Catching Elijah
This short story first appeared in St. Anthony Messenger Magazine in April 2006
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“CATCHING ELIJAH”
by
Jeri Westerson
Maybe eight-year-olds aren’t as gullible anymore, but in 1968, we were as preciously naïve as children should be. Even so, it wasn’t altogether an innocent time.
Television showed pictures of a faraway war in a place we’d never heard of. We were told to pray, but eight-year-olds aren’t altogether sure just who God is, and with all the killing and violent demonstrations, God seemed very far away indeed.
Passover, my favorite holiday, brought God just a little closer with all the exciting tales of the book of Exodus. It’s the week-long Jewish holiday where we ate matzo—the unleavened bread—drank the wine, and told tales how God sent down the ten plagues on the Egyptians and how Pharaoh would not let “my people go”. How the last plague of the slaying of the first born finally made Pharaoh relent, and Moses lead the Hebrew people out of slavery in
We used up a lot of red crayons coloring blood.
I remember it as a time of table linens, silver, crystal glasses, and the fact that we, a family of bacon-eating American Jews, went kosher for one week a year.
The holiday lasted eight days. The first night of Passover was the Seder—that special meal when we recited all the prayers, read the stories from Exodus, ate matzo and the strange, bitter herbs dipped in salt water to represent our time in slavery, with its bitterness and tears. Mom would go all out and we usually had a full house for the occasion. Grandma and Grandpa always arrived early in the morning. Grandpa was a little deaf and often answered my question with an entirely different answer, but he always pressed cellophaned-wrapped candies into my hand, winked and said, “Don’t tell your mother.”
And then there was my brother Stevie. He was two years younger and a pain in the neck. He had a white rat named George and he always chased me with it. George’s little red eyes widened in just as much horror at the chase until my mother couldn’t stand it anymore and shouted, “Stevie, if you don’t put that rat away I’m going to burst a vessel!”
This year Great Aunt Sylvia came again. She was an older lady of indeterminate age, a spinster, with dyed black hair and severely shaped lips done in dark red lipstick. Her long fingernails were painted with the same red hue, and she always made an entrance like a fat Auntie Mame. She’d deposit her suitcases at her feet, and then direct her dark raven’s eyes at me and Stevie, bear down on us with great rolling strides, and clutch our cheeks with her painted talons, and twist. For years, I was certain her nails were red from the blood of other nieces and nephews she had similarly greeted.
“How’s my little Sophie? You’re so big! How old are you now dear?” All the while, she rattled my cheeks like a cat shaking out a mouse.
“And Stevie! You’re such a fine young man now!” His poor cheeks stretched with each emphasized word.
She’d suddenly release us and we’d fall back, cheeks feeling bloated and sore. She’d turn to talk to Mom and Dad and we’d be ignored for the rest of the visit, which was perfectly all right with us.
But it wasn’t Grandma and Grandpa I looked forward to seeing (and certainly not Great Aunt Sylvia), but my cousin Rachel who lived in
Rachel always wore her red hair in one big pony tail high up on the back of her head. We shared our love for new black patent leather Mary Janes, pleased how they tapped on the kitchen’s linoleum floor when we danced like Shirley Temple.
At night, we’d spend a lot of time with a flashlight under the blanket and giggle until Mom told us to settle down and go to sleep.
In the morning, Rachel and I would spend hours polishing the silver. We talked and talked over the newspaper-strewn table and absorbed the aromas of chicken soup that rolled out of the kitchen.
Until Stevie came by.
“Whatcha doin’?”
I rolled my eyes and finally settled my glare on him, brows lowered. “What does it look like we’re doing, dork? We’re polishing the silver.”
“I’m gonna tell Mom that you called me a name.”
“I’ll call you more than that, if you tell.”
“Why don’t you go play with your rat,” said Rachel. She squinched up her face when she said the word “rat”.
“Maybe I’ll let George play in your suitcase.”
She gripped the edge of the table. “You leave my things alone, Stevie Rosenfeld!”
Stevie gave a little boy smile that wrinkled his nose and seemed to double the number of freckles on his cheeks. He sauntered away swinging his arms.
I never trusted that saunter.
I looked at Rachel and I made a face that encompassed all the snips and snails and puppy dog tails my little brother was made of. We burst out laughing.
Soon we fell silent, each with our rag; a tarnished serving fork in Rachel’s hand, a candlestick in mine.
“We’re learning about Elijah in school at temple,” she said after a long interval of silence.
“Not the Passover Elijah?” I asked.
“Don’t you pay attention?” She dropped her rag and serving fork, retreated to the living room, and flopped down on the plastic-covered sofa. “Remember the cup…and when we open the door?”
“Oh yeah.” I threw myself on the sofa beside her. Our bare legs stuck to the slick cover. Elijah the prophet, written about in the First and Second Book of Kings. That was the extent of my knowledge about him.
“Elijah announces the coming of the Messiah,” recited Rachel. I always deferred to Rachel on Biblical matters. After all, she went to temple school, not me.
I thought about the war on TV and all those starving people in foreign places. If the Messiah was such a good thing, shouldn’t Elijah announce the Messiah now? “My friend Sally goes to a Catholic school,” I said, “and she says Jesus is the Messiah.”
Rachel shrugged. “He was Jewish, right?”
“Yeah. And she said that the Last Supper is a Seder. That’s what she learned in Catholic school, anyway. She said that our matzo became their Communion bread.”
Rachel raised her brows but said nothing.
“You don’t think Elijah already announced him and we missed him, do you?” I said.
“All I know is, with all the trouble in the world,” said Rachel in an adult sort of tone, “we sure could use a Messiah right now. I don’t care who he is.”
We bounced on the springy cushion, and then I looked up at her. “Don’t think I’m a dork or anything, but what exactly is a Messiah?”
“I’m not sure. He’s supposed to save the world or something. I guess I’ll find out at temple school.”
More cooking smells wafted from the kitchen. Rachel lifted her nose to inhale for a moment and then her face took on a thoughtful expression. “What about that Elijah’s cup?” she whispered.
At the Seder, we were supposed to ask Elijah into the house. Us kids would run to the door and open it while the grown-ups chanted his welcome. Elijah’s cup—filled with sweet red wine and set aside by itself near the linen-covered matzo—would sit all through the Seder and all through dinner. And somehow, by itself, wine would disappear from the glass. My father told us kids that Elijah visited us, honored us with his presence. My father even marked the wine level with a rubberband. And strangely at the end of the meal, he’d say, “Hey kids. Look at Elijah’s cup. He came and drank some.”
And we’d look, and sure enough, the wine level sat below the rubberband.
Where was Elijah during the Seder, and where did he go?
“You know what I think?” I said. “I think we should find out about Elijah this year. I want to know just when he comes in and when he leaves. And I want to see that wine go down.”
“Me too,” she said, but her eyes didn’t look as brave as her words sounded.
***
We decided the best person to ask was Grandpa. Old people were supposed to be wise, even though they put their teeth in water glasses at night, smelled of medicine, and did things too slow. Outside, Grandpa sat on a lawn chair in his undershirt talking to my dad. The radio hummed with the news in the background. Grandpa wore suspenders over his undershirt. Wisps of gray hair peeked out from under a dented felt hat.
“Grandpa!”
He turned and smiled. Even with his teeth in he looked a little toothless. “Hey kids!” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a roll of Lifesavers. “Have some candy. Don’t tell your mothers.”
“No thanks, Grandpa,” I said. I looked at Rachel and she urged me on. “Grandpa. Can you tell us about Elijah?”
“Well, that’s when you can’t remember who you are.”
I tried to figure this out when Rachel touched Grandpa’s arm. “Not amnesia, Grandpa!” she shouted. “Elijah!”
“Oh! The prophet! He didn’t die, you know. He was taken up into heaven on a flaming chariot. He’s supposed to announce when the Messiah comes. Don’t you remember? ‘Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers; lest I come and smite the land with utter destruction.’ That’s from Malachi. In the Holy Scriptures. We open the door for Elijah at Passover so that he’ll come to our house and announce the Messiah, the Deliverer. It’s a reminder especially at Passover of another Deliverer, Moses, who fulfilled the Lord’s promises. To honor Elijah, we set aside his own Seder cup, right Joe?” He turned to my father.
My father winked at us. “That’s right. We’ll put a rubberband on the glass this year. I bet Elijah comes and drinks the wine again.”
“But why does he come?” asked Rachel.
“And why does he leave?” I asked.
“You kids.” Grandpa shook his head and chuckled. “He comes to bring good news. Not always about the Messiah. You might say it’s good luck when Elijah comes.”
I nudged forward. “But why hasn’t Elijah announced the Messiah yet?”
Grandpa’s smile seemed to sadden. “Yes, there’s a lot of sorrow in the world. A lot of people don’t have as much as we have. But the Lord has His own plan.”
“Doesn’t the Lord care about us?” asked Rachel. She looked at the radio reporting in muted tones about
Grandpa smiled. “All the time. The Lord—blessed be His name—loves you like a father. He smiles at all the good things you do—and shakes His head at the bad.” Grandpa chucked my chin and then he and Dad went back to discussing baseball.
Rachel looked at me and shrugged. We both went to my room. “What we need is a plan,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we need to somehow spot him, like footprints on the floor.”
“If we put something on the floor, your mom will get mad.”
“Only if we put dirt on the floor.” But an idea was dawning in my head. “But we can put something in the doorway. We’re the ones who open the door for Elijah, right? If we put something there when we open the door, we’re sure to catch him.”
“Hey! I saw something in a movie once. Where’s your dad’s camera?”
Like spies, we first peered out the slit of my bedroom door, then tip-toed down the hall to the closet. Rachel brought a chair from the dining room, and I climbed up to reach the top shelf where the camera box was. With fingers walking along the box, I managed to tip it into my hands and handed it down to Rachel. She took out the camera and a flashbulb and I put the box back. “Is there film in it?” I asked.
She looked at the little window on the back and nodded. “Uh huh. Almost a whole roll.”
“Great! I’ve seen my dad do this a million times.” Expertly, I fanned open the reflector, inserted a flash bulb, and screwed it in. “We’ll need some string.”
We set about to raid the kitchen. When my mother asked what we were up to, we just said it was a science experiment. We pulled a ball of twine and a scissors from the kitchen junk drawer and ran back to my room.
“Now,” I said, “all we do is set it and tie this string to this switch and it will take Elijah’s picture when he walks through the door.”
“What if the picture doesn’t come out?”
“I think it should be dark. As soon as I open the door, you switch off the light. That should be enough to take the picture.”
We looked up when the knock sounded on the door.
“Who is it?” I asked sweetly.
“What are you doing in there?” said Stevie’s muffled voice.
“Nothing. Go away.”
“You guys doing girlie stuff?”
Rachel smiled at me. “Yes. We’re painting our fingernails.”
“You’re gonna get in trouble. Mom said you weren’t allowed to do that, Sophie.”
“You go away, Stevie Rosenfeld,” said Rachel, “or I’ll come out and kiss you.”
Stevie’s footsteps hurried away down the carpeted hall.
“Works every time,” she muttered.
I raised the string and looked at our contraption. “How are we going to get this set up by the front door?”
“We can put it out by the potted plant.”
“That’s a great idea. And we can stretch the string now. No one else is coming through the front door.”
I wrapped the camera under my sweater and we nonchalantly marched across the living room. We reached the safety of the dining room when my mother poked her head out of the kitchen.
“What are you two girls doing?”
We looked up, and with all the innocence of ribbons and lace-trimmed socks, said, “Nothing.”
My mother’s cigarette hung from the side of her lips. The tip was stained with pink lipstick. A maroon scarf covered her curlers. Aunt Esther stuck her head out, too. Her hair and curlers were also hidden beneath the protection of a scarf painted with images of the
My mother squinted her blue-shadowed eyes at me and lowered a meticulously plucked brow. “Apparently nothing.”
Aunt Esther looked us over in our frozen stance, looked at the bulge under my sweater, and perhaps decided she didn’t want to know. She shrugged, and both heads disappeared back into the kitchen.
Rachel and I heaved sighs, but just as we turned to the front door, Aunt Sylvia blocked our way.
“There’s my Sophie and Rochela. I have treats for you in my suitcases.”
I cringed. That was Aunt Sylvia’s way of making us unpack for her. We’d never find that “treat” because there never was one, and then she’d tell us, “Oh well. How about a stick of gum? You two girls can share one stick, right? You wouldn’t want to leave your Aunt Sylvia with no gum, would you?”
I stammered. “Uh—not right now, Aunt Sylvia. Later, okay?”
She looked disappointed, but she pursed her blood red lips, and before she could drop them on either of us, we scurried away.
We positioned the camera in the potted plant and aimed the lens upward at anyone who might walk in. Rachel looked through the viewer and adjusted the camera many times. I ran the string along the floor across the threshold, and then pulled it taut so the string was about six inches off the floor and tied it off on the leg of the umbrella stand. We stood back to admire our handiwork and returned to my bedroom, where we spent the rest of the day plotting about what we’d do with this miraculous picture.
***
Grandma fussed with Grandpa’s tie all the way to the dining room table. Mom and Aunt Esther had shed their scarves and their curlers and looked like our moms again, their smooth dresses tight to their Barbie bodies. Great Aunt Sylvia squeezed into one of the chairs next to Stevie, while my father stood behind his chair at the head of the table. All the men donned their black yarmulkes including Stevie, but it wouldn’t stay properly on the crown of his head.
The Seder began. I looked at Rachel and she gave me the “OK” sign. My mother lit the Sabbath candles and recited the blessing. My father poured the wine in everyone’s glass and then made a great show of pouring some wine in Elijah’s glass. The rubberband was already there and he slipped it down even with the wine level. I gave a knowing look to Rachel. We would do our best to watch it all through the Seder.
We each sat at our places and read the story of how Joseph came to
“And they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all manner of service in the field,” Father read from the haggadah, the Seder prayer book, detailing the terrible lives of the Hebrew slaves and why they needed a Deliverer.
The Seder went on, and we tasted in turn the bitter herbs, the sweet relish called choroses, and the matzo. My brother, the youngest, read the Four Questions, and when he came to the first one that asked, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I couldn’t help but look over at Rachel, and she smiled at me.
When it was time to serve the dinner, Mom and Aunt Esther jumped up. Grandma got up, too, but everyone told her to sit, sit.
Great Aunt Sylvia never offered to help.
We ate the many courses, first the chopped liver and gefilte fish, then the soup with a huge matzo ball swimming in the center of the bowl, then the main course of brisket, potato kugel, and string beans. We were bursting. When at last we all decided we had eaten enough, Mom and Aunt Esther took the food away and we settled in to finish the Seder.
So far, the wine in Elijah’s cup stayed level.
In an old tradition, the youngest, Stevie, hid the last piece of matzo, and in order to continue the Seder, he was bribed with a chocolate coin to return it. But what we didn’t know, was that after the dinner was over, he’d brought back George in his pocket and was feeding the rat bits of matzo in his lap.
It was getting close to Elijah time and I couldn’t stop squirming. My mother tapped my arm and shook her head at me to sit still, but I couldn’t help but throw a quick glance at the camera poised by the door. Only a few more moments now and we’d have that picture. I looked at Elijah’s glass.
My father recited, “Throughout our people’s history, the prophet Elijah has been the bearer of good news….”
This was it. Dad signaled me to go to the door, and I gave a nod to Rachel for her to go to the light switch. Everything was going according to plan.
I opened the door and a whoosh of fresh air blew back my hair. The candles flickered and I gave Rachel a nod. She hit the lights and all went black. And that’s when everything happened at once.
Somebody screamed. The flash went off. I dived out of the doorway just as something large flew by me. My heart hammered. I couldn’t breathe. Elijah had really come and I was scared to death!
Someone else screamed: Great Aunt Sylvia this time. My father stumbled up from the table and hit the edge. “What the—?” he said, before dishes crashed and everyone began shouting. There was an unholy sound like someone yowling—like a ghost—and then I screamed.
“Someone turn on the lights!” my dad shouted, and finally someone did.
Disaster. The tablecloth was stained and lay half on the floor, half on the table. Dishes, broken and scattered, piled on the tablecloth. George the rat was no where to be seen, but the neighbor’s cat sat on a plate and licked it. The cat must have run inside at the precise moment I opened the door and tripped the flash. It no doubt scared George out of Stevie’s lap and into Great Aunt Sylvia’s, who screamed, but not as loudly as when the cat caught sight of George and landed on Great Aunt Sylvia too.
God had his own plan, just like Grandpa said, and I wasn’t getting my picture of Elijah that night.
I found out years later that my father used to surreptitiously slip the rubberband up the glass throughout the meal, making it look like Elijah drank from it.
We never did see Elijah. The years passed and we found our own paths to God that certainly didn’t include cameras or flash bulbs. Ironically, I got more involved at
But I will also never forget on that Passover night in 1968, that after all the dishes and bowls had crashed to the floor, after we’d picked up the stray matzo balls, that the only thing left untouched on the table was Elijah’s cup, and even my father was surprised to discover that the rubberband showed very clearly that the red wine had gone down.
I guess God decided to smile at Rachel and me that night.
The End
