DISOWNED

by Gabriella Murray

  Devorah comes all the way upstairs that afternoon to make sure Rivkah realizes exactly what is going on. For the first time Rivkah can remember, Devorah pulls up a little footstool, and sits down on the same level with her, eye to eye.

  "Don't you even dream of going alone to your Uncle Reb Bershky's now."

  Tears well up in Rivkah.

  "Did you hear what I said? You can't go to Uncle Reb Bershky anymore."

  Not go to Uncle Reb Bershky? Rivkah cannot imagine how she will survive?

  Devorah breathes heavily, understanding everything. "You'll get used to it," she says.

  Rivkah's body starts to tremble. It's almost too much for her to consider. Like walls of iron closing around her, her heart begins to clench tight.

  "I love Uncle Reb Bershky," she tries just one time.

  "Now love is different," Devorah replies in a tone that almost sounds soft. "Now love is dangerous. It can make you blind. It can make you sick. It can make you fall fast into the gutter."

  Something deep within Rivkah refuses to hear these fateful words.

  "It's not my fault," Devorah proclaims, "The law is the law. I didn't make it."

  Whose law, Rivkah suddenly wonders? Who made a law that could hurt me like this?

  "A holy law," Devorah intones, "we do not dare question why."

  But another law moves in Rivkah now. It is this law that makes the blood pour down. It is this law also that makes her ache unbearably at the thought of not being with Uncle Reb Bershky.

  This is a law that Rivkah has not been prepared for. Only the hot tears that drench her eyelids tell her that all cannot be well.

  "Rivkah, I beg you," Devorah hears all that is going on inside.

  Rivkah looks up at her then. Devorah's eyelids are twitching a little. Suddenly, for a moment they look at one another, woman to woman. Devorah seems lonely, heartsick, even abandoned, and Rivkah's heart goes out to her like it never did before.

  Suddenly Rivkah feels sorrow for this gigantic woman who lives as if single handedly, she must hold up the entire world.

  "Promise, Rivkah," Devorah pleads gruffly.

  "I promise."

  "Thank God," Devorah murmurs. "Thank God for everything, God is good. God is righteous. He brings what is right at exactly the right moment. Even to you, he brings this now, though we can't understand why."

  Right now Rivkah can only barely let Devorah's words in. Let them in, but not understand them. For now she can only sit on the chair in parlor, and allow the red blood to continue to flow.

  When Henry comes home early that evening, Rivkah is still sitting there. She hears his footsteps come up solidly on the staircase and gives a little sigh of relief. Although she hasn't realized it, she has been sitting here all day, waiting for him to come home.

  As every night he opens the door slowly, comes in and takes off his coat. Then he sees her sitting there. "What's going on, Bekkie?" he asks as he hangs his coat up.

  Daddy, she wants to cry out. Turn around and look at me!

  After his coat is hung he turns, looks, and then sees the towels piled underneath her. "Oh," he says suddenly.

  "Niddah," she whispers, terrified and thrilled.

  "Good, very good," he answers staring at the towels. He is surprised for a moment, and then he is pleased. "Congratulations."

  "Thank you."

  He stands up proud, as if he himself were the one to have accomplished this enormous feat. "Well, why are you just sitting there? Get up. Take a walk. Go out and play."

  Rivkah is amazed. "Go out in the street like this, while I am Niddah?"

  He makes an odd face then. "So? Does it mean you have to sit here and hide?"

  "Yes."

  "You have nothing to hide," he announces strongly.

  "What?"

  "Nothing. Listen to me. I'm telling you Bekkie, there's a world out there with women bleeding in it every day. Beautiful women! So what? No one notices. No one cares. Why should they? It's natural. Natural."

  He emphasizes the word natural and his lips curve in an odd way. In that moment, Rivkah suddenly sees how he longs for these natural women himself.

  "Do you believe me?" he goes on as she remains unmoving on the chair.

  She does not reply.

  "It doesn't matter if you believe me. I'll take you there myself. We'll go downtown one day. I'll introduce you to these women."

  Rivkah does not want to meet them at all.

  "You'll like them too."

  "I don't think so."

  "Of course you'll like them. Why shouldn't you? They're just women bleeding. Like you."

  "I don't think so daddy. But, thanks anyway."

  Now he's insulted. He turns his back to her and takes off his jacket hard. "Because what I say means nothing? Because who am I here? No one at all?"

  Rivkah is stunned by the sharpness of his tone.

  "Not at all," she matches him, word for word then, throws her head up and looks him unabashedly.

  "Don't stare at me, like your mother does."

  "I'm not like my mother." The words escape strong and firm.

  "No, thank God, you're not. You're not like your grandmother either. We have to know what to thank God for, Bekkie." He is becoming worked up now. "Do you know who you're like, really?" He stops then and stares at her directly.

  "Who?"

  "You're like me. That's who. Finally, a daughter of my own. You belong to me. I'm not alone."

  Rivkah tosses in the thick club chair. She wants to get up and run through the small streets, right to the subway, and take it straight to Brighton Beach. She wants to run and run until it grows dark out and she can't see any more where she is running.

  Suddenly she feels immensely confined on this old green chair. But she is stuck here bleeding. She's not allowed to go outside.

  "And what's wrong with being like me?" Henry senses the restlessness that has taken over her.

  "Nothing."

  "Something is wrong. I see it in your eyes."

  "You don't see anything in my eyes."

  "Yes, I do. And don't you lie to me now. But whether or not you like it, one day you'll see how alike we are. Today especially, I realize it clearly."

  Why today, Rivkah wonders? What is it exactly today that links them together as this red blood trickles down?

  "All right, get up," he is finished for now. "Stand taller. Get off that chair. Be proud of yourself, Bekkie. Walk down the street with your head held high. And, if anyone asks you who you

  are, tell them you're my daughter. Henry Reidowitz, whose running for Assemblyman on Row A."

  CHAPTER 6

  Through thick and thin Henry clings to his dream of running for Assemblyman. And maybe it's even more than a dream, because every Monday night, religiously, he goes downtown to political meetings.

  Molly doesn't believe that he is actually at political meetings. "He's working late in the office," she says to Rivkah. "He thinks he can fool me, but he can't."

  "You're wrong, mamma. He's at the meeting. And you know what? One day he will run on row A, for Assemblyman. And what's more, he’ll win!"

  He almost wins. Henry loses by a few thousand votes. Still, Rivkah is very proud of him. Very, very proud of a father who actually gets up and runs! Can it be possible, Rivkah wonders, that some Rabbis, like Uncle Reb Bershky, are needed to sing God's praises, while others, like my father, are needed to throw over the tables and slash all the lies away? To actually get up and run for office, on Row A?

  But after he loses, Henry goes through big changes, even though no one around seems to see. Rivkah sees though, and tries to spend more time with her father, as he has taken to sitting upstairs by himself a lot these days.

  Day after day he comes home from work, goes sits in his chair, listens to his radio, and writes all kinds of notes to himself. Odd notes about the nature of victory. He talks very little to anyone, and has even taken to smoking on Sabbath, right in the house, upstairs.This he has never don
e before.

  "Daddy, it's Sabbath," Rivkah reminds him. "Put the cigarette out. They will smell it downstairs."

  "So let them smell it!" Henry is growing more discontented. "The Kotzker Rebbe smoked in public on Sabbath. Didn't he?"

  "I never heard that."

  But Henry reads voluminously and has accumulated all sorts of information about the different Jewish laws, and the Rabbis who did or did not uphold them.

  "The Kotzker Rebbe went out of his mind," Rivkah reminds him. “He loved God so much he went crazy. Everybody knows."

  "But they don't know the real truth about the Kotzker Rebbe," Henry leans over and whispers to her gruffly. "I know it though. Poor guy. Poor guy. I've been thinking about him a lot these days too."

  Despite herself Rivkah is startled.

  "You've been thinking a lot about the Kotzker Rebbe?"

  "You'd better believe it. He wasn't so stupid. He had his reasons for everything. And they were good reasons, too. And I'll smoke all I want, just like he did."

  Rivkah starts to walk away.

  "Now you're gonna turn your back on me just like they do?"

  "I'm not turning my back on you."

  "Then stay here and listen. The Kotzker Rebbe was my kind of man. I'll smoke like he did, and if they smell it downstairs, why should I care? Their votes could have made all the difference to me!"

  Rivkah feels hollow inside.

  "And did one of them vote for me? No, they did not." His eyes glass over for a moment then.

  "Votes or not," Rivkah cries out in real pain then, "Sabbath is Sabbath. Stop smoking. Please."

  "Why should I? I hate them. They hate me."

  "It's not that they hate you!"

  "They broke my heart," he says softly.

  "I'm sorry."

  "They'll break your heart too, if you let them. Just like an old kitchen plate."

  "Hearts can't get broken so easily."

  "Oh no? Just wait and see."

  Henry's sadness is too strong. It overpowers everything. And Rivkah can feel it encircle the room and enfold the two of them as they sit there together upstairs alone. Downstairs, right at this very moment, in the grandmother's apartment, she can hear the front door open and close to welcome the precious Sabbath guests.

  Rivkah wishes her mother were here with them now, but every Friday night Molly goes to sleep early and Henry is left here alone to read about the Kotzker Rebbe, and develops strange ideas. But, religious or not, Henry is expected to come down and join the family on Friday nights. Before the election at least he did that.

  "Come on, daddy. We'll go down together now. You'll have some dinner. It won't be so bad."

  Through the floor of their apartment Rivkah hears the guests start to sing. The Sabbath songs rise up and surround them.

  "They're not my songs," he murmurs.

  "They're everyone's songs. They're mine, and I want to sing them."

  All Jews are commanded to sing together on the Sabbath. No one may be excluded from the Shabbos singing and no one may exclude himself. Whatever happened during the week between them, the singing washes it all away.

  "Forgive them, daddy," Rivkah commands him now.

  But Henry's fists form tight. "Give me one good reason!"

  "You never need a reason to forgive."

  Reb Bershky taught Rivkah that it is the Sabbath itself which brings forgiveness. Without the Sabbath no one could ever find the power to forgive.

  But Henry cannot forgive anybody. Will not. If Rivkah stays a little longer he will start to tell her all the people he cannot forgive. Refuses to forgive.

  Now the songs from downstairs rise up more strongly. They are songs welcoming the Sabbath in.

  "Let them sing their guts out. What do I care?" Henry reaches for another cigarette.

  "Stop it!"

  "What good does all their singing do? They couldn't give me even one vote!"

  Henry stands up and goes to the window then to look outside. The small streets are dark, with Shabbos candles shining in each window making odd shadows on the pavements below.

  "The Jewish people have been ripped apart, Bekkie." His voice is somber. "Believe me. It's happened to us all."

  Next from downstairs come the love songs of Shabbos. The greatest mitzvah of all is love on the Shabbos, between a husband and wife. Then the spirit of God comes to join them and all the world becomes as one.

  "I'm going downstairs." Rivkah goes to the door. "It is forbidden for us to stay up here alone."

  "Oh yeah?" Henry walks close behind her to the door and turns the latch quickly shut. "You're staying up here with me."

  Rivkah is frightened. "There are guests waiting." She reels back against the doorway.

  "And what about me? Aren't I also waiting?"

  Then he grabs her arm hard. She flinches and yanks her arm away.

  "Take your hands off me."

  "I will not."

  Rivkah pushes against him. "You're not allowed to touch me."

  "I can do what I like. This is my home. And you're my daughter.

  You belong with me."

  "No, I don't."

  "What did you say?" His face flushes hot red.

  "Leave me alone. Get away."

  "You are staying with me."

  Wild, hot tears start falling now.

  "Don't you dare start crying like your mother cries."

  "I am not my mother."

  "No. Thank God, you're not!"

  The songs downstairs get louder and louder.

  "Bekkie," her father's voice trembles now. "Please, Bekkie please. You're my daughter! Mine! Don't leave me here all alone. I can't take it. Not tonight."

  Then his shoulders heave and start shaking.

  "It's all right, daddy. It's all right, stop crying. I'm not going anywhere."

  Where could she go anyway? For now Rivkah is captive in her grandmother's kitchen. When she walks on the street and men pass her, they turn their eyes down completely. It is as if she does not exist anymore.

  Now life between a man and woman is dangerous and she, too, must turn aside. From all of them. Her father and grandfather included. As soon as a girl is Niddah she must learn to be modest, above all.

  ***

  So, the great pages of Uncle Bershky's Talmud have been officially closed to Rivkah now. After school she stays home by herself, helps her grandmother, and imagines him learning without her, sitting there wrapped up in God's arms. Rivkah does not sit in God's arms though. She sits downstairs, alone on the stoop and watches life itself whisk past her. She cannot imagine staying here forever, though she has no idea where she can ever belong.

  One early evening in late July, Devorah comes out to the stoop and sits down besides Rivkah. Something she very rarely likes to do.

  "You must like it out here," her grandmother begins and wipes her big hands on her apron as she speaks. She has not yet taken it off. "You're out here all the time."

  "Not exactly all the time, grandma." Rivkah wonders why her grandmother is out here.

  "Why don't you go and join the other girls walking?" Devorah is speaking much more slowly than usual tonight.

  Rivkah lifts her eyes from the pavement where she has been watching a small ant lumbering by. Devorah has never before suggested she join the others.

  "You know they're not allowed to be with me because of my mother and father."

  Devorah rustles on the stoop. "I'll ask them for you then."

  "Don't you do that! Ever!"

  "All right. Calm down. You know, we come from a strange family, Rivkah." Devorah moves closer.

  Rivkah doesn't like it.

  "Something is wrong with everyone in the whole family,"

  Devorah speaks slowly and precisely without emotion, summarizing facts. "Everyone in the family is different. All of the children, the daughters especially... Why? I ask myself over and over? Do you think it's because not one of them really listens to the word of God? Not the way they're supposed to.
"

  "I don't think that's it grandma."

  "You know, these days you're changing too. I'm frightened for you."

  "It isn't necessary."

  "It is necessary. The way you look me in the eye. It scares me."

  "Grandma, please."

  "Rivkah, I don't want you to hate me."

  "Who said that I hate you?" Rivkah is taken off guard.

  "No one said it. Sometimes I feel it. At night, just when I'm about to go to sleep."

  "Wrong, grandma."

  "Promise me, Rivkah, you'll never hate me."

  "I promise you."

  "You'll have nothing left Rivkah, if you start to hate me."

  Rivkah longs to get up and fly like a spring bird then, far down the block. But inside she feels tied by an invisible iron bond to this huge grandmother, who will not stop talking to her.

  "Do you hear me, Rivkah? The girls in our family are rotten. My daughters all married strange men. And for what reason did these terrible husbands take my daughters and move away from the neighborhood?”

  "They must have had some reason."

  "What can you get in another neighborhood? You get assimilated, that's all. And they're doing it, one by one. Pretty soon, there'll be no real Jews left at all."

  Now Rivkah wants to get up, cross the street and travel far away. Up on the subway straight down to the beach, to Coney Island, where the ocean is beautiful, and the waves beat wildly on the shore. But girls in Borough Park do not go alone to Coney Island. They don't wear short skirts there, or run into the ocean.

  "Assimilation. That's how it starts, little by little," Devorah doesn't even realize that Rivkah barely listens. "First one family moves away and then another. Bonds loosen. Ties shake. Soon the Jewish people are lost completely. It was better for us in Europe."

  "How can you say that?"

  "Better we die there in the ovens, Rivkah, then lose our soul here."

  Now there is silence. That's all. And the silence that rises between them contains far more than words.

  "You hear everything and say nothing," Devorah breaks it finally. "Somewhere we went wrong. All together. No wonder God hates us all."

  As if pushed by a strong wind, Rivkah lurches away from her grandmother. "It's enough, grandma. You're going too far. God doesn't hate us."