Prayers for the Living (18 page)

So here I was, trying to figure out what to wear to the costume party, when all of a sudden it occurred to me that I was telling Rick the truth. I didn't want to go as the queen, I wanted to go as her husband, the king, or maybe her brother if she had one. But where was I going to get boys' clothes? I knew boys from class, of course, but never very well. All they could do is look at me and see how pretty I was but they never let the me beneath my skin come out. They thought they were my friends but they were friends with the skin and bones of me only. I couldn't go to them anyway because it wouldn't be a surprise if I did. Word would get out quickly that the rabbi's daughter was coming as a boy. I couldn't use my father's clothes either because he is broad enough but not tall enough, and anyway all he ever wears are those deadly black suits and white shirts. I wanted something a little flashy—something that would call attention to my new costume in a sharp way.

So I had to go to Rick. And that was what got me into trouble. He was a college student who worked weekends at the temple and it worked out well for him most of the time because even though
he was older and more responsible he was still young enough to know what kids are like and what they really want. Except in my case. I guess he never ran into anyone like me before. And I was after all the daughter of the rabbi, his boss. Well, foolishly, then, I went to him to ask for help.

“Come on down to New Brunswick,” he told me. “I have all my clothes there in my room. Take the bus down and I'll drive you back.” So, foolish maiden that I was, I took the bus one Thursday after school, thinking that he meant to drive me right back. I went to his fraternity house, the Zebes, an old white house with pillars painted black and white so that it looked like a striped zebra. And I met him in the living room and he invited me upstairs to his room. It was just before the dinner hour by the time I got there, and the upper floor was deserted because most of the boys were down in the dining room. Upstairs it was quiet, dimly lighted, and smelled of aftershave and gym clothes, a funny mix.

“Should I keep reading?”

“What do you mean, should you keep reading? Of course you should keep reading. I want you should hide things from me? I knew maybe she was having trouble with a boy. I could hear something. I'm the grandmother. The mother can't hear it. She's too nervous, but how nervous we don't yet know. But I am always here listening, like a rock is near the sea, and what washes over me washes over. I'm still here . . . So read . . .”

As an only child I never lived with the mess of other people my age. Because I was so pretty I never had a lot of female friends. Girls not as good-looking didn't like to have me around. Boys I knew a little better but still at a distance. Being the rabbi's daughter didn't help. I read a lot. I took guitar lessons. It helped to soothe me when I was alone, which I was a lot of the time, though my guitar caused me a lot of trouble on Yom Kippur one time! Being my mother's daughter didn't help either since she was usually alone in her own little world, and then she started
talking about trying to write to keep herself happy in the same way that I tried to use the guitar. And maybe I learned that from her? From Maby? That's her nickname, because as a child she always used to reply with a “maybe” whenever her parents asked her if she would do something. Maybe? Maybe.

“What do you think of this?” Rick said after a few minutes of rummaging around in his closet. He was holding up a large turban that someone had worn once during a fraternity carnival.

“Hey, perfect,” I said and tried it on. It was heavy, and I had to practice to keep my head from wobbling when I wore it. And while I gawked at myself he found a large pair of harem pants that could have been either for a man or a woman, and some wooden shoes.

“All just right,” I said. “I'll try this on.”

“You better change in here,” he said. “The brothers will be coming up to use the bathrooms.”

So he left the room and I pushed the door shut and went over to the mirror and took off my sweater and blouse and skirt.

“This is for a school assignment? It's funny talk for a school assignment. But then that place is a funny school. I don't know, Mrs. Stellberg. It's got markings on it? Her professor gave her a grade? You tell me. Here, let me see.
Oi,
I can't hardly see the writing. So what does it say?”

Everything would have been all right with Rick except that he came back in too soon. Or maybe he did it on purpose, it's difficult to say. He came back in and saw me there in my panties and bra and he came up to me and put his arms around me and I could feel him next to me . . .

“This is enough?”

“No, it's not, it's not over. Keep reading. She's upset and I want to find out everything why. If I can, which I can't because you can't know everything. But go 'head.”

. . . and I felt cold all over and moved away from him and told him to please leave the room. Asked him, anyway. “Sorry,” he said. And he left.

“Ah, so you see. He is a very nice boy after all. Nice to my Sarah. His grandmother would be proud. Excuse me. Read.”

And I changed into the costume and saw that it would be fine, and changed back into my sweater and blouse. Rick was embarrassed when I told him that I was ready to go. He had made a pass at the rabbi's daughter and he was sweating. But I told him not to worry and I chattered away on the ride home, as if I were the one who should have been nervous because I had made the misstep and not him. That incident made me wonder. About a lot of things. But this essay is supposed to center around the Purim party, Jewish Halloween, and so I'd better get to the night of the party.

A springlike night, warm air, clear skies. I'm feeling wonderful as I step into my baggy trouser costume and fit the turban on my head. And then I hear Mother on the stairs and I remember that she is supposed to chaperone the party, and my heart sinks. There's a noise in the hall as she bumps against a door. And she's got to drive me there as well as take over the party? She's knocking at my door, and then steps in before I invite her.

“Hey, Mom,” I say. “Don't I rate a little privacy?”

“What's the matter?” she says. “Are you a boy or something? I come in when I come in. So excuse me,” and she turns around and staggers back out . . .

“Dad?” I'm calling through the house. He doesn't answer but I find him in his study.

“Dad? There's going to be trouble.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mom,” I tell him. “She's supposed to be chaperoning this Purim party? And she's . . .”

“She's what?”

“You know.”

“I don't know.”

“You do.”

“Don't tell me, darling, what I know and what I don't. Now inform your mother that you're ready and I'll drive you to the party.”

“You'll drive?” I asked.

“I'll drive.”

“And you'll pick us up?”

“If you can't find another ride home, yes.”

“Okay.”

“Your costume looks good,” he said.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Maybe you'll win a prize?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “They couldn't give me one because I'm your daughter.”

“Of course,” he said. “Poor girl. Always penalized.”

He smiled, and I had to smile too. His eyes sometimes nearly hypnotize me that way, they are so powerful. And his hair. Even me, his daughter, can't help but notice his beautiful white hair.

“We'll make it up to you,” he said.

“That's okay,” I said.

“No, no,” he said. “I was just sitting here going over some travel brochures. All these years as a rabbi, I said to myself, and I've never been to Israel. What if we were all to go?”

“That would be all right, I guess.”

“You guess? You don't know?”

“I know it would be all right. I'd like that.”

“Because who knows how long I'll be a rabbi, yes? So I had better take a look around.”

“What does that mean, Dad?”

“What does what mean?”

“About how long you'll be a rabbi?”

“Oh, darling, every year I think I want to quit. I'm just talking.”

“But what would you do if you quit?”

“Your uncle Mordecai wants me to come into the business full time,” he said. “And it's a very tempting offer.”

“Well, I think that you should do what feels right,” I told him.

“Is that so?” he said.

I nodded, feeling the turban wobble on my head.

“That's what you advise the rabbi to do?”

I shrugged, holding the turban steady.

“You look like a vizier,” he said. “Giving me advice from inside your crystal ball.”

“What's a vizier?” I asked.

“An advisor to an Eastern monarch. Like Haman. So how come you didn't dress like Haman?”

“I didn't want to be a bad guy,” I said.

“You want to come as a good guy?”

I nodded.

“You give me good advice.”

“Can I give you a little more?”

“Sure, Mike,” he said, using an old expression I've heard Grandma say before.

“Let Mom stay home and you come and chaperone.”

He moved his beautiful white-haired head a little, as though some insect or tiny electrical shock had given him a jolt.

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“She's got to do it.”

“She's got to? But what if she can't?”

“I'm not her father,” he said.

“Neither am I,” I said.

“Don't be a wise guy,” he said, and looked down at the papers on his desk.

“Please listen,” I said.

“Get ready, I'll drive you.”

“That's all?” I said.

I went to get my coat and he fetched my mother. In the car on the way to the temple he smoked a cigar and Mother said nothing
but I could smell her breath. Oh, the perfume of my parents it was lovely in that time. Zillions of kids had gathered in the hall by the time we got there. My father dropped us off. I had to help my mother to the door and I nearly lost my turban several times since I was using both hands to help her. It was like we were dancing.

Inside, the real dancing had begun and I left Mother at the coatroom and went over to listen to the band. It was Barry Katz and his rinky-dink quartet, but I didn't care because all I wanted was a lot of loud music to cover over the noise in my head. I don't know what I was waiting for but I didn't dance with anyone, I just stood there rocking until Rick came over and said hello.

“How's it going?” he asked.

“Fine,” I told him, “just fine.” But it wasn't fine because out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother standing at an angle over alongside the punch bowl, and I thought, you are really stupid, Sadie, that's my nickname for myself that I invented, why didn't you just suggest that your mother stay home and that Rick chaperone the whole thing? Isn't that what he gets paid for? Except that he's not an adult, my father would have said, and we need an adult there. And Mother is an adult? I would have said. And he would have gotten really angry. So here we are, me in my turban, and a lot of princesses around, and a lot of other Mordecais beside me, and a few million Hamans with dark thin mustaches and evil paint around their eyes, and our rinky-dink band was playing an old song, “Blue Suede Shoes,” and some people are rocking back and forth. And then it's “Blue Moon” and Rick comes up to me and asks me to dance, and I can feel him against me and I can feel the metal-like coldness taking over in me again, but now there's no place to run to since we're here at the dance for a while and I feel sick because I want to say something to him but I don't know the words.

“Rick,” I say to him, just to say something, “don't you think it's funny that Purim really is like a Jewish Halloween?”

And he sort of pulls his face back from mine, and his eyes do a funny thing—later I understood, or learned, that that was his
way of thinking seriously about something—and he says, “Hey, you know, that's cool, I never thought of that!” And he pulls me closer to him, because I guess by this time he had gotten over his fears of scaring me off, and gotten over his worries about trying something with the boss's daughter, or maybe he even thought it would get him somewhere, trying something with the boss's daughter. I don't know. I might have found out a lot more about him, and about me, except that just then the music came to an end. “A break, guys and gals,” Barry Katz said into the microphone, in a phony style that he must have picked up listening to band music on the radio or television. Hamans are drifting by, and many many princesses. I'm beginning to have half a good time, despite everything. “Want some punch?” says Rick. I've even forgotten about my mother. When all of a sudden—just like in a ghost story or a fairy tale, that's right—when all of a sudden, there's a screech from across the room by the table with the punch bowl, I see a long white arm flash up over the heads of the costumed crew of kids, and then there's a loud crash!