An Observant Wife

by Naomi Ragen

  He put down Chasya and with his newly freed arm beckoned to his daughter. She, too, was his little girl. “Come,” he said.

  She approached him with the caution of a small creature facing the unknown.

  He kissed her forehead warmly. “My Shaindele,” he whispered.

  That hard nugget inside her she had been nurturing, polishing to a dark gleam, suddenly shattered like a ball of ice, melting away. She raised tear-filled eyes to his face. “I’m so sorry, Tateh. For everything. I’ll do better, bli neder. I’ll make you proud of me.”

  “I am always proud of you, even when I’m not so happy about the things you decide to do.” He smiled at her.

  Leah stood back, watching, amazed. It was almost a miracle, she thought. She had expected a confrontation, stubbornness, recriminations. And while her experience with him had never included shouting matches in anger or deliberate cruelty, she had seen him capable of detachment and coldness, which for her was just as devastating. Honestly, she had been preparing herself for rejection. It was inevitable that he would blame her for his daughter’s waywardness, given her own upbringing. Why should he be any different than the rest of Boro Park?

  Yet here he was together with them again! A father, a husband, not a judge, jury, and executioner. Her own eyes reflected the relief in Shaindele’s as the girl’s young body went limp against her father’s, allowing him to support her, Leah noticed with enormous relief. Rejection from her father at this moment, when she was so confused and rebellious, would have been akin to lighting fireworks during a gas leak.

  “Why don’t we all sit down and have dinner?” she suggested with a smile, looking around the table. And then, privately, to him alone, “Afterward, when the little ones go to sleep, we need to talk.”

  He nodded, fear in his heart, dreading it, but grateful to have her honesty and her wisdom. Another woman might have taken advantage of his obvious attempt at placation and let it slide, instead of seeing it for what it was: a desperate and perhaps a bit cowardly attempt to salvage something useful and whole from a disastrous wreck.

  Mordechai Shalom was beginning to yawn.

  “Better lay him down,” she told Yaakov, who bore him into his bedroom and tucked him in with a kiss.

  But Chasya wasn’t going anywhere, Leah realized. The child’s eyes were bright, and a nervous vivacity informed all her movements.

  “I learned how to say a new bracha,” Chasya announced, climbing up into her father’s lap as he sat down at the dining room table, settling in comfortably even though she’d already had her dinner hours ago. Leah, who was attached to the child body and soul, understood that her sharp, sensitive little mind had absorbed all the disharmony in the house with growing agitation. Let her sit in her father’s arms, she thought wisely.

  “I thought you knew them all already!” Yaakov teased her. “So what new thing did you find to make a blessing over?”

  “A tree. With flowers on it!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “You say, ‘Blessed are You, God, our God, King of the universe, Who left nothing lacking in His world, and created within it good creatures and good trees with which He gives pleasure to people,’” she recited in Hebrew, her tongue tripping a little over the unfamiliar words.

  Yaakov looked over her head, exchanging a small smile of quiet pride with Leah. He bent his head forward, lowering it so that his eyes were level with the child’s. “And what did you see that made you want to say this bracha, Chasya?”

  “An almond tree. It was all white, like a bride!”

  Yaakov laughed, kissing the top of her little head.

  My Yaakov, Leah thought, feeling the moisture gather in her eyes.

  “Such a thing there is in Boro Park?” he asked.

  Leah smiled, shaking her head. “I know, right? But there’s a private house next to her school with a garden in the back that she can see from her classroom window. Chasya has apparently been checking out this tree every day. Yesterday, it finally blossomed. She was so excited, she started jumping up and down. Until her teacher figured out what was going on…” She shook her head with mock horror. “But when Chasya pointed out the tree, the teacher decided to use it for educational purposes.”

  Her mind drifted back to California, to Santa Clara, where she had gone to university. It would be filled with budding trees this time of year. And lawns would be like carpets, the scent of mown grass perfuming the air. Chasya would love it there.

  Yaakov noticed her preoccupation. He was attuned to her now with a kind of hypersensitivity to compensate, he realized, for those secret, shameful thoughts he had harbored against her. What was she really thinking about? And how had it come to pass that he didn’t know and was afraid to ask her?

  Leah suddenly noticed him staring at her. She got up abruptly. “I’ll go get the soup.”

  As she served the meal, she thought, I should be thrilled and grateful that he has come home with such a different attitude! And part of her was. But another place in her heart that was more obstinate and harder to reach held back. Today he had obviously gotten some mussar from Rav Alter. But what of tomorrow? How would they navigate raising these children when there was such an enormous gap between them of background and culture?

  Someone making a video of this meal from a drone hovering above their heads, she thought, would have seen a relaxed, normal family, sharing delicious food, asking each other about their day, laughing at the little girl who sat ensconced in her father’s arms making jokes and preening in the adoration of her family. They would not have noticed either the tenseness in the eyes of the eldest daughter, or how she merely pushed the food around in her plate, eating almost nothing; nor the overly solicitous way the young wife and mother made sure to keep all the serving platters filled and the water pitcher replenished; nor even the strongest hint of all that something was amiss from the husband and father, who hardly stopped talking and joking and smiling, but with a smile that stayed captured at his lips, never rising to his eyes.

  After the dishes were cleared away and Chasya had been reluctantly tucked into bed and Shaindele had wished them both good night, they sat back down at the newly scrubbed dining room table across from each other. The sofa—the only other place they could sit together aside from their bed—seemed too intimate a space somehow for the kind of conversation they needed to have, an exchange that despite all their good intentions would inevitably pitch them against each other harshly. It was the first time she had felt so alienated from him during the precious time they were allowed to be together. What a waste! she thought, heartsick.

  “Yaakov, I spoke to Shaindele about what happened.”

  He lifted his head alertly. “And what did she tell you?”

  She sighed. How to say this to him without breaking his heart? “I think we both haven’t realized how much her mother’s death has damaged her.”

  “Damaged?” His heart lurched at the word, which intuitively he knew was the correct one. It terrified him.

  “Yes. She is having all kinds of doubts.”

  “About what?”

  “Well, about herself mostly. She wonders if what her mother suffered from, that disease, is inside her, too, and if she gets married and has children, if the same thing will happen to her.”

  “HaShem Yishmor!” What was there to say? Of course, it should have been obvious. But then everything should have been obvious. His young wife’s depressions after each birth and their escalating nature. Why, any educated person would have known it for what it was immediately! But he along with his community were too ignorant, too backward, and too primitive, he thought bitterly, getting a dark satisfaction in choosing the harshest words possible, not only to recognize it but to find her the help she needed in time.

  “But what does this have to do with the boy? The lying? The trips to the city?”

  She exhaled, lacing her fingers through his. “I don’t know, really. I can only tell you what she told me. She said she was afraid that she would never want to be toget
her with a man and that she was encouraged when she found she liked this boy and wanted to be with him.”

  “But what of all the rules of modesty we taught her? What she knows from living in a religious community all her life? What about the dangers? She knows better than anyone what will happen to her and her brothers if this gets out. Better than anyone!” he repeated with savage satisfaction. “Wasn’t she the one who was most upset about us getting married? And just because she thought it would hurt her shidduch chances? Hysterical enough to run away and plan to get engaged before it happened, when she was barely sixteen?”

  “Please, lower your voice.”

  Yaakov leaned back, removing his hand and using it to cover his eyes. All his good intentions!

  “Yaakov, she was absolutely clear about understanding that what she did could have terrible consequences for herself and for the family. She was not confused about that at all. But you are talking about a young, troubled girl. Someone who lost her mother and blamed herself.” Should she tell him the rest, about her loss of faith? About how far it had gone with Duvie? How can I? How can I not? It’s his daughter, after all. He has the right to know. He has to understand. She inhaled sharply.

  “There is something else.”

  He looked up at her, frightened now. “There’s more?”

  She nodded, taking both his hands in hers. “She is questioning everything she’s ever learned or been taught right now. Even”—she hesitated—“her faith.”

  He flung himself off his chair and paced the room frantically. “Even that,” he muttered to himself. He looked at Leah. “And what did you tell her?”

  She didn’t like his tone of voice. Was that an accusation, a reprimand?

  She equivocated, somehow losing confidence in the things she had told the girl about the origin of her own faith, which at the time she had felt to be beautiful and heartfelt. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was wrong? What if it upset him? “I don’t remember every word I said. But I know I told her I wasn’t qualified to answer her questions. That she should talk to you or to a rav.”

  Was that even true? But it must be! It’s what she should have said.

  He nodded, relieved, taking his place again across from her. “And what else?”

  “She asked me why I’d left the secular world where I could do anything I wanted, to come to Boro Park.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I told her that it was better here. I told her about all the dangerous things out there and how you were just trying to protect her. But honestly, Yaakov, your daughter needs real help. A person with psychological training who can listen to her and understand how to help her overcome her real fears before she destroys her life.”

  The cold clutch of the icy hand of terror laid hold of him now. Her mother’s daughter, he thought, horrified. He couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  “You are right. She needs a psychologist. But if you say she has problems also with her faith, then it must be a frum one, someone who understands our beliefs, our way of life.”

  “There has to be someone that the rabbis recommend, no? You can ask around. This would be better than punishing her, which won’t help, believe me.”

  He was heartbroken at the recognition that it was not within his power to reach his own child with the burning certainty of his own deep faith, as well as frightened of the consequences of sending a young girl off to some stranger who would hear her most intimate thoughts, who would come to know her better than he, her own father. But when a person is sick, he needs a doctor, he told himself. If he had learned anything in this life, he had learned that.

  19

  THE RABBI-PSYCHOLOGIST

  But before Yaakov could even make any inquiries, something happened that tied his hands. Or perhaps made things easier and clearer? He could not decide. He received a phone call from Shaindele’s school. Rabbi Shlomo Halpern’s secretary informed him that he and his wife and his daughter were to meet with the rabbi in his office the next day.

  “But I work. I can’t take a day off just like that,” Yaakov protested to the woman, his heart sinking at what this could mean.

  “Well, this is up to you. I’ll tell him,” she said without a hint of understanding or compromise. “But in that case, you should tell your daughter not to come in to school.”

  He felt faint. But then a sudden anger shot through him like righteous wrath. “Well, in that case, please tell the rabbi that we’ll come only if his son Duvie is also there. Either that, or we’ll come to talk to him when I get home from work. And,” he added pointedly, “Shaindele comes home from school.” He hung up. It didn’t take long for the phone to ring again.

  “Seven o’clock,” the woman said.

  “Seven thirty,” he answered firmly, then hung up.

  * * *

  “What should I wear?” Leah asked him, almost trembling.

  “Why, Leah-le, you always look beautiful and modest. Wear whatever you always wear, my love.”

  Comforted, but not convinced, she put on her longest sleeves and highest neck, the blouse she called her “frum fantasy.” It was an itchy material, and the collar, so high, grazed her ears with annoying frequency. The cuffs, made of some ruffled pattern, were useless anywhere except the synagogue, where all you had to do was hold a prayer book; even just washing out a cup, they’d be soaked and ruined. The skirt was equally useless. Midcalf and A-line, its dark blue linen wrinkled the moment you sat down or bent over. But it was the right length and suitably boring. The hair was the easiest problem to solve. A wide turban allowed her to heap her abundant curls to the top of her head, tying them down with so many hairpins that a wisp had as much chance of escaping as the Boston Bomber. No makeup, she decided. Nothing.

  Yaakov looked her over and smiled. “You look like a nun.” He chuckled.

  “I just want it to be all right. For Shaindele.”

  He inhaled. “We don’t have to impress him. He has a lot of explaining to do, and he knows it, my love. He is the one who should be ashamed of himself. To raise such a son!”

  She listened to him with surprise. After all, a call from the principal’s office had been their worst nightmare in all this, no? Yet Yaakov seemed not only calm but indignant and more than ready to do battle. Shaindele appeared in her school uniform, her face closed but calm and without a trace of the fear and dread Leah had expected. It was actually impressive, the two of them, Leah thought, surprised.

  “Ready?” Yaakov asked his daughter gently.

  In response, she shrugged.

  Leah reached out, caressing her shoulder. “We are going to be there with you the whole time. No one will dare to hurt or insult you. Whatever you’ve done, you didn’t do it all by yourself.”

  Yaakov, hearing her, winced but did not contradict her. Even if he had wanted to, it was too late, as the teenage daughter of their upstairs neighbor, hired to babysit, walked in, ending their privacy.

  He reached out to his daughter. “Come, child.”

  The school was deserted, the classrooms silent, the halls dark. It was, Shaindele thought, like walking into a nightmare. Everything the same, but subtly, eerily sinister. Like your bedroom as a child when there is no moon and the lights go out.

  Was she about to be thrown out of school? And did it matter? She wasn’t sure. But then, what would her life look like? The dream of being a teacher would be flushed away like an appetizing meal that had undergone a process of digestion, leaving it putrid waste. This bothered her more than the idea that the shadchonim wouldn’t want to find her a husband. Who needed a husband? Only you didn’t want your family to suffer because of you, of what you’d done. You didn’t want your good and pious tateh looked at sideways, whispered about; or your kind if clueless stepmother maligned and turned into the butt of jokes or malicious lies and gossip. And why should your blameless, naive older brothers ensconced in their comfortable little haredi lives, the lives they’d been brought up in and were eager to continue, be
thrown off course by roadblocks they’d done nothing to erect? Let them punish her all they wanted, she thought bravely. Just let them leave her family alone.

  But would anything be up to her at this point? Or was it all a lost battle and they’d been summoned simply to negotiate the terms of their surrender?

  They ascended the stairs where a sliver of light banded beneath a single door. They didn’t knock, walking immediately inside. The secretary was gone, her desk a pile of loose papers in disarray. The door to the principal’s office stood open. Yaakov walked through, beckoning to his wife and daughter to follow.

  Rabbi Halpern didn’t get up, waving off-handedly toward the hard chairs that were arranged in a semicircle at a safe distance from the large desk behind which he was barricaded.

  Yaakov ignored him, standing tall, but nodded to Leah and Shaindele to be seated.

  “Rav Halpern,” he said, offering the man his hand, “Shalom aleichem.”

  Reluctantly, the other man half rose, taking it. “Aleichem shalom, Rav Lehman,” he responded without enthusiasm, averting his eyes from the women with a thin pretense of piety that did little to mask the obvious hostility and arrogance transparent in the twisted puckering of his thick lips beneath the heavy dark mustache and even heavier beard.

  Shaindele glanced at him, shot through with the shocking realization of how much he looked like his son. He had Duvie’s large, arrogant, widely spaced eyes. Even his face, gone slack and jowly through overindulgence and weakness, still held a hint of his son’s handsome high cheekbones. This is how Duvie will look in twenty-five years, with or without a beard and tzitzis and a yarmulke. He’ll be a weak man who loves his pleasures, and he will never have his fill of them, she thought with surprising insight. Staying religious wouldn’t make him a better man, just one with different vices. Anything spiritual in such men would always be just a light first coat slapped on a ruined, distempered wall full of cracks waiting to show themselves.