The Silents

6

CHAPTER 6 WE PASSED the big Catholic church on Washtenaw and Hirsch. It was scary, although I didn't let on to Adelaide. Mama had cautioned us a dozen times never to go into the church. It was all right to smile at the nuns, she informed us, because they were people just like us under their fancy wimples. Adelaide refused to believe Mama's reasoning, however, and trembled whenever she passed them. I never put one foot on the steps that led to the large double doors of the church. Nevertheless, I wanted to see inside and find out how those people prayed. Were they allowed to bring food to church? Ifso, what kind? A couple of nuns walked by, smiling at us. Adelaide grabbed my hand tight. BUBBr AND Mama had already come home from shul, and everybody except Zadie and Papa were at Zadie's house. Aunt Selma was ordering everyone around. She and her husband , Eddie, lived with Bubbi and Zadie and, I suspected, ruled the house. Aunt Marian and Mama's third sister, Nettie, from Janesville, Wisconsin, were busy preparing the Seder food. The uncles were lolling around the parlor, talking, immune to Aunt Selma's dictatorship. Men had special privileges on holidays, apparendy. Their duties were to pray, eat, talk, and rest. When Papa knocked on the door and Uncle Leon-Aunt Marian's husband-let him in, they all waved and went back to their talking. Papa, looking quite handsome, had changed into 43 his suit and wore his hat in the house because that was the holiday custom. The fedora covered his bald spot, so only the thin strands ofhair around the bottom ofhis head showed. The other men wore the traditional skullcap, the yarmulke, but Papa didn't approve of yarmulkes. I don't think he approved of shul or Passover, either. In fact, I'm not sure I ever saw him in shul. For all I knew, his own brothers also shunned the yarmulke, but then we had never spent a Jewish holiday or set foot in a synagogue with them. I suspected that one or two ofthe uncles even had a Christmas tree on Christmas. When I asked Mama once about my suspicions, she darted a look at Papa and whispered, "Well, when your Bubbi Herzberg died...." Then she spied his eyes on her, and, even though he couldn't make out her words, she declared, "Don't be silly!" Aunt Selma propped two pillows in the dining room chair reserved for Zadie, waved hello to Papa, and scurried back to the kitchen for more serving dishes. Papa sat down next to the rubber trees in the parlor. He smiled, waiting for someone to take out a piece ofpaper and start up a conversation with him. When nobody did, he pulled out the Chicago Tribune and checked the baseball scores. He looked terribly lonely, so I went over to him to chat about the rubber trees that stood like a forest behind the sofa. They were so big, they reached the ceiling. I'd seen Zadie climb a ladder just to trim the top. But Papa wasn't interested in rubber trees. He kept looking over at Uncle Eddie, who was half Papa's size and wore a pointed beard on his chin. Uncle Eddie didn't look up, so Papa signed to me, "Babe Ruth hit another homer." "That's wonderful," I answered. "If I'm not working next Saturday, I'll take you to a ball game," he offered. "Okay," I accepted. He kept looking at the uncles, and, when nobody glanced back, he stuck his head back in the sports page. Finally, Uncle Eddie looked up. Papa waved, and Eddie came over and sat down next to him. They wrote back and forth. Papa was very animated , his voice hmning in obvious agreement, but I wasn't privy to their discussion because all the talking was on paper. Eventually Uncle Eddie remarked out loud that the Depression was lifting and wrote it at the same time. Apparently, they were talking about Papa's work. Uncle Eddie, like Zadie, was always worried about whether Papa was making a decent living. When Zadie arrived, everybody took their seats. The table was filled with Seder books, wine, and empty plates. On a platter in the middle of the table loomed a huge pile of matzos. Zadie settled...