Sotah (29 page)

The girls were there and, magically, all grown. Dvorah, lovely, dark, with her two babies, pregnant yet again. She looked happy. And tired. So tired. She felt her daughter’s smooth, cool cheek brush her own. And Dina, heavy with her first child. How much she wanted to see that baby! She searched her daughter’s lovely young face. It was smooth, well cared for, yet the eyes were troubled and afraid to face hers. She would be all right after the baby. She would learn to love Judah, as Faigie Reich had learned to love the calm, pious, bearded stranger who had entered her life so long ago. I do love him now, she told herself.

He was my partner, she thought. I did not do it for him, but with him, both of us, together, struggling. And often his share seemed easier to me. His learning against my working. He leaned on me, and I had to stand up, not bend. And I stood, she thought. Always. She felt a touch of bittersweetness in her mouth that spread down her throat.

The small, cold hours of the morning, with a book in her lap, a baby in her lap. Trying to learn, desperately, to find some wisdom that would help her through the dark, cold, exhausting hours. And always the baby in her lap, the baby’s cry. Fecundity, the hot, suffocating press of small, hungry, needy lives crushing against her. No help. Always being the helper, the giver—another mouth to feed, another beggar. Try to hold down the hot bile of resentment. Try to rise above it, to see the world with her husband’s unworldly eyes. But yet, always the burden, heavy, unmoving, weighing down her shoulders, in order to leave his free.

The humiliations. The face of the woman who kept the books at the grocery. The end of each month. Another day and another day. Begging. The yeshiva had not paid its students their stipend yet. Her husband had not received his stipend yet. Please, just another day. Making over the girls’ skirts, lengthening the boys’ pants—another year and another year, until they had stains even her red, swollen knuckles could not remove with the violence of their desperate energy.

The housework—a constant foe—battling, retaking old territory, each day reclaimed by the endless incursion of the enemy: sticky fingers, food digested and spit up, little papers from crayons, little crumbs. The air itself an enemy, blowing through the windows, depositing the dusty debris from the new white stone houses going up in Jerusalem’s hills.

The old, endless rage of work. The old, endless temptation to succumb, to rest. Oh, long awaited! Yet you cannot. The children wait. And your husband waits. And the house waits. And the friends and neighbors and needy strangers wait. For you. Only for you.

How was it, then, that there had been so much joy? Always, always. The Passover table sparkling red with wine, green with parsley. The Succoth booth fragrant with citron, myrtle, willow, and palm; the flickering row of Chanukah lights like a beacon in the window; the baskets of Purim treats wrapped up in gold foil and ribbons sent to neighbors. Around the year, more joy and more. Each step full of pain and yet painful progress. Higher, one joyous rung higher, and yet another … The redeeming beauty, indescribable, of believing. The faith, richer than the gold of the candle flames, the heart pounding full of benediction, the whole body swaying to the rhythm of prayer. The peace. The calm joy of G-d’s nearness every moment. The prayers. Not extra work, but the only rest. The prayer, the brace, the foundation, the urging, the eagle’s wing bearing you aloft in safety when you were so tired, so unutterably tired, that you could not lift your head.

There was Chaya Leah, who looked so much as she once had, gone suddenly slender and pale! A frightening stab went through her to see her this way, all the life drained out of her, totally subdued. Her father’s words, his kindness and disappointment, were a bite harsher than a scorpion’s, cutting deeper than any whiplash. There was no way to resist him. How well she knew that! His goodness, his piety, gave him infinite power. Chaya Leah must have what she wants, she thought suddenly. Not like the others, not like me. She felt a great wash of anger and pity. She motioned for her husband. He bent down quickly. “Sha, don’t talk. Rest,” he begged her.

“Chaya Leah,” she said, almost choking. “Let her marry Moishe. Don’t stand in her way.
Let her go where her heart is!
” She saw his face change color. “I know. It’s a mixed marriage. He’s a Hasid and we’re Misnagdim. But we are all Jews. Please, promise me, if that is what she wants. I want her to be happy. Please, my dearest.
Let her go where her heart is!
”

“Sha, sha. Weddings!” He smiled at her, then was suddenly serious. “It’s in G-d’s hands.” He shrugged. The boy was in the army, already an officer in a tank corps on the Golan Heights. Another disgrace.

“Promise me!” She shifted her body off the cushions.

The nurses and doctors were like birds, she thought, as they swooped down beside her, surrounding her. Too tired to struggle, she thought, and yet the vision of the family all around her, her daughters and sons. My work isn’t finished yet, she begged silently. The boys are still young. But the momentary panic and resistance left her. She felt calm and strangely joyful as she closed her eyes.

Vulnerable, fragile, the flickering life within her. Always. And she had not known. It seemed so strong, like a mighty river flowing, like the inevitability of tomorrow, a gift, like rain hard and sure on the winter pavement. It had been there when she’d needed it to breathe life into the little soft bodies, wriggling red with life, pushed from her body with agonizing determination. All healthy—thank G-d. All mentally fit—thank G-d. All spiritually whole—thank G-d.

She closed her eyes. Her feet were little again. A tapping little girl’s. And Jerusalem was at war. Would Rommel’s troops break through? Please, G-d, help us! The Italians were bombing Tel Aviv. Please, G-d, help us! And the war of independence. Please, G-d, help us! And no water, no food. Please, G-d, help us!

We have won. The foreigners are gone, the ones who hate us. And still the trucks move through our streets, breaking the Sabbath peace. Jews driving on the Sabbath. Dear brothers, dear sisters, can’t you see how He blesses us? Don’t you see we will all suffer together or be blessed together? Keep the Sabbath holy. But you cannot tell them. Their eyes are black with contempt and anger. Create your own little world. Block out the cars, the movie theaters, the televisions … create a pure, good, holy world.

And yet so narrow! One step brings you across to their streets. The constant temptation to wander, to see everything. Hold yourself back, hold yourself higher. The struggle’s constant, implacable force. All your energy against the enemy who stalks.

Who is the enemy?

Good-bye, my children.

I did not say that. My life is not shrinking. And yet the soul is expanding, even now. There would be a good reward. Yet the eyes of the boys still young, still needy, haunt her. The eyes of the girls, mourning yet reconcilable. They have their own lives. The eyes of her husband, worst of all. Desperate, full of fear. He will have to manage now. G-d will help him. She cannot anymore.

She closes her eyes. Too tired to think. She closes her eyes, and the darkness and silence descend. Yet within her the hub of the deepest blackness, within her the deep frozen soundless water, a new dim light begins to flicker, a soft murmur of hope beats like a heart, steady and joyous. The flame grows closer, an aurora of soft, golden-edged, dawn-bearing brightness. Her soul weaves upward, fascinated. He is waiting for her. The essence of happiness is waiting for her. Her job is done.

She is not afraid, still she shudders with terror. It is so hard. All she knows! And who will do the work now? Who will light the candles, visit the sick, comfort the bereaved, feed the hungry man at the door?

The flame grows brighter. It warms her cold, shuddering heart. It takes her hand like a father. She is not afraid. She is not afraid. She is finished. Her job is done, completed with honor. The husband, the children, all around her. And yet all alone except for the flame that flickers, the hand that holds hers like a father’s. All alone, except for that. Everything else—a momentary dream, an illusion. This is the truth. The struggle was the truth.

She is calm. She is ready. The flame burns brighter, like the burst of a wick feeding from the last drops of holy oil. It rises, it grows into a great conflagration. But only she can see that. For them, it is simply extinguished.

Chapter twenty-six

T
he family gathered around the fresh grave. It was on a newly opened hill on Har Hamenuchot, the Mount of Rest. The newly dug hole, the moist smell of spaded earth, seemed lonely among the hard, level plots. The wind blew fresh and warm from the dark green forests that flowed down the gently sloping hillsides, and the sky was clear in the brilliant spring sun.

Wrapped in the flimsy, simple white winding sheet, the body of their beloved mother, wife, grandmother, sister, and aunt, the body of their dear friend and faithful, generous benefactor, was lowered into Jerusalem’s whitish, unyielding earth. With the first dark shovelful of earth that fell, flattening the cloth, the boys began to cry: Benyamin and Duvid, the youngest, were taken farther back to where the women stood, barred by old Jerusalem custom from getting too near the grave. Ezra, his boyish shoulders rounded from trying to bear up under the unendurable burden of pain, said the kaddish prayer for the dead in a choking voice, joined by Asher and Shimon Levi, who seemed suddenly all grown up.

Dina squeezed Duvid’s shoulders, too heavy with the child within her to attempt lifting him. With each shovelful of earth, she repeated the words: “G-d is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? G-d is the refuge of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” She felt no comfort. It was not the right prayer for the moment. She was not afraid. She was empty, annihilated with the horror and surprise of death, which had come so suddenly.

There had been no warning, no time to go through the stages of fear, anger, acceptance, and mourning. A sudden hole had been ripped in the fabric of her life, wrecking her whole outlook, her whole philosophy. It was unfair! she shouted inside herself. Good people are promised a long life! Her mother had been the best person in the world. What could G-d be thinking of?

And the more she thought about it, the more her shock and horror grew. For the first time in her life she saw her simple view of life, her simple faith, for what it was: a deal between the created and the Creator in which you kept his laws in exchange for earthly happiness.

Her mother had been a saint. Yet she had died so young, only fifty-one! The world was not supposed to be run this way! The beat of anger, of impotent protest, sounded inside her like a hammer banging down the flimsy walls. Beat, beat, beat, she felt the neat, carefully constructed rooms inside herself suddenly crash, the lights going out. She needed desperately to talk to someone. Terror shot through her. There was no one.

Her father? What could she ask his pale, shell-shocked face? Her sisters? They too were in mourning; their world was as chaotic as her own. Judah? She looked at her silent husband standing over the grave, helping to pour earth over the body. His passivity, his quiet acceptance, enraged her. Never a word to say for himself! He would bring her more little carved animals, more little toys to play with, as if she were a child!

She wanted words, just words. She wanted someone learned and pious to make sense of it all with quotes from the Torah and the Talmud, to make her see where her faith had gone wrong that she stood now so defenseless. She wanted someone who could pour holy words over her wounds like a healing balm, who could use words like cement to magically reconstruct all her old beliefs, repairing the cracked foundations.

Judah would hold her silently. Judah would caress her silently. He would look into her eyes with understanding and pain and acceptance. He would plod along as if nothing had happened, she told herself, hating him for it already.

She felt the child within her move vigorously and felt sure she was going to faint. Only Duvid’s small, quivering shoulders supported her, giving her consciousness meaning.
Ima!
I am lost, she thought. I can’t go on. I have no one to love, she thought irrationally. I have no one who loves me, whom I can talk to, she mourned, near hysteria. She felt the endless anger rise in her like a shout, a scream of protest against a nameless and obscure betrayal.

In her whole, sheltered life, she had never felt this way before. It was frightening beyond words. She, the calm, good girl. The peacemaker. The good daughter, the good student, the dutiful wife. The pious prayer sayer. The obedient Jew. Perhaps I have never really known myself, she thought with morose satisfaction. Perhaps all along I have been faithless and full of doubts and hatred.

She saw the earthen mound rise with solid finality over her mother’s grave. Is this the reward, then, for all our goodness? This cold earth on this windswept hill? She tried to calm herself, to think of the eternal soul now entering its golden peace. Yet the amorphousness of that image could not compete with the solid, yawning earth, the familiar flesh and form thrown down and buried. The horror—oh, the horror of it! How could one believe in anything? she told herself with limitless bitterness.

She sat in her father’s house on a low footstool, remnant of the ancient mourning rite in which the mourners turned over all the couches and beds in the house and sat on them upside down. The whole family was there, day and night, through shiva, the seven days of mourning demanded by religious law, when it was believed that the soul of the departed flitted between heaven and its earthly home, mourning its lost body. Men and women and children the family had never seen before trooped through the house, paying their respects. “She gave me money for my baby’s crib,” one woman informed them. “She gave me free wool to knit skullcaps, which I sold for food money,” someone confided. It went on and on. People their mother had visited in the hospital and people she had given food to for Sabbath and holiday meals. Every day more and more strangers crowded in, warming the hearts of Faigie Reich’s husband, her sons and daughters, comforting them with the real evidence that their wife, their mother, now resided in the most beautiful part of the World to Come, all her good deeds shouting to G-d in her favor.