Castles Burning

Every once in a while, I have this dream, the same dream. I’m in the living room of the family house, 216 Atlantic Street. My sister Lynne is sitting on the couch, reading; I’m on the matching love seat, not doing much of anything. Inside, the TV blares in my parents’ room—a war movie, rat-tat-rat and a John Wayne drawl—outside, the whine and grind of power tools; my brother Brian must be building something. I walk into the kitchen, the old kitchen, the kitchen as it looked before Brian remodeled it: tinny, metal cabinets; iron trivets and brass-plated jell-o molds dangling from the ceiling; barely enough room for two people to exhale at once. Mom stands at the stove. I linger by the doorway. “May I help you?” she asks in her sardonic Bronx tone. I try to tell her that she doesn’t belong, she’s dead—they’re all dead—but I’m unable to speak. I remain by the doorway watching her. Something must be wrong; Mom isn’t kvetching at me to stay out of her way while she’s cooking.

Around the time of the Cuban missile crisis, I had recurring end-of-the-world nightmares. Alone, in a large hall, I wander, searching for my mother. A large clock ticking down: I can’t see it, but I feel its presence. The world is drawing to an end, time winding down before me. Unable to find my mother, I run frantically, bouncing off legs, shopping bags, briefcases, and overstuffed pocketbooks. Nothing. Alone in a crowd, alone in a panic.

These days, I rarely remember my dreams. Sometimes I wonder if I dream at all. Life’s continuity has been disturbed, and this discontinuity manifests itself in my sleeping pattern. I don’t sleep very much—a few hours a night, often interrupted—and I walk around tired all day, drinking coffee. The caffeine keeps me up at night. I toss and turn, afraid to sleep, never knowing whether I’ll wake up in the morning.

Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday.[1] Unlike the High Holidays, where we seek atonement and beg forgiveness from an almighty illusion, Passover commemorates an historic event, a cultural victory: the Israelite’s escape from slavery.

The cultural connectivity does little to explain my affinity with Passover. For me, it’s simple: family. The Passover Seder was one of two occasions each year—Thanksgiving being the other—where the entire extended family got together. Six Kellermanns, Aunt Marion, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Monroe, cousins Bonnie and Vicky; sometimes, cousin Robert would trek down from Vermont with his wife Scottie and the kids. In time, we began inviting our closest friends, almost always gentiles.

Traditionally, the Passover Seder is an endless orgy of religious ritual, two hours of prayer and solemnity with just enough wine and food thrown in to keep the nondevout from going hypoglycemic. But in the Kellermann house, we had little need for such Seder masochism. To us, Passover was a celebration: a little chopped liver, a little wine, matzo, wine, hard-boiled eggs in salt water, wine, charoses, wine, knaidlach, wine, gefilte fish, wine, a little more matzo, a little more wine. Wine, wine, wine. At some point, just to embarrass me, I’d be asked to read the four questions: “Ma nish-ta-naw ha-lai-law ha-zeh mee-kawl ha-lay-los? Why is this night different from all other nights?” This honor always goes to the youngest. No matter how old I got, I would always be the youngest.

Every year, Mom cooked a large brisket and drained all the flavor from a few chickens. Dad held court at the head of the table, spinning tales of yesteryear: “I had an opportunity to invest in the original production of Death of a Salesman, but I didn’t think anyone would want see a play that was essentially about my life.” The women kvetched, compared prescriptions. Some of us slipped outside or upstairs to get stoned. The rest kibbitzed mercilessly. Every year, Uncle Monroe was the first to pass out. He didn’t wait for coffee, or even to finish dinner—just got up, loosened his belt, and plopped down on the couch. After Ruth and Monroe grew too old to drive up from Florida, we began handing out the Monroe Award to the first person to stretch out on the sofa.

One year, my roommate Bill, estranged from his own family and seeing mine at its best, said to me, “God, Kelley, you have such a cool family. Do you think your parents would adopt me?” I never wonder what’s become of Bill; I just assume he’s dead.

Last year, on the first night of Passover, I cooked dinner for a friend. No Seder, just chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, salad, and a couple of bottles of wine. I thought about cooking the chicken as my mother did, utterly tasteless. Instead, I shoved chopped garlic, ginger, and rosemary beneath the skin and into the cavity, coated the bird with olive oil and a touch of black pepper, and roasted it upright for an hour and a quarter.

I made my friend eat gefilte fish. “Just load it up with horseradish; that’s the secret to eating Jewish cuisine.” She smiled, dolloped horseradish on the fishy off-white blob.

I didn’t reminisce that night; I just wanted to stay in touch while trying to move on. Sometimes, I feel as if can’t do either.

The Freudians tell us that dreams are a gateway to the subconscious. But my gate has already been flung open. All of my suppressed pain has been driven into my consciousness—I think about it; I talk about it; I write about it. Yet I know that somewhere deep within my subconscious there must be joy. And if, per chance, I ever learn to dream again, someday I may just find it.

[1]My Jewish name, Pesach, is the Hebrew translation of Passover. As a child, I attached considerable significance to this coincidence, took pride in knowing that Jews worldwide gathered to celebrate my holiday, always expected the prophet Elijah to stop by a pay me a visit. My mother, who fought endlessly with our Rabbi who insisted on calling me Pinchus, did little to discourage my making the connection. Incidentally, my brother Brian’s birthday, March 28, often fell on a Seder night—depriving him of a real birthday cake, which would have been chometz (not kosher for Passover). Brian never liked Passover very much. For that matter, Brian never liked me very much, either—especially after the year my parents gave me a new bicycle on his birthday. In time, however, Brian reconciled with other events overshadowing his birthday—until 1992, that is, when my father died on March 28.