New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [390]
On Friday afternoon, Sarah Adler took the subway to Brooklyn. She had a new book to read. The Bridges at Toko-Ri was a short, fast-paced novel by James Michener about the recent Korean War. She hardly noticed the stations go by until she got to Flatbush.
Sarah loved Brooklyn. If you came from Brooklyn, you belonged there always. Partly, perhaps, it was the basic geography of the place. Ninety square miles of territory, two hundred miles of waterfront—no wonder the Dutch had liked it. There was something about the light in Brooklyn, it was so clear. The English might have come and called it Kings County. Huge bridges might link it to Manhattan—in addition to the Brooklyn Bridge, there were the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges now—along with the subway. Seventy years of growth might have covered much of its quiet, rural space with housing—though huge parks and leafy streets remained. Yet on a quiet weekend morning, walking along a street of brownstone houses with their Dutch stoops, you could still almost think, in that limpid Brooklyn light, that you were in a painting by Vermeer.
It was still light as she made her way from the station. The whole of Flatbush was so full of childhood landmarks, from the modest pleasures of the soda fountain where you had egg creams, the kosher delicatessen and the restaurant on Pitkin Avenue where you went for a treat, to Ebbets Field itself, that cramped but sacred holy ground where the Brooklyn Dodgers played. She went by the candy store where all the children used to hang out, then entered the street where they used to play stoop ball.
The Adlers lived in a brownstone. When Sarah was very young, her father had rented his surgery under the stoop. Wanting to secure good tenants during the Depression, the landlord had soon offered her parents the two floors above, with three months rent-free. It was an excellent accommodation and they’d lived there ever since.
When she arrived, her mother met her at the door.
“Michael’s ready, and your father and Nathan will be down in a moment. Rachel was coming tomorrow, but she says they all have colds.”
Sarah wasn’t too dismayed about her sister. Rachel was two years older. She’d married at eighteen and couldn’t understand why Sarah hadn’t wanted to do the same. Sarah went to kiss her brother Michael. He was eighteen now, and getting to be rather handsome. Then she went up and knocked at Nathan’s door. His room was just the same as ever, the walls covered with photographs of baseball heroes and Dodgers’ pennants. Nathan was fourteen and a good student, who studied hard at yeshiva. But the Dodgers were still the biggest thing in his life. “I’m ready, I’m ready,” he cried. He hated people coming into his room. Then she felt her father’s hand on her shoulder.
Dr. Daniel Adler was short and round. His head was nearly bald on top, and he wore a small, dark mustache. If he regretted that he was a dentist and not a concert pianist, his comfort lay in his family and his religion. He loved them both—indeed, for him, they were one and the same. Sarah was always grateful for that. It was why on Friday afternoons, whenever she conveniently could, she came home to Flatbush for Shabbat.
They gathered in the living room. The two candles were ready. While the family stood quietly, Sarah’s mother lit them, and then, with her hands covering her eyes, she recited the blessing.
“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam …”
It was the duty of the mother to perform this mitzvah. Only then, to complete the mitzvah, did she uncover her eyes and look at the light.
Sarah appreciated the ritual, the whole idea of Shabbat: God’s gift of a day of rest to His chosen people. The family gathering at sundown, the sense of intimate joy—she might not be a very religious person herself, but she loved coming home for it.
After the lighting of the candles, they walked in the dusk to the synagogue.
Sarah liked her family’s religion. People who didn’t understand these things sometimes imagined that the nearly million Jews in Brooklyn all worshipped the same way. Nothing could