Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life by Yehoshue Perle

gotten lost. What was the way to the synagogue? I strayed so far in the wrong direction that I ended up in the old park. Woe is me! What would Father say, and what would I tell him?
    I finally found my way to the synagogue, where they were already halfway through the prayers. Father, wrapped in his prayer shawl over his head, gave me a sideways look, his eyes blazing with anger. He didn’t say a word. He just put his big hand on my shoulder and indicated the place in the prayer book where the service had reached.
    I buried my face in the tattered, yellowed pages, but I couldn’t make out even the shape of a letter. Father’s heavy gaze lay burning on my back. Hodl’s outstretched body loomed between the lines. I had no idea when to turn the page, nor could I follow Moshke the cantor’s lead. Every few minutes Father poked out his face from behind the prayer shawl and growled at me, “Nu, ah …”
    There was no talking in the synagogue, but Father managed a growl, more from his nose than his mouth.
    “What took you so long? Why aren’t you praying? Why do you look so upset?”
    It was an agony to get through the prayers, sheer hell. I kept praying to God for the service to be over already, so we could go home. But the walk home wasn’t any easier.
    “What’s wrong with you, Mendl?” Father’s voice cut into my brain like a chisel.
    “Nothing. Why should anything be wrong?”
    “Why didn’t you come to the synagogue right after me?”
    “I didn’t have a clean shirt,” I quickly made up a lie.
    “What do you mean? Mother laid out a clean shirt for you on the chair.”
    “I couldn’t find it.”
    “Nu … ah … Mother wasn’t back yet?”
    “No.”
    “You look upset, Mendl. What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?”
    “I have a bad headache.”
    This time I wasn’t lying. My head hurt, my temples were throbbing. I felt a wave of nausea rising from the pit of my stomach. Father gave me a prolonged look. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not. But he no longer pestered me with questions.
    We walked on in silence. The snow crunched familiarly under our feet. At any other time I would have taken a slide in the frozen gutter, or slipped away from Father’s measured Sabbath pace to join a group of kids I knew, building a snowman. Today, however, the white Sabbath street looked totally black. I felt chilled. The snow crunching under my feet seemed to proclaim my sin. I was ashamed to walk beside Father, as if afraid of defiling his Sabbath garments with my unclean body.
    By the time we reached home, the burners on the stove were white-hot. The pots were simmering under their lids. There was an aroma of goose fat, sweet cabbage, and burning wood.
    By now Mother had returned from Aunt Miriam’s and told us what had happened. Uncle Shmuel had had too much to eat the night before and—it shouldn’t happen to us!—fell over on his stomach. Tuvye the doctor had to be called and treated him with leeches. Mother then proceeded to attend to the beds, going slowly from one bed to the other, plumping the pillows, straightening out the featherbeds. For just a moment, it seemed to me that Mother was lingering over Father’s bed. My heart skipped a beat. Did she notice something unusual? But she merely turned over the featherbed, folded it in two, and ran her hand lightly over its top.
    Hodl was standing in the room, facing the window, wearing a black dress and a long gold chain around her neck. She was saying her Sabbath prayers. Prayer book in hand, she rocked her bulky girth lightly back and forth.
    I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, certain she would, at any moment, turn around and scream out why I was so late getting to the synagogue. I was preparing my answer. After all, I too had something to tell.
    But Hodl never said a word. She went about her business, angry, sullen, not raising her head nor looking anyone in the face.
    “Hodl,” Mother tried to probe her, “you seem upset. God