How Should a Person Be? (14 page)

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chapter
14
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SHEILA WANDERS IN THE COPY SHOP

T
he next morning I went out. I went to get some stationery,
stamps, and a pen. I wandered for fifteen blocks before I noticed—­in the window of the basement of a brownstone—­a tan piece of cardboard on which was written, in thick black marker:
copy shop
.
Beneath it was a line drawing of a matzo and four words:
we sell bird's milk.
Bird's Milk had been my father's favorite treat! My mother fed it to him in the early years of their marriage. It was a custard soup with egg white clouds floating on top. I knew this place was calling me like fate; that it would have just what I needed.

I went down the steps and entered a room that was long and cramped. The walls ­were all shelves, and from the shelves spilled ink, paper, pens, glue, staplers, rulers, and some items I didn't know. Near the back of the store was a tiny, cluttered desk with a very old computer on it, and above the computer ­were pasted colored notes in Hebrew. Behind the desk was a tiny office space, sectioned off by half a wall. Boxes ­were stacked everywhere. A man appeared from amid the dust: balding, not tall, in a torn sweater and beige pants. He had a round, smooth face and tiny eyes, and he stared at me as I moved through the clutter.

“I saw your sign about Bird's Milk,” I said.

“Do you even know what it
means
?” he asked in an aggrieved and accusatory tone. “Do you even know what Bird's Milk
is
?”

I replied that it was my father's favorite dessert.

“What? No! They hang these signs over shop­keep­er's stalls in Prague!
We Sell Bird's Milk
means
We Sell Everything
!”

He cleared his throat in disgust, but he clearly wanted to talk more, for then he said, “I'm a Jew. I was born as a Jew. By the way, a Jew is a Jew. Did you know that? Even if you convert to another religion, you are still a Jew.”

SHEILA

Yeah, I think so.

SOLOMON

There's nothing to think! This is our religion!

SHEILA

If you have a mother who's a Jew.

SOLOMON

Tell me how come if your mother is Jewish and not the father.

SHEILA

Because you know who the mother is, but you don't know who the father is.

SOLOMON

Ah, that's bullshit.

SHEILA

You don't know who—­necessarily who the father is!

SOLOMON

That's bullshit. That's complete bullshit.

SHEILA

'Cause the father passes on the cultural Judaism, he teaches the laws, but the mother passes on the—

SOLOMON

No, no, it's complete nonsense.

SHEILA

What do you mean it's nonsense?

SOLOMON

It's nonsense because that's not how Judaism was in ancient times! There was a change between the sixth and the ninth centuries on the subject.

SHEILA

Why did they change it?

SOLOMON

A-
ha
! ­Here we are!
Why?

SHEILA

Well?

SOLOMON

There's a good reason.

SHEILA

Tell me.

SOLOMON

I don't know.

SHEILA

You don't
know
? You know
when
it happened, but you don't know
why
?

SOLOMON

It's one of the hottest conversations in Jewish scholarship in the last twenty—

SHEILA

And what are the speculations?

SOLOMON

The speculations? Nobody knows why! There's actually no answer. It's nothing to do with ge­ne­tics.

SHEILA

So you're saying there was a change between the sixth and ninth centuries. It changed from the father passing on the religion, to the mother—

SOLOMON

I think personally it has to do with the occupation.

SHEILA

What occupation?

SOLOMON

Of the fathers.

SHEILA

What do you mean the occupation of the fathers?

SOLOMON

What the fathers
did
!

SHEILA

Elaborate.

SOLOMON

What did the Hungarians
do
? How do we have Hungarians? Where do Hungarians
come from
?

SHEILA

From Hungary.

SOLOMON

No, no! They don't come from Hungary!

SHEILA

What do you mean! Just explain what you mean by the occupation of the fathers. You mean what they ­were occupied with—­or is it that they ­were occupied?

SOLOMON

But you see, nobody really knows. Why, in that period of time, does this drastic change occur? There's no answer.

SHEILA

But ­doesn't it make sense? If the fathers aren't around, who's
going to transmit the traditions and the culture to the children except the mothers?

SOLOMON

The mothers cannot do that because they aren't that learned.

SHEILA

But the women are the ones who run the holidays, so they know the traditions. They're the ones who cook. I know it from my own family. So it makes sense that the women would know the traditions from growing up in their families—­and that they would pass it on to their children.

SOLOMON

By the way, it's a good possibility what you say. I'm not
saying that what you're saying is completely false—

SHEILA

I don't know if it's nonsense or true, but it makes sense.

SOLOMON

Logically, logically. But that's not the reason.

SHEILA

Then what's the reason?

SOLOMON

That's not the reason.

SHEILA

What's the reason?

SOLOMON

That's not the reason.

SHEILA

What's the reason?

SOLOMON

I don't know.

SHEILA

Then how can you say that's not the reason!

SOLOMON

Because it
cannot
be the reason.

SHEILA

Why!

SOLOMON

It cannot be the reason! In order for a drastic change like this,
in a male-­dominated religion like Judaism, for something like the mothers passing on the religion to happen, there had to be something drastic. We are missing something in this puzzle. (
to a delivery man
) How you doing? (
turning back
)
By the way, there's a guy at Yale who has been trying to write about it, but up to now we don't have any good
explanation—

DELIVERY MAN

How do you spell?

SOLOMON

SOLOMON, it's S-O-­L-O-­M-O-­N—no good explanation on that subject. It's very critical to understand this thing. There's no explanation by the rabbis, either. Now, I'll explain to you what the problem is. When the state of Israel was established in '48, there was a decision not to write a constitution. Do you think that's good or bad?

SHEILA

Do they plan to write a constitution eventually?

SOLOMON

Well, when the Messiah will come. What do you think about
that?

SHEILA

How are they going to live until then? By what principles?

SOLOMON

The principles of—­God knows. Their
own
principles!

SHEILA

Individual principles?

SOLOMON

I have no idea! Jews know best. They know better than anybody ­else how to live.

SHEILA

(
laughing
) They have the covenant with God.

SOLOMON

You have to—­thinking is a very complex thing. Thinking is something that is not done anymore. You understand? Thinking is something that is not done anymore, because ­we've stopped thinking, because if people ­were thinking, we ­wouldn't have gotten ourselves into the trouble we have gotten ourselves into.

SHEILA

But people have always gotten themselves into trouble.

SOLOMON

Never mind that. Anyway, so what you have is a judicial disaster, and because of that judicial disaster, we have all the wars that you see now. Because of their inability to write a constitution, they ruined their chances for survival. That is my theory—­my philosophical theory. If you don't write a book by which you're going to rule yourself, you are opening the door to all kinds of things that only God knows. Do you know that there's not a single record in all of Egyptian history of Jews working there as slaves?

SHEILA

So you think it's a lie?

SOLOMON

That's not what I said. Why would I say!—­it has nothing to do with a lie or not!

SHEILA

So why ­wouldn't they write it down? Probably they didn't think it was important.

SOLOMON

No, no, I'm talking about the Egyptians.

SHEILA

Yes, but why talk about one's slaves?

SOLOMON

Why not? They make hieroglyphs of everything in the world. I mean, they decorated hieroglyphs—

SHEILA

But maybe one's slaves are below one's consciousness.

SOLOMON

No, but the king stands there, and there's seven thousand slaves. Why shouldn't they show them? They show all the other things.

SHEILA

Do they show the insects?

SOLOMON

Absolutely! Insects are very important!

SHEILA

Maybe slaves are below insects.

SOLOMON

I don't think so. I don't think so.

SHEILA

Well, you have to have some kind of regard for something in order to show it.

Sheila starts idly leafing through a pile of papers, junk, and books
.

SOLOMON

What I'm saying is—­let's be realistic. If you don't have a historical record, the question is always,
We have a problem ­here
. What is the problem? You understand? I'm not saying that your questions are not right. Your questions
might
be right. But you see, there has to be a deeper thinking ­here.

SHEILA

Wait a minute. What do you mean by
deeper thinking
?

SOLOMON

I'll explain. I do a lot of thinking. Okay, so—­don't touch those things.

SHEILA

(
holding up a book
) What is this book?

SOLOMON

Don't touch those things.

SHEILA

What's this book?

SOLOMON

Don't touch—­that's my private stuff. You cannot—­listen—don't touch things ­here because if you touch things it becomes a, a, a—

SHEILA

A mess.

SOLOMON

A mess, and you cannot, because I ­wouldn't touch your things either. But anyway. So where are we now?

SHEILA

(
puts the book down
) I want to know what it's like to think in the desert versus what it's like to think in the city.

A young man has been vacantly regarding the messy shelves.

SOLOMON

Sir, can I help you with something?

YOUNG MAN

Do you have pens?

SOLOMON

Yes. Do you have money?

YOUNG MAN

Of course.

SOLOMON

What kind of pen do you want? Do you want something
to enrich your mind, or something to enrich your pocket?

YOUNG MAN

(
pause
) I just want something that writes well.

SOLOMON

Well, okay.

Solomon takes something from his desk.

What about this one? It's a gel pen.

YOUNG MAN

A gel pen.

SHEILA

It's good. I just got one. I like it far more.

SOLOMON

Oh, God.

SHEILA

It's a good pen!

YOUNG MAN

How much is it?

SOLOMON

How much do you want to pay?

YOUNG MAN

A dollar.

SOLOMON

Two dollars. It sells for two-­fifty.

YOUNG MAN

Okay, I'll take one.

SOLOMON

What a deal. (
yelling to his wife in the back
) Enid, we make two dollars! So what do you want to do when you grow up?

YOUNG MAN

I was hoping I was almost grown up.

SOLOMON

You know we never grow up. I hope you realize that. What do you study?

YOUNG MAN

Uh
.
.
. computer stuff.

SOLOMON

We are in the beginning of the revolution—­the computer revolution! Or evolution. I think they're eventually going to make people who are computers in China
.
.
.