The Bookseller's Sonnets Read online

  It is late, and my taper burns low. I must conceal this story in its usual place, and be silenced until the next solitary hour.

  6

  The week finally ended. It was Saturday afternoon. Alone on the subway, headed uptown, I realized it was taking longer than usual to reach Riverdale. I checked my watch again. Nearly three o’clock; I was running late. An automated voice over the loudspeaker informed us that we were being held in the station by the dispatcher and asked, repeatedly and too cheerfully, for patience.

  Never without a book in my bag, I tried to concentrate on reading. But with the doors held open at yet another stop, the cold air blew in from above ground, and I shivered in spite of my thick wool coat.

  I was also shivering, I realized, because of what happened the night before. I had returned home from work in the late afternoon on Friday, a rare occurrence for me. Because the museum was a Jewish organization, it always closed early on weekends so that we could get home by sundown for the Sabbath. Most people, whether religiously observant or not, rushed out the door as soon as the last visitor had departed.

  I stopped on the way home from work to buy a challah, a bottle of wine, and a pair of pristine white candles. At the gourmet market in my neighborhood, I carefully selected a small roast chicken, honey-roasted carrots, and chicken soup with noodles, along with fresh berries, sorbet and biscotti for dessert.

  Opening the door to our apartment, I dropped my work bag in the hallway, took off my coat, and quickly put the groceries away. From the top shelf of one of the kitchen cabinets I took my silver Kiddush cup and candlesticks, wrapped in crisp tissue paper. My parents had given them to me just before they moved.

  I figured Michael wouldn’t be home for a while. When we left for work that morning, he mentioned a meeting he expected to run late. Still, I thought I would surprise him with a lovely dinner. Hopefully, this would partially make up for the fact that I would be spending Saturday with my grandmother, and not with him at our friend’s party.

  As the sun dipped low in the sky and purple light filled the darkness of the apartment, I unwrapped the candlesticks and softly brushed away the one or two tiny chips of wax that had adhered to their bases. I cleared the mail and newspapers from the kitchen table and set the candlesticks down in front of me. The challah sat on a silver platter, covered with a clean white linen napkin.

  Finally, I uncorked the wine bottle and poured a small amount into the cup. Everything was ready. I unfurled a long, antique lace scarf, yellowed at the edges like old parchment, I held it lightly in one hand and reached up to loosen my ponytail, so my straight, dark hair fell upon my shoulders.

  As I draped the scarf over my head, it felt as light as a whisper, as impermanent as a breeze, as if someone had brushed their fingertips over my hair. The striking of the match sounded like a door opening, and as I touched the tiny flame to each wick it felt as if some distant presence joined me in the room.

  I blew out the match with a quick sharp breath, carefully encircled the candlelight with my hands and felt my heart beating as my eyes closed. I thought about my mother and my grandmother, about how their faces had changed from young to middle-aged to elderly as with these very same gestures they had ushered in each Friday night of my childhood and young adulthood.

  The blessing moved from within me like a breath and softly I whispered the words. “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav, vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.”

  After a moment, I opened my eyes and took my hands from my face. When I looked up from the candle flames, I saw Michael leaning against the doorway, his tie loosened, his suit jacket slung over his shoulder. His deep brown eyes looked soft in the warm darkness. I was startled and felt a sudden blush creep into my face along with the sense of something – panic, perhaps, or maybe shame - flooding into my body. I felt as embarrassed as if he had caught me in bed with a lover. There was a brief silence before he spoke.

  “Good shabbos,” he said.

  I watched his eyes taking in the scene before him.

  “Good shabbos.” I walked over to where he stood and kissed him. I waited for him to embrace me, but he didn’t.

  “Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked.

  “You said this morning that you had a meeting. I thought you’d be late,” I answered. “And you know sunset doesn’t wait for anyone.”

  “The meeting got cancelled,” he said quietly. “But if you had told me what you planned to do tonight, I would have made sure to be here, even if it meant leaving early. I could have gotten some other Gentile to cover for me.” His tone was light, but I could hear the hurt in his voice.

  “Michael, honestly, I didn’t know I’d be doing this tonight. It was just a spur of the moment thing. It’s not like I planned it and didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, don’t let me interrupt you,” he said, gesturing towards the bread and the wine. “I can go into the bedroom until you’re done.”

  “Michael, please don’t be like that.”

  “Be like what?” He draped the jacket over a kitchen chair. “Excluded?”

  “I didn’t do this to exclude you,” I told him. “I just thought you’d be coming home later.”

  “Well, I’m here now. What do you want me to do?”

  “What do you want to do?” I replied, turning the question on him.

  “I’d like to be here when you say the blessings. I want to welcome the Sabbath with you.” He spoke with a quiet dignity. “But only if you are comfortable with it.”

  The old lace scarf began to slide towards the back of my head. He walked over to where I stood in the candlelight, looked down into my eyes, and gently slipped the lace forward over my hair. Then he drew his hands away from my head and waited.

  I took the silver cup in my hand and closed my eyes as I began to softly sing the ancient, familiar melody. “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei p’ri hagafen.”

  “Amen,” Michael sang.

  Then I translated the blessing into English so that Michael would understand it, saying “Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.”

  I debated singing the rest of the Kiddush, but it was long, and I didn’t want the moment to feel any more awkward than it already felt. He seemed to wait for me to continue, but I didn’t. Then, in his rich, resonant voice, I heard him go on with the melody of the prayer.

  “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu bemitzvotav v’ratzavanu l’Shabbat kod’sho b’ahava u’vratzon hin- chilanu.” Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sanctifies us with the commandments, and has been pleased with us. You have lovingly and willingly given us your holy Sabbath as an inheritance in memory of creation.

  I was shocked. He took the silver cup from where I had placed it on the table and raised it slightly as he continued singing, “Zikaron l’ma- asei v’rei-sheet.”

  I found my voice and joined in the melody with him. Together we sang the rest of the blessing, concluding with the final line, “Baruch atah Adonai, m’kadeish ha-Shabbat.” Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who sanctifies the Sabbath.

  I looked at Michael. His dark eyes twinkled.

  “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “You can find the most amazing things on the Internet these days,” he said, laughing. “I’ve been waiting for the chance to show off. It wasn’t that hard to learn.” He paused before continuing. “It’s weird, but it was almost as if I knew it.”

  “That’s amazing. It took forever for me to learn when I had to sing it at my Bat Mitzvah. After that, I could never unlearn it.”

  He uncovered the bread, carefully folding the napkin and placing it on the table . “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, ha-Motzi lechem min ha’aretz.” And then he said the same blessing in English, this time looking at me as if the translation was for my benefit. “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God,
Ruler of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.”

  “Amen,” I intoned. “Wow. Wonders will never cease.”

  “You impress easily,” he said. “I have a sneaking suspicion that a bar mitzvah isn’t nearly as tough as the bar exam.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself.”

  “So,” he asked playfully, “does this make me kosher enough for your family?”

  I didn’t know how to answer, so I busied myself in the kitchen, taking the scarf from my head and laying it carefully over a chair. I started getting plates down from the cabinet. After a minute or two I decided to try turning it into a joke. “More kosher than this chicken, certainly,” I said, punching him lightly on the shoulder as I passed by.

  “Jill,” he said, “you can’t keep dodging this.”

  “I know. But can’t we just have a nice dinner tonight?”

  “That’s fine.” He picked up his jacket from the chair. “We don’t have to talk about anything.” He walked into the bedroom, turned on the computer and closed the door, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I set the table and waited for him, but I couldn’t find it in my voice to call his name to let him know dinner was ready, and I couldn’t find it in my steps to walk into the bedroom to find him.

  After about half an hour, he opened the bedroom door and walked into the living room. I turned on the television, brought out the plates and bowls and glasses, and we ate dinner in silence. Later on, I did the dishes while he sat on the couch and flipped through channels. When, I joined him on the couch to read my book, he returned to the bedroom and silently closed the door behind him.

  We went to bed around midnight without exchanging another word.

  7

  My grandmother was standing at the door of her apartment open when I emerged, breathless, from the confines of the tiny elevator.

  “Come in, my darling, come in.”

  I walked down the hallway, slowly catching my breath after the uphill walk from the subway station. The long corridor, lined with blue painted doors, smelled the same to me as it always had, like a combination of roasted onions and fresh bread, courtesy of the bagel store down the block.

  She stood just outside the door, smiling broadly, in her usual outfit – a long-sleeved blouse, tailored black slacks, and thick-heeled black shoes. Her curly gray hair was pulled back from her face with a burgundy velvet headband, one that I had given to her about twenty years ago when she’d admired mine as I set off for a junior high school dance.

  I wondered how long she’d been waiting there and glanced at my watch, noting that I was about twenty minutes late. I fervently hoped she hadn’t been standing there the whole time, waiting for me.

  “Omi,” I said, using her favorite term of endearment – the German expression for “grandma” - as I stooped to kiss her on the cheek, “I’m so glad to see you.”

  As I followed her into her apartment, she touched the worn mezuzah on the doorpost with her fingertips, kissed them, and then shut the door behind me, carefully locking it before she joined me in the living room. “Of course it’s been too long since you last visited. But I know how busy you are. Like all you young people, work, work, work, all the time.” She gestured toward the couch. “Sit down, darling. Let me get you some tea.”

  I walked into the room, took off my coat and dropped my bag onto the floor. Then I lowered myself onto the familiar old couch. All around the room I saw same familiar objects, the books and the little glass ornaments. I looked over at the family photographs on her console and noticed a new one – my parents at the front door of their new home in Charleston.

  My mother hadn’t wanted to go, and had only agreed to leave New York after my father and I had assured her that I would keep an eye on my grandmother. I knew that he had been far more enthusiastic about the move than she was. But it had been something of an economic necessity. My dad was a retired high school teacher, and even though they were fairly comfortable financially thanks to his pension, the fluctuating stock market had done a number on their retirement fund. Once I was out of school, they had been driven south by the bad weather, the high taxes, and the costly expense of maintaining the modest house that I had grown up in.

  I settled back onto the couch cushions and looked at the table, set for tea. Omi had already set out two small plates, one of lebküchen –my favorite German spice cookies – and on the other she had placed slices of her homemade nut torte. I could hear her rattling cups and plates in the tiny kitchen. “Omi, do you need some help?” I called out, knowing that she would tell me to stay put.

  “No, not at all. I’ll be right in.”

  I looked around the apartment again while I waited for her. My grandmother’s hobbies were in evidence everywhere: needlepoint cushions nestled in the corners of the couch and in the matching chairs; a basket of brightly hued crocheted blanket squares lay next to the easy chair, with a skein of wool and needles sticking out at an awkward angle.

  There were book-lined shelves on every wall. My grandfather had been an inveterate reader of Jewish and military history, but considering our family’s history, I often wondered how it felt for them to live with titles like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Minister of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story surrounding them all the time. A small upright piano, its dark walnut wood shining in the pale winter sunlight, held court against the far wall of the living room, although I was sure that no one had played it in years.

  I stood up and walked over to the console to inspect the photographs of my relatives. The small table was crowded with frames of all different colors and sizes, and every single image was familiar to me. There was one small black and white photograph of my grandmother’s mother and father on their wedding day. This photograph had arrived in the mail some years after her arrival in America, sent by a cousin of hers who had fled to Brazil during the late 1930s. The same cousin – responding to the joyous news that there was another relative who had made it out of Germany - also sent her a slightly larger portrait photograph of three little girls in frilled white dresses and enormous creamcolored bows in their identically cut, straight brown hair: my grandmother and her two younger sisters, Hilda and Rachel. These were the only existing photographs of her parents and siblings. Only my grandmother had survived the war.

  There were others – a wedding snapshot of my grandparents, taken in an Italian Displaced Persons camp – my grandmother, black-haired and slender in a borrowed white cotton dress, my grandfather with his dark hair hidden under a yarmulke, both of them smiling warily, their arms tight around one another’s waists. Years ago, before my grandfather died, there had been other photographs of the two of them displayed here, but now these were lovingly kept on the bureau in her bedroom.

  Next to the old wedding picture there was a portrait of my mother and father on their wedding day. They stood together on the royal-blue carpeted steps of our temple’s sanctuary, my mother’s small, slight figure encased in a white tailored gown, a round, lace-edged bouquet of pink roses in her hands, a pillbox hat and veil affixed to her bouffant. My dad was tall, thin, dressed in a tuxedo, with a white satin yarmulke on his head and a matching pink rose boutonniere pinned to his wide black lapel. His dark, curling hair and long sideburns made him look like a rock star.

  Their faces were serious and determined, as if once they departed the temple, they were heading off to lead an anti-war demonstration, which, in retrospect, they probably were. When I was a teenager, whenever I had encountered this photograph, always proudly displayed at my grandmother’s house, I used to wince at the sight of their unfashionable hairstyles and clothes. And if they happened to be in the room, I’d routinely sing a couple of bars of “Age of Aquarius.” But now, looking at their picture, I wondered how these two young strangers had turned into the parents I now knew – how they had gone from two young people trying to change the world to a middle-aged suburban couple, full of their own demons and prejudices.

  And, of course, there were pictures of me.
Baby pictures, graduation portraits, a backyard snapshot taken at my third birthday party with me wearing a red and orange jumper patterned with the letters of the alphabet, looking like I had stepped right out of an episode of The Electric Company. My bat mitzvah portrait, taken ten years later, all peach-colored lace, shiny silver braces and frizzy dark hair.

  And finally, the family picture from almost ten years ago, when I received my graduate degree. In it, my mother and father and I stood with my grandmother on the steps of a stone-pillared university building, my black gown and red hood and golden tassel blowing in the light breeze, all of us wearing proud, spring morning smiles.

  To look at the collection of photographs, it seemed as if my life ended the day I graduated. But I knew that somewhere in this apartment, she had a special frame - probably silver or crystal - set aside for what she prayed would be my wedding picture. I sighed. At moments like this, I wished I had a sibling with whom I could share the pressure.

  My grandmother emerged carrying a tray with a small china teapot, a sugar bowl, a small cream pitcher and two cups and saucers. “Every time you come over, the first thing you do is look at the pictures,” she said. “That hasn’t changed since you were a little girl.”

  She set the tray down. I crossed the small space to join her on the couch. She poured two cups of tea and then leaned back against the cushions.

  “So how have you been, Omi?”

  I scanned her face anxiously for signs of change. I was always worried that her health was beginning to deteriorate. Apart from the fact that her headband looked a little threadworn, she looked the same as always, bright-eyed and energetic. I noticed, a little reluctantly, that her hair looked a little thinner than the last time I had seen her, and her hands were slightly more gnarled.

  “A little tired. But very busy, you know, volunteering at the senior center, getting out and about, going to my exercise class, going to concerts. My friend Mitzi and I bought tickets for a wonderful chamber music series in the city this winter. The only problem, of course, is that it’s in the city, in the winter.”