The Ring Cycle
1. The Lure of Gold, 1991
The Dutch masters encourage me to lift the lid of their cigar box in the credenza in my parents’ house. I open it and see the thin gold band. Pronounced gold prongs holding the tiniest, cloudiest stone. Maybe a diamond, maybe glass. Maybe haggled from a traveling salesman who peddled shtetl to shtetl. Maybe bought in the nearby city of Tarnopol. The inscription steals my breath: פּסל. Pesl, the name of my great-grandmother. An engagement ring from Galicia. My head fills with questions, and I pummel my father with them. He knows nothing of the ring’s provenance, except he locked it up in his supermarket safe.
2. Provenance Possibility: Mother to Daughter, 1913
Pesia slips off her engagement ring, worn every day for a quarter century, into the unexpecting hands of her eldest daughter. Eva looks at her mother, says, You’re giving me your greatest treasure. She never before saw the inscription: Pesl, her mother’s nickname. No, Pesia says, you are my greatest treasure. You are my pot of gold off to seek your fortune in America. May G-d keep you safe. They never see each other again.
3. Provenance Possibility: Sister to Sister, 1936
Eva sits down at the dry goods counter in her store to triage the day’s mail. Bill. Bill. Bill. But then a letter from home, the envelope covered with canceled Polish stamps. She opens it quickly, not caring about paper cuts. A ring tumbles out. Mama’s ring. Mama of blessed memory. Eva pulls out the letter, signed by her sisters, Chana, Rivka, and Ruchel. It wasMama’s will that you have her engagement ring since you’re the eldest. Instead of wearing it, Eva puts it in the strong box under the cash register.
4. Provenance Possibility: Brother to Sister, 1951
Eva’s youngest brother, after three years in the arctic circle, is released, his mother’s ring still in his pocket. For years, he treks throughout Russia, Poland, and Germany until he finds refuge in a Displaced Persons camp, ring still in his pocket. All along, he’s known what to do with it: Deliver it to his eldest sister, Eva, in America. Finally, he hands the ring to Eva, in her deathbed, losing the battle to cancer and kidney disease. He slips the ring on her finger. It slides off.
5. My Reckoning, Now
I wear the ring so much to connect to Eva and Pesia. I wear the ring so much the inscription erodes. I wear the ring so much, the gold thins. I wear the ring so much until I lose it. I still feel its weight on my finger, each Yiddish letter of my great-grandmother’s name inscribed in my pores. But leeches crawl inside me, reminding me how I have betrayed her.
~
Pesia Has a Bone to Pick at the Cousins Club
You lost my ring.
I didn’t mean to.
It must have come off somewhere,
doing the laundry or the dishes.
My greatest treasure.
You lost my ring.
I didn’t mean to.
Maybe I put it in such a good place
that even I can’t find it.
I gave this to my daughter.
Her son locked it up in the safe.
Entrusted it to a box.
You found it.
And lost it.
Don’t you think I feel sick about this?
How can I make it up to you?
You can’t. You are not to be trusted.
Gotenyu, my own great-granddaughter.
Let’s let the chicken’s wishbone
decide whether you’ll forgive me.
~
September Meeting of the Cousins Club of Dead Relatives
This September even the ones I never knew come to visit.
The stars and the moon
carried them into the night sky. Now they’re back,
with or without my invitation.
One by one, each of my dead relatives
kisses the mezuzah as they enter.
They gather around the television,
gaping at the images of guns and bombing.
Where did all this ugliness come from?
Nechama, my great-grandmother’s
oldest sister wants to know.
How can I explain I live in a world
potentially worse than the tsar’s?
When I was young, I wanted
to learn Russian and Yiddish.
I wanted to understand where I came from.
Nechama just shakes her head at me.
I want to go home, she says. I don’t tell
her about the bag I’ve stashed behind
the potted palm in case I have to flee.
Photos, jewelry, the family history
on a thumb drive.
But my great-grandmother Bryna
takes our hands in hers. She squeezes them.
Hold courage in your palms, she says.
With courage, you can create magic.
~
April Meeting of the Cousins Club of Dead Relatives
Great-grandma Bryna demands attention in toothless
Yiddish. You spend too much time
with your Bobe Eva, that Galitzianer, she says.
She wants I should learn how to cook
her food, brown food, because
brown food tastes good.
She looks for a match to light
the stove. We don’t do that anymore,
I say. Her eyes cloud with confusion.
I once saw an aeroplane, she says.
Such a wonder. If only such a thing
could have brought my other daughters
to America. Saved their lives.
I say, It wouldn’t have.
Grandma Eva slaps into the kitchen
in the strappy silver sandals she wore
to her daughter’s wedding. dress sleeves
rolled up. She says, I’ll show you
how to make my signature dish.
I say, But I already know how to make hot dogs.
Sha, she says. She takes chop meat
out of the fridge. Stuffed cabbage with raisins
in white sauce. Bryna grimaces.
I say, I’ll show you both how to make
a Jello mold. I pull one out of the fridge.
Ah, p’tcha, Bryna says. Aspic.
Ah, p’tcha, Eva says. Aspic.