by Naomi Ragen
Detective Klein looked down at his papers. “And who is Rabbanit Chana Toledano?”
She lifted her head sharply. “A friend, a healer, who agreed to look after him.”
“Why did you take your four-year-old to a friend instead of looking after him yourself?”
“I told you. There was a fire. We needed to move out temporarily. He needed rest. She took him in as a chesed, a kindness.”
“She is the one who called social services. She says she asked you for your medical insurance card so she could have his wounds treated at a hospital and that you refused. She says you came and picked him up that same day and took him away. Is that true?”
“I thought I knew better how to take care of my own son than she did, a stranger.”
“I thought you said she was a friend. Why would you leave your injured son with a stranger?”
She looked down, her grip tightening around her book of psalms.
“What’s your answer?” Detective Klein pressed.
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Why not try the truth for a change?” the policeman cut in.
“I take care of my children! I’m a good mother! I took care of my son!”
“How?”
“I’m sitting here in the hospital with him, aren’t I?”
“Only because social services sent the police to your house after Rabbanit Toledano called them to report her suspicions,” the detective said dryly. “But we’ll get to your son and his burns later. Tell us, Rebbetzin Goodman, why is your other son, your three-year-old, lying in the emergency room unconscious?”
She looked up, stunned, her distress real and overwhelming. “Menchie? My Menchie?”
For the first time, the doctor and the police saw something human and recognizable in her face.
“I must go to him!” She jumped up, starting for the door. The policeman barred her way.
“Where’s your husband?” the detective asked.
“Which one?” she said softly, looking down.
The men raised their eyebrows. “Maybe you didn’t hear us. We asked about your husband,” the detective probed.
“I’m divorced.”
“Have you remarried?”
She hesitated for a surprisingly long time before finally shaking her head no, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Detective Klein.
“Your ex, then. Could he have done this?”
“I told you. It was an accident. Besides, I haven’t seen Shlomie … in…” She suddenly stopped, as if changing her mind about what she wanted to tell them. “Can I go now to see my baby?”
“No.” The doctor shook his head. “Not until we get some answers. Sit down!”
“Please! What answers can I give you? I’ve been here all night!”
Detective Klein and the police officer exchanged a glance, raising their shoulders in a slight shrug. That at least was verifiably true.
“Let her go,” Detective Klein told the doctor.
“If you say so,” Dr. Freund agreed reluctantly, feeling disgusted and angry, like a moviegoer who finds himself confronted by scenes of sickening violence to which he had no idea he’d bought a ticket.
3
Daniella Whartman and Steven (Shlomie) Goodman met in an Orthodox Jewish summer camp in upstate New York in July 1994. She was seventeen years old, a precocious high school graduate of a religious Jewish day school in Pittsburgh, and he was twenty, a born-again Jew from a thoroughly assimilated family who had surprisingly found joy and a new life beckoning to him ever since his Bar Mitzvah introduced him to God.
Certain smells still triggered Daniella’s memories of that time: wet bathing suits, Sun-In oil, and the sugary scent of raspberry juice served in large, plastic pitchers that the campers called “bug juice.” It was her sixth year at camp, her first as counselor. Before that, she had been a chanicha. All the campers were chanichim, the Hebrew word for student. They were all encouraged to speak Hebrew—the language they would need when they all presumably immigrated to Israel to build their homeland. At least, that was the ideal of the camp.
But for most campers’ parents, the real incentive to part with the hefty camp fees each summer was something else entirely: the hope that their children would be inoculated with enough Jewish identity to give them immunity from the lure of a shagetz or a shiksa.
When the camp offered Daniella the job, her mother—who felt it only fair Daniella earn back a tiny bit of what had been spent on her over the years—insisted she take it. Even though it was her last summer before college, Daniella, whose hopes of traveling to Israel and Europe with friends had been dashed by her family’s sudden financial straits, whether real or imagined, reluctantly agreed. “College tuition is bad enough, now especially with your father out of work…,” her mother moaned dramatically.
But it was just her mother trying to make a point, Daniella knew. As owners of a chain of jewelry stores founded by her great-grandfather, Daniella came from a wealthy family. “That’s Grandma’s money, not ours,” her mother would shout whenever the topic came up. But her mother ran the main store and was well paid. Besides, Daniella couldn’t see that her mother had economized on her own spending, trading in a practically new car for an even newer one.
Still, she didn’t complain. Being a counselor was certainly a much better option than being stuck in the house in the unbearable, wet heat of a Pittsburgh summer.
There was basketball, canoeing, archery, and swimming interspersed with prayer and study sessions as well as arts and crafts—omanut—where they labored over wire mezuzah holders and clay menorahs. It was strictly Orthodox, but not crazy like some of the Hassidic camps where boys and girls were sent to different parts of the country. While there were no formal dances, or other organized coed activities, the two groups were often left alone to mingle naturally.
The first sign of a coupling occurred during the traditional Friday-night walk by the dimly lit lake. It was all so innocent, the religious prohibition against negiah, physical contact, having been firmly pounded into their heads on numerous occasions so that even the most daring didn’t go beyond gentle hand holding or a chaste kiss. And while there possibly might have been an occasional rebel who got to first base, no one ever got to second. As for home runs … well, you might as well have dreamt of being a blond goy in Norway.
Saturdays were Sabbath days, reserved for communal prayers and lively dinners with Sabbath songs and Grace After Meals sung out loud, each table competing with the other to show how much ruach they had. Given the materialism in which most of the overindulged chanichim were drowning in 1990s America, ruach, spirit, spirituality, was at the root of all the camp wished to instill.
Their success was mixed.
The boys spoke Hebrew and joined prayer quorums but wore Izod shirts with collars turned up, their hair stiff with gel, while the girls willingly made challah bread and crocheted skullcaps but also spritzed on Sun-In to lighten their hair and were slavishly addicted to Birkenstock sandals, Dr. Martens, and skorts.
Although Daniella didn’t know it, she was very beautiful that summer, her lithe young body as graceful as a dancer’s as her strong, rhythmic strokes lifted her blond head and white shoulders out of the water.
The boys noticed. All of them. To this, she was not oblivious. Still, while she thought constantly and surreptitiously about the opposite sex, her upbringing and schooling had reinforced her shyness, making it impossible for her even to daydream about a boy outside the context of marriage.
Unlike most of her girlfriends, she didn’t want to “catch” an Orthodox doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Born into a wealthy family, money had never really been important to Daniella. All she wanted was sincerity, someone deeply committed to a different life than the one she’d grown up in: a confection of erstwhile spiritual values and religious rituals iced in materialism—a religious life that was more social convention than anything else, barely touching the hearts and minds of those who prayed by rote
, their eyes all the while wandering in search of the opposite sex, or what people were wearing. She couldn’t imagine living the life she wanted in America. And so, unlike almost all her friends, she often considered moving to the Jewish homeland, her inspiration less the choppy, 1950s black-and-white Zionist movies showing kibbutz girls in frightfully immodest short shorts and silly hats wielding hoes in very dusty-looking places, but rather the words of the Bible itself. It was Genesis, chapter 12, verses 1 through 3: Leave your father’s house and your birthplace and go to the land that I will show you. She had no doubt that as Abraham’s descendant, God was also talking to her.
Both her parents strenuously objected. Fulfilling that dream had seemed a long way off until a sudden tsunami swept through her family, disrupting everything in its path and leaving her bobbing in uncharted waters.
It began slowly in the middle of her junior year when her father suddenly lost his job as personnel manager at a midsized insurance company gobbled up by a huge conglomerate. According to his version, he had found it impossible to find another. Months went by. There had been door-rattling arguments, her father furious, her mother adamant, loudly objecting to paying the bills with her family money. From there it turned pitiable, her father reduced to begging as he fought tooth and nail to keep the family together. But as a poor boy who had married into a rich family and had never really succeeded much at anything, he was in a weak position, and he knew it.
While Daniella could understand her mother’s disappointment and anger, she found her alacrity to pursue a legal separation and a divorce unfair to the point of being unforgivable. He was her father, after all, and she loved him. Besides, being strong and successful wasn’t the most important quality in a man, she thought; being kind and good was. And he had always been a good-hearted, if inattentive, father and a decent person. She hoped her mother would appreciate that at some point and back down. They apparently were in counseling.
She lay on the warm, summer grass, the back of her slim young arm shielding her pretty brown eyes against the afternoon sun.
“Ready for the little monsters?”
It was Mark, the boys’ swim counselor. He leaned over her, grinning, his large, muscular body putting her small one into shadow.
“I guess,” she answered, as she pulled her towel more tightly around her modest swimsuit, sitting up. Quickly, she tucked all her long blond hair inside her Speedo cap.
He was six feet tall and two years older than her, with a smooth, manly chest and slim, powerful thighs. His dark hair swept into laughing blue eyes that crinkled adorably at the edges as he brushed it away, squinting into the sun. While he wore a knitted skullcap—all the males in the camp did—she could tell he wasn’t the type that pored over the Talmud in his spare time. All the girls, she knew, were gaga over him. She just wasn’t one of them.
She jumped up, lowering her head and staring at her toes as she walked away toward the little girls lining up for their swim lesson.
“Well, see you later, Daniella,” he called out hopefully, his ego deflated but not crushed. She had a reputation for being shy and serious, and very religious.
A week into camp, a new counselor showed up. He was introduced right before Friday-night prayers.
“This is Shlomie, and he’s our song master and ruach booster,” announced the head counselor, a paunchy Israeli married to the camp nurse. Daniella wondered at the job title. Their usual song material consisted of old Hebrew rock tunes that had long ago represented Israel at the Eurovision song contest: songs like “Abanibi Aboebe” and “Hallelujah.” But this year, it was a more recent Israeli hit, “Kan Noladeti” (Here was I born and here were born my children / Here I built my home with my own hands / and here is the end of my two thousand years of wandering.…). She loved that song, wondering what he could do to improve on it.
He was dark and thin, and just slightly taller than her, with beautiful blue eyes, a long nose, and high forehead. His thick, black hair was cut short while his sideburns dipped past his earlobes. She wondered if this was deliberate—a religious statement—or simply carelessness, in tune with his wrinkled, uncool corduroy pants and the worn sweatshirt on which the words “Coca-Cola” were written in Hebrew letters.
Then, he began to sing.
He had a strong, melodious tenor that lifted the notes out of cliché no matter what the song. He sang, she thought, the way he smiled: with joy and innocence and sincerity and an overflowing sweetness that was as clean and pure and wholesome as a glass of milk. It came out of his eyes, blue, happy pools, like waters in the Bahamas, with nothing dark underneath, which made you feel you could see right down to the bottom of his uncomplicated soul.
“My parents wanted me to go to college, but I decided to go to Israel instead,” he told a group of them around a Saturday-night bonfire. She uncharacteristically joined in, sitting across from him, just watching and listening.
“But you came back,” someone pointed out.
“Only temporarily.” He shrugged, smiling.
“How was it there?”
“I got off the plane and right away, I felt like I was really, really home. Can’t even explain it to you. Just that feeling, you know, in your gut, your stomach. Your soul.”
He didn’t have to explain it to her. She felt she understood completely.
He picked up a guitar and started to strum. “This is a havdalah nigun from Reb Shlomo Carlebach,” he told them, strumming softly, accompanying a tune without words. And the more he sang in his rich, clear voice, the more the wordless tune took on meaning, filling her heart, creating an intense longing for something undefinable but real, something permanent and good. It was as if he was sharing some secret. He sang on and on until everyone had joined in. Suddenly, without warning, he picked up the tempo, the tune getting faster and more frenzied, everyone clapping in wild rhythm.
The flames of the bonfire crackled and snapped, sending lively sparks into the night sky that illuminated their joyous faces. He put down his guitar and stood up, his body swaying, his arms moving from side to side. He closed his eyes, his young face clenched with intensity as his head swung to and fro. And then everyone was up and dancing, clapping their hands off, singing their lungs out, part of something larger, something magical that lifted Daniella off her feet as well, pulling her out of her shy self-consciousness, allowing her body to stamp out its own rhythm, to sway and move.
She never wanted it to end. And when it did, she saw him staring at her, smiling that beautiful, pure smile. She smiled back, dazzled, a small thrill flying through her stomach.
All that summer, they were both too shy to take a private walk together, meeting only as part of a group. But when they said their good-byes at camp’s end, she felt an irresistible urge to walk over to him.
“I really enjoyed your singing,” she said.
“Oh, thanks. I really, really enjoyed your dancing,” he answered shyly.
There was a short pause.
“I’m so happy … that is … I’m glad … you know … we met,” he said quietly.
She caught her breath. “So … am I,” she whispered, her voice trembling, feeling awkward and unprepared, as if she’d been twelve and one of his chanichim. “What’s happening with you next year?”
“Oh, I think I’ll look for a job in education, or maybe work for a youth organization. “
“Like Bnei Akiva?”
“Yeah, or maybe Ezra.”
Bnei Akiva was coed. Ezra—its more religiously stringent counterpart—was not. She wondered if that had significance and what it said about him.
“Where will you be living?”
“I guess that’ll depend on where I get a job.” He shrugged cheerfully, unconcerned.
“You don’t seem too worried.” She laughed.
“I’m not. This is all just temporary. I’m going to move back to Israel, as soon as I can talk my parents into agreeing.”
“Oh, that’s … great. I was thinking of going there next s
ummer, during college break.”
“College? Already?”
She nodded. “Early admissions. The University of Pennsylvania.”
He mouthed a “wow.” “You must have really good grades!”
She gave a modest shrug. “I like to read.”
“What will you be studying?”
“I was thinking pre-med.”
Again, a silent “wow” made his mouth open wide. “That’s wonderful. The good that doctors do in the world! They’re so close to God.”
She smiled shyly. “I want to do good.”
“I’m sure you will, Daniella.”
And then, there was suddenly nothing, and everything, left to say. But it was up to him, she realized, hoping he would boldly ask for her number. He didn’t. Disappointed and a bit hurt, she picked up her bag.
“Well, bye. And good luck with everything.”
“Oh, you, too, Daniella. Hope we’ll meet again!”
She put down her bag. “Do you?”
“Of course.” He smiled but didn’t continue.
She picked up her bag once more and boarded her bus. All the way back to Pittsburgh, she leaned her forehead against the window, chilled now with a sudden rainfall, and felt her eyes moisten with regret. With half an ear, she listened to a fellow counselor chatter on about her plans for buying clothes for the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday. She felt heartsick.
Standing in front of the door to the beautiful old Victorian house she had always lived in and taken for granted, she rang the bell. She was disappointed when no one answered. She took out her key.
“Mom?” she called through the open door.
“She not home,” answered the maid, coming up from the basement.
“Oh, hi, Emelda. Is my dad around?”
The woman’s sad brown eyes looked even sadder. “Oh, Missy Daniella. Your dad, he move out. Las’ Sunday.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, thanks for telling me.” She hurried up the steps, throwing her suitcase and bags onto the thick rose carpeting of her room and then slamming the door behind her. She lay facedown, moaning, wetting her lovely satin bedspread with tears.