Street Dreams

14

When I came backinto the living room, Hannah was seated next to Koby, the two of them turning the pages of an oversize art book entitledSolomon’s People.The tome was almost as big as she was. She looked splendid in a lime green dress and matching jacket that magnificently offset her red hair. She was learning the tricks of being a carrottop at a very early age. “What’s that?”

Koby said, “A book of Ethiopian Jews. I know several of the people.”

“Who?” Hannah asked.

“This lady here,” Koby said. “She was a very good friend of my older brother Yaphet. She married a rabbi and lives somewhere in the Negev.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Oh yes, very, very beautiful. I had a terrible crush on her. Alas, my affections were not returned.”

“Then she’s stupid,” Hannah said.

“No, but I thank you for the support. It was more like she was seventeen and I was thirteen, though I was as tall as she. For an Ethiopian, I am very tall.”

Hannah stared at him. “I thought all Africans were tall.”

“Hannah!” I scolded.

“It’s fine.” Koby smiled. “No, not all Africans are tall, especially North Africans. Most Ethiopians are Coptic Christians… more like Egyptians than anything else. I just happen to be tall because my parents are tall.” He looked up at me. “Would you like a hand with the candles?”

I had forgotten I was holding them. “I’ll just set them next to Rina’s candles. That’s where I usually light.”

Koby stood up. “I think you’d better put on your shoes, Hannah.”

“Should I wear my boots or my high heels?” she asked me.

“What’s more comfortable to walk in?” I said.

“The same.” She shrugged and turned to Koby. “What do you think?”

“With that dress and jacket, heels, definitely.”

“I’ll be right back!” She rushed off to her room.

“She likes you,” I told him. “You have a way with kids.”

“I work with kids.”

I hit my forehead. “Uh, yeah… duh!”

Koby caught my eye. “How’d it go in there?”

I shrugged, trying to act indifferent. “He’s still talking to me.”

“A good sign. I like your stepmother. She seems… genuine.”

“She is genuine.” Just then my two stepbrothers appeared. Sammy had reached the benchmark age of twenty. Jacob had attained the majority of eighteen. They were tall, good-looking guys, both of them in suits with their hair still wet from recent showering. They came out chattering about something, and when they saw me, they stopped talking. First they looked at me, then at each other; then their eyes went to the floor and back up again.

Sammy was trying to stifle a grin. He extended his hand to Koby.“Shabbat Shalom.”

Koby took it, then shook hands with Jacob.“Shabbat Shalom.”

Sammy said, “My father said you were Israeli.”

“Yes, but before I was Israeli, I was Ethiopian.”

“I see that,” Sammy answered. “Jewish Ethiopian.”

“Yes, Jewish Ethiopian.” A pause. Koby said, “If you have doubts, you can check mymillah.”

The boys burst into laughter and so did Koby. I didn’t get the joke, but I smiled anyway.

Sammy said, “I think I speak for my brother when I say, we’ll pass. Since Cindy’s not bothering to introduce us, I’m Sammy. He’s Jacob.”

“You didn’t give me a chance,” I told him. “This is Koby.”

“Also a Yaakov,” Jake said. “Where did you live in Israel?”

“My family still lives in Petach Tikvah.”

“That’s near Kfar Saba, right?”

“Yes, it’s the next town over.”

“I have a ton of friends from yeshiva who live there and in Ranana.”

“Yes, both those places are very American.”

Sammy said, “You want something to drink before we go to shul?”

“No, I’m fine.” He checked his watch. “It’s time to light thenerot.I need a match, please.”

“In the breakfront,” I said.

Koby and I lit our respective candles, both of us saying the blessing, although he understood the words that I mouthed. When we were done, we wished each otherShabbat Shalom.Rina lit candles for her household. Within a few minutes, we were on our way to synagogue.

One good thing about my stepbrother Sammy. No one could talk as much as he could. When we reached the tiny storefront that acted as the neighborhood Orthodox temple, I knew we wouldn’t be sitting together. Right before we parted ways-men on one side of the wall, women on the other-I asked him what the word“millah”meant. Straight-faced, he told me it meant circumcision.

I waited until I was on my side of the fence, then I broke out into laughter.

?

Orthodox Judaism was a religion of routine, and at the dinner table, the first order of business was always welcoming the metaphorical Sabbath Bride in a song called“Shalom Aleichem.”This ode was followed by a tribute to the real woman of the house-a poem from Proverbs called“Eshet Chayil,”or “Woman of Valor.” I’ve read the English a couple of times, and the gist of it centered around a woman slaving away without complaint to support her husband and family, words that seemed quaint and a bit shallow in the postmodern feminist world. I’ve had many a Sabbath dinner with my father’s family and when it came to this part, Dad, who hadn’t been blessed with a natural singing voice, always mumbled his way through the stanzas.

Tonight was a different story, however. My father sang, of course. But this time, the Loo was joined by my stepbrothers, who were fluent with the Hebrew text and sang with grace and meaning, their voices ringing clear as they smiled at Rina. But it was Koby who gave me pause, his voice deep and crystal, singing along note perfect with my stepbrothers in crisp, beautiful Hebrew. Here was a black man from Africa sitting with my white family from Los Angeles, people he had known less than two hours, and he was more integrated than I was. It brought it all home, that a traditional Sabbath cut through cultural lines. When the chorus came and the men broke into spontaneous harmony, an involuntary lump formed in my throat.

Within a short period of time, everyone at the Friday-night table appeared relaxed, eating great food and swapping stories of the week. My father’s family was a noisy bunch and with my stepbrothers’ swiftness of speech and Hannah’s relentless interruptions, it was sometimes hard to keep up with the conversation. If anything, I was the least comfortable person there. Though I was family, there were times when I was the odd person out with all the Hebrew, Israeli, and religious references flying around. Koby, however, appeared totally at ease. He was a good storyteller because his life had given him lots of raw material to work with.

“I was twelve when I had my first actual outing in civilization,” he said. “We had been in Israel, oh, maybe six months. We had gone throughulpan,and we spoke Hebrew in school, of course. But the refugee camp was exclusively Ethiopian and we spoke Amharic to the elders, who were not as fast as the kids in learning Hebrew.”

“I can relate to that.” Dad had just polished off his second glass of wine. Nothing like alcohol to take the edge off. Koby refilled his glass, then his own.

“It’s pretty good, no?”

“Very good,” my father agreed. “You’re a red-wine drinker?”

“Primarily, yes.”

“So what was your first outing?” Sammy asked.

Koby laughed. “My friend Reuven and I were given over to two eighteen-year-old yeshiva boys from Itri or Hakotel, someplace in Jerusalem. It was supposed to be a morning of learningChumashand an afternoon of fun and adventure. The morning was a bust. Their Hebrew was poorer than ours was. Perhaps it was the Long Island accent. We kept asking,‘Mah atem omrim?’‘What are you saying?’ We couldn’t understand a word! Besides, someone had set up a hoop in our refugee camp and all we want to do was shoot baskets. Finally, after lunch, they take us to the bus stop for our first day in the city. Reuven and I have never been on a real bus before.”

“I can see where this is leading,” Rina said.

“Up and down the aisle, people were screaming at us. We didn’t care. Then the boys take us toKanyonit.” He turned to me. “A minimall. Only it’s brand new and there are no shops inside. Just this one little store that sellsgoofiot-T-shirts. That’s it. All this empty space and nothing but T-shirts. The rest of the bottom floor of the mall was empty except for the escalators… which we had never seen before. To us, it was Disneyland. Up the down, and down the up, and over and over and over. Drove those poor boys crazy because, let me tell you, we were fast little bugs. I ran competitive track in Maccabee competition.”

“That’s really cool,” Jacob said.

“How’d you do?” Sammy asked.

“Good enough for my coach to say, think about the Olympics for Israel. But that would have meant devoting hours to running. I lacked the drive to work that hard. Without drive, forget it. Still, I could move, as the yeshiva boys found out.”

“Those poor white boys never had a chance,” Sammy remarked.

“Such is life.” Koby turned to Rina. “The lamb is delicious.”

“Then you’ll have more,” Rina said.

“Please.” Koby took another small piece, then started laughing. “Okay. So after the escalator rides, they get the bright idea to take us bowling. That is upstairs-a bowling alley and a snack bar. We’re running across the lanes. The manager screams at the boys in Hebrew, the boys scream at us in English, which, of course, we don’t understand. And the few Israelis there… they’re smoking away, shaking their heads in very much disapproval, saying‘Ayzeh chayot’-‘those animals.’ The boys finally hold us by our shirts-literally. Then we start begging them to buy us something to eat.”

He turned to me.

“The snack bar has noteudat kashrut-a certificate that states a place as kosher-and these two religious boys do not want to buy us anything from an uncertified place. We beg and beg and beg. They cave in and buy us a Coke. We beg some more. They cave in and buy us potato chips in a bag with a kosher symbol. Then I see this boy blowing up the bag and punching it until it makes a pop.”

Sammy started laughing. “I used to do that.”

“I know you did,” Rina said.

Koby said, “It is no problem if the bag is empty. Only I don’t know this. I do it with the potato chips still inside.”

Dad smiled. “So what happened after they arrested you?”

“The boys get us out in time, otherwise I’m sure I have a record. It was an unmitigated disaster. But I tell you this. Those boys… they had patience. They came back the next week and tried again… and again. They make a deal with us. If we learn ourChumash,they’d play basketball with us in the afternoon.”

“Were they any good at basketball?” Sammy asked. “It’s a yeshiva sport, you know.”

“Yes, I know. They teach us the game, Sammy. What do we know about organized sports in Ethiopia? I come from a small village near Lake Tana, not Addis Ababa.”

“Do you still play?” Sammy said.

“Basketball? I used to play all the time. Point guard, of course. Speed was never my problem. And I can shoot, hit layups in a game of HORSE and do swish shots from the perimeter. But I have problems when I play with people.” He laughed. “They get in my way.”

“A perfect metaphor for my life,” Dad said wryly.

Rina thumped his shoulder.

Koby said, “Especially here in L.A., they play rough. They block you and push, and slam and hit and shove. And then you push and shove and slam and hit. It gets very physical. In three months, I saw one guy twist an ankle, another break a wrist falling on it the wrong way, a third fall on his face and crack his two front teeth. The final thing was a very good friend of mine was guarding against a layup. The guy with the ball did a one-eighty spin with a raised elbow and caught my friend’s nose, snapping the septum. I had just turned thirty; I say, that’s it. God gave me one body. I keep it in shape by running four times a week, but no more weekend basketball.”

“One day, I’d like to play a game of one-on-one with you,” Sammy said.

“Sure, that I don’t mind. It is safe.”

“Now Dad here… he’d have to play center, don’t you think?” Sammy said.

“That’s because I’m too heavy and slow to move across the court.” Dad looked around the table, then at Rina. “Where’s Hannah?”

“She was reading on the couch. Maybe she fell asleep.”

It could have been my imagination but Dad looked envious. What he did was smile at Rina. “The meal was superb.”

“Thank you.”

Decker sipped wine. “Notice she doesn’t offer me another helping.”

“Take whatever you want, dear.”

“Actually, I’m full… more like stuffed.”

“Me too,” Jacob concurred.

“You hardly ate,” Rina said.

“Not true. I’m just leaving room for dessert.”

Dad said, “I need to take a walk.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jacob said. “God forbid you should have any solitude.”

My father smiled at my stepbrother with loving eyes, an expression he had yet to grace me with this evening. “I would love for you to come with me.”

“Wanna come, Shmuli?” Jacob asked.

“I’ll help Eema clear.”

“I’ll help her clear, Sammy,” I told him. “Go ahead.”

“Then let’s make this a true male-chauvinist outing,” Sammy announced. “Koby, you can come with us.”

He shook his head. “I thank you, but I shall pass.”

“Go,” I told him.

“No, no,” he insisted. “I’m fine.”

For the first time, I noticed the fatigue in his eyes. “Did you work a double shift again last night?”

“I’m fine, Cindy.”

“You’re falling off your feet.”

He shrugged. “Could be the wine. Perhaps we should sayBirkat Hamazon.”

“Absolutely.” Rina passed out prayer booklets for Grace after Meals.

My dad gave Koby the honors of leading the family in the singing of the prayers, not only because he was a guest but also because he was a Kohen. Five minutes later, Rina stood to gather up the dishes.

“I’ll help you clear,” I told her.

“No way,” Rina said. “I’ll make you a care package and then you both go home.”

“Oh please, don’t bother,” I said. “I’ve eaten enough for a week.”

Koby echoed my sentiments. He shook Rina’s hand. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Decker. This was a real treat for me.”

“Anytime… with or without her,” Rina answered.

“She means it,” I told him.

“You’re very gracious.” Koby turned to my father. “It is a pleasure meeting you, sir.”

“Same.” Dad gripped his hand and shook it with spirit. Then he patted Koby on the back, walking him to the door with his arm looped over his shoulder. I think at final count, Dad had polished off half the bottle of wine. “Drive carefully.”

“She’s driving,” Koby told him.

My father looked at me and rolled his eyes. “All the more reason for the caveat.”