Little Sacrifices (25 page)

She considered her gardening gloves, then the fence. ‘Just poking holes in the soil to let the rain get down to the roots.’ She wiped the sweat from her forehead and left a muddy streak. ‘To tell the truth I’m really just stalling. All that kudzu needs to come out, but it’s such a lot of work. Have you ever seen anything like it? I swear it grows every time I go into the house.’ Kudzu was as common as collard greens in Dixie, though by the nineteen forties the rampant weed was pushing hard on Southerners’ nerves. What started as a nifty idea in the thirties, to keep Southern farms from blowing away like their Midwestern neighbors’ had, turned out to be short–sighted. The US Soil Conservation Department paid farmers eight dollars an acre to plant the Japanese creeper on their steep banks and fallow fields. Within a few years it overtook the landscape, covering bushes, trees, and stalled farm equipment in an undulating green pillow. Old timers swore that it grew up to a foot in the night.

She started poking holes, once again intent on her earthy work. ‘I’m surprised to see you out here instead of hiding in the house.’ She raised me to love the wide green world but Savannah was too hot for my thick northern blood. True as her words were, their tone irked me.

‘I just thought we could talk. If you don’t mind.’

‘Mmm? What about?’

‘Our family. Your family.’ I figured if Jim could go all the way to Atlanta to confront his mother, the least I could do was sit in our own backyard and talk to mine. I felt a couple of the family secrets warranted further explanation.

She made a face. ‘May. I told you–’

‘I know Ma, but I’m interested. Come on, I want to know about your history. It’s my history too.’ After awhile her face softened like I hoped it would. She creaked to her feet with a sigh, rubbing her knees.

‘How about some lemonade?’

‘Okay.’

‘Fine. I’ll be right back.’

We moved to a shady corner of the garden with our glasses already sweating in our hands. Ma gathered momentum as she talked, as if her memories glimpsed an open door and were making their break for freedom. Her father’s parents moved to Boston about the same time that most Eastern Europeans were immigrating. Most settled in the North End near Hanover Street. It was a well–to–do neighborhood in the early days, but when the dockyards were built there the rich families abandoned it for the West End. Slumlords subdivided the houses and built apartment blocks for families like mine to crowd. First the Irish lived there. When they made good and moved to South Boston, the Jews took their place. That was the way it was with immigrant neighborhoods. They were incubators for American citizens.

My great grandfather was a doctor in Russia, but that didn’t hold water in a country where he didn’t speak the language. He had a family to feed, so he took what he could get. For years he stocked shelves and made deliveries for the local grocery store, while my great grandmother cleaned for the families in the Back Bay. They saved their money and after many years opened their own grocery right across the street from his old boss. It was a long–running feud. They didn’t think much of the old man’s business practices – he saw nothing wrong with selling flour full of weevils and near rotten meat for new – so they worked like dogs trying to put him out of business. They failed to close him down, but they did make enough money to move from the tenements to Roxbury.

‘I never visited their first apartment, but I used to go with my Bubbe to visit the neighborhood. By then there were mostly Italians living there. Still are.’

‘You called your grandmother booby?’

She laughed. ‘Bubbe. It’s Yiddish for grandmother. Everyone’s grandmother was called bubbe. And granddads were zedeh.’

I said I had no idea she spoke other languages.

‘I don’t, not really. I know a few Ukrainian words, and Yiddish. My father only spoke English to us, and got mad when Bubbe didn’t. He was embarrassed by their old ways, their clothes, their traditions. It was like that with a lot of immigrants. They came here to be Americans. They wanted to fit in, especially the kids. They didn’t, of course. They stuck out like sore thumbs, but they tried. Me, I loved the old ways. I didn’t even mind going to temple, at least on the holidays, for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.’

‘I missed out on a whole set of holidays?’ I hoped they involved gift–giving. And cake. ‘I’m not sure you exactly missed out. We had to fast on Yom Kippur, all day long. You wouldn’t last past lunchtime.’

‘Very funny. What’s Yom Kippur?’

‘It’s the day that Jews make amends for their sins. It’s the only day we kneel, you know. We’re not like Catholics who spend all their time on their knees. Anyway, fasting lasted until sundown. Then we went over to my grandparents for a feast like you’ve never seen. All kinds of herring, whitefish, lox, Kippers, blintzes, challah, kugel, cheesecake. It was better than Thanksgiving. Bubbe prepared for days beforehand and we always had a house full of friends and neighbors. Everyone loved Bubbe. You couldn’t not love her, she was an amazing woman.’

She stopped, lost in Roxbury.

‘I don’t know what any of that food is, but if you say so, I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Mmm, trust me.’

‘What else?’

She explained about Passover in the spring, when Jews celebrate their freedom from the Egyptians. ‘Every year we celebrated with a Seder, that’s the special dinner. It’s a family holiday, with lots to do for kids. They get to find the Afikomen and watch for the prophet Elijah to come in and drink his wine.’

‘Does he?’

‘So it’s said. Then, after the neighbors had their dinners, they always came to Bubbe’s. The women all sat around listening to Zedeh play his klezmer music.’

‘What’s klezmer music?’

‘Jewish folk music. Zedeh played the clarinet.’

‘What’s it sound like?’

‘It sounds like klezmer music. There isn’t another sound like it.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘Those were some good times.’

‘You loved it.’

‘I did.’

‘Then why did you stop?’ Why did you cheat me out of the chance to love it too, I meant to ask.

She shifted her bottom like it had fallen asleep. ‘Well, Bubbe died when I was thirteen. It was terrible, she was my best friend. I didn’t want to lose her, so I imagined that I could still talk to her. I pretended she was just in heaven and that made me feel a lot better. That’s when my father got furious.’

‘How come?’

‘Jews don’t believe in an afterlife. In their book when you die you die. Despite wanting to get away from all the old traditions, my father was very religious. He told me that Bubbe wasn’t in heaven, that there wasn’t any such thing. He said she was dead and that’s all there was to it. That’s when I started to think I didn’t like Judaism so much. I was angry, so I refused to go to temple. I’ve never been back.’

‘So that was it, that’s why your parents don’t talk to us?’

‘That’s part of it. Only your grandfather is still alive. My mother died not long after I was married. My marrying Duncan was the last straw for him. When I married outside the faith, he told me I’d died in his eyes. There’s really no going back from that. So, I haven’t seen him or been to temple since.’

‘Would you think about going back? To temple, I mean.’

She hitched her head sideways. ‘I don’t know. I’m still angry. I haven’t made my peace. Maybe some day I will.’

The light slanted sideways and the humidity was settling down into damp on the grass. Dusk’s flying bugs were awake and getting reacquainted. ‘I’d like to go,’ I said.

‘I think you should.’

‘Will you come with me?’

Her forehead wrinkled. ‘Why don’t you go with one of your friends?’

‘Ma, I don’t have any Jewish friends. I wouldn’t know what to do there.’

‘You go in and sit down. Stand up when everyone else does, and try to stay awake. You’ve been to church.’

‘That’s different. Come on, Ma. I want to do this with you. It’s important to me.’

She watched the kudzu like she was waiting for it to grow before she gave me an answer. ‘All right. We’ll go on Saturday.’

‘Will you tell Duncan?’

‘I’ll tell him.’

‘... Ma? I’m sorry.’ I couldn’t meet her gaze. ‘I’m really sorry!’

She knew what I was talking about. ‘May. I just wish you’d talked to us. The idea that you, what you must have been going through, what you were feeling.’ Her voice caught. ‘I hate that you, that you... God damn it, May! Why couldn’t you have talked to me?! I’m your mother. You’re supposed to talk to me. You didn’t even give me the chance to help. I hate that you can cut me out of your life like that. I know we haven’t always had the easiest relationship, but I didn’t think you’d do that.’

I was prepared for her anger, but not her reasoning. ‘You’re not mad because of what I did? You’re mad because I didn’t tell you about it?’

She sighed. ‘Of course I’d have hoped you wouldn’t get involved with a boy, in that way. We raised you with more sense than that. But I also remember what it’s like to be your age, and I understand how these things can happen. I also know how confusing it must have been for you, and the idea that you had nobody to talk to about it... that’s what upsets me most. I failed you as a mother. You had no one to talk to.’

‘Ma. This isn’t about you, you know. I mean, you didn’t fail
me
. I was the one who didn’t talk to
you
. But I did talk to Fie.’

‘You did?’ She searched my face. ‘Well, I’m relieved to hear that. Fie’s a good girl, and she’s turning into a good friend. But the – decision, honey.’

‘Ma, it wasn’t a decision at all. I knew what I was going to do as soon as I found out. There was nothing to talk about.’

She sighed. ‘You’ve grown up.’ She looked terribly sad. I had no way to comfort her. She was right. Her daughter had grown up. 

Chapter 36

I wasn’t prepared to let my father ignore me any longer. We’d squirmed in mutual unease for weeks after my operation, as I’d taken to calling it. Even Ma noticed his behavior, telling me not to worry, he didn’t blame me for anything, that she’d talked to him, and he’d come around. But I was tired of living on Duncan’s timetable. I desperately wanted things to get back to normal, so I took the bull by the horns over breakfast in an effort to break our deadlock, and solve the last family mystery at the same time. At worst he could only dismiss me, and that was happening anyway.

‘Duncan, can I ask you something?’

He stopped buttering, his eyes guarded. ‘Yes?’

‘Your brother, how’d he die?’

I congratulated myself when I saw him relax. By making him think I might bring up the dreaded topic, I guaranteed that whatever other subject I introduced would be a welcome relief.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘There’s not a straightforward answer.’

‘That’s okay, we’ve got a couple hours before temple.’ Duncan proved remarkably interested in joining our expedition. I was so sure he’d blow a gasket when Ma asked him that I bet her a nickel he wouldn’t go. She smiled when she took the bet. She knew him better than I did, well enough to make him promise not to huff, puff or otherwise sneer until we were well away from the faithful.

‘I mean, how he died was, he got shot. The reasons he did are more complicated. Do you remember learning about the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in school?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well you did. They were anarchists. Do you know what an anarchist is?’ I shook my head. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Sacco and Vanzetti were accused of robbing a factory payroll in Braintree, and killing the paymaster and guard in the holdup.’

‘Uncle Jerry was shot by Sacco and Vanzetti!’

‘No, no. God, you’re a sensationalist–’

‘You brought it up.’

‘I was just trying to put everything in context. The important point is that they were anarchists. Now, an anarchist believes that the only way for everyone to get a fair shake is for the government to be overthrown, by force if necessary. You can imagine this doesn’t make them popular with the police or the lawmakers. After the end of the First World War, people got really paranoid about them because they were outspoken opponents of the war.’

‘Like us?’

‘Yep, like us.’

‘Does that mean you’re an anarchist?’

‘No. Just because you’re against the war doesn’t mean you want to overthrow the government. But that’s what people thought back then. It was called the Red Scare.’

‘Why Red?’

‘Ah, good question. It’s because revolutionaries have a long history of fighting under red flags. It was a nice general phrase for the newspapers to use.’

‘So, what does this have to do with Uncle Jerry?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Uncle Jerry was an anarchist?’

‘Right.’

‘And he got shot for being one?’

‘Basically, yes.’

‘Just like that? Shot?’

‘No, of course not. There was a lot of labor unrest after the war, when Uncle Jerry was twenty or so. Remember, almost ten million people were put out of work when the government didn’t need them to make their war supplies anymore. There was no such thing as unemployment pay, or notice, or any rights whatsoever, and the socialists, communists and anarchists–’

‘The Reds.’

‘Right. They believed there should be. So they helped organize the workers. The bosses didn’t like that. They got more desperate as strikes took hold across the country. And they were out for the organizers.’

‘So Uncle Jerry was an organizer.’

‘That’s right. He believed more than anything that everyone should get a fair chance. He knew it was only luck that got him born into a family with money. So he set out to help the men who weren’t so lucky. There was a lot of sneaking around. I followed him sometimes. He didn’t tell me very much, I was only a kid then, but I knew how strongly he held his beliefs.’

‘Who killed him? One of the bosses?’

‘No, they didn’t get their hands dirty. Most likely they paid someone as desperate as the men Jerry was trying to help. The police came to the house to tell us. Mother fainted and Dad started crying. It was the first time I’d ever seen him do that. It terrified me. They said Jerry never had a chance. The machine gun made Swiss cheese of the car.’