arm, and lets her hand rest there.
Now we get a houseful of menorahs. My grandmother digs one out from a closet that she bought for five cents in a grocery store when she first came to America at the age of fifteen. It is tin and has eight sharp rings that hold the candles. Itâs so light that it tips over as soon as she stands it up, even though there is a lion embossed on the front of it. My father brings home a big brass antique menorah, shaped like an archway, heavy, on a pedestal, on a round base. Gilda has her old one but also buys a new one at the Avenue N synagogue, gold plated with two fierce lions with great manes on it. She also buys me a book, The Adventures of KâTon Ton , about a little Jewish boy. Suddenly everyone is handing me books about Jewish children and Jewish holidays with juicy names like sukkoth and tu bish vat and Rosh Hashonah; saliva bubbles in my mouth when I say those words. My mother spits when she repeats them, angrily, âI will not have her mind filled with Rosh Hashonahs!â she cries, ââ¦with yiskors or whiskers or whatever that nonsense is, I will not have my child repenting for her sins. What kind of sins does a child have to repent for?â
I both agree with her and I donât. I have many sins, but I donât want to repent for them.
The Chanukah candles come in many colors. I prefer blue and yellow, I like white. The green looks grim. The red reminds me of Christmas colors, and Iâm not allowed to like red in this season. But presents! I would love presents, a pile of them under a tree, all for me! Maybe even the sacred roller skates, which appear in my dreams every night. Silver, with sliding adjustable panels, with clamps that tighten with a skate key, with leather straps. Oh, what beautiful complications are woven into a pair of ordinary skates.
I would love to have a puppy, too. Maybe a Captain Midnight decoder. If they asked me, I have many ideas. But how likely is it Iâll get a pile of Christmas presents? And not even on my birthday, but on Jesusâs birthday?
In school, we are rehearsing a Christmas play to be put on in the auditorium for the seventh and eighth grade. Miss Fenley says that because I have a good memory, I have to be Mary, Mother of Jesus. Mary has to give a long speech. I repeat it to myself many times, at home in bed, in the bathtub, during endless dinnertimes. I discover that keeping my mind on something far away and fascinating lessens my fear of the man looking in the window, lessens the degree of my shivering with cold after my bath, lessens my disgust at having to eat lima beans, whose grainy thick insides make me gag. This way I keep my mind on some far-off place and become someone else:
Oh Goodness, we have nowhere to stay on this cold winterâs night. There is no room at the inn. Whatever shall we do? I fear our long-awaited child may be born soon. Joseph, my good husband, do you think they would let us stay in the manger, on a bed of straw?
Joe Martini is Joseph my husband, which embarrasses and thrills me. They put a beard on his face with a rubber band to hold it on in back. I hope I really can marry Joe someday and have our long-awaited baby with him. They have no donkey for me to ride, but someone brings a wooden hobby horse to school, and I have to rock on it. I think itâs a mistake. No pregnant woman would ride a bouncing horse.
Joe Martini has a plan. Instead of eating in the hot lunch room every day (which I am now allowed to do), we will one day go instead to his house for lunch. He lives only a half-block from school. He will bring a note from his mother inviting me, in case Miss Fenley tries to stop us, but his plan is not to give it to her. We will just walk down the hall, as if to the hot lunch room, but instead we will walk out the door and run down the street to his house. He says his mother will be glad to have me.
âWhat about my boots and my hat and my
Now we get a houseful of menorahs. My grandmother digs one out from a closet that she bought for five cents in a grocery store when she first came to America at the age of fifteen. It is tin and has eight sharp rings that hold the candles. Itâs so light that it tips over as soon as she stands it up, even though there is a lion embossed on the front of it. My father brings home a big brass antique menorah, shaped like an archway, heavy, on a pedestal, on a round base. Gilda has her old one but also buys a new one at the Avenue N synagogue, gold plated with two fierce lions with great manes on it. She also buys me a book, The Adventures of KâTon Ton , about a little Jewish boy. Suddenly everyone is handing me books about Jewish children and Jewish holidays with juicy names like sukkoth and tu bish vat and Rosh Hashonah; saliva bubbles in my mouth when I say those words. My mother spits when she repeats them, angrily, âI will not have her mind filled with Rosh Hashonahs!â she cries, ââ¦with yiskors or whiskers or whatever that nonsense is, I will not have my child repenting for her sins. What kind of sins does a child have to repent for?â
I both agree with her and I donât. I have many sins, but I donât want to repent for them.
The Chanukah candles come in many colors. I prefer blue and yellow, I like white. The green looks grim. The red reminds me of Christmas colors, and Iâm not allowed to like red in this season. But presents! I would love presents, a pile of them under a tree, all for me! Maybe even the sacred roller skates, which appear in my dreams every night. Silver, with sliding adjustable panels, with clamps that tighten with a skate key, with leather straps. Oh, what beautiful complications are woven into a pair of ordinary skates.
I would love to have a puppy, too. Maybe a Captain Midnight decoder. If they asked me, I have many ideas. But how likely is it Iâll get a pile of Christmas presents? And not even on my birthday, but on Jesusâs birthday?
In school, we are rehearsing a Christmas play to be put on in the auditorium for the seventh and eighth grade. Miss Fenley says that because I have a good memory, I have to be Mary, Mother of Jesus. Mary has to give a long speech. I repeat it to myself many times, at home in bed, in the bathtub, during endless dinnertimes. I discover that keeping my mind on something far away and fascinating lessens my fear of the man looking in the window, lessens the degree of my shivering with cold after my bath, lessens my disgust at having to eat lima beans, whose grainy thick insides make me gag. This way I keep my mind on some far-off place and become someone else:
Oh Goodness, we have nowhere to stay on this cold winterâs night. There is no room at the inn. Whatever shall we do? I fear our long-awaited child may be born soon. Joseph, my good husband, do you think they would let us stay in the manger, on a bed of straw?
Joe Martini is Joseph my husband, which embarrasses and thrills me. They put a beard on his face with a rubber band to hold it on in back. I hope I really can marry Joe someday and have our long-awaited baby with him. They have no donkey for me to ride, but someone brings a wooden hobby horse to school, and I have to rock on it. I think itâs a mistake. No pregnant woman would ride a bouncing horse.
Joe Martini has a plan. Instead of eating in the hot lunch room every day (which I am now allowed to do), we will one day go instead to his house for lunch. He lives only a half-block from school. He will bring a note from his mother inviting me, in case Miss Fenley tries to stop us, but his plan is not to give it to her. We will just walk down the hall, as if to the hot lunch room, but instead we will walk out the door and run down the street to his house. He says his mother will be glad to have me.
âWhat about my boots and my hat and my
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