Am I the only grandson on the planet who doesn’t remember his grandparents with fondness and nostalgia? Do I deserve familial banishment because of a certain incident that wasn’t even my fault?
Let me describe the place where it all started to go wrong: the Ashkenazi household of my learned, myopic grandfather and muscle-bound grandmother.
The air in their home was stale, as if no window had ever been opened. It was filled with the smells of old Jewish books, snuffed Shabbos candles, fresh-baked potato kugel, wool socks drying on a steam radiator, unhygienic old bodies. The “Schlabin smell” was what Mother called it. The smell clung to my grandparents’ sheets and blankets, the sofa where Grandpa Schlabin took his Saturday afternoon nap, and Grandma and Grandpa themselves. After I visited them, I had the smell in my clothes and hair; it soaked into every pore of my skin. I could even taste it in my spit. There was no escaping it.
The interior of their house was dark and solemn. The place had a subterranean feel to it: the thick drapes and closed windows blocked out all sunlight and noise. When the heavy front door slammed shut behind you, it was as if the outside world ceased to exist.
Every Shabbos after services Father would visit his parents’ home, with me firmly in tow. I used to roam through the stuffy twilight of long Saturday afternoons in search of something to do. Out of the greenish gloom Grandpa Schlabin would soundlessly appear, a tiny figure with suspenders and...
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