Since You Left Me by Allen Zadoff Read Free Book Online

was over he seemed fine, even happy.
    “Your zadie was a tough old bastard,” Dad said. “A real survivor.”
    “I know,” I say, but I didn’t know much. We weren’t allowed to ask about the war, and Zadie hardly ever mentioned it. He always wore long-sleeve shirts to cover the number tattooed on his forearm when he was twelve years old.
    “I’ve got something to tell you about your zadie,”my father said. “There’s good news and bad news.”
    “Good news first,” I said.
    I was ten, but I was no idiot.
    “The good news is that your grandfather had some money. In fact a good deal of money. You know your zadie was in the shmata business.”
    “Terry cloth,” I said.
    “That’s right,” Dad said. “The West Coast king of terry.”
    I knew this because I had more bathrobes than any kid I’d ever met.
    “Terry bought us our house,” Dad said. “And it made a very nice life for your zadie.”
    I started to get excited. “Are we rich?” I said, because plenty of ten-year-olds in Brentwood had cell phones then, and I didn’t have one. No cell phone, no new clothes, but more fuzzy towels than the Beverly Hills Hotel.
    “We are not rich,” Dad says. “A long way from it. But you, son, are in good shape. Your zadie put money in a trust for you.”
    As it turns out, that was the bad news.
    “Now let me tell you why your grandfather was a mamzer bastard,” my father said.
    Calling someone a mamzer bastard is a little redundant, like calling them a “bastard bastard,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense. But that’s exactly what my father said. I remember very well.
    “Why was he a mamzer?” I asked.
    “Your trust has restrictions,” my father said.
    “What kind of restrictions?”
    “You must use it to get an education.”
    “An education is good, right?”
    “A Jewish education,” my father said.
    “What does that mean?” I said.
    “It means you’ve got a lot of Hebrew school in front of you, my boy.”
    I’d been going to Hebrew school for three hours every Saturday—three of the longest hours of my life. My parents were still married then, and they went to Shabbat services on Saturday mornings to keep Zadie happy. They’d drop us off at Hebrew school beforehand along with the rest of the parents. We’d sit in a circle on the cold linoleum floor singing Jewish songs and being told to sheket bevakasha when we couldn’t keep quiet.
    If Hebrew school was bad at three hours, what was Jewish school every day going to be like?
    “What if I don’t want a Jewish education?” I said to Dad.
    “If you don’t want a Jewish education, you don’t get the money,” my father said. “And your mother and I are royally screwed when it comes to tuition payments.”
    “But it’s not like the money goes away. It’s still there, right?”
    “It’s there, but it’s not for you.”
    “Who is it for?”
    “Tay-Sachs,” my father said. “It’s a Jewish disease.” That’s got me worried. I had Jewish genes. We all did.
    “Do I have Tay-Sachs?” I said.
    “You do not have Tay-Sachs,” my father said. “Certainly not. But if you don’t go to Jewish school, your money goes for Tay-Sachs research.”
    “So, it’s me or Tay-Sachs,” I said.
    “That’s right. Your zadie wants to save all the Jews, and he doesn’t mind screwing his own family in the process.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that.
    “There’s no free ride in this world,” my father said. “People always want something from you, Sanskrit. I learned my lesson living with your zadie. Every time you rub your tushy with a soft towel in this family, you lose a little part of yourself.”
    My grandfather was a mamzer bastard. That proved it.

“They’re girls, not gods.”
    Herschel interrupts me while I’m staring at The Initials in the downstairs hallway. She’s bending over and taking books out of her cabinet. That’s what they call lockers in my school. As if changing the word could change the fact that it’s