Agatha clutched John’s hand it was a small hand even for an 8-year-old. His fingers were long though, piano fingers. She envisioned those fingers gliding along the keys of the piano in their living room That was just an image. There was no more money for piano lessons. And, the piano had to be sold to pay for the funeral.
“Why do I have to live here,” john whined, his olive face upturned full of black eyes and tears.
“How can I answer him,” thought Agatha. There is no more money. The little we had saved will go to the bills that I have to pay. And I just don’t know how to get more. I cannot send to Germany for money. There’s war.
” Listen to the nuns. Be nice to the children. Say your prayers.” But even in prayers, Agatha had failed him. She left him knowing only the bland prayers to a hanging man. She was never able to teach him those beautiful expansive prayers that she knew: the small the amida, prayers recited millions of times to a God who had held her people in his hands for thousands of years. Not these colorless words scribled on the back of soda cans. “Say your prayers,” Agatha, repeated, but not in English, not in German, but in Hebrew, for any other language was too much to bare.