Sylvester purred on Grandpa’s bed. I watched the trees through Grandpa’s window and waited for answers. When none came, I put the teakettle up to boil, consigned two innocent slices of cinnamon raisin bread to the hot electric coils of the toaster, and got the menorah from the living room. Time to give the lion a good de-waxing.
You can’t scrape wax off enameled copper; it ruins the finish. You can freeze the wax, or you can heat it. I chose heat. I poured boiling water over the menorah and coaxed slivers of wax from the lion’s back and mane. I picked wax and bits of parched string from the nine candleholders. Next Hanukkah the Friis family would light a beautiful menorah, even if I had to buy it with my now nonexistent money.
Wiping the menorah dry, I imagined Mon Trésor playing with his parents during his next Hanukkah and the Hanukkah after that. I had to be the angel who made Avram change his vow, as well as the demon who would dose him with LSD.
The Ninth Day
Paris
4 Tevet 4860
Anno Domini 1099, festival eve and feast day for Saint Nemesion of Alexandria
Sunset, Sunday, December 18–Sunset, Monday, December 19
Berkeley
3 Tevet 5725
Sunset, Monday, December 7, 1964–Sunset, Tuesday, December 8, 1964
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Dad put a tray of sandwiches on the kitchen counter and announced that dinner was self-serve. Dagmar and Josh were doing who knows what. Mom would be resting until Rabbi Cohen came—which would be about 6:45. All the relatives and guests would be gone by about 8:30. Mrs. Nash would stay an extra half hour to clean up and get everything ready for the next day. Tuesday night the same thing would happen, and then we’d be done.
Wrong. Tuesday night is only the beginning. My back twitched. Grandpa would be gone now for the rest of my life. I’d never be done with missing him.
I leaned against the counter.
”Grief takes a toll,” Dad said, kneading the knots in my shoulders.
Grief and fear.
”Remember Dagmar’s shiver story, Nudler?”
”Mmmm,” I said, feeling my shoulders relax. Dad had made all the arrangements when Grandma Miriam died and Mom was pregnant with me. Dagmar had no idea that sitting shivah meant staying at home, and letting people pay condolence calls and join in a mourner’s service. “I thought you were supposed to shiver,” she had told me. “What did I know? I was only three. Aunt Caroline kept putting an ugly brown sweater on me, and I kept yanking it off, so I could shiver.”
He rested his hand on my back. “It takes time.” Then he made up a dinner tray for Mom and left. I headed downstairs. Maybe Dagmar could tell me something useful about ergot versus LSD. Probably not, but still.
Dagmar’s funeral clothes crowned the top of the clothes pile, but she was gone—again.
She came back just as we started the shivah prayers. Dagmar had clothed herself in an all-black Gothic ensemble complete with a lace shawl. Mourner’s black, I suppose.
”Dagmar looks like a curly-haired version of Morticia in the ‘Addams Family,’” Leona whispered after the service. She sat next to me, eating a mini-éclair. “She should be on TV. Want me to get you an éclair? They’re superscrumptious.”
I shrugged. Leona took that to mean yes.
I bit into the éclair, filling my mouth with thick cream custard. Leona leaned closer. “Mr. Z. can’t wait to have you back in class. You should have seen his face this morning when I gave him your permission slip and the money.”
”W-what?”
”Hey, watch out. You’ve still got éclair in your mouth.”
While I closed my lips, and chewed, and swallowed, she said, “Didn’t they tell you? Uh-oh, I guess I spoiled their surprise.”
I looked around the room in confusion. Mom must have gone into the kitchen or bathroom. Dad was standing in the corner, talking to Mr. Nash.
”Your dad gave my mom the money and permission slip yesterday,” Leona said. She told me that he and your mom decided your grandfather would have wanted you to go to Portland. I mean, after your singing at his funeral, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Isn’t that sweet?”
”B-but…but…the duh-reidel m-m-money….”
”Yeah, you must have made a mint. Hey, where are you going?”
I planted myself in front of my father and Mr. Nash.
”The Academic Senate is going to meet tomorrow at three,” Mr. Nash was saying. “I know you’re in a house of mourning, Henry, but this is a pivotal moment for the university. If the faculty breaks with administration policy, we’ll have chaos on campus. There’s a good chance the Senate will vote down Kerr’s proposal and come up with something that caters to these student agitators. We mustn’t let that happen.”
I gave the tiniest cough. Dad touched my shoulder, but kept talking. “I’ll see how things are with Rachel,” he said. “In any case, the Regents have the final say in a couple of weeks. They could overturn a faculty vote. They’ve done it before.”
Mr. Nash sipped his ginger ale. “True. But if the faculty comes out strongly in favor of the students, I’m afraid the Regents will decide to support them.”
Dad gave a noncommittal nod and looked my way.
”L-Leona just told m-me about the f-festival. Thuh-ank you!”
Dad smiled and patted my shoulder. “We’ll talk about the details later.”
”Well, won’t that be an exciting trip!” Mr. Nash crunched on a sliver of ice. “As I was saying, Henry…”
I escaped, thankful that Mr. Nash hadn’t mentioned the coat and purse I’d left in his office during the occupation. Or maybe he’d told Dad and Dad hadn’t mentioned it to me, yet—too many maybes. But one thing was for sure, it was up to me now. A place in the music festival and a chance for a prize-winning solo was mine to win or lose.
I headed outside to the back porch, because pirouettes of delight don’t belong in a house of mourning.
Ten minutes later, sober-faced, I sat next to Leona again and listened to her talk about what we’d wear on the trip.
The doorbell heralded a visit from one of Dagmar’s friends—Jerry Somebody, who knew Marsha and had a connection with Dagmar. Dagmar waved to Jerry, hugged Dad, stuffed her feet in her army boots, and was out the door in under a minute.
Crap! I rushed outside and grabbed her elbow.
”This is not a party you’d like,” she told me.
I tightened my grip. “Yes, b-but…um…is-is r-rotten r-rye as stuh-rong as a d-dose of LSD?”
She sniffed. “How should I know?”
”At H-Halloween, h-how m-m-many d-doses did I take?”
”Let’s talk about this another time. Jerry’s waiting.”
”N-now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, don’t ask me, Hopey-Dope. I brought my own, of course. I wouldn’t touch somebody else’s. You must have stuffed your face on those little licorice sandwich candies. The kind with the white in the middle was just candy. The kind with the pink middles was laced. Didn’t I tell you? How many did you eat? See what I mean? You don’t know, I don’t know. I told you to stay away from the licorice. I’m sure I did.”
She brought her own doses? When did she take them? How out of it was she? Suppose Gabriel hadn’t found me? I stood there, stupefied, while Dagmar pried my fingers from her elbow.
Afterward, I sat on the front steps. Pushing the Halloween party and the hospital out of my mind, I concentrated on the disaster at hand. Should I give Avram one square of the perforated blotter hidden under my bed? Two squares? Six? Too little and he wouldn’t believe the whole angel performance. Too much and…
”Lovely evening.” Rabbi Cohen stood over me.
Is there a prayer for trying to do the right thing, and risking someone else’s life in the process? We shook hands good nig
ht, and I took an extra two beats before I let go.
CHAPTER FORTY
Fifteen minutes after the last guest left, I fled downstairs with Sylvester. I set the alarm for 3:10 a.m., an hour before Serakh was to meet me in Grandpa’s room. It wouldn’t be hard to sneak upstairs then.
We had decided that Avram would be the most suggestible at dawn, when dreams feel more real and the light plays tricks on you. He was still sleeping at Shmuel’s house. Serakh would find a way to give him a dose and lure him outside. When I thought he was into the deepest part of his trip, I would use the words from the angel in the Akedah story and command him to renounce his vow.
Anyway, that was the plan.
I was supposed to get a calm and restful sleep before returning to Paris. No way was that happening. My mind refused to shut down. It paraded before me every possible scenario of everything that could go wrong. I sweated in my pajamas. And then, when I opened the window wider, I shivered with cold.
By 2:30, I gave up trying to rest. I extracted the paisley blotter from under my bed and tore off three squares. If one square didn’t work, then maybe, just maybe, we’d have another chance, and I’d try two. Could I do the unthinkable—twice?
I stared at the rest of the blotter and clenched my jaw. Dagmar had promised that she wouldn’t keep LSD in our bedroom after what happened on This time I was determined that she kept her promise. I stuffed the blotter in my bathrobe pocket, grabbed a hand shovel and gardening gloves from a shelf in the garage, tiptoed upstairs, and picked my way in the moonlight to the lemon tree in the backyard. I shredded the blotter and buried it. No eulogy other than “good riddance.” No more dots or tabs. No more doses. Never.
Then I soaked in the bathtub, to ease the tension from my body. No good. Everything seemed coiled inside. I paced the room.
What do angels wear?
I couldn’t remember if Serakh was going to bring me something appropriate or whether I was supposed come up with something. I rubbed my forehead. This is not like the senior prom. He’ll be so high, who knows what he’ll see.
Surveying Dagmar’s pile, I decided on her purple caftan and a shawl with a yellow and gold floral pattern. Definitely the new Capezios. I’d be gone an instant in Berkeley time. She wouldn’t miss them. I took my large white chiffon scarf to wrap my hair and most of my face. No jewelry, but I daubed White Shoulders on the scarf. Angels smell nice. I bundled everything in my bathrobe and tiptoed up to Grandpa’s room. When I was ready—if terrified, but fully costumed, counts as ready—I held the blue thread close to my heart and shut my eyes.
“You look beautiful,” Serakh said. She carried a thick woolen cloak, with a hood trimmed in fur. “It is snowing again in Paris, and we might be outside for a long time. You will need this.” The cloak smelled like gym socks and musk, only worse.
“Weasel,” she said. “It will keep you warm.
I shuddered.
“It will keep you warm,” she repeated.
I cocked my head. “I have to ask this. Are there really such things as angels? Are you one?”
She sat in Grandpa’s chair and stroked that long white braid of hers. “I have an abundance of years, although already I am feeling the weight of so much time. I am not an angel. I have never met a person with wings, as is depicted in the books and paintings I have seen. I believe that all beings have special qualities breathed into them from The One. Some have qualities we mistrust or we look upon with awe.”
“I am practically petrified,” I told her.
“This is natural. You hold lives in your hand. You have a thin possibility of success. That is a fearsome responsibility. Still you are here. You have called me to your side.”
Even though Hanukkah was over, I slipped another dreidel into the pocket of Dagmar’s caftan. My locally handcrafted, miracle-of-freedom, liberty top. My good luck charm.
“I’ll say the same thing from the binding of Isaac story in Genesis,” I said. “I practiced this afternoon.”
“Excellent. Do you have the potion?”
I showed Serakh the three perforated paisley squares and explained that each one was a dose. “I still don’t know how many to use. I’ll start out with one and have the other two for a back-up.”
Serakh put the squares in her pouch. “I have faith in you.”
That made one of us.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Afterwards, I sat propped against a log under the oaks by the river. The night air was clear and cold. Patches of snow glinted in the moonlight.
”Turn away from me,” Serakh said. “Rest here until I return.”
I did what she told me to do, and closed my eyes against the flash. I rehearsed my angel lines in my head, pretending that I was in control of the situation. If I gave a perfect dramatic performance, then we would have the perfect result.
And they lived happily ever after.
Then I sensed Serakh’s return flash.
”Do not be alarmed,” she said. “The baby is safe with Tante Rose. Celeste is with Dolcette, and will see that Dolcette does not come to harm. I will find him.”
I rubbed my forehead, struggling to make sense of her words.
”Dolcette searches for Avram,” she said. “He is gone.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
As soon as I could walk, Serakh guided me toward Dolcette’s house. “Revelers were in the street,” she explained. “Their noise woke Shmuel, and he discovered that Avram had left the house. Shmuel is fearful because of Avram’s melancholy. He searched the streets within the Jewish quarter, but he could not find Avram. He awakened Tante Rose, and she told him that Avram had not returned home.”
”Dolcette is out looking for Avram?”
”Yes. Poor child, she is sick with grief. Celeste is with her. I trust she will not be out long, for the sake of the baby. Come, we will tell Tante Rose that you will stay to help with the baby, while I look for his father to shorten the search. I will find him.”
Alert now, and anxious, I hated to sit at Dolcette’s and wait. “I know my way around this neighborhood by now. When I spot Avram, I’ll touch the blue thread and you’ll find me.”
Serakh shook her head. “If you come to harm, all is lost. The intertwining will fail.”
Tante Rose wanted nothing to do with me either. She pursed her lips. “Against my judgment Dolcette left with Celeste, and I am alone with the baby. I cannot share my company with you at the moment.”
”Tante Rose, Dolcette might need you when she returns, and you will need someone to attend to the child,” Serakh argued. “Surely there must be a place for my sister-in-law to rest here without troubling you. Surely Dolcette would want you to offer us hospitality during this grave time.”
Tante Rose arched her eyebrows. I kept my woolen cloak wrapped tightly around me, so she wouldn’t see the angel costume. Finally she said, “There is an extra pallet in Celeste’s bed chamber.” She led us to a cramped room maybe twice the size of my bathroom and covered a pile of straw with a rough linen cloth. The first few measures of “Away in a Manger” rolled through my head, since it must be close to Christmas. My skin crawled just looking at the straw, but Celeste’s bed wasn’t much better—a more compact straw mattress resting on a slab of wood a few inches up from the dirt floor.
”You are most kind,” I lied.
Tante Rose announced she would be in the kitchen or upstairs with the baby if I needed anything. The sour expression on her face told me not to bother her. Then she left, closing the door behind her.
I settled into the straw and wondered how Celeste managed. The room reeked of mold or mildew. A thin strip of animal skin—cowhide, maybe—covered most of the narrow hole in the wall that served as a window. But Serakh was right. I imagined her appearing and disappearing in a flash. I couldn’t keep up.
There was nothing more I could do to help. Mon Tr&éacut
e;sor was safe. My double days in Berkeley and Paris filled me with fatigue. A short nap wouldn’t hurt.
I had just drifted off, my heart beating a slow legato, when I heard faint cracklings in the straw. Something slithered across my ankle and started up my leg.
I boosted myself on my elbows and lifted Dagmar’s caftan. By now the feeling had reached my knee. I grabbed another handful of cloth and pulled up.
A yellow-collared, greenish brown snake was twisting himself around my kneecap, his head pointing toward the warmth between my legs. Before I could stop myself, I shrieked; then lost my balance, falling off the straw pallet and sprawling on my back.
Flashback or for real? My fingers reached out. Snake.
I exhaled my relief. He seemed to be some sort of harmless grass snake or garter snake, like Clarence, the red-and-yellow striped snake I had once, until he frightened Grandpa. We kept Grandpa. This poor guy had probably come inside for warmth and mice, and was just as surprised as I was.
Figuring Celeste was as fond of snakes as Grandpa had been, I collected the French version of Clarence and was about to deposit him outside through the hole in Celeste’s wall, when I heard the door open.
Tante Rose looked way more venomous than the snake. She said something about malade—sick—but most of her French didn’t sound anything like the language tapes in school. Her eyes grew wide, and she pointed to the snake whose head I was holding gently, and whose body was slowly wrapping around my arm.
”Blah, blah, blah, Lilith, blah!” She pointed to the snake. “Blah, blah, blah, serpent, blah, blah!” Without Serakh nearby, I was lost.
I took a step toward her. “D-don’t w-worry,” I said. “He’s h-h-harmless.”
Tante Rose flattened herself against the wall next to the door. She shook her head. “Blah, blah, très mal, blah, blah, blah.”
Très mal. Very bad, or very evil. The snake was neither, if that’s what she was talking about.
”T-Tante Ruh-ose,” I stuttered. “See. I am f-f-fine.” I brought the snake closer to my face to show her how harmless it was. “I j-just want t-to t-take it outside.” I walked toward the door smiling, the snake coiling comfortably. It was cold out there, but not below freezing. I figured he—or she—would find a safe place.
The Ninth Day Page 19