Life, After

by Sarah Darer Littman

I stroked her curls, fighting the tears that threatened.

  “Neither do I, Sari. Neither do I.”

  When Mamá finally called us for dinner, Papá was already sitting at the head of the table. He hadn’t shaved and his hair was tousled like he just got out of bed.

  Mamá made an omelet using the potatoes I’d peeled and some bruised, tired-looking vegetables she’d picked up for cheap at the market.

  “Not again,” whined Sarita. “We had omelets three times already this week.”

  I kicked her under the table, warning her to hush, just as Papá’s fist crashed down on the table.

  “¡Silencio!” he shouted.

  Sarita paled and shrank into herself, as if by becoming smaller she might escape from Papá’s wrath. I hated to see her become less of her cheerful, chatterbox self. But we had learned how to tiptoe around my father’s moods to preserve the fragile stability of our home.

  “When I was your age we ate what my mother put on the table without complaint,” Papá said. “And we finished every last bite of it, or we had to eat it at the next meal.”

  And Before, you always used to complain about that, I thought. You used to tell me the story like my abuela was crazy for doing that to you.

  “Eduardo,” Mamá soothed. “Come, eat your omelet. I even put in extra onions just the way you like it.”

  I wondered if Papá could hear the strain in her voice, the anxiety as she tried to calm him so he’d stop berating Sarita for being what she was—a child. I know that I could, and I told her so with my eyes. We’d learned to say a lot with our eyes since Papá became…like he was. Because when he was in one of his moods, many things were better left unsaid.

  As I ate, I fantasized about opening my mouth and telling my father everything I was feeling. Telling him how much I hated him when he shouted at my little sister; how I hated the person he’d become since Tía Sara died, since the Crisis. Telling him how I hated that he didn’t get out of bed and shower and shave, and that I was scared that if he didn’t get out of his funk and help Mamá make money, we’d end up living in a villa mísera. Because I knew that even “nice Jewish families” like us had been forced to live in the shantytowns that were springing up on the edge of town and beneath highway underpasses.

  I wished for the courage to say these things to my father, but couldn’t bring myself to utter the words because if I said them out loud, they would become truth, puncturing the illusion that he was still the papá he once was. Instead, I sat there silently like the rest of my family, eating my dinner.

  I told Mamá that I’d wash the dishes after I helped Sari get ready for bed.

  “That way you can read Sarita her bedtime story.”

  And rest a little bit…

  But Mamá read the unspoken words on my face.

  “Gracias, preciosa,” she said. “My feet are killing me today. These wretched bunions are acting up again.”

  “Go put your feet up on the stool,” I told her. “Or better yet, lie down on Sarita’s bed.”

  Mamá sighed heavily as she stroked an errant lock of my hair back into place. I looked at her face and noticed new wrinkles around her tired blue eyes and threads of gray in her chestnut hair.

  “You’re a good girl, Dani. I know this must be hard for you.”

  She doesn’t even know the half of it, I thought. I opened my mouth to tell her about Roberto, but just as quickly I shut it, trapping the words inside. I couldn’t dump this on her when she was so exhausted. Maybe later. Maybe the next morning. Maybe never…

  “Go rest, Mamá.”

  I was standing at the sink finishing the dinner dishes when Mamá came back into the kitchen after reading Sarita her story. She picked up a dish towel and started to dry the clean pots I’d left on the draining board. Papá was in the living room watching the news. I wished he wouldn’t because the news was never good; all it did was make him more depressed.

  “Why isn’t Papá getting better? Can’t the doctors give him something so he isn’t like this anymore? You’re a nurse. Can’t you do something?” I asked Mamá.

  I was angry with myself the minute the words left my mouth, because we all tiptoed around what ailed Papá as if there were some unspoken rule that we should never actually name it.

  Mamá pursed her lips. I’d crossed a line, forcing her to confront the elephant in the room.

  “It’s very complicated, Dani. Your father is a grown man. I can’t force him to take medication.” She sighed. “He’s suffered so many losses. Tía Sara, his parents, and now the business. It’s been devastating for him. He feels like a failure.”

  “But Papá worked so hard! He tried everything he could to keep the business going so that people could keep their jobs. It’s not his fault that the government made such a mess of things. How can he think he’s a failure?”

  Mamá put her hand on my cheek.

  “Dani, I’m not saying it’s true. But it’s how he feels. And it hurts his pride terribly to think of taking charity; he’s used to being the one who gives charity.”

  She gave a bitter chuckle.

  “When I think of how righteous and superior I felt every time we gave tzedakah; how I’d search the synagogue bulletin to see who gave more or less than Papá and me, like it was some kind of…I don’t know…some sort of barometer of our social status…well…sometimes I wonder if this is G-d’s punishment for my pride. To show me how awful it feels to have to rely on others for even the most basic needs.”

  I was shocked to see tears streaming down Mamá’s cheeks. The last time I remembered seeing her cry was at Tía Sara’s funeral.

  “To rely on others…to feed my own children,” Mamá sobbed. “I would never have thought it was possible. We’ve lived through such hard times; the dictatorship…the Disappearances…the bombings…and we survived, but to have to go to the soup kitchen for food…I think this is more than I can bear.”

  It scared me to see my mother cry like that. It was bad enough that my father didn’t get out of bed most days. But to see my mother sobbing at the kitchen table, her face covered by her hands, her nails ragged instead of manicured and painted with bright red polish the way they always used to be—that, more than anything, brought home to me how bad things really were for us, and it scared me, scared me more than anything. I knew the situation was dire, but maybe the worst of the worst was lurking just beneath the surface, waiting to rip a hole in the frail vessel that held our family together.

  I wanted my old papá back. I wanted him to sing “Aishes Chayil” to Mamá in his deep baritone on Shabbat, praising her for being a woman of worth. I wanted him to smile again, a genuine smile, not one to cover up a lie. I wanted him to be my father, instead of a stranger who didn’t know me anymore. I wanted things to be like they were Before. I wanted my old life back.

  But I couldn’t tell my mother any of these things, despite the fact that I felt like crying myself. My mother had the weight of our entire family resting on her slim shoulders, which were hunched over as she sobbed silently into the dish towel. How could I add to the burden? So I swallowed the bitter taste of the lump that caught in my throat, and put my arm around Mamá to try to comfort her, wondering if there would ever again be a time when I could go back to being a normal girl with two normal parents living a so-called normal life.

  Chapter Three

  IHEARD MY PARENTS ARGUING as I was lying in bed. Sarita was sleeping soundly. I got out of bed and crept to the door, opening it a crack so I could hear what they were fighting about.

  “Eduardo, Jacobo’s right. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “No, Estela. I won’t leave like the others. I’ve lived in Buenos Aires all my life. I’m a porteño through and through.”

  Leave? Leave to go where? America?

  “Think of the girls,” Mamá pleaded. “I can’t bear to see them going hungry every day. It breaks my heart when Sarita complains about her tummy growling like a bear, and Dani…well, Dani doesn’t comp
lain, but I know she suffers.”

  “The girls will survive. We all will. We survived the Dirty War, we survived the terrorist bombings, and we will survive this, too.”

  “But don’t you want more for your children than for them to merely survive, Eduardo? Don’t you want them to be able to live? To live and be happy?”

  “Who knows what it is to be happy, Estela? My sister, Sara, was happy. Then she went to work one day and never came home.”

  “You let the terrorists win when you think that way,” Mamá said. “We owe it to Sara not to be defeatist, to fight so that our girls have every chance to live a good life. And Jacobo is offering this to us, by sponsoring us for a visa. How can you turn him down?”

  Tío Jacobo. That must mean America, I thought. Where did he live again? Somewhere in New York, I seemed to remember. I wondered how far that was from Miami, from where Beto would be living.

  “I can turn him down because I’m not going to be like all the others and run away from everything that means something to me just because times are difficult.”

  There was a silence that seemed to last an eternity.

  “And the girls? Daniela and Sarita? What about me, Eduardo? Don’t we mean anything to you?”

  Mamá’s voice broke on this last question, and then I heard her sobbing. I felt like crying, too. I wanted to go back to bed, bury my face in the pillow, and weep. But I needed to hear Papá’s answer.

  “Estela…come now, don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m being ridiculous!” Mamá said, her voice raised, but not shouting, clearly trying not to wake us. “What am I supposed to think? How I am supposed to feel? You mope around, getting more angry and depressed each day, but refusing to get treatment. You get angry if I try to get help from the Jewish community to feed our children—our children, Eduardo—and now, when Jacobo is offering a lifeline out of this dreadful situation, you refuse?”

  Papá let out a deep breath. “Estela, you know that you and the girls mean everything to me…You are all that I have.”

  “All the more reason to go to America, to give the children a chance. Who knows what kind of future they face here in Argentina?”

  “Who knows what kind of future they’ll face in America?” Papá argued. “At least in Argentina, everything is familiar, the culture, the surroundings, the language. We have friends and your brother and his children are still here, even if they are in Córdoba.”

  “That’s true. But in America, we have Jacobo, who is family, too. And there, it will be better for the girls,” Mamá said. “America is the land of opportunity.”

  “Yes, and the sidewalks are paved with gold,” Papá mocked. “But let me tell you something, Estela. The sidewalks in America are made with cement, just like they are here.”

  “Don’t speak to me like I’m an idiot, Eduardo,” Mamá said, her voice edgy with exasperation. “I know that America isn’t a magical Promised Land, where our problems will disappear. But at least we won’t face constant political upheavals and economic instability, so there’s a better likelihood that we’ll be able to get back on our feet.”

  Even from my eavesdropping spot behind the bedroom door, I could hear Papá’s weary sigh.

  “I’ll sleep on it, Estela. I’m not promising you anything other than that I will think about it.”

  I could hear my mother kissing my father. ¡Puaj! Some things are better not seen or heard.

  “That’s enough for now, Eduardo. But think hard.”

  I crept back to bed and lay awake, staring into the darkness, contemplating the thought of leaving everything I had ever known. What had been a fantasy when I was walking home from the park with Roberto could become a reality. Who would have thought that a simple blue air letter with a U.S. postmark could carry such huge implications?

  Mamá had to wake me up the next morning because I slept through the alarm.

  “Were you up late reading?” she asked when I came into the kitchen for breakfast.

  “No, Mamá.” I wanted to ask her about Tío Jacobo’s letter—to know if we might really move to America and if so, when, and did she really think that it would make our lives better. But that would mean admitting that I’d been eavesdropping on her argument with Papá, so I swallowed my questions along with my tea and slice of toast.

  “You know the Sabans—Roberto’s family—they’re moving to Miami as soon as school ends,” I told her.

  Mamá was wiping the counter but she turned to look at me and then came to sit at the table.

  “That must be hard for you, Dani,” she said, taking my hand.

  I nodded. “It seems like everyone is leaving Argentina, doesn’t it? I mean, the Tenenbaums went to Israel, now the Sabans are going to America…Lots of other kids at school have left.”

  I hoped that if I brought up all the others leaving, Mamá might talk.

  “I know. That’s how I got work at the hospital, because so many other nurses had emigrated.” She shook her head slowly. “It’s this crazy economic situation, Dani. It’s like nothing that ever happened before in this country. I don’t know where it’s all going to end. Do you know, the other day at the hospital we had over thirty injuries from a cacerolazo that turned violent? One of them was an eighty-year-old man who was cut by flying glass when someone threw a rock through the window of a foreign bank. Imagine. What is this country coming to?”

  She sighed and stood up, grabbing the dishrag.

  “Believe me, as much as I love Argentina, I’d be on the next plane out of here if I thought it would give you and Sarita the opportunity for a better life.”

  “But how do you know that going somewhere else would be a better life?”

  I knew I sounded just like Papá, but like him, I was unsure of the unknown.

  Mamá laughed bitterly.

  “It certainly can’t get much worse than this, can it?”

  I thought about the endless stack of bills, and my fear of losing our apartment and having to live on the streets. I thought it probably could get worse, but I didn’t say this to Mamá. Some things were better left unsaid.

  “Well, I’d better get to school while there are still enough of us left to hold classes,” I said.

  Mamá came and kissed my forehead. “Don’t worry, Dani. Everything will be okay.”

  Her mouth said the words, but her eyes didn’t look like she believed them.

  “I think we might be moving to America, too,” I told Roberto at lunch.

  “Seriously? Where to?” He laughed and gave me a warm look with his chocolaty eyes. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you were in Miami, too?”

  “It would, but if we move, it would be to New York, where my tío Jacobo lives. How far is that from Miami?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly, but far enough,” he said. “It’s definitely a plane trip or a very long car ride.”

  My heart sank. I only had a vague impression of the geography of the east coast of the United States, but I was hoping that Miami and New York weren’t that far apart.

  “Cheer up, Dani,” Roberto said. “At least we’d be on the same continent.”

  I didn’t have time to go to the park with Beto after school, because Mamá was working late and I had to pick up Sarita. When we got home, the apartment was dark and quiet. Papá wasn’t watching television, which meant he was in the bedroom, sleeping. It was clearly another Morose Papá Day. I warned Sarita to be as quiet as a mouse and went into the kitchen to make us both a cup of tea. But when I flicked the light switch, nothing happened. I tried again, as if that would magically cause illumination to happen. It didn’t. Magic was distinctly lacking in my life in those days.

  I didn’t know what to do. Did I risk waking up Papá to get him to check the circuit breaker? There was enough light to see, but not enough to do homework.

  “What’s the matter with the lights, Dani? Are they broken?” Sari asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe a fuse blew. I’ll have to wake up Papá.”


  Sari didn’t speak, but the look on her face said it all. She would rather let sleeping Papás lie.

  I knocked on the bedroom door and opened it a crack. “Papá? Papá, the lights aren’t working. Can you check the circuit breaker?”

  Papá rolled over and groaned. “I already checked,” he said. “It’s not the circuit. There must be a power cut in the whole building. Now leave me be.”

  I thought I remembered lights being on in the stairwell when we came home from school, but I apologized for waking him and shut the door.

  “Sari, Papá says it’s a power cut in the building. We’ll just have to light a candle and pretend it’s Shabbat. But first I’m going to run downstairs and get the mail before it gets too dark in the hallway.”

  “I don’t want to stay here by myself,” Sari whined.

  “You’re not by yourself. Papá is here.”

  Sari gave me a look that was way too old for her years. A look that said, Yes, and he might as well not be.

  “All right, come with me. Let’s go quickly, while there’s enough light.”

  The strange thing was, as soon as I opened the apartment door, Sarita cried, “Dani, look, the lights are working!” because the hallway was lit. I tried the switch inside the apartment—still nothing. I puzzled over this as we walked downstairs to get the mail and then puzzled some more as we walked back up to the apartment carrying the daily collection of bills.

  There was only one explanation I could think of, and I was carrying the answer in my hand. Cut-off notices. Had it come to that? Had we become so poor we couldn’t even pay for basic necessities like lights? That could only mean one thing—that soon we’d lose our apartment, and the next stop would be living in cardboard boxes beneath an underpass.

  “What is it, Dani? Why do you look so strange?”

  I struggled to pull myself together for my little sister’s sake.

  “Oh, I’m just worrying about my algebra problems. Just wait till you have to do algebra.”