KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
especially the electricity. I remember that when l told them about the ice cream, they licked their lips just hearing about it. We brought back presents to hand out. The most positive outcome of this great adventure was that the doctor in Rovno told my father, “Don’t torture the boy with fish oil and all the rest.” He prescribed an expensive, cherry-flavored syr - up called jaleeza (iron). It came in an elaborate bottle with a little glass measure. Even today, if something comes in a tiny, beautiful bottle, I say, “In my town, no one would ever throw out a bottle like this. They would use it as an ornament.” The syrup tasted so good that I used to ask for it. From then on, I no longer had to take fish oil. That was a major act of liberation. We had our own ice cream in Ludvipol, which we would go to buy on Saturdays after dinner. This was always a big deal. My father would give my sisters and me some money and say, “If you lose the money, you lose the ice cream.” I used to squeeze the coin so tightly that the lady had to practically scoop it out of the skin of my hand. The ice cream lady made the ice cream by hand. She bought a chunk of ice and mixed the ingredients in a big metal container, which she placed inside a wooden pail with the ice around it, and then manually turned the metal container in the ice. We were so anxious for our ice cream that as soon as we finished eating dinner, we ran over. We would line up and watch her turning the metal con- tainer, and every so often she would peer inside and say, “It’s not ready yet.” When it was finally ready she would lay a flat wafer in a measure, spread on a layer of ice cream, and top it with another wafer. We watched to make sure she filled the whole measure to the top. Then she would squeeze it and give it to us. She had two con- tainers and, although she might have had other flavors sometimes, I remember the vanilla and chocolate. We licked the ice cream all around. That ice cream was delicious. One day, a major technological innovation was introduced to the ice cream manufacturing process. Picture a mechanical carpenter’s hand drill. The ice cream lady attached a similar contraption to the
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