MY FAMILY, ITS SEASONS

White, Milton

MY FAMILY, ITS SEASONS Milton White ANNIVERSARY On the sixth of February my mother and father celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. "To twenty-five years!" my father said, raising his...

...I leaned against the stove and watched the knishes turn golden brown in the frying pan...
...The ceiling light jn the kitchen shone on my mother's small hands, on the thin silver wedding band she wore (the date of the wedding was engraved inside the ring), and I knew as I ate the knish that even though my mother's hands were small, her hands could perform a miracle...
...I've made plenty...
...Valda, stocky and strong, blond-ish, her blue eyes joyous, wasn't a maid: she was more like one of the family...
...Aunt Deborah smelled of lily-of-the-valley perfume...
...The room spun around me...
...The horseradish brought tears to my eyes, "The fish is perfect, Ma...
...I drank my wine in a single gulp...
...Glick (how long ago it had been since that bout with grippe...
...My mother carried plates and paper napkins out of the kitchen, and we sat around the breakfast room table, my brother Herbie, my sisters Muriel and Jeanette, and me...
...I prayed, staring at the book in front of me, that I wouldn't make any mistakes (I never was good at reading Hebrew) when I asked my father the four questions during the service: Why is this night different from all other nights...
...Spicy...
...Milton White last appeared in these pages in December...
...We rolled our eyes...
...And light as air...
...He had stopped at Danler's grocery store on his way home from the tailor shop, a special trip just to buy pomegranates for the family...
...temperature for the first time in winter dropped below freezing...
...I stepped through them, careful not to crush them...
...from the Shriners...
...Outside, in the dark of the early evening, leaves off the maple trees in our backyard were blown about by a wind that had in it, for all autumns, for all time, the deep tart red taste of ripe pomegranates...
...I loved knishes...
...The linoleum had come alive...
...I said...
...I prayed," my mother said...
...Happiness...
...They returned carrying huge platters of gefilte fish rich with spices...
...I'm watering the flowers...
...I leaned over my plate and sucked into the pomegranate...
...My father, at the produce section, lifted honeydew after honeydew from the open crate while Sam stood beside him, approving, disapproving, advising...
...Happiness...
...stars and moon shone brightly...
...I edged my way through the crowd, picked up Aunt Deborah's glass and drank the wine she had left in it...
...My mother lifted the knish out of the pan with a spatula and slipped it onto a plate...
...I would never again drink wine, the gorgeous wine my parents had made...
...In the morning, if I lived, they would thank me for all the flowers...
...I cried and closed my eyes to keep the breakfast room from whirling...
...But I had saved the purple asters and the nasturtiums that were growing out of the linoleum in the breakfast room, that I had done...
...In spring my parents created the Passover...
...As soon as my mother finished showing the gifts, my Uncle Meier lifted his glass of wine...
...We dug our spoons into the pale green fruit (just the right texture...
...The carved mahogany table under the blue silk and silver chandelier (the chandelier matched the colors of the walls) had extra leaves in it in order to accommodate all the relatives: my Uncle Meier and Aunt Ada, Uncle Maury and Aunt Deborah, my cousins Burt, Saul, Rachel, Leon, Eva, my brother Herbie, my sisters Muriel and Jeanette, my mother and father...
...the women wore dresses they had bought just to celebrate the Passover...
...Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, he is the author of three novels...
...Happiness...
...My father relaxed and smiled at my mother, who with my Aunt Ada then went out to the kitchen to get the first course for the supper...
...he lifted the honeydew to his ear, shook the melon and listened: he could hear the seeds, loose inside...
...The flowers, purple asters and orange-yellow nasturtiums (I remembered my childhood garden), actually were blooming...
...Herbie wore a dark blue suit, and so did I. We stood beside my mother and father as my father read the telegrams: from Senator Alcort (my father made the Senator's suits...
...and tasted the honeydew...
...I saw the white tile of the bathroom walls and floor...
...Guests carried plates of corned beef, salami, and smoked tongue and glasses of wine into the living room, the breakfast room, the kitchen, the front hall, wherever they could find a place to stand...
...Everyone knew that my Uncle Jack didn't really live alone...
...Mazel tov...
...I drank the wine from both glasses...
...Those rubbers I'd found hidden in Herbie's bureau drawer, beneath his underwear...
...they even filled the den room on the second floor...
...We waited until everyone had been served...
...I knew my father had hidden the matzah under the pillow on which he sat...
...The seder service took place in the dining room, the walls of which were painted blue and stippled with silver...
...THE __SEASONS_ My mother and father, not God, brought each season of the year into the house...
...The house on Forest Avenue hummed, filled to the brim with almost a hundred close friends of my parents, and with uncles, aunts, cousins (cousins sixteen years old and over: the line had to be drawn somewhere...
...Company stood packed in the doorways and even on the stairs in the front hall, where at least they could hear what was going on...
...Did Herbie suspect I kept count from time to time, that I even stole some...
...What does it mean...
...His hands were cool...
...My mother hovered over the frying pan and turned the knishes as they browned...
...he had a woman friend, a shiksa he kept in an apartment on Weber Street in the South End, the section of Waterville that was Italian...
...Let it go...
...Shivering on the top step of the red brick building, I drew the sheepskin collar of my lumber jacket over my ears to shut out the cold...
...Uncle Meier cried...
...Be careful, it's hot," she warned me...
...Now...
...Winter...
...She lifted another knish out of the pan and slid it onto my plate...
...Oh, Ma...
...I salted the knish, then cut it in quarters (steaming) and ("Hot...
...Glick pressed his hand over my forehead...
...I caught at the juice that ran down my chin...
...Except, / hoped, on those nights when, unseen, I saw Herbie tiptoe down from the third floor, where Valda slept...
...No," Valda said to my mother...
...Aunt Ada yelled at me...
...we cried, and smiled at each other...
...Many, many happy returns of the day...
...Glick's face floated, unfocused...
...And at that moment I believed with all my heart that at the point in the reading of the Haggadah, when my father instructed me (as his youngest son) to open the front door for the prophet Elijah, I would go to the door and find Elijah there, waiting, white-haired, full of love, bringing us good luck because on that night of Passover our house on Forest Avenue had the finest gefilte fish in all the world...
...Summer, real summer, was ushered in with honey dew melon...
...Far, far in the distance I heard the sound of laughter, the rattle of plates, the chatter of guests in the house...
...My mother was making knishes...
...I felt myself spinning downward and then sideways in space, surrounded by flowers...
...Everyone's waiting...
...a silver tea service from the Kodimoh synagogue, because my father was now president...
...The bitters, boiled egg and lamb bone that we used during the seder lay on shining plates in front of my father...
...She enveloped me in her arms...
...My mother wore a maroon silk evening dress she had bought for the anniversary party...
...Happiness...
...He sniffed at it, pressed his thumb against the spot where the melon had been attached to the vine...
...Together, upon a signal from my father, we raised our glasses...
...the sleeves of her dress had cuffs of sable...
...from the Mayor of Waterville...
...Someone had carried me upstairs...
...Before the seder meal began, my father filled everyone's wine glass with wine that he and my mother had made from purple grapes the previous fall...
...Valda, who sat next to my sister Muriel at the supper table, smiled over the top of her wine glass and said something in Polish...
...Peppery, but not too peppery...
...My mouth was flooded with the tart-sweet juice...
...My mother and father had been married for twenty-five years...
...How dry they looked though...
...Happiness...
...This one," he said to Sam...
...My mother made them with a mashed potato dough which she filled with chopped liver, chopped meat and gribenes, the bits of skin fried hard during the rendering of chicken fat...
...My Aunt Ada, stunning in a blue and silver gown, walked into the kitchen and held up a handful of telegrams, "It's time to open these and read them...
...He'll sleep it off now," she said...
...The sky cleared...
...When I opened, my eyes again, I stared into a bright white light in which Dr...
...I picked up a pitcher of water from the sideboard, and filled with love for the asters and nasturtiums I emptied the pitcher on the floor...
...My father wore a dark, pin-'stripe suit...
...My father bought our first honeydew of the season at Danler's grocery store on Allen Street in the North End...
...they had closed the bedroom door, and the room was dark, but I was aware of them whispering to each other as they moved about...
...My father sat at the head of the table, and my Uncle Jack, who really was the oldest of the brothers, sat on my father's right...
...I stared at the blackness of the bedroom and decided that I was dying, probably...
...I found a bottle of wine on the buffet in the dining room and filled my glass again...
...my father yelled to Aunt Ada...
...The flowers are growing]" "Get Louie Glick...
...I picked up the segment I had been given and with my thumbs I pushed down on the skin to free the seeds clustered in the ivory-white compartments of the fruit...
...I was sixteen years old, and I was dying...
...My sister Muriel wore a black silk dress with sleeves embroidered in gold thread...
...We drank to that...
...We raised our glasses...
...linens and towel sets from friends...
...At last my father found a melon he liked...
...otherwise it would be incest...
...My father kissed me...
...My mother and father undressed me in the master bedroom, slipped me into pajamas, and pulled the covers over me...
...I cried, as I looked through the archway at my mother and father, who stood in the living room and shook hands with the guests near them...
...He raised me and aimed my face downward, so that I found myself staring into the toilet bowl...
...My Aunt Celie wasn't speaking to my Aunt Deborah and Uncle Maury...
...I felt my mother's hand touch my face...
...I On that night, our house on Forest Avenue had the finest gefilte fish in all the world...
...we sipped the wine (the first test of Passover, the official start of the holiday...
...Everyone at the table leaned forward at the same moment my father leaned forward and tasted my mother's gefilte fish (the second test of Passover...
...Tonight you just get ready for the party...
...I watched Herbie pretend not to watch Valda start clearing the table...
...I was braced against his knee...
...I saw faces peering at me...
...from Max and Lotte Siegel in New York City, regretting they couldn't attend...
...Sam Danler gave my sister Jeanette and me a coconut-marshmallow cookie from one of the tin boxes that lined the wall of his store (the boxes had glass lids, on hinges...
...The Oriental carpets were vacuumed, the draperies were hung outside and brushed...
...Happiness...
...Mazel tov, mazel tov...
...My mouth watered...
...The company raised their wine glasses...
...Only my Aunt Celie and Uncle Ray had failed to appear...
...If Davey wants another piece, it must be good...
...And then you have to unwrap your presents...
...I jogged all the way up Graybar Street to Forest Avenue...
...Long life...
...I finished my wine...
...in his tie he wore a stickpin, a ruby surrounded by small diamonds, gorgeous...
...we sipped the wine and looked at each other for confirmation . . .Ah...
...My mother and father were downstairs enjoying the asters and nasturtiums...
...my mother said...
...Glick said...
...Later in the evening, when I found the matzah, my father rewarded me with a dollar...
...I saw him put down his glass of wine, which was almost full...
...His short stories have been published in a number of magazines including HARPER'S and THE NEW YORKER...
...My mother hung up my suit in the closet...
...Jeanette had on a blue silk dress...
...It couldn't be better, Pa...
...My mother or one of us C except for my father and Herbie) always helped Valda wash and dry the supper dishes...
...Ahh...
...I followed my parents into the living room, which was mobbed...
...I cried...
...my mother repeated) I tasted a piece: potato dough tender as air, chopped liver, meat, gribenes...
...My mother unwrapped the presents: a set of silver flatware from all my uncles and aunts...
...The first seder had to be held at our home on Forest Avenue because all my uncles and aunts considered my father the head of the family, even though he was younger than some of them...
...I came downstairs from the den room where I'd been doing my homework for Latin class...
...Long life...
...the melon was ripe...
...She dipped each knish into a plate of flour to hold the dough together, she explained...
...It was a warm evening, and he had taken the family for a ride in the Hudson, all windows of the car open to catch the breeze...
...My mother had placed a slice of cooked carrot on each piece of fish...
...Half an hour before my father was due home from his shop, my mother began to fry the knishes in chicken fat...
...I felt myself being lifted, carried upward...
...she wouldn't even be found under the same roof with them, she told my mother...
...In the breakfast room I discovered two glasses, half-filled with wine, which a couple of the guests had left on the table...
...looked up at my father as I spat pomegranate seeds onto my plate...
...The blue and white dishes that- were used only during Passover week were taken down from the kitchen cabinets and washed with kosher soap...
...At home, in the breakfast room, after my mother had put plates and spoons on the table, my father cut the honeydew in half, scooped out the deep-yellow seeds with the edge of the knife, then cut the melon up into segments and offered each of us a slice...
...Were they angry with me...
...Ohh, Ma," I said...
...My father cut the pomegranates into quarters: instantly, the tart smell of the deep red juice filled the room...
...Ohhh...
...It means 'To twenty-five more years!'" Valda explained...
...and from the Elks...
...Happiness," they said to me when I passed them...
...came toward me, on his way to the food in the dining room...
...I don't want any sadness tonight," my father said...
...I could hear my sister Jeanette in the back yard, playing kick-the-can with Ernestine Brownell and Valeria Herron, in the dark...
...Perfect...
...By 9:30 in the evening the daylong and early-night threat of snow had vanished...
...They tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind them...
...Uncle Jack lived alone because, even after all the years he had been in America, his wife and children had not yet come over to America from Paris, where they had lived ever since they left Russia...
...In the fall my father brought home pomegranates, three or four of them (depending on the size) in a brown paper bag...
...She had lovely clear skin, like my father...
...I'm fine...
...on the afternoon when the...
...I sank into a bed of flowers...
...My father passed around to us the jar of horseradish my mother had made, horseradish pungent, deep red with beet juice...
...The furniture was polished, the hardwood floors were waxed...
...my father asked her...
...You're sure you're all right, Davey...
...Now all of you go upstairs and get dressed for the party," Valda said...
...You picked out a beautiful honeydew...
...my father said, raising his second glass of wine at the end of supper...
...The silverware glistened...
...She fashioned each knish (a jewel) in the palms of her hands...
...My Aunt Ada kissed me...
...Ecstatic, invisible, I sauntered to the dining room table, picked up the glass, and gulped down the wine...
...My mother made the house shine...
...She smiled at me...
...To you, my favorite nephew," she said...
...I cried...
...I heard laughter...
...The smell of the chicken fat, of the potato dough...
...He ruffled my hair...
...The wind, icy-steel, hit me as soon as I stepped out of school...
...I cried from the depths of a tunnel of light that spun round and round me, and I saw my brother Herbie watching me, his face sympathetic...
...The light from the chandelier fell on her hands, such small hands...
...Juice dribbled onto my plate...
...my mother and father came running out of the living room...
...My legs gave way under me...
...It happened (had I already guessed...
...Happiness, happiness...
...My mother slipped a piece of gefilte fish onto my plate...
...Just for tonight they could have made up," my mother said to my father as they stood in the kitchen and refilled decanters of wine...
...their hair had been done at beauty shops that morning...
...It's just right," my mother said to my father...
...I cried to Aunt Deborah and Uncle Maury, who stood at the buffet and filled their plates with corned beef and smoked tongue...
...I want another piece," I said...
...A toast...
...My father nodded, the wisdom of the ages shining on his brow...
...There's a knish that's done, Ma," I said, pointing...
...The men at the table wore suits, white shirts, ties...
...Autumn...
...Oh, Ma...
...Then, as I stepped into the breakfast room, which for the moment wasn't overcrowded, I noticed that the flowers in the pattern on the linoleum were growing, three-dimensional...
...On the night of the seder we read the entire Haggadah...
...I felt my father's cheek brush against my cheek...
...Not too sweet, and not sour...
...As soon as I opened the door of the house and walked into the kitchen, I smelled potatoes boiling and saw an open jar of chicken fat on the counter...
...Aunt Deborah put her wine glass on the table and followed Uncle Maury into the breakfast room...

Vol. 1 • March 1976 • No. 8


 
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