A Remarkable Kindness

by Diana Bletter

  “Once you’ve been through something like that,” Aviva observed, “you’re never the same.”

  “Before the babies were born,” Emily went on, “I’d wake up in the middle of the night because I was so uncomfortable and realize that Boaz wasn’t there in the bed. I’d get up to look for him and he’d be lying right here on the couch, not sleeping, just lying there. Now he’s gone in the morning before the babies get up. He milks the cows and then disappears into the groves.” She heaved a long sigh and stared at the cement walls where she’d hung up a few landscape paintings that she’d made long ago. Shoval had conked out, so she pulled the bottle from his tiny mouth, which resembled a puckered pink carnation.

  “Have you tried to talk to him?” Aviva asked.

  “I talk, but he doesn’t,” Emily said. “Sometimes he hums, sometimes he whistles. He’s so different from Rob. Rob would debate anything. He’d ask me, ‘What do you hate more, mosquitoes or flies?’ Or ‘What do you like more, the sunrise or the sunset?’ I’m telling you, sometimes I wanted him to shut up, but after he left me for Taylor I was sorry I’d ever felt that.”

  “That’s what he gets paid for on TV.” Lauren snickered. “Recipes and drivel.”

  “Boaz never asks me anything about Rob, and I’m so curious about his ex,” Emily said. “I once saw her in the supermarket and I followed her down the aisle. Her hair was dyed and cut like Cleopatra’s, and she was wearing this skintight dress with glittery purple platform sneakers.” Emily let out a yawn. “I’m going to pass out.”

  “Em, you could use a big glass of V8,” Lauren said. “Too bad they don’t import it.”

  “Forget the juice. I’d take a huge bowl of Häagen-Dazs chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream. And Lauren, I bet you’d go for vanilla fudge.”

  “No way,” countered Lauren. “I’d head straight for the chocolate mousse cake at L.A. Burdick’s on Brattle Street. What about you, Aviva?”

  “When I was a little girl I liked Cracker Jack and getting the little surprise at the bottom of the box.” Aviva’s voice dipped. “I’m not so big on surprises anymore.” She stood and slipped Shoval from Emily’s arms and nestled him close, walking back and forth in the room. “Look at this.” Aviva stared down at the baby. “I know it’s supposed to be a good thing, and it is, but it’s cruel, too, the way life doesn’t skip a beat.”

  “My father always told me that each day is a gift,” Emily remembered. “I wish that Boaz could enjoy himself. Even a little bit.” She tried to recall the times she’d seen him truly in high spirits. Maybe that very first Friday night when Emily had lit the Sabbath candles in his kitchen. He had looked at her with that half smile of his, one lip up and one lip partway down, conveying the idea that there were too many wrongs in the world to ever trust or give in to happiness unequivocally.

  “SHIT.” EMILY GROANED.

  Oh shit.

  She opened her eyes and for a split second tried to dive back into the dream she was having, in which she was making a beautiful diorama for a museum.

  It was not yet dawn, but the August air had the weight of molten heat. Emily climbed out of bed and quickly peed and trudged down the narrow hallway. She knew the way so well that she could close her eyes and fall asleep for another six steps. Then she made bottles for the twins and went into their bedroom, scooping them up in her arms.

  “Shhh, Shoval,” Emily whispered, on automatic pilot. “Shhh, Tal.”

  Emily never knew whether to change them first and then feed them, or feed them first and then change them. She carried both of them, their warm bodies sticking to her skin as though they were wearing head-to-toe adhesive tape, regretting that she hadn’t taken an extra minute to brush her teeth. When she reached the living room, she pushed aside some newspapers and stuffed animals and collapsed on the sagging couch, balancing two babies and two bottles. By the time she fed the boys, changed them, and laid them back down for naps, she was too wired up to fall asleep again.

  Emily took a cool shower and got dressed. If she overlooked the unmade bed and Boaz’s work clothes strewn on the floor by the hamper, then she could have five minutes alone. All she wanted was three hundred seconds. She tilted the living room shutters and looked out. A stray cat ducked under a parked car, and iridescent heat rose from the street. She saw Sophie and Heinz Zuckerman stroll by on their way to synagogue for the morning services.

  Emily had even forgotten it was the Sabbath. She stared at Sophie’s carmine-red button-down dress with its round white collar that looked like a schoolgirl’s. Heinz, in his gray suit and tie and matching homburg hat, reminded Emily of the old-timey way her father dressed for synagogue. When Emily was growing up, she’d gone to synagogue every Sabbath morning with her mother and brother to listen to their father. Emily loved the stained-glass windows depicting the twelves tribes of Israel, the marine-blue velvet cushions, and the distraction of her brother kicking her under the pew as her father chanted the prayers. Since her father’s death, Emily rarely went to services because nobody—not even well-intentioned Rabbi Lapid—sang the prayers she loved the way her father had. And since his death, there were no more prayers she loved.

  Emily went into the kitchen. Dishes from last night’s dinner were still piled topsy-turvy in the sink. On the counter stood a glass bowl with clumps of mashed potatoes that looked like papier-mâché. There was also an open can of corn, its jagged top flipped up like a circular saw. She gazed out the window, noticing a viper curled by the work shed.

  “You hear what just happened to Gideon Rosen?” Boaz had asked Emily the previous summer.

  “Who?”

  “Gideon! The chicken farmer who lives over by the post office! Last night, he went out to his coops because he heard his chickens squawking and didn’t see the viper hanging on a tree branch. But the viper saw Gideon! Bit him right in the neck! Killed him in seconds!”

  Emily quickly dialed the snake catcher’s number, which was pinned to the bulletin board. Then she glanced out the window again, realizing that the viper was nothing more than a coiled garden hose. She was relieved she’d taken a second look, relieved she wouldn’t have to pay the snake catcher for his time, relieved to be spared another lecture from Boaz, who’d chide her for not knowing the difference between a hose and a snake. Come to think of it, where was Boaz?

  No tractor, no note.

  Emily didn’t want to call him and ask him where he was, again. She didn’t want to call Lauren, who’d be enjoying her morning with David and their girls. Emily called Aviva.

  “Boaz is out fishing already. I tried to talk to him like you suggested, but once again, this morning, he took his tractor and hitched up his boat and took off, and I don’t understand why he—”

  “Because he is who he is,” Aviva interrupted. “But that’s not important now. It’s really up to you how you’re going to deal with it. You can either stay home and feel sorry for yourself—and that’s not to say I don’t do the same thing—or come to the beach with Lauren and me.”

  A moment passed. Emily wasn’t sure what she wanted, but as she stared out at the garden hose, she realized that sometimes a hose was a deadly viper, and sometimes it was just a hose.

  “Okay.” Emily suddenly felt determined. “Okay. The boys are sleeping now, but I’ll be at the beach at eleven o’clock.”

  “Good. I’ll meet you at the gate.”

  Emily stuffed the diaper bag with diapers, wipes, ointment, sunscreen, pacifiers, beach towels, extra clothes. She filled two bottles with baby formula and grabbed a bottle of water, fresh lychees, and a cheese-and-tomato sandwich. When the boys woke up from their nap, Emily buckled them in their double stroller, put on a baseball cap, took the diaper bag and a beach umbrella, and set out.

  The morning sky was white, as thick as cream. Reaching the shoreline, Emily saw fishermen posed here and there on the rocks. Two guys on bareback horses rode past. Now and then a seagull dove into the sea. Maybe, Emily thought, she could make things better. Maybe she c
ould plan a picnic or an outing—and make sure that Boaz joined in.

  “Aviva, thank you for dragging me out of the house,” Emily said when she met her at the beach gate.

  “If you hadn’t called, I might have just stayed home alone, too.” Aviva wore a navy-blue bathing suit and a white scarf tied around her waist. “But no matter what, we still have to make the most out of our lives.”

  “It’s just so hard right now.” Emily looked down at the boys.

  “That’s why joining the burial circle would be a positive experience for you,” Aviva said. “Because it puts things into perspective.”

  “Being around death? It’s bad enough I have to listen to Boaz talk about it.”

  “It’s not about death,” Aviva said. “It makes you appreciate doing the most boring, mundane, and annoying things because they’re part of being alive.”

  Emily looked at Aviva, a pair of very big sunglasses hiding the wretchedness in her eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” Aviva nodded. “But really, Emily, how can you expect a Yankees fan to walk next to someone in a Red Sox cap?”

  “Sorry about that!” Emily smiled.

  Aviva bent over the stroller, studying the twins, and reached for the one in red. “Tal, right? You didn’t switch colors on me, did you?”

  Emily checked for the birthmark. “Not this time.”

  They moved through the beach crowded with teenage girls sparkling like ice sculptures, boys playing volleyball, kids sprawled on boogie boards, parents and grandparents standing waist-high in the water. Emily smelled meat being grilled on a barbecue, the salty air, and coconut suntan lotion. Since the babies were born, Emily had felt so isolated, on the outside of life, looking in. And now she was stepping back into a vibrant, colorful tableau.

  Lauren was lying under an umbrella near the water’s edge, holding a worn paperback in her deft hands, Yael curled and sleeping beside her.

  “You’re reading that again?” Emily glanced down at the familiar cover of Everything That Rises Must Converge.

  “Trying to read it.” Lauren sat up, reaching for Shoval. “One or two paragraphs and then Maya needs renovations on her sand castle.” Lauren lifted her chin toward Maya, who was playing on the water’s edge with some other kids.

  “Call your mom’s interior decorator.” Emily opened her umbrella, spreading a towel on the sand. She sat down, happy to be out of her house, particularly happy to be with Aviva and Lauren. Emily could even daydream for one uninterrupted minute while staring at the choppy sea, the color of denim. Then she noticed a guy standing on the bow of his boat, shading his eyes, looking in her direction.

  “Hey, that’s Boaz!”

  “You see, Emily?” said Aviva. “You just have to be patient—”

  “Wow, he’s here.” Emily stood up and waved. He spotted her, threw his anchor overboard, and dove into the sea.

  “I cannot believe this! I’m going to surprise him and swim out. Would you mind watching the boys for five minutes?” Emily took off her terry-cloth cover-up, revealing a paisley tankini that she knew couldn’t hide the weight she’d put on during her pregnancy. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care who watched her jog along the beach and dive into the warm water. Emily swam as fast as she could, and then popped up her head to locate Boaz.

  “Hey, what’s that on your head?” Emily called.

  “A jellyfish!” Boaz yelled, thrashing his arms at the enormous, slimy, bluish sea monster stuck to his face.

  Emily screamed and the lifeguard, Erez, hairless and sleek as a seal, jumped into the water and swam to Boaz, grabbing him across the chest, dragging him like a towboat pulling a barge. Boaz stumbled onto the shore, flailing his arms, blindly battling with the jellyfish, its tentacles stuck to his skin. He flung himself on the sand and rolled around as though he were wrestling with it, and someone gave Erez kerosene, which he dumped over Boaz, who finally yanked off the jellyfish.

  “Oh, Boaz!” Emily threw her arms around him. “Atah b’seder? Are you okay?”

  He shook his head. “Emily,” he choked out, his shoulders heaving.

  Beads of salt burned her eyes, her breath sucked out of her. “I—I love you so much,” she stammered, looking at the swollen red welts on his face, “I’m so sorry—”

  “There’s nothing I can do.” Boaz buried his face in his hands. “Everything always goes wrong.”

  9

  May 27, 2005

  Rachel

  Rachel was trying to explain to Aviva’s son Yoni Sereno what it had been like to be one of the few Jewish students at the University of Wyoming, from where she had graduated the previous year. “I hated how people thought I’d feel special,” she said. “I just felt weird, is all.”

  It was a warm spring night and they were sitting at a bonfire on the beach. It was the sort of place Rachel had dreamed about before she’d left Wyoming for Peleg. More than fifty kids from the village’s youth group were standing around the fire, roasting marshmallows and cooking potatoes wrapped in tinfoil. The bonfire was in honor of Lag B’Omer, a holiday Rachel hadn’t known existed until two days ago. She stared out at the flames shooting up from the fire, the skeins of blue and orange licking the sky. She tipped back her face. Sparks popped, bursting and vanishing into the night.

  “You are far from home.” Yoni spoke English with a faint Israeli accent. He was tall and lanky—not good-looking in a typical way, but Rachel thought he seemed kind and spirited, with his reddish-brown hair, craggy nose, and thoughtful green eyes.

  “How did your family ever end up in Wyoming?” He leaned back on his arms, tilting closer toward Rachel, listening.

  “My father says that my great-great-great-grandfather was headed for Seattle, but when he got to Cheyenne, his horse dropped dead,” Rachel said. “Seriously, I think they were peddling clothes and stuff.”

  “It sounds cool to grow up in the Wild West.”

  “Not all the time. When I used to sell stuff at the Cheyenne farmers market, people would tell me, ‘Don’t Jew me,’ so I’d go, ‘I’m Jewish,’ and they were like, ‘No way!’ Then they got all sorry.”

  “You were undercover with your blue eyes and blond hair. But that can’t be why you came here.”

  “When I came last year for a visit, it was the first time I didn’t feel so out of place,” Rachel explained. “My mom is a pediatrician at a clinic on a Native American reservation, and my dad is a lawyer who takes on any depressing case that comes his way. So, of course, it’s only natural that I’d want to help out somehow.”

  “This country is one big balagan.” Yoni paused. “Learn that word yet? A total mess. I don’t know where you could even begin to help.”

  “Well, I’m working as a volunteer in the hotel’s kitchen. Today, I helped the kids gather wood for tonight’s bonfire, and I also asked your mom to let me join the burial circle.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She thinks I’m too young to see death up close, but I convinced her to let me try.”

  “Not a lot of girls would want to do that.”

  “Honestly, I’ve never wanted to be like everybody else.”

  “My mom already told me you were special.” Yoni tucked in his chin, embarrassed.

  “Your mom is really cool.” Soon after Rachel had arrived in Peleg, Aviva had invited her for coffee and cake. Aviva still called every few days to see how Rachel was dealing with culture shock and hinting that her son Yoni would enjoy talking to her. Had Aviva sensed how much Rachel would enjoy talking to him?

  Danielle Cohen, a fifteen-year-old girl with waist-length wavy hair, poked a stick into the ashes and pulled out a potato, giving it to a little boy standing nearby.

  “This is so great.” Rachel looked around at the kids. “We didn’t have anything like this when I grew up. And everybody back there belongs to one church group or another. Talk about exile. A Sunday in Wyoming has got to be the loneliest day on the entire planet.”

  “B
y the rivers of Babylon,” Yoni sang softly. “Where we sat down, and then we wept, when we remembered Zion . . .”

  “You got that right. Hey, you have a really nice voice.”

  “I play the guitar, but since I joined the army . . .”

  “I guess you don’t have much time.”

  Yoni’s eyes darkened like the sea. Lauren had told Rachel about Yoni’s brother, Benny, killed in a terrorist attack, but Rachel didn’t know if Yoni knew that she knew, so she turned to look at the string of bonfires up and down the dark shore. She decided to change the subject. “I never knew about Lag B’Omer until yesterday.”

  “I’ve been to a Lag B’Omer bonfire every year of my entire life, but nobody knows what it’s even for.”

  Rachel grinned and then admitted that she’d looked it up on the Internet that afternoon. “It’s to honor Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the rabbi who wrote the Zohar.”

  “Pshh, yafeh.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Yafeh just means nice.”

  “Thanks. So, what’s it like being a soldier?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s very hard.” His voice dropped. “But there’s no other option right now. And I owe it to my brother, Benny. He was . . .”

  “I know,” Rachel whispered. “Lauren told me. I don’t know what to say.”

  Flames from the bonfire flickered across Yoni’s face. “Don’t say anything. Silence is the best thing.”

  Somebody whistled and then Danielle Cohen led the kids in a song.

  “What are they singing?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s Peleg’s song,” Yoni said. “It goes something like, ‘If you come to the Galilee, you’ll see the sky, you’ll see the sea. The waves are nice and very blue and the kids have smiles, too.’”