A Narrow Bridge

by J. J. Gesher

  Mo rambled on. “You know, sometimes if you make things look right on the outside, people get to believin’ that things are gonna be right on the inside. I read that some big professor at one of those fancy schools did an experiment that proved it. He had a bunch of folks hold a pencil in their teeth when they watched a cartoon. Like this,” he said, biting down on a ruler from the toolbox. He gripped the ruler lengthwise between his teeth, forcing his face into a jack o’ lantern grin.

  He quickly removed the ruler and continued talking. “And another bunch watched the same cartoon regular, no pencil. Damn if the people holdin’ the pencil in their teeth didn’t think the cartoon was funnier that the do-nothin’ group. Why do you think that was?” Jacob waited for Mo’s conclusion. The old man was a breathing archive of Reader’s Digest articles.

  Mo paused dramatically, and then drove his point home. “Because the group holdin’ the pencil already had their mouths in a smile. See, sometimes things work from the outside in.”

  Jacob nodded in agreement but didn’t offer a comment. Instead, he moved to the pews to examine the splintered wood that had absorbed the gunshot.

  “You and Rosie seem to be getting along.” Mo tried to take any edge off his voice, like this was simply another topic of conversation. Jacob said nothing.

  “She’s been through a lot. Deadbeat husband and all.”

  Jacob pretended not to hear Mo’s prattle and addressed the work at hand. “These pews need a few pieces of mahogany and a good sander.”

  Mo looked straight at him and sucked his tooth.

  CHAPTER 32

  Rosie parked her car in the spot reserved for visitors in the Brent Police Station parking lot. Sergeant Michaelson, the officer who had handled the break-in, sat behind his desk. In front of him were two computer screens: one showed current police activity; the other was for Michaelson’s own research. When Rosie walked in, he stood up and shook her hand.

  “Sorry for the mess,” he offered, clearing a few files from a chair so Rosie could sit.

  Michaelson reviewed his notes: the break-in, the destruction, the shooting. Jacob’s version of the events made sense, but Michaelson was concerned that Jacob couldn’t verify his own identity. He had no driver’s license, no credit cards, and no passport, and he was unable or unwilling to supply a last name. Fortunately, Mo had spoken highly of Jacob’s character.

  “The case is pretty cut and dried. Those two have extensive records, and we have plenty of evidence against them,” the sergeant added.

  Rosie wanted to use Michaelson as her confessor. She wanted to hang her head and admit that she’d slept with a man whose full name she did not know. Rosie, who wasn’t a risk taker, had allowed her neediness to override her reason. But she didn’t say anything revealing. Instead, she asked, “How do I find out who Jacob is? He says he can’t remember how he got here. Or why.”

  Michaelson sighed. “Do you know how many people go missing each year? Tens of thousands. Some are foul play, but most are folks who got sick of their lives and walked out. Maybe he doesn’t want to get found.”

  “Someone must be looking for him. Isn’t there a list of some kind?”

  “Mrs. Yarber, I wish I could help you. This is a huge country, and we’re a small-town police force. You’re better off checking with the FBI. They keep a database.” He jotted down a website address on a Post-it and handed it to her. “Public information. Look for yourself.”

  As she got in her car, she again considered the possibility that Jacob had run away from something. Kala said he could be bullshitting, but he didn’t seem like a fugitive. He was helpful and brave, risking his neck to stop the skinheads. Clearly his problems were beyond her ability to comprehend. She should stop rummaging in Jacob’s mess of a life and try to move forward with her own. He had to leave. She needed to patch him up and help him find his way home. It would be best for everyone.

  Later that night, after the dinner dishes were put away and the lesson plans reviewed, Rosie opened her laptop. She tried the FBI website that Sergeant Michaelson had suggested and began to scroll through the thousands of faces—every age and every race—that made up the database. Even after she narrowed her search to white males between thirty and forty, there were still thousands of faces. At first, she read the short blurb on each missing person; then, growing weary, she scrolled through the pictures. The sheer volume of people frustrated her.

  Langston came in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

  “What are you looking for?” Rosie asked.

  “I don’t know. Somethin’ good.” Langston flopped in a chair. “I’m bored.”

  Here she was occupied with all these missing sons and daughters while her own son was right there under her roof, asking for company. She was always so busy—with lessons and essays, cooking and cleaning. Not tonight.

  “Me too,” Rosie agreed. She shut down the computer. “How about a game of Crazy Eights?”

  Langston’s face lit up. He loved games of all kinds, but cards were a favorite.

  Rosie hugged her son and rocked him side to side, “Have I told you that you are one terrific kid?”

  Langston groaned. “You tell me every day.”

  “Close your eyes.” He complied. Rosie kissed his lids. “Do you know what that means?”

  Langston shook his head, wiping the kiss away.

  “It means that I love you. Only people who love you will kiss you on the eyes.” She released him and grabbed the playing cards from the kitchen junk drawer. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll let you win.”

  As the rain fell steadily outside, Jacob worked to erase any traces of the damage at First Baptist. He fixated on the immediate gratification of smoothing the grain and restoring the woodwork. He was pleased that the new pews looked nearly identical to the old ones.

  He reconstructed the other night in his head as he meticulously fitted pieces of mahogany onto the beat-up pews. He remembered the noise in the church as the vandals broke the windows. He saw their angry, drunken expressions and felt their blows to his head and stomach. He saw himself pointing the gun at the tatted intruder.

  His thoughts turned to Rosie—the taste of her mouth, her raw energy and need—and his own fierce passion. That had been real, so real that he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His thoughts—of the vandals, of his own desire for death, of his need for human contact—tumbled over one another, vying for dominance.

  Jacob was startled from his reverie when Mo came in. “I hope this’ll be my last trip for supplies,” Mo said as he shook the rain from his hair and clothes. He inspected Jacob’s completed work. “Nice job.”

  Rosie came in right behind Mo.

  “Hey Rosie,” Mo said.

  Jacob’s greeting was awkward. “Hello.”

  Rosie kept an upbeat tone. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Should have most of this place back in order by Sunday,” Mo said proudly.

  An uncomfortable silence followed. Rosie studied her feet while Jacob ran his hands over a rough patch of wood.

  Mo made a self-conscious excuse. “Well, I gotta check on…something.”

  He hastily left the chapel. Rosie moved closer to Jacob and admired his work. “You can’t tell the difference.”

  “Can you hand me that schlissel?” he asked.

  “The what?”

  “I meant the wrench.” Jacob looked down at the pew, busying his hands while his mind raced. He’d slipped and used a Yiddish word.

  “Why did you call it a schlissel?” Rosie tried to make her mouth say the strange-sounding word.

  He deflected the question, “That’s the first thing that popped into my head.”

  She rummaged around the toolbox and took a deep breath. The words came haltingly. “I need to talk to you about the other night.”

  Jacob looked at her. He remembered the hollows in her neck that he had kissed, the nutty smell of her sweat.

  Rosie filled the silence. “I don’t know what got into me. Tha
t was crazy. I don’t do things like that. You don’t know anything about me. And I don’t know anything about you.”

  Jacob nodded in agreement. They had no business being together.

  As she handed him the wrench, their hands touched.

  Her body language was rigid and unyielding. “I made a mistake. That…can’t happen again.”

  Jacob nodded.

  Rosie turned away. “I have to go.”

  As he watched her cross the street, he felt an aching in his chest. He desired Rosie, but he longed for Julia. Thinking about his beautiful young wife threw him into a cauldron of self-loathing. He’d been intimate with another woman. He felt the powerful weight of guilt and the regret that his life could go on when his family was gone.

  The house was quiet. Langston was in his room doing homework. Mo was watching football in his bedroom. Rosie poured herself a glass of chardonay from a bottle that she kept in the back of the refrigerator. After so many months of keeping her emotions in check, she wasn’t ready for this tempest. She waited for the warmth that usually came after a few sips of wine.

  Rosie had always liked puzzles. She was good at them. The prepackaged jigsaws with pictures of the Grand Canyon challenged her. Making sense out of a mess of random pieces could keep her occupied for hours. The more she learned about Jacob, the more he reminded her of one of those jigsaws. She could see there was a whole human being in front of her, but she didn’t know how to put him together.

  She took out her legal pad with the notes about Jacob. She added “carpenter” and “German? Amish?” to the list of his attributes.

  CHAPTER 33

  Hava hoped that a trip to the supermarket would take her mind off what Detective Rosenberg had told her. He’d called to tell her that DNA evidence from the bomber in the bus explosion had identified a recently released prison inmate, with a history of mental illness. No political organization had claimed him, nor had he left any letter or recording to further a cause. He’d missed the last meeting with his parole officer and hadn’t filled his medication prescription in months. Detective Rosenberg had been right all along—the bomber was a deranged rogue. At least there was an explanation, even if it was insanity.

  Naomi’s new baby had forced Hava back into the world. The colicky infant distracted her with his round-the-clock needs. She still had a knack for calming a baby. She swaddled, sang, patted, and paced so he could relax into sleep. Naomi was grateful for a few hours of peace, and Hava could divert herself from unhealthy thoughts. Her grandchildren were refuge, but thoughts of her own son always intruded. She missed him desperately.

  She had decided to stop looking for answers. She’d gone to see the rabbi for counseling, and he spouted the same platitudes that he said at every funeral or shiva. She argued with him—she couldn’t accept that God had a plan that involved so much loss and suffering. But she also couldn’t face a world without God. For all of her sixty-four years, she’d found comfort in the rituals and restrictions of religious life and joy in belonging to a community. So she decided to stop searching for a benevolent God—the one she believed in before the tragedy—and get on with living. When issues of faith entered her head, she pushed them away and focused on minutiae.

  Hava had always enjoyed shopping for food. She’d walk up and down the aisles hoping to be inspired. Sometimes she’d bring home an interesting piece of produce to try in a new recipe on her grandchildren. Last week she made spaghetti squash with tomato sauce. Only the toddler really thought it was spaghetti. The other children knew they were being duped.

  Hava caught a glimpse of herself in the refrigerator case when she rounded the frozen food section. She almost didn’t recognize the reflection, and the response to her own image unsettled her. Once, years ago, she and her husband had celebrated an anniversary at a fancy kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side. The back wall of the dining room was mirrored, and as they entered Hava saw her own reflection. For one split second it didn’t register that she was looking at herself, and she remembered thinking that the “other” woman was beautiful. Now she noted that the other woman was nice-looking—but no longer beautiful. She fixed her headscarf and straightened her blouse as she appraised herself.

  A voice with a heavy Yiddish accent startled her. “Are you practicing for the fashion parade?”

  Hava immediately recognized eighty-year-old Rivka Edelman and laughed off the old woman’s comment. She gave her a quick hug. “How are you, Rivka?”

  “How should I be when I have to schlep around by myself getting food for the week?” Rivka waved her arthritic right hand over her shopping cart. In the cart sat one loaf of bread, one quart of milk, instant coffee, two cans of tuna, three bananas, a dozen eggs, and toilet paper.

  “Where’s your daughter?” Hava asked.

  “Her youngest boy has a kidney stone, and she’s over him like an eagle. How could a twenty-year-old get a stone?”

  Hava fell into Rivka’s rhythm. “I don’t think kidney stones ask about someone’s age before they visit.”

  “Nothing asks for permission before it visits. Look at my hand.” Rivka held up her left hand, which had a large bruise covering the back. “I woke up three days ago and I got this thing on me. I asked the doctor what it was. Maybe I bumped myself in the night? I move all over like a jumping bean. Maybe I banged it on the nightstand? You know what he said?”

  Rivka didn’t wait for an answer. “He said that it comes from old age and that he hopes he lives long enough to get one.”

  Hava couldn’t get a word in. The old woman kept yammering as if she hadn’t talked in months.

  Rivka held up two fingers. “Do you know what this represents?”

  Hava shrugged. Why bother trying to respond?

  “It’s the number of husbands I’ve had. Izzy died, and two years later I married Abe—a good man—one bad hip but otherwise perfect. It was a shock when his heart gave out. He was only eighty-four. I would look around for another one, but I don’t want to wash someone else’s socks again.” She took a breath and continued her monologue. “You’re younger than me. You shouldn’t be alone. Have you talked to the rabbi? He knows people.”

  It took Hava a moment before she realized that Rivka was suggesting that she ask the rabbi to set her up in a marriage.

  “Rivka, I’m nowhere near ready to meet someone. It’s less than a year since Julia and the children—”

  Rivka cut her off, “Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t wait out the year—but then what? It’s your responsibility to be a good Jew, and you know what good Jews do? They choose life.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Hava said. She was willing to acquiesce to any nonsense to get rid of this busybody and go on with her day. Rivka squeezed Hava’s arm hard enough to leave fingerprints and shuffled her cart down the aisle.

  What an insensitive and ridiculous person, thought Hava as she rubbed her arm. Who would the rabbi suggest I marry anyway?

  “Nonsense!” she said out loud as she smoothed her skirt.

  As Hava unpacked her groceries, she found herself thinking about Rivka Edelman’s suggestion. The idea left her cold. She thought of the few divorced men and widowers she knew in the community—the ones who were appropriate for her age were either repulsive or ancient. Her husband had been an attractive man and a good provider. Only as a father did he fall short.

  Hava never felt that her husband was to blame for his poor parenting. Aaron was the only son of Holocaust survivors who damaged him with repeated stories of suffering and loss. Even after decades in the United States, his parents kept to themselves. They lived in constant fear of persecution and passed that anxiety on to their child. Aaron’s own fears turned inward to depression and outward to anger. Jacob had been his primary target.

  Jacob’s paternal grandparents died before he was born, but his father relayed their stories, passing survivors’ guilt and dread to a third generation. Naomi was an easy child, compliant and passive, but Jacob tested the limits. Aaron kept his
son in line through harsh criticism and constant punishment. But Jacob’s natural ebullience and curiosity could not be contained. As soon as he was old enough to walk home by himself, he started exploring. In retrospect, it was only natural that Jacob would rebel completely.

  By sixteen, Jacob’s interest in music propelled him away from Torah study and family. Aaron was adamant that Jacob was on the wrong path. Jacob argued with his father, point for point, validating his choices with facts and the corroborating opinions of others. Although Jacob was not a weak person, the daily barrage of attacks eroded his sense of self. To survive, he left home. Hava pretended to give him free reign by looking the other way and secretly providing him with money.

  Jacob descended into random couch surfing and substance abuse. Hava believed that his involvement with drugs came from disappointment. And she, his mother, had disappointed him more than anyone else. He must have known deep down that she thought his music was frivolous. She had often told him, “You love music, but you’re not a musician.” How could she know what he was, what he could achieve? Her inability to believe in her son seeped into his life and poisoned his soul. Drugs dulled his disillusion.

  Eventually, Aaron found out that Hava was giving Jacob money and banned him from the house. When he overdosed, Aaron begrudgingly found a rehab program in Israel. As soon as he finished detoxing, Hava packed his bag, picked him up from the hospital, and put him on a plane to Tel Aviv. His father never even said goodbye.

  The program was called Yitziah, or the Way Forward. A well-respected American rabbi, himself a former addict, ran Yitziah like a kibbutz, with all members handling the chores and upkeep, food and laundry. Other than prayer services and daily Torah study, the program followed the outlines of secular twelve-step programs, with lots of group sessions and individual counseling. A full year was mandatory, necessary to facilitate real behavioral change. Jacob could call home only once a month. If his father answered, he’d immediately pass the phone to Hava.