Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

MY YIDDISHE GRANDMA 71

that of her children was nowhere more clear than in appreciation of the mystic. She said "If you had seen what I have seen..."

That was a reference to a young man who had been her "steady beau" before she got to know her husband, Meyer, blessed be his memory. That first one must have been a strange fellow, even if I'm convinced that Grandma gradually credited him with more capabilities than he ever possessed. He was born with a "caul", a membrane which sometimes covers the face of a child at birth and is supcr-stitiously supposed to give that person prophetic power. She would picture his appearance—"very plastic", as she put it. "Beautiful, he was decidedly not. No, he was no picture," she used to say.

"There are also ugly pictures," my father consoled.

She snapped back, "You should shut your mouth. If people talk of beauty or ugliness, sons-in-law should be silent. No, I won't say he was a prince, but there was something in his face that you always wanted to look at, but at the same time you wanted to run away from. He was very tall and lean, like a hound. And he had a pointed chin and eyes that changed colour. Sometimes they were dark and sometimes they were light. On each side of his nose he had a wart, right at the corner of his eyes."

She always told us stories about that boy. He could heal children by prayer. How? He prayed and "took" the name of that child and gave it a new one because the "Force", he explained, lives in the "Name". Sometimes in the name of the parents, and in that case he "gave the child new parents", in his way of saying it. So then, with its new name the child got its health back again.