“I have a D3500,” she says, almost morosely, swiveling the focusing ring and snapping a photo of her mother.
“That’s still a really good camera. Especially for beginners.”
She makes a face and takes another picture, then pulls back to stare down at the screen, examining it. “It’s okay. I’ve had it for like two years, though.”
You’re like ten years old,I want to tell her, but having been ten years old myself once, I know about how well that’d go over.
“Give Ely her camera back, Minni,” Nechama says. “I have no idea how much it would cost to fix that if you broke it, and I don’t want to find out.”
Menuchah hands me the camera reluctantly, and I pack it away again, getting out my SLR instead. It’s a hell of a lot lighter in my grip than the bulky D850 and didn’t cost nearly as much—and thank god for that, because after buying my digital I had to spend the rest of my precious money on developing if I was gonna shoot analog.
And of course I was gonna shoot analog. For all the photos I can take on digital, scrolling through a million shots of the same scene to find the one that’s exactly right, nothing will ever beat the magic of film. Of having to trust yourself to find the perfect shot, the perfect frame, and the perfect focus.
“What is that?” Menuchah asks.
“It’s a range finder,” I say. “For shooting on film.”
Menuchah has that hungry look in her eyes, but I can’t trust a ten-year-old not to use up all my film on art shots of her kitchen island, so this time I don’t hand it to her.
Nechama disperses the children, or at least the male ones. The girls get to stay, to become part of this tradition that is supposed to carry them into their adult lives as wives and mothers. I find myself thinking about that second universe again, the one where I’m in Nechama’s position, baking challah with my daughters. I wonder who this fantasy version of me would have married. Where I would have met him—because it would, of course, be a him.
That version of me might still shoot photos, but only as a hobby. If she had a career, it would have to be something that paid more consistently, especially if she’d married a scholar whose time was to be spent reading Torah instead of toiling behind a counter somewhere.
Nechama assembles the ingredients we need and I draw back, making room for her daughters to join her at the counter, some of them kneeling on chairs to reach. I do my best to be discreet with my photos—especially with film, I don’t want to waste any shots on a scene that is too overtly influenced by my presence. Things can change when people know they’re being observed—something I luckily learned early while I was shooting exclusively on digital. I have had to throw out far too many shots of rictus smiles and taut shoulders.
Maybe it’s the children’s presence, but Nechama doesn’t seem afflicted by the same problem. When I take a photo of her hands—just her hands, deftly weaving together the long strands of challah dough—I can almost imagine they belong to my mother. I can almost be there, all those years ago, standing at our own kitchen counter and weaving my own small loaf.
My phone buzzes midway through the challah making. When I check, it’s Wyatt’s name that has popped up on the lock screen.
Wyatt:hope it’s going well. I’m eating bread and thinking about you.
I type back:does your bread have a six-stranded braid or is it boring
Wyatt:how would you categorize limp whole grain that’s still plastic-wrapped from the grocery store?
“Do you want to try?” Nechama says, and I jerk my head upright a bit guiltily, like I’m betraying her by spending time texting instead of just betraying my own project.
“Oh…. Sure,” I say. “Why not? Like I told you, though, it’s been a really…really long time.”
“It’s okay if your bread is ugly,” one of Nechama’s daughters pipes up. “Ima says Hashem didn’t command us to bakeprettychallah.”
I laugh. “I suppose that’s true.”
“It’s a mitzvah,” Nechama says, as if I still need the encouragement. “A good deed. I’ll help you. Come on.”
She helps me roll out six long strands of dough. And as much as I claimed not to remember, it turns out braiding challah is all muscle memory. I know on some ingrained level how to weave the ropes together into their tapestry. Nechama doesn’t even have to help, in the end. And when we’re sliding the loaves into the oven, our two adult challot surrounded by their smaller fellows, it’s impossible to tell which one was mine and which was hers.
“I grew up in Chabad,” I confess while we wait for the bread to bake. “In Crown Heights, actually.”
I’m not sure if I should take her clear surprise as a compliment or not. But Nechama schools her expression into submission with remarkable alacrity and says, “Really? You should have said! I wouldn’t have done nearly so much lecturing on Judaism 101.”
I should probably drop it. This is such a nice note to end on—oh, look, we have something in common; how nice, la la la—but as usual my traitorous mouth doesn’t know when to stop talking.
“I left the community when I was eighteen. Well. I guess you could say I was kicked out. Everyone decided it was better for me to be off the derech than on it.” I fiddle with the corner of the still-damp washcloth. “It was my fault, really. I had a drug problem. I hurt a lot of people.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nechama says softly. “That must have been so difficult for you.”
I force a laugh. “It was a long time ago. I’m sure they’re happy to be rid of me. They probably never want to see me again.”
