Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life by Yehoshue Perle Page B

happy.
    Mother must have noticed something, and looked at me dreamily through half-closed eyes. She seemed to be demanding an accounting from me, asking me to speak up.
    I wanted to speak up, to tell everything. But wouldn’t that make matters worse?
    For many days following, Mother walked around the house silently, her body hunched over, as though Hodl was bombarding her, not with words but with stones.
    The evenings at home turned gray and gloomy, not homelike at all. Mother would be busy mending, darning, patching. Hodl attended to her pots and then sat down to eat, slurping her soup with its chicken wings, her face to the wall, as usual.
    In those days we never had meat in the middle of the week. In the morning Mother would make grits, and for supper, borsht and boiled potatoes. The heady aroma of Hodl’s mouthwatering chicken soup taunted our palates. Before going to bed, she chewed on pieces of orange, with her mouth closed.
    So, how could anybody like Hodl? Enough that she nibbled on oranges, while we went to bed, our bellies filled only with potatoes. But what did she want from me? And what did she have against Father?
    For a long while Mother said nothing, keeping a pained silence. Then, late one evening, while Father was leisurely mashing his potatoes with a spoon, Mother, who had been sewing a patch on a shirt, suddenly stopped what she was doing, moved closer to Father, and in a quiet, contained voice said, “Leyzer!”
    The door to the kitchen was closed. I was on the verge of dropping off to sleep. In my dreamy state I somehow sensed that Mother was about to talk to Father about things not meant for my ears. Maybe it was the urgency of her tone, or perhaps the fact of her bitter silence, that made me prick up my ears and eavesdrop on their conversation.
    “Leyzer,” Mother repeated, moving closer.
    “Hah?” Father’s spoon stopped in its tracks.
    “Tell me the truth, Leyzer …”
    Father, his curiosity aroused, turned his face to Mother.
    “What?” he asked.
    “You know, Leyzer,” Mother said, seeming to choke on every word.
    “Hodl …”
    “What about Hodl?”
    “Hodl says … not in so many words …”
    Mother placed a hand on Father’s shoulder. Father was apparently getting a little irritated. He pushed aside his plate and looked at Mother with a half-opened mouth.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Frimet. What are you saying?”
    “What I’m saying …” Mother’s voice was low and deep. “I’m only asking you to tell me the truth … you and Hodl …”
    “What!”
    Father and Mother were seated facing the bed where I slept. For a while they said nothing, only looking silently at each other. Mother’s tearful, pleading voice still hung in the air. Father’s face turned pale.
    “Frimet,” he finally broke the silence and in a choked voice said, “what made you think of such a thing?”
    “She … Hodl herself.”
    “What about Hodl herself?”
    “She said that you and she …”
    It didn’t take more than a moment for Father to decide on action. He stood up at once, pushed back his chair, and took a step toward the closed kitchen door.
    “Leyzer!” Mother stood up too and tried to bar his way. “What are you going to do?”
    “Just let me at her!”
    “Leyzer!” Mother threw her hands on Father’s shoulders. “I implore you, you hear … I swear … I won’t live through this!”
    “Don’t swear … Stop talking like that, Frimet! Once and for all, I have to teach that witch a lesson!”
    “Don’t go in there!” Mother clung to Father’s neck. “I believe you, Leyzer. If I didn’t I wouldn’t stay another minute longer in this house. Stop it already. Come here, sit down at the table.”
    “No, Frimet, I want her out of the house. That cheap piece of filth! That slut!”
    “Leyzer, don’t go in there! Don’t do her the honor. Sit down at the table, I beg you.”
    Mother managed to get Father to sit down. Still, he kept turning his head