Part I
Everyone knew that Naomi was a fiery "Zionist," but for her
to actually pick up and move to Israel with nine children...
for that you didn't have to be a "Zionist;" for that you had
to be crazy!
"Poor Aharon!" was the way his seven sisters expressed
disapproval of their only brother's wife. "You'd think that
after so many children, she'd already have grown up..." So
each sister solemnly shook her head, clucked her tongue and
sadly bemoaned Aharon. He really had his hands full; so many
children and a wife, who, instead of trying to help her
husband attain some peace of mind... Nu, better not to
talk.
That Aharon was never sure if he'd come home to the right
house at night was already an old family joke, with the
furniture seldom in the same place at night as it had been
when he'd left in the morning. But those gusts of energy were
the least of Aharon's troubles. It was when Naomi wasn't
careening around at breakneck velocity that he knew to expect
trouble. Because those were the times that Naomi stopped to
think, and thinking was a dangerous activity for Naomi to
engage in because it usually triggered the question for what
purpose had she been created when all she ever did was wipe
babies' noses and bottoms, attempt to crawl out from under a
mountain of laundry, try not to drown in sinkfuls of dishes
and restaurant size pots and act like a policeman, judge and
henchman for a bunch of kids who never stood in one place
long enough to catch and smack up good.
Not that she didn't love them all! G-d forbid! When there
wasn't a new baby on the way, she'd send Aharon scurrying to
rebbes for a blessing.
But children weren't enough, she claimed. She needed food for
the mind, intellectual stimulation, a challenge to her
creative spirit. Such declarations, coming more often as the
family grew, and punctuated with passion, tears and
hiccoughs, would leave Aharon in confusion. He would scratch
his beard and ask bewildered, "But what could be more
creative than having babies?"
Naomi would sniffle and shake her head. "No, it isn't
enough." Aharon would look at his wife and resort to the only
argument that made any sense to him, "My mother never talked
that way." Nevertheless, he subsequently ended up scouting
the neighborhood for a babysitter who was mature, kind,
efficient, loving, caring and foolish enough to think that
she could tackle the nine while Naomi, once more alive, full
of pep, vigor and guilt ran off to find fulfillment.
Sometimes she attended lectures, sometimes she took courses,
sometimes she just sat on a bench in Park Plaza for an hour
or two, trying to absorb the beauty of columned Gothic
structures all around, walking back home along Eastern
Parkway in piles of crunching autumn leaves.
After that, Naomi decided to go back to teaching.
Between feeding and diapering babies, pinching tomatoes on
Joe's Fruit Truck and talking on the phone every single day
to every single one of Aharon's seven sisters, Naomi would
disappear into the basement with a pile of seforim
containing all the commentaries ever published on Yirmeyohu,
to prepare her lessons for the Girls' High School classes
that she taught.
For some reason related to the fact that heat rises, the
thermostat in the basement could never be coaxed higher than
45 degrees. By the time Naomi came back upstairs, she'd have
to sit on the kitchen radiator to thaw out, with the children
administering hot water bottles to her frost-bitten toes,
while Aharon, standing with sefer in hand, elaborated
on the difficult passages of the commentaries that had
stumped Naomi.
But in the meantime, letters were beginning to arrive from
Aharon's parents in Israel where they'd settled in a Bnei
Brak Retirement Home. They were lonely, they longed to have a
child nearby. Naomi, still the fiery Zionist, was quick to
capitalize on the report, and convinced Aharon that they
should be that child.
Aharon often wondered how he had ever survived the seventeen
years of marriage to Naomi. True, he held his breath most of
the time but dared not pray that Naomi tire of her latest
craze, lest the new one that replace it be even worse.
That was in the States.
Since living in Israel, though, Naomi had been so overwhelmed
with the physical rigors of running a household and trying to
make ends meet on a piggy-bank budget, she'd stopped making
those periodic declarations of all the extraordinary things
she was going to do.
And then, one day, on her thirty-ninth birthday, to be exact,
Naomi informed Aharon that she had decided to become a
writer.
Aharon looked at his wife and swallowed. Naomi knew exactly
what he was thinking: something like, "Oh, no! Not another
one of her brainstorms!" But all he did was smile and say,
"How nice."
"But I really mean it," Naomi said emphatically, certain that
her husband hadn't understood.
"Of course, you mean it. You always mean it," Aharon
reassured her, still smiling. Maybe this was a good sign, his
expression read. Maybe this meant that Naomi was snapping
back to her old self.
"But this is for real. For keeps..."
"O.K. I believe you!" Aharon reassured her again, and to
prove it, he called together all the children and using the
special tone reserved for special occasions, announced, "In
the name of the entire Shelner Family: Miriam, Laya,
Sheindel, Suri, Fraydale, Roiza, Yossi, Estie and even the
baby Mindy: it is both an honor and a pleasure for me to wish
you blessings and success in your latest undertaking. Know
that we have always been proud of your ever-fighting -- and
now writing-spirit and will do everything in our power to
help you reach your goal."
When Naomi told her neighbor Ruth what she intended to do,
Ruth looked up, her face pinched together in a quizzical
expresssion and asked:
"Nor dos hut dir oisgefeilt? Just this was missing to
make your life complete?" Then, pursing her lips together and
lifting one eyebrow, she said philosophically, to no one in
particular, "Well... to each his own."
Naomi's mother was the only one who responded
enthusiastically to her daughter's decision.
"Why, Naomi, that's absolutely wonderful! I always knew that
you were a born writer. That will be the perfect thing for
you to do when the children grow up and leave the nest."
Naomi suddenly realized that though her mother was a
crackerjack bookkeeper, she wasn't too good in simple
arithmetic or she'd have realized that by the time Naomi's
nine chickadees flew the coop, she'd be an ancient relic, a
creaking memory of a once surging spirit. So she told her
very gently, "No, Mamma, it's either now or never." And
though, even to Naomi it seemed more never than now, on the
first day of her children's summer vacation, she gathered all
her lovely chickadees round her to try to work out a schedule
in which, if they ran a day camp in the corner park from nine
to one every day, allowing her to write undisturbed during
those hours, she would take them all afterwards to the
beach.
It sounded like a fair bargain to the children, and fifteen-
year-old Miriam was unanimously elected to be the Director of
the Shelner Morning Daycamp.
On the first day, despite the alarm clock ringing an hour
early, everyone woke in great spirits. After all: Mommy was
going to a famous writer, and only because they were going to
cooperate.
Breakfast passed without too many spills. Naomi was wise
enough not to pursue who had squeezed out the brand new giant
tube of tooth paste in giant size figure 8's all over the
sink and bathtub. And though baby Mindy dumped her leben on
Suri's head, Fraydele saved the day by giving her a quick
shower, which was quick-thinking on her part, that is, until
soap got into Suri's eyes and...
Yossi couldn't find his left shoe, but everyone convinced him
that in day camp it was perfectly O.K. to wear slippers.
Estie, whose job was to empty the garbage, brought it all
back upstairs again because she was afraid of the cats in the
garbage room, and Roize refused to make Suri's bed because
you know what and she wasn't going to contaminate her dainty
fingers with soiled linen. At which Suri became conspicuously
quiet, and then shouted, "I did NOT wet my bed. It was very
hot and I was shvitzing."
[Final part next week]
