Sotah (32 page)
She got up abruptly. That was what was wrong with life. It was constantly surprised into chaos. The center didn’t hold. Pieces went flying off like debris landing everywhere, shattering the windows and shaking the doors of people you hardly knew, connecting you to them with sudden strange consequences over which you had no control.
She could see his mouth turn down in hurt. He could never accept her resistance. He never resisted her. He wanted to remove every barrier between them, to be one life, one flesh. He thought the way to do that was to wait for it to happen. To hope. He felt helpless, like a calm port that can only spread the safe harbor of its jettied arms and wait patiently for the battered ships to return gratefully from the storms. He thought he understood her, that he knew her as deeply and intimately as possible. He knew, of course, almost nothing.
We never do. Fifty years people laugh and quarrel, sleep in the same bed, buy each other food and clothes, create new lives that combine their very cells, and still they are strangers in every sense. They spend their lives groping for each other in the dark, their blind flailing causing injury and pain as they futilely slash at the impenetrable otherness that quarantines each man in a bunker of steel like that of some violent dictator, paranoid with fear, dug deep enough below the earth to withstand the explosion of two atom bombs.
She made herself busy tidying up the living room, picking up the baby’s toys, until she heard Judah’s complacent footsteps walk toward the bedroom. “Are you coming?” he called out to her.
“In a minute,” she replied without looking up. She sat down on the rocking chair in the baby’s darkened room and watched the curtains on the window rise and fall with each tiny breath of winter air. The window seemed almost alive and somehow sinister with its dark reflection, like the eyes of a blind man. She would not go near it, she told herself, looking at the baby. Yet, perhaps, it was too much of a draft. She walked over to it slowly, her hand trembling as she pressed it closed, her cheek crushed against the wall as she stood sideways, waiting, concealed by the darkness.
From across the way she saw a white hand move the curtain back. A chill so cold it felt hot gathered momentum down her spine. A nudge, like the devil’s own irresistible hand, propelled her forward until she and Noach Saltzman stood facing each other shamelessly across the dark abyss.
“
C
ome, Yossele, come to
Ima
,” Dina crooned to the baby. He smiled up at her angelically, with a fat, damp, satisfied grin. She felt a sudden wild convergence of terror and happiness in her chest, like two wild animals tearing at each other. She lifted the child and pressed her fingers into the silky fine down of his blond hair. Fat, fair little green-eyed wonder!
“
Neshamaleh
,” she whispered, her lips brushing against the child’s warm, throbbing temple. My little soul. It was a term of endearment Israeli mothers used to express the inexpressible: the boundless, unending nature of their connection to their babies.
“Neshamaleh
,” she repeated, feeling the weight of his soft, round bottom, the frantic activeness of his little fat legs pushing off from her. She laughed and put him down. He crawled with reckless speed, like a newly wound-up toy, out of the door and into the living room.
She ran after him, laughing and breathless, sweeping him into her arms, saving him from a disastrous collision with a sharpedged coffee table. He squealed and kicked in furious protest to find his feet once more off the ground. “Little destroyer, little spoiled one …” She laughed, a vibration of pleasure that chimed like large bells ringing deep within her.
As she walked past the hall mirror, she stopped to show the baby his reflection and found herself staring into her own eyes. They were dark green and sparkling. Her lips were curled into a shy, soft smile of secret joy. Her cheeks flamed dark pink, almost shameful somehow. Yet how pretty she looked in the long blond wig just back from the hairdresser’s! Like a fairy-tale princess. She laughed at herself in the mirror, admiring the familiar yet suddenly strange image of the lovely, desirable woman, a woman who thought nothing of standing idly and vainly looking at her own image when she could have been cleaning up the house or ironing the clothes.
How suddenly sweet it felt to be alive! After all those months of despair, she felt like a young girl again. Anything was possible! The world was beautiful and unpredictably exciting! Dancing with the baby pressed to her shoulder, holding his palm and fingers formally, as if he were a gentleman and a dancing partner, she thought of what she would wear to the store that afternoon. The colors of her new clothes spinned around in her head. Dark, forest green and pale salmon and deep, sea blue. So many new clothes she had now, she thought proudly. None of them hand-me-downs. All of them made to order with lovely fabrics she chose herself. And she looked so beautiful in them, so very beautiful, she told herself in a strange ecstasy of careless forgetfulness and excited pleasure. Oddly, she did not think of this with gratitude toward Judah, whose generosity was almost foolish in this regard. The clothes were hers. The house was hers. Judah was somehow outside it all.
She put the baby in his playpen and twirled around her home. Everything she owned suddenly pleased her immensely. She felt rich and privileged and utterly spoiled. And she saw nothing wrong in any of it. What could possibly be wrong with being so happy?
She waltzed into her bedroom and opened the closet, flinging the clothes on the bed. She tried on a long moss green flowered dress that showed off her tiny waist, then rejected it because it seemed to flatten her bust and give her a childish innocence she found suddenly extremely annoying. She tried a navy blue skirt-and-sweater set with small crocheted flowers strewn across the top. “Too high-necked,” she said critically. “Too ‘dressed for the synagogue.’” All wrong, all wrong.
All the while she hummed to herself, a sweet little catchy tune she used to sing as a child. A song of flowers newly planted, spring growth, and the shade of river trees. She would see him tonight, she thought without guilt, as if in the midst of an uncomplicated dream where all obstacles suddenly vanished and the dreamer found herself involved in all manner of dangerous, pleasurable activities with strange ease.
Judah’s mother arrived promptly at three-thirty, panting and heavy-footed from the climb up the stairs.
“Such a
shayneh maideleh!
” she said to her daughter-in-law, kissing her and hugging her. “This dress, pink-and-black paisley. This is a
shayneh, shayneh
dress. In such a dress you look like a movie star. My son is behaving himself, I hope? You know how men are, forgetful. You make him pay attention to you!”
“But Judah is very kind and always pays attention to me, Mother!” Dina laughed.
It was the old joke between them. Mrs Gutman was ecstatic over her daughter-in-law and her grandson and never pretended otherwise. Everything Dina did with the house was beautiful and showed talent. The way she handled the finances was amazingly thrifty and praiseworthy. The way she cared for Yossele was remarkable in its devotion.
Yet despite the praise, Dina was a little uncomfortable with her mother-in-law. She felt as if Judah’s mother, like her son, was constantly tiptoeing around her feelings, afraid to accidentally tread on them and make a mess. It didn’t allow her to develop a real relationship with her, something she needed desperately after her mother’s death. She enjoyed the praise but felt uncomfortable with its unfailing constancy. She missed her mother’s fond yelling, her prodding, her caring reprimands, her wise cautionary tales. Mrs Gutman’s endless compliments fatigued her, and she found herself unaffected by them.
Besides, with the praise came a constant shrewd and unrelenting examination of her life with Judah. Mrs Gutman, who in another incarnation may have been the chief inspector of Scotland Yard, had an uncanny ability to use the smallest shred of evidence to lay bare any and all domestic secrets of married life, especially those things you wished most to hide from her. She knew everything, always. A gain or loss of weight was immediately traced to its revealing source: depression, pregnancy, overwork, a dancing class attended twice a week … If Dina and Judah ever had a misunderstanding, her remarkable radar zoomed in on it immediately simply by registering the number and quality of sentences that passed between them. There was nothing she didn’t know. There was no place to hide.
Yet she couldn’t help liking her warmhearted, generous mother-in-law. Mrs Gutman spent hours in the kitchen preparing complicated dishes like stuffed cabbage leaves, kreplach, and cremslach and bringing them over in little plastic containers. She was also a steady supplier of luscious home-baked cakes and cookies. Moreover she was constantly on the lookout for any lack in her son’s household, which she was quick to supply. This ranged from a lovely set of silverware to bibs for the baby. As for babysitting, she truly rejoiced in the opportunity.
“Your cheeks are pink again, Dinaleh. I knew this getting out a few nights a week would be good for you! And I know you are doing such a wonderful job in the store. Everyone I meet tells me how organized you have it, and how they enjoy buying from you. Why, you’ll have it doubling the profits in no time. Talented, so talented,” she went on, all the while studying her daughter-in-law with a steady, appreciative, and slightly questioning gaze.
Dina found herself blushing under the scrutiny, her heart beating with a heavy knocking apprehension she couldn’t define. “Thank you so much for coming! Are you sure the baby isn’t too much for you? Don’t let him bully you into letting him out of the playpen!”
Mrs Gutman bent over her grandson and picked him up in her arms. The two beamed at each other. “That is what I’m for, to be bullied. Isn’t that so, my little angel? Come to
Bubee
, let’s wipe your little face, your little hands. See what
Bubee
has brought her little darling?” She carried the cheerful, round little boy in her arms.
Dina found herself sighing with relief as she closed the door behind her and fled gratefully down the steps to the bus that would take her to the store.
Of course, her mother-in-law would notice the dress. It was too expensive and elegant for every day. She tried to analyze the remark “Make him pay attention to you!” What would that have to do with the dress? Knowing Judah’s mother, she had no doubt that it had some relation. Perhaps she thinks I am feeling neglected and the dress is to catch Judah’s eye. She laughed inside herself. Judah always paid attention to her. Always showed her how beautiful she was. As if she would need to dress up for him to notice her! Why, no matter how frowsy she looked, his eyes had that eager, boyish delight in seeing her. He was so easy to please, she thought with a touch of impatience.
But the other (
Noach
, she whispered secretly into the cool back of her hand that brushed across her face, as if hiding something or wiping it away). He would notice if she was well dressed or not. He would appreciate it.
As she neared the store, she found herself hurrying on the slippery pavement. She had worn her best shoes, patent-leather pumps with unusually high slim heels, shoes she wasn’t entirely sure how to walk on. As she turned the corner, she felt her ankle twist and felt with helpless panic her body hit the pavement. There was mud on her coat and stockings. Her hand was bruised. A group of passersby hurriedly surrounded her and lifted her to her feet. Even the wig had moved over to the left and hung with unnatural stiffness. She felt the humiliation crawl up her face. “I’m all right, all right,” she begged them, quickly brushing off her soiled clothes. Finally they let her go. She could feel their eyes bore into her back.
Careless, foolish! Just look what you’ve done! she berated herself. She felt like weeping with rage and frustration. Her careful toilette! She surveyed the damage in a small back-room mirror, washing her scratched hands and straightening out her wig. As her eyes met those in the mirror, the thought came to her with stunning clarity: It was all G-d’s will! His punishment! He, from whom nothing could be hidden, had seen her guilty joy, her vain primping. There was a phrase for what she had done. It was one of those sins for which one asked forgiveness each Yom Kippur: “the hurrying of legs to do evil.”
The guilt and shame that had so far eluded her suddenly converged on her from all sides. She could fool Judah and his mother. She could even fool herself. But she couldn’t escape from Him! The idea of His reading the shameful pictures of her mind, the disgraceful longings of her most secret heart, made her physically ill. She ran to the bathroom, retching and miserable.
Then, surprisingly, she found herself recovering with a new hardiness she had never felt before. Her eyes were steady and deliberate as she smoothed down her stockings, drawing them up tighter over her slim calves and young, firm thighs. They weren’t torn, just muddied. She dabbed them clean with a piece of wet cloth. The dress wasn’t damaged, either, she noticed. The coat had taken most of the abuse. Yet it too could be brushed clean. The wig was already back in place, as lovely and alluring as ever.
After all, she had just been running too fast, she told herself. Nothing more to it. Not so very bad at all, in fact. She hadn’t done anything wrong after all. You couldn’t punish a person for his thoughts, could you? What were thoughts, just flashes of light and color, intangible and thus not something for which one could be held accountable.
Except, of course, in the case of adultery. The commandment was, after all, “Do not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” To covet was not an act but simply a thought, a feeling in the heart. But that was to the man, not the woman. It didn’t say “Do not covet thy neighbor’s husband,” now did it? She smiled to herself, cheering up. She was shocked at how quickly she’d recovered from the fall, from the idea of its being a punishment. Not so long ago such a thought would have left her wrung with guilt and repentance. She would have dwelt on it and prayed with parched and striving lips for forgiveness.
