Zellig Bach A Child's Longing for Home
5  Mondays: a Secretly Adopted Father
 

My Mondays were with Mr. Gurevitch and his three daughters. He was a widower, but despite the fact that there was no wife and mother in the house, it was to me a wondrously cheerful home.

He was a tall, jovial man, with smiling eyes and a pleasant, embracing voice.

Here, too, as on my Sundays, the place of residence was combined, through a doorway, with the place of business. Here, too, was a tiny bell above the street door, and each time a customer came in or left, the bell rang. But what a difference!

Mr. Gurevitch conducted a lively stationery business. He was an excellent storyteller, and while waiting on customers he often turned them into listeners, found time to talk with them about matters other than the business at hand, and told them some of his amusing stories.

I found warmth in this house, and whenever I had a headache or a cold, it always "happened" on a Monday. On such occasions, which were, alas, too rare—I took my religious studies very seriously—I would spend practically the whole day, starting with breakfast, at the Gurevitch home. This in itself was enough to alleviate my bodily woes, if not the unspoken longings of my heart.

At mealtime Mr. Gurevitch always joined the family in the dining-room. When sounds of the store bell rushed in, excitedly announcing a customer, one of the two younger daughters would answer the call. He would remain seated at the head of the table, leisurely enjoying his meal. There was banter and laughter as he regaled us with his delightful stories. In good humor and paternal tones he frequently teased all of us, his daughters and me. This inclusion made me happy, since it meant to me that he accepted me as part of his wonderful family.


I was about five years old when my father died and considered too young to be taken to the cemetery for his funeral.

Apparently to spare my young heart, I was not even told until some time later of my father's death, of the accident that suddenly took his life as if by a terrible mistake in the heavenly Registers. I could not explain to myself Father's continuous absence, and I terribly missed him. It was a burning search, a gripping pain in my heart, but for unknown reasons I felt ashamed to ask my mother or my sisters where Father had gone. I prayed to God that Father would come back and stay with me.

The longing for my father grew stronger and sadder with each sleepless night, with each passing day. Every time I saw or heard a drosh'ke—a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage—coming from a block away, my heart would start to beat faster. I feverishly hoped that the passenger would turn out to be my father, that he would recognize me, tell the driver to stop, jump out in joy to hug me and kiss me.

But the drosh'ke would slowly roll by without stopping. I would follow the carriage with my eyes, and when it disappeared from view, hold onto the sound of the horseshoes on the cobble-stones as long as I could. And as the sound grew faint and vanished, my heart would slowly die.

My unrelenting longing for my father's return made him at one and the same time lovingly close to me, as well as desperately distant.

Similarly, feelings of grief and anger alternated within me. With every fiber of my young being I protested the permanence of his absence. I could not—would not—accept the fact of my father's death. My heart rejected the possibility of such an occurrence and refused to grieve, as if the very act of grieving would only confirm the irrevocable finality of his death.

And what if Father was indeed dead? I certainly could not be angry with my deceased Father, even for leaving me without so much as telling me that he had to go, to go forever . . . for leaving me before I could unashamedly tell him how much I needed him and how much I loved him. In lonely moments, however, feeling hopelessly abandoned and lost, I could dimly detect within me some angry feelings toward my Father. It always remained unspoken, as I never allowed myself to lend it even the appearance of recognition.

Each time I gained awareness of such feelings, no matter how faint, I would suddenly feel overwhelmed by apprehension. I did not understand how such feelings could possibly have found a secret place within me, and I would feel ashamed and angry at myself. In such moments I felt undeserving and unworthy, desolate and frightened.


I learned to read Hebrew and to say the various daily prayers while very young, and on the first anniversary of Father's death Mother took me to the cemetery to say Ka'dish, the Jewish mourning prayer.

I can still vividly see Mother and myself looking forlornly for my father's grave. The pathways between the rows of graves and between the graves themselves were not well cared for—Father was buried in a poor section—and I had the dreaded fear that I was stepping on graves, disturbing the peace of the dead and sinfully bringing untoward shame on them in their last resting place.

Father's grave did not have a tombstone—just a plain wooden marker with simple ink lettering, giving his name and the dates of his birth and death. Father was only thirty-eight years old when he died.

An elderly Jew suddenly appeared from nowhere, as if he were a mysterious, living resident of the cemetery, and offered to recite the traditional funeral chant for the repose of Father's soul. Mother nodded yes, and the man, in a voice much younger than his appearance, intoned the "Eyl moley ra'khamim sho'kheyn bi'mromim"—God, full of Mercy . . .

After the opening words of the memorial prayer, his voice trailed off into a rapid mumble, and the remaining phrases seemed to rush and tumble against each other in disorderly haste, like frightened children. The man raised his voice again only for the last sentence ". . . and let us say, O'meyn."

Mother gave him a few coins for his services, and he rushed away in search of other mourners.

Presently Mother addressed herself silently to Father. The dead, according to folk beliefs, reside in the true or upper World and thus have direct access to the Supreme and Ultimate Authority.

Mother told my father in plain Yiddish how difficult it was for her, all alone, to eke out even a meager living, and implored him to intercede before the Almighty on her behalf and on behalf of their six children.

"Dovid," mother pleaded with Father, "invoke the All-Merciful that in His wisdom and mercy He gaze upon your young widow, left alone with six small fledgings, and that He grant all of them health and sustenance."

Silent tears closed her appeal. She then motioned to me to say Ka'dish. I swallowed hard. Hoping that Father would be proud of me, I pronounced each word loud and clear: "Yisgadal vyiskadas shmey ra'bo"—Glorified and sanctified be God's great name . . .

It took my childish heart several years until I learned to accept my father's death. And in a kind of wordless prayer, I started to fashion, at the beginning imperceptibly but later more and more distinctly, a sweetly-sad impossible hope that some day another man might take his place.

I thought that Mr. Gurevitch of my Mondays answered my silent hope, and gradually but secretly "adopted" him as my newly-found "father." I also "adopted" in the same way his three daughters as my "sisters," thus recapturing in my imaginative heart the dream that I was again part of a family, even if for only one day in the week . . .