September 24, 2012--Chapter 8: Mr. Perly's World of Mirrors

Considering the daily mayhem on the streets of East Flatbush, it was essential for a glazier to be available at all times to fix broken windows in homes and stores.  The former, the result of wayward rocks, baseballs, and hockey pucks; the latter caused by criminals-to-be who saw breaking into Krinsky’s candy store to be the ideal preparation for later-in-life felonies. 

And since the foremost perpetrator of misdemeanors was Heshy Perlmutter, it was appropriate that the neighborhood glazier was his father, Mr. Perly.  This in truth was not as ideal as it might at first seem.  You might imagine that the father would show family concern for the victims of broken glass.  Or that he would make haste to repair what his only son had caused.  That is what one might have expected.  But Mr. Perly lived in a world so much of his own that, if anything, the victims would probably have been better and more expeditiously served if they had thought to import a glazier from far away Manhattan.

Mr. Perly always appeared to be preoccupied with higher thoughts and complex issues.  He was frequently seen to be in frenetic motion, prowling the streets in passionate discourse with himself.  Slashing the air, to punctuate his best arguments, with rolled-up copies of either the Jewish Daily Forward, PM, or the Daily Worker.  It was his baton, pointer, or weapon, depending on the subject at hand.  

This dialogue was conducted in four languages—German, Yiddish, Russian, and his own unique version of English.  And there always were multiple participants, with Mr. Perly playing all the roles.  One day when I was trailing him, in the manner of one of my heroes, private eye Sam Spade, trying to overhear, I thought I heard him fighting with someone called Trotsky. 

I was fascinated by the world in which Mr. Perly moved and spent much time attempting to learn about his polyglot universe of languages, glass, and mirrors  After a while I came to understand that the reason he had no “real” interlocutors was not so much because he was crazy but that he had concluded the ideas he was wrestling with were beyond the grasp of his neighbors.  There was an arrogance about him in spite of the fact that he was always disheveled and lived on the edge of poverty.  He felt that he did not have any peers because he inhabited a world of ideas unfamiliar to and above those of everyone else in East Flatbush, or perhaps all of Brooklyn, and because he practiced the art of glazing, which was an ancient and hermetic craft.  Everyone else either worked at a gas station, cut velvet in the City, or slaved away behind the counter in an appetizing store selling bagels and slicing Lox. 

Most thought that Mr. Perly’s work involved just fixing broken windows; when in fact, in the inner recesses of his shop, he engaged in his true calling—silver-glazing sheets of glass, alchemically transforming them into mirrors.  It was especially that world of mirrors I longed to enter.  But I knew I could only get there with the help of Trotsky, whoever or whatever he was.

To learn about Trotsky I asked Heshy, who told me that he didn’t know much about Leon Trotsky either except that he was some kind of a Russian, was involved in the Communist Revolution, and that his father talked about him all the time.  Even in his sleep, Heshy said, he would argue with Trotsky and would cry out what sounded like “Bonaparte.  Bonaparte.”   Or more mysteriously, “Bonapartism.”  Almost every night, waking Heshy and his sister Gracie.  Heshy said it was as if he were fighting in his sleep with Napoleon Bonaparte who had betrayed the Revolution.  Or something like that.  But Heshy was a good enough student to know that Napoleon had died well before the Russian Revolution but that he had his army invade Russia and almost subjugated it.  That was all he knew and so he too was confused and told me if I wanted to learn about Trotsky and Bonaparte I needed to search elsewhere. 

Since it was clear during the early years of the Cold War that it was not a good idea to wander into the neighborhood public library and ask about a Russian such as Trotsky, I figured out that I would have to take a more indirect approach to Mr. Perly.   Here Heshy was more helpful; he suggested if I wanted to learn about the mysteries of turning glass into mirrors, I should probably forget about Trotsky, the Russian Revolution, communism and Napoleon and just hang around his father’s shop, to see if I could make myself useful by offering to keep him supplied with endless cups of coffee and pack after pack of Old Gold cigarettes. 

So every day, after school was out, I went to Mr. Perly’s store on Church Avenue, and just sat, with averted eyes, in the back, near him, saying nothing, offering nothing.  Afternoon after afternoon, from 3:30 to 5:30, silently sitting on a battered work bench that was pushed back against one wall among the half-empty empty five-gallon cans of putty that he used to secure broken windows after securing them in their frames with tiny triangular nails. 

It was during that time in the afternoon, to supplement his glazing business, that he also fabricated Venetian Blinds, hanging two slotted fabric tapes from hooks on the ceiling into which he inserted the slats and then the cords that were used to raise and lower the blinds as well as open and close them against the light.  It was repetitive, rhythmic work and at times, though he didn’t speak or acknowledge me, he did make sounds that reminded me of my grandfather davening, praying in schul. 

And so I went there every day and sat on that bench, leaning back against the wall.  We didn’t acknowledge each other, but I did sense that Mr. Perly was aware of my presence and was not unhappy with the silent company I provided.  And then, after two weeks, without anything seemingly having changed, he growled over his shoulder in my direction, “Coffee.”

I sprang up from my half-reverie and stammered, “Sure Mr. Perly.  Do you want milk and sugar?”

“Black.”

“Right away.  I’ll run right over to Krinsky’s.”

“Cigarettes.”

“Old Golds, right?”

He continued to thread slats into the hanging tapes, saying nothing more, not looking over toward me.  But, excited by this breakthrough, I hopped off the bench, and raced across the street to get his coffee and cigarettes.  They knew it was for him and didn’t ask for money, adding it to his tab.

This then went on for another week—Mr. Perly humming and threading his slats, me tucked away waiting by the workbench, until he would bark “Coffee,” “Cigarettes,” or at times both.  I would attend right to it and be back in a flash with whatever he demanded.

Things began to shift again when one day he muttered “Paper” as well as “Coffee.”  I thought I knew what he meant but asked “The Daily Worker?”  Maybe this communist paper would get us to Trotsky.

“Mit the coffee,” he shot back.

I brought both to his workshop.  He got down off the small stool on which he stood to insert the topmost slats, he was less than five feet tall, and came over to a paint- and putty-splattered chair near where I was settled.  He slumped onto it, sipping at his coffee, sputtering and spitting as he always did after his first gulp, “Ach, zehr heys.”

“Too hot?” he nodded, “Sorry Mr. Perly.”

He opened the Daily Worker and spread it out on the worktable, smoothing the pages with his knurled fingers, talking to himself in the same agitated mix of languages that was familiar to me from the times I had shadowed him through the neighborhood.

“Dat Truman.  Est ein dog.  Und his cronies.  Schwein, all of them.”

I decided to risk engaging him, “You mean the president?  But didn’t he stand up to Stalin?”

At that, Mr. Perly hurled his steaming coffee cup across the shop where it smashed against the wall, and he sprang off the chair with the coiled ferocity of someone half his age.  I was, transfixed with excitement, and also fear. He stomped around the room, spewing a stream of, to me, incoherent curses.  But among them I thought I did hear him talking about Bonaparte or, perhaps—he was difficult to understand--Bonapartism.

So I took a further chance, “What, Mr. Perly,” I asked tentatively, “is Bonapartism?”

“Fascism!”

“I don’t understand.  Won’t you  . . . ”

“What do they teach you in school?  Nicht. Nothing!  Mein Harold, he knows nothing except baseball and girls.  Ach, America.”

“But Bonaparte?”

“A fascist like the rest.”

“Do you mean Napoleon, that Bonaparte?”  Him, at least, I knew about from World History--that he wanted to take over the land of communism.  Before the revolution, before Mr. Perly’s beloved communism could take hold.

“Yah, him.  But Trotsky, you know, he was really a Jew.  Bronstein.  He knew.  He knew fascism.  So they killed him.  Ramon Mercader that murdering hund.  In Mexico, mit an axe in his kopf.”   He sighed deeply and dropped his head as if to show me where the axe blow had landed.  I waited.  Palpitating.

He resumed, “But der Nazis were not Bonaparte.  Fools.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you read in school about Trotsky, his last letter in 1940 before they killed him?”

“No.  What did it say?”

“That fascism is not the same as Bonapartism.”

It was that word from his sleep.  Heshy was right.  That was what he was crying out from his dreams.

“That . . . ?”

“Yah.  Fascism comes after, after the vanguard fails to lead der masses.  Look, it’s right here in white and black.”  He pounded his hand on the Daily Worker, still spread out on the table, with such force that the can of triangular glazers nails overturned, spilling its contents onto the floor and into the open cans of putty. 

He resumed his pacing and frantic mix of oaths.  Even though I was even more confused by what seemed to be contradictions in his version of history, I was afraid to say another word, move, or even breathe.  He was raging out of control.  During all his agitated walks through the streets I had never seen him like this.  He became violent, kicking at the putty cans, toppling the chair and his stool, tearing from its hooks the Venetian blind he had been working on so that the slats fell into a tangled heap like a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks.  He stalked about the shop, punching at the air as if fighting off invisible demons.

I thought I had better try to sneak out, get away from him.  This whole situation was turning out to be much more complicated than I had expected.  It felt dangerous, as if I might be hurt.  Though that in truth excited me, the danger, I was more frightened than eager to continue.  I did want to learn about glazing but didn’t want to get assaulted in the process.  So when his thrashing about took him into the sink room in the back, I slipped off the bench and ran out onto the street toward home and safety. 

After that terrifying afternoon I thought to take a break from visiting Mr. Perly’s store.  Maybe I shouldn't go back at all, ever.  But still I wanted to. I was that confused and conflicted.  Pull in all directions. Perhaps I should wait to let him and things cool down.  And for me to sort through what had happened and try to understand what I was really seeking from Mr. Perly.  Was it about fixing windows and making mirrors?  I had a desire to learn about that, true, but could not figure out quite why.  And I was still afraid about what he might do to me if I returned to his workshop. 

*    *    *

Thankfully I had school to distract me.  I was very busy and needed the extra hours to catch up with homework, including writing a report for World History about the Cold War, which from the perspective of someone who spent so much time each week diving under a desk as part the school’s take-cover drills that were designed to protect us from being vaporized in a Russian H-Bomb attack on the Brooklyn Navy Yard, seemed like a very hot topic. 

I caught up with my homework and during that time also realized that even though I didn’t yet understand why, I still wanted to learn about glazing.  I knew that if learning about making mirrors was that important to me I could probably find another way to do it; but I also now knew, whatever the danger, I was only interested in learning it from Mr. Perly.  

I was after other things I might learn from him though I didn’t then know what they were.  I was in a state of confusion.  All I knew was that I would have to get myself back there somehow, soon, and take the risk, if I were ever to get this straightened out.  I was also hoping that we would be able to avoid talking about Trotsky.

I lay awake the night before I planned to return to him, trembling about how it would be and what would happen.  Would he even let me in?  Would he still be raving?  Would he attack me as he had the furniture and air around him?  Heshy provided a little help, telling me that his father had withdrawn into an even darker mood when after work he returned to their apartment above the store.  Though Heshy reported that he was quiet through the night with much less crying out from his sleep. 

When I returned to his shop I was not entirely surprised that he treated me as if I hadn’t been away.  I did not have to go back to sitting on the workbench waiting for him to growl, “Coffee” or “Cigarettes.”  He put me right back to work fetching them for him.  And since he did not ask me to bring him the Daily Worker, I thought, without whatever it was that incited him in the paper, I might soon be able to ask him to teach me about making mirrors.

By remarkable coincidence, after I had been back with him for only a few days, Mel Lipsky’s mother, Mrs. Lipsky, came to his store to see about ordering eight two-foot-by-two-foot mirrors for her dining room wall.  She was redecorating.  Her husband, she told Mr. Perly, inherited some money from and uncle who lived in Florida and he told her, “For once in your life, spend big.”

So here she was.  Could Mr. Perly get such a large job done in only two weeks?  She was planning a large family Thanksgiving dinner and wanted all the work done by then.

I knew how he hated anything fancy and especially people who puffed themselves up, thinking of themselves as petit bourgeois and better than working people.  He had told me that people like that they were “running dogs,” and so I feared he would erupt into a stream of Yiddish and German ravings and we would be back in the violent realm of capitalist lackeys.  But he remained calm, though I sensed the tension beneath the surface, and he agreed that he could have the mirrors for her in ten days.  She gave him a deposit, and after she left he told me I would help him.

“With the mirrors?”  I almost fainted from the possibility.

“Yah, this job is too big for me.  You will help.  I will tell you what to do.  I teach.  We begin later, tonight”

What would I tell my mother?  How would I get permission to go there at night?  She knew I spent time in the afternoon with Mr. Perly.  She knew how much I liked fixing and building things and understood that that was what I was doing there with him.  She also felt sorry for him, which for her meant she also liked him.  She spent much of her life tending to other’s suffering.  She once told me that he had lost his whole family during the War and this had made him the way he was.  But to go there at night, that might be a different matter.   I needed her approval, and for her to deal with my father, who as the only Republican in the family despised Mr. Perly and his subversive views. 

After dinner I just blurted it out—how Mr. Perly just got this big order for mirrors from Mrs. Lipsky and he needed me to help him and how I had always wanted to learn about silvering and that this was my chance and that making mirrors was a very ancient craft and to learn about it would be good for school and how after I learned about it I could bring a mirror I worked on to class for Show And Tell and . . .   

As I began to gasp for breath she stopped me and said, “All right, you can go.”  She also said she would not tell my father anything about my helping Mr. Perly.  She assured me that she would protect me.  My father and his brother-in-law, Uncle Harry, had recently bought a bar and grill in Downtown Brooklyn and didn’t get home until at least midnight.  He would therefore not need to know anything so long as I got home no later than 8:30, which I promised to do and then, before she could change her mind, bolted down the stairs and around the corner to Mr. Perly’s.

*    *    *

His workroom had been transformed.  It was no longer set up for making Venetian blinds.  Half finished blinds had been rolled up and placed in the corner.  The work able had been pulled to the center of the room.  An immaculate sheet of white cloth covered its scarred surface.  All the putty cans had been covered and pushed aside and on another table the size of a folding card table Mr. Perly had set out a glass bowl, a number of bottles that looked as if they contained chemicals, and another large bottle that looked as if it contained water.  It was always dim in the recesses of this space but he had draped another cloth over the window that looked out onto the vacant lot behind his shop toward our apartment.  The single unshaded bulb that hung from the ceiling directly over the workbench was the only light.  It was very hot and I was sorry I let my mother insist on my wearing a sweater.

I was throbbing and sweating with excitement.  Before I could say a word he told me to put on white cotton gloves.  I saw that he had already done so.  He directed me to go into the room with the sink and bring in the first piece of glass.  He told me to handle it only by the edges and place it on the worktable. I did as told and brought it to him.  It had been cleaned and polished as if it was a valuable jewel.  He pointed to the work table and I placed it in the very center right under the light, squaring it so that it was in perfect alignment.

Standing by the side table he carefully opened the largest bottle, which he told me contained the purest of waters, distilled water.  He poured about a pint of it into the bowl.  He next picked up one of the bottles of chemicals.  I saw from the label that it was Nitrate of Silver.  He meticulously began to dribble some of it into the water while simultaneously stirring it with a glass rod.  He said, “Never mit a spoon or stick.  Only glass.”  I nodded.

When he finished stirring it in, he removed the stopper from another bottle that I knew from the smell was ammonia, He said, “Yah, exactly 26 percent ammonia.  Just 30 drops I put in.”  Which he did–counting them carefully, “Drei, vier, funf, sechs,” pouring with his left hand while stirring with his right, until the solution cleared.  He then added more nitrate of silver, slightly less than initially, still stirring with the rod.  “Remember, immer with glass.”  I nodded.  “Now we let stand for half an hour then we do the filtering. But while we wait we make a second solution.  First bring me the pot from the stove there behind the screen.” 

I had not noticed it before but quickly found it and brought it to him.  Into a small porcelain lined pan he poured a pint of the distilled water and added to it two ounces of Rochelle Salts which he shook from another container.  He proceeded to boil this mixture for precisely one minute (I could hear him counting the sixty seconds).  Into this he stirred two ounces of the nitrate of silver, using a second glass rod; and when it returned to the boil stood over it while calling out the minutes until it reached funf, five.  “We now let sit for ein half hour and then we filter both like the first one.” 

When the second batch was settling, he took the first of two empty bottles and into their openings placed glass funnels.  He had blotter paper which he folded into cone-shaped triangles and then put them into the funnels.  When he had both bottles arranged to his satisfaction he said, “We filter now.”  He poured the liquid from the two batches into the funnels.  Clear liquid dripped through slowly, leaving a ring of sediment at the bottom of both filters.

He said, "Cork der bottles,” which I proceeded to do.  “Put them there,” he added, pointing to a place beside where I had placed the first piece of glass.  “It is almost time to begin.”  The light dangling above us blinked.  He looked up at it, not seeming to be concerned.

He made sure that the glass was perfectly level, bending over it, standing to one side, adjusting it by placing small wedges of wood under one corner or another, squinting along the surface of the glass as if he was playing pool and lining up a shot.

“Just the right hot," he said.  “The glass it must be just the right heys.  Ninety, a hundred degrees here,” which it surely was.  I now understood why he had turned up the radiators.

He next heated a small amount of the distilled water and after testing it with a finger poured a thin sheen of it over the glass, again bending over it, closing one eye to make sure it spread across the glass evenly.  He made a few minor adjustments in the placement of the wooden wedges to get the glass to be perfectly level.   He then tipped the glass to make the water run off onto the worktable where it was absorbed by the cloth covering.  The light flickered again, this time a few times before resuming its steady glow.  He settled the glass gently back on its wedges.

In yet another bottle that looked like a small pitcher he mixed equal parts of the two solutions.  He stirred them together with a third glass rod.  “Always mit the glass I told you.  Always stirring just like this.”  I nodded again.

He steadied himself.  Then raised the tiny pitcher from the table and moved to where the glass lay.  He began to pour some of the solution onto the center of the two-by-two glass for Mrs.Lipsky, allowing it to spread out over the glass toward the edges.  He moved to one corner of the glass and in a circular motion poured more of the solution around the perimeter until the entire piece of glass was equally covered.  To do this he literally danced around the table.  The light was blinking again, more off than on but this did not slow him.  Its flickering made him look as if he was a character in a stop-action movie.  He would disappear for a split second only to reappear a half step from where I had last seen him.  Like dancing on a string.

He said, as if to himself, “Must be doing the electrocutions up in Zing Zing to make the lights blink.”

Then the light went out and did not come back on.  He said, “Is OK.  Do not worry.  Get the kerosene lamp from the back, by the sink.  We will be gut.”

I stumbled toward the back, feeling my way along the wall and made it to the sink.  I held on to it.

“Unter the sink you will find.”  Which I did.  He had lit matches and this helped me find my way back to him.  “Put there,” he grunted, pointing to the end of the workbench.   He joined me there and lit the lamp which instantly cast a warm glow on what had previously been a harsh space.

“Time to finish.”  The electrical failure had not slowed him or dampened his enthusiasm.  “We tip the glass again to let solution come off.”  He raised the glass by one corner, standing it on edge; and even in the half-light I could see the excess run off onto the cloth, which again sucked it up without a trace.

“Rinse,” he told me, indicating I should get the bottle of distilled water.  I brought it back to him and he waved at me as if to say I should do it.

I removed the cork.  He pointed to yet another small bottle and nodded his head.  I poured some into it.  He nodded again at the glass which now appeared to be coated with a shiny substance.  He lowered it to the table and nodded at it and the bottle I was holding.  I poured some of it onto what I now suspected might be . . . a mirror.  I tried to start in the center and move the stream of water in a circle to coat it as evenly as he had with the silver solution.  He nodded his approval.

He tipped it to allow the water to run off and resettled it on the table.  We stood on opposite sides, in the light of the kerosene lamp, staring down at the drying surface, as if at a tribal rite.

And when it was dry, Mr. Perly reached down for a small can of what looked like black paint.  “Backing paint,” he said when he saw my puzzled look.  With a brush that looked as ancient as the craft of glazing itself, he slowly applied it, back and forth, to the silver coating until it all was covered.  Again we stood watching it dry.  The power was still off.

After about fifteen minutes he said, “Done.  Dat’s it.”   The light blinked on and then off.  “You, turn it over.  It’s mirror now.  You see first.  It’s for you.  Not,” he spat, “that Lipsky woman.”

And even in the dimness surrounding us I saw at once that we had made a mirror. 

“Vat do you see?” he asked.

“A mirror,” I whispered.

“No, dumkopf, vat do you see?”

“Reflections.  It’s a mirror.”  What was he after?  I felt lost again.

“And I thought you had a brain on your head.  Look more.  See what you see.”

I tried to look more carefully to find what I was missing, “Just me.  Just a reflection of me?” I shrugged.

“Dat’s it!  I knew you war smart.  It’s you.  But now tell me more.  Look, what do you see?”

My initial excitement had by then turned quickly to frustration.  We had performed magic together.  I thought that had been what I had been after with Mr. Perly, to perform alchemy.  We had not made gold from lead but we had made a mirror from a piece of plain glass.

The bulb blinked and stayed on.  We emerged from the half-light of his glazier’s cave back to harsh electric light. 

What time was it, how close to 8:30?  I realized I needed to get home.  “I need to go Mr. Perly.  Thanks so much for everything.  It’s been a wonderful experience.”  I began to look for my jacket, turning away from the workbench, him, and the mirror.

I felt his hand grip my arm from behind.  “You stay yet,” my heart began to thump.  Were we headed back to a time like with Trotsky?  I began to feel afraid. My mother would never let me out of the house again.

“I have to go Mr. Perly.  My mother said I needed to be home by 8:30.”  I tried to pull loose.  But he held on to me and turned me to face him.  Though I towered over him he was much stronger than I and had no difficulty spinning me around like a top.

“You go soon but first you tell me wat you see.  What I ask before.”

“I told you,” I said with brave annoyance, “My face reflected.”

“Gut.  And what did you see in your face?”

“Just me.  How I look.”

“Take another look.”  Still gripping my arm he now steered me back to the table and our mirror.

“Let me hold it up so you can see.”  He lifted the mirror and held it before me, obscuring his own face.  I tried hard but all I saw was my own puzzled face staring back at me.  I did notice, though, that a new pimple was emerging from the tip of my nose.  I forced myself to resist reaching up to probe it.

“I see you are not understanding so let me tell you ein story about the Greek god Narcissus.  He was told he would live forever if he never took a look at himself.  You heard?”

I shook my head, still peering into the mirror.

“He was loved by Echo.  A nymph also from long time ago.  But he did not return her love so she went to live in a place in woods where only she heard echoes of her harts, her heart.”
”I didn’t learn about that in school either.”  I was beginning to think about all the other things I wasn’t learning.  I could see my reflection beginning to relax as Mr. Perly’s words entered into me.

“So wen one of Echo’s friends called Nemesis, another goddess, when she learned of Echo’s broken heart she made Narcissus look into the water near where he lived.  He saw there his face in the water.  Maybe this was the first mirror.”  He actually smiled, “And as was said, he died.  Todt.”

I shuddered and turned my head away from the glass.  Mr. Perly noticed and said, “You are safe here.  I see to that.”  I let myself trust him.

 “So let me speak about dying.”  I wasn’t sure I made the right decision to trust him.  I really didn’t want to talk about dying.  “It is alright.  You will be OK.  It is not yet your time.  Not for zeyer, very long.  But you do know what Jews do when someone dies?”  I didn’t know what he was trying to tell me.  He noticed my confusion.  “They sit shiva.  You know what is shiva ?”

“Yes, when my grandmother died, after she was buried we all went to her apartment and sat on wooden benches.  We were not allowed to be comfortable, to sit on her chairs or sofa.”

“Yah, but what else?”

“People brought food and we all ate.”
”And?”

Then it came to me.  Excited I said, “And they covered all the mirrors with towels.”

“Yah.”  He clapped his hands, which made me flinch.  “You know why?”

“My mother said so that you can’t see yourself, see how sad you look because if you knew you might kill yourself.”
Mr. Perly emitted a choked laugh.  “I know they say that, the Jews, but what do they know about mirrors?”  He looked up at the ceiling and then at me, “About mirrors I know.”

“Why then do they cover them?”  I again had turned to face myself in the reflecting glass that he was still holding, though it was beginning to tremble in his hands, probably from the weight.

“Because to remind you that todt, death is not about you and how you look but about the dead.”  He saw I was confused again.  “A mirror is too much about you.  What you would see is that you are still alive and think, ‘I am lucky to not be todt like grannie.’  Your face would say back to you, ‘I am alive and that is what life means—to be alive.’”

“What’s wrong with that Mr. Perly?”

“Life is not only about being alive.  It is wat you do with ayer, your life.”

“I think maybe I am starting to understand.”  But still another  question came to me.  I didn’t want to make him angry again, but I had to know, “Why then do you make mirrors?  Doesn’t it mean that . . . ?”

He put the mirror on the table, perhaps because he could no longer support it; maybe because he wanted to look directly at me.  Which he did.  

“Mrs. Lipsky, she will not understand.  But yeh, you, yes.  I make this mirror so you can learn about life.  You.” 

“Isn’t it also about how we made the mirror?  From only glass and water and chemicals?”  I felt I was moving onto surer ground.

One last time, pointing a bent finger at me, he said, “Later you will understand.  Farshteyn?”

I checked my watch.  It was past 8:30 and time for me to race home.