I sat alone in my father’s apartment thinking. Around me were piles of loss, missed opportunity, lies, secrets, resentments, and also smiles, pleasures, joys, a whole history of a family that was no more.
Finally I got up and stood in front of my wall. All the items I had so carefully posted did, in fact, tell a story, but not the whole story. They could never penetrate to the core. I reached for the map of Berlin. I took it down and folded it up. Then I reached for the pictures of German soldiers cut from magazines, and then the wedding invitation, the photo of my grandparents, the train ticket marked GvH. As I was setting them down, I noticed one item lying on the floor that I had never gotten around to putting up—my mother’s straw hat, the very one that had floated across the surface of the swimming pool the day she collapsed playing mahjongg. Kept all these years in the dark of the closet shelf, the creamy orange straw was bright and cheerful, as was the floral band and floppy brim. It even still smelled of suntan lotion. Without thinking, I put in on my head. Instantly I realized I had found the final clue. I reached for a Post-it. On it I wrote: She knew.
I returned in my mind to the scene of the German argument, as it came to be known in our house. My father had just stormed from the room, the dishes rattling on the table and the screen door slamming behind him. His volume of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was still sitting like a mammoth hunk of bad cheese right in front of my nose.
“That wasn’t nice,” my mother had said to me about my behavior toward my father. I had told him German was just a language, and that obviously he was still reading it, too, and there was no harm in it, and then he called me a Nazi.
“Well, he wasn’t nice to me, either,” I told her.
“He’s your father,” she said. And it seemed like that was the end of the matter. But now as I stood there with my mother’s Creamsicle-colored bonnet on my head, I recalled how she had walked around the table, and hands trembling—those delicate nurse’s hands that were always so stoic and fearless when we had gashes on our heads or blood pouring from our knees—with those hands now in a vortex of trembling, she hefted the huge volume to her breast, and swayed side to side, almost as if praying. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Perhaps at the time I told myself she was just upset that we had argued, but I knew even then that these were not those kinds of tears. Finally she ran into the bedroom and put the book away in some secret place. And that is what I now understood was the key, remembering it as if for the first time. For I never saw that book, or any of its other twenty-three volumes, again. Nor, I now realized, had I ever actually seen them before. No. I assumed I had, but I hadn’t. They had never been out on the shelves. They were held in a private, secret place. And my mother knew exactly where.
“He’s your father,” she said again when she returned to the dining room. She seemed to be herself once more.
But her hands were red, as if from wringing. And around the edge of her wedding band was a deep purple line, as if she had ground it into her skin over and over and over again.
I stood there with my mother’s hat on my head. There was yet another story. My mother’s story. A young girl’s story, a young wife’s. A love story.
I recalled that there was a storage locker in the basement. I found her ancient vanity case at the bottom of a pile of junk—an aluminum ice chest, stacks of magazines, dusty folding chairs, wooden tennis rackets. The case was made of cardboard, upholstered in pretty fabric with a bone handle and a little brass latch. When opened, the mirror dangled sadly from the lid on a few dabs of dried glue. For her sake, I pressed it back in place. But my attention was soon drawn to several tightly bound stacks of letters tied with faded ribbon. They were all still in their slit envelopes and addressed to my mother in my father’s tight, precise script. But as I fanned through them, I came across one that was in another hand. It had no stamp on it and had never been mailed. In fact, it was still sealed. I examined it in the dim light of the single lightbulb that hung from the storage room ceiling on a long, shredded cord. I brought the letter to my nose—it smelled of basement, but also of the last, mauve vestiges of Shalimar, my mother’s scent, the scent that idled behind her as she passed in her evening dress and filled my head with dreams whenever I entered her closet to fetch her a scarf from the top shelf. Holding the letter in my hand, I saw my mother as a young woman who wore Shalimar not merely on special occasions, but every evening, for her own pleasure, as she sat at her desk or upon her bed, reading love letters from my father, and writing one she never mailed. A letter addressed simply to “Heshel.”
Heshel:
The days, the weeks, are all darkness, and my heart can stand no more. When you left, I tried to wash you off me. I bathed, and bathed again, because the very thought of your touch repulsed me. I had to wash all my clothes. I burned our photographs. I burned the wedding dress. I burned the garter and the stockings and the nightgown. I burned them all in the fireplace, and then I ran out of that apartment to go home to Mama and Papa. I ran out of there and I stood on the street in front of the apartment. It was daylight already, and the super was there sweeping, and he said, Good morning, Mrs. Rosenheim, and I cannot tell you how my heart stopped in my chest and how horrified I was to hear those words, the very first time anyone called me that. Do you know how I had dreamt of it? How I practiced hearing it, and like a stupid little girl sang it to myself and (so stupid!) with Hilda and Betty—Mrs. Rosenheim, Mrs. Rosenheim—but when I heard the super say it, I had to hold my stomach, I was so sick. But then I realized I couldn’t go to my parents’ because I knew I just couldn’t tell them. So I stood there on the street and Mr. Devivo looked at me like I was crazy. I ran back into the building and ran up the stairs, and I didn’t even wait for the elevator. Oh yes, I started crying again, even though I had been crying all night.
I thought about Papa, because Papa never liked you. He said you drank too much. He pointed to the bottle of schnapps on the buffet and said he had that bottle four years. And now it was empty. He said he didn’t like a man who felt sorry for himself. And I hated him for this! I told him he was ignorant and unfeeling. I told him how much you had been through and how people don’t just heal overnight. I even screamed at him. I screamed at my own father for you.
Anyway, I stayed in the apartment as long as I could stand it. I didn’t eat anything all day. I thought I should call the FBI. I thought about calling Senator McCarthy. I would call Washington and ask for the Un-American Committee or whatever they call it. I did not know how to do that. Do you call the operator and ask for the Un-American Committee? I was glad we don’t have a phone, because I knew I’d never go downstairs to Mrs. Warshaw. I could just see myself calling the FBI to report my own husband while she’s standing there counting the minutes. But I had to do something. So I decided to go down to the pay phone on Milford Avenue. There was Mr. Devivo again with his Hello, Mrs. Rosenheim! I must have been pale as a ghost. He asked me if everything was copasetic. Copasetic! I said, Sure! I smiled at him. Can you imagine? Before this I always thought you could know what a person was feeling by their face. Now I see how secret life really is.
I went down to Milford Avenue, but my hands were shaking like a leaf, and the change kept slipping from my fingers, and I couldn’t even find the slot. I put the nickel in the dime slot and it got stuck and I had a hard time getting it out. I finally got the operator, but when she said what number please I just couldn’t. I couldn’t say FBI. I just couldn’t do it. I just hung up and there were some kids waiting for the phone and they said, Lady are you done? So I took off. I ran down Springfield Avenue and then up Avon Avenue and I think I was on Clinton Place when I realized I was due at the hospital in half an hour. I was so confused I got on a bus and went to work. It was probably a good thing. I was so busy I couldn’t think about anything except what was right in front of me.
Anyway, I got off at about 5:30 in the morning, and I went for coffee over at Toddle House and I don’t know why I just walked past a
nd found myself standing in front of a little synagogue, a shul. It must have been 7 A.M. already. I just wanted to sit there and think. It was Orthodox, and I could hear the men finishing up the morning prayers. They were mostly old, and I don’t think they saw me. I tiptoed around to the women’s side and found a seat right near the partition—it was like a lattice made of brass—and I sat down. I guess I fell asleep. I’d been up already for twenty-four hours at least, probably more. And when I opened my eyes the men were already done with their prayers, and they were folding up their prayer shawls and unwrapping the tefillin from their arms and putting them in their little bags.
But there was one man, sitting on the bench in the corner. He was still wrapped in his tallis and his tefillin, and his book was still in his hands, and he was still davening, weaving the way they do, back and forth, right and left, left and right, and he just wouldn’t stop. Even though he was speaking so very softly, you could make out that he was actually trying to say every word, and also that he really didn’t know the words very well at all. I tiptoed toward him and from behind the partition I watched him. I was as close to him as I am now to the paper I am writing this on, but to him I was invisible. I don’t even know why I cared so much to watch him, but I couldn’t help myself. I just did what I did.
I watched him and listened. He prayed from the book, and as I said, he pronounced every word, every blessing, with the utmost precision, but whispering it as if he were speaking directly into God’s ear. When he said “Adonai, Lord God,” he bowed his knees and lowered his head, and his body quivered under his tallis. I thought this was very beautiful for some reason. The others had sped through their prayers, had skipped over the words, maybe didn’t even know what they were saying half of the time, and they were very happy with themselves. But this one remained in his place and said every syllable and struggled through every sentence because he didn’t know it by heart. Some people would say he was calling attention to himself, but I was drawn to him anyway. So I stayed and watched him.
Finally, though, one of the old men came up to him, and I heard him say, “It’s time to go. Come back tomorrow. One day at a time—you’ll see—God will be here tomorrow too!” That’s the way they talk, isn’t it?
So this one, the one still praying, stood up, and even standing he was all bent over like an old man, even though he obviously wasn’t—and with great sadness he removed the tallis from over his head so that I could see his face at last, and he folded it and placed it over the back of the bench, because it wasn’t his—it was one of those you can borrow if you don’t have one, one of those for the stranger, or the boys who forget theirs.
All I could do was stare at you in wonder. I thought I would scream. It was you! But being silent then was the most important thing in my whole life, and I knew it. So somehow I kept it down, somehow nothing came out, not even a peep. Secretly, I made myself inch closer until I could smell your skin and feel your breath. I had to be sure it was you.
The old man patted you on the back and began making his way up the aisle. You waved at him. And then, when he was gone, and you were all alone in the synagogue, you picked up your tallis and draped it over your head again, and began to pray some more. I watched you pray until every word was spoken, and every prayer was prayed. And when you finally were done, you said not another word. You just turned and walked out, as if you did this every day.
I left that place and I went home. I slept for the first time since all this started, and now I am awake again. I’ve been sitting here on the bed writing this for I don’t know how long. It must be long because I’m out of cigarettes, and out of coffee, too. I have to think, and I don’t know how to think about this. I have to go to the Acme for a can of coffee and I have to go to Nate’s for a pack of Herbert Tareytons, but I don’t know how to do that either. That’s what it actually feels like. It feels like when you have a choice like this to make, the whole world is just a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t fit together, and until you make that choice you don’t know where any of the pieces fit. You don’t know how to go shopping anymore. You don’t know what the world will look like when you go out the door, and you’re too afraid to step out the door to find out.
To tell you the truth, what I wish is that right now the door would open and you would be there and you’d have a can of Maxwell House in one hand and a pack of Tareytons in the other, and you’d perk some coffee and we’d light up, and the whole world would be clear to me once more, and that the dream you told me about—because that’s what I’ve decided to call it—has evaporated into thin air, mysteriously, just like the schnapps in my father’s bottle, which I happen to know you never ever touched.
Lily
I folded the letter. I put it back in the envelope. I slipped it under the package of letters. I closed the case. I put the case back under its pile of junk, the ice chest, the magazines, the folding chairs, the tennis rackets.
I went upstairs. I dialed the phone.
“Hello?”
“Josh?” I said.
“Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
I don’t know how, but the words rushed out of me.
“Josh,” I said, “you know that thing about Frau Hellman? You remember?”
“Sure,” he said.
“I thought maybe I had it figured out, but I realize I don’t. I haven’t figured it out at all.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “Me neither.”
“The thing is,” I said, “I don’t think I can do it alone. Josh, will you get on a plane? Will you come out here and help me?”
“Me?”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry for being such an ass. I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me, Dad. I was just worried about you. You’re going through stuff, remember?”
“I’ll buy you a ticket right now,” I said. “You can come out tomorrow.”
“I don’t know, Dad. It’s Yom Kippur tomorrow. I don’t know if I’m allowed to fly.”
“Then the day after tomorrow. Josh, listen”—I found myself just telling him—“Grandpa is dead. He died today, a few hours ago. Quietly, in his sleep, as it should be. Nothing terrible. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just as life is supposed to be. But the only thing that’s not as it’s supposed to be, is that you are not here with me. I love you, Josh. It’s time for us to do our thing—together.”
I thought, Oh!—do our thing—what a stupid expression. What a way to try to tell him what I was trying to tell him.
But I could hear his little funny bone working, “Well, guess what?” he said in his wonderful smart-ass way, “I’d much rather be bored by you than be bored by some stupid rabbi.”
My heart stopped, and tears welled up in my eyes, and I could not think of a joke or a bon mot or a clever riposte, or anything.
And that is what brought me to here, standing beside the car door watching the people flow into the synagogue like rays of light returning to the sun. I had Mrs. Gitlin’s ticket in my pocket. The tallis bag in my right hand. My father’s little prayer book by my heart. Somewhere inside that building, near the front, the Gitlins were seated near the Futernicks and the Mosemans, and beside them an empty seat. In another row, probably farther back, would be April and her mother, a woman of gratitude and a daughter of poetry. On the bimah the cantor would soon rise and begin the chanting of Kol Nidre—releasing us from our vows to God, so that we might forgive our failures to ourselves. His voice would rise with the ancient melody, heartrending and bittersweet, solemn and purifying. People would close their eyes and sway to the music, desperately seeking some truth within themselves.
I stood by my open car door, thinking, should I go in?
I knew there was no truth to find inside or out. And yet here I was.
Already on the horizon I could see the dark clouds of a hurricane slowly moving toward us. No one wore a raincoat or carried an umbrella. None of them seemed to know they were under siege and the enemy was about to storm the gates, kill the men, rape the
women, steal the children. Or perhaps they just knew it wouldn’t rain today. Yes, they knew things I did not know. Perhaps they even knew the secret of Heshel Rosenheim.
I looked out past them to where the sea would be, past the synagogue, past the shopping malls, the condo complexes, the Denny’s and Einstein’s Bagels and Red Lobsters, the nursing homes and hospitals, the golf courses and dog tracks. A storm was coming, no doubt about it. But then again, so was Josh.
And I said to myself, you know, the old man wanted me to say Kaddish for him. So what the hell.
And that’s when I took my first step.
A CONVERSATION WITH MICHAEL LAVIGNE
Michael Lavigne discusses Not Me with Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment and Hester Among the Ruins. (Editor’s note: The emotional and philosophical depth of this discussion reflects the poignant, cerebral, and often controversial elements found in Not Me, a novel that thoroughly explores the essence of humanity and is embedded in an authentic, and often disturbing, Holocaust history.)
Binnie Kirshenbaum: Is there such a thing as true redemption? And if so, what of forgiveness? To forgive, to forgive entirely without reservation, is that a kind of redemption, too?
Michael Lavigne: I do not know if redemption is possible. I do know that we must live as if it were. That means not only within ourselves but also in our relationships with those who have tormented us. I suppose the essence of the redemptive stance is empathy—this is the origin of ethical behavior in general. If we live with empathy, we also live with hope. Forgiveness is another matter. Is it possible to forgive without reservation? I suppose that depends on the offense. Frequently in myself I have found that a shadow of distrust seems to lurk beneath the surface of forgiveness.
BK: No doubt there are others, but The Great Gatsby and The Human Stain come to mind as novels with protagonists who reinvent themselves. How do you see Heshel Rosenheim’s reinvention of himself in light of the lies lived by Fitzgerald’s and Roth’s characters?
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