Zellig Bach A Child's Longing for Home
4  Sundays: a Tiny Bell Tolls for a Little Boy

 
My Sundays were on a hill, about a block-and-a-half from the white church which towered over the small town. It was at the home of an elderly childless couple who lived in two rooms in the back of their store.

As is usual in such arrangements, where store and living quarters are combined, a little bell over the front door rang whenever a customer came in.

It was a small store, selling candy and sundry novelties. There was very little merchandise, and not once do I remember seeing a customer there. In order to reach the store, one had to climb eight to ten steps. The store windows were high above the eye level of passersby. And so, it seemed, not only were there no customers who came up purposely to make some purchase, but there could not have been any customers buying on visual impulse.

Every time I came for my meal, three times each Sunday, I found both husband and wife sitting quietly behind the counter. Rarely did they talk to each other, and when they did, it was the shortest possible dialogue, the barest answer in a minimum of words to an apparently absolutely necessary question. It seemed to me that they were hoarding their words, and gave them out as sparingly as possible.

As I would greet them, both nodded their heads without a word. The sound of the tiny bell above the front door followed me through the store into the dimly lit living room. After a while the housewife would serve me my first course without saying a single word, and go back to her husband in the store, leaving me all alone.

In about ten minutes she would come back and place before me the second course, and again leave me all by myself. The meals were plain and simple. A typical lunch, which was considered the main meal of the day, consisted of two courses, meat and soup, in that order. No dessert or fruit.

Every meal, except for my greetings on my way in and out, was almost entirely without words.

My donors were quiet, kindhearted people, and I was certain that to give me a "day" represented to them an indirect service to God, their contribution to the perpetuation of His word.

Still, a strange notion entered my mind that the woman of my Sunday, without a child of her own, may have felt an unexpressed resentment in her heart about providing me, a stranger, with the three meals on Sundays.

Although I never allowed myself to put this idea into words, it grew inexplicably in strength. Just thinking about it made me almost choke on every bite. I was generally a poor eater, but as a result of this thought I ate even less, and the food portions I left on the plate became bigger and bigger.

I would say the aftermeal prayer with great deliberation, listening to my own words, translating the Hebrew phrases into Yiddish. The less I ate, it seemed, the more devoutly I prayed.

Here, more than on any other "day," did I yearn for the bentsh'erl I had asked mother to buy me as a going-away gift—my unheeded last- minute and only request.

I knew by heart all my three daily prayers, as well as the one after meals. But here, on my Sunday, certain that neither the housewife nor her husband would come in after I had been served my second course, I would have taken out my tiny bentsh'erl from my pocket, the only reminder of home. I would have held it firmly in both my hands, as if to gain strength and warmth from its small pages. And slowly, word for word, I would have read my prayer with eyes filled with tears, tears which do not drop but remain in the eye, like a transparent curtain.

Soon a second unspoken notion took hold of me, once again contrary to what I wanted to believe, that the benefactors of my "days" expected me to say these prayers as if they were a fee for my meals. For this reason, the prayers somehow lost their meaning to me. Praying, I thought, should be of one's free will, without being expected to say them as a payment, and, deep within me so that nobody would know, I started to resent the fact that I had to pray after my meals.

The tiny door bell rang again each time I left the house after a meal, and its weak sound followed me into the street.

I gladly took it with me to keep me company, especially after the evening meal. I had plenty of time since I had no home to go to, except to the bedroom which I shared with two other students of the yeshi've in the home of the widow and her daughter. Both students were grown men, the widow old, and her daughter pale and sickly-looking. I had nothing in common with any of them, nor did I want to. I missed the chatter and laughter of my large family around the table during mealtimes. I missed my mother and my sisters.

So I would walk slowly all alone, reflecting, searching for my place in the world, and questioning in my thoughts the justness of my plight, never finding an answer.

Since I was always alone, except for the hours in school during the day, I was happy to have for company on my Sundays, after each meal, the sound of the tiny bell.

Its sound was weak, and after a very short while it was gone. I would then think of strong church bells, like the heavy bells of the church I passed on my way to and from my Sunday, tolling during prayer times and at odd hours. The tolling often announced the death of a parishioner. Peasant women would silently pray and cross their hearts, and men in the fields would stop working, take off their hats, and bow in silence before the great Unknown.

During the long, lonely evenings, the moon and I became intimate friends. I would slowly go to my room, the moon accompanying me, gliding behind or through clouds. She would stop whenever I stopped. She knew all about me: I myself told her.

Sometimes at night, as I walked slowly to my room, I would see an old stray cat looking for food or shelter. I would watch her for a long time. She would walk aimlessly, turning now and then to the left or to the right, or suddenly walk back. I would follow her quietly in all her wanderings. I felt something strangely common between me and the cat, a painful bond—two lonely beggars in the night, without a home . . .