Omama knew that they weren’t religious, she told them in so many words, a long speech or a scornful “Hmm!” They weren’t fooling her; she knew and told every one of them, even the son who lived with her, what she knew, and as her anger mounted said it in Hebrew, short phrases, perhaps curses, spitting out each phrase. Omama’s outburst was part of the Seder, with her looks of disgust and knowing and the muttering curses in Hebrew. Everyone looked down on the floor waiting for her to finish. Then the women murmured plaintively till a voice rose, her father’s, to say, “You are right, Mama, we are hypocrites.” Then he praised her, she was a great woman and exemplary in every way as a wife, as a mother; he recalled her acts of devotion and self-sacrifice, her service for public charity; he spoke with intensity, sometimes declaimingly but meaning it and wanting to declare and convince others. Speaking of how good she was as a mother, he was both moved and embarrassed. Then her uncle came in, bellowing, “We are not worthy,” and went into a long praise of virtues in a cantor’s chant. “It is true,” her father put in periodically, in a low-voiced refrain. “It is true,” he said with loud emphasis to terminate his brother’s chant and, looking around the room at every one significantly, “We are a bunch of hypocrites. We are not worthy of Mama,” he said with a sudden change of energy. The prerogative of the oldest male in the room and master of ceremonies clear in his voice: “Let’s begin.” There was a great commotion like backstage just before the curtain rises—Omama rushed into the kitchen; all the aunts and uncles were moving about the room to check if everything was in its place. Was the table setting exactly as it should be? Were there enough chairs? They were ordering each other around—fetch this, take away that. The children were told where to sit. Did everybody have a Haggadah? Did Gabor? Did Lizy? Did Mitzi? Did Sophie? Did Tibor? Talking too loud, all this to-do quite unnecessary, it annoyed Omama. Omama looked grieved. Papi held her hand. “Sit down,” he told Uncle Isi, who gave him a hurt look. Papi adjusted his gray fedora. The men exchanged glances and started praying. Uncle Benji’s hand reached across the table, trying to flap the page in Sophie’s Haggadah to the right place. “Show her,” Aunt Lea said to cousin Mitzi. Before she could read the translation, cousin Mitzi whispered it in her ear, in her sweet, smiley voice, her voice blond like her hair that tickled Sophie’s cheek. Feelingfully taking little breaths in the tone she had for everybody that was always saying, I am the girl who makes everybody happy.
Everything about the Passover ceremony is strange: a book beside everyone’s plate called the Haggadah tells about it. A picture shows how the table must be set; the text gives instructions between snatches of prayer for dipping greens, drinking wine, for breaking and eating matzah, for getting up, sitting down, for washing hands. It says what is being done and why and what it means. The youngest child is supposed to ask, Why is this night different from other nights? The question and answer are read from the Haggadah. The men sitting around the table in fedoras make it seem as if they were not really in a room; usually you did not see a man wear his hat inside the house unless he had just arrived or was just leaving. One of the men ranting and nodding at the other end of the table turns his head: it’s Sophie’s father and he smiles at her broadly with a wink as if they were at home, but he looks like someone else. It is her father wearing his gray-green fedora rather than the embroidered skullcap his mother gave him; he chants swaying back and forth, the expression on his face not like when he is just Papi or imitating someone else and ridiculing at the same time. Drawling, ranting, with strange jerks, he pushes the hat back on his head, his expression bored and arrogant. Now he is really a Jew praying, now he is making fun of a Jew praying. It’s hard to tell, perhaps there isn’t that much of a difference; perhaps that’s how a Jew was meant to be praying.
The picture in the Haggadah shows a family at a Passover table: the child in the picture looks at the picture in the Haggadah of a child looking in the Haggadah. It has never been different than it is now: the family sitting around the table, the men in skullcaps, reading from the Haggadah; sometimes the matzah is round, sometimes it is square. The family sitting around the Passover table, this is what Passover is about, and God leading the Jews out of Egypt is just a story, mixed up with rules for people to argue about. Another picture shows the four sons at Passover: the wise son, the wicked son, the dumb son and the one too young to ask. There are also pictures of men in loin cloths carrying stones, and of the ten plagues.
A child easily loses its place...
She was bored. She looked at the pictures on the first pages as
