My mother must have told my father, for he gave me the gentlest of looks at the start of supper that evening and kissed my cheek. “My family is growing up,” he murmured.
David seemed to notice nothing. He was in an arduous self-imposed regimen of study. I had the impression sometimes that he was trying hard to stifle the demons within him. He had yet to talk to me again as he had the night we were alone months ago in my room.
I came over to Reuven Maker one cold morning in March during recess and said, “Can I talk to you?”
He was standing in a circle of his friends. He looked a little surprised.
“Sure,” he said.
We walked a few steps away from his friends. I could feel them all staring at us.
“I’m having trouble with that problem we had today in algebra. No one else seems to understand it. Can you explain it to me?”
He was the best mathematics student in the class. “Sure,” he said, and explained it quickly and clearly. “I get it now,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Okay,” he said. “Sure. Listen. I liked your essay about Rabbi Akiva and his last thoughts before he died. Where did you get the idea for that?”
Mr. Helfman had asked me to read the essay aloud to the class. “From my imagination.”
“Really? That’s pretty good. I wish I could write like you do.” “I wish I could do math like you do.”
He smiled, looking a little shy and embarrassed. “Well, anytime you need help with algebra, let me know, Ilana.” “Thanks.”
He went back to his friends.
My English teacher said to me later that day, “I’m afraid I didn’t understand much of what you wrote in your essay, Ilana. Was Rabbi Akiva really a mystic?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what a mystic is.”
We talked about that for a while.
“But what does the word mean, Ilana? What does mystic mean?”
I had meant to look it up and put it into the essay. It had been so late. I had forgotten. I didn’t—
“You shouldn’t write on something you know nothing about, Ilana.”
“I thought it was like the stories of Jakob Daw. That’s why I made the connection. I thought—”
“It’s not at all clear to me what the connection is. How do you know about the stories of Jakob Daw?”
“He lived with us once for a while.”
“Jakob Daw?” She looked astonished.
“He was a good friend of my mother’s. They went to school together in Vienna. He was together with my father in Spain—my real father, I mean, who was killed in Guernica.”
She was having some difficulty taking all this in. She regarded me for a while in silence. Then she said, “This isn’t another of your flights of the imagination, Ilana.”
“No, ma’am.”
“All right. In any event, have a look at my comments. And pay more attention to your spelling. Especially words like weird and eternal and journey. And it isn’t necessary for you to be quite so—urn—explicit in some of your descriptions, Ilana.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I walked home alone in a cold winter wind.
The winter was coming to an end. Purim arrived, the holiday that celebrates the deliverance of the ancient Jewish community of Persia from the hands of Haman. There was a carnival in our school and we all came in costume. I came as Queen Esther, Ruthie came as Vashti, wife of King Achashverosh of Persia, and Reuven Maker came as Mordechai. All the classes assembled in the large hall that was the synagogue during Shabbos and holidays. It was a happy and rowdy time.
Reuven Maker came over to me. “You look nice,” he said.
“So do you,” I said.
“Should we wish each other good luck?”
“About what?”
“About the Akiva Award.”
“I guess so.”
“Good luck,” he said.
“Good luck.”
He walked away, looking very handsome in his turban and flowing robe.
Then the final weeks of winter and the early weeks of spring went by and suddenly it was Passover.
We had the first Seder at the Helfmans’. For the second Seder the Helfmans came up to us. We chanted the Passover story, the account of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. We talked and sang and ate and sang some more. David drank a bit too much wine the second night and fell asleep at the table after the meal. Ruthie and I giggled as we listened to his soft snoring. He looked so gaunt and was slightly flushed from all the food and wine he had taken in.
I noticed during both Sedorim that Mr. Helfman kept giving me piercing glances from time to time as if he were studying me. It made me a little uncomfortable.
My mother sat queenlike in her chair, large with the child she carried, calm, radiant, at peace with herself. My father and Mr. Helfman talked a little about the war in Europe. Mostly they traded insights into the text of the Haggadah, the story of Passover.
That was a lovely time, a dream time, those days and nights of Passover with my family. It continued on after the holiday as the days lengthened and grew warm and flowering trees came to life and the hyacinths and crocuses and daffodils gleamed in the sunlight in the backyard and tiny leaves appeared on the sycamore and in the tree outside my window.
One afternoon in the middle of May, Mr. Helfman sent a note to my English teacher, asking her to inform me that he wanted to see me in his office the following day about twenty minutes before the start of school. I noticed that she did not have any message for Reuven Maker.
At eight o’clock the following morning I stood in front of the door to Mr. Helfman’s office at the end of the corridor on the third floor. On the frosted glass rectangle that was the upper half of the door were the letters M. HELFMAN, HEBREW DEPARTMENT.
I knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
I waited a moment, then knocked again, a little louder, and heard Mr. Helfman’s voice. “Come in.”
I opened the door and stepped inside. Behind me the door closed with a soft click. I waited near the door.
Mr. Helfman sat in a low-backed swivel chair behind a small desk piled high with papers and file folders. Behind him a window looked out onto the trees and traffic of Eastern Parkway. There were books and papers on the two chairs near the desk. The office was small. Two glass-enclosed bookcases stood against a pale green wall. Paint was peeling from the ceiling. Near the door stood a table heaped with papers, textbooks, and examination booklets. The air was musty with the odor of yellowing volumes and old linoleum.
I stood in front of the door and waited.
Mr. Helfman motioned to me.
“Come here, Ilana. Come. Sit down. Move the books and papers to the other chair. Yes.”
I sat down in one of the chairs, arranged my dress over my knees, and put my hands in my lap. My heart beat dully, loudly, the sound like the rush of ocean water in my ears.
Mr. Helfman, short and round and clad in a dark suit and a black skullcap, sat in the chair behind the desk and gazed at me. Behind him the early morning sunlight lay soft and golden on the parkway. Soon we would be back at the beach. Soon. After graduation and the birth of the baby. Soon. Please please oh please.
“Ilana, I have nice news for you,” Mr. Helfman said. “News you will be happy to hear.”
I sat in the chair and waited.
He smiled, enjoying the moment.
“The faculty has decided to award you the English prize and the Bible prize,” he said.
I looked at him, my heart thudding. “Thank you,” I said.
“We are very proud of you,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said again.
“This is the first time in the history of the school that these prizes are being given to the same student,” he said. I did not know what to say to that and remained quiet.
“You are one of the best students we have ever had, in spite of your—how shall I put it?—unusual background. Two prizes. That’s an
accomplishment!”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You are very welcome, indeed,” Mr. Helfman said.
He sat behind his desk, smiling at me.
A moment passed.
“How is your mother?” he asked.
“Fine, thank you.”
“Soon you will have, with God’s help, another brother. Or a sister.”
I nodded and said nothing. Morning traffic moved back and forth in the sunlight on the parkway. The branches of the trees were stirred by a warm wind.
Another moment passed.
Mr. Helfman leaned forward, his round belly touching the edge of the desk.
“You can go to class now, Ilana,” he said.
I stared at him. A chasm of sadness opened up within me. I had lost. No Akiva Award for Ilana Davita Dinn. Well, maybe it had been crazy to think I could have won. I had come late into the school. How could I have won over someone like Reuven Maker, who had been in it since first grade and whose father was a teacher of Talmud? I had tried. I had really tried. That was some consolation. Still it would have been nice to have won that award and to have been able to hang it on the wall of my room and have it there together with the picture of the horses on the beach and the door harp. And to have been able to say good-bye to my father and to Jakob Daw in front of all of those people, the people in the community that was my new home. How sweet and nice that would have been! The door harp from my father’s brother, the picture from my father’s and my aunt’s grandfather—the old past of my family, the past of the Chandals; and the Akiva Award from the new past into which I had thrust myself, the past of the Dinns. Yes, that would have been nice. Well, I had really tried.
I got to my feet and started toward the door.
From behind the desk Mr. Helfman softly called my name. I turned.
“Sit down, Ilana. I want to tell you something.”
There was a sudden sad quality to his voice, a strange heaviness.
I sat down again in the chair.
“You will find this out anyway,” he said, staring past my head at some point on the wall behind me. “I know how you all go about comparing your grades. Besides, Ruthie will no doubt overhear me saying it one day to Mrs. Helfman. She has very big ears, my Ruthie. So I will tell it to you now.”
I did not understand what he was saying.
“Actually,” he said, still not looking at me directly, “actually you have the highest average in the class. Yes. That’s true. The highest average.”
I sat very still in the chair, my heart pounding.
“Most of the time—not always, you understand—most of the time the Akiva Award is given to the student with the highest average.” He shifted slightly in the chair. “Well, no, that isn’t quite correct. Actually, to be entirely honest with you, Ilana, it has really been given until now to the best student. You earned it and you deserve it. But the Hebrew faculty felt you should not get it because it would look bad for the school if we announced to the world that a—how shall I put this without hurting your feelings?—that a girl is the best student in our graduating class. It would not be good for the name of the school, for its reputation. What would all the other yeshivas think of us?”
I sat there staring at him and did not understand what he was saying.
He let his eyes move across my face, then looked away. “The faculty was sure you would understand. We will give the Akiva Award to a boy, and you will have your two prizes. That is what was decided.”
There was another long silence. I felt myself beginning to sweat. I kept my knees tightly together. He looked at me.
“llana?”
“Yes.”
“Is the prize worth a fuss? It’s after all only a prize, and you don’t study for the sake of a prize, do you?” I was quiet.
“We would be the only yeshiva with a girl as head of the graduating class. Your name and picture would be in the newspapers. What would the world think about our boys? It would not be nice.”
I said nothing. Sweat trickled down my back and sides. I could not believe what I was hearing. There was a long silence.
Mr. Helfman sat back in his chair and looked at me. “You may go to class now, Ilana,” he said from behind his desk.
I slid off the chair and went to the door. I felt his eyes on my back. The door closed behind me with a soft click.
I stood in the corridor. It was noisy and crowded with students. I found I was trembling. I went to the bathroom and sat on a toilet. I felt vaguely nauseated and stood with my head against the cool tile wall. I closed my eyes and felt the floor slowly move beneath my feet. I opened my eyes and washed my face and went to class.
Mr. Helfman stood behind his desk. I slid into my seat. He gave me a brief glance. We were studying Deuteronomy, chapter 16, and were about to begin verse 18. He called on Reuven Maker to read. I sat with my eyes on the text, listening to the words. “You shall appoint judges and officers for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice.” Reuven Maker read the Hebrew text and translated the words flawlessly into modern spoken Hebrew. “You shall not judge unfairly; you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Justice, justice shall you pursue….”
I closed my Bible and rose from my desk and started slowly toward the door, “Ilana!” Mr. Helfman called.
I did not turn. It was like rising and stepping slowly out of the boat into the lake. Slowly and deliberately and who cares what they think or say. I could feel them all looking at me as I opened the door and went out of the room and closed the door behind me.
I walked quickly home in the sunlight and golden air of that warm spring morning.
My mother was in the kitchen. She was astonished to see me home so early. I told her about the meeting with Mr. Helfman.
She stared at me. “You must have misunderstood what Mr. Helfman said, Ilana. I want you to go back to school.”
I went into my room and lay on my bed.
Soon after my father came home that day he knocked on the door of my room. He stood in the doorway, frowning, and said, “Tell me exactly what happened, Ilana. Word for word, if you can remember. Everything.”
When I was done he stood in the doorway looking at me for a long moment. Then he turned and went from the room.
David came home and passed by my door and said hello. He poked his head inside. “What’s the matter?”
I told him.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, and went up the hallway to the kitchen.
I lay on my bed and heard the three of them in the kitchen, talking.
After supper my father went downstairs to talk to Mr. Helfman. I was in my room when he returned. I heard him in the kitchen with my mother. The two of them came into my room.
I lay on my bed and looked at them standing near the door.
“What did Mr. Helfman tell you?” I asked.
“Exactly what you said,” my father told me.
“I’m furious about this,” my mother said. “They are not going to get away with it. It’s absurd and petty and stupid!”
“I intend to look into it, Ilana,” my father said. “No one is going to do this to my family, I don’t care who he is.”
They went from my room. The harp sang sweetly from the door.
My father brought a chair over to the phone in the hallway and sat there, making calls. When I fell asleep that night, he was still on the phone.
He told us over breakfast the next morning, “There’s someone on the board of directors who’s responsible. I don’t know who it is, but I’m going to find out.”
“Can one member of the board do this?” David asked.
“It depends upon who it is. And how much he gives the school.”
“You mean money?” David asked.
“Yes,” my father said.
I sat there looking down at the table and sai
d nothing.
By the end of the day my entire class knew: Reuven Maker would receive the Akiva Award. Only Ruthie knew what had happened between her father and me.
“I’m going to tell him,” she said to me during the afternoon recess in the front yard.
“Who?” I said.
“Reuven.”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t take it now even if they changed their minds.”
She stared at me.
“It’s not worth anything anymore, Ruthie. It’s—it’s shit.” She gasped. Her mouth fell open. I left her standing there and walked away.
Mr. Helfman said to me a few days later, “You didn’t hand in your weekly essay, Ilana.” I said nothing.
He said to me from his perch behind the desk, “I want you to bring it in tomorrow.”
We were alone in the classroom. I stood in front of the desk, looking at him and saying nothing.
“Ilana, are you listening to—”
Someone knocked on the door. Mr. Helfman turned. The door opened. A man stepped quietly into the room and closed the door behind him.
Mr. Helfman took in a deep breath and rose quickly to his feet and stood staring at the man near the door.
He was a small, thin-shouldered man in his early or middle fifties, with pale gaunt features and dark eyes. He wore a dark gray striped suit and a gray felt hat. He looked tired and his eyes seemed red and weary behind his silver-rimmed spectacles, as if he had not slept in a long time. He coughed lightly and held his hand to his lips.
“Did I come at a bad time?” he asked quietly.
“No, no,” Mr. Helfman said in a deferential tone I had never heard from him before.
“You were not in your office, and I thought—”
“It’s all right, it’s fine,” Mr. Helfman said. He turned to me. “You can go now, Ilana.”