Surviving Remnant by Hanna Perlstein Marcus

Author:Hanna Perlstein Marcus [Marcus, Hanna Perlstein]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780997971200
Google: _WPctAEACAAJ
Publisher: Buttonhole Publishing
Published: 2017-03-14T04:20:42+00:00

She then expertly rolled the cake back up again and placed it in the refrigerator. Later, when she was ready to serve it, she would slice the cake roll to expose the swirls of delicious mocha cream on the inside.

You vill come after supper tonight and taste da cake, right Hanele?

I can’t wait.

It was fun to watch this cooking lesson, but in my case, it was like the algebra I will never use in my real life. After watching the experts in cooking and sewing, I should have been a connoisseur of domesticity, but I never became much of a cook, like Mrs. Landsman, or a seamstress, like my mother — just an observer. Since my mother never asked me to participate in the preparation of either food or clothing, and I never asked, my lack of creative ability in these areas is little wonder.

Living on Osgood Street and working at lowpaying jobs, the grine struggled to make ends meet, but they doted on their children, viewing them as extensions of their families into the future. They were willing to sacrifice anything for them. The future, a concept that only a few years before might not have been possible, meant everything to them.

They made sure their children were well fed and warmly dressed in the frigid New England winter, and they paid close attention to school grades. Although certain members of their community inflicted harsh punishments when their children disobeyed (as perhaps they had learned from their own parents in their youth), it did not deter them from placing all their hopes and dreams in their children. They were willing to use whatever skills they had to ensure their offspring lived happy, prosperous lives.

However, the grine’s tendency to keep important life secrets from their children in order to protect them from the horrors of their parents’ past also deprived the children from knowing their parents’ true nature. As with my mother, who protected the secret of my conception in a displaced persons camp, they developed patterns of secrecy constructed in our childhoods that continued into our adulthood. Indeed, their ever-present smiles, with the exception of my mother’s taciturn visage, were skillful covers of inner torment. Each of them kept much of the terrifying portions of their lives to themselves until their deaths. Even so, their children instinctively felt their pain and spent their lifetimes protecting them from any undue grief and sorrow. In a reversal of roles, guarding our parents from any future unhappiness became a full-time responsibility.

When I returned to the Landsmans’ apartment later that night to taste the mocha cream cake, no one was home. Turning away from their front door and then looking back again through their windows at the lonely darkness inside, I wondered why Mrs. Landsman had invited me if she and her family would not be there. The aroma of the mocha cake still swirled through my nostrils, making me yearn for just a nibble of the creamy confection. The thought of it was so intoxicating that I was not sure whether I could wait another day for the taste.

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