The History of Love (35 page)

Today is the 10th day in a row of rain. Dr. Vishnubakat said one nice thing to write in my journal is my thoughts and feelings. He said that if I wanted him to know something about how I feel but don’t want to talk about it I could just give him my journal. I did not say haven’t you ever heard of the word
PRIVATE?
One thought I have is it’s very expensive to take a plane to Israel. I know this because I tried to buy a ticket at the airport and they said it was 1200 dollars. When I told the woman that one time my mom bought a ticket for 700 dollars, she said there were no tickets for 700 dollars anymore. I thought maybe she was just saying that because she thought I didn’t have the money, so I took out the shoebox and showed her the 741 dollars and fifty cents. She asked me where I got so much money, so I told her 1500 cups of lemon-aid, even though it wasn’t totally true. Then she asked me why I wanted to go to Israel so much and I asked her if she could keep a secret and she said yes so I told her I was a lamed vovnik and also maybe the Messiah. When she heard this she took me to a special room that is only for employees and gave me an El Al pin. Then the police came and took me home. The way I felt about this was angry.

September 29

It’s been raining for 11 days. How is anyone supposed to be a lamed vovnik if first it costs 700 dollars to get to Israel and then they change it to 1200 dollars? They should keep the price the same so that people will know how much lemon-aid they have to sell if they want to get to Jerusalem.

Today Dr. Vishnubakat asked me to explain the note I left for Mom and Alma when I thought I was going to Israel. He put it in front of me to refresh my memory. But I did not need my memory freshened because I already knew what it said because I’d done 9 drafts since I wanted to type it for officialness and I kept making mistakes. What it said was “Dear Mom and Alma and Anyone Else, I have to go away and I might be gone for a long time. Please don’t try to find me. The reason why is I’m a lamed vovnik and I have to take care of a lot of things. There is going to be a flood but you don’t have to worry because I built you an ark. Alma you know where it is. Love, Bird.”

Dr. Vishnubakat asked me how I got the name Bird. I told him I just did. If you want to know why Dr. Vishnubakat is called Dr. Vishnubakat it’s because he’s from India. If you want to remember how to say it just think of Dr. Fishinabucket.

September 30

Today the rain stopped and the firemen took down my ark because they said it was a fire hazard. The way this made me feel was sad. I tried not to cry because Mr. Goldstein says that what G-d does is for the best, and also because Alma said I should try to push down my feelings so that I can have friends. Something else Mr. Goldstein says is What the eyes don’t see the heart doesn’t feel, but I had to see what happened to the ark because all of a sudden I remembered that I had painted
on the back, which no one is allowed to throw away. I made Momcall the firemen to ask where they’d put all the pieces. She told me they’d piled them on the sidewalk for the garbage man, so I made her take me there, but the garbage man had already come and everything was gone. Then I cried and kicked a stone and Mom tried to hug me but I wouldn’t let her because she shouldn’t have let the firemen take down the ark, and also she should have asked me before she threw away everything that belonged to Dad.

October 1

Today I went to see Mr. Goldstein for the first time since I tried to go to Israel. Mom brought me to Hebrew School and waited outside. He wasn’t in his office in the basement, or in the sanctuary, but I finally found him outside in the back digging a hole for some siddurs with broken spines. I said Hello Mr. Goldstein and for a long time he didn’t say anything or even look at me, so I said Well it’s probably going to start raining again tomorrow, and he said Fools and weeds grow without rain, and kept digging. His voice sounded sad and I tried to understand what he wanted to tell me. I stood next to him and watched the hole get deeper. There was dirt on his shoes and I remembered how once someone from the Daleds stuck a sign on his back that said kick me, and no one told him, not even me, because I didn’t want him to ever know it was there. I watched him wrap three siddurs in an old cloth, and then he kissed them. The circles under his eyes were bluer than ever. I thought maybe Fools and weeds grow without rain meant he was disappointed so I tried to think of why, and when he lay the cloth with the broken siddurs in the hole I said Yisgadal veyisqadash shemei rabbah, Magnified and sanctified may His great name be in the world that He created, and may His kingdom come in your lives and your days, and then I saw that tears were coming out of Mr. Goldstein’s eyes. He started to shovel dirt in the hole and I saw that his lips were moving but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I listened harder, I put my ear right to his mouth, and he said, Chaim, which is the name he calls me, A lamed vovnik is humble and works in secret, and then he turned away, and I understood that the thing he was crying about was me.

October 2

It started to rain again today, but I didn’t even care because the ark is gone now, and because I disappointed Mr. Goldstein. To be a lamed vovnik means never to tell anyone you’re one of the 36 people the world depends on, it means doing good things that help people without anyone ever noticing you. Instead I’d told Alma that I was a lamed vovnik, and Mom, and the woman at El Al, and Louis, and Mr. Hintz, my gym teacher, because he tried to make me take off my kippah and put on shorts, and also a few other people, and the police had to come and get me, and the firemen came and took down the ark. The way this makes me feel is like crying. I disappointed Mr. Goldstein and also G-d. I don’t know if this means I am not a lamed vovnik anymore.

October 3

Today Dr. Vishnubakat asked me if I was feeling depressed so I said What do you mean by depressed so he said For example do you feel sad and one thing I did not say is Are you an ignoramus? because that is not what a lamed vovnik would say. Instead I said If a horse knew how small a man is compared to it, it would trample him, which is something Mr. Goldstein sometimes says, and Dr. Vishnubakat said That’s interesting, can you elaborate? and I said No. Then we sat in silence for a few minutes which is something we do sometimes, but I got bored so I said Corn can grow on manure which is something else Mr. Goldstein says, and this seemed to interest Dr. Vishnubakat a lot because he wrote it down on his pad, so I said Pride lies on the dung heap. Then Dr. Vishnubakat said Can I ask you a question and I said Depends and he said Do you miss your father and I said I don’t really remember him, and he said I think it would be very hard to lose your father, and I didn’t say anything. If you want to know why I didn’t say anything it’s because I don’t like it when anyone talks about Dad unless they knew him.

One thing I decided is that from now on before I do anything I will always ask myself
WOULD A LAMED VOVNIK DO THIS?
For example today Misha called for Alma and I did not say Do you want to French kiss her? because when I asked myself the question
WOULD A LAMED VOVNIK DO THIS?
the answer was
NO
. Then Misha said How is she? and I said OK and he said Tell her I was calling to see if she ever found the person she was looking for, and I didn’t know what he was talking about so I said Pardon me? and then he said Actually never mind don’t tell her I called, and I said OK and didn’t tell her because one thing a lamed vovnik is good at is keeping secrets. I did not know Alma was looking for someone and I tried to think of who but I couldn’t.

October 4