Looking at those smooth-cheeked firemen, I feel a strong and desperate longing to bridge the chasm that lies between us. It burns my face and chest, as if the bonfire flames were consuming me from the inside out. If those around me knew how I felt about those goyim that performed our work for us, they would be horrified, and even I am ashamed by my unreasonable attraction. There is nothing more dangerous than a goy, but I am drawn to the mystery of the foreign world so close to my own and yet so far away.
The firemen don’t see me the way I see them. The goyim I will meet later in life will not be able to fathom my fascination with them. But still that painful, burning desire will follow me for many years, igniting each time I meet eyes with a man whose jaw is glistening from a fresh shave, whose eyes gaze directly into mine without repugnance or shame, unspoiled by the shadow of a fur hat.
In June the heat comes in early, dewy wet and slipping off the leaves of the overburdened maples lining the street. Zeidy goes down to the garden to cut flowers for Shavuos, because it’s a tradition to decorate the house with blooms and ferns in remembrance of how the barren Mount Sinai was adorned with blossoms for the occasion. As Zeidy clips chunky pink roses and delicate irises, Bubby watches from the porch, calling to him to be careful, mourning the loss of color in her garden. Zeidy doesn’t really understand how happy flowers make her feel, but only when they are growing from the ground. Within a day or two these beautiful flowers will be drooping limply, their lives cruelly cut short. For what else should we have a garden, says Zeidy, if not to honor the Torah?
On Shavuos we eat creamy cheesecake with a sweet cookie-crumb crust, and triangular kreplach filled with farmer cheese that Bubby takes out of the freezer and fries in a skillet of melted butter. After waiting a half hour, we eat the meat meal, platters of smoked turkey sliced and smothered with red cocktail sauce, chicken legs sautéed in caramelized onions, and chopped liver as well. The purpose of eating separate dairy and meat meals is symbolic; at Mount Sinai the Jews agreed to keep the laws of the Torah, even ones that entailed significant sacrifices, one of which was the commandment to separate milk and meat. “We will do and we will hear,” said the Jews at Mount Sinai, instead of the other way around, demonstrating a blind faith that Zeidy says we still have to be proud of. All of us were at Mount Sinai, says Zeidy after the meal is over and everyone is patting their bloated stomachs. The Midrash says that every Jewish soul was present when the Torah was handed down to the chosen people, and that means that even if we don’t remember it, we were there, and we chose to accept the responsibility of being a chosen one. Therefore, Zeidy lectures further, for any of us to reject any one of the laws would mean we were hypocrites, as we were present at the time the commitment was made. There is no immunity for a Jewish soul.
I wonder how old my soul has to be to have been present at Mount Sinai. Did I say yes because I wanted to fit in? Because that sounds like me, afraid to think differently out loud.
Yet the contract we made with God so long ago is not the same contract Zeidy made with the rebbe fifty years ago. When the Satmar Rebbe announced his plans for a kehillah, a community, in Williamsburg, Zeidy pledged his allegiance before he even knew what it entailed, and in doing so he tied his whole family, and all of its future generations, to this community. Back in Europe, Zeidy’s family didn’t live like this. They weren’t extremists; they were educated people who had homes with wooden floors and Persian carpets, and they traveled freely throughout the Continent.
It was the rebbe who decided I couldn’t read English books or wear the color red. He isolated us, made it so we could never blend in on the outside. If I wasn’t there when the agreement was made, why am I still obligated to follow all these rules? Can Zeidy really expect me to walk in the rebbe’s shadow as blindly as he did, when he was scared and lonely, as all the survivors were, and there was nowhere else to turn that felt safe?
3
The Dawning of Knowledge
“[T]he child will grow up knowing of what is great—knowing that these tenements of Williamsburg are not the whole world.”
—From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
There are three weeks of nothingness between school and summer camp, three long weeks of unbearable heat. I go out just for a few minutes to sit on the stoop, and even in the shade I feel lethargy set in instantly, my hair flattened limp by the humidity, my spirits deflated. My legs itch underneath thick woolen tights, which, ironically, do not protect me from mosquitoes. I am addicted to the bright pink Italian ices from Mayer’s grocery store. They last forever, and my stomach is cherry-sick by the time I scrape out the bottom of the paper container.
Just when I think I will die of boredom, my cousin Moshe comes to stay with us. It’s because he got kicked out of yeshiva, I hear Bubby whisper on the telephone when she thinks I’m asleep. Always making trouble, that boy, she says, sighing.
From my bedroom at 5:30 in the morning I hear Zeidy wake Moshe up like a drill sergeant. “Get up. It’s time for prayers. Let’s go. Get up. Come on. The sun is rising. We pray at first light. Get up. Get dressed.” He drags the boy out of bed by his ear, and I hear Moshe stumbling blindly in search of his clothes as Zeidy barks at him. Moshe is here to suffer a dose of Zeidy’s discipline, the cure-all for bad apples. With his twelve siblings to worry about, Moshe’s parents have enough on their plate.
Zeidy wants him to find a good shidduch, an arranged match, but fat chance anyone’s going to marry an eighteen-year-old boy who’s not in yeshiva. There is no sign of a beard on Moshe’s smooth-cheeked face, and I can’t tell if that’s because he’s tampering with it or just a late bloomer. If he were trying to stop the growth of facial hair, it would be a serious offense indeed, and I’m thrilled at the prospect of such mischief.
I tease him about his lack of facial hair.
“Tell me the truth,” I say, “do you pull them out by hand? Or do you use a razor blade? Maybe a tweezers!”
“Shut up, you little snitch,” he snarls at me. “You don’t know from nothing. Mind your own business.”
Still, he comes by my room in the evenings after prayer, going through my stuff, teasing me. He knows he shouldn’t be talking to me because I’m a girl, but Bubby won’t scold him, and Zeidy is still learning at the kollel. Later I will overhear Zeidy giving him a stern lecture about the impropriety of fraternizing with females.
“What business do you have talking to girls,” Zeidy says in a hushed, angry voice, after he has pulled Moshe aside, “when you should be spending your every free moment learning the holy Torah and focusing on your future? Which girl, tell me, will look at a boy like you, who can’t sit through one shiur, let alone a full day’s learning?”
I glance over in his direction. Moshe doesn’t say anything, only looks at the ground, where his feet shuffle nervously, his face betraying a true, deep misery that something within me recognizes.
The disapproving lectures don’t help much. Moshe still abandons his seforim to come talk to me, and feeling a mixture of pity and curiosity, I let him. When Bubby goes to visit her friends in the evenings, I show Moshe how to roast marshmallows over the stovetop. We impale the kosher marshmallows on the metal skewers Bubby uses to make shish kebab, so of course they are fleishig. We can’t eat them with our chocolate-syrup-and-milk concoction.
Moshe teaches me how to make prank calls.
“Hello? Yes, this is Con Edison calling. We’ve been having some problems in your area and we need you to go check if your fridge is running. Oh, it is? Well, then, go get your sneakers and run after it!” I bang the receiver onto the base and we dissolve into hysterical giggles. My ribs ache in the best way.
One night Moshe says to me, let’s dial random toll-free numbers with funny words, like 1-800-BOGEYMAN. Sometimes we end up actually calling the right number; 1-800-TOILETS offers to fix our pipes for us.
“Hey, listen to this,” he says, and he dials 1-800-FATLADY and puts the phone on speaker. A woman’s voice comes on, but
it’s a machine, I can tell. She sounds breathy and weird. “Thick . . . fat . . . juicy . . . ,” she breathes, and I press the Off button quickly. Moshe laughs loudly at my reaction and I feel as if I have been tricked. The air in the room changes.
“How old are you, Devoiri?” he asks.
“Thirteen, why?”
“Really? You’re thirteen? I can’t believe it. I thought for sure you were seventeen. You look so much older!”
“Nope. I’m thirteen.” I scrape the last of the marshmallow off the metal skewer with my teeth. Moshe watches me lick my lips and shakes his head in wonder.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just can’t believe you’re that young.”
Zeidy pulls me aside in the morning and asks me if I learned the laws of yichud in school this past year. We learned some of them, sure. I know a girl can’t be on her own in a room with a man, even if there are other women there too. She can be on her own with two or more men. You have to leave the doors unlocked if you ever end up in a situation with a man. No touching. No singing aloud, of course. But Zeidy and Bubby leave Moshe and me alone at night, without a concern, and I leave the door open like I’m supposed to anyway. Besides, Moshe is my cousin. I mean, we’re related. Those rules are just for show.
When Bubby goes to Aishel, the old-age home, to feed the patients, I run down the street to Mayer’s grocery to get an Italian ice. Cherry or lemon flavor, I can’t decide. Lemon is tart and clear, cherry a cloying sweetness that lingers afterward in the dark pink stain on my tongue and teeth.
As I’m standing over the sliding door of the box freezer, Rodrigo, the Mexican boy who works for Mr. Mayer, accidentally brushes past me on his way to the back. The aisles are narrow, and without thinking about it, I jerk away. Cherry, I decide, and grab the red one from the freezer. Before I can close the sliding door, I feel a hand on my butt. There is a distinct pinching sensation but for a split second only, so I can’t be sure, but then I whip around and see Rodrigo disappearing into the mildewed darkness of the back room.
I am frozen for a moment, one hand on the Italian ice, my back turned to the freezer to protect myself. My face is hot red. The indignity of it burns in my throat. The Mexican! On my own street!
Fury fueling my steps, I walk quickly to the front, the heels of my shoes tapping self-righteously on the hollow wooden floor. At the counter, old Mr. Mayer is leaning over his account books, both his hands shaking from Parkinson’s, the tips of his yellow-white beard brushing the frayed pages of his ledger.
I plunk two quarters down on the butcher-block counter. I know better than to give it to the shopkeeper directly: that’s not allowed. Mr. Mayer doesn’t even look up. I pause for a moment, unable to decide if I should tell him something about what happened or just let it slide. It’s so embarrassing.
“Mr. Mayer.”
He doesn’t look up. I think he may be slightly deaf from old age. More determined to get his attention now, I raise my voice.
“Mr. Mayer!”
He lifts his head slightly and peers through his bifocals at me.
“Tell your Mexican boy not to lay a hand on the customers.”
Mr. Mayer stares at me blankly, his large eyes peering at me from yellowed sockets. I think perhaps he hasn’t heard me, but then I see his lips quiver with intended speech, only nothing comes out. For a moment, shock has frozen his hands, withered claws that seem suspended above the counter until he reaches out and scoops up my two quarters in one palm, the other hand pushing toward me a wooden scraper wrapped in white tissue paper. He’s not going to say anything. Reluctantly, I take the scraper and walk out the front door, the bell ringing frantically as I make my exit.
Back at the house, I crouch on the front stoop and watch the pigeons fight over the crumbs Bubby left in the front yard. The Italian ice rests, still wrapped, in the cradle of my two palms, the paper container growing softer as the ice melts. Cherry-pink liquid drips out the bottom and runs through my fingers, staining them with rivulets of red. I feel nauseated.
I should tell someone. Maybe if I tell Zeidy, he will go down to the grocery himself and yell at Mr. Mayer, and this time the grocer will listen, and he will know that he can’t just let his workers get away with whatever they want. There should be justice. I’m a Jewish girl; at least in my own community, I should be safe.
But how can I bring myself to tell Zeidy? What words will I use to describe the experience? It’s too embarrassing to even contemplate. And if I were to tell him, what if he thought it was somehow my fault? Wasn’t I somehow implicated in the story? I don’t want to see the look of disappointment on his face.
My hands are becoming numb from the cold container in my palm, and the chill spreads up my arms and into my shoulders and chest. I shiver violently, as if shaking off an invisible demon. Just imagining the taste of the sickeningly sweet cherry-flavored ice brings bile to my throat now. I drop the still unopened sodden container in the metal trash bin. As I get up to go inside, I notice the slate underneath my feet is stained dark by the mess I made.
Shabbos lasts the longest in June, and this week I spend the afternoon on the couch because of mysterious abdominal pain that won’t respond to Bubby’s usual dose of antacids. Zeidy doesn’t say the havdalah blessing until 10:30 on Saturday night, but at 11:00 p.m. Rachel and Tovyeh come all the way from Borough Park with their kids for the Melaveh Malkah, the post-Shabbos meal. I take a few Tylenol and the pain dulls into a faint throb, and I join my cousins at the dining room table for scrambled eggs and vegetable salad, while Moshe is dispatched to the kosher pizza store on Marcy Avenue, where the line usually extends into the street on a Saturday night.
When Moshe gets back with the large, oil-stained cardboard box in his hands, Zeidy and Tovyeh are already deep in some Talmudic debate, and after I’ve finished doling the pizza out to the kids, Zeidy gestures for me to come closer. He wants me to bring up a burgundy from the cellar, Kedem brand, with the yellow label. I hesitate. I’m scared to go alone downstairs in the dark. I know there are rats in the cellar; sometimes even the stray cats get in and play killing games with them.
“I don’t want to go alone,” I say.
“All right, then, Moshe will go with you. But make sure you get the right one. Moshe! Go with Devoireh to the cellar and turn on the lights for her so she can see. Here are the keys.” And he hands us his key ring, heavy with keys to every lock in the house.
Moshe and I traipse down three flights to the cellar, the last flight shrouded in darkness and what I think are cobwebs. I can smell the deodorant he uses, sharp and strong, even though he’s supposed to use unscented products. His footfalls are heavier than mine. I wonder why Zeidy lets us go down to the cellar alone. I’m sure it’s against the rules, but Zeidy would never allow it if it were, so I guess it’s okay.
Moshe fumbles with the fuse boxes, trying to find the right switch in the dark. Finally a weak orange light emanates from bulbs strung across the ceiling pipes and illuminates the dank cellar. The piles of junk loom more clearly now—old suitcases stacked upon each other, an ancient pram with one wheel missing, old mattresses—and at the back, the wine crate.
Even with the makeshift lighting I can’t see very well, and I pull out bottle after bottle, looking for the elusive burgundy, while Moshe makes no move to help, instead pacing behind me.
I think I’ve found the right one, Kedem burgundy, yellow label. I squint to make sure, then hand it to Moshe.
“Here. Take that upstairs. I’ll shut off the lights and lock up behind us.”
Moshe takes the bottle from me and sets it down on the floor.
“What are you doing? That floor is cement! You could break the bottle! Zeidy will be furious.” I reach to grab the bottle, but Moshe grabs me by both wrists. “Wha—What are you doing?” My voice cracks.
I feel him guiding me to the wall, and I’m not struggling, my arms paralyzed by shock. One finger still grips the heavy key ring. Standing this close to me, his tomato-sauc
e breath on my forehead, Moshe’s body feels unexpectedly large and solid. His grip on my wrists is tight and painful, and my forearms feel brittle, like twigs. Me, who can lift an air-conditioning unit up a whole flight of stairs.
I giggle nervously. I scan his face to see if this is just a silly game he is playing, this bad boy who got kicked out of yeshiva and wants to scare me in the cellar. But his face isn’t relaxed into his usual pose of disinterested amusement. His jaw is tense, his eyes narrowed.
I lift my knee up to kick him, but he fixes my legs against the wall with his own thick thighs, crushing me with his weight. One hand lifts my wrists up over my head and the other reaches for the zipper to my housedress. He yanks it down in one quick motion, and I bend over reflexively to hide myself, screaming this time.
“Stop! Please stop! What are you doing—? This is crazy—”
Moshe puts his hand over my mouth and I taste the salt of his sweat. I can feel him pushing me to the floor, one hand on my shoulder, the other hand on my waist. I remember the key ring and use it now, slamming the keys into Moshe’s pelvis, shoving blindly against him.
The sharp edge of a key finds purchase in the soft flab of his abdomen and I dig and twist, my wrist the only part of me with a little freedom of movement, and I use it all, even as I hear him mutter epithets in my ear. His body squirms above me, moving away slightly as he searches for the weapon in my hand. I grunt quietly as I shove the key quickly and deeply into his pelvis, and now he jumps off me, hands clasped to him, groaning.
I pull my zipper back up as I make my escape, weaving through the piles of junk, bounding loudly up the creaky wooden stairs and into the bright light of the parlor floor. I’ve forgotten the wine.
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