The Passing of Passover
Published in Issue #30 Translated from Hebrew by Yaron Regev(Excerpt from a Novel)
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It was Passover eve.
Cries of childish joy echoed up the stairwell and into Julia and David’s apartment. Many guests had visited them there. In the tenement opposite ours, Bracha’s seven-branched menorah had been lit, as if in defiance, and we could see that only three guests had walked through their door. Chaim, my little brother, looked at me in silence, his brown eyes darting, pleading with me to be the one to speak. I silently traced the number two with my fingers, and, holding our breaths, we told Dad, in unison and with utter certainty, that Bracha and Schuster had only had two guests. The difference between two and three doesn’t sound like much, but I knew it would offer enough comfort to Dad, who has never been in the habit of asking people how many guests they were having over for the holiday. It’s a typical Jewish inquiry, especially before the Passover Seder:“How many for the holiday?”
Dad was out of a job during those months. And he hardly spoke to a living soul.
Two days before that holiday eve, I was standing on the balcony hanging the laundry out to dry, and suddenly I saw Dad with his bicycle by the neighborhood advertising pole, staring at the posters pasted on the round stone surface. Charlie Chaplin was showing in our local theater again. I watched as Dad lowered his head and slowly started to circle the thick stone column as if he was hiding from someone....
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