TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 214

[Tobie Shapiro]

May 5, 20000007


Dear Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free,

	Shadowy dreams last night.  Everything 
took place inside this enormous house.  Or was it 
a hotel?  Or a boarding house?  If it was a 
boarding house, it was sure lavish.  Everyone had 
his or her own suite, some more splendid than 
others.  My quarters were not lavish or splendid. 
I was sharing a largish room with countless other 
people, people whom I never saw.  They were out 
somewhere, engaging in activities organized by 
the people who ran the house.  It was something 
like a summer camp.  In my room, there were 
lockers lined up against the left wall right 
inside the door.  They were painted red with a 
thick covering slopped on them.  I wanted to 
change my clothes, so I found my locker, opened 
it, and discovered it was full of someone else's 
clothing: pale bold plaid flannel shirts, pleated 
short skirts in maroon.  This notified me that 
the camp session I'd attended was over and the 
new crop of campers had moved in.  But where were 
the clothes and supplies that I'd left in my 
locker?

	During the most vivid part of the dream, 
I was looking for a shower so I could rinse my 
hair.  I'd already lathered it up with shampoo 
and it was hanging down my back, all foamy and 
white.  I opened doors, looked in, no shower, no 
tub, not even a sink to use.  But as I got onto 
the upper floors, I found a very luxurious suite. 
Through a vast, sparkling clean picture window, I 
saw a man sitting at a desk, working in the light 
of a table lamp that shone a circle of bright 
yellow on his work in front of him.  I looked 
through the window and watched him.  He finally 
looked up, then came to the window.  I couldn't 
hear him through the glass, but I could read his 
lips as he mouthed, "May I help you?"  I pointed 
to the door which was down a few stairs, a marble 
entrance way.  He nodded and we both met at the 
front door, which was also glass, thick glass 
like you might see in a bank protecting the 
tellers.  He opened the door and I told him, "I'm 
looking for a shower to rinse my hair."  He 
smiled and offered his shower which was in his 
living room.  It was on a platform raised a 
couple of feet off the floor.  There were no 
walls around it, no door to enter, just a large 
octagonal area, all of marble, with a slight 
ridge around the perimeter.  The floor of it was 
covered with blankets.  I got onto the platform 
and couldn't see how it worked.  It turned out it 
was a two person shower.  One showered; the other 
held the shower head and operated the controls. 
When he was sure I understood, he positioned the 
shower head on the top of my skull and turned on 
the tap.  I had to move my head around so the 
water would get to all of my hair.  The man 
smiled, but there was something a little wrong 
with his smile.  It seemed forced, as if he were 
straining.  But I rinsed my hair anyway, risking 
that something bad might or might not happen. 
Probably not, I thought.  And I was right.  I 
woke up in the middle of the shower, wondering 
what that one was about.




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Grama Lena

	Grama Lena used to tell us the story 
about her courtship and engagement with Grampa 
David.  She repeated the part about how David 
didn't think he could marry her because she was 
too perfect.  But once he caught her telling a 
little white lie.  "Then," she would smile, "He 
decided I had a tiny flaw and he proposed 
marriage to me."

	I wondered about that story, not about 
the veracity of it  -  I assumed it was correct 
- but about Grama's frequent retelling of it.  It 
was her favourite story.  She strove for 
perfection and wanted to see herself as perfect. 
Of course, these were the qualifications for 
perfection of a woman born in 1880 in the old 
country, Lithuania.  When Lena was learning about 
female perfection, the specifications were 
different than they are now.  For an immigrant 
Litvak in the Goldeneh Medina, an ideal woman 
should be self-sacrificing, hard working, a 
supportive, doting, loving wife, intelligent, 
industrious, generous, orderly, well spoken, a 
gentle mother, free of ulterior motives, free of 
wants and desires, always correct.  All 
intentions were to be good and directed toward 
the care and welfare of others.

	The same would be required of a saint, 
and that is the word she sometimes used when she 
retold the story about how Grampa David couldn't 
see marrying her, a saint, until he caught her in 
that infamous tiny white lie.  Grama tried to be 
a saint.  But she never quite made it.  Are 
saints obsequious, unctuous, shmikeling?  Maybe 
they are, but that disqualifies them in my book.

	I was afraid of Grama Lena.  She was old, 
too old, slow, and her speech was stilted.  She 
spoke properly, giving space between every word. 
And she spoke in a soft monotone.  The effect was 
creepy.  When I was quite young, I was always 
scared she was going to fall on me and die.  I 
imagined her stiffening up like a statue riddled 
with Osteoporosis, and she'd teeter over, land on 
top of me.  I'd be squirming under her rigid 
corpse, desperately calling out for help.  Of 
course, since she was dead then, there was 
something sacred and untouchable about her body, 
so no one could move her.  I'd have to lie there 
underneath her, until the holy people came to 
lift her off of me with their special tools and 
incantations.  I'd be scarred for life.  Trapped 
under my father's mother for two days while she 
decomposed.

	So, even when I was small, I kept my 
distance from her.  She was not like my mother's 
mother, Grama Fannie, who would hug us and wipe 
our noses, brush our hair, kiss us, talk to us, 
be with us.  Grama Lena would never lose her 
composure, never play with us, never shout at us 
to quiet down, never sing to us, never tell us 
stories, except the one about the famous little 
white lie.  If there were any intimacy, it would 
be her disapproval.  She could shame a dictator, 
shame a worm.  The tone of her voice was  her 
weapon and her methodical speech.

	"Darling, could you please set the table?"

	"I don't want to," the five year old answers honestly.

	"You SHOULD want to set the table."

	We were not subjected to humiliation for 
what we did, or didn't do, but what we felt.  I 
should want to set the table.  I am a lousy 
excuse for a five year old.  There are dozens of 
Lena stories.  We would tell them, 
confidentially, to those we thought would grasp 
the weirdness.

	When my father was a little boy, she was 
seated with a number of guests at the dining room 
table, when he came into the room with his roller 
skates, circling the table.  There was no, "Get 
out of here!" or, "Stop that!"  She remained 
calm, serene.  She said only, "Justin dear, I 
wish you wouldn't do that."  He did that anyway. 
And nothing happened.  I used to disassemble 
these stories to try to get some clue as to what 
made my father such a monster.  But, "Justin 
dear, I wish you wouldn't do that," doesn't 
explain it.

	After Grampa David died, Grama Lena moved 
west to Portland, Oregon, to live with my aunt 
Selma, my father's older sister and her family. 
Selma actually didn't get along with her mother, 
just as my father didn't get along with his 
father.  Oedipus and Electra growing up in 
Passaic, New Jersey.  But Grama Lena lived there, 
helping to care for her grandchildren, my 
cousins, Joell and David.  Joell used to tell me 
how much she loathed Grama Lena, how full of hate 
she was, how vicious, how vindictive.  I couldn't 
attribute these characteristics to her.  To me, 
she just didn't make sense.  Like her son, she 
was surreal.  She was not made of human stuff. 
She could not be explained.

	When Joell and David grew up, Selma 
convinced Grama that she wanted to go live in 
Terwilliger Plaza, an apartment complex reserved 
for retired teachers.  She lived there until, in 
her early nineties, she started needing more care 
than Terwilliger or Selma could give her.  My 
parents had her moved down near us to The Home 
for Jewish Parents.  That is where she lived out 
the rest of her days.  Toward the end, it became 
an agony to visit her in the home.  When I came, 
she would cry because she was so grateful I'd 
come, or cry because she couldn't recognize me. 
Either way, it was traumatic for her, and I just 
couldn't bear it.  I didn't know what to do for 
this weird, suffering creature.  So I stopped 
visiting altogether.  Very brave of me.

	One day, I had gone to the Caravansary, 
my favourite coffee house.  The manager, Norman 
Shea, and I were in love with each other.  I was 
sitting up at the counter drinking my coffee when 
Norman said he didn't feel well.  I took him out 
through the back of the store to rest on a crate 
in the alley.  I bent over him, feeling his 
forehead, stroking his back.  Then all of a 
sudden, I straightened up, ignoring Norman and 
his plight.

	"My grandmother just died," I said, 
staring ahead of me, focussing on nothing.

	When I got home, my mother informed me 
about Lena's death, but I already knew.  I can't 
remember if she was buried, scattered, or 
simmered in a stew.

	She was ninety six.




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Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net