The Story of a Life Read Free

most part her answers are short, as if she simply has to discharge a duty. Sometimes I keep on asking, but it doesn’t make her talk more.
    UNLIKE MOTHER, Grandmother is a large and sturdy woman, and when she places her two hands on the broad wooden table, they fill it. As she talks, she describes things, and you can tell that she loves what she’s describing: the vegetables in the garden, for example, or the orchard behind the cowshed. It’s hard to understand how Grandmother can be my mother’s mother. Next to her, Mother looks like a pale shadow. Grandmother frequently scolds her daughter for leaving some of her soup in the bowl, or a piece of vegetable pie on her plate. Grandmother has firm views on everything: how to grow vegetables, when to pick plums, who is an honest man and who is not. When it comes to children, her convictions are even firmer: children should go to bed before dark, and not at 9 p.m. Mother, on the other hand, doesn’t see any harm in a child falling asleep on the straw matting.
    Grandmother isn’t always in a decisive mood. Sometimes she closes her eyes tight, seems to sink into her large body, and tells Mother about bygone days. I understand nothing of what she says, and yet I enjoy listening to her. When she picks me up and lifts me high above her head, I feel as weak as if I were still a baby.
    Grandfather is tall and thin and seldom speaks. He leaves for prayers early in the morning, and when he returns, the table is laden with vegetables, cheeses, and fried eggs.Grandfather’s presence imparts silence to us all. He does not look at us and we do not look at him, but on the Sabbath eve his face softens. Grandmother irons a white shirt for him, and we set out for the synagogue.
    The walk to the synagogue is long and full of wonders. A horse stands in astonishment, and there is a small girl next to it, about my height. She also stands and stares. Not far from them, a foal is rolling on the grass. The strong, barrel-like creature is stretched on its back, waving its legs in the air as if it has been toppled and is thrashing about, as I sometimes do. Then, just to show everyone that it wasn’t knocked down, it gets back up. There is astonishment in the dozens of pairs of eyes of the horses, sheep, and goats who are all following the foal’s movements, happy that it’s back on its feet.
    Grandfather walks in silence, but his silence is not frightening. We move along fast but stop every few minutes. And for a moment it seems to me that he wants to show me something and to name it, the way Father does. I am wrong. Grandfather continues in silence, and what escapes from his mouth is swallowed up and not comprehensible, but then he lets some words escape that I can understand. “God,” he says, “is in the sky and there is nothing to fear.” The gestures that go with the words are even clearer than the words themselves.
    Grandfather’s synagogue is small and made of wood. By the light of day it resembles a roadside chapel, but it’s longer and has no statues or objects on the shelves. The entrance is low, and Grandfather has to stoop to enter. I follow. Here a surprise awaits us: many golden candles are stuck into two troughs of sand and radiate a diffused light along with the scent of beeswax.
    The prayers are almost silent. Grandfather prays with his eyes closed, and the candlelight flickers on his forehead. All those praying are absorbed in their prayer. Not me. Forsome reason I have suddenly remembered the city, the damp streets after the rain. In the summer, sudden showers fall, and Father drags me after him, down narrow alleys, from one square to another. Father doesn’t go to synagogue; he is passionate about natural beauty, and he also loves unusual buildings, churches, chapels, and cafés where they serve coffee in fine cups.
    Grandfather breaks into my imaginings. He bends down and shows me the prayer book, the yellow pages with the large black letters leaping out from within