Princess of Passyunk Read online

  “I suppose that would depend on why one wanted the thing to happen, and what would be the consequences of it happening.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be bad magic, Father,” Ganady rushed to assure him. “It’d be good magic.”

  “Rabbi,” said Rabbi Andrukh, and Ganady blushed violently.

  “I’m sorry. I was just talking to Father Z—I mean, Father Zembruski.”

  “I see. And did you ask him about miracles, too?”

  Ganny nodded.

  “I see. And what did he tell you?”

  “That God sort of does miracles as they’re needed. Whatever fits, I guess.”

  “And did he believe that God still does miracles?”

  “Oh, sure. But he’s never seen one in South Philly. Do you believe in miracles, Rabbi Andrukh?”

  “Yes, Ganny. I do.”

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “I...” Rabbi Andrukh fell silent for a moment, going inside himself.

  Ganady clutched the box of tapers and waited.

  “I’ve not seen a burning bush,” said the Rabbi carefully. “And I can’t even imagine what manna from heaven must have tasted like, but I do believe that for many of the people in this synagogue, just being here and alive is a miracle.”

  “You mean the war, huh?”

  “Yes. And the concentration camps and the pogroms.”

  “Father Zembruski told me about how one of our teachers at Saint Casimir nearly died of scarlet fever, but was saved by hot and cold water and prayers. He said he thought that was a miracle. But it happened in Poland. All the things Baba’s told me, too, they all happened somewhere else. Do you think miracles can happen here? Baba says there used to be magic in the world, maybe there still is in the old country, but where’s the magic here?”

  “Well, now, Ganady, I’m not at all sure that miracles and magic are the same thing. I think perhaps miracles come from God and magic comes from somewhere else.”

  Ganady was afraid to hear where that might be. “From the Devil?”

  Rabbi smiled. “No, not the Devil, but perhaps it comes from ourselves.”

  Ganady felt a tingle of relief. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “It certainly could be, but not necessarily.”

  “Rabbi, you know Mr. Ouspensky.”

  “Of course, I know him. He sits third row center every sabes and has done so since I first came to this synagogue.”

  “You know how he sometimes talks about time-eddies? You know, windows in time you can see through?”

  Rabbi Andrukh looked aside and nodded, lips pursed. Ganady thought he was hiding a smile. “I’ve heard people...discussing his...ideas. He’s never mentioned them to me.”

  Ganady hadn’t imagined he would. “Well, would that be magic or a miracle? And if it’s magic, how would the magic get into a person?”

  Now, Rabbi Andrukh laughed. “Ganady! Such questions! What makes you ask such things?”

  “Well, Mr. Ouspensky, for one thing. And Baba, I guess. They both believe in magic. And, well, the opshprekher.”

  “The opshprekher,” repeated Rabbi and the smile went out of his eyes.

  Ganady nodded and prayed he wasn’t transgressing some spiritual code of secrecy. “Every year we go there and Baba has the opshprekher bless the family and exorcise us.”

  “Exorcise you of what?”

  Ganady felt as if his ears had lit up. He mumbled: “She wants us to be Jewish again. “

  “Ah. I see. And you’re wondering if the opshprekher has the power to make you Jewish.”

  “Does he, do you think?”

  “No, I don’t think, Ganady. The opshprekher is something from our fearful past. He is what I would call an anachronism. Something not of this time.”

  Ganady was surprised at his own disappointment. “But if the opshprekher doesn’t have any magic, then who does?”

  Rabbi put a hand on his shoulder. “Ganny, I didn’t say there wasn’t any magic or miracle left in the world. I think only that the opshprekher doesn’t have it. I’d sooner believe that Mr. Ouspensky has magic, Ganny, than that the opshprekher has it. I’d sooner believe that you had it.”

  The thought sobered Ganady to silence. He asked no more about magic of Rabbi Andrukh, but only finished helping him with the candles.

  Before he left he had but one more question: “About the opshprekher...Baba won’t be in trouble...?”

  Rabbi smiled. “And who would she be in trouble with?”

  “With you...or with God?” He rolled his eyes upward.

  “Well, most certainly she is not in trouble with me, and as to God, if she’s in trouble with Him, He’ll let her know.”

  Ganady thanked the Rabbi for his help and wandered off again. He found himself wishing there were a mass tonight or even a minyan for prayer, for he was hungry for the flicker of candlelight and the fragrance of incense and the soft music of prayers. But there was no mass, so he decided he must settle for bit of corned beef.

  His errant feet carried him to the zibete and thence to Izzy’s, where he hoped to find Mr. Ouspensky. He was disappointed in that, but he had a few coins in his pocket beneath The Baseball and those few coins were pronounced by Izzy to be the exact cost of a corned beef sandwich.

  Ganady folded his lanky frame onto a stool at the counter, munched corned beef and pondered questions and answers. He didn’t think he was any more introspective than usual, but before he had quite half-eaten the sandwich, Izzy was standing across the counter from him, arms folded over his narrow chest, eyes chipping at him like steel-gray chisels.

  “And what is the matter with Ganady, that he has eyes only for that pickle, there?” He aimed his chin at Ganady’s plate.

  Ganady looked up into Izzy’s face and swallowed a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Mr. Davidov,” he said, “do you believe in magic?”

  Five: Moonlight On Waves

  One week in late April, Izzy’s brother visited from Baltimore. His brother was not only Orthodox, but observant. Izzy’s diner, therefore, was not open any sabes during the visitation.

  Baba Irina held court on the front stoop of the Puzdrovsky brownstone one nearly balmy sabes-eve while the merrily mournful keen of klezmer music floated down from an upstairs window. Her two boychiklech sat one to each side, one daydreaming, the other awaiting the opening of the Book of Baba.

  Nick was at a dance at the Youth Center and Ganady could not help but reflect that he would not be dancing to such music as radiated from the Puzdrovsky turntable. There was a time when Nikolai Puzdrovsky had been a member of their after-service society and had even tapped his toes to the likes of Moishe Oysher and Naftule Brandwein. But were he here now, Ganady knew, there would be much eye-rolling. This was no longer Nick’s idea of music, and he sometimes teased Ganady unmercifully about his own attempt to master the clarinet.

  There were crickets somewhere unseen, keeping time to the merry chatter of fiddle and accordion. There were people on the street, strolling and remarking on the mild weather. They were families with children; they were couples holding hands.

  The elder Puzdrovskys were out there, too, somewhere, strolling. One night long ago, they had walked over rolling water, hand in hand. He wondered what kind of music they had heard seeping from the ship’s grand salon.

  “Baba,” he said, “didn’t Mama and Da meet at a ball on the ship coming over?”

  “So to speak. There were no balls and such in third class, you know. They met as they were trying to sneak into a dance in second class. It was a lark and they got caught before they even set one foot on the dance floor. Their clothes, you understand... They were escorted back to their place.”

  “But Mama said they danced to a special song.”

  “Sheyn vi di Levune—Beautiful as the Moon.” Mama’s voice came up to them from the sidewalk. She stood arm in arm with Da in the lamplight.

  It seemed to Ganady that her face glowed softly with its own light and that it was every bit as beauti
ful as the titular moon. His father’s eyes, on her face, seemed to say the same.

  “There was a man on the foredeck playing his accordion. Vitaly asked “ —here, she looked up at him — “and he played for us so we could dance there under all the stars.”

  Da smiled.

  Baba, looking at them standing there, said,”How well I remember my Ravke, how she came to me saying ‘Oh, Mama! It was so romantic! The moon, the waves, the music!’”

  Now Da laughed, while Mama trilled like a young girl.

  “I’ll put on the kettle. There are cookies,” she said, and hurried up the stairs.

  Da followed her, still smiling.

  “That girl,” said Baba. “Such a head for dreams. And you are just like her, Ganny.”

  Ganady sat up sharply. He didn’t recall his grandmother ever having made that observation before.

  “When I was a girl in Poland,” Baba continued. “It was not like this. We did not go to dances and take moonlight strolls. Your grandfather and I met at shul. We went to the same Talmud Torah and smiled at each other in the halls and in the streets. When he offered for me, our families were pleased to allow us to marry.”

  Ganady wondered how pleased she had been. The question came from his lips before he realized he had asked it. “Did you want to marry Papa? Or was it just your family?”

  “Such a question!” she said, then fell silent.

  When Ganady thought she would not answer the question at all, she said, “Your grandfather was a very handsome young man and he was from a fine family—the son of a judge. He was also a good man, kind and happy. I liked him very well.”

  “But...what if you hadn’t liked him?” asked Ganady, to whom the concept of arranged marriage was entirely alien.

  Baba sat up a little straighter and tugged at her shawl. “There is such a thing as honor, Ganady. If Yisrul Kutshinski had been a bad man, my father would never have accepted his offer. But he was a good man, as I said, and his offer of marriage was made in good faith. And that is the spirit in which I accepted it.”

  She paused, and above them, a clarinet wailed.

  Ganady wondered how he might change the subject.

  Yevgeny, who had sat silently till now, was not to allow it. “Is that how everybody got engaged?”

  “Not at all. Often the families would choose their children’s mates and arrange the marriages. This is a very ancient custom, you know.”

  Ganady was confused. “But wasn’t your marriage to Papa arranged?”

  Baba seemed almost insulted at the notion. “Why should you say that? My family didn’t choose Yisrul, Ganady. He chose me, and my family and I accepted the choice. Does this seem strange to you? Why? There are stranger ways to choose a mate.” She smiled the smile that preceded a story.

  Yevgeny, galvanized at the merest hint of a tale, asked, “Like what?”

  Baba settled back against the stoop into her storytelling posture.

  “Well, there was once a king of Poland, in the Golden Age of the Jagiellos, many, many centuries ago, who had three sons: three princes. My great-great-great-great-grandfather was archivist to this king—or so my mother told me—and so I suppose he must have written the story down. But I heard it from my mother, who heard it from her father.”

  She smiled, and her two boychiklech smiled with her and settled back into their accustomed listening positions.

  “When the princes had become men, which happened much earlier in those days—about your age—their father the king gave them each a bow and one arrow and told them this: ‘You must each shoot an arrow into the air, and follow it to find your bride, for where it falls, there she will be.’ So, each prince took up his bow and fired his arrow. The first prince found his arrow in the garden belonging to a duke. And standing next to it was the duke’s beautiful young daughter. The second prince found his arrow in the hands of the daughter of a wealthy merchant. The third prince, Ivan, followed his arrow into a swamp.”

  At this moment, Ganady’s mother came out of the house with tea, milk, and a plate of pierniki, and the boys chafed to hear what sort of bride the third prince had found in a swamp. The sweets were served and Mama went upstairs again, but Baba didn’t continue her story. Instead, she sipped her tea and watched moths fluttering about a nearby street lamp. Above their heads the music ended.

  “Well?” said Yevgeny. “What did the prince find in the swamp?”

  Baba picked up as if she had paused but a moment. “Why, a frog, of course. What other kind of bride might live in a swamp? But, she was no ordinary frog. She was a frog princess and daughter of the King of the Northern Sea. Of course, she was under a spell.”

  “Who was under a spell?” Nikolai popped into the pool of lamplight below the stoop, quite as if he’d been summoned.

  Ganady sighed and Yevgeny said, “A princess.”

  “What princess?”

  “The one Baba was just telling us about. The Polish princess who was turned into a frog.”

  Ganady could hear Nick’s eyes rolling.

  Baba cleared her throat noisily and took another sip of her tea. “Nikolai isn’t interested in such things as princesses and enchantments.”

  “How did she get enchanted?” asked Nikolai, belying that.

  “She was given mushrooms cursed by her father’s opshprekher, or so my mother told me,” said Baba, challenging Nick with her eyes.

  Nick flopped onto the steps and dug an elbow into Ganady’s ribs. “Wow, guess we’d better think twice before we eat mushrooms again.”

  It made Ganady hot when Nick taunted Baba. “Don’t you have homework?” he asked.

  “On a Friday night?”

  “I want to hear about the princess,” said Yevgeny.

  “Okay,” said Nick, picking at a thumbnail. “I’ll tell you about a princess. I met one at the dance tonight. Princess Annie.”

  “What sort of name is that for a princess?” protested Yevgeny.

  “Her name is Antonia. But everybody calls her Annie.”

  “Antonia’s more princess-like,” Yevgeny persisted.

  “Okay, Princess Antonia, then. Who cares?”

  “I should think she would care,” said Baba Irina. “When I came here, they all wanted to call me ‘Irene.’ And poor Ravke, she worked in that purse factory for a while, you know, when we first got here. ‘Rebecca’ they called her and ‘Becky.’ I remember one day she came home in tears, crying because she was so embarrassed. Her supervisor had scolded her in front of everyone for not answering when she was spoken to. ‘Are you stupid?’ he asked her. ‘I call and call and you don’t know your own name.’ So she says, ‘My name is Ravke Kutshinska.’ And her supervisor says, ‘What kind of name is that? Your papers say you are Rebecca. You must answer to Rebecca.’”

  Ganady glanced from Yevgeny to Nikolai. Both of the other boys were directing their gazes and thoughts at a long, crooked fissure in the sidewalk just beyond the stoop.

  Nikolai, he knew, would no longer be thinking of princesses, but of the time in first grade when he had tried to describe how their puppy had messed the floor. In his giggling haste, he had said, “The hint did du-du on the poodle,” and the class had gone into stunned silence that was followed immediately by raucous laughter.

  Nick no longer spoke Yiddish except by accident.

  Yevgeny said, “My teachers all call me Eugene. No matter how many times I remind them that my name is Yevgeny. Except for Father Kiselev. I like Father Kiselev,” he added.

  There was silence for a moment, in which the only sound was Baba sipping her tea.

  Into that silence Mama opened the front door and called, “Boys, it’s time to come in. Yevgeny, your Mama called.”

  Yevgeny scrambled to his feet. “G’night,” he said. “Thanks for the milk and cookies, Mrs. Puzdrovsky.”

  Ganady helped with the tea things, then escorted Baba Irina upstairs. He could not decide whether he was glad or sorry to have a name that refused to be properly Anglicized.


  Nick lagged behind, watching the near empty street. Perhaps, Ganny thought, he was thinking of Princess Annie.

  Six: Three Princes

  “So what’s with this princess Baba was telling you about the other night?” Nikolai wanted to know.

  It was the first day of spring break and the boys were wandering the neighborhood. They were working their way toward Izzy’s with change jingling in their pockets, and Ganady was pleased to have Nikolai with them again.

  Nikolai was always busy after school, it seemed, for he had developed a sudden fascination with the library, often coming home with books on subjects in which Ganady had no idea he possessed any interest. When he was available for after-school activities, he seemed not to have the energy for them. Ganady and Yevgeny suspected Nick had begun to think of them as excess baggage. Younger excess baggage. In a word, “kids.”

  “It was just a story,” said Ganady defensively.

  “Yeah? So how did it go?”

  “The princes were supposed to choose their brides,” said Yevgeny, “so their father gave them magical bows and arrows and they shot the arrows into the air and when they got to where the arrows fell, they found their brides.”

  “How do you track an arrow?” asked Nick the Pragmatic. “Nobody can track an arrow. And besides, they might’ve shot somebody.”

  Yevgeny shook his head, impatience standing out like the copious freckles that dotted his nose. “These were magic arrows. They do what they’re told to do, find the princess, not shoot the princess.”

  Nick digested this in silence and Ganady said, “Why don’t people do stuff like that anymore?”

  “No arrows?” offered Nick.

  “No imagination,” said Yevgeny with a sideways glance at the older youth.

  “I asked Father Zembruski,” said Ganady, and the other two boys turned to look at him.

  “About magic arrows?” Nick was incredulous.

  “About why things don’t work like they used to. Take God, for example. The Torah and the Gospels say He was around all the time back then—prophets and miracles and all. Now, nothing. No prophets, no apostles, no raising the dead, nothing.”