re thinking. With a million different ways to spell it, why would I choose to spell it that way?
It’s a good question. And I don’t have a good answer. All I can do is answer the way Jews always do—with another question.
“Why not?”
Maybe that’s the real question: “Why not?”
Because it turns out that life is hard, and not actually fair. Terrible things happen in this world, like sickness and Nazis and whatever happened to my grandmother before she left Poland. Too often our dreams shrivel up and our hopes turn to disappointment. Then, in the middle of it all, we get a glimpse of something shiny and bright, something that glows in the dark and sets us free, if only for a moment. It’s not much, and sometimes we have to squint to see it. In fact, most of the time all we have is the memory of the last time we saw it. Or thought we saw it, because sometimes we’re not even sure it was there in the first place.
“So,” you ask, “if it’s small, completely unreliable, and usually not even there—why celebrate it?”
Again, a good question. And, again, I can only answer: “Why not?”
With the assembly scheduled for second period, Mr. Culpepper decided first period should be a Christmas party, so he decorated his trailer with tinsel and put a big wreath on the blackboard. He had pushed the chairs aside, leaving the room empty except for a table in the middle, covered with candy canes and a record player, playing a Dean Martin Christmas album.
“Good morning, students,” he said. “You’ll notice that the choir has gone off to prepare for the assembly, which leaves just you boys. You will also notice that I have placed candy canes on the table, my sincere hope being that you will be drawn to them like rats to cheese.” He thought for a moment, scratching his beard. “Or, like bees to honey. Moths to a flame? How about . . .” Now he smiled. “Like meatballs to spaghetti?! Whatever your choice of simile, I hope you will gather around the table, and not bounce off the walls.” With this he looked at Eddy, who kind of nodded. “I’ll have to leave a little before the end of class—and all I ask is that you do not destroy anything.”
Sure enough, he left about ten minutes before the bell rang. I slipped out right after him, taking my paper bag to the auditorium, and climbed up the side stairs to the backstage area. The main curtain was closed, and there was a set of risers on the stage. I could see Mrs. Gabbler on the other side of the stage, and all the girls dressed in their blue-and-gold choir robes.
“Hello, Joel,” Mr. Newton said, walking up to me. “Are you ready?” I nodded. He pointed to the paper bag in my hand. “Is that the, um . . . menorah?” I nodded again. “Good. You can set it up on this little table, then bring it out when it’s time for your part, right after the choir.” He looked around. “Where’s your family?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “They were supposed to be here already.”
“Well, all right,” he said, looking at his watch. “I’m sure they’ll arrive soon.” I could hear the auditorium filling up. “We’ll be starting with the choir in a couple minutes.” He went across the stage to check in with them. They were warming up, singing scales. I could see Amy O’Shea, though she didn’t see me. I peeked out from behind the curtain. The auditorium was packed. Everyone had come.
Except my family.
Mr. Newton walked up to the microphone at the front of the stage.
“Good morning, everyone! Welcome, to Bixby School’s special Winter Holiday Celebration!” He said it like everyone should applaud, and they did. “As you’ve heard, we have a special surprise.”
Again, I peeked out. No sign of my family. Where were they?
“But first, we’ll be starting off with our own Bixby Girls’ Choir!”
The choir took their place on the stage, and Mrs. Balthazar, the choir director, sat at the piano, nodded, then began to play. They started with Israel Isidore Beilin’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” then worked their way from one Jewish Christmas song to the next.
I had heard all the songs before, but something happened as the choir sang, and it caught me completely by surprise. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I don’t cry very often. When I do cry, it’s usually at something schmaltzy in a TV commercial, or a movie, or a song. And that’s what happened when the choir got to “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” the only non-Jewish Christmas song they sang. It’s about a soldier who’s off fighting in The War, but says he’ll be home for Christmas. It’s really a happy song, about how he’s looking forward to snow and mistletoe and everything else—until the last line: “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”
I thought about Amy’s brother, and all the soldiers in Vietnam who wouldn’t be coming home, for either Christmas or Hanukkah, or maybe ever. Suddenly my eyes welled up, and the choir was a blue-and-gold blur.
“Joel?” said Mr. Newton, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be here.” He thought I was crying about my family. And maybe I was. He pulled out a packet of tissues and gave me a few, then went off.
Finally the choir came to their last song: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” But when they got to the words “Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came
to say . . .” there was a swell of laughter from the audience, and a deep voice sang, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Everyone applauded. I looked onstage and there, in front of the choir, was Santa! He had the clothes, the white beard, the huge belly—everything. I’d never seen such a Santa—he looked like he’d come straight from the North Pole! Then he turned to the side, looked right at me—and winked! It was Mr. Culpepper!
Suddenly it hit me—that was his secret! The one I stopped him from telling by cutting and restoring his necktie. He wasn’t going to tell the class about me—he was going to tell us that he was Santa!
The song ended and everyone cheered.
“They’re still not here?” asked Mr. Newton.
I shook my head. I didn’t know if I felt sad or relieved. Either way, I was lighting the menorah on my own.
“Well, that’s a shame,” he said, patting my back. “Something must have come up. But we’ll go on without them—and I’ll be by your side.”
With that he walked onto the stage. “Let’s hear it for Mr. Culpepper, our special guest Santa! And for the whole Bixby Girls’ Choir!” Everyone cheered as Mr. Culpepper took a bow. “I’m told by Mrs. Balthazar that they’ll be back for a special encore at the end of the assembly.
“But first,” he said, getting serious, “as you all know, we call this our ‘Winter Holiday Assembly.’ While many of us celebrate Christmas, it is not the only holiday observed at this time of year.
“There are people of the Jewish faith who celebrate a holiday called Hanukkah, which is also known as the Festival of Lights, and we are fortunate to have a Jewish student here at Bixby School. Many of you know Joel, in seventh grade, who will light the Hanukkah candles and tell us the story of the holiday.” He paused for a moment. “We had hoped his family would be joining us but, unfortunately, they were unable to make it. So I’ll be his assistant. Joel?”
Dreidels on the Brain Page 21