Jacob's Folly by Rebecca Miller Page B

everybody else, she had been baked in the oven until she was the perfect mother. Anyway, I released my hold on her, and was very embarrassed to see a shambolic young man in a stained black caftan beaming at me from the kitchen table with a smile of benevolence and understanding, a fur hat set back on his head, plump hands open, palms down, on the table. One brown eye wandered in its socket; the other gazed at me with burning affection. His beard was sparse, his side curls long. When he saw me loosen my grip on my mother, he stood, opening his short arms, and exclaimed, “Jacob! At last!”
    Reluctantly, I walked up to him. I felt the shock of his hug deep in my rib cage. His breath was hot and smelled rather pleasantly like a pond. The hug went on far longer than I had anticipated. There was rocking back and forth involved. My arms dangled crookedly, splayed out by the force of his embrace. I looked imploringly at my mother, whose hands were clasped at her breast as she watched, her neatly frilled head cocked.
    â€œAnd this, of course, is your cousin Gimpel, who has come to visit all the way from Mezritch,” said my mother, who then walked over to the hearth, lit that afternoon by a gentile woman my parents hired for every Shabbat, and began to serve the stew that hung in a pot over the fire. Shlomo, my scholarly younger brother, walked in, shuffling his feet, a book under his arm. I noticed he was developing a faint dark mustache, like a smudge of dirt on his upper lip. He would be fifteen soon. I felt for him, thinking they would try to marry him off any minute. Then his life would be over, just as mine was.
    Watching Cousin Gimpel eat was a diverting experience. He took ravenous bites, hunkering low over his bowl, then hummed as hechewed, gazing up at the ceiling, entranced. My parents ignored him as he did this, though the muscles in my father’s jaw were standing out like cables as he chewed, and my brother shook his head in disapproval several times. At one point Gimpel stopped humming, looked down from the ceiling, and saw me staring at him. He smiled, half-chewed noodles peeking out from between his teeth.
    â€œI am releasing the sparks,” he explained, his
s
’s spraying a little shower of kugel across the table at me. “From the food.”
    â€œThe sparks?” I asked.
    â€œThe spiritual life in the food,” he said. “That’s what produces the taste.” I looked at my father. Impassive, he took a helping of cabbage. ‘“And they saw God and they ate and drank,’” continued Gimpel, smiling, holding up his small wineglass. “Exodus 24:10. The rebbe says that when a man eats he should free his mind so that it can soar to think on God while each mouthful is being swallowed. This is how we will right the universe and bring on Moshiach. Bit by bit.” He took a gulp of his wine, then started humming again.
    â€œBy eating?” I asked.
    Gimpel stopped humming and looked at me. He seemed shocked. I wondered if I had angered him. But he laughed, his open mouth packed with chewed noodles, his belly shaking. He laughed so hard his eyes were watering, and he dried them with his napkin. “By eating!” he kept repeating to himself hoarsely. Finally, when he had recovered, he looked at me with a serious, loving gaze.
    â€œIn time, I’ll tell you all about it,” he said.
    The following day, Gimpel followed me on my rounds as I lugged my peddler’s box up and down the streets energetically trumpeting my wares, the leather strap cutting into my neck. As I chanted the contents of my box in a singsong voice, my bearded cousin followed silently, his beaver-fur hat gleaming atop his head, sidelocks drooping, caftan fluttering behind him like a black sail, the gaggle of iron pots and kettles slung over his arm clanging with his every step. Walking ahead of him in my elegant pointed shoes, I imagined I was leading acouple of heifers to