Candle Lighting
I am six years old, sitting on a kitchen chair watching my mother get ready to light the candles for Shabbes. My legs swing back and forth — they don’t reach the floor and their swinging makes a little breeze. Mama’s fingers lie flat as she pushes the Shabbes tablecloth all around until its edges are even wherever you look.
She sets the challah in the middle of the table. It has a cloth she embroidered covering its top. But that smell, like all else, says we are welcoming the Sabbath — our Shabbes — our most holy day, into our home.
She sets the candelabra in front of her, a fat, white candle in each of its five cups. I was told at Hebrew School that at sundown, all over the world, mothers from many countries are also about to light their candles. No matter the different languages other people speak, each mother will say the prayers in Hebrew.
Questions
This morning something strange happened. I was hanging around the kitchen — one place Mama can be found most days. I had some questions. My brother Philip says I make “speeches” from time to time. Sometimes I even find something to stand on. I didn’t, but even so, Philip says no one can ever miss my voice.
Mama was leaning over the sink, cleaning a fish that would become ‘gefilte.’
I spoke up.
No answer.
I tried again with a shorter question. Over the sink as she was, only her right side was visible to me. A third try, sure I was now being heard by our next-door neighbor.
Taking a step forward, I saw the fish in her hands. If she hadn’t been fussing with a fish, I’d have thought she was falling asleep; her eyes were closed. Surely, she had heard me approach — I never take whispering steps.
For the first time ever, I got scared. The fish was just a fish — I was her daughter. Why wasn’t she turning her head, smiling a hello, telling me something about fish scales…ANYTHING?!
Köröshmöza
My mother was born in Köröshmöza, a town at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Hungary. My mother’s Zayde and Bubbe were the parents of four sons and eight daughters. My mother’s mother was the youngest. Six daughters had already been matched with suitable grooms when an “appropriate” young man came for a look-see at my grandmother, and she found herself married. Though she was soon carrying my mother, the marriage failed, and the grandfather I never knew — my mother’s father — returned to his hometown.
Welcome Dear Sabbath
At the table now, Mama is wearing a pretty dress; her apron has been put aside for later. A freshly laundered white tablecloth has replaced the everyday covering. She puts a soft cloth on her head. With eyes closed, her hands circle around three times. Her fingers gently touch her eyes. She comes to me and we kiss each other. “Gut Shabbes!” Nice and loud, we say it together and laugh.
My father, being a Chazzen, is not here. He is at shul, intoning the prayers that start “Welcome, dear Sabbath.”
In this just-the-two-of-us moment, Mama sometimes remembers some story of her childhood, her Aunt Fradel, her cousins, the songs they sang. I learn things about the girl who lived in Hungary way before she became my mother.
A Plan to Go to America
My mother’s Aunt Yidis, the eldest of the six daughters, was not interested in an arranged match-up. She was ready to leave Hungary, and serious Jewish ‘ways,’ and go to America. Seeing that her youngest sister (my grandmother) was now divorced gave these two an idea which was followed by a plan.
Eldest sister wanted a travelling companion to America. Youngest sister, not happy with the way her life was going, agreed to secretly leave their home, hop a ship and land somewhere on one of the streets that were supposed to be paved with gold. But wait a minute, this sister had a child — my four-year-old mother.
Because the little girl was very attached to her grandparents, my mother’s mother decided she could leave and know that her child would be well taken care of.
My mother did very much love her grandparents. I am named for her grandmother. But she was four and knew nothing about her mother’s plans. “Did you know,” she said to me once, “that I wrote to my mother every single day?”
Preparing for Shabbes
All week we have been preparing for this night, just as we do every week. On Monday, before the sun even blinked its first light, my mother called the butcher and gave him her order. Yesterday morning it was very funny to see all the wrapped packages of chicken standing on the butcher’s countertop like soldiers. And Mother’s is always first.
Thursday is a fun, exciting morning to be at the butcher shop as Shabbes is coming. Everyone knows everyone else — butchers, mothers, tag-along kids. “Am I next?” “I called Tuesday — spoke to you, Mr. Zivitz — remember?”
When it comes to Shabbes, kosher butchers move fast. By the time Mama paid and got our package in the cart, mothers were bumping into each other. The woman who called in on Tuesday morning couldn’t beat my mother’s no-sun-showing-yet call on Monday.
When we hear the front doorknob turn, Tati and Philip are here! I watch my parents’ faces as my father kisses my mother — their eyes on the eyes of the other. Each of his hands are curled around each of her arms, and they wish each other “Gut Shabbes!”
By the time my father has made the Ha Motzie blessing over the challah, with a chunk for each of us, the smell of Mama’s gefilte fish is in the air.
Gefilte Fish
This morning, in that strange wordless moment when the fish plopped out of Mama’s hands and into a bowl, I ran out of the kitchen. The tears fell down my cheeks, tickling my neck, getting my dress wet. Tati was in his chair looking at some music and humming.
He turned quickly, letting the music fall on the floor. “What happened? Tell me!”
I squeezed myself closer. “Mama. She won’t talk to me. I know she heard me, I’m sure.”
“Sha, kint, sha. Stop your tears and tell me again everything.”
The tears stopped themselves and I started to hiccup. I asked if Mama was mad at me and didn’t want to even see me. “Tati, she never looked at me.”
My father took both my hands. “You didn’t do anything wrong — you just wanted to talk to her. Don’t worry. Mama will say something soon and you’ll be able to hug her and talk with her. Soon. Soon.”
Family
When she was fifteen, my mother came to America and reunited with her mother, leaving her grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles behind in Hungary. Here she met and married my father. All the people who came to know my mother when she was a married woman with two children knew nothing about her difficult beginning in life. I’m sure Mama wanted the happy work of preparing for the Sabbath to say “Here lives a true balabusta,” a complete homemaker.
Now we four sit at the kitchen table. There’s a lot more happening before we eat. My parents each have a corner seat. I am next to my father. It’s a little lopsided the way we surround the table. Instead of sitting next to my mother, my teenage brother is next to the pipe that brings in huge gobs of heat. That window, across from the three of us is fiercely cold — it comes through the windowpanes as if they aren’t even there.
In my smallness, I can easily sit between my father and brother.
It’s an enchanting few moments, this time before our meal — a relief from the week. People have been feeling upset these days. Awful things are going on in the world.
Yesterday I heard my father say, “Let’s not talk too much about that — she picks up everything, gets scared easily.”
I know the “she” is me.
I had a dream of a huge ship sailing down our street to take us all away.
Silence
I had a name for them. Mama’s silences. When I think back, I know they had a beginning — and that there were only a few — five? Six? — of these out-of-nowhere moments. I had no problem believing my father that they were not my fault. But what I wanted was for my mother to say something — to me!! For me, they came out of the blue. They truly didn’t last long — just long enough to create a need in me that was never filled.
The Past in the Present
I am no longer six. One thing I’ve started to do lately is read up and find out. I know now all the things that nobody talked about — at least not aloud.
“Sha — the kinder — .”
These newspapers from 1944 — I found a pile of them when I was in the library — got permission to take them home. I spread them out on my bed.
Yes, 1944. The war was coming to some kind of end. Here’s an article — it covers half of the page. Hungary — that’s where my mama came from.
This one writer says the war is so close to being over — maybe — and —
Oh my G-d! What am I reading? That monster realized that there were tons of Jews in Hungary.
Look what we left out, he thought. What’s wrong with my people? Get Eichmann. Move. Use the trucks. Use the trains. The cattle cars. Every inch. This is more important than the war.
And here’s the rest of that article. Eichmann was a good soldier.
He did it! They’re out. How many? Wonderful, yes, I heard — close to 600, 000. Where are they now? Auschwitz. Yes, you did good. I’ll send my letter to the commandant. He has to pop them in the chamber — yes all — just do it — do you hear? Are you doing what I want? No excuses. Out — nobody left.
And I sit. On my bed. Stop reading. I’ve read enough. Ayyy! Ayyy! Mama’ s family. She knew. My mother. She followed the news.
Auschwitz. Eichmann, the specialist — he would never have taken the chance to disobey that unholy misery. There wasn’t much time left in the war. He knew.
“Let me erase them — they are not even human — nobody will miss them. Keep those chambers going — I want to see the smokestacks from my bedroom — I want to hear them cry and scream and then everyone will know who I am and what I can do.”
And now I also know.
My mother’s Aunt Fradel. Her Uncles. Their children. What of the children?
My mother’s silent times. I couldn’t reach her. And she couldn’t reach them — not any more.
Light
The only light in our kitchen comes from the candles, as we are not permitted to turn on any lights or do any other type of work.
It’s time for Z’miros — the special songs we sing every Friday evening. They are fun to sing — lively, even raucous tunes from many moons ago. Three-part harmony, that’s us: Father, Philip, and me. Our harmony has a silent fourth member: My mother knows every song, but doesn’t sing.
All over the world, these sacred moments are taking place. The Shabbes keeps right on going, even if there is hell on earth. And wherever the Shabbes is observed, each woman of the house is a queen.
