Play & Book Excerpts
Gitel's Freedom
(She Writes Press)
© Iris Lav
Rayzel, a small, slim woman with dark curly hair, who is less than five feet tall, is still wearing her night clothes when she adds wood to the coals in the huge bakery oven. With satisfaction, she looks around at the white walls, the large, scrubbed-clean wooden tables, the bins of flour, and the closed cabinets containing nuts, honey, poppy seeds, raisins, cinnamon, chocolate, and other ingredients. Nothing has been disturbed. It is 4:00 a.m. on Friday, and there is much work to do. She knows that the Jews of Borisov depend on her challah and sweets to make their shabbes.
She goes back into the living area attached to the bakery and wakes her five sons and her sister Yokha to help her, all the while nursing her baby daughter, Gitel. The sons tumble into the bakery, the younger ones mixing dough, the older ones kneading it to make the challah. She begins to create sweet dough for filling with poppy seed, and to make rugelach, babka, and raisin cookies. Everyone works with great concentration. The only sound comes when she periodically takes a bit of dough from each batch, says the required blessing, and tosses the bit into the fire.
Rayzel gazes at her children and sister working so well together, and covers with her hand the wide smile she feels developing on her face so she will not distract anyone. The warmth of the bakery is favorable to the dough rising quickly, so by 8:00 a.m. the bakery shelves are lined with many dozens of challahs shining from the egg wash on their crusts or glistening with sesame seeds on top, along with pastries whose fragrance invites eating. She shoos her sons inside, reminding them all to wash their hands and the older ones to daven before doing anything else.
At nine o’clock, she opens the bakery to customers, with baby Gitel settled into a cloth sling close to her body. She does not expect many customers this early, so her eyebrows rise in surprise when the door dings an arrival almost as soon as she has turned the sign to Open.
A woman walks in quickly and without the customary greeting says, “Oy, Rayzel, I have such a problem. I think you are the only one who can help me.”
“And a gut morgn to you too, Khavele,” Rayzel says. “I am well, Gott’s dank. Now what is your problem and how can I help?”
“This is the third Friday in a row. I go outside to get a goose for our dinner to take to the shoykhet to have it slaughtered. I count the geese, and one is missing! Each week! There is no way a goose could have escaped. Someone in this town is a ganif! He’s stealing from us! We’ll be begging for alms soon if this keeps up.”
Rayzel leans her elbows on the counter to be closer to Khave. “I see. This is a problem. Have you talked to the rabbi?”
“The rabbi would be sympathetic, but what will he do? Everyone knows that you are good at finding things that are lost. People still talk about how you figured out what happened to Feigel’s brooch. And how you cure people of headaches and melancholy. And so many other stories about you. You are famous among the Jews of Borisov. Please help me!”
Rayzel sighs. “Just a moment.” She goes to the door of the house and calls Yokha to come into the bakery.
“Yokha, I must go out for a while to help Khave. Could you take care of the bakery?”
“Gotenyu, dear God, I just got the older boys off to kheder. I need to clean the house and start preparing the food for shabbes. How can I stand in the bakery all day?”
“Not all day. Just for a couple of hours. Kheder ends early today. When Hirsh gets back from kheder, he can watch the bakery, and I’ll help you get us ready for shabbes.”
“I guess I can do that. Let me just change from my housecleaning clothes. I’ll be right back.”
Khave says, “Thanks so much, Yokha. I appreciate it.”
“So Khave, do you have a suspicion about who this ganif is?” Rayzel asks.
“No, none at all.”
“Then I will just have to start from scratch and see what I can do. Go home for now and take your goose to the shoykhet to be slaughtered.”
Yokha comes back into the bakery. Rayzel takes a basket and puts into it six loaves of challah and some pastries, covering them with a kerchief. Someone in this town who steals a goose must be hungry and too poor to buy one, she thinks. And he or she probably has a family, because there are more convenient foods for a single person to steal. A goose requires a lot of preparation.
She goes back into the living area attached to the bakery and wakes her five sons and her sister Yokha to help her, all the while nursing her baby daughter, Gitel. The sons tumble into the bakery, the younger ones mixing dough, the older ones kneading it to make the challah. She begins to create sweet dough for filling with poppy seed, and to make rugelach, babka, and raisin cookies. Everyone works with great concentration. The only sound comes when she periodically takes a bit of dough from each batch, says the required blessing, and tosses the bit into the fire.
Rayzel gazes at her children and sister working so well together, and covers with her hand the wide smile she feels developing on her face so she will not distract anyone. The warmth of the bakery is favorable to the dough rising quickly, so by 8:00 a.m. the bakery shelves are lined with many dozens of challahs shining from the egg wash on their crusts or glistening with sesame seeds on top, along with pastries whose fragrance invites eating. She shoos her sons inside, reminding them all to wash their hands and the older ones to daven before doing anything else.
At nine o’clock, she opens the bakery to customers, with baby Gitel settled into a cloth sling close to her body. She does not expect many customers this early, so her eyebrows rise in surprise when the door dings an arrival almost as soon as she has turned the sign to Open.
A woman walks in quickly and without the customary greeting says, “Oy, Rayzel, I have such a problem. I think you are the only one who can help me.”
“And a gut morgn to you too, Khavele,” Rayzel says. “I am well, Gott’s dank. Now what is your problem and how can I help?”
“This is the third Friday in a row. I go outside to get a goose for our dinner to take to the shoykhet to have it slaughtered. I count the geese, and one is missing! Each week! There is no way a goose could have escaped. Someone in this town is a ganif! He’s stealing from us! We’ll be begging for alms soon if this keeps up.”
Rayzel leans her elbows on the counter to be closer to Khave. “I see. This is a problem. Have you talked to the rabbi?”
“The rabbi would be sympathetic, but what will he do? Everyone knows that you are good at finding things that are lost. People still talk about how you figured out what happened to Feigel’s brooch. And how you cure people of headaches and melancholy. And so many other stories about you. You are famous among the Jews of Borisov. Please help me!”
Rayzel sighs. “Just a moment.” She goes to the door of the house and calls Yokha to come into the bakery.
“Yokha, I must go out for a while to help Khave. Could you take care of the bakery?”
“Gotenyu, dear God, I just got the older boys off to kheder. I need to clean the house and start preparing the food for shabbes. How can I stand in the bakery all day?”
“Not all day. Just for a couple of hours. Kheder ends early today. When Hirsh gets back from kheder, he can watch the bakery, and I’ll help you get us ready for shabbes.”
“I guess I can do that. Let me just change from my housecleaning clothes. I’ll be right back.”
Khave says, “Thanks so much, Yokha. I appreciate it.”
“So Khave, do you have a suspicion about who this ganif is?” Rayzel asks.
“No, none at all.”
“Then I will just have to start from scratch and see what I can do. Go home for now and take your goose to the shoykhet to be slaughtered.”
Yokha comes back into the bakery. Rayzel takes a basket and puts into it six loaves of challah and some pastries, covering them with a kerchief. Someone in this town who steals a goose must be hungry and too poor to buy one, she thinks. And he or she probably has a family, because there are more convenient foods for a single person to steal. A goose requires a lot of preparation.
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Iris Mitlin Lav grew up in the liberal Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. She went on to earn degrees from George Washington University and the University of Chicago, and to enjoy a long career of public policy analysis and management, with an emphasis on improving policies for low- and moderate-income families. Her first novel, A Wife in Bangkok, was published in 2020 by She Writes Press. “Gitel’s Freedom” is her second novel.
Lav and her husband now live in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with Mango, their goldendoodle, and grandchildren nearby. |
Iris Mitlin Lav
Photo Courtesy: Iris Mitlin Lav |
