Washing the Dead

by Michelle Brafman

  The rebbetzin put the teakettle on and placed a sugar bowl, saucers, and two bags of Lipton on the table. She stroked my cheek as if I were a child. Her hand was that of an old woman, bony and freckled.

  “Barbara,” she said.

  I paused and let her name roll around inside my mouth. I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I wasn’t one of her congregants. “Rivkah.”

  She gave me a small smile of approval. “Yes, Rivkah.”

  “This is surreal,” I blurted. “First washing Mrs. Kessler’s body and now sitting in your kitchen waiting for the kettle to sing, like no time has passed.”

  She rested her chin in her palm and gazed at me, taking me in carefully.

  “But time has passed,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I pinched my thumb and forefinger together. “I was this close to going to Mrs. Kessler’s funeral, you know.”

  “What happened?”

  “Mrs. Pincus happened, and all my shame came back.”

  The rebbetzin put her hand over mine. Her fingers had always been cold, no matter the season.

  “I could have reminded Mrs. Pincus that there really would be no shul without June Pupnick.” I looked down as I repeated the words the rebbetzin had spoken so often during my childhood.

  She smiled sadly. “A real gift for bringing people into the shul, your mother had.”

  “There’s that. Plus, didn’t she give you this mansion?” I looked right at her, the kettle whistling and neither of us getting up to attend to it.

  After a few seconds of the ugly whine, she got up and poured water into our cups. I wondered if she’d stand with her back to me again, as she had when we sat in my childhood kitchen and I discovered that she knew about my mother’s affair. She brought us our cups and sat across from me, steeping her tea, her shoulders bowed, and I felt like Dorothy facing the Wizard of Oz. She wasn’t the answer lady for everyone’s problems or the sensible adult who had shipped me off to California or the spiritual leader who had implored me to take care of my sick mother. She was sitting in front of me, stripped of the cloak of her status as the interpreter of God’s mitzvot. The rebbetzin had paid in blood for keeping an enormous gift from someone who had violated her principles so radically. The cost was inscribed all over her body, from her sagging shoulders to the foot she was rubbing nervously against the leg of the table.

  “You have questions.” She sounded drained.

  “I already hunted down the Shabbos goy for answers.” I laughed at the absurdity of it.

  She jerked her head toward me, unable to feign nonchalance at the mention of the Shabbos goy.

  “He wouldn’t tell me much. So protective!” I said.

  She fidgeted with her tea bag. “I’m not surprised.”

  “And after everything my mother has put us through, somehow I’ve turned into the ogre.”

  “Your mother has struggled.” I detected the same protectiveness I’d heard in the Shabbos goy’s voice.

  “He told me about how you found her in the hospital.”

  She winced. “That was an awful time.”

  I took a sip of my tea but could barely swallow it. “I’m scared.”

  “Tell me, Barbara.” She looked scared too.

  “My daughter’s been so down in the dumps. What if she’s inherited our depression gene?”

  She twisted the string on her tea bag while she crafted her answer. “I’m not a psychologist, but you and your mother were depressed for real reasons. I venture to guess that Lili’s home life is strong.”

  Had I mentioned Lili by name? I was sorry I’d mentioned her at all, because I didn’t want to give the rebbetzin a chance to escape into her adviser role. “What happened to my mother? Help me put these puzzle pieces together. Please.”

  “She’d lost everything. Her parents, her brother.” Her fingers trembled against her cup. “Her baby,” she whispered.

  The word hung in the air. “Her what?”

  She pursed her lips, trying to hold in her tears. I’d never seen the rebbetzin cry. “Her baby.”

  I had no words.

  “We met her in the hospital.”

  “For her depression,” I insisted.

  “Yes, and more.” Pain creased the rebbetzin’s face. “She’d suffered a botched abortion.”

  I let the news travel through my body, to my heart. “Who was the father?”

  The rebbetzin was sniffling now. “I never found out.”

  “Oh, God.” I covered my face with my hands.

  She sat with me quietly.

  I dropped my hands and looked around the shabby kitchen, at the chairs that needed mending and the smaller framed pictures of the Rebbe and the steel cup hanging over the sink for ritual hand washing. “This was my mother’s happy place, right here in your house.”

  The rebbetzin smiled. “I loved it when she visited.”

  “And the mikveh? That was her unhappy place.” Mine too.

  “The mikveh was a sacred place for your mother. She told me that she kept your uncle company in the water and helped him with his exercises.”

  “Did it bother her when it became a public place?”

  “She assured us that it didn’t, but I know she went down there when she was….” The rebbetzin paused. “Grieving.”

  “I want to go there,” I said, feeling that old tug.

  “Come.” She got up.

  I followed her out of the apartment, down the steps, and through the mansion to the kitchen where Tzippy and I stole cookies while the Shabbos goy put kugels in the oven. I summoned memories that belonged to my mother: a cook, probably a big farm girl from the northern parts, preparing platters of roast beef, not kosher. If my mother’s family could afford this mansion, they must have been wealthy assimilated Jews who would have eaten ham with buttered potatoes and trimmed their Christmas trees. I touched the walls and doors, claiming them as my own.

  The rebbetzin waited for me in the pantry. I was just as frightened to walk into that closet as I’d been when Tzippy asked me to meet her in the mikveh to talk about her fear of marrying. The familiar scent of Lysol and cinnamon ferried me back to my childhood, and an old charge fired in my cells. I looked around at the cans of Rokeach gefilte fish and tuna stacked on the shelves. I looked toward the door leading down to the mikveh. That charge threatened to overtake me.

  “I can’t go downstairs. Not today, rebbetzin.”

  “When you’re ready, Barbara.”

  “Can we still talk?” My voice sounded small.

  She nodded and led me through the kitchen toward the front of the house. I paused at the entrance to the sanctuary. Then I walked to the rebbetzin’s designated seat and the one informally assigned to my mother, and touched them both. I felt as though I was standing on an empty stage, improvising in front of a theater filled with ghosts. I could practically feel Tzippy’s warm breath in my ear and Mrs. Kessler’s smile bathing me with its light. The mansion had always felt holy to me, and to this day I couldn’t hear the Shema without longing to sit in this very sanctuary. My mother felt it too, the pull and the desire to both escape from the dead and commune with their ghosts. Of course, we were never meant to stay here for long, which made every moment in here feel both electric and lost.

  The rebbetzin rubbed my arm the way I’d seen her do with the troubled congregants who sought her out on Shabbos. Her touch unknotted the nerves that had bundled themselves around my muscles. I could no longer deny how much I’d been craving her counsel. She sat down in her chair, and I took my mother’s spot.

  “I heard what you said about taking care of my mother, but I can’t do it.” I told her about my mother’s stay at our house. “She’s got Alzheimer’s.”

  “Oh, Barbara. I’m sorry.” Her voice held her usual sympathy, but also a deeper sorrow for the sad news about a friend.

  I was so tired. “How did we get here?”

  “You’re trying,” she said.

  “And failing miserably.” I told her that I
felt like Lili, who could no longer rely on her running to cope with her ADHD. Whatever I’d been using to temper my anger wasn’t working anymore, not even my teaching.

  “You’re here now.”

  “My rage is leaking out of me like a poisonous gas.”

  “Who are you angry with?”

  “Lili’s friend Taylor, for starters.” I folded my arms over my chest. “She’s bad news.”

  “Who else?”

  “Neil’s wife, Jenny.”

  “Jenny?” She looked amused and curious at the same time.

  “Yes, the nicest person I’ve ever met.” I almost laughed at the absurdity of my fury, particularly given the weight of everything else that loomed.

  “I want to forgive my mother for the Shabbos goy and everything else, but I don’t know how.”

  “You’ve opened old wounds. You’re raw.” The rebbetzin was smoothing out her skirt with quick motions.

  I stared up at the chandelier, its crystals hanging like icicles, and imagined it casting light on my mother and her brother as they played hide-and-seek or greeted company in matching sailor suits.

  “Why was she so secretive about growing up here?” I asked.

  “She gave us this gift anonymously, the highest form of a mitzvah. Nobody is supposed to know that you performed this holy deed. It’s a bit like the tahara.”

  “But at the cost of denying her children the knowledge of their heritage?”

  I didn’t push further. Revealing my scandalous mother as the one who’d donated the mansion would have damaged the Schines’ reputation, I knew that.

  “I want to ask you something else.” I reached into my purse for the copy of the photo I’d been carrying around and showed it to her.

  She held it at a distance so she could see it without her reading glasses. “Hmm … your uncle Norman?”

  “Yes.”

  She examined the photo more carefully. “How young they were.”

  “The Shabbos goy had this picture when he lived here. I saw it when I went to yell at him about hurting my mom.”

  The rebbetzin ran her fingers over my mother’s image. “We barely spoke of him.”

  “Barely?”

  “Your mother only revealed what she wanted to.”

  How true. “Can you tell me what you know?”

  “I wish there were more I could tell you.” The rebbetzin wasn’t going to say anything else about the Shabbos goy.

  My leg started jiggling like Lili’s had in Felix’s office. I folded the photo and put it back in my purse. “I’m a mess.”

  “Remember what God told Abraham to do before he could lead a great and blessed nation?” The confidence was returning to the rebbetzin’s voice.

  My brain directed me back to fifth-grade Judaics class, in which Rabbi Lichtenberg doled out stale lemon drops to those of us who could parse Genesis. “Go forth for yourself, by yourself, into yourself,” I said.

  “Give this girl a piece of candy.” She smiled and looked deep into my eyes.

  Her acknowledgment of this intimate piece of our past made me feel less broken. I wanted her to know about all the pieces. If I handed them to her, chipped and misshapen, maybe she could put them together in a way that made sense. She put her hand on mine and listened intently as I went forth into myself and recounted the story of Simone and Daniel.

  15

  January 1975

  When I left for San Diego the second time, I walked through the airport alone, smarter and steelier and wearing my sledding jeans. My heart had opened during my few weeks back home, and now it was tightening back up like a fist.

  The plane took off, and I watched Milwaukee disappear, proud that I’d paid for my ticket by myself. I stuck my hand into my bag and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper.

  January 16, 1975

  B”H

  Dear Tzippy,

  I’m sorry I left town before your wedding. I was going to come; I’d even bought a new dress. I thought that everything with my mom had changed while I was working for the Levensteins, but it hadn’t. My mom is still with the Shabbos goy, and your mom is still acting like it doesn’t matter. Your mom was right; I’m not safe in Milwaukee.

  I don’t expect you to forgive me for breaking my promise to you. I won’t write you any more letters. You should start your new life without carrying the shame of my family with you. I will simply drift from your life, and soon you will be so busy making a new home and then babies that you won’t think of me.

  My heart is aching as I write this. My planets and constellations are so out of place that I couldn’t find the Big Dipper if I wanted to. You were always my Big Dipper, by the way.

  Love,

  Barbara

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, crumpled the letter, and gave it to the flight attendant when she came around to take our drink orders. The man sitting next to me took the opportunity to introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Chip,” he said. He was clean-shaven, with brown eyes and thinning blond hair. We ate peanuts and sipped Cokes from clear plastic cups while we chatted about life in Milwaukee. He described his small apartment on the east side, just a mile or two south of my father’s office, a few blocks and a whole world away from my life. He spoke of cookouts and learning to sail from a “buddy” who belonged to the Milwaukee Yacht Club. He used the word buddy often and tapped my forearm to punctuate his thoughts

  “How about you?” Chip asked when he finally came up for air.

  “Oh, I’m taking some time off before college. I’m going to be a nanny for the cutest four-year-old ever, and then I’m going to college to study early childhood development. I’m going to be a teacher. I love kids.” I’d just mapped out the next five years of my life.

  “To you, Miss Teacher.” Chip smiled.

  “And to you, Mr. Yachtsman.”

  When the plane landed, Simone and Ollie were waiting at the gate holding a big cardboard sign with “Welcome Barbara!” in block letters and squiggly blue and green lines Ollie had drawn in the corners.

  “My savior! I’m so glad you’re here.” Simone squeezed me hard as Ollie encircled my legs with his tanned little arms.

  “Hi, Ollie.” I picked him up and held him, grateful for the chance to take care of him and to regain my footing.

  “Look at you, Barbara. I’ve never seen you in anything but those long skirts.” Simone unabashedly appraised me.

  On the way to her car, I almost felt like a native, not the nunnish girl who had stepped off the plane to meet Rabbi Levenstein seven months earlier. The sun warmed my forearms and biceps, skin that I couldn’t expose the last time I was here, and the warm wind tousled my hair. This time I had no desire to fly back home.

  “I’ll sit in the back with Ollie,” I said.

  He climbed on my lap. “When are you going home?”

  Simone started the car. “That’s not a nice question, Ollie.”

  I understood his question. Mrs. Kessler once told me that four-year-olds have no sense of time, so he was just trying to orient himself. “I’m not sure, Ollie, but I’m really happy to be here.”

  “Ditto on that,” Simone said.

  We talked all the way to what Simone had described as her modernized dreamy Spanish bungalow, tucked into the hills overlooking La Jolla Shores. The Coxes were renting it from a sociology professor on sabbatical in Bolivia, one of Daniel’s steady customers at the bookstore he managed. The Levensteins only lived a few miles away, but the dull sameness of their condo complex contrasted sharply with this winding-road neighborhood where every house looked unique.

  The outer walls of the bungalow were mainly glass, and the kitchen, dining area, and living room opened into a large airy space. Wooden plates with drawings of oranges, eggplants, and melons hung on rust-colored stucco walls. The house smelled like something was frying, but I couldn’t pinpoint what. A tall, lean man, barefoot in a faded blue T-shirt and shorts, stood over the stove with a spatula in his hand.

  “Daniel, come meet B
arbara,” Simone called out, and when he didn’t come instantly, she went to the kitchen and led him to the hallway. “Here she is,” she said as if she’d done nothing but talk about me for months.

  “Hello, Barbara.” He smiled at me, and I recognized Ollie’s dimple in his cheek and the Robert Redford jaw. He was more handsome than his photo by far. Mira would have called him a fox. “Kind of a critical moment here with the tortillas, or I’d shake your hand!”

  Simone smiled. “I wanted to invite you for dinner after all the naps I bummed off you at the beach, but I didn’t think it would fly with the Levensteins.” She gave me a spontaneous hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Daniel fried the tortillas until they were gold and crispy. “Hope you’re hungry, Barbara,” he said with a wink as he stacked them on a paper towel.

  Simone guided me to a nice-size room on the side of the house. “I wish you had your own entrance, but don’t worry about using the front door if you have a late night.”

  I’d never had a late night in my life. Maybe I’d whoop it up with Sari, whom I could picture neither nausea-free nor unpregnant. I washed my face with pink soap that smelled like strawberries and ran a comb through my hair.

  Simone had set the table with two fat candles in the center. Ollie patted a chair next to his, and I sat down.

  “Daddy made toasted does,” he announced.

  “That’s tostados, sweetie,” Simone corrected him. “I hope you like Mexican food, Barbara.”

  “I’m sure I will.” I’d never tasted Mexican food. One of Daniel’s fried tortillas sat on my plate, and I followed Simone’s lead by loading it up with refried beans, chicken, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and a chunky green dip. I passed on the cheese, already feeling guilty about the non-kosher meat I was about to eat.

  “Daniel cooks on Sundays,” Simone explained.

  “That’s when we eat tostados,” Ollie piped up.

  Simone clapped her hands. “That’s right, Ollie. Tostados. You said it perfectly.”

  Daniel smiled mischievously. “Now let’s try ‘quesadilla’.”