CHAPTER 1
STAAARVING
THE FORBIDDEN DUNKIN' DONUTS was only a few blocks from our home. As my mother walked us past the storefront, I caught a brief glimpse of the cream-filled, jelly-engorged, and rainbow-sprinkled beauts on the wall behind the register. How fun it would be, I thought, to bite into one of each before offering the clerk my thorough ranking from least delicious to most. As my mother held my hand against my little brother's stroller, making sure I kept at her brisk pace through the crowds, I resisted and craned my neck to savor the view a few moments longer.
"Maybe I could have a doughnut?" I asked, feigning innocence.
"Eytan," my mother spoke sternly, "you know very well they aren't kosher for Passover."
It was true, aside from matzoh, the holiday dietary restrictions forbid anything with flour in the ingredients. But I thought that maybe since she had walked us past the shop and since I wanted a doughnut at that very moment, perhaps she would overlook the rules and let me have the treat. Every moment had led up to one another too precisely for this to be one big coincidence.
"The answer is obviously no," my mother continued.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head in a great show of frustration. "Uch," I grunted.
The sidewalk teemed with people going about their days. Some carried four or five shopping bags of groceries; others wore suits and clutched leather briefcases. These strangers could eat doughnuts whenever they wanted, and they probably thought we had lost our minds to follow a religion that prohibited such a delicious food. I tried to catch their eyes and silently communicate that I was the same as them. That people like us knew that God wouldn't put things like Pizza Hut and Burger King on this earth if He didn't mean for us to try them. Wordlessly, I implored a half dozen sympathetic-looking commuters spilling from the side of a city bus to, please, talk some sense into my mother.
All I wanted were the simplest pleasures the world had to offer, but life is so unfair when you are a six-year-old Jewish boy.
* * *
That evening I sat down with my extended family for the Passover Seder. In the center of the dressed-up dining room table, a clear glass bowl of water held a thin layer of delicious salt at the bottom. I kneeled in my chair and leaned over to swish my forefinger in the mixture a few vigorous times.
"Eytan!" the women in my family all called out at once.
"We have to eat from that!"
"Gross!"
"Behave!" cried three different generations on my mother's side.
"Sorry," I said with an embarrassed frown while, ever so slowly, bringing my finger to my mouth and sucking off the savory juices. They all shook their heads.
"Please sit back," my mother said.
"But I'm staaarving," I whispered to her from my seat.
"Shh."
Arranged around the salt water were more forbidden food items: a boiled egg, a saggy radish, a charred chicken neck, something maroon. I sat up on my knees again and knelt in for a good whiff.
"Sit back now, Eytan," said my mother sharply. She knew that I knew these wrinkled foods were off-limits. They were set aside, special for the Passover Seder, as symbols of how difficult life was for the Jews during the time of Moses. The salt water and bitter radish represented tears shed and hardships endured as slaves in Egypt. The maroon glob was supposed to be the mortar we used to build whatever the Pharaoh forced us to-pyramids or something. And that delicious egg and neck were the covenant between God and the Jews, or maybe they were the fragility of life. Whatever. They reminded me only of how hungry I was and how long it would be until the food was served.
"Eytan, would you like to do the Ma Nishtana?" asked my grandfather, in a thick Magyar accent, before I got the chance to pounce on the holy offerings. My nagypapa, as we called him, was a perpetually smiling Hungarian man. He sat at the head of the table behind a large stack of matzohs. His wife, my nagymama, sat at the opposite end looking bored.
I stood up on my chair, in dress pants and white oxford shirt, and frowned at my parents. Every Modern Orthodox kid over the age of three knows the Ma Nishtana, or "Four Questions," and was probably being told to recite it at this very moment. The questions kick-start the Seder, which can last anywhere from three to six hours, with dinner served halfway into the program. At six, eating before the rest of my family was not an option, yet I was already famished.
"On all other nights we eat bread," I sung in the original Hebrew, a little louder than a whisper, "but on this night we eat matzoh. Why? On all other nights we eat vegetables, but on this night we eat bitter stuff. Why? On all other nights we dip our food once, but tonight we dip it twice. Why? And on all other nights we sit straight up, but on this night we slouch on pillows. Why?" I didn't know or really understand most of it, I thought as I finished the tune. All I could think about was leaning back down into my half-deflated pillow and maybe trying to nap until the meal was served.
"Very good, Eytan!" My mother beamed as I finished.
"Eytan, that was beautiful," said my aunt.
My nagymama and nagypapa smiled at each other and at their daughters.
"Thank you," I said shyly, looking at everyone and no one all at once.
The Seder continued and I sat back down next to my three-year-old brother, Yehuda. He was like a Russian doll with smooth, grapefruit cheeks that my sister and I called Chubs.
"Lady, you got a fat baby," a nurse told my mother at the hospital when she had given birth to Yehuda. Even at that age, my baby brother seemed to understand the insult and had despised cracks about his weight ever since. Chubs, Husky, the Round One, and another dozen names my sister and I came up with all pissed him off equally.
As he shoveled a few specially prepared chicken pieces into his face, I stuck my forefinger into his Chubs. If he could eat and I couldn't, I should at least be able to take a few satisfying stabs at him.
"Uhhh," he said with his mouth full, swatting my hand so he could chew in peace. His cheek was soft but firm. I loved the way it popped back into its original shape when I removed my finger. For a moment afterward, Yehuda continued eating as though nothing had interrupted him, but like a selfish cat, I wanted to feel more of him against my body.
I wrapped my hand under his chin and pressed both of the Chubs together, prodding him with different finger variations as if he were a chunk of meat. I slid my fingers back toward his neck and then softly toward his mouth, wishing that I could roll around and bury myself in his face.
"Stop it, Eytan!" he wailed, waving his log-like arms in each direction and upsetting Nagymama's silverware.
Under normal circumstances, this was the ideal reaction. Is that really the loudest you can scream? I might have taunted him, while sneaking a tickle on his stomach or brushing my arm against the soft skin of his back. But here, in front of extended family, where the fuse on my parents' patience was short, I needed to calm him down.
"Shh, it's okay. I was kidding," I whispered.
"Just a moment," my father said to his brother-in-law. "There is no real historical evidence of a Jewish presence in what we today call Egypt."
Historical accuracies of the Bible were common conversation topics around my dad, a professor of Jewish history and director at a Jewish nonprofit organization. "Some say it's a metaphor," "There's a larger concept at work here," "It's an interesting set of circumstances," were all familiar sound bites at our dinner table. I had a difficult time paying attention to anything more complex than a game of patty-cake, so of the ideas that followed, I usually caught only a word or phrase, such as "continuity" or "another set of circumstances" or "pass the salt," and decided that it was the main point of their discussion. It was like grabbing a single leaf as an entire pile flew down the street.
"I understand, Steve," my uncle shot back. "The 1967 Israel borders would obviously not hold up in a biblical courtroom."
"S'not funny, Eytan!" Yehuda shouted.
"That's enough." My father scolded me. "Eytan, stop picking on your brother!" Without skipping a beat, he then put his hands in the air and returned to his brother-in-law. "All right, all right!" he said. "Agree to disagree, agree to disagree."
I slumped back in my chair and grimaced by the edge of the table.
"Very interesting," said Nagypapa to his sons-in-law, indicating that the Seder should proceed.
My brother continued devouring his poultry bits in a trance, the entire episode behind him in a matter of moments, yet as the dust settled behind the trail of adult conversation, I seethed inside. Yes, I had pushed a button too hard, but was it fair to discipline me after I had sung the Four Questions?
I huffed and breathed loudly, trying to better express my unhappiness. "Hmmph," I said, looking around to see who was noticing.
Oh, I shouldn't have spoken so curtly to you, I hoped my father would say. Won't you please accept my apology and these macaroons to eat? Yet no one paid me any attention whatsoever.
I slid deeper into the pillow behind me, my Gumby-like body swimming in the vast dining room chair. The pillow was supposed to make us feel like kings relaxing on thrones and celebrating our deliverance from Egyptian bondage, but true royalty would never be starved while forced to listen to Passover commentary. Where were the pewter platters of figs and dates to grab freely from? A king would not be screamed at for mushing his brother's face; he would be given other faces for each hand to fondle as the Seder progressed.
I drifted farther down into my chair until my head hit the pillow and my knees settled on the creaky surface below. Good-bye, cruel table, I thought and flopped onto the hardwood floor.
Before me lay two rows of feet, split into a narrow valley along the center. At the head of the table, just beyond mynagymama's legs, I spied the kitchen lights glaring off aluminum foil-wrapped warming trays and a pot of what had to be chicken soup. It was the promised land of steaming, meaty treats, and so, just as Moses parted the sea and led the Jews out of bondage, I crawled on my belly, between shifting and crossed legs-my suit collecting matzoh crumbs, boogers, and whatever else lay under the dining room table of our Bronx apartment.
"Eytan, get off your tummy this moment!" my mother whispered when she peeked below the tablecloth and saw food and dirt smeared into my holiday dress clothes. I shook my head and continued crawling toward mynagymama.
To my left, my nine-year-old sister, Ilana, sat like an adult, with one leg over the other. Such a faker, I thought.
On the right, my aunt Anna held my uncle Jack's hand tightly on her thigh in a display of affection that I had never seen between them. Above the table, everyone acted so proper and seemingly interested in the Passover Seder. Down here, though, their body language said otherwise.
My father, who was always telling us when he was quoted in a newspaper or had been praised by someone at synagogue, had removed one of his shoes and was scratching his heel with the other loafer. Earlier that year, he said it was rude to tuck only the front part of my shirt into my pants, and had called it "uncouth" to fasten only the top button on my suit. As I paused to enjoy the floorboards pushing against my body, I wondered if he would have taken off his footwear if he knew someone was watching.
As I inched closer, it became clear that Nagymama was engaged in her own covert affair. She lifted an object above the table, out of sight for a moment, before returning it to her lap. I crept nearer until the round, spongy, khaki-colored object in her hand came into view. She lifted it up and brought it back down again, smaller this time. It glistened from the kitchen lights behind her and my mouth dropped open in shock. She was eating a matzoh ball!
I peeked my head out while she stared intently across the table, as though deeply interested in whatever her husband was saying, but I knew different. I recognized the signs: the half smile, slightly too wide open eyes, and extreme stillness. Nagymama was a pro, but I was a budding student of the art of pretending to pay attention to holiday ceremonies and biblical lessons. I had an uncanny ability to make people think there was nothing more interesting to me than whatever Jewish-related stuff they were spewing, while in reality I was busy counting carpet threads.
As Nagymama lifted her arm to steal another bite of her treat, I put my hand on hers. For a moment, she pulled up harder, as if my hand were a stumbling block between the snack and her mouth that she had to bully her way out of. But I held fast and rode her arm up a few inches until she realized that something was physically keeping her back. Slowly, methodically, attracting the least attention to herself, she craned her neck and looked down at me.
"Ahh," I whispered at her, with my mouth wide open like a hungry chick waiting to be fed. I had no intention of making a scene. As long as I got a little taste, no one had to know that she was eating this early in the Seder.
She cocked her head thoughtfully, the way a giant would after catching a tiny man rummaging through his cupboards, and for a short moment the world seemed to stand still. But then she jerked her arm away and popped the remainder of the matzoh ball into her mouth.
"No!" she said with her cheeks full, not caring that the rest of the table could clearly see her eating. "Eytan, you wait!"
I stared up at her dumbfounded, realizing that the food was gone but not quite understanding what had happened, like the picture on the television turning off before the sound cut out of the speakers. Yes, mynagymama was older and cooked all the food and gave birth to my mother, who then gave birth to me, but still, everyone should be equal. Everyone should eat at the same time. I slid back on my belly underneath the table, mashed my face into the floor, and tried to force out some tears.
"It's not fair!" I whined. "I'm sooo hungry!"
No response.
"Please!" I pleaded in a full-blown temper tantrum. "Please, just give me something to eat!" Yet no one seemed to notice me at all and the Seder continued with a song about a goat.
Why doesn't anyone care? I wondered. There were two hours before the meal would begin, yet here wasNagymama, someone supposed to be setting an example, chowing down on delicious soup parts.
"Ittt's. Nooot. Faaaaaaair!!!!!" I screamed while kicking my legs out in a partial breaststroke. And still, no one even bothered to pause and tell me to shut up. They seemed to have other, more important things on their mind, such as holding their wives' hands or ripping runs into their stockings or the meaning of Passover.
What was the use of it all, I wondered, as I stared at a stray bit of matzoh by the tip of my nose. I must be a different breed from these people. They would probably sit back idly and sip their second cups of wine while I got lynched for wanting a bite of food. "Don't mind Eytan," they'd say, as the air cut off and I released my bowels into my pants. "It's just one of his phases."
Jerks, I thought as I closed my eyes and rested my cheek flat against the hard wooden floor. They wouldn't know fair if it bit them in their faces. I slid my hands underneath my crotch. One day, I'm going to leave here and start my own Seder, I thought as I pressed toward the floor. A Seder where we eat at the beginning and where we leave the TV on before the holiday starts so we don't break the rule about turning on the TV on Passover. I pushed my butt and chest hard toward the floor. And we'll leave the turned-on TV in the hallway, right outside the dining room so it's visible from the table. That's a Seder! My legs came up, slightly off the ground. I could not press hard enough. As I pushed down with my body, I pushed up against myself with my hands. I forgot about my brother's cheeks and Nagymama's betrayal. I forgot about not being paid attention to. I forgot that I was hungry. I forgot everything. I pressed my hands into my groin one more time harder, longer, and then relaxed.
I closed my eyes. I was calm. I drifted off as I heard my nagypapa ask my mother to pass a bowl of boiled eggs around the table.
Copyright © 2015 by Eytan Bayme
