Disobedience

by Naomi Alderman

  I said, “Esti, let’s just forget this happened, okay? It’s the walk, the moonlight or, er, lack of moonlight. It’s nothing. Let’s have our coffee now.”

  But it was too late for salvage. She backed away from me, at first slowly, and then, turning, she started to run. She stumbled up the hill, back toward her house. I wondered if I should go after her. I turned away and walked up toward Golders Green.

  Dr. Feingold would say that you can only free yourself. That we are all masters of our own destinies, and that the only person who can help you is you. She’d lean back in her white chair, in front of her white walls, and say, “Ronit, what makes you think that you can solve this situation? What makes that your responsibility?” And on one level she’s right. You can’t solve anyone else’s life for them. But then, if you see someone struggling with a heavy load, isn’t it forbidden to walk on without helping them?

  I thought again about Esti’s life. And I thought about what it is that I know, which isn’t much but might be something. I thought about God. I hadn’t thought about Him for quite a while but I remembered His voice then. I thought about how, whatever you do, once you’ve heard it, it continues to mutter in your ear, with its inexplicable certainties and unacceptable justifications.

  I marched through Golders Green, passing by the rows of Jewish stores. The little world my people have built here. The kosher butcher shops frowned at me, asking why I hadn’t tried their chopped liver, now only £2.25 a quarter. The recruitment agency smiled widely, inviting me to apply for a job with a Sabbath-observant company, half-day Fridays in the winter. Moishe’s salon raised an eyebrow at my hairstyle and wondered if I wouldn’t like something, maybe, a bit more like everyone else?

  I thought about how God, belief in God, in this God, has done violence to these people. Has warped them and bent them so that they can’t even acknowledge any longer that they have desires, let alone learn how to act on them.

  I walked on, down the Golders Green Road, past the bagel shops where crowds of teenagers were shouting and laughing, past the grocery stores and the little kosher cafés that we used to visit so often we knew the menus by heart. Not much was still open, but as I came to Golders Green station, I saw a little patisserie that wouldn’t be closing for a while. It wasn’t kosher. It was mostly empty. I wondered if Esti had ever noticed that it was here: a piece of another life, a twenty-minute walk from her house.

  I sat down and ordered a large slice of chocolate cake from a tired-looking waitress. When it came, I thought of all the nonkosher things that could be in it: gelatin holding the filling together, made of boiled pig bones, colorings made from dead insects, beef lard to grease the cake tin, shellfish extracts added to the flour to make it softer. I saw the plate full of dead, decaying, unclean things.

  Things that the Rabbis tell us will harden our hearts and make us less able to hear the voice of God.

  I took a bite. The cake was dry, the filling greasy. I ate it anyway. Bite after bite.

  Chapter Seven

  The Sages said: Anyone who converses excessively with a woman causes evil to himself, neglects Torah study, and will eventually inherit Gehinnom.

  Pirkei Avot 1:5, studied on Sabbath afternoons between Passover and New Year

  Our sages warn us often against the perils of gossip: lashon hara, which means, literally, an evil tongue. Certainly, it is forbidden to spread false tales. Is this not bearing false witness—an action forbidden in the ten utterances from Mount Sinai? And as it is forbidden to speak false tales, so is it forbidden to listen to them, for he who speaks and he who listens both sin against the name of the Lord. And further, it is forbidden to tell, or to listen to, any stories, even if they are true, that might cause us to regard a person less favorably. In fact, it is generally held preferable to avoid speaking of others at all, even to spread good news.

  Despite this, the temptations of lashon hara are difficult to resist. The Torah tells us that in the time when God’s presence was not so hidden from the world, tzara’at, a virulent leprosy, was visited upon those who spoke lashon hara. No place was too high to be visited by tzara’at; when Miriam the sister of Moses spoke ill of his wife, she was afflicted with the disease. It is written that the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, for which we mourn with unceasing bitterness, was caused by the continual lashon hara of the people of Israel. Lashon hara is the most tempting of forbidden acts: easy, enjoyable, plentiful in supply. Yet we are enjoined to refrain from it.

  One of our sages rebuked a woman who had spread gossip. He gave her a pillow and instructed her to take it to the top of the highest building in town and shake out its feathers to the four winds. The woman did so. Then the sage said to her, “Now go and gather up all of those feathers which you have scattered.” The woman cried out that the task was impossible. “Ah,” said the sage, “how much easier, though, than gathering up the tales you have spread.” Easier to cause a mountain to skip like a lamb than to retrieve an evil story once it has passed the guard of our lips.

  Hendon is a village. It exists within a city, certainly, one of the greatest in the world. It has links to this city, people travel to and fro between them. But it is a village. In Hendon, people know one another’s business. In Hendon, a woman cannot walk from one end of the high street to the other without encountering an acquaintance, perhaps stopping for a chat visiting the butcher, baker, grocer. In Hendon, only frozen vegetables and washing powder are bought in supermarkets: all other goods are purchased at small shops, in which the shopkeepers know their customers by name, remember their favorite items and put them by. Though there is a wider world, in Hendon all that is needed has been provided: Torah-true schools and kosher shops and synagogues and mikvahs and businesses that are closed on the Sabbath and matchmakers and burial societies. We learned how to do this a long time ago, when there was no other way. We do it well. Like the turtle, we carry our home with us. We believe that we may soon have to depart for other shores. It is as well to be self-sufficient.

  On Sunday, the first day of the month of Cheshvan, the moon revealed the tiniest glimpse of her pale flesh, and the week of mourning for Rav Krushka came to an end. Across northwest London, the event registered only a little. The Jewish Chronicle carried a half-page obituary, recording the events of the man’s life. Its tone was slightly overenthusiastic, its detail a little hazy. The Jewish Tribune, a publication more certain in its convictions, printed a glowing and fulsome account of the Rav’s achievements, accompanied by a large photograph taken in his late middle age. The Rav’s death, they said, was like a hammer blow, crushing the heart of Anglo-Jewry. His loss left a void that could never be filled. The Rav had been a giant in his generation, the Tribune concluded, who was without doubt already supping at the table of the righteous in the world to come. It is not given to us, who dwell on earth and not in heaven, to know whether this statement was more accurate than the Chronicle’s more modest assertion that the Rav had left no children.

  In Hendon, the end of the mourning week passed almost without note for members of other synagogues and congregations. The death had been felt a little among the congregants of the shtiebels, those small, hidden synagogues formed in hollowed-out houses or unused offices. The Ravs of these communities touched on the life and deeds of the dead man in their sermons. They had known him in boyhood or as a young man. He had been a leader, a teacher, a friend. Their congregations listened solemnly, but by the time they had eaten a good lunch, sung the Sabbath melodies, and slept a righteous sleep, their regret was largely forgotten. The worshipers at the larger synagogues, housed in suburban cul-de-sacs, cushioned by well-appointed detached properties and swaddled in the certainty that God prefers the comfortably off, read the Chronicle and shrugged or sighed or turned the page. And the young men and women of the “alternative” services held in drafty halls, bound together by earnest debate and accompanied by a monthly vegetarian dinner? It would be too far to say that they rejoiced. Let us say instead that, insofar as they wer
e aware of the Rav, they felt only a slight sense of relief at the removal of an element that was neither liberal nor modern, and was therefore without merit.

  But in the Rav’s own community, the loss had cut more deeply. There had been, in those houses, over the mourning week, a troubling sense of distortion and inexplicability. The arrival of the first day of Cheshvan brought with it a certain easing of pressure. The mourning week was over. The Rav was dead. This fact contained not even a grain of mercy. But now a new thought occurred. He had, after all, been an old man. That he should pass was only natural. Once the people allowed this thought to dwell within their minds, they saw that they had always known it to be so. This occurrence was no tragedy. It was not even a surprise. And, a little freer, the members of Rav Krushka’s congregation began to talk.

  It began in Levene the butcher’s, the morning of that first day of Cheshvan. The shop was crowded and a little too warm. Mr. Levene, son of old Mr. Levene, was serving behind the counter, portioning out minced meat and chopped liver, shouting for his son, young Levene, to bring through more chicken thighs. Mrs. Levene sat behind the till, writing receipts into a carbon book with a firm pencil hand. It was in Levene’s that Mrs. Bloom spotted Mrs. Kohn bending over the refrigerator to retrieve a package of sliced tongue. Mrs. Bloom and Mrs. Kohn had been customers of Levene’s since the days when old Mr. Levene still sold cheap not-yet-koshered chickens that had to be salted and drained at home. Now his son had introduced lamb chops marinated in sticky orange fluid “for the barbecue,” and the chicken schnitzels were called low-fat skinless chicken breasts. Nonetheless, the calf’s-foot jelly remained garlicky and good, the meatball gravy paste-thick. To speak with each other in Levene the butcher’s was easy, a simple thing that could do no harm.

  The two women’s conversation proceeded smoothly from enquiries about family and friends to the Rav, and from there to his poor family, who must now be suffering so terribly, and from there, of course, to the matter of the woman who had sat next to Esti in synagogue the previous morning. There they stopped for a moment, neither wanting to voice her thought. But, emboldened by the shop’s noise, they continued. Could it possibly have been her? Neither of them had liked to approach and ask because she seemed so different, and with the Rav’s death, but can it have been her? She’d cut her hair, of course, and was thinner and somehow harder-looking, but it could scarcely be anyone else, really. What had she been doing all this time? Perhaps she’d been living in Manchester with her family? No. There had been that slit in her skirt. Unless standards in Manchester had fallen dramatically—and the women did not entirely discount this possibility—it seemed unlikely. So had it been her? The Rav’s daughter, the one who…Well, there had been rumors at the time. Of some rift with her father, of some improper behavior on her part. It was impossible to know. The conversation drifted into silence and, left thus, without relief, the women went on their way.

  They had, however, been overheard by Mrs. Stone, wife of Stone the orthodontist, who had been unintentionally concealed behind the large poultry freezers. Mr. and Mrs. Stone-the-orthodontist had attended the Rav’s synagogue for only three years. Newcomer as she was, Mrs. Stone had not recognized the surprisingly modern young woman seated next to Esti Kuperman in shul. However, as it happened, that Shabbat had been her turn to assist Fruma Hartog in setting out kiddush: the biscuits, crisps, fish balls, chopped herring, pickles, and small glasses of sweet red wine provided after the service. Mrs. Stone had noted that Fruma, never the most amiable of cocaterers, had been positively monosyllabic. Mrs. Stone, a woman who took pleasure in allowing her mouth to open, if only to reveal her flawless, even teeth, was not to be dissuaded. As they arranged the crackers in concentric circles on doily-covered plates and ensured that each gefilte-fish ball was pierced by a single cocktail stick, she made another attempt.

  “So, Fruma, did you have guests last night?”

  Fruma’s hand shook, the tray of tiny wine cups clattering nervously. She thinned her lips and replied:

  “Esti and Dovid Kuperman. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Mrs. Stone had closed her lips over her teeth, reflecting that perhaps Fruma might be more inclined to smile if her crooked right canine were straightened. Now, however, standing before the poultry freezer, she began to wonder whether Fruma’s mood had been entirely related to orthodontic concerns.

  Mrs. Stone communicated her suspicions to her friends Mrs. Abramson and Mrs. Berditcher, when she happened to encounter them later that morning in the bakery, purchasing soft, warm onion platzels and aromatic granary loaves. The clean smell of bread engulfed them as they stood to one side, allowing others to elbow their way toward the counter. Mrs. Stone tried to keep her voice low, but among the demands for “two loaves of rye, sliced thin!” or “two dozen bridge rolls—the large ones, not the small!” she was forced to declare her troubling thoughts loudly. The women nodded as she spoke. The return of the Rav’s daughter, the mysterious anger of Fruma Hartog, her failure to mention Ronit as one of the guests at her Shabbat table. It all seemed to have some significance. But what?

  Mrs. Berditcher drew breath. She might know something. Just a little piece of news. The bread slicer clattered, its comb-blades flickering up and down as the women drew closer. What? What did Mrs. Berditcher know? Mrs. Berditcher shook her head. It would not be right to speak of such things. She and Mr. Berditcher thought they had seen something on their walk home after Shabbat the previous evening. But they could not be sure. It had been dark. They had been far away. Their eyes might have deceived them. Although, seeing Ronit so different, her hair so short, her demeanor so assertive and still unmarried at thirty-two, well, there seemed a kind of sense to it. But what? What had been seen? The bread slicer roared into life again, a limp-haired assistant by its side feeding it four large, square white loaves. Mrs. Berditcher demurred. It would certainly be lashon hara to speak the words, and lashon hara is a thing of evil, as they had learned many years before. Mrs. Stone and Mrs. Abramson heard, as though from far away, a faint and calming voice telling them to desist. Move on, it said, go on with your shopping. Buy bagels and kichels and rugelach. But nearer at hand they felt a quickening pulse at their temples. Go on, they pressed, go on. Mrs. Berditcher hesitated and, in a low voice, went on.

  The shameful suspicion unrolled, binding them together silently and firmly. Each looked at the other two to ensure that they had fully understood the significance of the remarks. They looked around. The clamor of the customers demanding half pounds of cheesecake and savory rolls continued unabated. None of the three wanted to speak first and perhaps reveal herself ignorant or naive.

  “It can’t be true, surely,” said Mrs. Abramson at last.

  Mrs. Berditcher, despite the nagging of that quiet voice reminding her patiently that she could not be sure, declared that she was. Absolutely. Ronit had always been wayward, even as a girl. There had been half-stated rumors about improper behavior even then, Mrs. Abramson could surely confirm. Mrs. Abramson nodded thoughtfully.

  “What is the halachic status of that, actually?” she asked.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “It must be forbidden, surely,” said Mrs. Berditcher.

  The women nodded.

  “It’s not in the Torah,” Mrs. Abramson said. “It only says about men lying with other men.”

  “I think it was forbidden by the Rabbis,” said Mrs. Stone. “It’s called the ‘practices of Egyptian women.’ I think it’s in the Gemarah.”

  Then Mrs. Abramson, who perhaps of the three had heard the small and tranquil voice most clearly, said:

  “What if it is forbidden? Hinda Rochel, your brother-in-law’s children eat treif meat and don’t keep Shabbos. You still invite them to visit you. How is it different?”

  Mrs. Berditcher looked at first ashamed, and then angry. She opened her mouth, then closed it, then, decisive, opened it.

  “This is a completely different thing. You know it is. Especially fo
rcing yourself on someone like that.”

  “And you’re sure that’s what you saw?” asked Mrs. Abramson.

  There was another momentary pause. The bread-slicing machine hummed.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Berditcher. “I told you. Ronit was holding her. She had to struggle to break free. She had been crying. I could tell.”

  She adjusted her hat, to ensure that no stray locks had fallen into view.

  The shop assistant, feeding the last of three black bread loaves into the bread slicer, felt its teeth brush her fingers and pulled back, stung and frightened. A red bead welled from the tip of her middle finger.

  Mrs. Abramson spoke. “If this is true, we must act. Esti may be in danger. We must do something.”

  The three women blinked simultaneously. This story, which only moments ago had seemed so full of innocent interest, had now become filled with difficulty. Action was called for, but what? In another time, one of them might have consulted the Rav with this dilemma. But to whom were they now to turn?

  “One of us should speak to Dovid,” said Mrs. Berditcher.

  There was another silence.

  “Or to Esti?” asked Mrs. Stone.

  The other two women shook their heads. It was understood that Esti Kuperman could not be spoken to in such a way or about such matters.

  “Perhaps,” said Mrs. Abramson, “perhaps I could ask Pinchas his opinion? That would not be lashon hara, surely. To ask my husband for his view?”