Hush (19 page)

My mother was furious with me again. I had gone and bought makeup on my own, without her permission.

“Two hours ago you graduated from high school!” she shouted angrily. “And already you’re doing things as if I’m no longer your mother!”

We had graduated from high school that morning. It was one week after our last day of school—two days after Avrum had gotten engaged—and I had lied to my mother about Kathy. I told her that I had fallen asleep on the bus on the way back from shopping and had woken up at the end of the line.

“For two hours you sleep on a bus and miss your own brother’s
L’chaim
!”

She was angry enough about that. I had missed a chance to be seen. I had missed the chance to be shown off just when it was most important for me. How did I ever expect to get engaged, she demanded, if I didn’t show up like a normal person? If I trudge around, pouting all day, barely a smile—and now the makeup. “What is wrong with you?”

The graduation had been a long and boring ceremony. My classmates and I had sat in the front of the school auditorium, our mothers and sisters in back, holding balloons, flowers, and beaming smiles. We had listened to many speeches. The principal spoke, the teachers spoke, and
Rebbitzen
Ehrlich spoke, at which point I fell asleep on Hindy’s shoulder, who shrugged me awake when I began to snore.

I told Hindy that I don’t snore. She whispered, “You sure do.” Chani, sitting to my right, nodded her head. I stared sleepily ahead. I do not snore.
Rebbitzen
Ehrlich was still speaking. I heard her vaguely, spouting things about modesty and motherhood and something or other. I fell asleep on Hindy again. I jumped when they called our names. The audience applauded as one by one we marched up the steps to the stage and received our diplomas.

My mother took pictures of me with Hindy in front of the stage after the graduation. She also snapped pictures of me with Sarah Leah, Ruchy, Esty, and Malky, who was two grades younger but she didn’t care. And did I know that before I turned around I would be at my own daughter’s graduation? And did I realize how fast life passed? Sarah Leah’s and Hindy’s mothers had been her classmates just twenty-five years before and here they stood, snapping pictures. How unbelievable. It was truly incredible. “I know,” I said tiredly. It was fascinating.

As the chattering clusters of mothers and daughters dispersed, I told my mother I was going shopping with Hindy. She, Sarah Leah, Chani, and I were having a sleepover that night at Hindy’s house to celebrate our graduation. Soon we would all be married and could never have this kind of fun again.

“Yes, it’s a tradition,” Hindy’s mother piped up from behind my mother. “My oldest started it, and since then every one of them and their friends invade my basement on graduation night and have the time of their lives.” She chuckled. “Let them take advantage while they can.”

My mother laughed. She remembered her own graduation night, how they had done the same thing, and as the two chatted and giggled over the long-gone days, Hindy and I left the building. We walked to Thirteenth Avenue, a few blocks down.

“I can’t believe I will never wear this skirt again,” Hindy murmured. We stared down at our dark, pleated uniform skirts.

“I know,” I said. “It’s so weird—that’s it—it’s over.”

Hindy gave a sudden leap into the air. “It’s over!”

She ran down the block. I chased after her.

“Are you crazy?” I said, panting.

“Yes,” Hindy said, imitating my principal’s voice. “How are you ever going to get married if you behave this way?”

We burst out laughing. Hindy pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of her pocket.

“Guess where we’re going,” she said, leading me into the Rite Aid Pharmacy at the corner of Thirteenth.

“To buy congratulations cards for ourselves?”

Hindy pursed her lips importantly. “That too, that too.” She then turned to me and with a curtsy and a flourish, whispered, “I’m buying makeup!”

“Makeup?”

“All my seven sisters started wearing makeup only after they were engaged,” Hindy announced. “But being the spoiled youngest brat that my mother announced me to be, she agreed, after a temper tantrum or two, that I could start now.”

Hindy strode down the makeup aisle, stopping by the Revlon section. “The best stuff,” she said, pointing dramatically.

So we bought makeup. Not too much, not too loud, not too glittery. Or flashy, or heavy, or creamy. We bought only the natural colors: a tube of pink lipstick, mascara, and light brown eye shadow. Hindy grabbed lip gloss and an eyeliner too.

“Your mother’s gonna flip,” I said, pointing to the liner. We had just finished learning about makeup and its pitfalls. In the Torah it speaks of the Jewish women of the second temple who wore blue eye shadow and heavy makup and because of their immodesty brought down the Jewish nation. Eyeliner emphasized the eye, and for a girl right out of high school, it was certainly off the list.

Hindy shrugged. “I’ll put it on at my sister’s house.”

All right, so Hindy had always been a bit of a troublemaker. More stylishly dressed, more self-absorbed, more—how does one put it—
vildeh
, wild. But me? What had happened to me?

My mother fumed when I returned home with the makeup. She held up the lipstick in her hand, dangling the Rite Aid shopping bag in front of me like a dead rat.

“What do you mean you just go and buy makeup without my permission? You think you’re seventeen and you can do what you want? Are you crazy? Now’s the time to be careful for
shidduchim
. Your first day out of school, and you’re putting on mascara already!”

I grabbed the bag out of her hand.

“What are you talking about?” I screamed. “Ruchy and Chani and almost every girl in my class wear some makeup! Yes, I saw with my own eyes, Ruchy with mascara—yes, mascara—at her second cousin’s wedding.”

My mother snatched the eye shadow out from the bag. She glared at it. “Eye shadow! Eye shadow! Who wears eye shadow at your age? Didn’t they teach you something in school? Who are you trying to attract? What kind of attention? Even if I do let you wear makeup, you ask first. And certainly not eye shadow! Wait till your father sees this!”

“It’s natural eye shadow!” I held up the cosmetic close to her face. “See, it says light brown. It’s not blue! You wear light brown eye shadow—then why can’t I? Anyway, it’s only for
Shabbos
. I wasn’t planning to wear it every day!”

My mother pointed a warning finger at me. “Watch the way you talk to me! How dare you speak with such
chutzpa
? What happened to you, talking to your own mother like some goy off the street.”

I stomped away from my mother. I ran upstairs and slammed the door of my room. I stared glumly at the makeup. I couldn’t wait to be married. Then she couldn’t tell me what to do. Only my husband could, and what would I do if he didn’t like mascara? I tore open the package. I was putting on the mascara, and now.

I read the instructions. I looked closely in the mirror. I held the brush horizontally over my eyelashes and softly pressed against it. I pushed it up gently. My eyelashes looked nothing like the ones in the picture. I tried to smooth it, but it only smeared until it looked like ink had spilled on my face. I looked terrible. I ran to the bathroom. I scrubbed my eyes, rubbing them with water and soap. This was Satan’s work, I knew, and it was all my mother’s fault.

I heard my father’s footsteps on the stairs. I ran to my room and locked the door. My father knocked.

“Leave me alone,” I said loudly.

“Gittel, Mommy is really upset,” he said through the door. “She doesn’t mind the makeup so much; she was just upset that you did not ask permission. She said that you could wear a little blush and maybe some lipstick. When you are engaged, you would put on mascara and all the
shtism
—junk. I know you’re mad, but you know this thing. What were you thinking?”

I said, “Okay, whatever, I’m sorry. Just leave me alone.”

I packed a nightgown and clothes for the sleepover. Hindy had asked me to come before dark. She needed help dragging down the mattresses and putting on the linen. I had planned to leave later, but I decided to go right then. It was really early, barely evening yet, but I was nervous that my mother would call Ruchy’s or Chani’s mother to ask about the makeup business. Ruchy’s and Chani’s mothers certainly did not allow their daughters to wear any cosmetics. They had put it on just once, for fun.

But I didn’t care. I wanted to wear makeup, mascara too. I hid the thin black tube in the back of my bookshelf. I placed it carefully between the book of Genesis and the book of Prophets, the ones I used to study for school. She would never look there.

On a fine Sunday afternoon two weeks after Purim, Devory and I went to Tovah’s house to play, and she let us watch a video of
Cinderella
. We were mesmerized. The last time I had watched an animated video was in the doctor’s office. But then my mother had asked the nurse to shut it off because they started kissing in one scene, and she said that it would put
garbage
in my head. Now Devory and I did not budge from our positions on the floor in front of the VCR for two full hours until the screen started blinking crazily, which Tovah said meant it was the end and we could get off her floor. We weren’t supposed to be in Tovah’s house anyway; we were only to play with her outside in the yard, but we didn’t care. Cinderella was singing with the mice, and soon she would turn into a princess, and that was a whole lot more interesting then anything else. But it was late when we finished. We were supposed to have been home twenty minutes ago, and now I would have to lie to my mother.

“Okay.” I drilled Devory as we walked back down the block. “We were playing with Tovah at the end of the block and forgot the time because we were looking at the bird that fell out of the tree.”

But suddenly something struck me and I spoke without thinking.

“I don’t want to be a Yid any longer.”

Devory stared at me in terror. “What?”

“I don’t want to be a Yid any longer.”

Devory stopped in her tracks and stared at me in total horror. Then her expression changed. She became doubtful, pondering. She looked furtively around.

“I don’t either,” she said. “Let’s be goyim.”

“Yes,” I repeated. “Let’s be. Then nobody could hate us just because we are Y
iden
.”

“Yeah,” Devory agreed as we strode confidently toward home. “And we’re gonna be the nice goyim. We’ll never be mean or horrible to anyone, especially not Y
iden
.”

“And then,” I said excitedly, “we could wear pants and watch TV like everyone else!”

“And we’ll never let anyone say bad stuff about Jews,” Devory added triumphantly. And that’s when I told Devory my deepest and darkest secret that I had never told anyone, not even her.

“Sometimes,” I said very quietly, “I make believe that I am really adopted and
goyishe
, and one day, soon, my
goyishe
family—who live near the beach in Australia—will come take me back.”

We climbed over the gate to my house and sat behind a bush in the garden.

“My
goyishe
parents will have nice long hair and a cute little puppy, and I’ll wear jeans and socks with little knitted flowers on them, and it will be so much fun.”

But by the time we stood at the steps leading up to the front door, I had fully repented. Realizing the infinite gravity of my sin I swore to Devory that it was just a joke, and we fervently and solemnly promised to do
teshuvah
to repent—and ask Hashem for forgiveness the very next morning.

“Ich,” I said, laughing as I pushed open the door. “Who would ever want to be a goy?”

“Yeah,” Devory said. “Puppies are dirty.”

My mother never noticed that we were gone. She was busy cleaning her bedroom closet for Pesach.

It was four weeks until Pesach and my mother was beginning to panic. Pesach, or as Kathy called it, Passover, was the most exciting holiday in the year. It was hard work for mothers though. What happened was that some three or four thousand years ago the Jews had been slaves in Egypt for some four hundred years. Then this big
tzaddik
and the first leader of the Jewish people called Moishe Rabbenu—or Moses, as Kathy says—rescued the Y
iden
out from Egypt after Hashem punished the evil Pharaoh and his people with the ten plagues. But Pharaoh was so traumatized from the plagues, he kicked the Y
iden
out of Egypt so fast they didn’t have time to bake their bread. So out they went carrying flat dough that baked in the sun into something called matzos.

To remember that whole long story, which really included a lot more details, the Y
iden
celebrate Pesach every year by eating matzos for seven days and cleaning out the house of all
chametz
.
Chametz
means any food with leavened flour in it. The entire house must be cleaned. Devory’s mother would start cleaning the house on Chanukah. No one dared go upstairs with food, and by Purim, the rooms were sterile. My mother had a cleaning lady once a week, so she reserved her hysterics for the week after Purim. That’s when she and Surela set up an airtight schedule of exactly what would be cleaned on each day so that a week before Pesach everything would be done.