It was Purim.
Trucks with amplified music blaring full blast rolled through
Bnei Brak streets. A carnival spirit pervaded. Motorists
honked their horns continually as they attempted to get
through the surging crowds of masquerading children and
adults that made movement impossible. Brides of three and
four, some with pacifiers still in their mouths, paraded
through the streets holding tightly onto the hands that had
dressed them. Tattered beggars stood on all streetcorners,
their palms open for alms. Miniature Rebbes in fur hats
thumped their umbrellas. Veiled Arab women balanced baskets
on their heads. Wherever you looked there were accordion
players, clowns, soldiers, balloon and flower vendors, little
girls in mothers' wigs, little boys in long white stockings
pinned to short pants. The city was a kaleidescope of color:
Dutch girls in green, dancers in purples and gold, twirling
skirts of reds and yellows.
Busses had a hard time getting through their route. Many of
the drivers wore dumb-bell hats. Ladies sat on the handlebars
of bicycles that rode haphazardly through traffic. Or maybe,
they weren't ladies at all. Heavily mascara-ed boys, dressed
up in outlandish costumes of the roaring twenties and wide
brimmed straw hats with cascading flowers and feathers, rode
on the rusting fenders of rattling trucks that had probably
been picked up in a junk yard.
Open vans packed with singing young people who'd come to see
the sights kept passing. Whiskered acrobats performed on the
roofs of caged cars, enclosing animals that looked so
authentic that the children were frightened away. Wherever
you went, wherever you looked...outstretched palms, beggar
cups, pushkes clanking with coins so that the poor
might also rejoice.
People stood on their porches, smiling at the happy day.
Naomi was in the kitchen preparing the traditional gift
baskets to send to neighbors and friends. Singing strangers,
collecting money for worthy causes, clapped their way up the
steps and danced through the open door to where an already
slightly tipsy Aharon sat offering drinks to whomever
entered. Though the house rang with song and laughter, Naomi
was sad. It's funny, she thought, how the jolliest
day of the year holds the saddest memories for me.
*
It was in their early years of marriage. They lived in a dark
basement apartment in Williamsburg. It had been an exhausting
day for Naomi. Though Kalman and Lea had been fascinated with
all the masquerading children pushing into the house and
chanting,
"Today is Purim / When all children shout / Give me a penny /
And throw me out,
Velvel, who'd just come back home from the hospital, after
months of intensive polio treatment, was terrified of all the
strange commotion.
Having anticipated problems with the child, Aharon had
refused all family invitations that Purim, and they'd
remained at home. The Purim meal was over. Naomi put the
children to sleep. Aharon remained sitting at the table;
silent, pensive, sipping strong wine. He held his head in his
hands and swaying back and forth, forced himself to keep
drinking until he would reach the degree of drunkedness
required on Purim, when he would no longer distinguish
between blessed Mordechai and cursed Haman.
In the streets, the singing, clapping, dancing, shouting,
laughter still continued, but now in muted tones. And then
there was silence as people drifted home to sleep or went off
to their Rebbes for a final round of festivities.
Aharon still sat.
"Go to bed," Naomi urged her husband. "You're tired, probably
more than a little drunk, too."
Aharon looked at her silently. His eyes were wells of
tears.
"Come, already. It's late."
He didn't move. He didn't speak. Just kept his eyes on his
wife while tears ran down his face...
"Come on, Aharon," Naomi said, as one speaks to an unhappy
child. "Get up. Come to bed. You're drunk enough for this
Purim."
"Ya, ya," he finally said, pushed the table away and lumbered
to his feet.
He was a swaying bulk; movements wooden and disconnected.
Holding on to the wall, he got as far as the children's room
and knelt down by Velvel's bed. He stroked the sleeping
child's face, caressed his curly hair.
"My poor innocent soul," he sobbed. "For what sin of mine do
you atone?"
The child awoke, saw his father and smiled.
"Tatty, vos vilstu?"
"What I want?" Aharon repeated in mock surprise. "Don't you
even know that today is Purim and you're supposed to be happy
and dance?"
"But Tatty, I can't dance," Velvel laughed. "Don't you
remember? I have polio."
Aharon grimaced comically. "So what if you have polio?" he
asked in a squeaky voice. "On Purim everybody dances."
He lifted the child up with great difficulty, clutched him
clumsily to his heart. Then, lurching drunkenly round and
round, cried out in song:
Purim, Purim lonu,
Boruch asher bochar bonu,
Shehechiyonu vekiymonu
Vehigiyonu lazman hazeh.
The child, at first all smiles, soon began to cry. Aharon
looked up startled; then purred like a kitten and barked like
a dog, crowed like a rooster until the sick, frightened child
was laughing once more.
The hours passed. Aharon sat at the table, the child slept in
his arms. He wouldn't put him back to bed despite all of
Naomi's pleading; just sat gazing at the child's face, the
tears spilling into his beard. His head nodded. His body
jerked. Naomi was frightened. She'd never seen her husband
that way before.
In desperation, she picked up the phone and called Aharon's
oldest brother, Berel. He rushed over by cab. Murmuring kind
gentle words, he released the sleeping child from Aharon's
iron hold and then led Aharon to his bed and out of his
clothing.
The night was never referred to, but Naomi always remembered
it on Purim.
