Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories - Blume Lempel

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wanderers, she roams from camp to camp. But even here she’s alone. Zosye tries to go with the current. But the severed branches, leaves, and stones carried by the flow get in her way, piling their dead weight on her young shoulders. They paralyze her will, cutting her off from the stream of history and pulling her down into the abyss.

      Sometimes, when Felix was tormenting her, the tears would come like a benign rain. He was the rod of punishment whose blows she endured for the sin of abandoning her mother and sister to their deaths. Each bite of bread she paid for with self-torment and selfhatred. The same feeling of guilt followed her to Israel.

      At war with herself and with a reality to which she could not adjust, Zosye searched for meaning and found it in self-abasement. The deeper she sank into the swamp, the more entitled she felt to walk on God’s earth.

      Zosye lay on the bottom and allowed herself to waste away. Like the Greek god Prometheus, bound to a rock, his insides gouged by an eagle, she stood with her belly exposed to the predatory birds of the world. And when the birds of prey had nothing left to peck at, she went to the sea, just as she had once gone to the pond, and threw herself in.

      Enveloped in silence, I sit alone in the car. I, too, am avoiding reality. In the distance her grave is being covered. A man with a long beard and a broad-brimmed hat is reciting a prayer. I see that he’s hurrying. Soon he’ll recite the same prayer at another grave. I don’t need to hear what he’s saying. Instead I listen to the prayer that trembles inside me, a prayer that can never be repeated. It is a prayer without words, a prayer buried deep in the collective consciousness of my people. The man with the beard rushes on. Somewhere another corpse awaits him. The prayer I recite has no end. It seethes and bubbles like a chemical brew on the brink of existing. In the mixture I look for the symbol that Zosye lost. I must find it and clean off the mud, the impurity, the shame.

      I know I will return, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps a year from now. Using the new-found symbol, I will erect a tombstone, a blank stone without words. The passerby who stops will have to create Zosye’s image from what is not stated. He’ll stand before the stone like a master before a blank canvas. Among all the images that leap into his mind, he will need to see first of all that Zosye is the crow that pecks at my conscience.

       NEIGHBORS OVER THE FENCE

      Every time Betty looks up from her typewriter, Mrs. Zagretti’s whitewashed stoop catches her eye. She knows that the widow will open her front door at exactly 9:00 a.m. Without even looking, she can see the woman’s wintry face shrouded in its black shawl. The gulls lying in wait on nearby rooftops have no need of a clock either. As soon as they finish their first breakfast at sea, they show up at Mrs. Zagretti’s for dessert — tasty bread crumbs dipped in fat and salted just so, as if she knows exactly how they like it.

      The moment the door opens, the birds attack, flapping raucously over the fence to land on her shoulders. Bowl in hand, Mrs. Zagretti tosses bits of bread over the railing. The clever gulls catch the food in midair. Once they’ve gobbled up the last morsels, she goes back into the house. The birds linger on surrounding roofs to wait for more, but when the miracle fails to occur, they fly back out to sea, where the bowl of food is never empty.

      Betty doesn’t wear a watch. She likes to rely on the widow.

      At about ten o’clock, a taxi arrives to transport Mrs. Zagretti to her son’s grocery store. At three in the afternoon, she returns home laden with groceries and stale bread for the insatiable birds.

      When Betty is busy with a literary text, she loses track of time. Only when Mrs. Zagretti’s taxi appears does she realize she must put away her work before the children come home from school.

      Betty works at the machine only in winter. In summer she devotes herself to the children. Also, in hot weather, friends she hasn’t heard from all winter call on the telephone. They come for a swim in the sea and stay for supper, leaving behind wet towels and a carpet full of sand.

      Betty’s friendship with the widow began over the fence. The two of them sought to display their horticultural know-how, each on her own turf. Mrs. Zagretti won the contest. Not only did she have a green thumb — all ten fingers yielded a plentiful crop. She was privy to the secrets of the green world, knew what the plants wanted and lovingly fulfilled their every need. She showed her Jewish neighbor which ones needed full sun, which could manage with less. The two exchanged tomato seedlings, cucumbers, zucchini, a variety of flowers.

      “Life, my dear, is a garden full of all kinds of plants,” Mrs. Zagretti said. “People, too, are plants that must be cultivated if they are to reach their highest potential.”

      In the summer, Mrs. Zagretti spent all day in her garden. She cared for every plant as if it were a living creature, caressing each with her hands, her eyes, and, it seemed to Betty, her heart.

      The pride of her garden was the fig tree, which had been imported from Italy. During the winter, the tree was wrapped from top to toe in a black cloth. In April, when all danger of frost had passed, Mrs. Zagretti uncovered the tree as reverently as one would unwrap the mummy of an ancient pharaoh. The delivery of the tree into the hands of the spring sun always took place on a Sunday, before mass. Then, usually on Good Friday, the whole family — her son and daughter-in-law, the daughter-in-law’s parents, and their children — would take part in a ceremony, dancing around the tree as if it were a pagan god.

      With a little sun, a little rain, and a little organic fertilizer, the tree would begin to sprout. Red buds appeared among the branches. They grew fuller every day, until, to Mrs. Zagretti’s delight, leaves burst open like green spoons in the sunshine. Every morning and evening she watered the tree, counting the blossoms and later the fruits. She spoke to the tree in Italian.

      At the end of September, when the widow Zagretti harvested her figs, she talked to herself in a melodious voice, perhaps even singing a song as she worked. Over the fence, she presented Betty with a dozen of the green fruits on a plate covered with an embroidered cloth.

      “You’re the only one who appreciates the fruits of my fig tree,” she said. “My own daughter-in-law doesn’t deserve them. Anyone who says that figs from a can are as good as the ones from a tree isn’t worthy of a real, natural fruit — a fruit grown without chemicals or artificial fertilizer, a fruit as God created it. But what can you expect from an American girl who paints her fingernails and dyes her hair!”

      Betty obliged her neighbor. She extolled the figs and assured Mrs. Zagretti that only an Italian tree could have produced such delicious fruit. Her interactions with the widow were unfailingly warm and sincere. She listened to her talk about the same topics over and over: the garden, the economy, her son’s grocery store, and the shortcomings of her American daughter-in-law.

      One fine winter day when Betty is busy at her typewriter, Mrs. Zagretti knocks at the door. Looking out the window and seeing her on the way, Betty can’t believe her eyes. In the three years since she and her family moved into the neighborhood, the widow has never once darkened her doorstep, nor has Betty ever set foot in her house. The friendship has never crossed over the fence. For the first year, Mrs. Zagretti deliberately ignored the Jewish family. She seemed to have decided not to see Betty’s friendly smile or to respond to her greetings. The house had previously belonged to an Italian family, and Mrs. Zagretti was unable to adapt to the change. Not until spring arrived, when the two women began working in the garden, did they forge an unexpected connection, an emotional affinity that bound them like roots intertwined under the fence.

      Mrs. Zagretti noticed that contrary to expectations her Jewish neighbor had a natural gift for gardening. It was Betty’s ungloved hands that gave her away. Standing on her side of the fence, she was surprised to see Betty scratching at the soil with bare fingers — something her daughter-in-law would never have done. She leaned over the fence and offered her new neighbor half a dozen gladiolus bulbs, along with instructions as to how to plant

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