The vagaries of the calendar mean that the publication date of this edition of the Jewish Voice and Herald is out of sync with the onslaught of Purim, nevertheless, around this time of year my thoughts always return to my first Purim as a groom, which coincided exactly with the last day of our F. Scott and Zelda period. We were in England on a quick spring-break house-swap.
Our plane landed the day before Purim and being young and in love, my wife and I had celebrated the beginning of the holiday by drinking to excess and then falling fast asleep on the down mattress we had the pleasure of using for those ten days. The next morning around midnight (according to my biological clock, though it was 6:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time) we heard a pounding on the front door. We both responded with the same inarticulate grunts, “Huh, wha’ what’s happening?” It was not our finest hour. More pounding. I got up, not knowing where and when my clothes had come off. More pounding on the door corresponding perfectly with my hangover headache. Whoever it was, he or they or (I was beginning to suspect ) it was certainly persistent. “I can’t go down to the door like this,” I protested. “Here, wear this,” said my helpful bride. Hurriedly I put on her pink shorty robe. Inside out. Naturally I couldn’t find the buttons and because of the obvious discrepancy between her svelteness and my rotundity I couldn’t properly close the dainty thing either. I stumbled out the door of the bedroom, half blindly (my glasses hadn’t been anywhere near my fumbling fingers when I’d shot bolt upright as the pounding began), found the stairs, and trooped down, half falling, half stumbling, fully confused, my head throbbing, my eyes bleary, my mouth dry, my hair a shambles, my eyes bloodshot. Finally I attained the front door. After an interminable moment I remembered how to unlock it and I threw the portal open to confront an uncaring world.
The man I saw hadn’t shaved that day, or the month before, apparently. He wore work cloths that looked and smelled as though they had not been washed since the Blitz. He stared at me as though I’d just landed from Saturn. I stared back at him with wonder—as in “I wonder what this fellow is, and what he wants?” As though reading my mind he attempted to resolve the issue by saying, screaming at me, really, “DOOSTBINMIN!” which did not do a great deal to clarify anything. “WHAT?” I shouted back in incredulous reply. “DOOSTBINMIN!” he said, still louder, eyeing me suspiciously. “WHAT?” still louder on my half. “ROOBISH, MUN, Y’ROOBISH!” Well, as you can tell this was not getting us very far.
By now Penney had gotten dressed and, sylphlike, came gliding down the stairs. (She’d just abandoned Zelda and entered her Loretta Young phase.) She said to me with infinite patience, “Josh, sweetheart, he’s the dustbin man and he wants to collect our rubbish.” “Oh,” I said sheepishly, glad once again that I’d married a polyglot. “That’s right, Guv,” said the now smiling dustbinmin, as he leered lasciviously at my pretty bride and waited for me to collect any household garbage we might have. There was none of course, as the owners had left us a spotless home to move into. Feeling somewhat guilty I found only a couple of old newspapers and a slipper chewed in half by some kind of animal I’m glad to say we never actually saw in person. These offerings I placed into a plastic bag and proudly gave them to our garbage man, who looked at the meager contents with ill-disguised disdain. “That it, Guv?” he asked. “Yup,” I said, sheepishly. “Right-o,” he replied. “Hag Purim Sameach” and off he went. My mouth agape I tried calling after him. “How’d you know we were Jewish, that this was Purim?” But the words didn’t quite come out, and as I saw him toss our trash into the back of the big garbage truck I’d somehow failed to notice until this point, he waved enigmatically and that was the last I saw of him that morning. “A Jewish dustbinmin?” I asked snobbishly. Well, why not.
Only later did I find out what really happened that morning. Our dustbin man was, in fact, Peter Kurtz, the rabbi of the local Reform (they call it “Liberal”) synagogue, in disguise. He was a friend of the house’s owner who had told him that a Jewish couple was moving in for a couple of weeks. In the spirit of Purim the rabbi had donned the garb of a garbage man and pulled our legs. After all these years (thirty-five by last count) we still exchange Purim cards and visit each other when we are in the other’s country. An odd way to begin a life-long friendship, but life is strange with its twists and turns. Just ask Queen Esther who passed as a Persian until the call came to reveal her true identity.
No comments:
Post a Comment