Lost and Found

 

Devorah Talia Gordon

Tatty reaches for my hand as we walk up the steps to the peeling yellow door. I resist pulling away; I can’t remember the last time I held his hand. With his other hand he knocks so hard against the wood that it feels like it’s pounding inside my head.

“Come on, come on.” Tatty shakes his head, knocks again. “We gotta get moving. Just answer, Ta.”

I squint down the tree-lined street for a sign of Zaidy. It’s quiet and still; everyone’s gone to work or school by now. I should be there, too, whispering to Rikki about what we’re wearing for the tenth-grade retreat. But instead I’m here, bags packed and stuffed into the back of Tatty’s jeep.

I slump down onto the step. My metallic gold sneakers stare back up at me, way too shiny for today. But they’re shoes Aunt Estee would have liked. I squeeze my eyes closed.

“Drinking coffee with Sheldon,” Tatty mutters to himself. He knocks again, harder. “We ought to go, I guess. Our flight’s in an hour.”

“We can’t just go, Ta.”

Tatty kneels until his face is level with mine. He pulls the bill of his Yosemite baseball cap down, looks at me through teary eyes. “Your Aunt Esther was a good soul. I want to be there for her. Trust me, your Zaidy’s not coming anyway.”

With a sigh, Tatty drags down the steps and heads toward the jeep.

“Try his phone again, please Ta. Please?” He puts the phone to his ear and is almost in the jeep when Zaidy appears from nowhere, holding a paper cup of coffee in one hand, tallis bag in the other. He’s wearing the black suit jacket he wears to shul every morning that’s at least two sizes too big. Today he’s forgotten to button up his shirt, so his undershirt peeks out at the top.

His voice booms, “Yonason? Muffin?” His wispy grey hair floats around his head, a halo of sorts. “What are you doing here?”

Tatty walks toward Zaidy, lips pressed into a tight, thin line. “Ta…” 

Zaidy lifts his chin in my direction, winks as he comes close to me. “Prettier each time I see you.” He gives me a light kiss on the cheek with damp lips. The smell of stale coffee turns my empty stomach. “Muffin, the chicken soup you made last week, ahhh. A perfect replica of my Rosie’s.”

“Ta.” My father lets out a funny sound, somewhere between a sigh and a moan. “Vijay called this morning. Early. Said he tried you, phone went to voicemail. I also tried a half-dozen times.”

Zaidy shakes his head. “Having to carry it around with me all the time like I’m Trump or something. See – if you need me, you know where to find me.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “What’s the Duke have to say for himself?”

Tatty reaches out, closing the distance between himself and Zaidy, and brushes something invisible off his suit jacket. He takes a shaky breath and rests his hand on Zaidy’s shoulder.

Zaidy jerks back, then brings his hand up to his head, straightens out his faded yarmulke.

“It’s Estee.”

I feel that no-breath feeling as I push the tears back into my eyes.

“Ta, she was… was… she’s gone.” My father says, “Apparently an aneurysm.”

“What?” The cup slips from Zaidy’s hand. Black liquid stretches out its tentacles into murky streams in the dirt. Tatty grips Zaidy by the shoulders.

“Estee?” Zaidy’s voice is a raspy whisper. “Esther Chava? Estee?”

“Come. We’ll pack your bag with you. Mindy, please.”

I take a step toward the front door but can’t take my eyes off Zaidy. He stares at the ground, tears slipping down his sunken cheeks. If Bubby was still here, she’d hold his hand, lead him inside. Just her sweet smile and soft hands would be enough.

Tatty shoves his hands in his pockets and stares up at the sky, moving his lips silently. I creep closer to Zaidy and ease the tallis bag out from under his arm. He unfolds his arm by his side, loses his balance for a moment, totters.

“The funeral ceremony is tomorrow.” I say. “We bought you a ticket to Ann Arbor.”

Zaidy’s blue eyes are steady on me. “She’ll have a levaya, Mindel. A proper levaya.”

It is what it is, Tatty said on the way here. They’ll do their ceremony-thing, but he agreed to bury her.

“Get the Duke on for me.” With a shaky hand, he gives me his phone.

“Ta, leave it alone. He’s not going to use the Chevra Kadisha. But… they’re burying her. No cremation.”

Zaidy turns his head to the side and looks at me closely. “Call him up!”

“Zaidy.” I force myself to look at him. His cheeks are deep red, and there’s a madness in his eyes I’ve never seen. “He told Tatty, ‘it wasn’t her religion’.”

Wasn’t? I can hardly say the word.

“I’m going to kill him,” Zaidy hisses. “And spit on his grave. Who does he think he is? Some kind of real duke? Some ruler of the universe? You know who the Ruler of the Universe is? You know what He’s going to do to him?”

“Please, Ta. Let’s get your things. Please.”

But I see by Zaidy’s tight lips, as he turns from my father and looks to the house, that he’s not coming. “Rosie, my Rosie! Just thank the Almighty you are gone. You wouldn’t be able to live after this.”

He shuffles toward the door, his back bent.

“Zaidy!” I yell. “Please. Please come!”

He doesn’t turn around.

I watch him climb the stairs before I let out a sob and sprint to the jeep.

*

Ta and I sit on two low-set folding chairs in one corner of the living room, eating hard-boiled eggs and corned beef sandwiches out of foil tins. The chairs are just like the ones we sat on when my mother died. Someone has also left a siddur and a tin tzedakah box with a big blue Jewish star. Maybe it was Barrie, a friend of Estee’s, who had pushed the bag of kosher take-out into Tatty’s hands on our way out of the ceremony.

I’ve already called Rikki and told her all about it: the casket surrounded with roses and tall white candles, the musty smell from a cloud rising in front of the brown Buddha statue. Then there was the huge photo, Estee laughing into the camera while holding a coconut. It must have been from one of their trips — maybe Jamaica. The turquoise ocean stretched behind her, the same color of the choker around her neck.

Everyone had stood around the casket — Vijay, his parents and brothers, and close friends – most of them in white dresses or white pants. A man in a long brown robe had stood at one end, head bowed, chanting the same words over and over.

Ta and I had watched from the doorway. I’d tried to sneak a video, but Tatty had given me the death stare.

Now, there’s more chanting, this time the rise and fall of a recorded woman’s voice, complete with screechy music.

People keep coming into the house, most of them leaving their shoes by the door. When they see Ta and me, they look away. They fill their plates with Indian curries and basmati rice, spicy chickpeas and cooked greens.

Every so often Ta sighs heavily and gives his head a sad little shake.

On a side table is a photograph of Estee with Bubby and Zaidy in her royal blue graduation gown. Her face was smoother then, and pale, framed by the same dark curls. Even though she’s smiling, her eyes stare blankly into the camera. Maybe this is the last modest picture of her. Did she toss her uniform skirts and blouses into the garbage that same day? Or were they tucked away in a drawer in her room, saved lovingly by Bubby?

When she came to Teaneck last year, purple flip flops had peeked out from beneath her maxi skirt. She’d worn the skirt for my benefit, along with a long-sleeved, airy blouse with a black and gold Indian print. After all, she was taking me to the clothing store where all my friends’ mothers took their daughters. She usually wore shorts and tees, her only adornment the diamond nose ring and her simple gold wedding band.

After shopping, we sat for a long time at the local café. Estee bought me the jumbo strawberry milkshake with whipped cream. She’d told me stories of Ta I’d never heard, like how he’d dressed like a delivery boy and brought roses to my mother at work after their fifth date.

She’d looked fine. And radiant as always.

I squeeze my eyes tight and force myself to breathe. I take bite after bite of my sandwich because there’s nothing else to do. The rye bread sticks to the back of my throat. 

A woman with a scarf wrapped loosely over her grey hair bends down to us. She has a red dot in the middle of her forehead. “Hamakom yenahem etkhem betokh she’ar aveilay tziyon v’Yerushalayim.”

Tatty blinks several times, then mutters, “Amen.”

“She was very special,” the lady says to me, slowly, as if I’m a small child.. “May her neshama have an aliyah.”

When she walks away, I give Tatty a confused look.

He shrugs. “Estee wasn’t the only one, Mindy.”

I look around the room and wonder how many other yidden are here in disguise.

Eklavya, one of Vijay’s brothers, wears a tunic over his jeans and swigs from a bottle of Corona. At the service, he’d said that everyone who met Estee loved her. That she made everyone feel accepted. He spoke about her taking care of Arilah, Vijay’s sister, when she was sick with cancer, insisting she stay with them.

My eyes float back to the graduation picture, Estee squeezed between Bubby and Zaidy.

My father shifts, his large frame too big for the rickety chair. “You think we paid our respects enough?” He wipes some dirt off his sneakers, checks his watch.

“To who? We didn’t even have to come here. Zaidy didn’t.”

Ta looks at me with big, sad eyes.

His sister, I think. It’s his sister.

“I’ve got to get out of this place.” He stands and shakes out his legs.

I look around for Vijay amidst the saris and sandals. Mindy, bring me my Rosie’s jewelry box. Zaidy’s voice was a hoarse whisper on the phone this morning. Don’t let him have it, whatever you do. That jewelry stays in our family.

Vijay leans against the wall and laughs with a red-haired man. He stops laughing when he sees me coming and elbows his friend. “Esther’s favorite niece,” he says. “Came all the way from Jersey.” He finishes the last of his red wine.

The other man nods and puts on his sunglasses. “Vijay, court 27 at the Club.”

“Good. See you, my friend.”

Vijay turns to me and smiles widely. “Mindy, Arilah said you and your father could stay with her, if you’d rather that than Holiday Inn.”

I shut my eyes and picture my grandmother’s wrinkled hands. On her left hand, there is the diamond cluster that always turned the wrong way on her bony fingers. On her right wrist, the pearls she wore to the Seder. And then there was my mother’s favorite necklace, gold links set with emerald stones. They must be in the box, along with much more. Some were gifts from my great-grandparents, some were gifts from Zaidy. Whatever they were, with Estee gone, they were meant for me.

I open my eyes, and Vijay is already turning from me, his head bent toward a couple that just walked in.

I take a breath and blurt out the words before I can think anymore. “Vijay. My father’s not going to make a fuss about this. My grandfather’s never going to speak to you again. Give me the box.” My voice sounds small and far away.

“The box?” He runs a hand through his thick, dark hair.

“Aunt Estee has my grandmother’s jewelry box. The red one, gold knobs.”

He gives a little shake of his head and stands straighter. “Esther and I, we deplored such things. Things of this world…”

“Well, we… we don’t deplore them.” I feel my back straighten and force myself to look him in the eye. “We care about our things. My grandmother’s diamond, her wedding band. Lots of bracelets, an emerald necklace.”

“Tomorrow morning,” he smiles. “I have guests now, Mindy, I can’t go looking around. We’ll have tea and a breakfast dhal, go through the box together. Eight o’clock should work.”

 I hear my grandfather’s voice in my head. Some kind of real duke, some ruler of the universe. 

“Duke…” It slips out and I can’t help but crack a smile. “I mean…”

“Vijay Dukmejian is my name. Thank you for your respect.” He manages to give me a sarcastic grin before lowering his head and letting out a heavy sigh.

“Hey.” A short, bald man gives Vijay’s shoulder a squeeze. “I know it’s rough.”

Ta walks up, looks from Vijay to me. “Everything OK?”

“Your daughter here, a very outspoken child.” Then he holds out his hand. “You had a good sister.”

“She was gold,” Tatty says, as he gives Vijay’s hand a quick shake.

Gold. “Vijay, the box.”

“Tomorrow.” He bows, then turns and walks away.

 *

On the way to the hotel, my father doesn’t say anything for what seems like forever. For once, I wish he’d make one of his silly jokes or tell me some random fact about Ann Arbor.

Finally, he shakes his head. “She didn’t care about that Buddhist narishkeit, you know.”

“No?” I turn towards him, hoping he’ll say more.

But Tatty just sighs and stares out the window, his eyes far away. Perhaps he’s picturing a long-ago Shabbos, when Tatty, Aunt Estee, and Uncle Sender laughed with Bubby and Zaidy. Someone dumped too many soup nuts into their bowl, another splattered grape juice on a fresh white shirt. And the candles stood sentinel to the beauty of a normal Friday night.

We pull into the deserted parking lot. Light pink streaks break up the big, grey sky. The ground, as far as I can see, is just one big stretch of yellow.

It’s quiet, so quiet.

In our room, Tatty takes off his jacket and tie, pulls the cushions from the couch and slumps down onto the hard frame. I open up my bag and try to look busy getting out my pajamas and toothbrush. It’s easier than looking at him.

He’s done this before, I remember. For Bubby. For Mommy. I sat with him for Mommy, though all those people, with their horrible looks, were too much for me. After the first day, I hung out in the kitchen with Bubby and Estee.

When Tatty flew to Israel for Mommy’s burial, Estee stayed. She made me waffles every morning for breakfast and walked me to school. She wrapped her arms around me when I cried every night of those two weeks.

I dreamt of her staying for good, taking care of Tatty and me, maybe moving back in with Bubby and Zaidy.

But when Tatty came home, Estee explained to him what was in each of the aluminum pans packed in the freezer, gave me a tight hug, and walked out to her car. I watched her through the window, the way her dark curls hung gently around her bare shoulders.

When I was little, Bubby and Mommy spoke quietly about Estee over cups of tea on Shabbos afternoons. I knew she was different. It was more than the way she dressed, with colorful scarves, always smelling good. I never saw her daven or say a bracha, or do any of the regular things we did, but I didn’t care. When she popped in, Bubby got busy making pasta and quiches. Estee had been a vegetarian since she was sixteen. My age.

Only three years later, she’d gone off to Japan, Thailand, and finally India. 

To find herself, Bubby told me once, shaking her head. But why did she have to look so far away, Mindy. She only has to look right here. Bubby stabbed her chest with a thumb and looked at me with sad eyes. Hashem yishmor.  

The sound of my father slamming his fist down against the couch armrest, over and over again, brings me back to the terrible present.

“Tatty?” I say. “Please.”

He stops banging and shields his eyes with his hand.  When I drop down beside him, his body starts to shake, and the whole couch shakes.

I bite my lip, I don’t want to cry, not now. I look up at the hotel window, trying to see past the dirty glass to the purple-blue sunset. Soon it will be dark and this day will end.

Tatty’s shaking morphs into a slow rock, back and forth, back and forth, his face scrunched up in a way I only saw once before. But I was so young then. Only nine. I’m sixteen now. I can do this.

He sobs so loud I wonder if whoever is in the next room can hear.

I reach for his hand. He squeezes it tight.

He sniffles, catches his breath, sucks in air in one big gulp. “She was just lost, Mindy. She was just so lost.” 

*

We pull up to the house at seven forty-five. The driveway is empty. All the cars from yesterday are gone.

Tatty rings the bell, then knocks hard on the door, shaking the little placard mounted on the wood that reads: Breathe.

“That idiot,” Tatty leans close to the front window and cups his hands around his eyes. Through the glass I can see the empty table where the buffet had been.

He jiggles the doorknob. Gently at first, and then harder, the veins in his forearm bulging.

I picture us smashing the windows then scurrying upstairs, finding the box, and running back to the car. We’d be on the plane before anyone knew the difference.

Ta backs away, takes out his phone. “Voicemail.” He pockets his phone, then shakes his head. “I think we need to catch the plane, Mind.”

“We can’t go, Ta. We’ll never get it back. I promised Zaidy.” What had the man told Vijay? He’d meet him at the courts. A country club? “How much time have we got?”

“We’ll have Eisenberg write him a letter on official letterhead. If he doesn’t give it back, we’ll sue.” Ta opens the passenger side door for me.

Inside, I put my hand on his. “One more try, Ta.”

“What does it matter, Mindy? Estee is… gone.” He leans his head back against the seat, shuts his eyes.

“Exactly,” I say.

* 

Ten minutes later, Tatty pulls into a spot right in front of the doors of Monica Lakes Country Club. A man in a blazer swings the door open for us. His eyes linger on Tatty’s yarmulke.

“Can I help you?” A blond lady with a blue and white striped jacket smiles at us from behind the reception desk.  “Are you, uh, at the right place? Members?”

“Where are the tennis courts?” I ask.

She points past the large room with a fireplace, overstuffed couches, bowls of fruit, and glass canisters of spa water. A grey-haired man looks up from his newspaper with raised eyebrows. “The courts are through the relaxation room. Out those doors to your right.” She points behind us with her pencil. “Those are member-only parking spots.”

Without a word, I walk toward the glass doors on the other side of the room. I hear Tatty say something about needing to give someone a message.

Hurrying through the doors, I head to the right, down the long aisle between the tennis courts. I hear the pong of balls hitting rackets, a man’s voice ah, yes, yes! The row of courts goes on and on. I break into a run as I look up at the red numbers on the sides. Finally, I reach court 27.

I stop short, catch myself on the metal frame, and step into the court.

At the far end, Vijay dries his face with a white towel. He’s wearing white shorts and a white polo T-shirt with white knee socks. The man from yesterday stands next to him, shaking his head. Vijay says something to him, then looks up and squints in my direction.

“Mindy? Why on earth? What do you need?” The white of his dark eyes appear even whiter than his shirt, his irises black stones against their brightness.

I walk toward him, breathing hard.

Vijay’s friend folds his arm across his chest and takes a long drink from a water bottle.

“You know what I need.” I take a deep breath. Bubby was gone, my mother was gone, now Estee. It wasn’t just that the box was meant for me. But I needed to hold onto them. “Convenient that you forgot to meet us.”

Vijay runs a hand through his hair. “Nothing of the sort. I waited for you, child. I had an appointment here.”

“We were even early.” It takes every ounce of strength I have not to strangle him. I think of the headline, “Girl Kills Late Aunt’s Husband in Fit of Rage.” I bite my lip. “We’ll follow you to the house now.”

His friend swings his bag over his shoulder, looks at me with amusement. “You lost something, miss?”

Vijay sighs. “She lost something, yes.”

“I hope you find it,” The man says over his shoulder. “See you, Vijay.”

“Get me the box, Duke, like you said.” It was bad enough her clothes will still be there, her scarves, the graduation picture. But at least this.

Vijay waits until his friend rounds the corner and then shakes a finger at me.

“You’re a tough cookie, girl.”

“We’ve got to catch a plane.”

He places his tennis racket, canister of balls, and towel into his bag, then zips it closed. He’s leaving, he’s just leaving. What am I going to tell Zaidy?

He takes a few steps toward the exit, then slumps down onto the bench. His back curved, he holds his head in his hands. He sits like that as the sun beats down on us, the perfect blue sky wasted on such a day. “I don’t know what you all want from me,” Vijay finally says. “You want me to be Mr. Perfect, Mr. Wonderful Brother-in-Law? Mr. Good-Mourning Guy?” He looks up at me. His eyes have lost their dance.

“I just want what is ours,” I say.

“None of you understand.”

“Understand?”

 “One minute we are having our noontime meal. She is talking about the book she is reading. How she would like to start knitting again…”

I swallow hard and feel the no-breath feeling. Dark curls and dimpled cheeks. He just saw her. She was right here.

“She has new yarn. Crimson, lavender, and this majestic teal. They are in a white bag on the table. Her eyes are shining. ‘See these. So good together. Right, Vijay, they’re beautiful?’”

He lets out a roaring laugh, stands up, digs his hand into his pockets. Then he bends at the waist, low, so very low, and screams to the asphalt, “Esther! Esther! Estherrrrr!”

Wrapping my arms around myself, I turn my gaze from him and remember my visit with Aunt Estee last year. After our lunch, she had given me a knitted scarf in three shades of green. It matches your eyes. I wrapped it around my neck. It smelled like her.

Tears drip down my cheeks. If she were here, she’d say, It’s OK, Mindy. Let it go, let it go. She’d rub my back, and I would lean into her softness and cry as hard as I needed to.

Vijay stands with his eyes closed and his face up to the sky as if the sun could burn away his pain.

Then I remember why I’m here. “Vijay?”

He keeps his head up that way, his hands gripping the back of the bench. A few moments pass. If I don’t leave now, we’ll miss the plane. But we’ve got to get back home to take care of Zaidy.

I’ll tell him I tried. I’ll tell him they are just things of this world.

Quietly, I make my way out of the court, then run all the way back to Tatty.

*

On an erev Shabbos, three months later, there’s a soft knock on the door. “Yes, Ta?” I put my hairbrush down and study my reflection. It’s not too frizzy, but I know that will only last until kiddush.

Tatty, in his suit and hat, is smiling; possibly the first real smile I’ve seen on his face since we got back from Michigan.

“Arilah was just here. Has some sort of conference in the city.” He hands me a cardboard box with my name in the center. It’s heavier than it looks. In the left-hand corner is written in small cursive Vijay Dukmejian.

Could it be? I shake my head and tear off the tape. 

My father smiles down at me as I ease the red velvet box out of the cardboard one. A note is taped across the top of the box, written in the same perfect lettering. 

Mindy,

This is your family’s. It belongs with you. I understand now how things of the world can also be things of the soul. I guess that is why it was hard for me to give them back.
I am still missing Esther. Always will. As will you, and your father, and your grandfather. She was such a good, giving soul.

Be well,
Vijay

“Shockingly, the Duke came through. I’ll tell Zaidy right after davening.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “Good Shabbos, Mindy.”

“Good Shabbos.” I watch him walk out and wait until I hear him go down the stairs.

Then I open the box.

On one side, three thin gold bangles are tucked into individual slots. I remember how they jangled when Bubby picked up her Rosh Hashanah machzor in shul. On the right are smaller holders for rings – among the clunky turquoise one and the silver stacking rings is Bubby’s simple gold wedding band. Under a tiny lid is Bubby’s diamond – a large solitaire surrounded by tiny diamonds, an exploding firework.

I pull out the top drawer, and there are the earrings: opal teardrops, gold studs, and a pair of sparkly purple stones set in little brass circles. In the bottom drawer is Bubby’s tennis bracelet, the Pesach pearls, and the emerald necklace.

Everything is here.

I slip on the bangles and my grandmother’s rings. But my wrist is much too thin to hold so much weight and my fingers are too skinny to keep the rings in place. One day.

I place everything back into its place and reach for the opal earrings, then stand in front of the mirror and put them on. I tilt my head to the side, watch the light catch the hint of fiery red in the center of the stone.

My pale face, brown hair, and green eyes stare back at me. The earrings help a bit, but I’m still the same me as always. Not radiant. Not Estee.

It’s true. Estee was a good, giving soul. But there was so much more than Vijay, and their friends from Ann Arbor, would never know. The Estee who brought two plastic bowls with washing cups to Bubby and Zaidy’s bedside each night since she turned twelve. The Estee who braided challah on Friday mornings and never forgot to drop one off at the elderly neighbor’s house. Seventeen-year-old Estee with the buttoned-up blouse.

But did I, or Tatty, really know Aunt Estee? What made her leave the way she’d been raised? Whatever she was looking for, did she find it?

Yet her goodness was her goodness, her soul was her soul. Nothing could change that.

Combing my hair off my face, I stare into my eyes. Could I be as giving, as full of life, as she? I shake my head at myself; I’m not sure.

But I know I want to try.

***