The Gift of Asher Lev Read Online Free

death is a terrible tragedy.”
    “Where is Papa?”
    “Next door. They are making the final arrangements for tomorrow. The Rebbe himself will speak at the funeral. You look pale, my son.”
    “It’s been a very long day, Mama.”
    “Papa, I am very very tired and I would like to go to bed now,” Rocheleh said.
    “I am so sorry,” my mother said. “You have just flown thousands of miles, and here I stand talking. Come along with me, dear child. Asher, your room is on the left, over there. Come, Rocheleh.”
    “Good night, Papa.”
    “Good night, Rocheleh. Remember to say the Krias Shema.”
    “I always remember, Papa. Will Mama bring me my medicine?”
    “I’ll remind her.”
    They went off down the hallway and turned a corner.
    I entered the room my mother had pointed to: twin beds in honey-colored wood, a desk, chairs, a dresser, beige carpeting, off-white walls bare save for a picture of the Rebbe over the desk, a large sliding glass door that led to a flagstone terrace and a length of wet lawn bordered by a tall juniper hedge and a towering mottled sycamore. I had not been in this house before. The apartment had been old and cramped: small rooms, a narrow hallway, two bedrooms, mine closetlike, its single window looking out on the cement paving of a back yard encumbered with garbage cans and hungry cats. This house, new, spacious, seemed filled with light even on this murky day of rain.
    There was a noise behind me, a familiar tread: my father’s slightly limping stride, the lingering residue of the infantile paralysis he had sustained as a child in Soviet Russia. He entered the room and I moved toward him and he shook my hand: a powerful grip even in grief. He had not yet removed his coat and hat; they were stained with rain. Sorrow and shock clouded the dark and mesmerizing eyes. He ran a hand through the dense white lengthof his untrimmed beard and then across his forehead: long-familiar gestures of distress and fatigue. He spoke in Yiddish.
    “The children are all right? I have not had a chance to see them. Your mother says they are asleep. Devorah looks very tired. How are you, Asher?”
    “I’m all right. I’m so sorry about Uncle Yitzchok. Was he ill?”
    “No. It was very, very sudden. He was in the living room of his house, he gave a little cough, and he was—he was gone. Your Aunt Leah Golda was with him, and some friends. One minute here, the next minute gone. God gives, and God takes. That is the way of the world, Asher. What a blow this is, what a tragedy. I cannot reconcile myself to it. My brother….” He closed his eyes and shook his head, and a tremor coursed through him. “The Rebbe will speak at the funeral in the synagogue. That is a great honor…. I cannot believe this is happening…. I should take off this coat…. An awful day outside; a terrible rainstorm we had earlier today. Your mother worried about all of you flying in such a storm…. I must take this off…. It is really good to see you and your family, Asher. Too many years. And they go by so quickly now. It is the only good thing that has come of this, that you and your family are here. This is not a time for conversation. We will talk when things settle down a little. You and Devorah should go to sleep. I know about jet lag.”
    He stepped out of the room and into the hallway and was gone. The space he had occupied vibrated softly. A residue of his presence remained in the room, a palpable afterimage that faded only after some moments passed.
    The bags had been set down at the foot of one of the twin beds. My attaché case was on the desk. I began to unpack.
    Devorah entered the room.
    “The children are asleep.”
    “Did you remember to give Rocheleh her medicine?”
    “Of course.” She took off her wig and stepped out of her shoes. She put the wig on the dresser. Without her shoes and wig, she looked diminutive. “Avrumel woke up and asked for Shimshon.”
    “What did you tell him?”
    “He fell back