Dreidel

After the dinner Mother and Father went out, and the old man carried the menorah, its single candle still lit, to the mantel in the living room.  Then he settled himself into the rocking chair with a comfortable wheeze.

The girl sat on the hooked oval rug before him, as she often did, but always on the first night of Hanukkah, for it was then that he gave her the first gift, the most important, the best one.  But tonight, she noted with just a flicker of disappointment, she could see no neatly wrapped package sticking out of a pocket of Zayde’s saggy brown cardigan, or partly hidden beneath the rocker’s worn leather seat.

Instead, the old man said:  “Tonight, I’m going to tell you a story;” and he slowly rocked, back and forth, back and forth, to the rhythmic creaks of the old chair.  “A story,” he repeated; and then he dipped a hand into one of the sweater’s deep pockets.  “About this” he said, and lifted a dreidel.

Rachel’s eyes, brown and round and wide with the mystery of her tenth year of wonder, fixed on the small top as he turned it slowly in his palm.  The dreidel was clay, and old; maybe, she thought, even older than Zayde.

“This is a very unusual dreidel,” Zayde went on.  “Have I ever told you about it?’

“No, Grandfather,” Rachel said.

“Would you like me to?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then,” he said with a smile, “I will.  But while I’m telling, you hold it.”  He put the dreidel in the girl’s hand.  “All right?”

“Yes, Grandfather” she said, and looked at it.  The Nun, Gimel, Hey and Shin had been made carefully, although by hand:  Here and there the lines were uneven, as if a child had carved them, with a stick.

“Good,” he said, and cleared his throat.  “It’s good. You will … understand better, by holding it.”

She laid the odd clay top flat on her palm, and raised it to her eyes.  Silver moonlight sprinkled through arcs of frost on the window and mixed with the soft, shaded glow from the lamps and the still-flickering candle.  Up close, the dreidel seemed to shimmer in the light, as though a thousand diamonds, each smaller than a grain of sand, were embedded in its surfaces.

“You can spin it, if you like,” Zayde said.

“While you tell the story.”

He rocked back and forth, back and forth, in a moment of silence.  “All right” he said again.  “The story.”

He took a deep breath and began.

“When I was a boy, I lived in the old country.  You know about the old country?”  The girl nodded.  “Good.  Well.  I lived there with my brothers and sisters and Papa and Mama and my Zayde and Bubbie and aunts and uncles.  In a small village, maybe there were a thousand people; maybe less, nu?  Maybe there were more horses and chickens than people.  And we were poor – how poor, we didn’t know, because everyone else was that poor too.  But, we lived – there were eggs and there was milk and there was bread. And there were friends and relatives.  And.  There were toys to play with, mostly toys we made ourselves.  Like straw dolls and wood chessmen; and dreidels.”

The girl sat, feeling warm and full, listening to the constant steady creak of the rocker, twirling the dreidel slowly in her opened hand.

As Zayde talked, her eyes slipped closed; and she saw pictures in his words, heard sounds, turning slowly, oddly, in her mind:  a village, of small houses, and narrow streets filled with clopping horses and clattering carts; then, amid the splash of thick waters and the deep voices of great horns, a city, large and tall, erupting through the horizon; and then the city itself, grays and browns and filled with people casting shadows across shadows, voices everywhere blending, blending; then another city, smaller and somehow familiar, grass thatched with sunlight through summer trees, and dogs and cats and the honks of buses…

She opened her eyes quickly.  Zayde was smiling.

“I was listening” she told him; “and then I guess I … I don’t know, I guess I started dreaming.”

Grandfather rocked.  “It’s all right, child,” he said.

“Will you still tell me the story?”

He nodded and kissed the top of her head.  “Yes,” he said.  “As long as you need me to tell it.”  He sighed and leaned back.  “Go ahead. Turn the dreidel.”

She set the dreidel on the floor beside the rug, and turned.  It spun, spun, spun…

Zayde’s voice rose again.  “There were toys we made ourselves, like dreidels.  That one you’re spinning?  I made it.  On the first night of Hanukkah, when I was ten years old.  The tradition, you see, was that each child gathered clay from the bank of the small stream that flowed near the village, and made a dreidel just before Hanukkah.  And my brothers and sisters and I had done that, each of us.  But, on the day of the first night, I was playing with mine – and it broke!  It spun off the table and fell against the floor, into a dozen pieces.

“And so, I went out into the cold afternoon to dig the clay to make another.  After all, what would Hanukkah be without a dreidel, nu?  So.  I walked to the stream, almost a mile, and knelt on the bank.”

From another pocket, Zayde took out a deep-bowled pipe, tamped on it twice with a broad finger, then lit it with a kitchen match.  He puffed once, deeply.  “But” — he puffed again – “the bank, all the ground around it, had frozen.  Even the stream had chunks of ice floating in it.  I walked all along the edge, poking at the earth with a stick, but nicht – solid, like your Zayde’s head, eh? for forgetting:  When it’s cold, the ground freezes too.  So, I thought:  No new dreidel.  And, feeling very sad – for not to have something so special, that is sad, yes? – I turned around and started home.”

Rachel’s eyes had slipped closed again; beside her, the dreidel spun, and spun, silently, then tipped to the floor with a soft rattle.  Without looking, her hand found it and spun again; around it went, around, and

“around … and started home” a voice echoed in her ear, a  boy’s voice, a small boy whom she saw clamber across winter fields under a graying sky toward – that village of the small houses, and clattering horses and clacking –

The dreidel stopped.

Again she found it, turned it, it spun…

– carts and chickens and chimneys wisping smoke, the boy walking, small hands in pockets, head down, now and then wiping an eye.  The boy came closer, his face became clearer and

Her eyes sprang open.  “Zayde! That’s you!”

The old man nodded.  “Yes.”

“But how…?”

And he shook his head.  “I don’t know, Ruchell.  But let me tell you the story” he said, and leaned back in the chair once more, his own eyes half-closed, looking far back, past her face, past the moon-filled night.

“As I came near the village, it was nearing sunset.  I could just see the smoke rising from the chimneys – as you did just now, yes?”  Rachel nodded.

“Well …  At the edge of the village was a low hill, and I started over it; and as I did, I saw other children talking excitedly or playing in small groups along the streets, spinning their dreidels … and I stopped, because I wished, very hard, I didn’t have to go down there and be the only child in the whole village without a new dreidel on the first night of Hanukkah; and then…”  He drew deeply on the pipe …  “and then –”

“And then you heard a voice.”

Zayde chuckled.  “I did.  An old woman’s voice.  And when I turned, there was an old pedlar.  Now, there were many pedlars who came through our village selling their wares.  But they were almost always men, and this one, this woman, I had never seen. And it was almost the first night of Hanukkah!, what was a pedlar doing out now?

“She was dressed in tattered clothes, like so many; but she wore a beautiful white shawl which looked like silk, and a fine mezuzah hung from her neck.  And she had no wagon like all the pedlars rode upon, or even a horse.

” ‘So’ she said to me, ‘Chaim.  What are you doing out here alone, and it’s almost the first night of Hanukkah?’

” ‘How do you know my name?’ I asked her.  ‘I’ve never seen you before.’”

Zayde shook his head and smiled.  His face wrinkled softly.  “Well,” he said; “she laughed, and said ‘I know many things,’ and then she pointed to the foot of the hill where some children – my brother was one, and he waved to me – were playing.  ‘Look’ she said, ‘they’re spinning dreidels.’

“My eyes felt very wet, and I only nodded.

” ‘And where is yours?’ she asked.

” ‘I … don’t have one’ I said.  ‘I had one, but it – broke.’  And I told her how I’d walked to the stream and tried to dig clay –

” ‘But the bank was frozen, eh?’ she said, and she put a hand upon my shoulder.  It was very light, her hand, almost no weight at all, and warm.  Even though it was very cold, and she had no mittens, or muff, her hand was warm.

” ‘Well, Chaim’ she said.  ‘It’s the first night of Hanukkah, eh? a time for remembering miracles, and for the giving of gifts.  Perhaps … perhaps I have a gift for you.’

“And then, then she reached into a little brown cloth sack which hung from her waist and took out something small and round and red, but which sparkled all over.  ‘Here’ she said.  ‘A lump of clay.  Go, make a dreidel.  Make it well, and carefully, and spin it often; it will spin as no other dreidel can, it will spin through life forever…‘

“Well, I didn’t know, then, what she meant; but she put the clay in my hand.  Then she said:  ‘Tonight, maybe you will say a brucha and bless this old pedlar, nu?’ and she laughed.  Her laugh, it was like music, a balalaika, warm, vibrating.

“And then she walked away, over the hill, away from the village.  I stood a moment, looking at that ball of clay; the way it sparkled! and then I realized, I hadn’t even said thank you; and I ran after her.  But when I looked down the far side of the hill, she was gone.”

Zayde laid his head against the frayed lace doily and sucked slowly on the pipe. He closed his eyes, rocked, hummed softly.  “The Dreidel Song” Rachel thought; and waited for him to go on.

When he didn’t, she asked:  “Where did she go?”

Zayde opened his eyes.  “The old woman?  I don’t know.  No one else saw her. Even my brother, he didn’t see her standing beside me when he waved.”  He sighed. “Ruchell, some things … some things you can never know.”

“Like how enough oil for only one day can burn for eight?”

Zayde nodded, and stroked her hair.  “Some things, all your life, you wonder…” he said, and sighed again, then cleared his throat.  “But, the story, it isn’t finished.  So … I had my clay.  And I went home –”

“– and you made this dreidel.”

“Yes.  I made that dreidel, and put it on the bricks by the fire to dry.  And you know what?  I went to check it before I went to sleep – and it was dry, in only a few hours instead of overnight, or longer.  Dry, hard, ready to spin.  So.  I took it to my mattress and spun it, and as I did …”

“There were pictures and sounds.  Like I saw.”

Again the old man smiled softly; the lines of his face deepened and his gray eyes grew damp and clear.  “Pictures,” he said.  “Sounds.  ‘It will spin through life forever’ the old woman said.  Yes.  Life-through.”  He sighed and sucked on the pipe a last time, then tamped its embers and slipped it back into the cardigan’s pocket.  “Those pictures and sounds, Rachel; you know what they are?”

The girl closed her eyes and spun the dreidel.  Pictures, sounds; the same, different.  “No, Grandfather,” she said.

“It’s my life.  All the things I’ve done, where I’ve gone; what I’ve seen.  Leaving the old country; coming to America on the ship; landing in New York; other places; at last, here.  And people … my father and mother, your bubba, my daughters and sons…”

The dreidel spun.

“But some of them…” Rachel looked at him…  “Some of them, it’s like I’ve been there.”

“You’re part of my life too, Ruchell; and my life will always be a part of your life.”

“Always?”

“Always.”  He smiled again, gently.  “Your whole life through.  Now, here.”  He patted his legs.  “Come sit on my lap, bring the dreidel.”

The girl snuggled herself into the old man’s arms, her head against his chest, the dreidel upon her palm, turning.

He lifted it into his own hand and turned it, examining the four characters carefully.  “A great miracle happened there,” he whispered.  “Yes.  A great miracle.”  He turned it once more, then laid it upon her palm.  “Do you like it?”

She bobbed her head against him.  “Oh, yes, Zayde.  I think it’s wonderful.”

“Well then.  It’s yours.  Your Hanukkah gift.”

“Really?”

He nodded.  “Dreidels are for children, yes?  What use do old men have for them?”

“Thank you.”  She raised her face to his cheek and kissed it, then settled once more into his bulk.

“You’re welcome, little Ruchell,” he murmured, and squeezed her tightly to him. “You’re welcome.  And now, sing with me.  ‘The Dreidel Song,’ nu?  I have a little dreidel, I made it out of clay … You know it, don’t you?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

Together, they sang, the old man and the girl, embracing, their voices rising quietly into the dim light until at last first his, then hers, slipped away from the words.

The dreidel spun, tipped; then lay, sparkling silently upon her hand. The girl’s eyes closed; easily, she slept in his arms, and she dreamed of her life, past and future. And, she dreamed: Someday, when I’m very old, I’ll give the dreidel to my grandson, and let him spin it, let him see, let him hear, Zayde’s life, mine; his own. His life-through:  a great miracle happening, there.