Shadow Puppets

Shadow Puppets

Meyer, my father, had grown soft and physically lazy during the two years since our family had emigrated to the U.S.A. He was from Eastern Europe, a survivor of Hitler’s concentration camps, a man who following his liberation, celebrated every day of life. And he was extremely industrious, the epitome of “the American Dream.” He remained ambitious and industrious in his work but his physical laziness began to manifest itself when he abandoned his daily constitutionals.

My parents had managed to buy a small house in an elite Chicago suburb, and my father started his business in the village, Meyer’s Custom Tailoring: Men’s and Women's. From our new house to his tailoring shop in town was an eight-block walk. These daily walks were an essential part of his day, something Dad insisted was critical zum gezunt (for health). The seeds of his laziness began to sprout on the Saturday afternoon—the first Saturday in October—when he pulled into our driveway with the first new car of his entire life. I was a senior in high school, and that day would become forever etched in my adolescent memory.

On Sunday, at our family’s dinner, Dad announced his plans to drive to and from his tailoring shop beginning on Monday morning. “What’s going to happen with your daily walking?” asked my mother. “To and from the business is two miles, yes? You’re not worried your gezunt is going to go kaput?” She chided.

“Not for you to worry about this! I still always have plenty of walking in my shop and on the errands I make all day. And not to forget, plenty of exercise what I’m getting up and down from the floor mit my fittings.” He explained to the three of us. Mom looked unconvinced. My brother and I simply smiled, imagining him as a child with a new toy. “I’m going to start to drive to my work because saving time from the walking will make some extra hours for my sewing in my shop, no?” He explained to us in Yiddish.

His bushy, dark eyebrows rose up to indicate his surprise that we weren’t entirely convinced, so he added, “You can’t believe this, but it’s not so easy for me to get anything finished with these customers going in and out all day long and me always having to stop what I’m doing for fittings. And then, to take up more time from me, some of those ladies — they have nothing to do but to blah-blah-blah with me—so this is a big waste of my day! I can’t exactly tell them to leave, huh?” Dad shook his head in mock disdain.

That day my father drove his new aquamarine Cutlass Oldsmobile home from the dealership was the highlight of his new life in America. He was beyond ecstatic that the car’s odometer registered a mere twelve miles. Before he drove his new car into our driveway, he made one stop along the way, to his tailoring shop. His critical mission: rearrange all the sewing machines and furniture inside Meyer’s CustomTailoring so everything would be parallel to the massive picture-window that faced onto Oak Street. His purpose wasn’t so much for him to be able to look out onto the street as it was for him to have the ability to observe his car continuously, a tremendous joy. Well in advance of taking possession of his car, my father had planned to park directly in front of his shop. Doing so would guarantee his day-long viewing pleasure.

His business was situated directly across from the town’s Police Department. In the years since he’d started his tailoring business, Dad had befriended every officer on the force, young guys who never seemed to tire of listening to his harrowing tales of fighting and surviving the Nazis. Consequently, he’d never need to be concerned about moving his behemoth automobile to comply with the strictly enforced two-hour parking ordinances other than to drive home at the end of the day.

Every workday, my father sat stalk-straight behind his sewing machines, his work-boot-clad feet like stone blocks, commanding the steel pedals of his factory-model Singer machines. Intermittently, throughout the day, he glanced up over the frames of enormous magnifying reading glasses that threatened to conquer his entire face. With each view of the Oldsmobile, his eyebrows rose and fell. They were adoring, continuous glances: when he stood steam-ironing freshly hemmed trousers, cutting English woolens for sports jackets on the padded square table he’d moved into the workroom’s center, or pinning women’s skirts on the mannequin in preparation for fittings.

Dad’s ecstasy was profound. The Cutlass Oldsmobile had become his joy but truly was the ultimate symbol of his Americanization. Simultaneously, the car fueled his emerging sense of modernity. On weekdays in the warmer months, he could be found during his lunchtimes perched on the sidewalk’s edge. A clean towel grasped firmly in his left hand and gripping the roof-trim for balance with his right, he polished his way rhythmically around the car until it shone like sapphires.

My father always commenced his “closing-the-shop” routine promptly at five-forty-five. Several times a week, I took the city bus from my high school to the Community Library, four blocks from Meyer’s Tailoring. His shop was on my route home, so if I timed my library departure carefully, I was guaranteed a ride home with him. On days I went to the library, I always could observe Dad through his shop’s window as I approached. Always, I waited out front for him, watching as he rushed about turning off lights, unplugging machines, and always checking that one extra time—to be absolutely certain—he’d turned off the iron.

One brutally cold afternoon, I began my walk home from studying at the Community Library and approached Meyer’s Tailoring. It was almost five-thirty. I crossed Oak Street to face the squat Tudor building that housed my father’s shop. A moonless night had descended upon the village, but the street lamps had not yet turned on, and in that darkness, no light from the shop window illuminated the street. Neither did I see him performing his end-of-the-day routine. From where I stood on the sidewalk, it seemed as though Dad may already have turned everything off and headed home. Had I been too late?

I glanced across the street at the gigantic Roman numeral clock on City Hall’s tower. I’d actually arrived ten minutes early, so I continued to wait out front, convinced he’d appear momentarily. His compact body, a plaid Kangol cap on his head, would emerge onto the front steps to lock up. But as I waited, a narrow light beam burst alive from the shop’s back fitting room. It shone through the intense blackness like a star thrown off course.

The source of that single light was emanating from the industrial clip-lamp affixed atop the fitting room’s curtain rod. It was the private changing area Dad and I built one weekend with sheets and curtain rods. The powerful beam cast elongated shadows across the workroom’s linoleum flooring. But after five more minutes, he still failed to appear outside. And still I continued to stand on the sidewalk out front, waiting. And still, I continued to stare through the massive picture window, annoyed and perplexed by that single light that unexpectedly had begun to glow from the back room. A moment later, the village street lamps came alive. Light beams danced from the hood of my father’s Oldsmobile, still in its usual parking space.

I was the moth lured toward a bright flame, my eyes riveted to the circle of brightness that continued emanating from the back room. Bewildered, I continued to wait. With every passing minute, my pupils began to adjust to the darkness, began to discern shapes and objects. Silhouettes of two intertwined figures began to take shape — a short muscular man, a tall curvaceous woman. And together, there in the back room of Meyer’s Custom Tailoring, they swayed like shadow puppets in a carnival show of old. Their rhythmic performance simultaneously mesmerized and perplexed me, hypnotizing me with a slow-motion dance taking place as though it was being performed for me alone. I was thoroughly enthralled until an unseasonal frigid wind—with all its brutal harshness—stung my face, bringing tears to my eyes and breaking the spell of shadow puppets.

I abandoned waiting for my father that night. Nor did I ever again wait for him on any night after that one. Alone, I began my walk home, my own constitutional. To my relief, the wind’s brutal bite began to energize me. My steps quickened, my strides grew longer, and a new realization grew inside my heart with each block I passed. The farther from the village I moved and the closer toward home, the more the wind eased yet the cold grew more bitter.