Read Online The Mystics of Mile End by Sigal Samuel - Free Book Online Page B

pomegranate, everyone knows the Land of Israel was overflowing with pomegranate trees at that time!”
    When I heard that, I was really disappointed, because I knew I had failed Mr. Katz. If the rabbis didn’t even know what fruit was on the Tree, how was I supposed to figure it out? And how was Mr. Katz ever supposed to get Knowledge?
    I looked down at the Genesis text, feeling sad and frustrated. “None of this Adam and Eve story even makes any sense,” I said. “Like this, here: And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden. How can you hear a voice walking?”
    Mr. Glassman’s clear gray eyes got very serious. “Do you really want to know, Lev?”
    â€œSure I do.”
    â€œIt will take me some time to explain.”
    â€œI’ve got time.”
    â€œI will have to tell you a story.”
    â€œI like stories.”
    He paused. “The answer to your question lies in the story of my wife’s brother.”
    Out of the corners of my eyes, I saw Mrs. Glassman’s hands losecontrol over a soapy bowl. It slipped out of her fingers and clattered into the sink. She snatched it up again and kept on rinsing. But she didn’t take up her mumbling proof again.
    Mr. Glassman glanced at her back and then started to talk in a quiet singsong voice. “Once upon a time, you see, my Chayaleh had a brother. A big, beautiful brother with big, beautiful eyes. Yankel, his name was, but she called him Yankeleh. He was everything to her then, sun and moon and stars. But he was a strange boy. When he was young, he didn’t laugh. He was . . . grave. A very grave and silent little person.”
    Mr. Glassman was rocking back and forth as he talked. “At first, they thought maybe he was a simple soul—sometimes the Kadosh Baruch Hu makes them like that—but no, no. After a few years her parents realized what he really was: deaf. And he had never learned to speak.
    â€œThirteen years old, he was, when they moved to the village, and still he had not spoken one word all his life. But Chayaleh, she didn’t care, little things like that did not matter to her, she loved him. His big, dark eyes and long, dark lashes. Like a prince, he was. And a writer—Kadosh Baruch Hu, save us from writers! A writer of strange stories that he would scribble by the river, birds singing in the sky, sunlight in the trees . . . this was before all the tzures started.
    â€œShe followed him there once. She was ten years old. A little nudnik, she was. Couldn’t leave him alone even for two seconds. She found him standing in the water, his feet bare, his ankles blue with cold. And a smile on his face—ah, what a smile! But what did it mean? What did it mean, she asked herself, dancing from foot to foot, hidden behind the trees.
    â€œFirst he was still. Then his lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. Then he was still. He was listening, she thought, only he could not be listening because he could not hear. And then hislips were moving again, smiling almost, inviting almost, and then! Then, all of a sudden, a fish was leaping out of the water! She saw it, the flash of color against his ankle, big and bright and blue before it disappeared. He had called out “Hello!” into the river and the fish had answered, the fish had kissed his ankle, the fish was saying, “Hello! I heard you.” Her brother, he was talking to the fish. He was talking to them and listening to them and she could see this, with her ten-year-old mind, already she understood this. And it stole her heart.
    â€œShe ran out of her hiding place, splashed into the water, bent down in the river. And what did she do? She grabbed his ankle—and kissed it! And then got very shy. Shy and scared, too scared to look up. What if he was angry? What if he hated her for spying? She closed her eyes and waited for judgment to fall. But, what? Did he punish her? Did he hit her? No. He bent down