Unorthodox

by Deborah Feldman

  I marvel at the picture the nurse prints out for us, at the tiny babylike form with his hand curved toward his mouth, thumb hovering near his lips. It’s so hard to believe that something that lifelike could be growing inside my innocent belly.

  I start to develop tiny red marks all over my abdomen. They look like little veins. They’re stretch marks, but not the usual ones that run up and down the sides. Instead it looks like hundreds of little rubber bands snapped in my skin.

  When the baby starts kicking weakly, I lie on the couch and lift my sweater so I can poke back at that ever-growing mound, pushing at the little lumps that appear in random areas of my abdomen. At times I wonder, Is this an elbow, a heel, or perhaps his tiny little head pressing up against my stomach?

  Sometimes I get in a mood, and I climb into bed and cry, and when Eli asks me why, I say it’s because the neighbor’s piano playing is too loud and I can’t sleep, or because we have no bathtub and I miss being able to take a bath. Eli says his brother tells him pregnant women cry a lot and that I shouldn’t worry, because apparently I’m nowhere near as bad as his sister Shprintza, who cried every day for nine months. I don’t know if he’s just saying that to make me feel better, though.

  Hasidic men aren’t allowed to masturbate, Eli repeatedly tells me. As a result of this rule, he explains to me, I am obligated to satisfy him so that his sexual frustration doesn’t build up. If I refuse, I would be forcing him to sin, thereby carrying the burden of his wrongdoing.

  Whenever Eli feels libidinous, which is quite often lately, he approaches me much in the same way I imagine a dog pounces on a leg of furniture, rubbing himself insistently against my body as if I were a lump of wood to be used for the pleasurable sensation of friction. I can’t explain to him why I tense like a taut guitar string at his fumbling attempts at release, because he can’t understand why I would want to deny him pleasure. But I dread his humping sessions more than actual attempts at penetration; in the moments that I cringe motionless beneath the scraping movements of his body, I feel my dignity and sense of self-worth slip away.

  The more obviously pregnant I get, the more excuses I have to avoid sex. Even Eli is frightened of hurting the baby. He has this bizarre idea that the baby might be able to see him from the inside, and even though I know how ridiculous that is, I don’t tell him what I read in the pregnancy books; instead I let him continue thinking that, and the respite is welcome.

  Still, if I want something, I know the best way to get it is to receive Eli’s advances. Sex softens him for a little bit, makes him inclined to let me have things my way, and it feels nice to have him smile at me the way he does after we do it, rather than have him glowering at me resentfully for everything I do wrong. He gets grumpy when denied.

  As soon as it’s over, Eli gets dressed and leaves. Always. The minute his desire escapes him, it’s like he forgot why he ever got into bed in the first place, and he rushes out of the house like he’s late for an important meeting. The contrast between his eager attentions and his sudden disappearance is disconcerting. To me, it feels like all he ever wants from me is to feel physically satisfied, and the minute he does, he leaves me alone. I hate him for making me feel so small, but when I tell him how I feel, he laughs me off. You’re being ridiculous, he says. What am I supposed to do, hang around? If we’re finished, I might as well go meet my friends in shul. Is there anything else you think I should be doing? he asks me. Please tell me. But if there isn’t, then don’t make me feel guilty for every move I make in this house.

  The truth is, I don’t want him to hang around. I don’t want him in my bed in the first place. But I wish it weren’t so obvious to me what my role is in this household. I wish I could be ignorant and believe that my husband cherishes me for more than just the simple pleasures my body provides.

  When I am six months pregnant, Reb Chaim from Yerushalayim comes to town. He’s a famous kabbalist from Israel who visits the United States a few times a year, and when he does, everyone bends over backward to get an audience with him. This year Eli got one for me, through a friend of his, because of my pregnancy. I have no special desire to see a kabbalist, because I’m skeptical about mysticism in general and have been questioning my belief in God for a while. And secretly I have always been afraid of people who profess to be all-seeing; I don’t know if I want to be seen.

  My stomach has formed itself into a neat little ball under my sweatshirt, and with my hands in my pockets I cradle it protectively as I wait for the rebbe to see me. It is two a.m. by the time I am ushered in, and the rebbe’s wife sits in the corner so that we won’t be breaking the laws of gender separation by being alone in a room together.

  Reb Chaim asks me to write down my birthday and spends a few minutes making calculations on a piece of paper.

  “Where are your parents?” he asks. “Why aren’t they with you? You’re not an orphan, I can see, but they are missing nevertheless.”

  I explain to him briefly about my parents.

  “There is a secret surrounding your birth,” he pronounces. “The blood ties are not blood. With the birth of your child, everything shall unravel. The truth will surface. You shall come to know yourself through your son.”

  He asks me what I plan on naming the baby and pronounces his approval of my choice. “Remember,” he says, looking directly at me with a penetrating stare, “this child will change your life, in ways you can’t begin to understand. Even when you think things are meaningless, your path has already been mapped for you. You are a very old soul; everything in your life is laden with meaning. Do not ignore the signs. Remember the number nine. It is a very important number for you.”

  I nod my head earnestly, but inside I’m thinking this is ridiculous, that there is no way this man, who has never met me before, knows what I am really like.

  Before I leave the room, he looks up and asks me to wait.

  “Your shadchan,” he says, “your matchmaker, she’s not happy. She feels she didn’t get paid enough money for her work. She has been saying bad things about your family and your husband’s family, and her bitterness hangs like a cloud over your marriage. You and Eli cannot be happy, cannot be blessed, until she is appeased.”

  I don’t even know who our shadchan was. I will have to ask Eli if that even makes sense. At home Eli is waiting up anxiously, curious about my meeting with Reb Chaim. He is taken aback when I tell him about the bitter matchmaker.

  “I will have to ask my mother,” he says, pensive. “I never even thought about it.”

  The next day Eli calls his mother to let her know what Reb Chaim said. She is immediately defensive, saying she paid the matchmaker a thousand dollars, which is considered average. But Eli was a hard boy to match up, older than most.

  Later my mother-in-law calls Eli back, saying she asked around and heard that the rumors were true, that our matchmaker is complaining to people that she was underpaid. An unhappy matchmaker makes for bad luck; everyone knows that. Eli says it’s up to us to appease her, but we don’t have the money to pay her.

  I wonder if perhaps she is the reason I’ve been so cursed from the start of this marriage, if her bitterness is directly related to our discontent. Would God allow such a simple justice system to operate within his greater system of reward and punishment? Surely one malcontent could not have the power to wreak such destruction. If Eli and I were being punished for something, it was not for a dissatisfied matchmaker. I could think of a long list of reasons that would rank higher.

  Toward the end of my second trimester I gain twelve pounds in one week. My stomach balloons out in front of me and weighs so much I have to place both hands under it to support myself when I walk. The weight of my belly drags down on my back and shoulders, causing me excruciating pain. As I enter my third trimester, I become increasingly inactive, unable to perform simple tasks without difficulty. Stuck on the couch, I feel bored and frustrated. The highlight of my day is the gossip Eli brings with him when he comes home from work. I have
been reduced to the yenta housewife I always hated, yearning to know everyone’s business.

  When Eli comes home one evening after prayers with a furrowed brow, I am alight with desperate curiosity. Hoping for an interesting piece of news to brighten my day, I make him some tea and ask him what the men are saying in shul.

  “You know that Bronfeld guy, from down the road? His son got kicked out of yeshiva.”

  “What for?” I ask, surprised.

  “For getting molested.” Eli’s voice is heavy.

  “What are you talking about? Tell me everything,” I insist.

  “You know the weird guy with the limp from the shul up the road?”

  “The old guy, right? Yeah, I know him. So?” I nod impatiently.

  “Well, Bronfeld’s boy was acting weird in yeshiva, so the principal called him into his office to ask him what’s going on, and he said that this old guy, who’s been giving him bar mitzvah lessons, was molesting him for months.”

  “No way!” I gasp, shocked but also hungry to know more. “But why would he kick him out for that? It’s not his fault.”

  “Well, the principal told the boy’s father that he can’t have him in yeshiva because he could corrupt the other kids. And now they say no yeshiva wants to touch him.”

  Eli is quiet for a moment, stirring his tea. “I mean, sometimes I think, you’re never safe, you know? It could be anyone. Your next-door neighbor. An old family friend. How do you protect your children from this?”

  “I still can’t believe the old man is a child molester. How do they know for sure?”

  “You know, actually, the men in shul were all saying it makes sense. I mean, we all thought he was gay for a while, because of the way he was always sitting too close to you . . . Besides, he used to talk about buying this boy expensive gifts and stuff. I mean, it was odd, you know? It was definitely odd.”

  “Are they going to report it?” I ask.

  “I think the boy’s father doesn’t want it publicized. It will make it so much worse for the kid, having everyone know. But someone will take care of it, you’ll see.”

  Indeed, several days later, the old man mysteriously disappears, and rumor has it his family pressured him to go into hiding. While he is gone, a few people in the community sneak into his house and go through his things. Eli tells me they found shoe boxes stuffed with pictures of children in various stages of undress. It appears, he says, from the evidence, that he’s been molesting kids all his life. They could number in the hundreds.

  The accused pedophile comes back home a few weeks later, when his family thinks the buzz has died down, and every day I see him take his daily walk, his frail, bent body moving slowly. I am both repulsed and astounded that a man of his age could still perpetuate such an awful obsession. Each time I drive by him, I am overcome by the urge to roll down my window and spit, but the worst I ever do is sidle up to the curb, slowing down as I approach him and glaring straight into his eyes. He always looks as though he doesn’t notice, and his self-satisfied smile burns into my memory.

  “He’s too old to go to jail,” Eli says, and I am incensed.

  “He’s not too old to molest, but he’s too old for jail?”

  Hasidic people always say they are renowned for having compassion for their fellow Jews. What a liberal form of compassion it is, to me, if it can be so indiscriminately extended to people who are guilty of terrible crimes. And yet, that’s exactly the kind of love Hasids profess to have for each other, a love that doesn’t discriminate, a love that doesn’t have to be justified. Justice is a celestial concern in this community’s view; our job is only to live as harmoniously with each other as we can. Do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto you, and when he doesn’t fulfill his part of the deal, let God take care of the rest.

  Eli invites different people each week to come to our house for Shabbos. We prepare a big spread and I make a large pot of greasy cholent, complete with marrow bones and cheek meat just the way all the men like it. I don’t mind working hard if it means we will have guests over. It’s always more interesting to listen to what they have to say than to sit at the table making stilted conversation with my husband. The people who live in our neighborhood are nothing like the stuffy people I grew up with. Many of them are the rebels of their families, and they’ve moved here for the same reason I chose to, to get away from the watchful eyes. And also, living in Airmont means they’re not a thorn in their parents’ sides, constantly reminding the elders of their children’s lack of desire to live up to the expectations others have of them. When they visit their parents, they pretend to be as devout as they need to, but here in this small town, no one sees what they’re up to, and certainly no one reports it.

  Of course this week all everyone is talking about is the old pervert. No one can believe the guy is a child molester. Some people talk about how there were hints; others say they know his children and it’s not possible. My neighbor Yosef says the man survived the Holocaust as a young boy because he lived under the protection of a Nazi guard in the concentration camp, ostensibly cleaning his house but really being repeatedly molested by his protector. With his blond hair and blue eyes, it was easy for the Germans to overlook it. Yosef says that’s why the guy became a molester himself, that we should have pity on him. I listen carefully to all the details. I can’t get my head around the shoe box full of photographs. Who could be so twisted as to take those pictures? Who could be stupid enough to keep them around as evidence? What makes a man do such things? But most of all I wonder about halacha. There’s a Jewish law for everything. The Torah offers a punishment for every crime, no matter how insignificant. But what about child abuse? What about pedophilia? Is there a halacha for that? Is there a rabbinical procedure?

  But the Torah doesn’t talk about what to do with a man who wants to have sex with children, it seems. It talks about men who have sex with other men, and men who have sex with animals. Those are the unforgivable sins. But there is nothing said about the sexual abuse of children.

  When I voice my indignation at the dinner table, Eli tries to explain it to me. He says in the olden days people got married very young. There wasn’t really a clear distinction between a child and an adult the way there is today. Women were being married off at age nine, so was it really feasible to set up laws against cohabitation with children? There was no social taboo in place.

  Today there is all this sensitivity, he says derisively. Now you’re considered a baby up until the minute you turn eighteen, and then suddenly you’re an adult? Semantics, he claims, waving his hand in a gesture of contempt. The others chime in, agreeing with him. I watch the men slurp up the chicken soup I made so lovingly this morning, dumping chickpeas and sliced radish into their plates and mashing it together with the noodles and squash. They’re eating my food at my table, but I might as well be invisible. Women have no real place in a conversation. They should be busy serving food and cleaning up.

  I look down at my own plate, feeling my cheeks redden self—consciously. Eli always reprimands me for getting too heated at the Shabbos table. Why do you have to be so angry about everything? he always whines. Other women don’t behave like you. Can’t you just relax?

  But I worry. I worry that if no one around me takes anything seriously, who will? The Talmud says, “If not me, then who? If not now, then when?” If I should follow the advice of our rabbis in everything I do, shouldn’t I follow this particular verse as well?

  It seems that all my pregnancy is good for is compounding my anxiety about everything. The more I hear about the horrors of the world I live in, the more unsure I feel about bringing a child into it. Only a few years ago I was free of all this knowledge; I have only recently discovered how dangerous it is out here, but I have not yet figured out how to navigate those dangers securely. How can I possibly protect a child?

  A few weeks later it is Eli’s own brother who becomes the focus of local gossip. It’s all anyone can talk about at the Shabbos table. Everyo
ne knows he’s been sneaking around with a Sephardic girl from Williamsburg for three years now, but her father found out and now he won’t let his daughter out of the house.

  My brother-in-law Yossi is the rebel of his family, the bad boy who smokes Marlboros and talks back to his father, who shaves his beard close and keeps his payos hidden behind his ears. His out-of-control behavior has everybody horrified.

  This Shabbos we are guests at my in-laws’, and I watch as Yossi overdoses on cognac before the morning meal has commenced. By the time my father-in-law is ready to pronounce the blessing on the wine, Yossi has collapsed on the floor. “Is he breathing?” my father-in-law asks coolly, and Eli’s brother Cheskel leans casually over to check.

  His face is white when he looks up. “We have to get him to the hospital.”

  The Hatzolah ambulance comes to take him away, and we are all stuck waiting at home until Shabbos is over to find out what happened to him because of the no-phones rule. Cheskel calls the minute Shabbos is done and says Yossi got his stomach pumped at Cornwall Hospital but he is doing okay. Eli and I drive to the hospital to pick him up, and Yossi emerges from the double doors with his stomach hunched inward, as if it is painful for him to stand straight. His face is pale and sullen. He refuses to talk.

  We all know why he drank too much. He’s been drinking a lot lately, depressed about this girl he knows, because it’s time for him to marry but he only wants to be with her. She’s a beauty with black hair and pale green eyes framed by long lashes, whose father wants her to marry a good Sephardic boy with dark brown skin and an earnest manner.

  For Yossi to marry Kayla would be a big scandal, because in the Satmar community Sephardic is considered lower-class, and Ashkenazi Jews don’t marry out of their class.

  Yossi lies in bed for a week and refuses to get up, so their mother calls Eli and asks him to come talk to his brother and try to convince him to get over this. Eli comes home later that night shaking his head in bewilderment. “He won’t get over this girl. He says he won’t come out of bed unless he can marry her.”