An Orphan's Tale

by Jay Neugeboren

  Irving said he worked in a corner candy store for a husband and wife and that the brother of the wife had been a college teacher. He inspired me, Irving said. He was the only Jewish man I knew who wasn’t rich but still had time to go to ball games and the beach!

  Irving made more jokes again about what a racket college teaching is. He only teaches 6 hours a week and this gives him all the time he wants to read and do things with his family and friends. He talked about how angry he used to make Murray by telling him that if schools like Murray’s multiplied and students came to college knowing how to read and write, it was going to make life impossible for professors. I used to love to tell him how popular the new film courses are, Irving said, and how we charge lab fees for them to pay for the pillows.

  I didn’t like to hear Irving make fun of education, so I left the room and went down to the cellar, where Hannah and I were. I didn’t try to argue with Irving because I saw that he knew more than me, but I wanted to say to him that without our emphasis on education the Jews would never have survived and he would never have been born!

  IF YOU’RE A JEW YOU SHOULD ALWAYS PRAISE LEARNING!

  I started to masturbate, thinking of Hannah, but I stopped myself because of it still being the 7 days of mourning for Murray. I lay back on the couch with my hands folded on my chest and made believe I was dead and that Sandy was standing over me in my coffin and crying. Her heart was broken.

  Going home tonight Charlie asked what I thought about Mr. Prentiss and I said, you meant apprentice didn’t you?

  He told me he wanted to invest in me. He believed in my brain, he said. Most people think money makes money, he said. They’re wrong. Brains make money. He said he wanted to give me a stake of $25,000 and I would tell him what to do with it and after I was 21 I could start paying him back.

  At how much interest? I asked.

  He laughed and said he was serious. He would need incoming money in a few years because he would stop working by then. He said he told Anita that he was worth over a quarter of a million dollars in liquid cash and that he was telling me also.

  What did she say when you told her? I asked.

  Congratulations, he said.

  The Jewish people who come to see Anita all kiss her. A lot of the non-Jews don’t.

  I think Irving admires me for my knowledge. When they talked about Sol’s father founding the Home as the 3rd Jewish orphanage in America I said that the 1st orphanage in America was for children whose parents were massacred by Indians.

  Before I came up here I went to see Mr. Mittleman in the office and I smiled at him but he acted like nothing ever happened yesterday. He was the old Mr. Mittleman. In a butcher shop in the 21st century, he said, they were selling human meat. The carcasses were hanging from hooks with prices on them. A Chinaman was $2.50 a pound. An Arab was 10¢ a pound. A Russian was $2 a pound, and a Chasidic Jew was $98 a pound. But why so much for a Chasidic Jew? a man asked. The butcher pointed to the frozen body of a Chasidic Jew which was still dressed in black coat and hat. Why? he asked. Tell me—have you ever tried to clean one of those?

  From where I was I spat at him, but my saliva was too foamy and dry. It only went a foot or two. He didn’t show me if he saw what I did. I prayed for God to put a curse on him. But if I had screamed at him about the sufferings that Jews have endured for centuries so that he could be born into the world he would only have found another joke.

  I’m glad you never had a son, I said instead. He would have had to disown you.

  Dogs copulate and have more dogs, he replied. Only man makes money.

  I came up here and invented something to make Charlie smile. I asked him if he knew why the blue whale was probably a Jew.

  Why is the blue whale probably a Jew? he asked, and he was smiling already.

  Because he’s the smartest animal next to man and he’s the most endangered species.

  Also: The mother can only give birth to 1 child every 2 years, which is the lowest rate of all animals.

  This is what Murray believed: Prosperity is the enemy of the Jews because it leads to a declining birth rate.

  I imagined Mr. Mittleman frozen and hanging from a hook with his eyes and mouth closed and his cigar stuck in where his penis used to be.

  A question for Dr. Fogel: Even if you’re a Rabbi, how can you ever prove to a Jew that he should care about being a Jew?

  The answer is you can’t.

  But I would say this also: When they packed Jews into boxcars and ovens they didn’t ask them how much they believed in being Jews!

  This is what I imagine Dr. Fogel saying: The answer to the question is HISTORY but if you don’t know HISTORY or feel HISTORY then it won’t be the answer for you!

  THURSDAY

  SOL CAME TODAY!

  I was sitting on the floor in Ephraim’s room playing poker with him when he appeared at the door and I knew right away it was him, even before he spoke.

  You must be Charlie’s new boy, he said, and he smiled at me in a way that made me feel good. He was taller than I imagined him being and his face was shiny as if it had all been polished, especially the top of his head. He only had a little bit of gray hair left, over his ears, and he wore small round glasses pushed forward on his nose.

  Hi Uncle Sol, Ephraim said, and as soon as he did and Sol picked him up and hugged him, Ephraim was crying. Sol told him not to be ashamed, to just let himself go. This is what Sol said to him: Life has mountains and life has valleys. He said it was something his father always said to him.

  What I thought: He doesn’t look like the kind of man who had ever been a boy to a father! He looked as if he had always been the age he was now.

  He was dressed beautifully. I touched his suit and it felt softer than Hannah’s sweater. His shoes were gleaming black. He was shaved so close I couldn’t even see the little black spots of new hairs. His eyes were a pale gray color that made you relax, and his forehead had 3 lines running across it on top of each other.

  You’re the man of the family now, he said to Ephraim. You take care of your mother. She’ll need you now.

  I thought of Charlie waiting for us downstairs and I imagined him hugging Sol when Sol had walked through the door into the kitchen. I wanted to run away so instead I said, My name is Danny Ginsberg and I come from the Home. Then he smiled very warmly at me and took my hand in his and told me that Charlie was just telling him all about me and why I was here. I couldn’t stop staring into his eyes, as if I was hypnotized.

  Will you help save the Home? I asked, but he only laughed at that and said he could see why Charlie had picked me out. I like directness, he said. I like boys who look me in the eye.

  I picked Charlie out, I said.

  Did you? he said, and he winked at Ephraim the way Charlie does sometimes. Well, he said. More power to your elbow is what Uncle Sol says.

  Ephraim showed him the postcards he’d tacked to his bulletin board and Sol said he meant to send him more. I thought of asking him where he was living but I was scared without Charlie there.

  When we got to the kitchen Anita’s eyes were all red from crying but Charlie’s face was red from happiness. Irving and Morty and Herman were sitting around the table and this is what I thought: With Murray gone and a chicken roasting and plates and coffee cups and pots and paper bags everywhere the kitchen wasn’t as neat as it used to be and that made it feel more Jewish to me.

  I was surprised to see Sol put his arms around Anita and let her cry on his good clothing, but he didn’t seem to mind. He said he wished he could have come earlier. All the men had tears in their eyes too, and I imagined each of them remembering Murray and themselves with Sol when they were boys my age. I saw Charlie in his football uniform with Sol standing next to him and smiling proudly but inside the football helmet I saw my own face.

  Anita said she was sorry that Sol had to live to see this but he told her not to worry about him. He told her to worry about herself and her family. He took a handkerchief from his pock
et and wiped Anita’s tears. The handkerchief had the letter “S” in a corner, in lace. Anita said she knew what Sol must be feeling and he said we never know what other people really feel!

  I thought he was going to say more but instead he said he thought the best thing was to leave Anita alone for a while. I’ll take my boys out, all right? he said.

  Anita kissed his cheek then and spoke in a soft voice and said this: Murray said you were the one person who always knew exactly the right thing to do.

  Sol was as tall as Charlie. He picked up each of the children and lifted them to the ceiling and hugged them. He tossed Eli in the air and I saw all the children look at him the way they do at Charlie. He said stupid things to them like, Who’s my favorite grandchild named Eli? when he was holding Eli, or when he made Rivka laugh he asked her, Are you Jewish—or just ticklish?

  I could tell he’d said the same things to them before. They were the kinds of things Murray talked about and I agreed about never wanting to use them myself. It’s easy to fool children.

  Rivka was wearing her horseback riding clothes, with a black velvet hat and leather patches on her thighs. Murray promised to buy her a pony for her next birthday and to build a home for it in the back. I watched her eyes and I thought of Rivka in the Bible and how she deceived her husband Isaac in order to help her favorite son.

  Rivka hugged Sol around the leg and said, My Daddy promised he was going to buy me a pony and now he’s dead and I want my pony.

  Anita got angry but Sol told her not to get upset. I thought he was going to say he would get the pony for her, but instead he took her out of the room by herself and when they came back inside a few minutes later Rivka asked if she could change her mind if she didn’t want a pony anymore.

  Eli started grabbing Sol’s jacket at the door and asking him: Is today tomorrow? Is today tomorrow?

  Charlie pulled him away and Eli cried. I remembered Murray saying how Sol would be proud of them bringing another Jew into the world, but I thought to myself: IF SOL’S A JEW, HE’S A PAGAN JEW.

  In my head I was thinking of Dr. Fogel and listing the meanings of everybody’s name.

  Ephraim means fruitful.

  Rivka means tie or bind, as when an animal is bound for slaughter.

  Dov means bear, the animal.

  Charlie’s Hebrew name is Chaim, for life.

  I was still afraid to ask Sol where he lives and where his money comes from, so I said this: Dr. Fogel never calls us by our English names. But nobody paid attention to me. Eli was crying and yelling out loud.

  I looked at Charlie’s black curls and his dark face from not shaving, and I didn’t even think of him as being very special anymore. Maybe he’s only special when he’s the way I saw him on those 1st times—making money or with football. I don’t see what meaning his life has if he only does what he does and doesn’t go beyond. Murray made more out of his life even though nobody looked up to him the way they do to Charlie!

  I wanted to start reciting every saying I know and telling some of Mr. Mittleman’s jokes but instead I got angry at myself inside for saying anything at all out loud and I told myself to start making new plans!

  Whenever Sol looked at me I kept thinking he knew just what was going on inside my head!

  Anita kissed Charlie on the cheek and told him to have a good time. Dr. Fogel is still at the Home, I said.

  Who? Sol asked.

  Dr. Fogel, I said, and I saw that I was almost shouting.

  Lay off, Charlie said to me.

  It’s all right, Sol said, but in a kind way. He asked Anita if Dr. Fogel had visited her yet and she said no and Sol said that was just like Dr. Fogel.

  Nobody ever called him, I said, and everybody’s eyes went to Charlie because Dr. Fogel was on his list.

  I called, Charlie said, and he wasn’t even angry with me. He just wanted to leave.

  Well then, Sol said, and he walked out the door.

  Anita started laughing after they were gone and when she tried to hug me and kiss me I stiffened myself. You shouldn’t have mentioned him to Sol, she said. But you didn’t know, did you? Then she let me go and looked right at me and I could see she knew that I did know and she laughed again and told me she loved me.

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  (in Ephraim’s room)

  Everybody’s downstairs now, getting ready for Shabbos!

  Charlie said he’d call me when he was ready to go back home, so we could change into good clothes.

  What I think: HE’S STILL UNDER SOL’S POWER! He still brushes my hair sometimes or says things like What’s it all about, Danny? or What’s it all for? but every-time I want to have a real conversation with him I don’t know what to say and it’s hard to remember how it was when we used to talk.

  When I took my Tephillin bag with me this morning he didn’t say anything about it. I put it on the car seat between us and this is what I said out loud to him: Talk to me. Come on. Talk to me.

  He laughed at that. My name is Charlie Sapistein, he said, and I come from the Home, but he wouldn’t say anything else. After breakfast he went into the city to see Sol at his hotel and bring him back here and as soon as he was gone Anita started worrying about not being able to work outside. She was worried about raking leaves if an early snow should fall on them and she said she still had bulbs to plant in the ground for the spring. She walked from room to room in the house talking out loud about all the things she had to do, until some of the neighbors came by with food they had cooked.

  I remembered Murray saying Anita wasn’t like Charlie and himself because she knew how to enjoy doing nothing.

  A question: If Charlie stays calm and quiet will I have to start talking more? If he changes and I don‘t change too, how will we live together with neither of us ever saying what we’re thinking and feeling?

  Other things that happened so far today: I went into Ephraim’s room in the morning when he was still sleeping. What do you think this is, I said, your birthday? and I tickled him under his pajamas with my cold hands. He got angry and called me a goddamned orphan and I said, It takes one to know one.

  I still have a mother, he said.

  So do I, I replied.

  He got out of bed and got dressed while I made his bed for him. Then he put on his Tephillin the way he does every morning and I asked him to watch me while I put mine on. I did it right. We prayed together in his bedroom like 2 old men, walked back and forth with Sidurim in our hands and Talises across our shoulders and the black straps wound around our arms and hands and heads. When we recited the we both stood together, facing east, and shuckled back and forth. I finished praying before he did and I told him that was the 1st time in my life I ever prayed with Tephillin on with somebody else.

  He took his Tephillin off and so did I and we kissed the boxes before we put them in our Tephillin bags. He went into the bathroom and he put his face in front of the mirror and wiped away a patch of soap to see how dark his beard was getting. He pressed his pimples so they bled. His hair comes down to his shoulders like his mother’s. He asked me if I’d ever kissed a girl and I said, Sure. He asked if we ever smuggled them into the Home and I said no. He said his father and Charlie once laughed about the time they dressed a girl up like a boy and brought her into the dormitory at the Home. All the guys chipped in for her. I thought about Larry Silverberg and the other guys in their hideout and for a few seconds I felt that I really missed them.

  I asked him if he ever kissed a girl and he said only at kissing parties. He doesn’t go to his father’s school. None of their children do. He goes to a regular public school and he said his father didn’t know about the sex parties the students in the Mill River school had every weekend. They take off their clothes and the girls let any of the guys pet them wherever they want. He said he even saw photos.

  Hannah came into the bathroom in just her skirt and brassiere and Ephraim pushed her out. I turned my face away. What’s the big deal? she said.

  We sat in his
room and he said he was worried about Hannah and about the effect Murray’s death was having on her. They still kissed hello and good-bye on the lips, he said, even after she got breasts.

  She’ll get over it, I said.

  Then I asked him to show me about his musical instruments and if he thought it was too late for me to start to learn. I blew some notes on his clarinet and his flute but I thought about how, to really learn, you’d have to be living in 1 place for a long time and have your own instrument and the time for practice.

  We have some of the same favorite books: THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok, THE CAINE MUTINY by Herman Wouk, PARIS UNDERGROUND by Etta Shiber, THE PEARL by John Steinbeck, and EXODUS by Leon Uris, and these are some of the other authors we both like: Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, James Ramsey Ullman, Jack London, Franz Kafka, Isaac Asimov, and James Thurber. We agreed that our favorite book was THE CHOSEN. It was the 1st conversation we had that made us friends.

  WHILE WE WERE TALKING I DECIDED THAT WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO SOMEDAY WOULD BE TO WRITE BOOKS TOGETHER WITH EPHRAIM! We could write books about the Jewish underground in Poland during the war smuggling Jews to Freedom, the way the French did in PARIS UNDERGROUND.

  There were over 3,000,000 Jews in Poland before the war. After the war there were less than 300,000 left!

  We could write a history of 2 great underground Jewish heroes who were boys like us, so that young Jewish boys would want to read our books and that way we could make them feel for the rest of their lives what it means to be a Jew! We could write about the Warsaw Ghetto and the frozen children in the snow and the soap the Nazis made from Jewish flesh and we could spend our lives learning the True History of what really happened even while we made up some adventures for the 2 boys to make the books more exciting!