Sturdy sons, with something even in their first crescendo wails that
bespoke the good heritage of a father's love-of-life and a mother's
life-of-love.
No Sicilian sunrise was ever more glossy with the patina of hope
than the iced one that crept in for a look at the wide-faced,
high-cheek-boned beauty of Sara Turkletaub as she lay with her sons to
the miracle of her full breasts, her hair still rumpled with the agony
of deliverance. So sweetly moist her eyes that Mosher Turkletaub, his
own brow damp from sweat of her writhings, was full of heartbeat, even
to his temples.
Long before moontime, as if by magic of the brittle air, the tidings had
spread through the village, and that night, until the hand-hewn rafters
rang, the house of Turkletaub heralded with twofold and world-old fervor
the advent of the man-child. And through it all--the steaming warmth,
the laughter through bushy beards, the ministering of women wise and
foolish with the memory of their own pangs, the shouts of vodka-stirred
men, sheepish that they, too, were part custodians of the miracle of
life--through it all Sara Turkletaub lay back against her coarse bed, so
rich--so rich that the coves of her arms trembled each of its burden and
held tighter for fear somehow God might repent of his prodigality.
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