Questioning Return

by Beth Kissileff

  After he left the bathroom, Donny stood for a moment in the hall outside the bathroom to say the bathroom prayer. Wendy heard him saying something quietly, in a soft whisper. She called out, “What?” confused that he was not responding.

  He finished his recitation, entered the living room, and stood above her, looking down at her on the couch.

  “Can I get you something to drink, a slice of avatiach? I got it at the shuk this morning.”

  “I should get back. It’s late,” he said rationally before adding, “Yeah, sure, I’ll have some avatiach before I go.”

  Wendy stood, shakily, and then said, “I don’t even know what to cut it with. I must have some knives here.”

  “Don’t worry, if it’s too much trouble.”

  “No, I’m glad you walked me home. I want to give you something.” As soon as she said those words, she felt her error. He would take it as suggestive. It felt suggestive, though she wasn’t entirely sure what the suggestion would be. He smiled at her; she smiled back, looking at him facing her. She walked over to the counter where the knives could be. She opened a drawer and found a huge knife, long and sharp enough to cut the watermelon, and a new plastic cutting board. She took the hunk of watermelon from her fridge and surrendered it to the counter. With Donny watching, Wendy started to hack at the fruit. The knife seemed powerless, or she was just not strong enough to prevail against the tough rind.

  Finally, Donny stepped in. “Allow me. I have great knife skills from my time as a line cook.” He expertly cleaved the chunk of watermelon in two and then dismantled it, stripping the pink juicy flesh from the rind and cutting it into even, bite-size pieces as Wendy stood back, gazing mutely. His body seemed different now with a knife, his movements confident and precise, knowing exactly where each digit and limb should go, how much pressure to apply where. He was in a zone of competency, wielding each section of his body with the same grace as the knife in his hand as he chopped. She looked at him from the side, noting the tautness of his body, the way his perfectly sized butt filled his black cotton dress pants nicely.

  “Do you have a bowl for this?” he asked, stepping back, task completed.

  Wendy stopped her admiration of his carving skills and opened the cabinets to find a simple clear-glass bowl. She handed it to him. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know how to deal with the tough rind.” That sounded stupid, she thought to herself. Why am I worrying? I don’t like him. I’m just being polite.

  He scooped the chunks of fruit from the cutting board with his hand, dripping their pink juices into the bowl. He handed her the bowl, smiling, and rinsed his hands under the sink. “You just need to know the technique. Do things as simply as possible, expend the least amount of effort. Make the fewest cuts in the rind and work the soft flesh.” He dried his hands on a dish towel, fished out a piece from the bowl, and started to hand it to her. She moved closer to him, and opened her mouth. He reached to her mouth and inserted the watermelon directly in her mouth, instead of placing it in her hand as she’d expected. She clenched her teeth around the fruit and he took his hand away without having touched her, as the laws of shomer negia, not touching a member of the opposite sex before marriage, would demand. She put her hand to her mouth to take the remainder of the piece, and when she was done with the first part, chewed the rest. “Mmm, you try some,” she said, handing him a piece. As she did, he moved close enough to take the piece in his mouth. She held it in his mouth; he made no motion to put his hand up to take it. Her hand was close to his mouth, though the fruit was between them so they were still not touching. After swallowing the first bit, he slowly reached his mouth around the fruit and her fingers. She held them there, enjoying the sensation of juices mingling with his tongue on her flesh.

  She licked her lips, the sozzled feeling from the glasses of wine at dinner making her bolder than she was otherwise. She stretched another piece towards his mouth. He kissed her fingers as she positioned the watermelon between his lips.

  Then, he put a piece of watermelon in his mouth and walked closer to her, close enough that she could take it from him with her own lips. They were standing so that only the piece of watermelon, clenched in both their mouths, was between them. Now, drops of pink juice were scattering the floor as they stood facing each other, watermelon between them. She moved closer, pink flesh mingling as lips and fruit met. They were kissing. He put his arm on her waist tenderly and leaned in.

  Wendy felt surprised but pleased by this turn of events. She wouldn’t have pegged him a good kisser, but he was, knowing when to smooth over her lips and when to apply pressure. So different from Matt, the crew rower, who, though so suave in most arenas, was totally awful as a kisser, unaware of how to hold his lips on hers. I am going to enjoy this year more than I thought, she joyfully intoned to herself as she leaned closer to Donny.

  He pulled back. “I shouldn’t. I’ve been shomer negia more than a year . . . I don’t know, something happened. Having that knife in my hand . . . Part of the appeal of the restaurant was the proximity of others; I had so many girls there . . . I’m sorry.” He put his head down to the ground in shame and began walking to the door. His manners got the better of his shame and he added, “I . . . you’re a nice girl. I . . . can’t just go kiss a girl every time I find her attractive. You . . . you’re not . . . I want to find my basherte. I wish I could stay . . . Forgive me.” He scuttled out of the room as quickly as he could in light of this confession.

  Wendy stood in place, watermelon juice still dripping off her mouth. She found a dish towel on her counter, and wiped her lips and chin, still staring at the door. What just happened here? Did he seduce me and leave, or did I seduce him and he left? Did I want it or was I playing along, flattered as always at any attention? Did he take advantage of me, thinking secular women are easy? I felt like he was weak and lacked confidence, but then something happened; he was different with the knife; he had this kinetic energy whirling about him. Were we equal participants or was I playing a game of corrupt the yeshiva student? The rules may not have been fair, but she wanted to play. He didn’t seem averse; after all, he came into her apartment even if the door was open, and drew close to her to hand her the watermelon. But still, she shouldn’t have let herself play; he wasn’t someone she had any interest in, and it wasn’t fair to toy with someone else’s feelings. That was it: they each had an attraction for the other, but there was no feeling on either of their parts. She wasn’t religious enough for him and he wasn’t academically inclined enough for her; there was absolutely no reason for the allure between them. She could say she was slightly inebriated, or disoriented from the dislocation of being in a new place, both throwing her usual restraints off. Those excuses were false; she knew the kiss happened because of the attraction, which existed like so many other things in life: illogical, irrational, preposterous, but present and enticing. Like the gorgeous male voice in the synagogue, something she was drawn to without knowing why. How many more gaffes would there be this year? How many times would she be drawn elsewhere than expected with unknown consequences? Her desire was like a surging current; once she had thrown herself into the water after it, she would be buffeted to and fro until the waters finally ceased foaming. I want to find a guy worthy of risking the battering and buffeting of the current of desire, who would similarly want to hold on to me as we journeyed the risky course together, avoiding the shoals that could force a vessel ashore.

  She imagined a big warning sign from the anthropology department: Never kiss a member of your subject population or you will be unable to write objectively ever again. Would this kiss derail her dissertation? Wendy was determined to have a good time this year and to get her research done—clearly neither was a simple task in Jerusalem.

  FOUR

  Bayit Ne’Eman

  People are walking in the counterfeit city / whose heavens passed like shadows, / and no one trembles. Sloping lanes conceal / the greatness of her past.

  —LEAH GOLDBERG, “Hea
venly Jerusalem, Jerusalem of the Earth”

  On Sunday, after her first ulpan class at the university on Mount Scopus, Wendy took the number nine bus through the center of town. She was glad to have the intricacies of Hebrew verb conjugations and new vocabulary to focus on to get the sensation of Donny’s kiss and her surging desire, kissing him back, out of her head. It would come back at random moments for the next few weeks she guessed. It wasn’t the biggest misstep ever, or the worst, just yet another thing she shouldn’t have done. Hopefully she wouldn’t see him again and wouldn’t have to feel like a sleaze; she’d been involved with guys in ways she regretted in high school, but not recently, and thought that was in her past.

  After the bus left the center of town, it crawled down Aza Street. She asked another passenger about the stop and got off before the corner of Rav Berlin Street. The café From Gaza to Berlin was there at the intersection, as Avner Zakh, the Fulbright advisor, had told her. She was proud of herself for getting around in this new place; that only lasted until Wendy entered the air conditioned café and realized that she had no clue what Zakh looked like.

  As she gazed around the room, she saw in her peripheral vision a tall man with mostly dark hair, bits of gray jutting out here and there. He was wearing a navy kipah seruga, knit headcovering of the modern Orthodox, and jaunted over to her athletically, bouncing as though he were on a basketball court.

  “Wundy?”

  Israelis couldn’t pronounce her name. Her ulpan teacher this morning had insisted on calling her “Varda,” her Hebrew name, which she’d always hated for the clumsiness of the sound. An awkward name, like Helga or Ursula, its syllables slogged together in an unlovely clump like an overweight older woman with a headscarf and heavy calves in orthopedic shoes.

  “Professor Zakh?” she held out her hand in greeting.

  He nodded at her without taking her hand. “Nice to meet. Shall we get some coffee?”

  They went to the small counter in the back of the store and gave their orders: lemonade for Wendy, espresso for Zakh. They found a table by the window and sat across from each other. “I apologize in advance. I don’t have much time today. I’m attending the parsha class at the Van Leer. I’d invite you to come, but I understand you don’t have enough Hebrew to follow a lecture.”

  “Not yet. Today was my first day of ulpan.”

  “We have an excellent ulpan here. It went well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want you to tell you, I find your dissertation project very interesting. We’ve never had faculty in American religion, but we are now cultivating a donor in American studies. They want a . . . how do you say . . . department? Not that, a . . .”

  “Program?”

  “Right. Americanists in all departments—history, literature, political science—to make a program for students who are interested. We’ll see; these things always take time. Anyway, here’s my home number.” He took a small notepad out of his pocket, wrote his name in Hebrew and English with his number and address below it, and said, “Call with any questions. The bus lines, where to get good felafel, whatever. I’ve been Fulbright advisor for a few years. Can I guess what you need? E-mail, library privileges, pizza?”

  She nodded.

  “E-mail and library, go to the overseas student office, the Rothberg building. Ask for Donna. Tell her you’re with me and she’ll take care of you. Pizza. Where are you living?”

  “Rehov Mishael, near Rahel Emainu.”

  “Pizza Sababa; they deliver. Burger Bar, right on Emek Refaim, has the best hamburgers, students say. Tov?” he asked.

  “Are other students here?”

  “Not yet. No one else is taking ulpan. Our first formal meeting is not till September, when they all arrive. I’ll have my secretary send a letter. We’ll be in touch.” He looked at his watch. “I don’t want to be late.”

  Wendy saved the most important question for the end. “The thing I need most help with is how to interview people. Where should I start? How should I find places to find interview subjects?”

  He looked at her, puzzled. “Go to the Kotel. The recruiters pick you up; you’ll see where they send people. Yerushalayim is a small town. You’ll meet plenty of your hozrei b’teshuvah.”

  “My what?”

  “Hozrei b’teshuvah, returnees.”

  “What’s the difference between that and baalei teshuvah?”

  He laughed. “Hozer is return, and teshuvah is answer, so they are returning to the answer. If someone is dati and stops being dati, we say they are hozer b’sh’ailah, returning to the question. You, Wundy, are questioning the returners.” He got up to go. Standing, he said, “I’ll look forward to working with you this year. Naim meod. You’ll do fine.”

  She watched him walk out of the café with that spry lift in his step, and wasn’t sure whether he’d helped her or not. Was he a jerk for cutting the meeting short or a good guy for making time for her? Funny, male academics, with their vanity about their time and how busy they were, did not change over oceans, she thought. The level of self-importance was a constant. Zakh did give her some advice; she’d just been hoping for more. She needed more direction: which schools would be good places to try, how to approach the administrators. What if she couldn’t get into any of these places to talk to students? What if after getting this fellowship and settling in a new place she couldn’t do her project? She’d have to try to get help, from him or someone else. No matter what, she just had to keep going. It was what everyone said about a dissertation: persistence was the most important factor. Not talent or ideas, just stubborn refusal to give up. As she finished her lemonade she opened up her notebook to study the Hebrew verb lebanot, to build, that she had started learning in ulpan that morning.

  Wendy followed Zakh’s advice to go to the Kotel, the Western Wall, on her third Friday night in Israel. The prior week, she lay down for a nap Friday afternoon and woke up long after dark, exhausted from six intensive hours of studying Hebrew verb forms each day.

  If Mahane Yehuda was a collision with all manner of foodstuff and produce, the Kotel on Friday evening was a confrontation with every species of humanity. Wendy was overwhelmed by the mass spectacle as she stood where the cab dropped her off by the Zion Gate, so many others thronging towards the spot. Once she arrived at the stairwell that overlooked the Kotel Plaza, she went through the security check and leaned over the railing to gaze out at the crowd. She wished she had more anthropological training. How to categorize each group? There were Japanese or Korean tourists, snapping photo after photo, all in matching white polo shirts with carnelian red trim and red skorts for women, red shorts for men, and matching white baseball hats for their tour group, so the leader could find strays easily. On the men’s side, she could see from her aerial position, there were various groups massed together, some dancing in a circle. By contrast the women’s side consisted of discrete individuals, each with her own liturgy, no attempt at unison.

  There was nothing moving about any of the particulars of the scene; if anything, Wendy felt sad that the women praying at the Kotel seemed so singular, so without the protection of a mass, but each sobbing, alone against the wall. Yet, the entirety of the spectacle moved her. People came to connect with something beyond themselves. This was the place Jews had been pulled and drawn to for so many thousands of years.

  As she watched women praying by themselves, leaderless, each woman separate, the voice of the mysterious harmonizer at Shir Tzion came into her mind. How did he sing with the melody of the group, yet improvise his own sound beyond it, totally individuated? Could she find a way to do that, to feel herself part of the group, not an outsider alone and detached, yet still able to sing independently?

  She listened to the group of men singing joyfully on their side of the Kotel, and thought back to an undergraduate party she had been to for members of a Columbia singing group and a visiting group from another college. It was at the alumni club, a space unlike any she’d been in at Columbia,
with old wooden beams in the ceiling and leaded glass windows. It exuded the solidity of a Tudor style house. She hadn’t known a building like this existed on the mostly urban campus, sandwiched among much higher structures to either side on Riverside Drive. Either the singing group’s CDs were selling really well, or there was an incredibly generous alumnus out there. The guests were drinking from an open bar and nibbling copious hors d’oeuvres. Suddenly, someone in the middle of the room started singing. People spontaneously gravitated—a powerful current of force propelling them—to the spot where the singing had started. Without choreography or staging, a natural grouping occurred, as though they were a flock of birds, a collusion of singers banding together, jamming. Wendy stood at their periphery. She wasn’t sure what exactly was so moving about the experience, whether the talent and youth of the singers, or the way she heard individual parts but also the totality, different from what each individual brought alone. Not a singer herself, Wendy was glad to be in their presence, absorbing the joy and spontaneity she felt in the room. She remembered walking home on a silent Riverside Drive with her date, and asking what he liked most about singing. His response? “Eliciting emotions from the audience.” He added, “It’s what I like most about sex, making a woman feel good and watching her in pleasure.” Then, he had kissed her.

  Now, Wendy longed to know where Donny was at this moment. Would he go back to working at a restaurant one day? He seemed so different when he was chopping. She remembered walking with him, laughing about Shani’s ridiculous turban, listening to his story of his parents disapproving of him, the sight of his adorable posterior chopping, and the kiss. Would they kiss again? Wendy fantasized that he would sneak out of his yeshiva late at night and come to her apartment, knocking on her door, telling her he had to see her again. Her rational self knew that he was embarrassed that they had kissed; the fantasy scenario was unlikely. Still, watching the others praying, seeing their sense of knowing what they were here for, what they were doing, only increased Wendy’s sense of aloneness. She thought, I guess I need to pray that I make some friends this year, to have a group of people, or even just one person, to talk to and joke with, who will understand me and listen to what I am doing and care. Donny isn’t that person, but he’s the closest I’ve come in the last three weeks . . .