Jewish Days

By Elias Sassoon

Our protagonist is Artie Shamash. The story explores his conflicted persona. How did that persona, his role identity develop? What is the mechanism involved that shapes each of us? The novel seeks to understand by through Artie Shamash’s life. On its face, the book’s a study of a man born into a world of secular Judaism and its assimilationist trend in America; we see the stress this creates. On another level, the theme is more universal, how each of our identities, our roles such as Christian, Jew, Muslim, American, Russian, German, etc., are nurtured. The novel spins counter-clockwise. It opens with Artie Shamash as the mature-conflict driven adult before examining, in episodic fashion, the subtle and not-so-subtle influences that shaped this alienated soul. Roles we play in life are not internal to the individual. They are fostered upon us by those around us. Are we really free or subject to external influences that mold us into something other than we are? That is a question.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304878359

Elias Sassoon

Elias Sassoon is the author of approximately, roughly, terminally twenty-five works that include short story collections, novels, poetry collections and non-fiction, essay collections. While producing his writing by night, he has earned his daily wage in honest labor that ranges from professions like teacher/bathroom attendant to a door-to-door bible salesman/fish cleaner and everything in between. Elias continues to work hard, grinding out the words and turning them into literary gems, or if you prefer, literary pearls of wisdom. He lives with his wife, two children and a dog-named Brandon in a suburban area in the vicinity of the great Metropolis known as New York City. There he prepares barbecue dinners for neighbors and friends, roams the area for yard sales, watches flies and other moving insect life die in his backward where he also sits on a metal beach chair deciding on the future of the world as we know it.

Book preview

Jewish Days

JEWISH DAYS

a Novel

by

ELIAS SASSOON

Jewish Days

ISBN: 978-1-304-87835-9

Copyright © 2014 by Elias Sassoon

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or, other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage  or retrieval systems, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any of the characters to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

Second Printing: March 2014

DEDICATION

To my father!

To William Saroyan!

Two men of value.

Two men of heritage.

Table of Contents

I. The Day Begins

II. Working For A Change

III. Lunch 1

IV. The Day Descends

V. Going Home

VI. To Childhood We Go

VII. Exploration

VIII. Moving

IX. Journeying

X. School Days

XI. Family and Friends

XII. Relatives Lost

XIII. Boy Becomes Man-Man Becomes Philosopher 58

XIV. Becoming Aware

XV. A World Unchanging

XVI. Boys Will Be Boys

XVII. Facts Of Life

XVIII. Quiet Times At Home

XVIX. Visitors

XX. Neighbors

XXI. Educated Years

XXII. The Scholar Arrives

XXIII. Confrontations On The Eastern Front

XXIV. Home Again Naturally

XXV. Joining Of Ends To Make A Circle

XXVI. Coming To Grips

XXVII. The Day Begins Again

XXVIII. Epilogue

JEWISH DAYS

I.                   THE DAY BEGINS

The day begins, and it is cloudy, cold, and loveless. It’s God’s joke on man. God, does God exist or is he an invention to give meaning to human-kind where meaning doesn’t exist. Meaning, where is the meaning, in a man’s triumphs, what triumphs? In accomplishments? In the acquisition of material possessions? In religion? Where?

Meaning in life, think so! Just look out the window. What do you see? Be honest, don’t give us any of that spiritual twaddle about the inner dimensions of existence, or other such bulldinkie. What do you see? Red bricks in patterns everywhere, piled high one atop the other, that’s all. It might be a jail, it is jail. Hopeless and unfulfilling. Life, is it worth it, really is it? Human debates, they just wear you out.

No time for debates or any kind of thought in the real world. This is not some esteemed university where you sit around and discuss the Dialogues of Plato over coffee and debate whether Socrates should have sipped at the hemlocked cup. That time is gone, dead man dead. Thought it’s too tiring anyway, real work heavy labor. Better not think then, better to move.

Rush along little doggie, wash that body, shine those teeth, pull up those pantaloons, hook that tie. Get along with yah, time is passing, dancing, and skipping in harmony to nothingness. Listen to the dance, hear the boot tapping, and the clanking of the soft shoe. Time, what the ‘frig’ is time, artificial, yes sir, artificial mumbo-jumbo propagated on idiots, mutton-chops. Yes, its been said before that the minutes are useless, but said or not what’s the difference. Look at the worshippers at the gates of the shrine bowing before the minutes, adorning them with Godly luster. What can you do about it? Swim against the tide. Hopeless.

Swift movements continue. Food stuffed down at the breakfast table, grains, fibers, fruits, beverages; hurry up man, be quick about it, be quick. Let the room spin, and kiss your apartment goodbye. There are distances to navigate, day to circumvent, work to coordinate.

Today is Friday, but it could be a Monday for all you care. Days of the week, turn them around, backwards, forwards, all man made like time. All the same really. Saturday into Wednesday, Sunday into Thursday, invert, truncate, reverse, all the same. Who are they fooling? Not you.

Outdoors, icicles in the air everywhere. Don’t look up at the sun. No time. Don’t honor the day, one day out of your existence. Why do that! Why should you. Where is it written you must. Prove it. Show me the book. I deny the book because I don’t understand it, its letters are foreign, its meaning unclear. And do you expect me to read that filthy rag, so old and tattered it falls apart in my hand. Forget it, no time.

Your existence, an underground train, travelling far beneath the surface of the earth, through dark urine smelling tunnels radiating heat and crawling with tiny verminous animals with busy tails and squinting eyes. Creatures in coats, hats, dresses, are everywhere. None knows of the day. Habit, habitual movement along the scheduled path. But don’t direct their attention to this, they’ll get insulted. It’s true, however, and inwardly they know it though outwardly they make excuses. Sure we run along the scheduled path, sure, sure, but don’t worry, we’ll get in touch, they explain defensively. We’ll find a warm beach in Barbados, and become alive with life again as we were in our youth.

Asinine babes, asinine. You think you’ll find life again in Barbados, ha. Once you stop living, its all gone. There ain’t no coming back into the world. You’re dead, zombies, creatures on the underground locomotive. Not only are your faces frozen but so are your minds and your hearts. You’re dead, all of you.

A speeding iron horse, hustling from an outer borough to the heart of the great metropolis. A little uncomfortable are you? Pushing, shoving, snapping at your neck door neighbor there then perched on your back. Okay. Nigger, honky, spic, gook, bodies all in all, not humans with feelings of their own, and faces of their own. Who cares about them, not I, not me, who cares, nobody, nobody. It’s the objective that counts, to arrive on time, to make it without being punished by the person who writes the checks.

Outside again, frigid air, hustle and bustle, traffic lights, newsstands, cars, buses, twirling feet, bobbing heads, tall buildings, construction, noise. But who sees, who hears. It’s late, and it’s terrible.

Finally, the end. The monument in your paycheck stands vibrantly before your punchy face. They call it a building; it’s tall, stretching towards the heavens like the Tower of Babel, it’s strong, like Samson before he met up with Delilah. In the image of man, this iron and concrete palace forever a monument to the annals of time.

Elevators up now, attention, quiet in the audience please, contact. You’re ready. All quiet on the western front.

II. WORKING FOR A CHANGE

It begins for me, Artie Shamash as I sit at my desk in a graying cubicle amidst hundreds of other cubicles. I am wondering. This is an insurance company, or at least that’s what they call it. Plenty of scraps of paper, pencils, pens, and machines of all sorts. People walk a lot, and talk on the phone. I don’t know, and I don’t give much of a damn anyway. Truth is, I’m alienated, and a class book case.

9:15 a.m.

Sitting, I pick up the newspaper, gaze at the headlines, and my day begins. Headlines:

MAN THROWS WOMAN ONTO TRACK AND

INTO ONCOMING TRAIN

WOMAN LOSES LEGS.

HOUSE BURNS AS PEOPLE LOOK ON.

FAMILY OF EIGHT PERISH.

SPACE SHUTTLE EXPLODES ON LIFT-OFF

ALL SEVEN ASTRONAUTS ON BOARD DIE.

The news, how wonderful. I always say, it puts time in your life, and acts as a roadmap to your existence. Kennedy dies, fifth grade. Vietnam war, high school. Arab-Israeli war, college. Death mostly, the death headlines, they tell the tales of my life.

Death, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers, always death, and always such a valuable commodity to me. Where would I be without death. Tragedy to me, no delight for it makes me feel alive. Wait a second, I’ve moved from where I wanted to go. Wasn’t I thinking about headlines.

Yes, headlines, they cry, whine for the astronauts, then plead for continued space travel. Why? We’ve screwed everything up as it is. Exploration, we’ve had our explorers, our new world, we’ve had our experiments in democracy. Chris Columbus lived, others followed, and we failed. From the old world, we brought the seeds of sickness to the new world.

The new world, hell with it. We came and what followed:

Hatred, wars, fires of hell. The virgin lands became the land of whores, worn and wasted. And right then a dream ended. We’ve had our chances and failed. Why space then! Wipe the mud off our living room floors first. Get rid of those noxious odors emanating from the collective mouths of men first. Cleanse humans of their sins first. After they do all that, then let them all can go to hell if they want with my permission.

But, excuse me, I’m preaching, and I know you don’t like that. Let me rest.

10:00 a.m.

Closed my eyes and slept for a moment. My mind, it remembers other times and I can’t breath. I’m choking, my voice box burns, my eyes, they’re on fire. My lungs, I can’t, I can’t, then I rouse myself again.

I want to write a play. Always had the desire to write, never have, never have, but all the characters are lined up now. The play believe it or not is set in Poland, Auschwitz. The tracks, the trains, the selections, the stench of human flesh burning. But is it a play? I see it so clearly.

I’m there. They make me walk through the dark night, and my skin is tingling with pain. Man it’s freezing. I feel the tracks under my feet and the shifting of gravel. What’s happening? I’m being loaded into a cattle-car. My mind’s blank. Stop pushing everyone, stop pushing will yah.

The sliding metal door is sealed shut, and the train starts off and never stops for hours, hours of not being able to move or exist. An old man with whiskers dies on me; I feel his whiskers. Get the body away from me. An old woman urinates on me. Oh God, now I am as dirty as the rest. Children whimper. Shut up or I’ll strangle each and every one of you little bastards. All around heavy breathing. And all the while, somehow you know the night is outside, and the trees are barren of life or are in a terrible hibernation. Time is no longer, only the moment, only this instant. How many hours or years pass? Eternity.

Out of the trains now, walking in line with others. Very cold outside. I try to speak but nobody understands my language. In a truck, out of a truck. Then in a barracks. Green rotting wood everywhere, a metal floor beneath me. I undress. My body, I hate it, too human, too sickly. I shower, and water pours over me. I parade nude, and am embarrassed. Over there they yell. I sit in a chair. My hair is clipped, then my pubic hair. No please don’t do this, don’t. But you don’t listen to me. To you, I don’t matter, am not even human.

A moment back to reality when I decide that I don’t like this play, if it’s a play or this dream, if it’s a dream. I’m Artie Shamash and I’m from America, not Germany, or one of those Eastern Europe places. But I can’t fight it, this feeling, this dream, this literary idea.

In Auschwitz again. I’m given a zebra uniform, and forced into other wooden barracks that have the smell of roach spray. Cots stretch high to the ceiling. Four in a bed with the ugliest and foulest smelling male stick figures imaginable. Why must I live and sleep atop the scum of human existence, and have to eat nothing but dirty water they call soup. I starve, beaten, and forced into heavy labor amidst the snows of the east; I’m breaking rock, lifting rocks, carrying rocks while frostbite rips apart the arms and limbs of my body. I’m slowly dying and they come, always they come and load some of those around me into trucks. They never return.

Artie looks around suddenly. He is back at work in the present world. People are passing. They’re well-dressed, well fed, satisfied. He wants to embrace them, to touch them. But, they are fading in his mind. They don’t know him or see him.

In the past again. They come in uniforms, bursting into the barracks. It is 2:00 a.m. and its dark. Line up, line up, Commandant Sweig orders. Prisoners line up before me.

Everyone fears the Commandant who speaks in low but brutal tones. His blue uniform is always immaculate, its buttons always shine; there is an arm patch sown into the uniform, a skull and crossbones, giving the Commandant the air of a supernatural being. Nobody has ever gotten a good look at his face. He wears his hat well down on his head, hiding everything.

The order is obeyed. The zebra-stripped prisoners line up, dead and hollow looking. The Commandant, followed by his lieutenants, inspect the human rabble.

029341, Commandant Sweig barks to his lieutenant, who writes the number into a book. The Commandant is pacing back and forth, from time to time stopping at a certain prisoner, eying him and either calling out his number or moving along silently. Sweig approaches Artie, goes eye to eye with him, and then barks out the number 062967. His lieutenants disappear as Sweig then does, leaving Artie wondering, and waiting, while he slips back