Let It Shine (12 page)

Ivan looked down at her, that crushing tenderness that was so at odds with everything else about him etched onto his face. “Listen to me. I’ve watched you stare down an officer with a rifle pointed in your face. I’ve seen…” He paused, closed his eyes briefly. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I’ve seen you take a punch from a full-grown man that might have knocked me on my ass. You didn’t cry, and you never flinched. You’re the bravest woman I know. One holiday dinner with our fathers? Piece of cake, baby.”

Sofie’s eyes heated with tears. They’d been through so much in the last three years. But they’d been through it all together, which had made it tolerable. “You’re going to mess up my makeup, you schmoe.”

“See? You’ve got the Yiddish down already. Dad’ll welcome you to the tribe with open arms.” She leaned her forehead against his chest as she laughed. He smelled like Ivory soap and starch, even if he didn’t act like a man who would. “As for your makeup; yeah, you’re gonna have to reapply it.”

“What?” When she looked up, his mouth was already on a collision course with hers. Their lips met and the same sweet explosion rocked her, the one that lit her up every time. She’d thought kissing the same man would get boring after months and years, but the press of Ivan’s pouty lips and the slide of his tongue just did it for her. His fingers inched her dress up her thighs.

“This’ll help with the nerves,” he said as he pressed her into the counter and began kissing his way down her neck.

His mouth trailing kisses toward her breasts was far from calming, but she tugged his t-shirt out of his jeans and ran her hands over the warm swath of skin he had flashed earlier. “I’m willing to give anything a try,” she said.

~~~

Hours later, Sofie retreated to the kitchen in defeat. She opened the door of the Big Chill fridge and contemplated crawling inside.

Mr. Friedman was distant and overly formal, to the point that he seemed almost angry at her. When she explained that she’d had the menorah shipped from New York City by a friend she’d met during the protests, he hadn’t reacted with delight, or even been impressed. Instead, he’d critiqued her placement of the candelabrum, saying it wasn’t public enough, and had responded with a huff when she placed it in the front window, despite the risk to her curtains. When night fell, Ivan lit the shamash and invited his father to light the candle representing the first night of Hanukkah and to sing the shehekianu. Mr. Friedman had put him off. The shamash still burned alone, a flickering reminder that nothing she could do would please the man.

Her father was just as bad. There were good days and bad days with him, and this wasn’t one of the good. He pretended not to comprehend the Jewish customs, as if taking the body of Christ at communion made much more sense. Every attempt at secular conversation Ivan threw out was rebuffed, or somehow came back around to how her mother was rolling in her grave knowing her Sofie was living in sin. He played deaf when Sofie reminded him that the law wouldn’t allow them to marry, that miscegenation—the ugliness of the word made her shudder—wasn’t legal in Virginia.

The two older men didn’t speak to each other at all, as if Sofie’s mother hadn’t worked for Mr. Friedman all those years ago. As if there weren’t so many important threads of their lives binding them together. Perhaps her father still resented the time he had lost with his wife to this family, and now he had to share his daughter with them, too.

She left the three men sitting in tense silence as she went to prepare the final part of the meal. She had been so looking forward to this particular aspect, experimenting with batch after batch while Ivan was at work until she had the recipe down pat. She remembered her mother doing the same thing when she started working for Mrs. Friedman, who had been a kind but exacting woman. If you couldn’t make latkes to her specifications, you had to go.

As Sofie pulled the schmaltz out of the fridge, having hidden it behind the okra where Ivan would never venture, she thought of the standoff in the living room and felt like all her preparation would come to naught. But then she remembered all the times she had almost let despair win the day. If giving up was the way to go, the Civil Rights Act wouldn’t have passed just that summer, beginning what was hopefully a brighter day for the children she and Ivan might one day have.

Sofie reached into the cabinet and pulled down the little plastic recipe box. Her name was inscribed on the label in fading black ink. The handwriting was so similar to her own that it still threw her off at first sight, until she remembered it belonged to the woman who was little more than a patchwork quilt of memories and emotions: her mother.

She pulled out the recipe and stared at it for a moment. That this was in her possession was, in a small way, responsible for Ivan coming into her life. She gave the creased index card a kiss for luck before reading the instructions she had already committed to memory. Her movements were automatic now: she lit the tabletop range, placed the cast iron skillet on the flames, and added a healthy coating of schmaltz to the pan. She began spooning in the mix of grated potatoes, onion, and egg a dollop at a time, spreading it out into flat discs.

If this didn’t appease them, at least she could say she hadn’t gone down without a fight.

~~~

Things were no better when she bought out the platter of piping hot latkes. Ivan shot her a look of desperate relief when she came back into the room, and rushed to relieve her of the bowls of sour cream and applesauce she balanced precariously on each forearm.

“Happy Hanukkah,” he said quietly as he took the bowls from her and dropped a kiss on her church. There was no sarcasm in his voice; he meant it.

They sat at the table, no one making eye contact. The dreidel lay unspun. The shamash flickered away at the center of the menorah, the lone candle on the rightmost side still unlit.

“Well, dig in!” she said in her bright hostess voice, even though she was tense enough that her jaw was starting to cramp. The men began stuffing their mouths, seemingly happy to have something to do to end the awkward silence.

Ivan made a sound of pleasurable surprise when he bit into his first latke. For a moment she thought she had made some miscalculation: too many onions or too little salt, or the schmaltz had gone bad. But when she glanced at him, he was regarding her with such adoration that it seemed too intimate for the dinner table. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes were wide as he slowly chewed, savoring the taste.

“Sofie.” Mr. Friedman cleared his throat. His eyes were glossy beneath his shaggy brows when he looked her full in the face for the first time that night. With his defenses down and his brow unlined, the similarity between him and his son was remarkable. “This tastes like…” He paused and pressed his lips together.

“Your mother’s,” her dad said quietly at the same time Mr. Friedman rasped out, “My wife’s.”

There was a silence around the table. Sofie dropped her hand into the space between her and Ivan’s seats. His hand was waiting, as she knew it would be, and the sweet relief that coursed through her when his fingers slid between hers made her throat tight with emotion.

Mr. Friedman stood and walked toward the menorah. He lifted the shamash with trembling hands and began singing the first blessing in a soft but commanding voice as he lit the first candle of Hanukkah. “
Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha’olam
…”

When Ivan’s deep voice joined his father’s, when her own father reached across the table for both of their hands and joined the blessing on the only word he could make out of the Hebrew—
Amein
—she finally understood what that term “mitzvah” meant. It was the kindness that allowed people to overcome all the differences society had erected as walls between them. It was a shared memory of love that could bridge what seemed to be an insurmountable gap. It was being surrounded by those that she cared about most, and knowing that, against all hardship, they were going to make it.

No Valley Low

February 14, 1973

Cleveland, Ohio

Ivan fought the monotonous lullaby of the Ford Falcon’s engine as the car rumbled through the invisible barrier that separated Shaker Heights from the other Cleveland neighborhoods. Fatigue was pushing at him from all sides, like a flurry of jabs while he was pinned up in the corner of the ring. Or maybe it was the bits of his past packed into boxes that clinked and rattled in the back seat that gave the car an oppressive air.

He cranked down the window down and let some of the icy winter air smack him in the face to revive him for this last stretch of his trip. He’d been driving for ten hours, through snow and over icy roads, leaving Richmond and the memories that had kept him company for the last three weeks in his rearview mirror.

His father was settled in his new wife, Mrs. Edelman, whose years of doting on the widower Friedman had finally led to a second chance at love for them both. Ivan was happy for his father, even if it still felt slightly uncomfortable, like he was being forced to wear necktie to work. Ivan’s childhood home had been emptied of everything that connected him to it and put on the market.

So it goes
, he thought.

The trip had been hard, but good. He’d had a chance to check in with Jack, his old boxing coach, who’d retired and now spent his time doting on his grandkids and bugging Ivan to open his own gym. He’d spent a few nights with his father-in-law, arguing politics and religion. He’d even helped his father around the shop like he had when he was a kid, and had the shock of his life when his dad asked him how Ivan kept things going strong with Sofie.

“What with the look?” his father has asked, incredulous. “I haven’t been married since Eisenhower was in office.”

Ivan wasn’t sure he liked having his father ask him for advice instead of giving it unsolicited, but he’d rattled off some tripe about staying interested, about making sure to be there for your wife. Now he was heading home to Sofie, and he couldn’t stop wondering if he’d been describing the husband he was or the husband he wished he could be.

There had been distance between him and Sofie in the weeks leading up to his departure. Months if he was honest. A quick smooch in the hallway as she ran to emergency meetings at the Women for Women clinic. A note left on the kitchen table before he headed out to another rally anti-war rally. There’d been sex; satisfying, but more perfunctory than passionate. They’d just been too damn busy. At least that’s what he told himself.

But now the Peace Accords had been signed and the war was over. Roe v. Wade had meant a victory for women all over the US. Their battles were seemingly done, and they were left to face the unspoken thing they’d buried under newspapers, protest signs, and piles of paperwork over the last several months. Now they’d have to face each other without the padding of politics.

Maybe everything would be different now. In the past three weeks, the world had changed a hell of a lot. There was no reason that shouldn’t be the same when he stepped over the threshold into their home.

Under the noise of the engine, Ivan heard the familiar strains of guitar and reached for the radio’s volume knob just in time to catch Marvin’s smooth voice keen, 

Ain’t no mountain high,

Ain’t no valley low,

Ain’t no river wide enough, baby.
 

Ivan felt a little tremor go through him when Tammi Terrel’s sweet voice countered with, 
If you need me, call me…

It was funny how life with Sofie had changed him. Back before he’d met her, the only music that’d mattered to him was the chime of ringside bells, the syncopated pummel of glove against skin. Now, he listened closely to the singers when a song came on. He caught the intake of breath before an explosive burst of sound. He traced the emotions that could be expressed by how many times a long note trembled. And now he knew what Sofie sounded like singing along to all the pop songs of a decade plus; listening without her wasn’t the same.

Sofie’s mood ring made a tinkling sound in the little receptacle below the radio as it rolled against some pennies. She’d taken it off after that trip to the doctor all those months ago, saying she didn’t need a damned ring to tell her how bad she felt.

Ivan turned the volume up a bit more.

You don’t have to worry
, Tammi sang, her voice radiating comfort.

No matter how many times he heard the song, it always took him back to one moment in time. It was back in their first apartment together, the one Sofie had made bright and cheerful despite the occasional swastika or racial slur scrawled on their door. He’d come home after a bad day of sparring at the gym. His reflexes had been slow, his opponent faster. For the first time, the fact that maybe he had a peak, and that he’d reached it, occurred to him. That boxing wasn’t a career a man like him could support a family with, and that maybe the odd construction jobs he took on would soon be everyday life for him. Resentment had filled him, left him angry at anything and everything, but then he’d walked into their apartment at just the right moment. He’d heard Sofie’s muffled voice, singing as usual, as he turned the key in the lock, and when he walked in she’d turned to him with all the love she felt for him shining in her eyes and finished the last line of the verse.

You don’t have to worry.

The words hadn’t magically changed his world, but they’d washed over him like the truth. That had been enough until he figured out his next step.

When was the last time she sang for me? Or I made her smile?