Family Theme Analysis

I, Misha Pilsudski, was born a Gypsy somewhere in the land of Russia. My family, including two great-grandfathers and a great-great-grandmother who was one hundred and nine years old, traveled from place to place in seven wagons pulled by fourteen horses. There were nineteen more horses trailing the wagons, as my father was a horse trader. My mother told fortunes with cards.

I loved my story. No sooner did I hear the words than I became my story. I loved myself. For days afterward, I did little else but stare into the barbershop mirror, fascinated by the face that stared back.

“Misha Pilsudski…,” I kept saying. “Misha Pilsudski… Misha Pilsudski…” And then it was no longer enough to stare at myself and repeat my name to myself. I needed to tell someone else.

I had an idea. The next day I snatched two loaves of bread. One I gave to Uri, the other I took to the house of Janina the girl. It had snowed overnight. Brown stubble poked through the white blanket covering the garden. I pushed the snow from the top step. I set the loaf down, knocked on the door, and ran.

The next day I came back to look. The bread was gone.

That was how it started.

One time I entered a house through an unlocked back door. […] I moved through the kitchen and suddenly found myself standing in a doorway, staring at a family of people having dinner around a long table. Food and silver and glass sparkled everywhere. In the middle was a great, golden roasted bird, perhaps a goose or turkey. I must have surprised them, for all movement stopped as they stared at me while I stared at the table—but not for long. As always, I was the first to move. I believe this was the first rule of life that I learned, though it was a twitch in my muscles rather than a thought in my head: Always be the first to move. As long as that happened, they would have to catch up, and I could not be caught.

I had never seen him so mad. His hair looked redder than ever, only this time it was not because he was laughing. He punched me in the forehead. The back of my head banged against the wall. "Someday I'm going to have to kill you to keep you alive." He flapped his arm. "You want to do it your way? You want to go off by yourself? Not listen to me? Go ahead!" He kicked me. "Go ahead!" He stomped off. By the time he reached the street, I was at his side.

Janina looked at me. “What happened?”

“Unlucky orphans,” I said. I told her that was what Enos called them—orphans who did not live in Doctor Korczak's home, or any other, and who roamed the streets hungry and begging and sick.

“Be glad we're not unlucky orphans,” I told her.

“Is gray Jon an unlucky orphan?” she said.

“Oh no,” I said. “He's a lucky one. He's with us.”

When I awoke, I thought I was back in the courtyard under the blinding lights, but it was only the sun in the window. And Uncle Shepsel, propped on his elbow, was pointing at me and saying, “Why is he sleeping here? He smells.”

“I regret to inform you,” said Mr. Milgrom, “that you are not a rose garden yourself these days.”

Uncle Shepsel pounded the floor. “He's not family.”

Mr. Milgrom looked straight at him. “He is now.”

From the moment Mr. Milgrom said, “He is now,” my identity as a Gypsy vanished. Gone were the seven wagons, seven brothers, five sisters, Greta the speckled mare. Deep down I guess I had always known my Gypsy history was merely Uri's story, not reality. I didn't miss it. When you own nothing, it's easy to let things go. I supposed my last name was Milgrom now, so Pilsudski went too. I kept Misha. I liked it.

Uncle Shepsel opened his eyes and smiled down at me. I had seen the same smile in the room lately, as he read the book that had changed him from a Jew to a Lutheran. […] Suddenly his expression changed. He seemed confused. He looked hard into my face and did not seem to know me. "You go. Every night you go," he said. "Why do you come back?" I did not have an answer. Maybe he found it in my face, for after a while he turned and walked off.

Now it was Hanukkah time again […] On the first day Mr. Milgrom told me the story of Hanukkah. How long ago the Greeks tried to destroy everything Jewish. ("See, this is not the first time.") How the Jews were outnumbered and had no chance against the Greeks but beat them anyway. How the Jews celebrated by lighting an oil lamp. But the celebration would have to be short because there was only enough oil to last for one day. And then a miracle happened. The oil lasted for eight days.

I smacked her. I shouted at her. But I could not change her. I could not understand her moods, her outbursts. I mostly accepted the world as I found it. She did not. She smacked me back and kicked me. In time I found my own best way to deal with her. On many days I went off to a favorite bomb crater and lowered myself into it and licked traces of fat from between my fingers and closed my eyes and remembered the good old days when ladies walked from bakeries with bulging bags of bread.

The Jackboot flung me against a wall. I saw his hand go to his holster. I saw the gun come out and point between my eyes. "Die, piglet!" The voice. I looked up. The red hair. The face. “Uri!" I cried, and the gun went off.

The man placed his foot on my chest. "You're a Jew," he said.

"Yes," I answered. I pointed to my armband. "See?"

“What are you doing here?"

"I'm following the train. Janina. I'm going to the ovens."

"What ovens?"

"The ovens for the Jews. I'm a filthy son of Abraham. They forgot me. Can you take me to the ovens?"

The man spit in the weeds. "I don't know what you're talking about. You make no sense. Are you insane?"

I think of all the voices that have told me who I have been, the names I've had. Call me thief. Call me stupid. […] I don't care. Empty-handed victims once told me who I was. Then Uri told me. Then an armband. Then an immigration officer. And now this little girl in my lap, this little girl whose call silences the tramping Jackboots. Her voice will be the last. […] I am . . . Poppynoodle.