Rafael Yglesias: Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“I wanna!” I protested and pulled at her grip. This confrontation changed my understanding of myself and her. I was shy, I was obedient, yet I was willing to fight her. And, although I was not to understand why for many years to come, I discovered that day that this inner self, the adult growing so far undisturbed in an unilluminated corner of my child’s soul, was a person my mother didn’t want to meet. She only wanted to know the sweet, bashful, compliant boy. (And why not? Such a child was a great compensation for the abrasive and selfish personalities who had been her lot in life. One of the first practical lessons of psychology is that neurotics aren’t fools. Typically, they are clever people whom the world has thwarted.)

“No, you don’t!” She shook my arm so hard my entire body trembled. She was shaking all the intransigent men in her life; she was trying to dislodge the stubborn materialism of her family and her nation. So she had to shake hard. She had to shake as hard as she could; and yet she could never shake hard enough.

Daniel, of all people, came down the staircase like Errol Flynn playing Robin Hood, dancing, leaping, using the banister to propel himself three, four steps at a jump. His wide face, the characteristic Rabinowitz oval, was flushed. He’s found it, I thought, heartbroken.

Daniel raced around us. “I figured it out!” he bragged as he disappeared down the narrow side hall that led toward the kitchen. But he was empty-handed, not carrying the heavy white napkin which would be wrapped around the Afikomen.

He hadn’t found it! I was thrilled.

“Look at me!” My mother wanted to shout; shame suppressed her demand into a maddened whisper. My head had turned to follow Daniel. Why the kitchen? What did he think: it was still in the matzo box?

I was convinced of this suddenly. My uncle was a businessman and he had probably thought of matzo’s production: returned the Afikomen to its box, stashed the box in a kitchen cabinet, in the working section of the house, tended by the black cook and maid. The lesson would be clear: a reminder of work and service. Obviously, at eight, I couldn’t have articulated this reasoning, but that, more or less, was the logic I theorized. Had Daniel? Was that what he meant when he cried “I figured it out” and ran toward the kitchen? Or was he headed to some other room? There were many others in that direction: the family den; the back stairs to the finished basement; the pantry; an office for my uncle. The house was huge, more than twenty rooms; I hadn’t seen most of them.

First, I had to get free. I sagged against my mother’s hold on my wrists, a premature sit-in protester, becoming a dead weight.

“Stand up!” she ordered, trying to hoist me to my feet. But she wasn’t especially strong — this was more than two decades before women of her age pumped iron. I felt a malicious pleasure at her impotence. She frowned and complained, “Stop it! Stand up!”

My legs bumped her shins. “Ow,” she said and kicked the heels of my Buster Browns, first one foot, then the other. Not hard. Now we were both behaving like frustrated eight-year-olds.

I drooped, ass hanging low, arms stretched to the limit. I thought they might pop out of my shoulder sockets, but I didn’t care. “I know where it is!” I shouted at Ruth. “Let me go! I can win! Let me go!”

She quit trying to lift me. Instead she pulled me toward her face, a face distorted by rage and frustration. “Stop it right now or we’ll leave this minute! I swear to God I’ll drag you by the neck all the way to New York.”

I pictured the humiliation of such an exit. As yet there were no sixties images of noble passive resistance to inspire me. To be dragged out by my angry mother in front of all my cousins, the pretty aloof girls in their dresses, the self-confident and athletically skilled boys with their rougish shirttails hanging out, seemed to me to preclude any chance that they might one day respect and like me.

When Ruth began to carry out her threat, twisting toward the door and yanking me at it, I straightened. “Okay,” I said, head down to avoid her eyes. I was angry and I was ashamed of my anger. She was my mother: I loved her; she was the god of my universe; to hate her that much was painful and confusing.

I began to cry: choked sobs of thwarted anger and disappointed love. A beautiful cousin — Uncle Harry and Aunt Ceil’s daughter, eleven-year-old Julie — stopped in her progress down the mahogany staircase. Her long straight black hair draped her narrow face, the ends curling inward, nearly touching under her chin. I was ashamed and quickly looked away, but not before a glimpse of her told me she was sympathetic. The quizzical tilt of her head — perhaps it was merely her beauty — convinced me she understood I was the victim of an injustice.

“What’s wrong?” she called down to my mother. Julie had a sweet and yet confident voice. Later, it served her well in business. When she challenged you, there was no challenge in her tone.

“Nothing,” my mother said impatiently. She pulled me to her, covering my face and muffling my tears. “Calm down!” she whispered. But it was an order.

Of course, it was my attempt to quell the anger that brought on hysterical tears. But I accepted her injunction and fought them.

“He can search with me,” Julie said. She finished her descent and walked over. Her alert brown eyes scanned us with curiosity and maybe (perhaps this is a later imposed memory) a hint of condescension.

In any event, at her offer I cried louder. Ruth pressed me tight into the smooth fabric of her skirt. “This is a family discussion. Could we have some privacy, please?” Ruth’s tone was unpleasant.

Julie was brave. She answered in her unchallenging and bold voice: “Well, if you want privacy you’re in the wrong place. This is the foyer,” she added and let go of a short volley of laughter.

“I know this is the foyer,” my mother said, and added sourly, “We’ll get out of everybody’s way.” Being at her brother’s mansion drained Ruth of her sense of humor. She walked me — still hiding in the slippery fabric of her dress — toward the narrow hall where Daniel had disappeared. We moved awkwardly, like a mother-and-son team in a three-legged race. I was coughing at this point, coughing from the tears I had swallowed.

“Calm down,” she said again, this time tenderly. She stopped and rubbed my back.

“I’m trying,” I said in a pathetic way, coughing and choking. At least we were alone in the narrow hall. It was dark. The only light came from two doors leading to adjoining rooms.

“Try a little harder,” she said, but again tenderly. She bent over and kissed my wet cheek.

It occurred to me Daniel might come by any minute. The thought of him witnessing my babyish behavior stopped my tears.

“I want you to understand,” my mother said. To be on my level, she knelt on one knee. Her tone was anguished. She had made me the victim of her dissatisfaction with the world; I could hear, although not comprehend, her regret. “Your uncle has made a lot of money and he thinks that getting money is good. That it shows how smart and great a person is. Well, most geniuses, most of history’s great men, never made any money at all. And they certainly didn’t care about making money. Looking for the Afikomen is just supposed to be a fun game — it’s not supposed to be a test. When my father — when Papa used to lead the Seder—” she stopped. I couldn’t see her face that clearly. Besides, I was distracted, furiously wiping away my tears, to remove the evidence should Daniel happen by. Meanwhile, Ruth had reminded herself of a neglected duty. “Come,” she said and took my hand. “We’re going to visit Papa Sam.”