Her Shabbos ponzhelo, light before, was completely dark from the rain. What was she doing standing outside in the twilight, her stockings filthy, her housecoat clinging to her body? The rain fell heavily. It filled the gutters and rushed down the hill. On either side of where she stood, the gutters ended but the water continued, arcing outward before falling into the river. She turned and looked at her husband.
“To become an adult, a child must hate the ones he loves the most,” he said. “Lipa hated me too. He hated all of us sometimes. They all do. But they love us as well.”
“Tzila Ruchel couldn’t look at me today.”
“You can hardly blame her.”
“Nice.”
The rain pooled inside Surie’s collar. She shivered. A group of girls stood nearby, shivering under the trees, but then walked away fast, holding their hands over their heads, silent and intent on reaching shelter. She was looking down, wondering at the way raindrops created notes in the oil slick, a sorrowful soundless music, when she heard him speak.
“Come home,” he said, holding out his hand.
She wiped the rain from her face, turned back. He had a beautiful hand, with long, clean fingers. No ink on them today. Yidel looked around to see if anyone in the street had noticed. There was no one left. He crooked his index finger, beckoning to her despite how irregular it was, despite the risk of community disapproval. To take his hand now, while she was bleeding, would be against every law they lived by. It was outrageous even if she wasn’t bleeding, to hold hands in public. Licentious. She took a single step away from him, but oh! How his face fell! How the lines cut deeply at the corners of his mouth. Yidel, who had never done her any harm. Hesitantly, she took a step toward him.
“Thank you,” he said. He sighed. “They are calling you Dead Onyu. The grandchildren. There has to be a cantankerous woman in the house, speaking her mind and avoiding convention. My mother groomed you for the position. Please come back.”
They stood in the rain, in silence, staring down at the river. The water was olive green and foamy, brown and black and purple, full of leaves and sticks, syringes, MetroCards, and mushy ticket stubs.
“An old man like you can’t manage the house by yourself.”
He smiled. “I can try. I’ve got to find something to do in my retirement.” She had made a fancy cake in the shape of a Torah and hidden it in the freezer for his birthday, which was only a few weeks away.
His hand still lingered in the air between them. “Come on,” he said. “Tomorrow they’ll be talking about it in the mikva: old Eckstein was holding his wife’s hand in the street, for shame, when he thought no one was looking. At least I’ll have something to confess on Yom Kippur.”
“That won’t be the worst thing, I’m betting,” she said, tilting her head to the side, the better to look into his lovely brown eyes. Still, she didn’t touch him.
“I gave Lipa the money to leave town,” Yidel said. “He didn’t steal it from your purse. I did. I thought I wanted to get him out of Williamsburg. I was ashamed of him. What kind of father is that? Ashamed of his own son.” He shook his head. His payos, wet, sprinkled droplets of water that fell on her hands where they were held, clenched, in front of her empty belly. “But at the bus station, right as he was getting on the Greyhound, I ran after him. I put my arms around him and I never wanted to let go.”
“I still have his glasses,” she said, and pulled them out of her pocket.
“The things parents do…”
“Yes,” she said, and she took his hand.
They turned and began to walk up their street. The rain fell and fell, washing the rubbish from between the cobblestones and behind the crevices, all of Williamsburg’s abandoned things, rushing downhill and falling in a crescendo of sound into the river, where it was swept out into the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Eagle-eyed, persistent, and generous agent and editors: Rebecca Caine, Emily Forland, Jenna Johnson (extra extra love), Georgia Richter, Fred Shafer, Sona Vogel, Lydia Zoells.
Beloved early readers: Leah, Shterna, Yuda, and Ariellah Goldbloom, Tova Benjamin, Lisa Burnstein, Bruce Aaron, Pam Marcucci, Shterna Friedman.
Kindhearted and supportive writing buddies: Ray Daniels, Riva Lehrer, Nami Munn, Audrey Niffenegger, Matthue Roth, Rolf Yngve.
Hilarious and fun fact-checkers: Chavie Laufer, Sheindy Weichman, Moishe Schwartz.
ALSO BY GOLDIE GOLDBLOOM
The Paperbark Shoe
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Goldie Goldbloom’s first novel, The Paperbark Shoe, won the AWP Prize and is an NEA Big Reads selection. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and has been the recipient of multiple grants and awards, including fellowships from Warren Wilson College, Northwestern University, the Brown Foundation, the City of Chicago, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. She is Chassidic and the mother of eight children. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
In Grateful Acknowledgment
Also by Goldie Goldbloom
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
120 Broadway, New York 10271
Copyright © 2019 by Goldie Goldbloom
All rights reserved
First edition, 2019
On Division is based on a short story that was originally published, in a very different form, in Word Riot and You Lose These.
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-72030-8
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Written with the assistance of an Individual Artist Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and with the assistance of residencies at Ragdale and Yaddo.
On Division Page 22