said.
“You must think I’m some kind of radical or apostate or something,” said Ruthie.
No, thought Esther. I just think you’re a girl who has seized upon the philosophy that will allow you not to bear children to my son, whom you’re not supposed to marry.
“Of course not,” said Piotr.
“But Esther does,” said Ruthie.
There it was, the gauntlet thrown down.
“I’m sure it was an interesting class,” said Esther. “But you know how hard it is for me to follow English.”
Ruthie got the faintest smirk on her face. “Ivan says you understand English fine except when you don’t want to.”
So the boy was more observant than she had thought. “Is that what Vanya says?” Esther answered, letting herself sound a little hurt. “Maybe he’s right. When I’m upset, it’s harder to concentrate on listening to English.”
“So I did say something to upset you,” said Ruthie.
“I’m upset that my boy should be so heartless as to postpone coming home to his fiancée. It must be breaking your poor heart. Not having your young man, now
that’s
scarcity,
nu
?”
The conversation returned to safer ground, and after a few more minutes Ruthie announced she must head home to see her parents.
“You mean you came here first, before you saw your own mother?” asked Esther. “You’re so sweet.”
“She was hoping for word from our son the nonwriter of letters,” said Piotr.
With a laugh and kisses all around, Ruthie left.
“ ‘Nu’?”
asked Piotr as soon as Ruthie was gone. “Are you suddenly taking up Yiddish?”
“I hear it from women in the synagogue, I pick it up,” said Esther.
Piotr switched to Russian. “And here I believed you when you told me your family had been Jews living in Russia even before the Goths came through, long before Yiddish was invented in Germany.”
“You never believed that,” said Esther mildly. “You read it in a history somewhere that Russian Jews all migrated in from Germany and so you know my family tradition can’t be true.”
“Why not?” he said. “Does it matter? What it means is that you keep your own set of rules. Jews so ancient that they don’t think the Talmud deserves all the authority it gets. Jews who can make a sandwich of beef and cheese.”
“But not
ham
and cheese,” she said, smiling.
“That Ruthie,” said Piotr. “Do you think she really believes that feminist nonsense about the nice feminine Bible hidden inside the nasty masculine Bible?”
“She does for now,” said Esther. “But like most college feminists, she’s not going to let the theory stop her from marrying.”
“And you’re an expert on this?”
“I hear the women at synagogue talking about their daughters.” She imitated them in English. “ ‘Oy! The younger generation always knows more than the older! Two thousand years Jewish women have more rights than Christian women ever had, but suddenly we’re oppressed, and it takes my daughter to tell me?’ ”
Piotr laughed at her take on the matrons of the synagogue. “You know what I was thinking? She got so excited when she was spouting this ahistorical countertextual nonsense, and I caught myself thinking, ‘What an idiot her teacher must be,’ and thinking about her teacher made me realize—the kind of excitement she was showing as she mindlessly spouted back the nonsense she learned in college, that’s just like the excitement some of my own students show. And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a ‘brilliant student’ is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we’ve been teaching them.”
“Self-knowledge is a painful thing,” said Esther. “To learn that your best students are parrots after all.”
“Ah, but students who fill their heads with my ideas and spew them back on command, they are at least saying intelligent things, even if they all come from me.”
“Especially if they all come from you.”
“It’s my
“You must think I’m some kind of radical or apostate or something,” said Ruthie.
No, thought Esther. I just think you’re a girl who has seized upon the philosophy that will allow you not to bear children to my son, whom you’re not supposed to marry.
“Of course not,” said Piotr.
“But Esther does,” said Ruthie.
There it was, the gauntlet thrown down.
“I’m sure it was an interesting class,” said Esther. “But you know how hard it is for me to follow English.”
Ruthie got the faintest smirk on her face. “Ivan says you understand English fine except when you don’t want to.”
So the boy was more observant than she had thought. “Is that what Vanya says?” Esther answered, letting herself sound a little hurt. “Maybe he’s right. When I’m upset, it’s harder to concentrate on listening to English.”
“So I did say something to upset you,” said Ruthie.
“I’m upset that my boy should be so heartless as to postpone coming home to his fiancée. It must be breaking your poor heart. Not having your young man, now
that’s
scarcity,
nu
?”
The conversation returned to safer ground, and after a few more minutes Ruthie announced she must head home to see her parents.
“You mean you came here first, before you saw your own mother?” asked Esther. “You’re so sweet.”
“She was hoping for word from our son the nonwriter of letters,” said Piotr.
With a laugh and kisses all around, Ruthie left.
“ ‘Nu’?”
asked Piotr as soon as Ruthie was gone. “Are you suddenly taking up Yiddish?”
“I hear it from women in the synagogue, I pick it up,” said Esther.
Piotr switched to Russian. “And here I believed you when you told me your family had been Jews living in Russia even before the Goths came through, long before Yiddish was invented in Germany.”
“You never believed that,” said Esther mildly. “You read it in a history somewhere that Russian Jews all migrated in from Germany and so you know my family tradition can’t be true.”
“Why not?” he said. “Does it matter? What it means is that you keep your own set of rules. Jews so ancient that they don’t think the Talmud deserves all the authority it gets. Jews who can make a sandwich of beef and cheese.”
“But not
ham
and cheese,” she said, smiling.
“That Ruthie,” said Piotr. “Do you think she really believes that feminist nonsense about the nice feminine Bible hidden inside the nasty masculine Bible?”
“She does for now,” said Esther. “But like most college feminists, she’s not going to let the theory stop her from marrying.”
“And you’re an expert on this?”
“I hear the women at synagogue talking about their daughters.” She imitated them in English. “ ‘Oy! The younger generation always knows more than the older! Two thousand years Jewish women have more rights than Christian women ever had, but suddenly we’re oppressed, and it takes my daughter to tell me?’ ”
Piotr laughed at her take on the matrons of the synagogue. “You know what I was thinking? She got so excited when she was spouting this ahistorical countertextual nonsense, and I caught myself thinking, ‘What an idiot her teacher must be,’ and thinking about her teacher made me realize—the kind of excitement she was showing as she mindlessly spouted back the nonsense she learned in college, that’s just like the excitement some of my own students show. And it occurred to me that what we professors think of as a ‘brilliant student’ is nothing but a student who is enthusiastically converted to whatever idiotic ideas we’ve been teaching them.”
“Self-knowledge is a painful thing,” said Esther. “To learn that your best students are parrots after all.”
“Ah, but students who fill their heads with my ideas and spew them back on command, they are at least saying intelligent things, even if they all come from me.”
“Especially if they all come from you.”
“It’s my
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