Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [68]
I did not know what to say, speaking about slaves.
“They seem a healthy bunch,” I finally let out, my thoughts called back to Liza in my doorway earlier that morning.
“Either them or their parents tested by the passage and by nearly a month in the Pest House,” my cousin said. “And looked after by the doctor.”
“The Pest House?” I said.
“The quarantine that separates the living from the dead.”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Rebecca said. “I hate it when you sink so low as to speak in that manner.”
“It’s the truth,” my cousin said to his wife. “Don’t you like to know the truth?”
“Not that truth,” she said, and turned her face away from husband. “Do you know what is the truth? Can you look the truth in the eye? You may not want to.”
“Children,” my uncle said. We all hushed up, and Rebecca began to hum a tune.
The horse pushed along. Soon country yielded to city and within what seemed like a few minutes we turned the corner at Coming Street and pulled up before the same trim stone building I had seen on my little tour upon arrival.
We stepped down and a smiling black man took charge of the carriage while we climbed the steps, my uncle and aunt and cousins greeting others who entered along with us.
Here something strange began. At home, where my father and I attended synagogue together on the Sabbath—a custom honored more in the breach than in practice after my mother died—I took certain things for granted: such as prayers in Hebrew from a thick old-perfumed book, which I had not made much of an effort to learn, even though prodded by my tutor Halevi; and the separation of the sexes, the women up in the balcony, the men below; and the cantor singing whiny and sinuous melodies that echoed of the exotic East. Here I was handed a slim pamphlet that smelled more of new ink than old hands as my uncle, after easing his bulk onto one of the benches to the rear of the hall, bade us all sit together, wife and daughter-in-law and son and nephew alike. (I had the mixed pleasure of being squeezed in between Rebecca and Abraham.)
The choir commenced to sing a prayer in English, with the same melody as Rebecca had hummed over the noise of the carriage on our way to town. The congregation sang, muttered, mumbled, chanted, swallowed the words.
Next a trim man in a dark suit mounted the dais and said a prayer about harmony and peace.
I raised my chin in a question and Rebecca said to me in a whisper, “The Officiating Minister.”
“No rabbi?” I whispered back.
“We are Reformed, and newly so,” said Rebecca.
I gave a shrug as a hymn in Hebrew rang through the hall, and then a version in English. Instead of following the words in the pamphlet, I gazed around the place, enjoying the morning light that flowed in from the high stained glass windows. I took note of white-haired men and women in beautiful lace shawls, fidgeting children, and some girls and fellows my age. There was one girl, in fact, who turned her dark eyes toward me as I glanced at her and then we both looked away. When I looked back, she was staring at the stained glass window, as if the study of it might yield some fascinating information.
“Ah,” Rebecca said in a whisper.
“Yes?” I said.
“What?” Abraham said.
“Someone for you?” Rebecca said.
“For me?” I said.
“Her name is Anna,” she said. “She is my second cousin.”
“Who is?” I said.
“You know exactly whom I am talking about.” And despite the seriousness of the service and the music, she puckered her lips and laughed at me through them.
I looked down at the pamphlet, turned pages and then looked at the front again at the Articles of Faith of Reformed Society of Israelites, giving myself a way to forget my immediate embarrassment. Ten of them! I didn’t know that I could articulate more than one. But here I read these carefully while the service continued on around me, as though I needed nothing more than these first articles to survive in the moment.
I. I believe with a perfect faith, that God Almighty (blessed be his name!) is the Creator and Governor of all creation; and that he alone has made, does make,