In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist

by Ruchama King Feuerman

  He returned to the Gray Lady mosque and paced outside until the sheikh emerged, removed a pair of dusty shoes from a cubicle, and gingerly inserted his feet inside. The sheikh’s eyes were glowing and soft, as though shining from his recent prayers. “What is it, Mustafa?” He patted and adjusted his robes.

  “Look,” Mustafa said. “Look what I found at Solomon’s Stables.” He placed both relics into Sheikh Tawil’s palms.

  The sheikh tossed the coin from one hand to the other, spat on it, rubbed it, and bringing it close to his eye, squinted hard. “Hebrew letters,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he brought his arm back and flung the coin with all his might like some schoolboy. He threw it so far that Mustafa didn’t see where it fell. Next the sheikh took the cross, turned it over in his hands and hurled it to the ground and it broke into five pieces. Mustafa stared, stupefied, as the sheikh crushed each shard with the heel of his shoe. “You don’t need to bring me things like this. Let them get taken out with the garbage to Wadi Jehinun. Every night the garbage is dumped there.”

  “But …” Mustafa hesitated, “aren’t they worth something? They’re so old.” And he had dug them out of the ground himself.

  “Allah forbid.” His wispy brows lifted in derision. “Junk,” he stated, “and no one needs to know about it. It only causes trouble.” Catching the bewilderment on Mustafa’s face he said, “Why, I’ll tell you a true story about the Prophet, peace be upon him. When he was just starting out in the year 620 I think, with few people on his side, he came to the Kaaba, at that time a shrine for gods. All the Arabian tribes worshiped idols there. When the Prophet arrived at the Kaaba, he didn’t destroy the idols—in fact, he even protected an idol so that it didn’t break.” As Sheikh Tawil spoke, he jiggled his cane at Mustafa’s dustpan for him to sweep up the broken cross pieces. “You see, it would have done him no good then to destroy these idols of stone. However, when he came back years later, with a full army, he broke the idols into bits and pieces, destroyed them. In its place he built our Mecca and proclaimed the truth of the oneness of Allah.” Here, the sheikh lifted up his reedy voice and his eyes took on a look both dreamy and stern: “So it says in the Koran: ‘Say the truth is come and falsehood gone; verily falsehood is ever vanishing.’ Well,” he said, passing a hand over his eyes, “now do you understand? There is a time to protect and a time to destroy idols.”

  Mustafa thought of the Christian lady and Maryam and Rabbi Isaac. “Idols,” he repeated dully. Something poked him in his pocket. “What about this?” He held up the Islamic blue tile.

  “Ah, that’s a good one, Mustafa. I’ll bring it to the Islamic Museum for safekeeping.” He held out his hand and Mustafa reluctantly passed it over. “All right, enough sermons. Work, work, work.”

  And when will I get my promotion, the janitor wondered, as he mournfully tripped across the hot stones of the Noble Sanctuary.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Isaac entered the kitchen just as Shaindel Bracha set a huge dented pot on the stove. She pressed the lever on the gas gun and a flame ignited under the pot. “There.” She turned around, wiping her hands on her lavender apron that hung on her round hips. The funeral had passed—a quiet affair without eulogies; the rebbe once spoke how the soul shudders at its own funeral, to hear the lies being said about it.

  “Come, please sit,” the rebbe’s wife said, tapping the square Formica table. Through the curtained window facing the courtyard, he saw people milling around.

  It was hard for him to look at her seated across the table. He was afraid of the sorrow he might find. As for himself, he was a wreck. He could barely sit straight. Each breath cost him. He ran his hand against his beard. It had strayed all the way down to his collarbone. And still no hat. He would buy himself one tomorrow. But to even think about shopping—or shaving—seemed too great an effort or simply an indecent act.

  The old oven let out a creak. The refrigerator groaned its own nigun. Even the kitchen air seemed to simmer with a tune of sadness.

  “So,” the rebbetzin said.

  “Hmm?” Isaac was tracing a pattern in the napkin holder and he glanced up. Except for a reddening around the eyes and lids, she looked fairly composed.

  “As you may have noticed,” she said, “I’ve been staying at Mrs. Edelman’s place.”

  Ah, yes. He knew where this conversation was heading. His days at the courtyard were about to end. So be it. He choked back a sigh. “I knew you were staying some place, but I didn’t know where.” He pushed his next words out by force, hard, dry pellets: “Anyway, I’ll be moving out and renting a place of my own, so it’s not necessary to vacate.”

  “Oh, but it is necessary. You stay, I’ll leave.”

  He leaned forward slightly. “It’s your house, not mine.”

  “This is true, it’s still my house.” She smiled a little. “I’ll come back during the day. I just won’t sleep here.”

  “But why?” It didn’t make sense. He didn’t belong. She did.

  “You’re needed here. It’s all in your hands now.”

  He gazed across the table at her. “What’s in my hands?”

  She pointed with her rounded little chin toward the window. “The courtyard, the people.”

  He nodded. “Of course, I’ll help out. Whatever is necessary, Rebbetzin. I can organize the volunteers; I can check on the factory; I can even make chicken soup. Though I’m not the best cook,” he wryly observed.

  She flicked her wrist outward, dismissively. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll come back to handle those matters. But the people, Isaac.” She looked at him. “They need you.”

  He stopped fiddling with the napkin holder. “What are you saying?”

  “You have a rapport with the people. Believe me, you’ll find your way,” she said to his astonished face. “They need you to take over.”

  How could she even talk this way? The rebbe had just died. “Ridiculous. I can’t stand within ten cubits of your husband.”

  “That’s true,” she conceded, slipping a white thread of hair back under her turban. “But my husband isn’t here. You are.”

  He shook his head vehemently. “I’m not a rebbe.”

  “The people respect you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  “A respect by association,” he said curtly. “Because of the answers I brought back from the rebbe. On my own, I’m nothing.” Oh, please. Couldn’t she go away, stop this nonsense? But it was her house.

  “Do you really believe that?” Her light brown eyes looked with a skeptical warmth into his, as if refusing to be held by his rules.

  “Nu,” he wavered, “I did learn some things from the rebbe. But my strength came from knowing I could turn to him.”

  She folded her plump arms resolutely.

  “I could do more harm than good,” he added. “What if I make mistakes? Who will guide me?” A big itch threatened to overtake his entire body.

  She stood. She gestured energetically. “Come with me.” Reluctantly, he got to his feet, giving one last scratch to his right calf. She walked down the hall to the front door. He followed. She opened the front door to the cottage, and they stared out at the jumble of people. “There’s where you need to be.” Her arm stretched out.

  The import of what she wanted him to do hit him full force. To bear the weight of the courtyard alone, to assume total responsibility. Surely this wasn’t what the rebbe intended when he asked Isaac to stay awhile. “I can’t!”

  “You can,” she said in an even voice.

  “I’m not a kabbalist! I don’t even have rabbinic ordination.” He looked sideways at her, and she appeared unmoved. “I don’t know how,” he said. “Besides, who could ever fill the rebbe’s shoes?” His voice cracked a little. “Not me. Absurd.”

  “ ‘In a place where there’s no man, be a man,’ ” she quoted the sages. “Look, it’s madness out there. Chaos.”

  He peered out, turtle-like, venturing only so far. “A flock without a shepherd,” he murmured.<
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  “So you see?” she said with a lilt in her voice. “Go.”

  “You keep saying that, but with all due respect, I can’t do this alone.”

  “Maybe you will have a little help,” Shaindel Bracha said ever so quietly.

  “Really? How?”

  “Maybe I can help you.” Her pale cheeks went even paler. “A little.”

  “What? Help me?” he sputtered. He stopped to contemplate the implication of her words. His brow furrowed in dismay. “Why, dear Rebbetzin, you couldn’t possibly—” His hand tried to complete the ridiculous thought. “You don’t know how to—” He broke off.

  “No one need know,” she said, lowering her voice even more. “It will be our little secret.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If he had to explain that she could never be in the same league as her husband, then what was the point? True, Shaindel Bracha possessed goodness. Like his mother, like many women. But greatness, to draw strength from weakness, to wring one pure tear from the most degenerate Jew, to stand up to evil—that was the province of the rebbe. “Rebbetzin,” he stalled, “I—”

  She clapped her hands as if the matter had been decided. “There’s nothing to worry about. Now out you go.” Without touching him she managed to get him out the door.

  And so he entered the courtyard. He passed between two men in wheelchairs who stared morosely at the trees while they smoked—refugees from the sewing factory. Mazal the beggar shuffled by, plastic bags spilling out of her pockets. “Tzedakah,” she said, jiggling her can under everyone’s nose. “My apartment burned down.” He gave her a few shekels, and she took a seat next to an odd-looking woman he knew was Mazal’s poor crazy daughter Frecha. Patches of hair stuck out like withered weeds from Frecha’s near bald head. The young woman called out from under the olive tree, “I slept with Melech. He was very good. I slept with Yonatan. So-so. Dudu I slept with. That one really loved me.” There were others in the courtyard, people he didn’t recognize. Even the cat seemed disoriented. Gilgul twisted midair and kept lunging at bushes and running from person to person.

  A Hassidic teenage boy, his face purpled with acne, rushed up to him. Isaac, hands clasped behind his back, tried to listen. It was the same courtyard, but how faded it looked. As if someone had fiddled with the knobs of the universe and altered the setting. A post-Rebbe Yehudah world. Even the sun looked different in the sky, bleached, sad. He glanced at a baby-faced soldier making his way through the courtyard. A teenager was playing patty-cake with someone’s toddler. A woman in a black dress with a shopping cart of laundry recited psalms under the olive tree. He went from one person to the next, listening to people, offering advice, taking down questions (Master of the Universe, he implored, what am I doing?) It didn’t seem real although he had done this a hundred times before. How could he care for them, respond to them? It was like being asked to explain the impossible. He stood alone, naked of protection and guidance. Unless you could call the delusional promise of the rebbetzin help and guidance.

  About an hour later, the courtyard’s iron gate creaked open and he saw Tamar step inside while unsnapping her helmet. She shook out her head, and her red hair flew, unbound. She paused near the rosemary bushes and took in the chaos at a glance. Next, she picked up Gilgul and cradled him, all the while her eyes wandering the courtyard. That’s when it struck Isaac. The fortieth day must have arrived. She’d completed the prayer circuit, hadn’t she? And things hadn’t gone well. Somehow, he didn’t think she would be here, in the courtyard, if she’d been answered.

  Isaac passed the bald Frecha, who was rambling: “If I find a shekel on the floor, I kiss it with two lips, but here nobody loves me, loves me like a shekel. Except maybe the army, maybe they will take me and love me.”

  “Ah, yes, Frecha,” said Isaac, and moved on, here nodding to a blearyeyed soldier, and there making an appeasing gesture to a mother jiggling a stroller. Then he stood before Tamar at the rosemary bush. She gazed at him, her face radiant and settled somehow, at odds with the frenzied air in the courtyard. Obviously she hadn’t heard of the rebbe’s passing. Maybe she had met someone after all. Her hair hung like two curtains around her tanned, freckled face.

  “Who is that?” Tamar inclined her head toward the bald woman.

  “Frecha. Mazal’s daughter.”

  “Oh!” She gave another look while she stroked Gilgul down to the soft orangy tip of his tail. He seemed to ease in her arms.

  “So.” Isaac brought his hands together. Something was definitely up. The shine in her eyes was remarkable. “May I ask—how did the dating go? Did you meet your basherte?” He couldn’t bear to bring up the rebbe’s passing—not yet.

  She glanced around at all the people, the noise. “You really want to hear? Now?”

  “If not now, when?” He turned briefly and threw a “Sha!” at a noisy pack of men.

  “What can I say?” A rueful smile played on her face. “I didn’t meet my soul mate. I didn’t meet anyone I wanted to marry.”

  “What?” He stopped. “No one?”

  She shook her head.

  “I see.” His shoulders tensed, as if waiting for blame and recriminations. “So why so happy?” he ventured.

  “Me?” Her green eyes turned into circles of surprise. “Happy?” As if on cue, Gilgul began purring in her arms.

  “Well, you don’t look as though you’ve been disappointed. And this, the second time. You seem happy.”

  She nodded. “I am, it’s true. At work, I just did my first major solicitation—by myself. It wasn’t a lot—two thousand dollars. But I pulled it off.”

  “Unbelievable!” he said, each syllable getting its due.

  “And guess what? They’re talking about giving me a raise. These rabbis think I’m a crackerjack fund-raiser.” She glanced at Gilgul, his whole body click-clicking with purrs. “Can you believe it?” She was grinning madly at him.

  “Of course,” he said. “What can’t you do? You are making your mark in the world.” He looked at Tamar. “How does it feel?”

  A throng of sparrows flew out of a tall tree in a great big rush. The two faced each other, waiting for the noise to die down.

  “I feel”—her eyes flicked upward, tracking a helicopter going by in the distance—“useful,” she said, and paused, as if testing the word and finding it sound. “It’s the best feeling in the world. In my own way, I can help students learn Torah, and pay teachers’ and cooks’ and janitors’ salaries.” She stopped, her eyes closing, as if fighting off a little lump climbing up her throat. “I can help people,” she said, and then he saw tears collecting under her lids. “Do you know how extraordinary that is?”

  He stared, puzzled. Why the emotion? And then he remembered his old work at the haberdashery, the socks, the ties and hats, what it meant to have a job that meant little to him, that drained him and chafed against his soul, no matter which way he sold it to himself, and then to come to the courtyard and feel in some way he was coming closer to the work he was put on this earth to do. A tear hung at the tip of her pale eyelash and fell onto her cheek. She wiped the tear away with an impatient movement and turned toward the street, still holding the cat against her stomach. “I feel like such an idiot,” she muttered, “crying about work. After all, everybody works.”

  A great wave of tenderness came over him out of nowhere. He scratched at his neck. “Sha, sha,” he said gently.

  The air in the courtyard was thick with honeysuckle and jasmine, sharpened by rosemary.

  “But where’s my basherte?” She swiveled around, her hair making a red fan against her neck. Gilgul lifted his head and stared quizzically at Isaac. “I’m not letting God off the hook, or you.”

  Isaac stepped back, hands up, startled. “So that’s how it stands?”

  She nodded smartly. “I prayed for forty days. I asked for only one thing, just like you said to: my soul mate. It was the hardest thing I ever attempted, focusing like that. It was never explicitly guarant
eed, of course, but to be honest, I’m disappointed. Bitterly so.” And she waited, her helmet at her feet.

  He lifted his face toward the sky. Master of the Universe, what now? Then: “Maybe you were answered.” The words fell out of his mouth.

  Her eyes swung sharply toward his. She gazed at him. She stared and stared. He saw a smile gathering in her cheeks and eyes. A knock in his chest. A thump. He said, “Maybe it wasn’t even from this second round of prayers you were answered,” he said, “but the first time you tried.”

  “Oh yeah?” she said, her voice hoarse, not taking her eyes off any inch of his face. She was grinning at him, and he couldn’t help grin back.