“This is a highly unusual situation,” he said.
“I’m giving you an opportunity. You can turn a negative into a positive. That’s a mitzvah, right?” she said hopefully. She didn’t want to say more than she had to about Donny because she didn’t want to get him in trouble or kicked out of the yeshiva, but also so that she wouldn’t be viewed as a threat, a potentially provocative and available young woman, disrupting everything the yeshiva stood for. She had already given the rabbi a hint of a suggestion that one of his students had acted inappropriately with her and that she could make this public and besmirch the yeshiva’s name if he didn’t cooperate. Though not in so many words, she was muting her naturally blunt personality for this, trying to speak ever so delicately and subtly, to hint without stating outright.
“Explain to me what you’re doing here,” Rabbi Gibber said.
“I am writing about the ways baalei teshuvah tell their stories when they understand themselves as religious people.” She saw that she hadn’t yet blundered and she had his attention, so she continued, “My survey can help you two ways. You can get quotes from students to use in your promotional material. And, you can learn what a student won’t tell you but will write in an anonymous survey about having trouble with his, ah . . .”
“His yetzer ha-ra, evil inclination,” the rabbi said euphemistically.
“His yetzer ha-ra”—Wendy was proud of herself that she got the inflection down pat—“must affect other students too. You could find out and try to help them if you knew the problems they were grappling with. I could even let you add your own questions and give out forms with yours and mine together. That way, you could find out what you want.”
The rabbi looked straight past Wendy at the back wall of his office, his eyes focused in thought.
“Hand out your sample questionnaires today. I’ll have someone get back to you about our part in the next few weeks. It’s more complicated, the second section of your project interviewing students . . . Even if there is no yichud. It’s too close to ma’aras ayin, looking improper.”
“What if the interviews are in a public place, like a hotel lobby?”
“It might appear you are on a shidduch date. That wouldn’t look acceptable.”
“If I interviewed students in the offices here with the female secretaries outside?”
“Unmarried men and women shouldn’t be spending time together.”
“Don’t you want to be able to say on a brochure or other promotional material that this is such a fine institution that people come from Ivy League schools in the States, from Princeton, to observe the students? Isn’t that something you’d like to tell your supporters?” She saw him nod. “Can’t we find a way to make this work? I . . . like being in Israel, the Yiddishkeit. My grandmother keeps kosher.” She pulled out all the stops saying this last bit, in the hope that it would work again.
He began, “Rabbi Lifter is permitting it.” She did not interrupt but gazed at him hopefully. He continued, “If you interviewed students in these offices, with open doors and others present outside, yes, it could work. Dress modestly. You’ve already seen how easily . . . distractable . . . our students are. If your grandmother is religious, G-d willing, you’ll find your way back too. I’m glad you spoke to me—our work here is too important to let one student’s yetzer hara distract us. Your project should have much hatzlacha, success. It’s good for you to be around religious people.”
Wendy was too jubilant to be annoyed that he seemed concerned with helping her so she could be around religious people and perhaps return herself, rather than because she actually had serious professional ambitions. He would not be so patronizing with a male graduate student, she intuited. No matter, the patronizing might just be his personality; for herself, she was getting closer to her research goals and that was the most important thing now.
She left a stack of questionnaires with self-addressed and stamped envelopes on his desk for Rabbi Gibber to distribute.
Wendy had been looking forward to this date at the Jerusalem Cinematheque with Noah for the longest time. They hadn’t seen each other in over a week, since she was spending her time at the seminaries and yeshivas, passing out questionnaires, and doing reading at the university library on Mount Scopus. Noah was taking classes on Mount Scopus and at Wisdom, but somehow their schedules didn’t jibe and they weren’t ever at the university at the same time.
Wendy had seen a poster in the neighborhood for a ten-day film festival, A Moveable Feast: Food on Film, and walked over to the Cinematheque, descending into the Hinnom Valley, next to the Yemin Moshe neighborhood where she had been to the lecture with Orly. On a whim, she looked over the film schedule and bought two Thursday night tickets for Babette’s Feast, picking it over Eat Drink Man Woman and hoping Noah would come, and figuring Todd from her Fulbright group or Orly or even Dara would be her alternatives. Of all the films in the docket of showings, this one interested her because her grad school friend Matt Lewis had written a paper on it for his Religion on Film class. She remembered Matt’s explanation of cinema and the sacred, as she stood looking around the fancy lobby, much nicer than many other public buildings due to its foreign patrons and the support of Mayor Teddy Kollek.
Compared to other art forms, film was one that had an ability to disclose the holy since it directed viewers’ attention to the vividness of reality and the ineffable mysteries in the presence of concrete persons, places, and events. She was annoyed with Noah for not being here yet when the movie was going to start shortly. Thinking about what Matt had said, Wendy found his rhetoric pretentious and even slightly bogus, but she was still curious about this film, with what he said were the most gorgeous shots of exquisite food, as well as a story line about the transference of the physical to the spiritual realm. Glimpsing the poster for the movie on the wall opposite, she saw a huge shot of one flaky round pastry shell with a rich velvety brown sauce encasing and enveloping the head of the quail, impossibly delectable looking. The note at the bottom of the poster pronounced it “Cailles en Sarcophage.” Wendy remembered proofreading Matt’s paper as a favor to him. One of the things discussed was the symbolism of this central dish, the quail, which were positioned to look as though they were rising up out of their pastry shell tomb, being resurrected there on the table. The delicacy of the food in the photo certainly convinced Wendy that eating this food could effect transformation.
Glancing at her watch, pacing, Wendy decided she would give him two minutes and then give the usher Noah’s ticket to give him when he arrived.
She was walking to the usher when she heard her name, pronounced properly and with an American accent. She turned to see Noah, and even with her annoyance at his late arrival, liked what she saw: the raffishly boyish gait, extending up from the ground with the white Converse High Tops, broadening up to his nicely faded and soft jeans—the kind that take time to get that way, not purchased already faded—and blue V-neck cotton sweater over a maroon T-shirt, up to his face, with a bit of a five o’clock shadow—always a sexy thing though it could be an annoyance when kissing—and that wavy hair, definitely on the longish side and in need of a cut, but she hadn’t been his girlfriend long enough to have the sort of possessive attachment that gave her the right to tell him it was time for a trim. They hadn’t kissed yet—could she consider herself his girlfriend? Once he looked at her with those bluish grayish eyes and gave her the gap-toothed smile, she was putty in his hands, lateness or anything else forgiven. He was just so damned cute, she thought to herself, and was glad to walk into the theater with him as he put his arm around her after they gave the usher their tickets.
But once seated, Noah didn’t put his arm around her again, much as she desired the coziness of his touch, the comfort of being encased in his arms. When she did put her hand over his on the armrest between their seats, he removed it almost instantaneously, saying he had to go to the restroom during the ads before the movie began. When he returned, no intimacy was resumed.
For Wendy the movie was wonderful. She wondered to herself why she didn’t go to movies more, why she didn’t take more interest in this medium capable of creating something so astounding, so rich in imagery, the focus on reality able to call up some kind of inner depth. The cook in the story refocuses all those who partake of her meal. She has a chance to do her utmost as a culinary artist, to become the “great artist that God meant you to be” in the words, she remembered, of the opera singer in the story.
There was a moment in the movie when the large tortoise who would become the delicacy of turtle soup made his entrance, appearing at first like a “greenish black stone” until his “snake-like” head jabbed out from his body, appearing, on the face of the woman who sees him, “monstrous” and “terrible.” Seeing the actress’s face registering the extent of the horror of this animal, the theatergoers heard a loud boom from somewhere outside the theater. Wendy was so engaged in the action on screen that she thought nothing of it; Noah shot out of his seat without saying anything to Wendy, who didn’t notice his absence until she turned to her left a few moments later to notice the empty chair. He returned, and when she asked him what had happened, he said no one was sure yet. He didn’t tell her that the sirens of ambulances were heard outside the very well soundproofed theater, money from abroad having been pumped into the local economy to make such luxuries as thick walls possible.
Wendy left the theater sated with pleasure at the film, excited to discuss it with Noah. When she and Noah were in the lobby she stretched out her arms, flinging them wide to her sides as far an expanse as they would reach, and said, “Whoa, that was an amazing cinematic experience. Didn’t you love it?”
Noah looked at her. And kept looking. What had she done wrong? Why was he so stone-faced and unresponsive?
“Wendy, I heard ambulances after that boom.”
Her arms were at her sides now, their soaring buoyancy of a few moments ago replaced by a dull weight too heavy for breezy motion. “Noah, you don’t always have to think the worst. Stop having such a negative imagination, that something awful has happened. What did the general say in the movie: ‘For tonight I have learned, dear sister, that in this world anything is possible.’ That’s the world I want to live in, one in which anything is possible.” She frowned at him. “Orly told me the café here has an amazing view. Let’s get some coffee or something.”
Noah didn’t know exactly how to argue with Wendy’s assessment of his character. “I don’t have a ‘negative imagination.’” He put quotes in the air with his fingers, sarcastically. “I heard ambulances.” He smiled wryly. “You haven’t been here as long as I have. Things happen.” He planted his hands in the pockets of his jeans and gestured with his elbow. “We’ll have coffee. You got the movie tickets, so this is on me, okay?” he softened. As they walked toward the café with the view of the walls of the Old City, he said, “I think there was a pigua. I was almost in one this summer.”
His close to whispered statement didn’t enable Wendy to hear him, as she was walking ahead, towards the café, and hoping that this little tiff wouldn’t affect her chances of finally getting a kiss tonight. She hoped he liked the way she looked, walking in front of him, trying to put a bit of a sashay in her step, her skirt on the short side, significantly above her knee, paired with leggings and clunky clogs on this cooling fall day, but she hoped still giving her a provocative look. Noah was looking around, trying to see out the windows to get a sense of what might be going on outside.
They seated themselves and Wendy asked Noah whether he was hungry, had he eaten. “You know, I can’t remember. Have I?” he looked at her puzzled.
She didn’t see his look, but kept looking at the menu, wanting to order something nice but not wanting to go over his limited student budget when most of the items listed were on the pricier side. Not looking up at him over the menu, she said, “Should we split something if you aren’t sure if you’re hungry or not?” not unkindly, just being practical.
Impatiently, he said, “Don’t you want to know what happened outside, Wendy? Don’t you care?”
She put the menu down in front of her, laid her hands in two balled up fists on top. “I just saw a really incredible movie. The fun of going to a movie with someone else is to discuss it with them, and I’d like to have some fun tonight. Why do you think Babette did it? Was she doing the right thing?”
Noah too balled up his hands and leaned his body forward over them to talk to Wendy across the table. “And fun for me is to share what I am going through with the person I’m with. I told you before, I was almost in a pigua this summer, and I think this is another. I’m worried and want to go outside and see what’s happening.”
Wendy startled, sat up straight. “What? You never told me anything like that,” a sense of anger that he had never revealed such a critical part of himself to her masking her guilt for not somehow knowing or intuiting that something had happened to him to upset him and make him grimace as he was now doing. She felt guilt for all kinds of things; she thought that somehow if she were a more sensitive, caring person, she would have been able to intuit this even if her feelings on the matter logically made no sense. How could she not have realized something was going on with him? All she was thinking about—as usual, she rebuked herself—was her own need.
Noah leaned back away from her, a look of anguish coming over him. “It never came up.” He ran his hand through his hair and said, “Really, what is there to say? I . . . it’s too painful to talk about.”
Wendy was silenced. “I’m sorry?” was the limit of her conversational creativity in the face of the tragedy Noah had experienced.
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t plant the bomb.”
“No, but I meant . . .” Wendy put her fingers unconsciously to her hair and began to twirl it girlishly, “what I want to say is . . . I’m sorry it happened to you.”
He sipped the water in front of him. “These last few months have been hard, really hard. I think about Sam so much; it’s just so . . . wrong . . . that he’s no longer alive. I’ve never had a friend who died.”
“When I was little, I had a friend who went sledding and hurt her leg somehow, twisted it. She got a fever and her parents took her to the emergency room. The whole thing on her leg somehow developed into an embolism, and she died in the hospital. It was really hard to understand. How could my friend not be there anymore?”
“That’s about where I am. Just . . . unfathomable. I think that’s it. And Sam . . . he was such a special person. I know people always say that when someone has died, but in his case . . . His dissertation? ‘The Kisses of God’s Mouth?’ Just from the title you get a sense of what kind of provocative and brilliant and wonderful person he was.” Noah shook his head. “I was the last person to see him really alive and vital. We were at this bookstore, Berger Books, on King George. Have you been?”
Wendy nodded no.
“Oh.” Noah’s sigh oozed with pleasure. “I’ll have to take you. It’s key to the intellectual history of this city. Gershom Scholem had a list there of books he was looking for. It was called ‘alu leshalom,’ which literally means ‘go up in peace’ but also ‘go up to Scholem.’ The Berger family who own it came from Germany in the 1930s with whatever merchandise they could bring. The joke is that you never know the provenance of the oldest books; they could still be from the original shipment they brought from Germany. Really.
“Sounds sort of like the Ideal Bookstore in New York, over the office at Amsterdam and 115th, if you know it.”
“Yeah, same vibe. So Sam was showing me these books and he read me something from this book The Divine Kiss: Mystical and Rabbinic View that talks about this idea that death by divine kiss is a death that is a climax, a sharing of God’s breath, physically painless, being raised up to the world of entirely spiritual perceptions . . .”
“That’s what he was writing about?” Wendy shook herself. “It’s just too . . . I don’t know. Intense? What was he lik
e? I mean as a person, not a dissertation topic.”
Noah thought for a minute. “Yes, intense, and” he thought for a minute how to say this, “noticeably handsome, to those of both sexes. I mean, he just had this look that would turn heads. Do you know what I mean? There is a sort of classical beauty that, when you notice it, you say, ‘Oh, that is a person who is beautiful.’ And then there is heart-stopping beauty that literally made drivers stop when he was crossing the street, just to stare at him. It happened when we were on our way to the bookstore. Seriously.”
“What a guy.” Wendy had no idea how to react to this information.
Noah looked straight at her and said, wistfully, “Yep, what a guy.” He looked at his watch. “You know, maybe if the waiter doesn’t come we should just go. Is that okay? Can you take a raincheck for coffee?”
Wendy stood up, annoyed. “Yeah, sure, let’s go. You’re right, I have things to do tomorrow.” She thought to herself, Why isn’t this working? Did I say something wrong? Do I have bad breath? What is it that he just doesn’t seem to want to connect with me now?
They walked out of the theater and, in an effort to patch things up a bit, Wendy asked, “What was your favorite scene in the movie?”
They walked slowly up the hill towards Keren HaYesod. “I think the moments when we are aware that the table Babette has prepared and the feast itself are a kind of grace that comes over them, that there is this dissolution of what came before and a new reality being shaped in front of them. It was so beautifully done, the filming. What was the line—‘That which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly.’” He turned to look at her. “Your favorite part?”
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