“You just worked two shifts at the restaurant. I can order in.”
“The hell you will,” replied M. J. “If you want corn chips and Cheez Whiz, go eat with your jock friends. I specialize in comfort cuisine.”
Six feet two and by his own description, “thinner than a stalk of celery,” M. J. was the kind of guy who tells you the kind of guy he is, a habit made palatable by the accuracy of his self-assessments. “I’m an even-tempered fella, not neurotic like you East Coast types,” he’d say. Or, “I got the energy of a rancher chasing a herd of runaway horses.” “I’m a Fruit Loop in a box of Cheerios” was how he summed up his “happily homosexual” way of life. If you came to visit and found a small Texas flag stuck in his mail slot, you knew M. J. was in the midst of one of his “amorous endeavors.” Otherwise, as he put it, “I’m an open door guy, so don’t bother to knock ’cause I’m always going to be glad to see you, and if I’m not home, come on in and take what you need, ’cause if I was home, you know I’d give it to you.”
M. J. offered compassion without pity and always had a positive spin on life. “Instead of complaining about how you’re not gonna have enough time with Anabelle, you should plan a bunch of special outings so the time you do get to spend with her will be so much fun that she’ll always look forward to comin’ home.” With M. J.’s persistent nudging, Zach spent hours researching diversions for his daughter—child-friendly restaurants, age-appropriate plays, movies, and museum exhibits. It was M. J.’s idea that Zach accumulate his sick leave and personal days so he could hang out with Anabelle on weekdays. And it was M. J. who suggested Zach make a big deal about Hanukkah. (Chef Randolph knew all the Jewish holidays because half of his restaurant clientele disappeared on those nights.)
That first year, Anabelle alighted like Tinker Bell, sprinkling pixie dust on her father’s earthbound life and acting as if they’d been apart for days, not months. Everything they did together seemed to delight her—ice-skating in Rockefeller Plaza, outings to the Bronx Zoo, the aquarium, the puppet show in Central Park, the Staten Island Ferry. When weather was inclement, they stayed home and built castles out of blocks. He bought her wooden puzzles with pieces large enough for a toddler to handle, and boxes of cheap pipe cleaners that he helped her shape into eyeglasses, giraffes, and octopuses. When they played hide and seek, he pretended not to see her shoes sticking out from under the bed. On New Year’s Day, when Bonnie picked her up to take her to the airport, Zach felt his heart split open. It broke twice a year from then on.
In July, he went to Melbourne. The flight was interminable but he would have commuted weekly just to be greeted by his ebullient little girl. As Bonnie had promised, Gil had built a wing with separate guest quarters and he was able to spend every waking hour with his daughter without interruption. The few times he interacted with his ex-wife and her lover—over coffee before Anabelle woke up or after she went to bed—he found them warm and welcoming.
In years two and three, the custody arrangement was less harrowing for being predictable. More than that, to her credit, Bonnie had routinized the communication between them and once Anabelle could read and write, he also received short letters from her that helped him feel less like a stranger. She seemed to have adapted well to the semiannual arrangement, but each time they parted, loneliness engulfed Zach like a cold winter fog.
As his daughter grew older, he adjusted their activities accordingly—added hikes in the Palisades or Bear Mountain State Park, bowling, ping pong, miniature golf, biking, and ball games, many ball games, because, to his utter astonishment, Anabelle had become an accomplished athlete and a spirited sports fan. The person Zach had to thank for this, he discovered, was Gil Benedict. Once ranked among Australia’s elite women’s tennis players, Gil had persuaded Bonnie that female athletes have more confidence than other girls. Though she always came to New York in winter, when their breath made gray steam in the cold air and their fingers froze, Zach coached Anabelle’s pitching, honed her sliders, and felt as if he had something to offer her besides entertainment, devotion, and love.
The entire month of December and half of July were all Anabelle, all the time, but six weeks weren’t enough for him. Nor was one child. He wanted more. “Be fruitful and multiply” was both a biblical obligation and his mother’s last request. Of the two dictates, Rivka’s was the more compelling and by failing to produce more fruit, Zach felt as if he were dishonoring her memory, squandering her sacrifices, and mocking the miracle of her survival. In the post-Holocaust world of his parents, an only child was anathema. Even two children didn’t suffice. What’s more, though much of his law practice was devoted to fighting gender discrimination, Zach wanted a boy, not for any specific boyness but to carry on the Levy name. If Anabelle had children, they would most likely bear her husband’s name—still the custom, even for most feminists—and “Levy” would dead-end with Zach. For the sake of the father who had mothered him and the brother whose name had been snuffed out with his life, Zach had to produce a namesake.
The issue of Jewish continuity also weighed heavily on him. However rarely he showed up in synagogue, something in his DNA told him the tradition was worth preserving and transmitting. Since his parents’ deaths, he had become a once-a-year Jew, not abstaining altogether, lest he tempt the evil eye, but always buying a High Holy Day ticket for the nearest shul, usually an overflow service presided over by a nervous rabbinic intern and a newly minted cantor. The rest of Zach’s Jewish life was driven by random invitations—a rooftop sukkah party billed as a singles mixer; a Shabbos dinner at the home of a colleague; a “Matzoh Ball” party during passover; his friends’ seders, where he realized that, given the choice, most hosts would rather have an eligible bachelor show up at their table than the prophet Elijah.
Meanwhile, Bonnie had joined a synagogue and enrolled their daughter in Melbourne’s King David Academy, a Jewish day school and, by her account, she and Anabelle celebrated all the home-based Jewish holidays with the full support of Gillian Benedict. Gil had not only been scrupulously respectful of Judaism but had embraced Bonnie’s lively hodgepodge of traditional practices and feminist inventions: women’s seders, healing ceremonies, and life cycle rituals. Meanwhile, Zach’s sole contribution to his daughter’s Jewish life was Hanukkah.
Though the holiday isn’t mentioned in the Torah and received lackluster attention in his childhood home, Hanukkah had become deeply meaningful to him because of Anabelle. Since her first visitation, he’d been determined to create enough Hanukkah hoopla to make Christmas pale in comparison. He took her shopping for a menorah at the Jewish Museum gift shop, where she chose one made of clay in the shape of a baseball team, eight players sitting on a bench, their caps serving as candle holders, the ninth player gripping a baseball bat that stood above the rest with a slot for the shamash. He bought her eight different dreidls—metal, wood, glass, and ceramic—and invented a different top-spinning game for each of the holiday’s eight nights. He hid Hanukkah gelt all over the loft and she searched every corner to find the chocolate coins—all eighty of them. He gave her eight presents without worrying about spoiling her. Hanukkah was his excuse to show her that, despite their many months apart, he knew her taste and interests well enough to buy her eight things she really wanted.
They made Rivka’s recipe for latkes. Anabelle peeled the Idahos, Zach grated them (and his knuckles). He cracked the eggs, she beat them. He measured the flour, she stirred the batter. She peeled the onions, he sliced and chopped them. When the onion fumes brought them to tears, Anabelle laughed at her daddy’s bloodshot eyes.
The smell of pan-fried potato pancakes was what lured M. J. across the hall that first time. Zach had invited him to stay for candle lighting and latkes, and after pronouncing them “crispylicious,” the chef had appropriated the recipe and his bite-size version of Rivka’s latkes—topped with caviar and crème fraîche instead of sour cream or applesauce—became one of Lovage Restaurant’s signature appetizers. Every December sin
ce, M. J. had joined them for at least one night of Hanukkah, adding his homemade sufganiyot, traditional Israeli jelly donuts, to the holiday meal. Anabelle taught her “Uncle M. J.” to sing “I Have a Little Dreidl” and “Rock of Ages,” (in Hebrew) and tried not to giggle at his Texas twang. Zach repeated the story of Hanukkah, how the tiny band of Maccabees rebelled against the Syrian Greeks who wouldn’t permit them to practice their Judaism, how the Jews conquered the enemy, recaptured the temple that had been defiled, and hoped to rededicate the temple by lighting the holy lamp but only found enough oil to burn for one day.
“What happened next?” Zach asked Anabelle the year he’d let her light the candles for the first time.
“The oil burned for eight days,” she replied proudly, in her perky Aussie accent. “It lasted much longer than anyone expected; that’s why we add one more candle each day until we have eight. We increase the light. My Hebrew teacher says Hanukkah is called The Festival of Lights because it’s all about bringing light into the darkest days of winter.” She picked up one of the dreidls and read out loud the Hebrew letters on the top’s four sides. “Those initials stand for the words ‘Nais gadol haya sham,’ which means, ‘A great miracle happened there.’ But I think great miracles also happen here, and in Melbourne, or wherever a person brings light to a dark place.”
M. J. whistled softly. “How’d you get so smart, little lady?”
Zach, shushing him, hugged his little girl. “Maybe that’s why Hanukkah always reminds me of your grandma and grandpa. They weren’t supposed to last either—but they did. They lived through a terrible time in a very dark place, but they didn’t give up. They traveled across the ocean so I could be born in a country where the future was bright and no one could ever tell me, or you, that we can’t be Jewish.”
The glow of the candles, eight glittering points of light, glistened in Anabelle’s dark eyes. “Grandma and Grandpa were like the oil,” she said. “They lasted longer than anyone expected. They were miracles.”
“We’re all miracles,” Zach said, swallowing hard. “Who wants another latke?”
CHAPTER 6
A NICE JEWISH GIRL
ONE YEAR AFTER THE DIVORCE, THANKS TO THERAPY, antidepressants, too much vodka, and meaningless sex—or maybe because he’d just turned thirty—Zach finally felt ready to move on. It was 1980, a new decade, time to turn a new leaf. He wanted help finding his bashert, the woman he was destined to marry.
“I’m looking to get married again, Herbie. Know any nice Jewish girls?”
After work one Friday, at the gym with Herb Black, director of the ACLU’s Children’s Rights Project, both of them pumping away on their adjacent Nautilus machines, Zach blurted through breathless gasps: “You need to set me up already.”
“I don’t know any more single women than you do,” Herb panted.
“You have a million ex-girlfriends,” Zach insisted.
Perspiration plastered Herb’s “Reelect Carter” T-shirt to his chest. “I’m afraid most of the Jews I know are WASP wannabes.”
“What’s that—Jews who change their name from Schwartz to Black?”
Herb took the personal jab with grace. “I didn’t change our family name, Doug did. And it’s not like he stole it off the Yale Club roster. Schwartz is black in English—Doug just translated it from the German.”
Yale, straight nose, blond hair, calling his parents by their first names—the whole package telegraphed Herb’s tony origins. They’d been friends and ACLU colleagues for years yet Zach couldn’t quite believe that Herb was in the tribe. And in a sense, he wasn’t. Herb’s “people” were German Jewish royalty, white-shoe Jews from the Our Crowd crowd. His father’s ancestors emigrated from Baden in the 1850s, arriving with the family silver, cash to buy land, and trunks of salable merchandise. His mother’s relatives were distant cousins of the Warburgs. Two of his great-grandfathers fought for Massachusetts in the Civil War, for God’s sake, and all four of his grandparents, women included, were, at minimum, college graduates.
In Boston the Blacks were to shtetl Jews what the Kennedys were to shanty Irish: ethnic elites. (In fact, Doug and Miri had recently cohosted a fundraiser for Teddy’s primary campaign against Jimmy Carter.) The Blacks had a big house in the Back Bay section, a box at the Boston Symphony, and seats over the dugout at Fenway. But they weren’t Boston Brahmins; Miri (née Miriam), whose light verse had been published in Granta and the Partisan Review, helped the women’s collective that wrote Our Bodies, Ourselves, served on the board of Planned Parenthood, and shopped at Filene’s Basement, and Doug, a retired corporate lawyer who read James Joyce for fun, took death penalty appeals that no one else would touch.
Herb Black was proud of his parents for being traitors to their class and they, in turn, boasted about their son, not because he’d become a lawyer—the family had plenty of Esq. suffixes—but because he worked for the ACLU, which they’d been supporting since before he was born. What most impressed Zach about Herb’s parents was their lack of angst. Where Rivka Levy had been taciturn and dour, Miri Black was chatty and cheerful. Where Nathan had been stolid, Doug was buoyant. If your relatives left Germany eighty years before Kristallnacht, Zach supposed, buoyant came easy.
He pressed the pulse in his neck and finding it insufficiently aerobic, upped the resistance on his Nautilus machine. “You and your parents could pass for WASPs in a heartbeat.”
“Don’t start,” Herb cautioned. “I have no problem being Jewish.”
“Not that you’re a believer.”
“Show me a Jew who believes in God.”
They both laughed. “So,” Zach asked, “what makes you Jewish?” Lately he’d been posing that question to every Jew who crossed his path, chalking it up to his identity search, which seemed to have been reignited by his search for his bashert.
“I don’t dissect it, Zach. I’m just Jewish.”
“Tell me one thing you do that’s Jewish.”
Herb thought for a moment. “Friendship. I have Jewish friends. Causes. I write checks. Every five seconds, some Jewish organization is honoring Doug; I always buy a top price ticket to the gala.” Herb wiped his face with the front of his shirt and slowed his machine to a crawl. “Did I mention I had a bar mitzvah? I’ll never forget the strapless dress Laurel Plotkin wore to the reception and the ice swan with a raw bar on its back—clams, oysters, shrimp, crabs, lobster . . .”
“Shellfish at a bar mitzvah?” Zach clucked. He could see his teacher, Rabbi Goldfarb, spinning in his grave. “I hope someone had the wit to say, ‘Mazel tov, Herbie! Today you are a clam.’”
“Enough with my Jewish bona fides,” Herb said.
“Right. Let’s get back to the wannabes. Define the species.”
“A WASP wannabe is a Jewish girl who goes to France for the churches.”
“That’s called sightseeing, Herbie.”
“Not when she genuflects at the stations of the cross, analyzes the symbolism in Annunciation murals, or ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’ over statues of saints who slaughtered our ancestors during the Inquisition.”
“Whoa!” Zach exhaled audibly. “For someone who’s ‘just Jewish,’ you sound awfully ardent. Okay, don’t fix me up with any wannabes.”
“That complicates matters.” Herb toweled off. “Let’s go get some sushi. My treat.”
THEY SETTLED INTO a booth at a minimalist Japanese restaurant and ordered a couple of Kirin beers. Warming to his matchmaker role, Herb asked, “Age limit?”
“Twenty-five to thirty-five,” Zach replied. Push it a year or two if she’s fertile.”
“How the hell do I gauge that?”
“If you know she’s had an abortion. Or she has kids. Or her sister has kids. Fertility runs in families.”
“Next you’ll want proof of virginity.”
“I don’t care if she slept with the Giants backfield. I just want some babies.”
“How pretty does she have to be?” Herb rubbed his chopsticks together like a Bo
y Scout trying to start a fire.
“Cute. Spunky.”
“I suggest you stop using those words if you’re going back on the dating market.”
“What’s wrong with ‘cute’ and ‘spunky’?”
“They’re so seventies.”
The waiter brought menus and squat gray cups of steaming tea. Zach burned the roof of his mouth on the first sip and cooled his palate with the icy beer.
“Blond, brunette, redhead?” Herb asked.
“No preference.”
“Shape?”
“Jesus, how can I answer that?”
“Don’t be coy. Every man has a type: supermodel, starlet, Playboy Bunny.”
“Lacrosse,” Zach replied. “Or crew.”
“Does she have to be an athlete?”
Zach flashed on his ex-wife. “She doesn’t have to play a sport, just be willing to watch a game now and then. Is that too much to ask?”
“Ask whatever you want, pal. It’s a wish list. Mine has two words on it: Cybill Shepherd.”
“Cybill Shepherd’s Jewish?”
“No, but she was in a Jewish movie.”
“The Heartbreak Kid isn’t a Jewish movie, Herbie. The Sorrow and The Pity is a Jewish movie.” Zach tried to imagine what it was like for his friend, never having to worry about replenishing the Six Million. “You know I can’t do a mixed marriage.”
“Every couple is a mixed marriage—man, woman, mixed.”
“She has to get what I come from.”
Herb rolled his eyes. “Life is about where you’re going, not what you’re coming from.” He showed the waiter the menu pictures of miso soup and sushi deluxe. “I’d like these.” Zach ordered vegetable dumplings and shrimp tempura. “Let’s agree to stipulate ‘nice’ and ‘girl,’” Herb continued. “But please tell the court your criteria for ‘Jewish.’”
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