Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories. Blume Lempel

      “She acted like a mother.”

      “We are all mothers.”

      “Who can judge a mother’s heart when her only son is being led to the sacrificial altar?”

      “My twin sons were not bound for the altar, but I followed the dictates of my heart, not my mind.”

      “I bore ten sons and abandoned them all to their own fate.”

      Only the fourth one, the youngest, said nothing. She allowed her attendants to smooth out the folds of her white dress. Her head was bent low, and from the trembling of her shoulders it was clear that she was weeping.

      To Pachysandra it seemed as if the hot tears of that veiled figure were running down her own face. She forced her eyes open, wanting to hold onto the dream, to run after the esteemed guests and offer them refreshment, perhaps something cold to drink and an ear of roasted corn. She longed to sit at their feet and listen to them argue. She would accept their judgment, whether good or bad. Around her the night was still and empty. She bent down and kissed the steps where the honored visitors had sat.

      It was just a dream! a voice whispered, but Pachysandra did not want to hear. Instead, she listened to the rustle that their fine garments left behind in the air, and to the lament of the youngest and most beautiful of them all.

      Pachysandra rose as if in a trance and saw that the heavens were parting. She was not surprised. Deep in her soul she knew that this was how it was meant to be. She made no attempt to understand the miracle. From the open heavens, a fiery arm reached out, sowing the vast field of the night sky with stars.

      That night, at that moment, a spring burst open and holy words began to gush forth. Entire chapters of the Bible flooded over her. Her lips began to move. Words poured out as if from an overflowing jug. A choir of angels sang along with her.

      All night, Pachysandra stood under the open skies. She didn’t see a rainbow, but in the very core of her being she knew that that night she had signed a covenant with the Almighty. She would repeat the words of the Bible all the days of her life. The Bible would be the very essence of her life. Whenever the words welled up, God would protect her, both her and her son Tom.

       THE DEATH OF MY AUNT

      In the early hours after midnight, the telephone sounds altogether different — or so it seemed to me when the metallic jangle pounced like a thief that night, putting a swift end to my dreams and driving me out of bed. I ran down the long, dark corridor to the dining room and reached for the receiver.

      “Yes?” I croaked, half asleep.

      I couldn’t catch who was on the line. “Who did you say is speaking?”

      “The old age home on Howard Avenue,” the voice said.

      I felt for a chair and sat down. The spiders that nest in hidden places had come out into the open, tightening the loose strands of their webs with their thin, hairy legs. I clutched the receiver with both hands.

      “Are you all right, Mrs. Lempel?” The feigned politeness was infuriating. I was tempted to ask whether he’d called at two o’clock in the morning just to find out how I was. But my throat closed up.

      The voice on the other side of the night spoke again. “I’m sorry to say we have some sad news for you. Your aunt — your aunt, Rokhl Halperin, is no longer among the living.”

      The flush that had broken out all over my body turned to a chill, and then I was hot again. With the receiver still at my ear, I opened the window. A cold gust of wind swept over me. A car sped by. In the glow of the headlights I could see it was snowing. The grass around the house was already white.

      “Mrs. Lempel?”

      “Yes?”

      “We’ll be arranging for the funeral first thing in the morning. We’d like you to be here then.”

      I waited a moment. “When did it happen?”

      “Saturday at five in the afternoon.”

      His cool demeanor made me want to scream, curse, draw blood. Why, why had they waited until two o’clock in the morning to call me? Why had they allowed her to die all alone?

      “Mrs. Lempel, I can tell you’re upset. I understand your position and I don’t want to argue with you. But you must understand —”

      I closed the window and tried to understand. Why was he calling on Sunday, when she’d suffered the first heart attack Thursday? From what he said, on Friday she’d improved a bit; then Saturday morning she’d had the second attack. She’d wrestled with the Angel of Death, kept up the fight till evening. . . .

      I couldn’t listen any longer. I hung up the phone and went back to bed.

      My husband and children had slept through it all. Why should I wake them now?

      She’d waited for me, hoping I would come. Why on earth hadn’t they called? Why had they done this to her, to me? Abruptly I sat up in bed. I wanted to call the home and scream: Murderers! Robbers! To save the cost of a lousy phone call you shatter the lifelong dream of a poor old woman?

      But instead of going to the telephone, I went to the window and parted the curtains. I looked out at the tree swaying in the wind. The snow had turned into a heavy rain. I saw that the bare branches of my tree were filled with keening women wrapped in black shawls. They had settled on the bushes and on the barbed wire fence, and in my aunt’s voice they were speaking to me: “Remember, be sure to do what I deserve, as I asked you to. . . . Do not disgrace my dead body. . . . No lipstick, no powder. . . . Examine my shroud, make sure it’s not full of mites, God forbid. . . . Do not forget the Willett Street rabbis. I’ve made my donations so they will say Kaddish and study Mishnah in my name. Remember! Remember!”

      “I remember,” I answered into the pillow.

      I pulled the covers over my head, but the wailing women in the March wind kept up their lament. They commanded me to read and understand the wind-blown pages of my aunt’s life. Eyes shut, I gazed upon the narrow lane where she was born and grew up. Here she is as a little girl, playing with the boys who study at her father’s school. And now she’s a grown woman, sitting at the machine, sewing bridal garments for other women’s weddings. She sews and sews, until white begins to show in her jet-black braids. Then she bows to her father’s wishes and marries a widower with grown children. When her father dies, her husband takes over the school and his children leave for America. My aunt’s mother moves in with her older daughter, my own mother. Just before the Second World War, my aunt and her husband arrive in New York.

      Her husband didn’t last long. The strange new country sapped his will to live, and he fell ill and soon died. After his death, his children washed their hands of her. Alone in a strange world, without a relative or a protector, her old home in ruins, my aunt drifted from place to place, hungry, not knowing where to turn, until someone suggested she clean houses for a living.

      To ward off the humiliations of the outside world, my aunt took refuge in the secret passages of her own being. There she found a strength that guided her and motivated her to go on with her life. With every punishment in this world of lies and falsehoods, she attained a higher moral standing in the world of truth beyond the grave. She looked forward to the just and agreeable world to come, knowing that there she would be rewarded. Every moment of every day, every day of the year, she prepared herself for the journey to the other world. Mondays and Thursdays, in accordance with the old custom, she fasted half the day.

      When we arrived in America, we tracked down my aunt on Powell Street in Brownsville. She was living in a dark cubicle; the landlady kept the toilet locked. That very day, we moved her in with us on Ocean Avenue. We gave her a room with a window overlooking Prospect Park. My aunt, who was barely sixty years old, was already well along on the road to the other world. She didn’t