Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Amy Chua [66]
30
“Hebrew Melody”
A brand new year—2009. It didn’t start off too festively for us. We returned from Boston, exhausted. It had been hard work trying to bring holiday cheer to Jake and Ella while their mother lay in an intensive-care bone marrow ward. Dealing with my parents was even more excruciating. My mother insisted on torturing herself by asking why, why, why Katrin had gotten leukemia. I snapped at her cruelly a few times, then felt awful. My father kept asking me the same medical questions over and over, which I referred to Jed, who patiently explained the mechanics of the transplant process. We were all terrified of what the new year might bring.
When we got back to New Haven, we found our house dark and freezing. There had been a vicious snowstorm with record-high winds, and some of our windows were broken. Then there was an electricity blackout, which left us heatless for a while. Jed and I had a new semester starting up, and courses to prepare for. Worst of all, the violin loomed—Lulu had three concerts coming up—and so did Lulu’s Bat Mitzvah. Back into the trenches, I thought grimly.
Lulu and I were barely speaking. Her hair was a violent rebuke. Despite the hair cutter’s best efforts, it was still short and a little jagged, and it put me in a bad mood.
In late January, Katrin was released from the hospital. She was initially so frail she had trouble going up stairs. Because she was still highly vulnerable to infection, she was not permitted to go to restaurants, grocery stores, or movie theaters without a protective mask. We all crossed our fingers and prayed that her new blood wouldn’t attack her own body. We’d know within a few months whether or not she’d have the worst kind of complication—acute graft-versus-host disease—which was potentially fatal.
As the weeks passed and her Bat Mitzvah got closer, Lulu and I engaged in intensifying combat. As with Sophia, we were being unconventional and having the Bat Mitzvah in our home. Jed handled the major responsibilities, but I was the one constantly haranguing Lulu to practice her haftarah portion—I was going to be a Chinese mother even when it came to Hebrew. As always, it was over the violin that we fought most bitterly. “Didn’t you hear me? I said go upstairs and practice the ‘Hebrew Melody’ NOW!” I must have thundered a thousand times. “It’s not a difficult piece, so if it’s not incredibly moving, it’ll be a failure.” “Do you want to be mediocre?” I’d yell at other times. “Is that what you want?”
Lulu always retaliated fiercely. “Not everyone’s Bat Mitzvah has to be special, and I don’t want to practice,” she’d shoot back. Or: “I’m not playing violin at my Bat Mitzvah! And you can’t change my mind.” Or: “I hate violin. I want to quit!” The decibel level in our house went off the charts. Right up until the morning of the Bat Mitzvah, I didn’t know if Lulu was going to play the “Hebrew Melody” or not, even though it was on the programs Jed had had printed up.
Lulu did it. She came through. She read her Torah and haftarah portions with poise and confidence, and the way she played the “Hebrew Melody”—filling the room with tones so hauntingly beautiful guests cried—it was clear to everyone that it came from deep inside her.
At the reception afterward, I saw Lulu’s face glowing as she greeted guests. “Oh my God Lulu, you are, like, scary on the violin, I mean like totally amazing,” I heard one of her friends say to her.
“She’s extraordinary,” a singer friend of mine marveled. “She clearly has a gift, something no one can teach.” When I told her how much trouble I was having getting Lulu to practice, my friend said, “You can’t let her quit. She’ll regret it for the rest of her life.”
That’s how it always was when Lulu played the violin. Listeners were gripped by her, and she seemed gripped by the music. It’s what made it so confusing and maddening when we fought and she insisted she hated the violin.
“Congratulations, Amy. Goodness knows what