When the narrator recalls being sent to visit relatives in the country one summer, he thinks of these relatives as real Jews. "Real Jews" meaning those who observe the rituals and rites of their religion, Judaism. While there, the narrator opens a bedroom door and sees his aunt as "a bald woman in a red gown in front of a mirror." The narrator, as a child, is disgusted and mortified; this image comes to signify real Jewishness for him.
Kaddish for a Child Not Born