Mamaloshen

“Gut oven,” Freddie repeated, the lesson playing through large headphones. Her phone sat in her pocket as a thrift store find warmed in her hands. It was a wooden beauty with cypress branches etched into it for $5.99, plus whatever was inside. Luckily, she knew how to get it open.

Freddie knocked on a friend’s door, accidentally cracking her across the head when she answered. Daria Li let out an expletive.

“I found something!” 

She rubbed her forehead. “Good for you.” 

Freddie held up the box. “A locked thing.” 

Now Daria was interested. She let her in, Mrs. Li already slicing fruit once she heard the floor creak. The girls went upstairs, Daria heading right to her desk.

She unrolled an old lockpicking kit, one found in an uncle’s attic and still just as hardy, and examined the box lock. It was tiny, most likely meant for jewelry. Fiddling with it made Freddie’s heart pound, the tiny scrapes inching her towards the edge, until she heard a click.

It opened. Lined with red fabric was a ring, a comb, a mirror, and a diary. The ring was a simple golden band, but it was the leather bound book that caught Freddie’s attention. 

Daria sat back in her seat. “You got plans for this stuff?”

Freddie picked up the book, opening to the front page. The lettering may have been Hebrew, but sounding it out made clear that this wasn’t the language. She sighed.

“More Yiddish.”

“Shit, really?”

“Yup.” She flashed the opening page, scrawled in pen and sewn to the leather. “By a Miss Tzipporah Gurman.” 

“Hot.”

Freddie snickered. “Shut up.”

“Enjoy your ghost girlfriend.”

“Shut uuuuuuup!”

Mrs. Li burst in with orange slices. “Did you eat yet?”

Freddie stammered and mumbled out a no. 

“Eat, fēng kuáng de!” 

“Okay, okay,” she took the plate in her hands. 

“Parents don’t feed you,” Mrs. Li scoffed at the absurdity, returning to the stove.

As Freddie turned, she caught a glimpse of something, jolting when it disappeared. It was only there for a second. She sputtered.

“Haunting already?” Daria quipped.

Freddie scowled, picking up an orange slice with her teeth. She lumbered home with a stomach full of sauteed fish, veggies, and rice, tupperware further weighing her down. She’d feel bad, but who’d guilt her? The box sat on top, bouncing against the layered plastic bags as Freddie ascended to floor two. She put the food in her fridge, opened that box, and began filing through the pages. Step one, she supposed, was figuring out the vowels. She turned on a lamp in her room and slapped a notebook on her bed, right next to the diary. 

“Tzipporah Gurman,” she muttered, writing down the name. “Gantze.”

“Shah!” A voice hissed. It was so soft, it might as well have been imaginary, pictured with a bewildered yet reddening face. 

Freddie paused, unsure if that was imagination. That face came a bit too clearly, her face framed by a double chin and a kerchief. Rather than think further on it, she kept reading.

Meyn bukhele, she called it. Freddie chuckled. She was careful with the pages, copying down which words she knew, and each meaning. Most of what she caught were nouns and curse words. She needed to learn more. Closing that journal with a yawn, she placed it on the side table and dropped her head.

Before Freddie was even an egg cell, a shtetl sat on the edge of Latvia, a house within celebrating a birthday. It’s a quiet affair, one with two siblings and every Tante, but Tzipporah was happy. She was given a new dress, one bright red with small flowers along the fabric. 

“Demuazel Burik,” a little brother teased, getting a palm upside the head. He was ordered with a jabbing finger to go get his gift, the one he’d saved for. Wrapped in paper was a book, its leather fresh and the pages haphazardly stitched together.

“Ikh hob es gemakht,” he mumbled, looking at the floor.

She hugged him, whispering a happy ‘pisher’ into his ear. Opening it welcomed the sight of fresh, blank pages. Eyes welling up, she smiled at her family, the expression freezing once she met the window. A figure had flickered to and from sight, as if blinked from existence. With a sigh, she thanked everyone and they all sat at the table.

After all was said and done, she combed her hair and wondered. Gantze came to mind, as did a woman with short hair, smiling down as if laying on top of her. She blushed furiously. Where did such a thought come from? It made her heart race. That imaginary woman was…handsome. After a moment, she brought out the inkwell, a pen, and started to write.

“Can women be handsome,” Freddie read as she wrote, finally getting a hang of the grammar.

I wish this thought didn’t come after seeing a kakt dybbuk outside my house. I know I’m pretty, Yentl is beautiful, but handsome seems zeltn. 

A prior adjective was scribbled out. 

Freddie kneaded her brow, flinging out her free hand. “Shitting!”

A young man at another table stared at her from his own book. Blank faced, she waved at him. He did not approve of the swearing. He likely wouldn’t appreciate that she isn’t a bar mitzvah boy poring over notes, but here she was, short hair standing above her head. She decided on moving her study place.

Freddie’s walk, eyes locked forward, continued  with little incident until it halted. Right before a shop window, that imaginary girl, a plump reflection pursing her lips as she silently blurts out one word: du. Freddie glanced around, half wishing she’d disappear, but realizing she’s still there, a translucent town behind her. She passed out.

Tzipporah sat up, feeling around to make sure she was, well, here. But, where was here? The room was painted a mustard yellow, floors a cool, lacquered wood. The window had a white frame and netting pulled taut behind the glass. A brassy honk sounded outside, somewhere among the automobiles settled on a solid black road. 

Freddie turned to find a shtetl out of dusty photographs, the roads still disturbed dirt. She’d buried herself under sweaters and cuffed jeans, though her sneakers would cause questions. She swallowed, unsure if she wished she’d traveled on Shabbat. Would this count? Freddie placed a hand on the store window. It’s her, bulky and kinda short. Now what?

Tzipporah wondered the same thing. She stepped out of bed, searching for something; what, she wasn’t sure. 

Freddie felt an internal pull towards somewhere. Answers, perhaps? She made a beeline.

Tzipporah opened the door to another room, one sparsely furnished with a sofa and a coffee table. A radiator had dry socks stuck to it. A small box with silver buttons and a long hat pin standing on it sat by a window. Even stranger was the tall, shining pillar with two doors, one atop the other. There was a knock at the door. 

Daria waited, hearing a rush of feet and the clack of a door chain. She blinked, staring down at a sliver of a woman’s face, one whose eye went massive. Tzipporah slammed the door.

“Freund oder dayge?” She called through the crack.

“F-Friend?”

After a moment, she unchained the door. It opened with a painful groan as she took in Daria’s height and confused visage. 

“Ah…h-hallo.”

Daria glanced elsewhere. “Yo?”

“Redn Yiddish?”

“No— where’s Freddie?”

“Das ist da schlemiel? Freddie?” 

“Yah, where is she?”

Tzipporah grabbed her hand and time unraveled like a caught sweater. Each thread popped and pulled from where it locked together, folding and agitating until she looked into Freddie’s eyes. 

“Freddie.”

She raised a brow. “I was looking for you. I guess.”

The woman swallowed, afraid to look at whatever undulating mass surrounded them.

“Tzipporah.”