If I Should Die Before I Wake Read Online Free Page A

Well, it can't be too long. It just seems like forever 'cause I can't move, right?
    Now don't go giving me that suffering-cow look again. Look at me. Mother says I'm on death's dark doorstep and you know what? I feel like death, so don't be giving me that suffering look. Jews always think they've got a monopoly on suffering or something. Hey, I know suffering. I don't need to be a part of someone else's. They'll find the stupid kid. Besides, how bad could it be, being shut up in one of those big old lockers? How bad could it be? So it's a little dark. And hot, I guess, or maybe it's cold. Do they leave the heat on over vacation? The kid's probably out by now anyway, right? While Mother's been giving me her phony see-how-much-I-care speech, the police have been rescuing Simon. Right?
    I guess if he's got to go to the bathroom he'll just do it in his pants. Well, so what, right? Worse could happen. He can breathe. The locker's got vents. Who the hell cares about him anyway? Jew boy. Who the hell cares?
    "I won't disturb the others if I read to you, will I? I'll just read to you quietly.
    "I suppose I can use this chair. Now let's...
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"God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult."
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    Grandmaw? Hey! It's happening again. You can stop it, I know you can.
    I'm falling back into that dark place, spinning away, spinning down. I can see the darkness and the pinpoint of light where the old lady's face stares out at me. The pinpoint begins to grow, letting in more light, shutting out the darkness, erasing Grandmaw's face and bringing into focus a room, square and small.

CHAPTER FOUR
Chana
    THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS before me were instantly clearer than the last time I had visited this other world. The colors, the images, were sharper. As I looked about the room, with its high ceiling and creamy white walls, empty fireplace, and furniture in shades of blue and brown worn into comfort, I knew immediately who, and where, I was. I knew this time that I was thirteen years old, living in Poland, and that this was my living room. The people gathered there with me were my family. I knew, too, that we were still "sitting
shiva,
" in mourning, for my father. The two plain mirrors facing one another on opposite walls were covered with white cloths, and I understood, as if I had always known, that this was part of the ritual of the
shiva.
The circle of low stools upon which my mother and Bubbe, my grandmother, and Zayde, my grandfather, sat were also part of this seven-day ritual of mourning my father.
    The room was cold, or perhaps it was just I who was cold, sitting on the bare wooden floor next to my mother's stool. I tucked my legs and feet up under my dress and huddled in closer to Mama. I wanted her to pat my head, thinking her touch, her love, would warm me, but she was not thinking about me.
    I was aware of the peace, the dead quiet in the room, the way one is aware of it after a loud, long, crashing clamor has ended. There is usually that sense of relief; the body relaxes and one continues with what one was doing before the noise began. This time, however, was different. I remained tense. My muscles ached with readiness, my eyes were tired of the ever alert, almost unblinking vigilance I kept over the house, the family, myself. Yes, there was peace, but what came before it, and what was sure to come again, made that peace hover over the room like the blade of a guillotine. I tried to calm my nerves by reading to my six-year-old sister, Anya, who sat beside me, restlessly playing with Nadzia, the baby of the family.
    "Sit still, Anya," I reprimanded. "You are missing the most interesting part.
Shiva
is almost over, you can be still for just a few more hours."
    "I know, but I cannot wait to get some fresh air. Can you, Chana? Can