by Rhoda Lerman
“Everything’s a joke today?” He was sorry as soon as he said it. She kicked a rock in front of her.
They turned onto a logging road, hit a field of hay spotted with the red splashes of Indian paintbrush like the spots on Dina’s body. Shoshanna didn’t notice. She picked a few stems, held a little bouquet in front of her. As they entered the dark coolness of junipers, Yussel sensed something moving behind them near the hay field. He could see nothing. They stepped over old skidways, a broken wheel, a rusted pan, rotted planks.
“You’ve changed, Yussel.”
So this was how it would happen. This is how she’d begin. What was following them? Something black that cracked a twig. Maybe the Yetzer Hara, slipping in and out of the junipers, shadow broken here, light broken there. “Me?”
“I’m alone?”
“How have I changed?”
“You’re thinner, stronger. You listen. You’re more thoughtful.”
“I guess the fasts helped.” He could see nothing behind them. But he knew something had crossed the hay fields with them and entered the woods. “Shoshanna, the other day when you came over to the house, I said something to you. I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I was making fun of you. I said, ‘Simple, God provides.’”
“So?”
“Forget it.”
“For some things you owe me an apology. To tell me God provides, you don’t owe me an apology. That’s a change also. You never in your life apologized to me. Another change is your body looks ten years younger.”
“You look at my body?”
“You don’t look at mine?”
“When I think of you as a woman, it’s, Baruch HaShem, with the same emotion I feel when I put on my tallis.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” They were both lying to each other, repeating what they’d learned as kids.
Yussel walked along, wondered if he should ask her, did ask her. “So, uh, how does it look?”
“What?”
“My body.”
“Fine, especially from the rear.” Shoshanna blushed.
Yussel’s face burned.
She walked a little ahead of him, finally said what she’d come to say, “I’m going home.”
Yussel didn’t dare ask why. “You’re moving into the new house next week. You have everything you want in it. You …”
“Ask me why.”
“Jokes, games. Just tell me.”
“Because of Schmulke.”
“Dina I could understand. She should get to a good doctor. Schmulke, I don’t understand. What’s the matter with him?”
Something large fell, made a human sound. Shoshanna looked around also. It didn’t deter her. “He’s not learning.”
“I haven’t had time. Also he fights me. Every idea, he fights. Why do I have to have a kid who wants to take on the world? He has to be the last of the just? Why can’t he just be a kid?”
“Two weeks you haven’t sat one minute to teach him.”
Because I’m lying on my back dreaming about Lillywhite, trying not to call her, talking to her in my head the minute I’m left alone. I’m fighting a fight you should never even have to understand. Two weeks I haven’t called her, except once for a minute. Give me credit for that much. “Shoshanna, let’s turn around. I don’t like it in here.”
“So it’s someone’s dog. Don’t avoid the subject. It breaks my heart I want to be here with you so much, but Schmulke has to learn.”
“You aren’t a rabbi’s daughter? You can’t help him a little until I have more time?”
“His father should teach him. A man should teach his son what his father taught him. That’s the way it should be. So you better start teaching him. Or I leave.” She turned and faced him. “So what should I do?”
Yussel knew he should leave, leave and take them all home with him. He couldn’t leave because he couldn’t leave Lillywhite. “Mendl’s bringing out his boys and Chaim’s boys and a teacher.” It wasn’t true. It would however be true tomorrow. He’d find the airfares. He’d find the teacher.
“Why didn’t you tell me? This is wonderful news!”
“My son should go to school with those bums?”
Shoshanna looked at something behind him. Yussel swung around, jumped. Darth Vader stood with his hands on his black poly hips. “I’m not going to cheder with those bums. I’m going back to Far Rockaway with my mother.”
Yussel pulled him off the ground by the collar. “You want to give me a heart attack? What are you doing out here? Spying on us?”
“You were going to talk about me,” Schmulke whined. Shoshanna giggled. Yussel let Schmulke go, hit a fist into a hand. He always suspected Shoshanna of using Schmulke so she could compete with Yussel, pair up against him at moments like these. Had his mother done that with him? Used him as a weapon against his father? Their giggles infuriated him. He wanted to bang his head on the ground, Schmulke’s head.
Shoshanna said very softly. “I want him to be with a teacher. I want him to have Shomer Shabbas boys to be with, observing boys.”
“He’ll go to Mendl’s.”
“Not with those bums, not me.”
“If Totty says you will, you will, Schmulke. That’s all there is to it. It’s that simple.”
Schmulke raced off before them deeper into the forest, shouting, “Not me.”
“Get him back, Yussel. I don’t like him in the woods by himself. He’ll get lost.”
“Him? The trees will get lost.”
She yelled into the woods, “Schmulke, come back.”
“Two weeks, we’ll try it, Shoshanna. He can sleep there. They’ve got a woman coming from New York to cook for the boys and do the laundry. Just try it.” He would have to pay so many fares from New York he could charter a plane.
“We’ll try the cheder, Yussel. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take him home.”
“Come on back, Tottele,” Yussel yelled into the woods. “You can go to Far Rockaway with your mother. Come on back.”
“One condition,” Schmulke, who couldn’t be fooled, yelled from the woods.
“What?”
“I wear what I want.”
Shoshanna shrugged. Yussel yelled, “Okay.”
Schmulke plunged down through the junipers, jumped around behind them as they walked home. They knew he’d go to cheder every day of the week as Darth Vader. “Except on Shabbas,” Shoshanna added without turning around. Schmulke gave her no argument. Yussel thanked God she was staying, whatever it cost him, wondered how she could have lived with a man all these years who didn’t know how to apologize.
Ruiz was coming to visit Grisha. Grisha was very excited, swept his room, hung his blankets out to air. Babe was making stuffed cabbage for them in her bus. Grisha was examining cabbage leaves for bugs, one by one. Babe was mixing rice and hamburger with her hands. Her knuckles were stuck with raw meat.
“I don’t know why he’s coming. I’m not sick.”
“You weren’t sick. You made yourself sick over Dina.”
“Somebody had to.”
“This is the world, Grisha. There’s doctors and medicine.” Babe rolled the meat mixture in soft large cabbage leaves, secured them with toothpicks. “You know why Ruiz is coming? Because he likes you. Did you ever think someone could just like you, Grisha?”
“You think Shoshanna would let Ruiz look at Dina?”
“She’d let him look, but she won’t listen. Since she came here I’ve been telling her to take that poor little thing to a decent doctor in New York. Shoshanna just keeps waiting for the chicken pox to go away.”
“That’s not all she’s waiting for to go away.”
“She knows?”
“Who doesn’t?” Grisha peeled the outer leaves from another head of cabbage, dropped them in the pot, splashed water on the stove. Babe shook her head over the splash, over Shoshanna, over the shame. Grisha shook his head the same way, clucked the same sounds. “She won’t mind me brin
ging company?”
“A rabbi’s wife with a showcase house? A magazine’s coming to take pictures. Of course she won’t mind.” Babe gave Grisha a new head of cabbage, leaned with her elbows on the counter, looked out at the distances. “Grisha, you’ve known me since I was a girl. Let me ask you a question. Yussel let Indian Joe pay for everything in that house. It wasn’t cheap. I would have helped. Yussel wouldn’t take a penny. What’s the matter with my money?”
“With your money, nothing. With you, you’ll forgive me, something.” Grisha spread his hands in apology. Water dripped from them. “You don’t feel good unless you give, but when you give you want control. Yussel wanted it to be Shoshanna’s house, not yours.”
“You just came up with that?” Babe handed him a towel.
“Nah.”
“You’ve been thinking about that?”
“For a while.” Grisha dropped more cabbage leaves into the pot but this time they didn’t splash. Babe said nothing, turned her back, smiled to herself.
“Why don’t you marry Indian Joe? You shouldn’t be alone.”
“You just come up with that too?”
“He could convert.”
“Yeah, yeah, an old bag like me.”
“A sixty-year-old in good shape? Who wants a sweet young thing?”
“Everybody.”
“You want me to mention something to him?”
“I’m not interested.”
“So who are you interested in?”
“My husband ran off with another woman. That’s enough of a message. I control too much, Grisha?”
“Don’t take it wrong. You’re also very generous.”
Babe poured tomato sauce over the cabbage rolls, sprinkled them with brown sugar, banged around with trays, oven doors, can openers. Grisha was right. Last week when Shoshanna hung curtains over the garage windows, Babe told her that only goyim hang curtains in the garage. Shoshanna said nothing, but she must have told Yussel, who must have told Grisha, who had just told Babe. Babe shrugged. He was right. Grisha washed his hands. “I have to get dressed. You sure it’s okay to take Ruiz to Shoshanna’s?”
“I’m sure. Listen, troublemaker, if you say one word to Indian Joe, I’ll hang you from the ceiling like a chandelier.” Without using her hands, Babe pushed him out the door, splashed cold water on her face she was blushing so much.
At supper, Grisha wore a fresh shirt and a fedora Babe hadn’t seen before. Ruiz wore white shoes and a Mexican wedding shirt. He poured salsa on the stuffed cabbage, ate two big portions. Grisha beamed, kept shoving food at him. After supper Ruiz and Grisha sat in the bus and played gin rummy. Babe couldn’t believe her eyes. She managed not to tell Grisha it was against the law, leaned over Grisha’s chair, kibbitzed, made tea. Finally she sent them to Shoshanna’s before it was Dinela’s bedtime. She decided not to go with them because she might get there and try to control things. She looked in the mirror for a while, wished she could control her chins, went to sleep a little happy. The next day Grisha told her Ruiz said it didn’t look like chicken pox. It looked a lot worse. Babe said, “Anyone who plants half a bathtub on its end in his front yard and sticks a Madonna in it, what does he know from medicine?” She said it because she wanted to protect Grisha from himself.
After Ruiz’s visit, Grisha’s face started dropping until he looked like a starving bloodhound. He stopped playing solitaire again. Babe bought him a new plastic deck of cards in a carved wood box. He wouldn’t touch them, wouldn’t respond to her or Yussel. But when the phone rang, if Yussel was in the room, he’d leap to get it first. One day Yussel heard him say, “He’s not here.” It rang a second time. “I told you he’s not here.”
Yussel knew it was Lillywhite because after the second phone call the music came down from the mountain louder than he’d ever heard it. Her voice was strident, ugly. The third time the phone rang that day, Grisha said, “I’ll look for him,” and left the ear piece swinging against the wall. He didn’t come back. Yussel walked by the phone a dozen, a thousand times. He chewed blood from his lip. When he left the Arizona, he saw Grisha in his room, lying on his bed fully dressed. The phone at the bar was still off the hook.
Three times a week Yussel went to the Paradise, brought home just enough money for Mendl’s expenses, his own, airfares and salaries for Steinberg the new teacher and Steinberg’s teacher’s wife, who would cook. Once a week he made sure to lose. If the Porsche was in front of the Paradise, he drove away, came back when it was gone. He drove Natalie’s wreck, Babe’s Lincoln, Slotnik’s truck, anybody’s car except Bingo’s. Lillywhite called Babe. Babe went to find Yussel. “It’s Music Minus One. She says its urgent.”
Yussel waved Babe off.
Babe hissed, “Yussel, be reasonable.”
Grisha said, “He’s being reasonable.” Yussel took the phone. He leaned his elbow on the counter so Babe couldn’t see his hand trembling.
“It’s urgent. I’m sorry to have to …”
“I’m a little busy. I’ll get back to you.”
She swore and hung up.
Babe asked what Lillywhite wanted. Grisha said, “She wants to convert,” and set himself off into a bout of laughter. Yussel felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He knew he’d hurt her and it was a terrible feeling.
Lillywhite called Mendl. Mendl called Yussel.
“How’s it going, Mendl?”
“Baruch HaShem, the school is fine. The teacher is patient. Mrs. Steinberg is happy with the boys and cooks decent food.”
“Schmulke give you the check?”
“Yeah, yeah. Your kid’s a regular Fetner, a born leader with a mind like a trap. It cost me five bucks to get the check from him. And with my five bucks he bought everyone ice cream, even the teacher. I spent time on Rikers Island and still your kid put one over on me.”
Yussel knew Schmulke was going to get in trouble soon and Shoshanna would have an excuse to leave and take Schmulke home. “And Chaim?”
“Ruchel calls from New York. He won’t talk. She puts his girls on the phone. Still he won’t talk. But he now comes out of his room to see his boys.”
“That’s something. Listen, Mendl, Schmulke’s learning?”
“We’re doing our best.”
“Is he?”
“To tell you the truth, Reb Yussel, yesterday he climbed out the window, went to the regular school with a couple of boys who climbed out the window after him, and picked a fight with some goyim in the playground. It wouldn’t hurt if you talked to him.”
“Mendl, anything else like that, tell me, not my wife. Okay?”
“I heard she’s upset. That’s terrible your Dinela’s not getting better.”
“Dinela isn’t getting better fast enough for Shoshanna,” Yussel lied. “That’s all. You know women. So why did you call, Mendl?”
His voice dropped. “You alone?”
“If it’s so secret maybe you should come over.”
“I don’t leave Reb Chaim alone. Listen, Reb Yussel, this is between you and me?”
“Depends.”
“This woman called for Reb Chaim. I take his phone calls. She said to tell Reb Chaim she knew.” He dropped his voice. “I told her to leave us alone. She told me if I want her to leave us alone, I should tell the other rabbi he better call her and take care of the problem. Reb Chaim’s face turned black, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. So I guess you’re the other rabbi. Maybe you’ll call? I wouldn’t ask for myself.”
“Okay, Mendl, for me it’s between us also. Also for you. I’ll take care of it.” He forgot to ask for her name. He forgot to ask for her number. Mendl, Baruch HaShem, wasn’t so smart, also not so suspicious, called back and gave Yussel Lillywhite’s name and number.
“It’s extremely private,” Lillywhite said.
“I said all right, didn’t I? You want an affidavit?”
“When?”
“When? Why wait? Let’s do it right now. Right now. I’m leaving my house right n
ow and I’m driving up to the pool.”
Shoshanna was in his way as he flung his coat on. “What’s the matter? Where are you going?”
“On business. About the water rights. I’ll be back in a half-hour.”
“Yussel …”
“Get out of my way.”
“I don’t understand …”
“Who are you kidding, Shoshanna? Of course you do.” She flung her hand over her mouth.
26
FOR A LOT OF REASONS YUSSEL DROVE UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS. His body strained at his clothes. His breath steamed up the windshield. “You couldn’t make my flesh crawl when I look at her? My stomach couldn’t turn upside down? Why did You make her so beautiful? Do me a favor. When I look at her, let me see pimples, warts, hairs on her nose. Not even real ones. I don’t ask so much from You. Why do You torment me with temptations? Why do You set this package in front of me and say, ‘Take, take’? I’m not a married man with a lovely wife and a precious daughter who might be dying? Why are You doing this to me? One terrible canker sore, a harelip, fangs. That’s all I ask. Unless You want me to be tempted? Unless You want me to take? What do You want? Do You know what You want from me? You can’t tell me? Give me a clue?” Yussel had to stop the car, blow his nose, dry his eyes.
She marched around the pool, under the roof of pines. Her eyes were candle-bright, the red hair illumined by the sun behind the pines. He felt what he always felt when he saw her. Something gathered itself inside him, gathered up from all points like little bits of iron filings, drew upward into his mouth like hunger. He shivered. “Make it short. My wife knows I’m here.”