The house was ready for the holiday. The stove and fridge
were lined with aluminum foil and packed with borsht, latkes
and potato kugels and home-made egg noodles to put into the
chicken soup. The shank bone was roasting on an open flame,
the gefilte fish was bubbling. A tantalizing smell filled the
house.
On the vacant lot outside our kitchen window, children had
raked together dead twigs and with kerosene soaked rags,
started bonfires into which, for a few coins, people threw
whatever chometz still remained in their possession.
Before doing so, young fathers lined up all of their children
and carefully brushed out all the pockets and cuffs of their
jackets and pants.
Six-year-old Ben Zion had still not joined his friends
outside. With brows drawn together in worried expression, he
stood in the doorway, waiting for his grandfather.
Mayer looked at the clock, turned to his father and said
gently, "Pa, it's time to burn the chometz."
Pa merely repeated what he'd been saying all week, "Ya, ya,"
in variations of grief, disbelief and confusion.
"Here are your shoes," my husband told his father, as he bent
down to tie the laces. He looked into Pa's face with deep
concern. Pa's face was blank and as grey as his beard.
"Ya, ya," he sighed again, but on seeing Ben Zion staring at
him in fright, he forced a smile and patted the child's
freshly cropped head.
"Go bring me my bag of chometz," he said to the child.
"We'll burn it together."
*
In Ma's room, everything was just as she had left it. I lit
the memorial candle for her soul and covered her table with a
white cloth on which I put her siddur.
The dress she was to have worn on yom tov hung on the
closet door. I slid my hand over its texture, remembering how
difficult it had been for her to decide which one to wear.
"Now your dress is that of the angels," I addressed her
presence in the room, "the royal raiment of the queen
returned home from her exile on earth."
For to Ma, life had always been an exile. Her world, the
world she really belonged to, resembled more heaven than
earth, with its tzaddikim and rebbes and yearning of
the spirit.
I looked at the clock and rushed back home.
*
The men left for shul. The children excitedly made
plans for stealing the afikoman. Between their father,
three older brothers and a grandfather, there would be enough
afikoman for each child to steal. As a price was
demanded from the owner before he could get back his special
piece of matza, everyone was discussing the best way to go
about it.
The men were back. The Kiddush was recited in its beautiful
traditional chant. When Pa said the Shehechiyonu,
blessing Hashem for having sustained him and given him life
for this day, his voice broke and failed him. We all blinked
back the tears and downed them together with the wine.
We were relieved when Esty distracted everyone by drinking so
much wine, which she had insisted on having, rather than
grape juice, that she was unable to focus and ended up laying
her head down on the table and falling asleep.
There was much whispering and swooshing in the circle of the
little ones. One by one, each of them innocently sauntered
past the pillows where afikomans had been hidden,
fussed over this or that... until somehow, deftly, quickly,
nimbly, they were lifted and with a whoop, hidden inside a
bedroom closet. It sometimes happened that a child switched
his hiding place so often that by the time he had to give it
back, he wasn't sure anymore where the spoils were buried,
and we had to make a search for the matza!
The Seder was over.
*
I woke in the night to the sound of stifled crying but was
unable to figure out which child was in distress. Then I
heard six-year-old Ben Zion, who was sharing his room with
Pa, shushing him softly and saying,
"Don't cry, Zeidy. Bubby's in shomayim. She is a angel
praying before Hashem!"
