Read Online This Is Not a Love Story: A Memoir by Judy Brown - Free Book Online Page A

Heaven, at times, there can be a stiah, an obstruction, a spirit blocking the heartfelt prayer. Sometimes it is a sin from the past, long forgotten; sometimes it’s a soul with a grudge from the days he was on earth that can keep a plea from reaching its destination. And God is deaf to such prayers. To have a stiah is to be cursed.
     

Eleven
    In the city of Jerusalem, there were two sides: the one where the rich lived, and the one filled with the poor. My father lived on the poor side. He lived there with his four siblings, the alley cats, and a father who was crippled in both body and head.
    That’s why there were no pictures of my father when he was a little boy, said my mother. That’s why there were no pictures of his sisters in elegant, frilly clothes. Because my father grew up in a one-bedroom apartment by the border, where only the poorest lived, right near where the Jordanian soldiers guarded their side of Jerusalem.
    Things hadn’t always been that way. Once, my father’s father, Sabah Mechel, had been a healthy man. Once, my grandmother Savtah Liba had been happy. Perhaps they were poor, with five children in a tiny home, but no one was ever hungry. There were chicken legs for soup, warm socks from the shuk for the feet, and Aunt Dina, Sabah Mechel’s sister, from around the corner, who sent cakes and little snacks.
    My grandmother Savtah Liba had suffered endlessly in her life. She had survived Auschwitz, watching her entire family turned to ash. Then, in the refugee camp, only one year after the war, she lost her new husband. When she arrived in Israel in 1947, she was alone, with a toddler by her side and a newborn in her arms.
    Two years later, Savtah Liba married my grandfather Sabah Mechel, a milkman. They were poor, even very poor, for how much did a milkman earn? But my grandmother was happier than she had ever been because Sabah Mechel was a kind and generous soul who treated his wife like a queen.
    Sabah Mechel polished my grandmother’s shoes every Friday until they shone like new, in honor of the holy Shabbos. Sabah Mechel bought my Savtah Liba pretty trinkets, a brooch for her dress, a shawl for the cold, a hat that matched her eyes. Sabah Mechel helped keep the house clean—not an easy job, what with the mopping, and the laundry, and the heavy metal pots. And one day, he came home with an expensive new vegetable peeler, made in the faraway land of America.
    On Friday nights, in the synagogue, Sabah Mechel gave candies to children who prayed with fervor, and sometimes, at the Shabbos meal, he’d give the food off his own dinner plate to beggars passing by, because they were still poorer than him.
    Sabah Mechel worked hard to earn a living, rising each morning before the sun. He’d wheel the milk wagon to the corner of the main street, unload a large metal canister from the dairy truck, a thirty-pound barrel filled with milk from the kibbutz farms. Sabah Mechel would hoist the canister onto the wagon, which he pushed through crisscrossing lanes, over cobblestones and dirt streets. He would hum a
nigun
to himself as he filled the glass bottles that stood patiently beside closed doors with fresh, white milk. At eight, when the sun shone bright in the sky, he parked his milk wagon and went off to morning prayers.
    Down the main hallway from where my father’s family lived was the bathroom they shared with the Rosens. Also with the Yuds, the Klaynmans, and the Itamars. Mostly, the families got along and there was peace and harmony. Here and there, a problem arose, like when the Klaynmans got diarrhea, all eight of them at once, or when Little Mendel stuffed his socks down the toilet, blocking the drain completely.
    Mendel was my father’s youngest brother, and he had never meant to block the drain completely. In fact, as soon as the socks disappeared into the darkness of the bowl, Mendel changed his mind. He wanted his socks back, to pull up over his cold feet, but it was too late. They were