Chapter 10 Days of Awe #3
Hard raindrops pierce Lily’s clothes as Sylvia turns to go. Head down, Lily follows, taking the path between the rows. “You need to speak up,” Sylvia tells her in the parking lot.
To dead people? Lily thinks.
“You were never so quiet when you were younger.” Sylvia unlocks the car.
“I’m sorry.” Lily doesn’t know why she says that.
“Well, I hope you’ll visit me when I’m—” Sylvia says—and then she stops.
Keys in her hand, she watches another car pull up.
A black umbrella emerges, and Lily sees why her grandma can’t move.
It’s Helen. It’s the unforgiving Helen under there.
Helen who is dressed for the weather in black rain boots.
Lily’s first thought is to duck inside the Lexus, but Great-Aunt Helen sees her. She is coming closer. “Lily, is that you?” Helen says.
“Yes,” Lily says faintly.
“How are you, sweetheart?” Helen talks as though she can’t see Sylvia standing there.
“I’m good.” Lily feels rain soaking through her sweater and her dress.
“And how is your father? And your sister?”
Lily senses Sylvia bristling. She can feel her grandma’s indignation and her hurt, a whole private thunderstorm—but Sylvia says nothing. “They’re fine,” Lily says. At the same time, she thinks, I should speak up! “It’s a coincidence,” she says.
Helen says, “What is?”
Lily’s heart is pounding. “That you both come here.”
Even then, Helen does not acknowledge Sylvia. Helen says, “It’s not a coincidence. I come here every year.” And she adds, “Don’t you have a raincoat? Or an umbrella? You’ll catch cold.”
“We’re leaving,” Sylvia declares, as though Helen is insulting her grandmother skills. Is she? Is that what’s happening? “Get in,” Sylvia tells Lily.
In an instant, Lily ducks inside, and her grandma follows, slamming the door.
For a second, Sylvia sits staring. Then she starts the car.
“Where are we going now?” Lily asks after a few minutes.
Her grandma answers, “You know where.”
—
There are fewer people at temple in the afternoon. Apart from Lily’s family, their row is empty.
“Where were you?” Sophie asks Lily, who is still dripping. “Did you get lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Lucky!”
“But it was terrible!”
“Where did you go?”
Richard shushes them.
So they sit quietly, and Lily feels Sophie’s curiosity. It’s a strange tickling sensation. It’s just so rare. Usually Lily doesn’t have anything her sister wants.
“But did you—” Sophie whispers.
“Stop it,” their dad whispers because the rabbi is speaking. He is in the middle of the afternoon sermon, and he is walking up and down. He wears a little headset with a microphone so everyone can hear him.
“Let me conclude with a story from our tradition. And this one is not about doing wrong. It’s about doing right.
Long ago, there were two brothers, and they were farmers on adjoining plots of land.
One brother was successful. His farm was profitable.
He had plenty of money, but he had no children.
The other brother was less prosperous. He had much less money, but he had several children.
“When it was time, the two brothers harvested their wheat and gathered the grain. The prosperous one thought to himself, I have plenty—more than I need. I will give some of my grain to my brother who has less money. But he did not want to embarrass his brother, so he waited until night—and then he transferred the grain to his brother’s pile.
“Meanwhile, the less prosperous one thought to himself, I have a large family, and my brother does not. I will give some grain to my brother who has no children. He did not want to call attention to his gift, and so he waited until night—and then he added grain to his brother’s pile.
“In the morning the brothers were confused. Each had given away some grain, but his pile was the same size as it had been before. The prosperous brother said to himself, I will try again. Once again he waited until dark and added grain to the poorer brother’s pile.
Meanwhile, the poorer brother was thinking the same thing, and after dark, he added grain to the childless brother’s pile.
In the morning the brothers were confused again.
Why were their piles undiminished? That night each brother went one last time to add grain to the other’s harvest—but this time, the two stumbled upon each other in the dark.
You! they exclaimed. You did this! And the brothers embraced!
“And it’s said that their love illuminated the darkness!”
The rabbi pauses. Everybody in the sanctuary waits, but Lily hears a strange snuffling.
She peeks over her dad and sees her grandma crying.
She is bending over her pocketbook, taking out tissues, as tears pour down her face.
Grandpa Lew is holding Sylvia’s hand, but it’s not helping, and Lily knows why.
“What if our secrets were good deeds instead of bad?” the rabbi says.
“What if our missed signals stem from generosity and modesty, instead of stubbornness and pride? What if we plot to bring honor instead of shame? What if we sneak out to give instead of take? What would our lives be like? What would this world become? It’s said that where the brothers came upon each other—that’s where the temple was built in Jerusalem. What happened to that temple?”
The rabbi pauses. Then he says, “It was destroyed. But we remember love. We remember generosity. We hold out hope that we may rebuild that temple speedily in our days.”
Sylvia and Lew and all the people left in temple say amen.
The cantor announces, “Please rise and read responsively,” but Sylvia buries her head on Lew’s shoulder.
“Grandma,” Lily whispers.
Her dad says, “It’s okay, Lily. She always cries.” But he wasn’t there. He doesn’t know.
“Dad, I have to go out,” Lily says. “I have to take a break.”
“You just had a break,” he tells her.
“I didn’t!” Sophie says.
“We’ll come back,” Lily tells her dad. Then, before he can argue, she and Sophie slip away.
“Where did you go?” Sophie demands as soon as they step into the social hall.
“McDonald’s.”
“What? I’ve been sitting here starving and you went to McDonald’s?”
“And Grandma had coffee.”
“Are you joking?”
Lily shakes her head. “And we went to the cemetery!”
“Girls.” It’s an usher standing by the door.
“Come on.” Lily leads the way, even though she doesn’t know where she is going.
She races into a hallway, and Sophie rushes after her.
Lily stops and tries a door, but it’s locked.
She tries another. The second door opens and it’s a medium-sized room with pews and two stained-glass windows.
Sophie turns on the lights and Lily sees that it’s an empty chapel.
She stands with Sophie in the aisle. “Okay, you aren’t going to believe this,” Lily says.
“What?”
Lily speaks slowly, drawing out the suspense. “We went to the cemetery, and we talked to Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa.”
“What do you mean talked to them?”
“As if they were alive.”
“That’s so weird.”
“I know!”
“That’s so superstitious.”
“And then we saw Great-Aunt Helen.”
“In real life?”
“Yes! But she and Grandma would not say one word. It was like they were two ghosts. That’s why she’s crying.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why Grandma is crying. Because of the sermon. Because it’s symbolic.”
Sophie looks skeptical.
“You don’t understand.”
Sophie stretches out full length on a pew. “You mean I had to be there?”
“Yeah. It was terrible.”
“What do you mean, terrible?” Sophie lifts her head. “You had lunch!”
“It’s not my fault, I’m younger.”
“Yes it is! I’ve been sitting here all day.”
“You have not.”
“Symbolically.”
Lily frowns. “You’re always mean.”
“I’m always stuck in the sanctuary!”
“And you’re never sorry,” Lily says.
“Sorry not sorry.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What if we get estranged?” Lily stands over Sophie.
“What are you talking about?”
“What if we grow up and stop speaking?”
“What if you just talked less?”
“You aren’t nice to me.” Lily’s voice wobbles.
“You don’t give me reason.”
“I don’t want to have a feud!”
“Are you going to start crying?” Sophie asks.
“No.”
“Okay. Then we won’t have a feud.”
“You aren’t even listening,” Lily says.
“You aren’t talking like a normal person.”
“I’m serious.”
Sophie closes her eyes. “Okay.”
“Could you promise you won’t pretend that I’m invisible?”
“Sure.”
“You have to sit up! And say it like a vow.”
“Like Ballet Shoes?”
“Swear.”
Half laughing, Sophie sits up. “I, Sophie Rose Eisen, solemnly swear that I will not pretend you are invisible.”
“And that we will never be estranged,” Lily says.
“And that we will never be estranged. As long as we both shall live.”
“Now me,” says Lily. “I, Lily Anne Eisen, solemnly swear that I will never pretend you are invisible and we will never be estranged as long as we both shall live.”
“Okay.”
“We should take a needle and prick our fingers,” Lily says.
“Um, no.” Sophie starts walking around the room.
The walls are covered with memorial plaques.
You can read hundreds and hundreds of names in Hebrew and in English.
Samuel Fischell. Dolly Fischell. Ida Ringel.
Hal Ringel. Belle Cohen, Hyman Cohen, Isidore Birnbaum, Anita Birnbaum, Gertrude Birnbaum, Herbert Schwarz, Milton Engel, Millie Nadler, Annie Linzer, Nathaniel Barzilai, Leslie Linzer, Beatrice Goldfarb, Myra Glussman, Arthur Glussman, Dorothy Markowitz, Rita Levine, Abraham Levine, Fay Dershowitz…
“Look.” Next to each name is a tiny lightbulb and when Sophie turns the bulb the light comes on.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that,” Lily warns.
Sophie spins around. “I don’t think you’re allowed to finish a whole honey cake.”
Lily gasps—because how did her sister see? “I was really really hungry.”
“You don’t know what hunger is!” Sophie keeps turning bulbs. She turns on every single memorial light, until they hear footsteps in the hall.
For a second, they freeze. All the tiny lights blaze down on them. Then they scoot out of the chapel.
“I told you not to!” Lily whispers to Sophie.
For once, Sophie looks nervous, because everyone who walks in will see the lights. “It’s too late to change them back.”
They hurry away from the chapel, hoping no one will see. Rushing through the Social Hall, they see caterers carrying tables, but the girls don’t stay to watch. They race back to the sanctuary. At the big doors, they stop to catch their breaths. Then they walk down the aisle to their seats.
Prayer is an ocean. The girls stand, holding the pew in front of them, trying to endure the waves of song.
It feels like a week, a year of standing.
It feels like dissolving in a trance, but at last the cantor holds up the shofar and begins to blow.
She blows and blows the horn and there is nothing anyone can do but listen.
Then, suddenly, the day is over, and the congregation pours into the Social Hall.
The girls load up plates with bagels and cream cheese and lox and noodle kugel and apple kugel and pasta salad and brownies and chocolate-dipped cookies.
Their dad is on his phone checking messages.
Their grandpa is drinking schnapps. Their grandma is standing with the other ladies in their suits, and she is smiling.
Her pocketbook is on her shoulder and a coffee cup is in her hand, and it’s as if she never even went to the cemetery and she never saw her sister and she never cried.
When they get home, nobody even thinks of honey cake. The day was too long, and there were too many desserts at the Break Fast. It’s only the next morning that Grandma Sylvia says, “What happened to the rest of the cake? I’m sure I put it in here. Lew?”
“I never touched it.”
“Then where did it go?”
Grandma Sylvia looks at Lily, and so does her dad.
Everyone is looking at her, and Lily thinks she should tell the truth.
Admit she got so hungry that she couldn’t help herself.
But she is too embarrassed—and she is watching Sophie’s face.
It’s a test! Was it real, what she promised?
If the vow is binding, Sophie won’t tell on Lily.
Scared, excited, eager, Lily waits.
Sophie doesn’t say a word.