by Bernard Beck
“Then one day, not long after his third birthday, he died. He hadn’t been sick in any way, and the doctors could find no reason for his death. Miriam was shattered. After the seven days of mourning and the thirty days of restriction, she went to see the Rabbi. Now, you have to understand that at that time you just didn’t barge in to see the Rabbi, especially if you were a woman. But this time, because it was such a terribly sad thing, the Rabbi agreed to see her. Usually, when a woman came to meet with the Rabbi, he always insisted that his wife be in the room with them, but this time, he sent his wife out of the room and met with Miriam alone.
“She didn’t cry. She didn’t say anything. In those days, you didn’t speak to the Rabbi until he spoke to you. So, they sat like that, he behind his big desk and she in the chair in front. Of course, the Rabbi knew why she was there, but what could he say? Could he tell her the old phrase ‘Hashem nosain, v’Hashem lokayach’, ‘God gives and God takes, blessed is the name of God’? No, not this time. Miriam was well educated—she had studied Torah and even Talmud. And the little boy was special, so smart, so beautiful, and so strong. Miriam was angry, and she wanted answers from the Rabbi and from God. There was no reason for her son’s death—none whatsoever. Miriam and her husband were good Jews—they tried to observe all the commandments. And the child was so healthy. There was just no reason.
“Finally the Rabbi spoke. His voice so low, it was nearly a whisper. So low, that only Miriam could hear. ‘Many, many years ago in ancient Persia,’ the Rabbi began, ‘there was a Sultan who had no sons. All the doctors and all the wise men in the kingdom were unable to assist him to have a son. The Sultan was very upset because, if he did not have a son, then the rule of the kingdom would pass to another family. He had an advisor whom he trusted more than any of his other advisors. This advisor told him that the reason that he had no sons was because the Jews in the kingdom had put a curse on him. He said that the only way he would ever have a son was if he expelled all of the Jews from the kingdom.
“‘Although the Sultan trusted this advisor very much, he also had many business dealings with the Jews, and he was reluctant to expel them. So he said that he would wait one more year, and if he didn’t have a son by then, he would expel all the Jews, and those Jews who refused to go would be killed.
“‘When the Jews heard of this edict they were very upset. They tore their clothing and fasted and prayed. In heaven, the angels heard their prayers. The angels went to the souls that were in heaven and asked for a volunteer to go down to earth and be born a son to the Sultan. One soul volunteered, and a little while later, a son was born to the Sultan. The whole kingdom rejoiced, especially the Jews.
“‘Because this young prince was so important, the Sultan wanted only the best for him. So, when the child was old enough to begin his education, they searched for the best teacher in the kingdom. The man they selected to be the prince’s tutor said that he would agree only if he had half an hour of privacy every morning. He would be given a room, and no one would be allowed into that room for half an hour every morning.
“‘The Sultan agreed, and the child’s education began. The young prince learned mathematics and philosophy and spoke many languages. He and the tutor lived together and studied together every day. But every morning, for a half-hour, the tutor had total privacy.
“‘One day, the young prince hid himself in the room and watched to see what the tutor was doing during that half-hour. He saw the tutor carefully lock the door, then remove a prayer shawl, tefillin, and a prayer book from a velvet bag. He watched silently while the tutor wrapped himself in the prayer shawl, and then put on his teffilin, first on his left arm, then on his head, and then back again to his left hand. He was amazed at how the tutor concentrated on the prayer book, how his whole body seemed to express the prayers.
“‘He waited until after the tutor had removed the tefillin and carefully wrapped them, kissed them, and inserted them, along with the prayer shawl, back into the velvet bag. He waited until the tutor went to open the door before he revealed his presence and confronted him.
“‘Obviously surprised and upset that he had been discovered, the tutor admitted that he was Jewish and that he was praying to God. The prince threatened to expose the tutor to the Sultan’s advisor, who hated Jews and would surely have him killed, unless the tutor would teach the prince to pray to God. So, every morning the tutor and the prince would pray to God together inside the tutor’s locked room.
“‘When the prince came of age, the Sultan sent him to England to attend the university there. He became a teacher, and was one of the scholars who was chosen to translate the Torah into English. This was a very important thing because he was able to make sure that the Torah was translated accurately. That translation made it possible for anyone, even if they didn’t read Hebrew, to fulfill the commandment to study Torah.
“‘The prince converted to Judaism and became a great scholar and the head of a famous yeshiva. When he died, the angels in heaven welcomed his soul with great rejoicing. They wanted to place his soul in the vessel that contains completely perfect souls, but there was one problem. He had not been raised on a Jewish mother’s milk. You remember that even our great teacher Moses, although he was raised by a Gentile, was given milk from his Jewish mother.
“‘So it was determined that this soul had to go back for a short time so that its perfection could be completed. But such a nearly perfect soul could not be sent to just any family. It had to go to a family that had as deep a love of Torah and learning as the soul needed. They waited centuries until the right combination of husband and wife came along.’
“The Rabbi stopped talking, took out his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. He looked down at the open book on his desk, then back at Miriam.
“‘I believe that you were that special family. I believe that you were chosen by the angels, and maybe even by God himself, to help that soul reach eternal peace.’”
I started to cry, and my grandfather held my hand and put his arm around me. He began to cry as well, silently, with huge gulps of air. Quietly we rocked together, and slowly we stopped crying, I first. We sat huddled together a while longer.
“I never told that story to anyone, not anyone, ever,” my grandfather said, wiping his eyes. “I promised my sister, I promised. But you needed a story, and it was an emergency, a matter of life and death, I had to do it.”
We sat a while longer.
I finally stood up and helped my grandfather to his feet. He seemed suddenly old, and I was grateful for the great sacrifice that he had made for me. I believed that there are certain rules of life that must never be broken. A sister’s secret, the intimacy between her and God, these things must never be told. They are too private.
I was overwhelmed. For my grandfather to have carried that story for so many years, and to have felt his sister’s pain—for him to have missed his sister so much and to not have been able to go to her and hold her hand, and cry with her, and kiss her, and tell her how much he loves her—was overwhelming. But he was here in America, and she was still in Lomza, so far away. He would never see her again. Never.
And I finally had my story. I knew, from the moment I heard the story, that this would be my opportunity to revive my dream of becoming a famous author. For days, after I heard the story, I kneaded it in my mind. I was so moved by it that I waited nearly a month before I tried to put it down on paper. And then I began. An hour or two every night, then three or four hours a night, then deep into dawn. It was all I could think about. I couldn’t wait to get home from school to work on my story. I didn’t want to leave it in the morning. It had to be perfect. Every word.
I wrote it in pencil, in longhand, in my school notebook because I wanted to feel the energy of writing. I wanted to feel the pencil and the paper because I believed that my soul and the soul of my grandfather and his sister were in it.
To me, this was much more
than just a story—this was the very essence of my being. Who am I to write such a story? I thought to myself. I’m just a teenager. And yet, I did it. And word by word, day by day, it grew.
The stories that my grandfather had told me about the Baal Shem Tov in the forest, and the esoteric teachings of Kabbalah, and all the folk tales, and all of the imaginings and dreams that I had absorbed, and all the tales that he had told me since I was a child, became a dark, deep pool from which I drew the background for my story. And his sister Miriam, and her baby, and their tragic story, were like a white foaming geyser of water soaring from the darkness into the heavens, carrying with it all of the characters. The story churned inside me and tumbled out through my hand and pencil onto the paper.
Emotional memories, things that I had heard, or read, or just imagined, took their place in my story. My grandfather’s tales of demons, and dybbuks, paraded through my mind, and these too found their way into my story. The seven heavens and their archangels that I had read about in the library formed the heavenly structure. These magical elements of my story bubbled out from my unconscious. They were not merely memories or things learned—they were more than that. They carried the energy, electricity, and sensations of events that I had never experienced, but that had somehow colored my life. Some internal force, that I had never previously known, shaped my thoughts and guided my hand. These memories, if one can call them that, which cannot be explained by science or by circumstances, had now become part of my very being.
Sometimes, late at night, I heard the voices of my characters. They talked to me. They told me that there is a history that I never knew—one that I can only imagine. One that must be told.
Should I tell the story as a dream? Or maybe an analogy or an allegory or a parable? Did it really happen? Would the Rabbi have made up such a preposterous story just to placate my grandfather’s sister? Rationality and irrationality competed with each other. At that moment, my passions had replaced practicality. They carried me beyond normal behavior into the world of the possible. “Dream!” they told me. “Go beyond rationality. Everything is possible.” The world was as nothing for me. I went to school, talked with my friends, ate dinner with my parents, rested on the Sabbath, and all the time the story was forming within me, within my soul.
The story came slowly, painfully, every word a struggle. I had to get it exactly right. I knew that it would be my only chance.
In the end, it was the longest story I had ever written. I tried to edit it but none of the words would leave the page. I tried to read it to my grandfather, but he wouldn’t let me, and my father, although he said he was interested, never had time to listen. So I sent it to a major literary magazine, one that I had never dared to approach before.
I knew that they would accept it, and I knew that they would agree to publish it exactly as I had written it with no editing. I had no doubt about it.
And so it was.
In the end, after it was published, I felt no special elation. I didn’t even feel relief. I kept waiting for some reaction, but none came. I got up in the morning, and I went to school as usual, and I came home as usual, and I ate dinner as usual, and I did my homework as usual, and I went to bed as usual.
I no longer had a burning desire to write.
The magazine with my story in it remained unopened on my desk. My parents never asked to see it—never even mentioned it. My story-writing notebooks and typewriter remained unused. Whatever had happened to me was gone; my crisis had passed and was nearly forgotten. I was seventeen—a high school senior on my way to college. There were no confrontations. My father’s real estate investments were doing well, my mother enjoyed retirement, and life at home was finally peaceful.
Chapter 11
Two weeks later, my father received a telephone call from Jerome Davis, the head of the giant book publishing company Davis and Hart. He told my father that he had read my story, and that he would like to speak to me about expanding it into a book.
My father was impressed. Although he hadn’t read my story, nor had he ever heard of Mr. Davis or Davis and Hart, he was certain that having a daughter who was writing a book would give him the highest level of prestige. Stories were nothing in his mind, but a book was a book.
“You’re writing a book!” he greeted me excitedly when I came home from school.
“Who says?”
“Jerome Davis, from Davis and Hart. He called today, and he wants you to make your story into a book. They’re a big time publisher, you know. This is a real opportunity.”
“I can’t write a book; I don’t know how. And besides, writing a book can take years, and I don’t have the time. I’m going to college in the fall, in case you forgot.”
“Look, Ruthie, this is a great opportunity. You can write a book, and you can go to college, too. I have a lot of confidence in you. Besides, a book is just a very long story, and you’ve already written the story.”
“I just can’t. Look, I never wrote a book. I don’t know how.”
“Ruthie, listen to me,” my father said, a little too harshly. “You will call Mr. Davis tomorrow and talk to him. Maybe he has an idea. But Ruthie, this is a big chance, don’t let it get away.”
Life had changed sharply for me. My writing had gone from being an anathema for my father to being tolerated, and now I was being encouraged, even pressured.
__________
I now had the opportunity to be the father of a famous author. It would be my next transformation—my latest step along the path to being a real American. I could already imagine myself in literary circles, hosting grand salons, boasting to our neighbors. All that was necessary was for Ruthie to contact this Jerome Davis. It wasn’t that hard. I absolutely could not understand her reluctance.
One minute she wants to be a writer, and then, when the opportunity actually comes, she doesn’t want to do it, I thought to myself. Well I’ll push her into it. After all, I reasoned, it’s for her own good. Now that I had seen the chance to be the father of an author, I wasn’t going to give up.
Ruthie called Mr. Davis the next day from my office. Obviously, she was hoping to dissuade him. She explained that although she was flattered by his interest, she was only seventeen-years-old, and had never written a book. He said he understood, and that she shouldn’t worry. He said that he would help her. He explained to her the concept of an editor/ghost writer—who he called a “coach”—and he said that he would send her an editor who would work with her for as long as it took to help her write the book.
Ruthie told him that she was in high school, and that she had a lot of homework, and that she and her family were Sabbath observers, and that she had a busy social life, and that she would soon be going to college, and that she couldn’t possibly have time to work on a book, and that he would be just wasting his time and money. In fact, she did everything she could to dissuade him.
But Mr. Davis said he understood Ruthie’s reluctance, and he offered to send the coach, just once, to meet with her at our house on a Sunday to discuss it. He told her that if she decided that she didn’t want to go any further, he would understand. He was so smooth and convincing that she felt she had no choice.
Mr. Davis then spoke to me. He reviewed the conversation that he had had with Ruthie and explained the offer of an editor that he had made. He was very careful to make clear that he already had a highly-skilled, Jewish editor in mind, and that he was confident that this editor would be able to work amicably with Ruthie. He said that he thought that there was great potential in this partnership.
“Partnership?” I interrupted. “My daughter is the author of this book, and she will not have any partners.”
“Yes,” Mr. Davis replied smoothly. “I only used the term partner to imply that he will be supporting her in her efforts. Of course hers will be the only name on the book.”
“What happens if this partnership doesn’t work
out?” I asked. “Who pays this editor?”
“The cost of the editor is all mine,” Mr. Davis replied. “You will have no obligation. But I want you to understand that this is a great opportunity for your daughter. Don’t let her miss it.”
I must admit that I was very proud that Mr. Davis had sought my support and approval, and I promised to encourage Ruthie to agree.
__________
That Sunday, at ten o’clock sharp, the editor, Harry Berger, appeared at our door. He was very tall, and very good-looking. When he came into the parlor he filled the entire room with his personality. He went directly to my father and introduced himself. His powerful grip and presence implied an athletic background, and I immediately thought that he must be a graduate of an Ivy League School. My father then introduced him to my mother, and he bowed to her and took her hand.
We sat uncomfortably in the living room, my father and Harry on the sofa, my mother on the easy chair, and I, trying to maintain a separation, on a dining room chair which I had turned around. My mother served tea and little cookies.
“So,” my father said a little too loudly, “you are an editor. That’s an interesting profession. What exactly do you do?”
“I work with authors to help them develop their work,” Harry replied deferentially.
“And did you go to school to learn how to do this?” my father probed.
“Well, not exactly. I went to the University of Pennsylvania, and I majored in journalism. But after I graduated from Penn, I became an editor rather than a writer.”
“And how long have you been doing this editing?”
“Not very long. When I started college I had planned to be a journalist, and then, eventually, an author, like your daughter. So while I was in school, I worked as a cub reporter for a newspaper in Philadelphia. But then, although I was studying to be a writer, I got involved with a group of artists who called themselves the Ashcan School. Perhaps you’ve heard of them.”