into the edge of the surf. The boy’s face broke into a smile. The man bent and embraced him. I turned my attention back to my castle.
We ate supper that evening on the porch in air so sultry it seemed weighted. During our meal we saw the boy and the man come off the porch of their house and start quickly along the driveway, talking in a language I could not understand.
I asked my mother what the word religious meant.
She said it came from an old word that meant to bind, to tie. “Religious people feel bound to their ideas,” she said.
I asked her what language the man and the boy had been talking.
“Yiddish,” she said, after a moment.
“Is that the language our neighbors use where we moved in Brooklyn?”
“Yes. I spoke it until I came to America. It was the language of my childhood.” “I never heard you speak it.”
“I used to speak it sometimes where I worked. There’s no need for me to speak it at home.”
Later that evening I saw the man and the boy come back up the driveway. The man went into the house through the side door, and the boy climbed up the short flight of wooden stairs to the screened-in porch. The boy stood on the porch, looking thin and pale, and gazed out at the beach and the sky, his nose and mouth pressed against the screen. He raised his arms again in that strange gesture of supplication—lifting them over his head and waving them back and forth. Then he seemed to sense that someone was watching him, and he looked quickly around and saw me. He lowered his arms.
He stared at me a moment, his face pale and without expression. Then he turned and went quickly inside.
That night my mother and I slept outside on blankets on the dunes. There was no breeze and no sound of birds; birds did not fly at night, my mother had once told me. I lay still beneath the stars and listened to the surf. There were many people on the beach that night. I huddled against my mother and imagined I was the ocean. Would the westering women have done that in this heat? Imagined that they were the ocean? I was the waves and the surf, sliding smoothly back and forth, wet and cool, across the moist sand, in and out of the tidal pool where my castle stood. All that hot night I slept with the rhythm of the surf in my ears. Once I thought I heard the sand-muffled beat of horses’ hooves, but I knew that had to be a dream. When I woke it was light and gulls circled overhead, crying into the silent air. The ocean was a vast shimmering sheet of silver, and above it the hazy blue sky was piled high with masses of white luminous clouds. There was a faint humid breeze and the strong scent of brine.
My mother stirred and moved against me. She murmured in her sleep, words I did not understand but that sounded like the Yiddish she said she no longer spoke. She opened her eyes.
“Good morning,” she said. “How hot it is! Did you sleep well? I had a dream about my grandfather. Did I say something before I woke? Look at the sky, Ilana. How beautiful it is!”
We had breakfast on the porch. I helped my mother with the dishes. The cottage felt large and empty without my father and Jakob Daw. They were away at the hunger march. Starving people were marching on the capital city of Pennsylvania. There was no more money to keep them on relief. About sixty thousand families. My mother had explained it to me. It was the end of capitalism, she had said. The end of a cruel and heartless system. Soon we would see the beginning of a new America, a kinder America, an America under the control of its working class, an America that cared for its poor.
I came out on the porch. Behind me the door harp played its soft melody. The sky had turned pale and there were tall white-caps now far out on the water. Heaving waves rolled onto the beach, breaking, churning. I looked over toward my private world of tidal pool and castle. Standing near the castle and peering down at it was the thin pale boy from the house across the driveway. I went
We ate supper that evening on the porch in air so sultry it seemed weighted. During our meal we saw the boy and the man come off the porch of their house and start quickly along the driveway, talking in a language I could not understand.
I asked my mother what the word religious meant.
She said it came from an old word that meant to bind, to tie. “Religious people feel bound to their ideas,” she said.
I asked her what language the man and the boy had been talking.
“Yiddish,” she said, after a moment.
“Is that the language our neighbors use where we moved in Brooklyn?”
“Yes. I spoke it until I came to America. It was the language of my childhood.” “I never heard you speak it.”
“I used to speak it sometimes where I worked. There’s no need for me to speak it at home.”
Later that evening I saw the man and the boy come back up the driveway. The man went into the house through the side door, and the boy climbed up the short flight of wooden stairs to the screened-in porch. The boy stood on the porch, looking thin and pale, and gazed out at the beach and the sky, his nose and mouth pressed against the screen. He raised his arms again in that strange gesture of supplication—lifting them over his head and waving them back and forth. Then he seemed to sense that someone was watching him, and he looked quickly around and saw me. He lowered his arms.
He stared at me a moment, his face pale and without expression. Then he turned and went quickly inside.
That night my mother and I slept outside on blankets on the dunes. There was no breeze and no sound of birds; birds did not fly at night, my mother had once told me. I lay still beneath the stars and listened to the surf. There were many people on the beach that night. I huddled against my mother and imagined I was the ocean. Would the westering women have done that in this heat? Imagined that they were the ocean? I was the waves and the surf, sliding smoothly back and forth, wet and cool, across the moist sand, in and out of the tidal pool where my castle stood. All that hot night I slept with the rhythm of the surf in my ears. Once I thought I heard the sand-muffled beat of horses’ hooves, but I knew that had to be a dream. When I woke it was light and gulls circled overhead, crying into the silent air. The ocean was a vast shimmering sheet of silver, and above it the hazy blue sky was piled high with masses of white luminous clouds. There was a faint humid breeze and the strong scent of brine.
My mother stirred and moved against me. She murmured in her sleep, words I did not understand but that sounded like the Yiddish she said she no longer spoke. She opened her eyes.
“Good morning,” she said. “How hot it is! Did you sleep well? I had a dream about my grandfather. Did I say something before I woke? Look at the sky, Ilana. How beautiful it is!”
We had breakfast on the porch. I helped my mother with the dishes. The cottage felt large and empty without my father and Jakob Daw. They were away at the hunger march. Starving people were marching on the capital city of Pennsylvania. There was no more money to keep them on relief. About sixty thousand families. My mother had explained it to me. It was the end of capitalism, she had said. The end of a cruel and heartless system. Soon we would see the beginning of a new America, a kinder America, an America under the control of its working class, an America that cared for its poor.
I came out on the porch. Behind me the door harp played its soft melody. The sky had turned pale and there were tall white-caps now far out on the water. Heaving waves rolled onto the beach, breaking, churning. I looked over toward my private world of tidal pool and castle. Standing near the castle and peering down at it was the thin pale boy from the house across the driveway. I went
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