Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [10]
“And make me happier,” I said, but immediately, upon seeing the hurt I made in her—she glanced at me over her shoulder and rolled her eyes—tried to jolly my remark away as a joke and a laugh. “Yes, sir,” I said to the parrot.
“Yes, sir,” Jacobus said to me.
Marzy, weeping quietly, signaled to us that our cab was waiting.
And so Father and I went into the streets of early morning to the clatter of horses’ hooves and the cries of vendors and the shouts cast from one building to another as we crossed our narrow island on the way to the river.
I still had many questions for him about the business I was taking up, and about the specific nature of my journey. But he sat back against the seat, his eyes closed in thought, or as I saw him sometimes in synagogue, deep in prayer, and so I did not feel as though I might interrupt him just then. For, truth to say, I felt a confusion of things. I was a bit afraid and also quite honored and somewhat annoyed and a trifle curious as to what would happen on this journey. In all my twenty-some years I was a perfect Manhattan lad and had never wandered further from this rocky island than to the Bronx farm to the north and the Jersey cliffs to the west, and to that Perth Amboy harbor to the southwest, where my mother and I had disembarked when I was a boy of seven to quarantine ourselves against the illness that had swept across the lower part of our borough—to no avail, since she sickened and died soon after our arrival.
Oh, family! Oh, dear mother! As sweet as she was, that old Aunt Isabelle of mine, my late mother’s sister, could not take her place.
But hark! Music in the distance, to distract us from our thoughts of woe!
Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a pony
Here was a brass band greeting us as our carriage drew up to the pier, with flag-wavers standing behind them, and such bright music pouring out of horns and pipes that the musicians might have been performing at an election rally instead of a harbor farewell for the passengers, soon to include me, of this large yawl bobbing serenely in the rising river tide at pier-side. “It’s all a merriment, is it not, son?” My father peered out from his side of the cab.
“I’m feeling rather that way, Father,” I said. “I believe I heard them play before when they were in favor of the mayor. Now they are just Yankee Doodles doodling our farewell.”
“The music changes with the mood of things,” he said. “Has not Halevi taught you your Plato?” He called to the driver and within moments we were standing at the pier-side with my few bags at my feet. Not more than a moment or two went by before a crewman snatched up my luggage and went scurrying up the gangplank to the ship itself.
“‘The Godbolt,’” I read from the bow.
“A good name, do not you think?” My father raised his eyes to the strong early morning sun while the band played on.
“Any name will do,” I said. “It’s the journey that matters.”
“Well-said, sir!” He clapped me on the back. “When I hear you speak like that, it gives me heart. The money I paid for your education was well-spent. I know that you will stand well for our enterprise. The family is depending on you.”
“I am going to try, Father,” I said, though in my heart I could not have said that I was sure I would succeed.
“You will keep your eye on the star that guides us,” he said.
“I will, sir.”
My father then, in an act most uncharacteristic of a man who usually kept his distance, took me by the hand and pulled me so close to him that were he not usually so gentle I could almost imagine he might do me harm.
“I know this will not be easy for you,” he said.
“I will do my best, Father.”
“The weather will be warm. You will appreciate that.”
“I will,” I said.
He cleared his throat, a noise he often emitted, though not at such immediate proximity that it sounded in my ear like an animal’s roar.
“You will do this for the family,” he then said.
“Yes, sir,” I responded.
“You will do the family honor in what may be a difficult situation.