"I despise cows," Matthew speaks with more intensity, stretches, and gets up from the sofa.
Rivkah suddenly wants to cry.
"I can't respect women like that."
"What kind of women do you respect, Matthew?"
"Business women, in sleek suits."
Rivkah notices him licking his lips.
"The smell of success around a woman excites me."
An odd nausea takes hold of Rivkah. "The women I grew up with,"
But he interrupts her. "Were they exciting?"
"Not like the women you're talking about."
"Stimulating?"
"Maybe not."
"Interesting even?"
"In their own way."
"I can't imagine why you're defending them now." Matthew is irritated.
"It's not exactly that I'm defending them."
"They hurt you, didn't they?"
"Maybe."
"So, tell me one good thing about those kinds of women."
They were surrounded by love, Rivkah suddenly remembers and feels a throbbing pain inside.
"Can you tell me something now?" He is persistent.
"No, I can't," she answers, "but I'm not a sleek, blonde, business woman, Matthew. And I never will be."
"Too bad," he whispers under his breath.
* * *
As time proceeds Rivkah and Matthew fall into a comfortable pattern. He advances at work and takes up collecting early Americana which he keeps in his office, and which Vivien admires a lot. Rivkah studies hard, and collects fine Eastern calligraphy. They spend weekends with their circle of friends at parties, or in the country. Rivkah goes walking alone there and Matthew goes to old antique shops and brings back little pieces.
In his spare time on the weekends, Matthew has taken to making etchings of the generations of his family, as he remembers them. He doesn't like showing them to Rivkah, and neither of them ever speak of home.
In the autumn Rivkah has gathered pine combs and put them on their window sills, along with autumn leaves and heather.
"You must go on to graduate school," Matthew kept insisting, as Rivkah's senior year in college comes closer. "And not graduate school in philosophy either. The papers you write are impractical. Graduate school in psychology would do the trick."
"What kind of trick?"
"It will help you deal with reality." Matthew has developed an odd commitment to Rivkah's understanding reality, as he sees it.
Rivkah sighs. She has given up trying to explain her questions to him. They are her questions, not his.
"You live in your own world more and more these days," Matthew says often.
"So do we all," she plainly replies.
"Not like you do."
"According to who, Matthew? According to who?" What does Matthew know of reality, Rivkah muses to herself. His days seem hollow to her, formulated, cut in stone. More and more when they speak these days, his eyes look past her at something or someone he is remembering. He barely sees her there at all.
"Where is the man I married?" she sometimes asks when he comes home late, his briefcase stuffed full of papers and notes.
"Right here," he replies dryly.
I'm lonely Matthew, she longs to call out, but is afraid to. Forget your papers. Come sit here with me.
"And I have no desire to discuss this further," he concludes as he drops the heavy load of papers on his eighteenth century desk that sits in the corner of the room. "Just be grateful that at least I come home."
"I am grateful," Rivkah replies.
* * *
As her senior year arrives Rivkah decides to go on to graduate school in psychology.
"Why psychology?" Rivkah's best friend Janice doesn't really understand it. "You're doing it to please him, aren't you?"
Rivkah and Janice have taken to walking in the park together every day after classes. Now they sit down on a small wooden bench facing the river as the boats go by.
"Possibly," Rivkah says softly.
"But why?" Janice bristles, "who is he anyway?"
"My husband."
"So? Are you terrified he'll go and leave you alone?"
"Maybe, I am."
"So, let him go, and study philosophy! It's what you love. It's who you are."
"I can't let him go," Rivkah can barely whisper.
Janice turns and stares at her then. "Why not?"
"I just can't."
"You work so hard. You are either working, studying or entertaining Matthew's friends. They're so different from you. Do you like them particularly?"
"Not very much."
"I didn't think so. They're not very interesting. And also, they're not very nice to you."
"Janice, stop."
A cool breeze from the river comes in at them and slaps both of their faces then. Janice almost gets up from the bench then. "Rivkah, these days you look so sad."
"Do I?" Rivkah raises her hand to her face, touches it lightly, almost to remind herself she is there. Then she gets up from the bench.
"Don't you realize you're a beautiful woman? Unusual. Interesting."
"Janice, I beg you."
"Do you love Matthew?"
Bitter tears fill Rivkah's eyes.
"Rivkah, Rivkah," Janice goes on, "what happened to you? You've never told me."
Rivkah's whole body starts shaking.
"I'm worried about you. Really. You can't even ask yourself if you love him or not!"
A few hours later, back in her apartment, Rivkah sits at her desk but cannot study. The words on the pages blur in front of her eyes. She gets up and goes to the windows that look down the block to the edge of the river, and thinks of the conversation with Janice. It is the first time in a long time that anyone has said they were worried about her. She had no idea how much those words could mean.
That evening Rivkah decides to talk to Matthew about it."I had the oddest conversation today, Matthew," she begins as she clears away the dinner dishes and gets ready to bring out a small cup of the expresso Matthew so loves.
"About what?" His words come from behind the pages he is rustling.
"Us," Rivkah says very quietly.
Matthew's head looks up for a moment from the top edge of the paper.
"Are you happy, Matthew?"
"Yes, I am. Why shouldn't I be?" Not a word follows. After a long while, Matthew continues. "If you go onto graduate school in psychology, it will help you to be happy too."
"But Matthew, what about us?"
The words land and stay in the air between them. Matthew gets up from his seat. "I don't know exactly what you expect from me. Really!" A little perspiration breaks out on his forehead. "Do you think another person can make you happy?"
"That's not what I said."
"It's what you mean."
"Not exactly."
"Well, maybe it's time for a new solution between us," Matthew says sharply then.
Rivkah feels her mouth go dry. Is he thinking of leaving? She couldn't take it.
"Maybe it's time for you and me to have a baby?" Matthew says instead.
Rivkah is startled. "What?"
"A baby. What's wrong with that? We've been together long enough. We have enough money."
Rivkah's heart starts beating fast. She never imagined having a baby with Matthew.
"You seem so restless these days. Something like a new baby will be good for you. It will ground you in reality."
Rivkah bites her teeth hard together.
"It will involve you in the real life of the community."
"And what about you?"
"I wouldn't mind having a child. It will good for me too. Why not?"
"I'll think about it, Matthew," Rivkah answers then, short of breath. "You've got to give me time."
CHAPTER 18
After that Rivkah and Matthew spend less and less time together. The idea of having a child with Matthew terrifies her completely. How in the world would they raise the baby? What kind of an
swers could she provide? Everything she was has been taken from her. Except, of course, her little book On Zen.
Rivkah works harder at school and spends more time with Janice. One day as they are walking in the park, Janice tells Rivkah she just saw a small, interesting article in a magazine on someone called Taisan the monk.
"On who?" Rivkah is taken aback.
"A Zen monk from Japan."
Rivkah's heart stops beating.
"What?"
"In fact he has a Zen Center near here."
Rivkah stops cold and gazes at Janice. "I'm not ready yet," she tries to say. But the words don't come out.
"What's that you said?" Janice almost hears her.
"Nothing. Not yet."
"Well, I thought it was interesting."
Rivkah feels upset. Taisan the monk. The name sounds familiar. All these years of reading the little book, she thinks. She wants to go see him, but inside is turmoil. Not yet, her mind says. Not yet.
Still, she delves deeper into her book On Zen. Many nights she stays awake until almost morning, reading it over and over again.
A few months later, as she is leaving school, she runs into an art history professor on the lawn, Simon Tarentall, moving at top speed.
"Hey, Rivkah, hold up."
She stops and waits for him.
"Good to see you. You've been on my mind. Excuse the running, I'm in a big rush. The doors open in half an hour."
Rivkah smiles brightly. She's always liked him.
"I wish you could drop everything and come with me now. I know you'd love it."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to sit with Taisan the monk."
The sunny afternoon stops in its tracks. Rivkah is motionless. "What did you say?"
"Taisan the monk. There's this absolutely terrific experience I'm having. We do zazen. The practice of Zen meditation. It cleans out your body, your mind and your heart."
"Not yet."
"What did you say?"
Waves of fear surround Rivkah. "I can't do it now."
"Why not?"
"I'm afraid, Simon."
He stops and stares. "Of what? It's entirely beautiful."
"Beautiful or not. It's not my time yet."
Simon looks sorry. "Okay, see you later. I can't be late."
That night, filled with amazement, Rivkah writes in her journal,
Rabbis, who is this Taisan? I have the feeling he's come for me. What does it mean to be ready to meet him? Is there ever really a time? And, for a Jew, is this ever allowed?
Now Rivkah's sleep starts to grow fitful, filled with long and vivid dreams. She dreams of her family. One by one they come looking for her, her parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Sometimes they come silently, looking her over. Other times they come, trying to speak.
"Rivkah? Where are you?"
"Go away," she murmurs to them.
"Have we lost you forever, Rivkah?"
Rivkah is startled. Have you lost me?
"Rivkah, stop for a minute. Where are you wandering? Remember, a Jew is always a Jew." Rage overcomes Rivkah. "And what exactly is a Jew?" she yells to the filmy dream figures and tries harder to push them away. But they are dream figures who can't be dictated to. She awakes exhausted, startled, and bathed in sweat.
One dream especially keeps returning. In it she is saying prayers for the dead for her mother's sister, Neilah. I haven't seen her for years, Rivkah thinks in her sleep. She's not my aunt anymore. A voice within replies, "Years don't matter, an aunt is always an aunt."
"I keep dreaming the same dream over and over," she says to Matthew one night before retiring. "That an aunt of mine is dying."
"So, call her up and find out."
The idea of calling her family startles Rivkah tremendously. But, after having the dream for two more nights and waking up wet and nauseous, she decides to do just that.
Tentatively, very tentatively, Rivkah telephones the aunt's home first thing the next morning. But she hangs up before they pick up the phone. The next morning she tries once again. This time she dials completely.
The phone rings through and a strange person answers. After speaking to a nurse for a few moments, Rivkah learns her aunt Neilah is about to be hospitalized with terminal cancer. In a sweat, Rivkah asks the nurse to say that Rivkah is calling. Almost immediately a message comes back.
"Your aunt begs you to come to her bedside. Early in the afternoon when no one else from the family will be around."
"Is she sure?" Rivkah makes the nurse double check it.
"Yes," the nurse returns quickly to the phone. "She is very, very sure."
The hospital Neilah is in is close to Rivkah's apartment. Without thinking much more about it, Rivkah goes to see her the very next day.
Neilah looks up from under her bedsheets when Rivkah walks into the room. Her face is sunken, almost unrecognizable now. All the years they haven't seen each other disappear. Rivkah shudders a little and reaches out her hand.
"Neilah."
"Little Rivkah."
"I came to say hello."
"Stay with me Rivkah."
For a moment Rivkah thinks of her vigil with her grandmother and grandfather. But when did it happen? It seems like a thousand years ago.
"Everyone is gone," her aunt breathes softly.
"Who?"
"Everyone who matters."
"My parents?" Rivkah is suddenly chilled.
"They're alive and well. But they can't help me."
Rivkah breathes more easily now. "And my brother David?"
"An unusual boy. Beautiful, special. You'd love him so much."
"Really?"
"Stay here with me, Rivkah. You can help me. Like my mother, you were always strong. We knew it too. She told me, "one day when I'm gone, you'll call Rivkah. And she'll come."
A fierce chill runs through Rivkah's body.
"Do you hear me, Rivkah?"
"I'll come as much as I can manage, Neilah."
"Manage, manage," Neilah barely mouths, going in and out of a semi-delirium. "I feel better with you at my side. I'm going fast, but it's okay. This life is a dream. A second only."
Tears well up inside of Rivkah and she moves closer to her aunt. The room is warm. There is warm air on her face and her aunt's old perfume mixed with alcohol and pungent medicine goes in through Rivkah's nose and makes her head spin.
Rivkah comes often. Maybe too often, she thinks. A nurse down the hall has grown fond of Rivkah and brings a glass of tea with lemon to her side, whenever Rivkah comes and sits down.
"Thank you so much."
"You're a special young lady," the nurse says one day to Rivkah as she is passing her in the hall on her way to see her aunt.
"Not so special."
The nurse stops walking and comes over. "After this is all over, maybe you and I can have some time together?"
"Why?"
"There's something I think would be meaningful to you."
"What?" Rivkah feels terrified for no particular reason.
"I'd like to introduce you to someone."
Without asking who, Rivkah almost feels it.
"His name is Taisan the monk."
Rivkah can't bear it. "I know him already!" she says, garbled and loud.
"You do?"
"For thousands of years."
"What?"
Now Rivkah feels dizzy. "Please, I can't talk about it right now."
"I'm sorry. Very sorry. I hope I didn't upset you." The nurse's face looks flushed.
"You didn't. Let me go to my aunt."
"Of course. I'm sorry. I just thought it would be a wonderful gift."
Rivkah runs away down the hall to her Aunt Neilah's bedside. As soon as she gets there, Neilah opens her eyes, smiles and reaches up her hand. "It's good to see you, so good, Rivkah."
"It's good to see you too, Neilah." Rivkah is breathing quickly.
"Really? Even like this?"
"Even like this. Af
ter all, you're the only one I see. There's no one else in the family." It's hard for Rivkah to talk clearly.
Neilah feels it. "What's the matter? Settle down. What are you thinking? You're thinking I hate you like the rest of the family? Well, I don't."
"I never said you hated me, Neilah."
"Rivkah, after I die remember me kindly."
"I will," Rivkah promises.
"And don't forget your grandpa's Shofar."
"I never forget it. Not for a minute. How could I forget it? He left it for me!"
For three and a half more weeks Rivkah goes to the hospital in the early afternoons and sits beside her aunt who does not struggle with her death. Rivkah watches her relax into it day by day.
"This life is only a steppingstone," Neilah says often.
Rivkah rubs her arms with the apricot lotion she brings along.
"And one more thing," Neilah says very late one afternoon, "the rest of your family, Rivkah, remember them also with love. They need it from you. Believe me."
"Remember them with love? How can I?" The room feels small, close and stuffy. Rivkah longs to walk over to the hospital windows, fling them open, and breathe out all the sickness into the cool air.
But Neilah's eyes open wide for a moment. "How can you remember your family with love? If you don't know how, you'd better learn fast."
That evening, after Rivkah leaves the hospital, a very light snow begins to fall. It falls softly, washing her, clearing her mind and bringing a strange sense of happiness with it. Happiness for no reason at all. Rivkah's step quickens and she feels the fresh snowflakes on her face.
Then, suddenly, Rivkah feels Neilah besides her. She stops walking, turns and looks over her shoulder.
"I'm free, free, free," Rivkah feels Neilah saying. She feels Neilah laughing, smiling, dancing for joy.
"What's going on?" Rivkah calls out to the snowflakes, which just wash her face more.
Silence is her only reply.
"Aunt Neilah!" she calls out adamantly now, much louder than before. From within herself then, she hears the answer. "All is well, Rivkah. Good-night."
All is well?
Several hours later Rivkah discovers that just at that moment Neilah passed on.
CHAPTER 19
DISOWNED Page 15