A Summons in Spring
By
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
The drive was long but not winding. Direct, blunt even. The front gate locked but easily scalable. Dusted, not caked, with rust. Paint chipped. The young and not-so-young-but-still spry found their way through its pliant bars. The cameras were still on but no one checked the video. Who had time? Everyone knew about the museum. There had been talk some time ago of turning the building into artist studios. Or was it condos? Yes, that must have been it. The meetings had been well-attended and surprisingly calm. He hadn’t attended the meetings, remembers them only as a long-ago item in the metro section.
Still, he felt himself pulled. Summoned, really. At dusk, the pines whispered his name. Gently, but repeatedly. He had a way with pines, or rather, pines had a way with him. Always had. Only these were different. They spoke with certainty, conveyed urgency. The coyotes were even more dogged (!), barking insistently their invitation.
It was on one March moment, on his evening constitutional, when hands—speckled with brown spots, yet strong—forcefully ushered him through the gates and up that aforementioned long, blunt, unwinding drive. Given the calls of the pines and the coyotes, he wasn’t surprised. In fact, he’d been expecting them, those hands. This descent, this convergence, of hands. Rows of remnants of daffodils swayed in the stillness. He found himself before a burnt-red brick edifice interrupted by tall and narrow, unbroken, windows.
And then without knowing how, he was inside. Had he been whisked, or, as earlier, guided? Before him gleamed vitrine after vitrine filled with dolls. Elegantly clad, perfectly coiffed tresses gleaming behind the glass. Bisque faces unmarred by the spanking of Father Time. Eyes that followed him with alertness. He knew he was not their first visitor, and that they could fend for themselves. From so many cultures, time periods, places. And yet there were no object labels. Why had the object labels been taken but the dolls left here, “unharmed”? And so he wasn’t really sure what he was seeing or from whence they had come. Slovenian native costume? Crafted by whose hands? From which famed dollmaker down which narrow, cobbled lane, third door from which firefighters’ communal dining hall? Or by a machine—he could hear their clatter, see the racing of hands to avoid hungry blades, the pursed lips of the supervisor—in a building long shuttered or razed.
Why were they all still here? Perhaps they’d refused to be moved. After all, dolls had power. Wasn’t that really the reason that Father had cut off Midge’s nose so long ago? Or was it because dolls are a representation of the human form and therefore potentially worshipped as idols? And little boy he had so adored Midge. Yes, “worshipped,” if it must be known. Father’s maiming of her had sent him into paroxysms of undammable tears, waves of weeping that racked his body for hours, sapped his spirit for months. Decades. How dare Father maim Midge?
His own adoration of Midge was different from his worship of Barbie and her friends alongside her. Yes, he’d worshipped Barbie, too. Wanted to be her. To join her confident, never coy, social set. Yearned for her silent, eternal poise; her buxom yet lithe form. Unfazed by catcalls, gravity, the constriction of social mores. Yet it was Midge that Father had gotten hold of. Barbie and the others had managed to elude the tentacles of his originalist interpretation of the law. Or hardline custom, he really wasn’t sure. Barbie and her friends tried to warn Midge in that secret language of dolls, to make her aware of the danger, but Midge, anchored in the certainty of her youthful charms, thought she knew better, thought she could escape. Only she was no match for Father’s determination. He would have warned her, only he hadn’t known. How could he? He was no legal scholar. He was daydreaming his way through Talmud class. Barely hanging on, if you must know.
After the mutilation, the wreckage, after the shattering of his naivete, he caressed Midge, swore his own eternal allegiance to her. He would take better care. Midge only stared at him blankly, coolly even, in the face of his blather. What could words like “take better care” possibly mean to her now?
These dolls now encased in vitrines before him, he realized, had strength in assemblage. For all the delicacy of their features, limbs, and costume, they would never allow what had happened to Midge to happen to them. They would not allow themselves to be touched, let alone removed. The funding may have run out; the health of their home was at stake. And yet, the glass of the vitrines had been freshly polished. So too the marble floors.
He glided through the echoless exhibition halls in search of Midge. Of course, she wasn’t here. Couldn’t possibly be. Had no place among these costumed bisque “baby/little girl” dolls. Still, he looked carefully at every vitrine in all of the many halls. He was sure that dolls here would agree that Midge could find a place here. After all, Midge wasn’t really all that different in age from these dolls. He was sure these dolls, with their demonstrated staying power, would not have allowed the maiming of Midge. If only Midge could have been brought here, even if only temporarily. If only he had known of this place when he was a five-year old, he could have brought Midge here. Here, Midge would have remained whole.
When the sun was beginning to imagine its own ascent, he felt hands—the very ones that has brought about his entry—now, yes, whisking, him out, down the drive, through the gate. The pines were quiet. If not altogether gone, the coyotes were quieter, too. He could still hear their whining.
But high above all, he could hear the keen of wailing. It wasn’t coming from the Barbie and her set of memory. No, it was coming from the museum. From the rotunda at the building’s center, beneath the skylight, where there were no dolls at all. A chorus in lament. He wouldn’t allow himself to look, to investigate. He wouldn’t try to parse the strands of lament. But he could hear Midge. He’d know her voice anywhere. Midge was unforgotten.
Midge was finally weeping.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry, including A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). His recent translations from the Yiddish include Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel (2022) by Ida Maze and Blessed Hands: Stories (2023) by Frume Halpern. Please visit his website.
By
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub
The drive was long but not winding. Direct, blunt even. The front gate locked but easily scalable. Dusted, not caked, with rust. Paint chipped. The young and not-so-young-but-still spry found their way through its pliant bars. The cameras were still on but no one checked the video. Who had time? Everyone knew about the museum. There had been talk some time ago of turning the building into artist studios. Or was it condos? Yes, that must have been it. The meetings had been well-attended and surprisingly calm. He hadn’t attended the meetings, remembers them only as a long-ago item in the metro section.
Still, he felt himself pulled. Summoned, really. At dusk, the pines whispered his name. Gently, but repeatedly. He had a way with pines, or rather, pines had a way with him. Always had. Only these were different. They spoke with certainty, conveyed urgency. The coyotes were even more dogged (!), barking insistently their invitation.
It was on one March moment, on his evening constitutional, when hands—speckled with brown spots, yet strong—forcefully ushered him through the gates and up that aforementioned long, blunt, unwinding drive. Given the calls of the pines and the coyotes, he wasn’t surprised. In fact, he’d been expecting them, those hands. This descent, this convergence, of hands. Rows of remnants of daffodils swayed in the stillness. He found himself before a burnt-red brick edifice interrupted by tall and narrow, unbroken, windows.
And then without knowing how, he was inside. Had he been whisked, or, as earlier, guided? Before him gleamed vitrine after vitrine filled with dolls. Elegantly clad, perfectly coiffed tresses gleaming behind the glass. Bisque faces unmarred by the spanking of Father Time. Eyes that followed him with alertness. He knew he was not their first visitor, and that they could fend for themselves. From so many cultures, time periods, places. And yet there were no object labels. Why had the object labels been taken but the dolls left here, “unharmed”? And so he wasn’t really sure what he was seeing or from whence they had come. Slovenian native costume? Crafted by whose hands? From which famed dollmaker down which narrow, cobbled lane, third door from which firefighters’ communal dining hall? Or by a machine—he could hear their clatter, see the racing of hands to avoid hungry blades, the pursed lips of the supervisor—in a building long shuttered or razed.
Why were they all still here? Perhaps they’d refused to be moved. After all, dolls had power. Wasn’t that really the reason that Father had cut off Midge’s nose so long ago? Or was it because dolls are a representation of the human form and therefore potentially worshipped as idols? And little boy he had so adored Midge. Yes, “worshipped,” if it must be known. Father’s maiming of her had sent him into paroxysms of undammable tears, waves of weeping that racked his body for hours, sapped his spirit for months. Decades. How dare Father maim Midge?
His own adoration of Midge was different from his worship of Barbie and her friends alongside her. Yes, he’d worshipped Barbie, too. Wanted to be her. To join her confident, never coy, social set. Yearned for her silent, eternal poise; her buxom yet lithe form. Unfazed by catcalls, gravity, the constriction of social mores. Yet it was Midge that Father had gotten hold of. Barbie and the others had managed to elude the tentacles of his originalist interpretation of the law. Or hardline custom, he really wasn’t sure. Barbie and her friends tried to warn Midge in that secret language of dolls, to make her aware of the danger, but Midge, anchored in the certainty of her youthful charms, thought she knew better, thought she could escape. Only she was no match for Father’s determination. He would have warned her, only he hadn’t known. How could he? He was no legal scholar. He was daydreaming his way through Talmud class. Barely hanging on, if you must know.
After the mutilation, the wreckage, after the shattering of his naivete, he caressed Midge, swore his own eternal allegiance to her. He would take better care. Midge only stared at him blankly, coolly even, in the face of his blather. What could words like “take better care” possibly mean to her now?
These dolls now encased in vitrines before him, he realized, had strength in assemblage. For all the delicacy of their features, limbs, and costume, they would never allow what had happened to Midge to happen to them. They would not allow themselves to be touched, let alone removed. The funding may have run out; the health of their home was at stake. And yet, the glass of the vitrines had been freshly polished. So too the marble floors.
He glided through the echoless exhibition halls in search of Midge. Of course, she wasn’t here. Couldn’t possibly be. Had no place among these costumed bisque “baby/little girl” dolls. Still, he looked carefully at every vitrine in all of the many halls. He was sure that dolls here would agree that Midge could find a place here. After all, Midge wasn’t really all that different in age from these dolls. He was sure these dolls, with their demonstrated staying power, would not have allowed the maiming of Midge. If only Midge could have been brought here, even if only temporarily. If only he had known of this place when he was a five-year old, he could have brought Midge here. Here, Midge would have remained whole.
When the sun was beginning to imagine its own ascent, he felt hands—the very ones that has brought about his entry—now, yes, whisking, him out, down the drive, through the gate. The pines were quiet. If not altogether gone, the coyotes were quieter, too. He could still hear their whining.
But high above all, he could hear the keen of wailing. It wasn’t coming from the Barbie and her set of memory. No, it was coming from the museum. From the rotunda at the building’s center, beneath the skylight, where there were no dolls at all. A chorus in lament. He wouldn’t allow himself to look, to investigate. He wouldn’t try to parse the strands of lament. But he could hear Midge. He’d know her voice anywhere. Midge was unforgotten.
Midge was finally weeping.
Yermiyahu Ahron Taub is a poet, writer, and translator of Yiddish literature. He is the author of two books of fiction and six volumes of poetry, including A Mouse Among Tottering Skyscrapers: Selected Yiddish Poems (2017). His recent translations from the Yiddish include Dineh: An Autobiographical Novel (2022) by Ida Maze and Blessed Hands: Stories (2023) by Frume Halpern. Please visit his website.
