They May Not Mean To, But They Do

21

The light in the synagogue was far too bright for a holy place. The atmosphere was meant to be one of velvet darkness illuminated by sunlight streaming from windows high above, like the church they had visited on their trip to Paris. There were ten rows of chairs divided by a center aisle, six chairs on each side. Sixty in all, but only half of them filled: Rabbi Kenny would be disappointed. Ruby chose the fourth row, the two seats closest to the aisle on the left. She wanted to be able to see.

“Won’t the rabbi be surprised to find us here,” her mother said. “I’m surprised, too.”

“Aren’t you glad? Don’t you want me to be Jewish?”

“You are Jewish, you know, already.”

“That’s kind of racist, Mommy.”

“Some people think Huckleberry Finn is racist. Do you?”

But Ruby was not to be lured back to Mark Twain.

“Tonight is Shabbat,” she had said when she got home from school that afternoon. “The service starts at seven, so we should eat early.”

“What service, sweetie? Is there a memorial for someone at school?” Every now and then, a terrible tragedy struck one of the families at school and the other families got together to raise money or protest a law or clean a flooded basement apartment.

“The Shabbat service, Mommy.”

Daniel was worried. “Ruby, I know you feel bad about the slingshot, but the rabbi understood it was an accident. He’s an awfully nice guy. He wouldn’t want you to punish yourself, honey. And Mommy and I would never make you go to services. I had enough of that when I was little, believe me.”

“You’re not making me. I want to.”

“I understand that you feel guilty, but…”

“Daddy, I’m going to shul. It’s not guilt. It’s inclination.”

“No one has the inclination to go to services,” he said to Coco when they were alone in the kitchen. “Especially not a twelve-year-old.”

“I had a Joan of Arc obsession. And I was a Taoist.”

He groaned. “I can’t do it, Coco. I can’t sit there and listen to that stuff. I did my time. I had my bar mitzvah.”

“It’s your ADD. It’s a wonder you can sit through a movie.” Daniel was constantly jiggling his legs and rattling the change in his pocket. He paced, too, up and down or in tight circles if the room was small.

“Don’t blow the candles out, Daddy,” Ruby said to him as she left the house with Coco. “You have to let them burn down. I read it.”

* * *

“Here he comes,” Ruby whispered. The bandage was gone and there was no scar that she could see. Rabbi Kenny came up the aisle greeting the congregation on his way to the bimah. “Mrs. Simkowitz, hello, how did Lev’s Series Seven exam go? Mr. Krauss, you look so much better. And…”

He stopped when he got to Ruby and her mother. He smiled broadly.

“Are you armed, Ruby?”

Ruby held her hands out, empty.

“It is an honor to have you both here. Welcome.”

Ruby listened to the prayers. A secret language, a secret alphabet, secret incantations. She could have been in a room of whirling dervishes or monks in saffron robes, it was that exotic, that exciting. Her mother mumbled along with some of the prayers.

“Wasn’t it beautiful?” Ruby said afterward. “Did you like the singing? The songs sounded so sad.”

“The cantor has a beautiful voice. She seems a little glitzy for a cantor.”

“She could be on Broadway. Les Mis!”

“Exactly. And I do prefer male cantors, generally.”

“Mommy, that’s sexist.”

“Nevertheless.”

They walked around the block to their building. They passed the corner market with its sparkling new pane of glass. Ruby held her breath the way she did when she passed a cemetery.

“Manuel’s insurance paid for it,” Coco said. “That was a relief.”

“Can I have my allowance back?”

“No.”

“Mommy,” Ruby said as they reached their building, “we need to get another set of dishes.”

“I love our dishes. Daddy and I got them on our honeymoon in Italy. They have a few chips, but really, Ruby, why would we want a whole new set, you can be a little extravagant, that’s from your father’s side of the family…”

“You really don’t understand anything,” Ruby murmured as her mother went on and on. She patted Coco’s arm with fond pity. “May god forgive you.”

* * *

Ruby sat on the floor of her grandparents’ living room, her legs stretched under the coffee table. She had spread out the photographs of her ancestors in approximation of her family tree.

“Now she wants to keep kosher,” she heard her father say. “With two sets of dishes. I’m all for the bat mitzvah, I’m proud of her, a sudden change of heart, but kosher?”

“I don’t think Tom Sawyer kept kosher,” Grandma Joy said. “How does she even know about keeping two sets of dishes?”

“The Internet. Google. Wikipedia.”

“Aren’t there parental controls on those things?”

There was a picture of Grandpa Aaron as a young soldier in the decorative box. Ruby showed it to Cora, who sat on the couch behind her, kicking her gently.

“Dad didn’t say anything when I was in there with him,” her father was saying.

“Nothing. For days. Almost a week.”

There was the muffled sound of weeping. Ruby turned the photos over, facedown, as if they were playing cards, moved them around the table, then guessed which was which, turning them faceup one by one. Cora slid off the couch and cuddled beside her. Ruby felt her breath on her cheek.

“Quit it,” she said mildly, and the shove she gave Cora was mild too.

Their mother appeared in the doorway.

“Girls, we’re going. I think you should say goodbye to Grandpa.”

Ruby and Cora held hands. With the big bed pushed against the wall to make room for a hospital bed, their grandparents’ room looked off balance, cluttered, a showroom for things no one wanted to see. The blinds were old venetian blinds, pulled down, a few of the metal slats bent, allowing in shafts of winter light. The bathroom door was open, and a big white booster seat rose up from the toilet. Pajamas hung from a hook on the back of the door, threadbare and limp.

“Do you know a prayer or something?” Cora whispered.

Ruby shook her head. “Not a whole one. Not yet.”

Their grandfather’s nose was bigger and thinner than ever. It rose up monumentally from his sunken cheeks. His eyes were closed. His lips were almost white and gave a small puff with each breath.

“Grandpa,” Ruby said, because she was the older. “Grandpa, it’s us, Ruby and Cora.”

He did not stir. There were brown bottles of pills and twisted tubes of ointment on a flowered porcelain tray on the dresser. There was a fat roll of gauze and one of white tape, some baby powder, a box of rubber gloves. Cora took out a rubber glove and blew it up like a balloon.

“Udders,” she said, handing it to Ruby to tie. They both giggled, then stopped and shifted their feet.

“We have to leave, Grandpa,” said Ruby softly.

Cora poked him. “Grandpa!” she yelled.

“Cora!” Ruby whispered. “Shhh.”

“Well, what if he’s…”

“Don’t be silly. He’s asleep. Look at his mouth. Listen.”

They could hear him breathing.

“Grandpa, we’re here, we’re here,” Cora said. She rattled the aluminum bed rail. “Me and Ruby.”

“Ruby and I,” Grandpa said. He opened his eyes.

“Everyone, everyone! Come quick! Grandpa talked!” Cora pounded down the hall.

Joy rushed to his side. “What is it, sweetheart? What is it, my darling?”

“Chipped beef,” Aaron said.

“You’re kidding me, Aaron. Aaron, darling…”

“In a jar.” And he slipped back into silence.

* * *

It was three in the morning. Joy went into the bedroom. Aaron had not moved. He was asleep on his back, the covers pulled up to his chin. The only sound he made was a rhythmic quiet groaning.

Walter, who had been in the next room on the pullout bed that would not pull out, appeared at the door.

“Okay?” he said.

She nodded. “Go back to sleep.”

There was a kitchen chair beside the hospital bed, and Joy sat down on it. She reached beneath the blanket and found Aaron’s hand. His hand was cold. “There, there,” she said. A useless, irrelevant comment. “There, there,” she said again. Not every comment had to be useful or relevant. Some words were useless, irrelevant, words that meant I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I wish I could help you, I love you and I have for so many years that I even love you when I don’t; words that meant I didn’t mean it when I said I was going to put a bag over your head if you asked me one more time where your ice cream was when it was right in front of you. “There, there,” she said.

Aaron, eyes still closed, opened his mouth, and through his strained breathing, he said, “There, there,” too.