Thirteen-year-old Rudy and his friends routinely ride their bikes through their rundown neighborhood, shouting insults at their neighbor, Jacob, an elderly Jewish man out tending his garden. Then Rudy discovers that his mother has arranged for him to help Jacob tear down his fence that summer. When a sullen Rudy shows up at Jacob's door, it's hard to know which of them is most wary of the other. Yet when Rudy sees the beautiful gardens Jacob and his neighbors, Frederick and Yoshito, have created in their backyards, he can't help but be impressed. During the hot summer days that follow, fatherless Rudy, who wants to "belong to something" toils in the sun with a shovel and an attitude, reluctant to accept even a glass of Frederick's iced tea. Gradually he learns that the older men-Jacob, from Germany; Frederick, an African American from the pre-civil rights movement South; and Yoshito, a Japanese American who spent three years in an internment camp during World War II-have become like brothers, bonded through tragedy and the drive to transform barren dirt into something beautiful. Frederick and Yoshito have made peace with their pasts and removed the fence between their yards, but Jacob is still haunted by what happened to his family at Auschwitz, memories retriggered by Rudy and his friends. As they work alongside each other, Jacob and Rudy do more than tear down a fence in this story of healing and hope that changes Rudy's life in ways he never imagined.
The Compass
By Deborah RadwaniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Deborah Radwan
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4697-0623-8Chapter One
A grizzled-looking old man, Jacob leaned back on his knees, rubbed the soil from his hands onto stained pants, and hoisted himself from the ground with considerable effort. He steadied his upward progression with the aid of a hoe that looked as worn as he did. His forward-bent shadow leaned to one side like a tree that grows toward the sun. Clinging white-knuckled to his staff, he allowed it to bear the brunt of his weight until he could properly straighten his spine—a task that was harder with each passing day. Jacob reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rag to wipe the sweat and dirt that had settled into the wrinkles and creased brow of his weathered face. Ironically, the thin, white castoff, discolored and soiled, displayed a monogrammed "L" in the corner, betraying better, more distinguished days.
Hearing a ruckus coming from down the street, Jacob turned toward it. The usual routine, he thought, shaking his head in disapproval. School had just let out for the summer. Jacob watched as a swarm of boys on bicycles rode by, some using language that no decent boys of that age should know, much less be using in casual conversation. The anger and the power in the boys' voices scared him, but he looked at them with a steady eye, hiding his fear.
"What are you staring at, Jew man?" one boy yelled at him as they rode by. A second one spit in his direction, saying, "Filthy kike." Another boy thrust out his arm and lifted his middle finger. The rest of the boys laughed—except for one. That boy stared back at Jacob with an equally unflinching eye.
Jacob straightened and stood tall next to his hoe, his head slightly lifted, his chin defiant—but said nothing. A shiver ran down his spine. His eyes were locked on the boy holding up the rear of the group, the boy with the fixed eyes and still expression scrutinizing him intently as he rode by. The boy then turned his attention back to the group and peddled faster to catch up to the others who were several bike lengths ahead.
It wasn't until the boys were out of sight that Jacob relaxed again, his body resisting the impulse to tremble.
Lumbering down the drive, he complained to himself that he was an old man in an old neighborhood. Why hadn't he left? he asked himself again for the hundredth time now, as he looked up and down the street, disappointed at what he saw. The pleasant neighborhood he bought into in the early fifties was now run-down and dilapidated, and a bad element had infiltrated the old comfortable homes. Mrs. Jefferson was a widow who couldn't afford her electric bill much less home improvements on her husband's pension; Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez were too busy taking care of their grandchildren and great grandchildren to worry about the blistering paint that marred their house; and Jacob didn't even want to think about what was going on in the house next to them. That house was once pristine with a manicured lawn and flowers along the sidewalk and a sign on the porch that read "The Myers." Jacob remembered them as a lovely family that took great pride in their little "Shangri-La," as they dubbed it. They believed they had a piece of the American dream. Now, there was a car parked on the lawn, a ripped sofa on the porch, and a flag being used as a curtain. Rough and raw-looking people came and went at odd hours, day and night—in, then out ten minutes later. Tattooed with closely shaved heads, they would often screech away. "Hooligans," Jacob muttered to himself.
But even as Jacob asked himself why he stayed, he knew it was because of his longtime neighbors, Frederick and Yoshito, and the garden the three of them created from the thirsty and barren soil once overrun with dead and brittle weeds.
For decades, the expansive and hidden yards behind their individual homes that sat side by side had been left untended; they were too big to handle and therefore ignored, abandoned, and left to die.
One March morning, a dozen years back now, maybe more, Frederick heard his dead Negro ancestors singing for the first time. He said their deep soulful voices rose out of the yard singing "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder." Although he couldn't see them, he sensed they were working in the garden the way they had worked the fields in the Deep South, where his people came from. Their voices were filled with joy and praise. From that day forward, Frederick worked in his yard from early in the morning, when just a hint of brightness lit up the eastern sky, until long after the sun's luster had dimmed. In those early days, Jacob and Yoshito wondered if he ever stopped to sleep.
Frederick didn't always hear the singing now, but he made up for it with his own raised voice. In the beginning, when there was much to be done, Frederick heard them all the time, blending their voices with his, pushing him forward to dig out pathways, plant flowers and trees of every variety, and grow herbs and vegetables. Now, the singing came when he least expected it, when he was just about to give up hope of ever hearing them again. In those moments, Frederick's voice was louder and richer as he sang in harmony with a choir only he could hear. But since that first day, he claimed to feel part of them, linked to his past as he worked by their unseen sides. Over time, Frederick's large, dead, and parched rectangular yard began to mold into paths and patches and change in color, texture, and richness. The hard became soft; the brown turned green; the dull became bright; and the dry was rich and nourished. He claimed a similar metamorphosis had taken hold of his soul. In the intervening years, Frederick seemed happier, younger, and stronger—for an old man.
That same magical summer that Frederick heard the singing, Yoshito claimed to hear his dying trees and withering bushes whispering to him in a parched voice that they were thirsty, and dutifully, he gave them drink. Feeling honored that his plants should talk to him and that he had been given the gift to hear them, he followed Frederick's lead. Before long, Yoshito began transforming his yard. Soon after, they tore down the fence between their homes and began working together on one beautiful Eden.
They're getting old and they're going crazy, hearing voices, Jacob often thought. "Old men's ramblings," he would grumble to himself, shaking his head in disbelief at their nonsense.
As for himself, transforming his garden had just given him something to do, something to pass the time. Perhaps he had needed something beautiful in his life, and the garden seemed to fill a void. So he joined Frederick and Yoshito in creating his little piece of paradise. Jacob heard no sweet ancestors singing and no whispered voices from the garden. He only heard the daily chorus of the birds in his trees and he was satisfied with that.
Jacob did, however, hear voices in his dreams. They were unwelcome visitors on whom the door would not close. Even after all these decades, he sometimes heard cruel, rough German voices from the past shouting orders, calling him names, ordering him and his father to go to the right, his mother and sister to the left. He'd looked back into a sea of crying women and children as he and his father were pushed with other men and older boys out of sight—and that was the last he saw of his mother and sister. His dreams varied slightly, but it was always cold, rainy, and gray, and he was always in that same place. He always felt the same terror and...
