by Naomi Ragen
He blinked, taking the rebuke without comment.
“Even if we could stay here, it’s a chicken coop. We need a real apartment for a normal-sized family. What are we going to do?”
“You know, I’ve been looking into different kollels. A few in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva have offered me a place. They’ll pay me a monthly stipend.”
“A stipend? Shlomie, I know what they pay yeshiva students to study. It won’t even cover our gas and insurance for the car.”
“You were the one who wanted a car!” he accused sullenly, feeling suddenly aggrieved.
“Yes, I know. But how else could we have managed?”
He thought for a moment. “Well, maybe your grandmother—”
“No. Absolutely not. Never again.”
“Well, your mother, then…”
“As if … After all the money she wasted on my tuition? Forget it! I can’t ask her for the time of day.”
“I don’t know why not,” he said, peeved. “It’s a mitzvah to support Torah learning.”
“Damn it to hell, you’ve got to get a job!” she shouted, out of control for the first time in their relationship. She felt enraged, all the accumulated tiredness and work and disappointments falling on her with a crushing blow. She felt as if she were being squeezed through a very narrow tunnel with hardly room to breathe and no certainty of making it out the other end.
He must have sensed it because he suddenly stood up and leaned over, gently touching her shoulder. “You’re tired. Let me do the dishes.”
“It’s not about the goddamn dishes!” she shouted.
He was devastated, looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. He was paralyzed, unsure of how to react. “Tomorrow, you take the day off,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll do everything—feed the kids, do the laundry, the shopping. We’ll go to Tel Aviv for dinner.”
She felt her knees buckle in fury and pressed her lips together, suddenly cognizant of the thin walls and her nosy neighbors, who would be listening to their every word. “Is that what we’ve been talking about?” she said in a heated whisper. “Dinner in Burger Ranch! That’s not the point, Shlomie.”
He collapsed heavily into a chair, frightened by this sudden transformation of his kind, gentle, adoring Dani.… He was at a loss. He covered his eyes with his hands. “What is it you want?”
“I want us to have a life. Is that so hard to understand? Free money is the least free thing in the world. It comes with all kinds of strings attached. You have no idea what my family can be like. I don’t want them to rule our lives.”
“So, you want to move to that place in the desert and grow figs?” he mocked.
Her face sagged, the anger draining, leaving a pale, exhausted fury in its wake. “I don’t want to be dependent on anyone ever again, whatever it takes. I want to teach our children—the children we are bringing into the world—the value of hard work and achievement.”
“But a farmer…” He gestured helplessly.
“It’s not like it used to be, Shlomie. It’s all computerized now, the watering, the fertilizer. Very high tech. It’s a real opportunity for us to learn a profitable business.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “We need to work hard, to learn new skills, to contribute, especially now that we have debts to repay. What do you say, Shlomie?”
He smiled and took her hand in his, almost convinced. Besides, it felt so much easier just to give in. “Please God, He will bless us and we’ll succeed.”
And so yet another chapter in their marriage began, but not the last, which was as yet still inconceivable.
7
Bina Tzedek stood outside the door of the interrogation room with Morris and another senior detective, who between them had more than sixty years of experience in interviewing suspects.
“I’m surprised you think you need me along,” she said.
“You’re a woman, a mother,” Morris explained.
“That person is not a mother. No mother—animal or human—behaves the way she has. She’s a monster.”
“No, she’s not,” Morris answered, shaking his head slowly. “She’s young. She has no record of any kind. There is a secret buried here. Something we need to dig out.”
“How many times has she been interrogated? She’s worse than the most hardened crime lord. She won’t budge. I’m not a miracle worker.”
“Just try,” the other detective encouraged her.
Daniella sat in front of the desk, looking small and incredibly childlike, dressed in the same outfit she had worn in the hospital, but wrinkled now and stained with perspiration and spots the color of tea.
“Let’s stop the nonsense, shall we, Daniella?” Morris began.
“Rebbetzin Goodman,” she interrupted him wearily, her hubris gone, clinging to some shred of dignity.
“Why don’t you tell us the truth? We are going to get it out of you, one way or the other, Daniella,” Morris continued briskly, ignoring her request. He was done playing games.
“I’ve told you everything about my ex-husband!” she insisted, tears in her eyes.
“We know, we know, you told us. How he beat you and abused you. How he abused the children…,” the other detective chimed in, his tone skeptical, almost mocking.
“So what do you want from me?”
Bina put a restraining hand on Morris, slipping forward and pulling up a chair. She smiled, reaching out her hand across the desk.
“Hi, Rebbetzin Goodman. My name is Bina. I want you to know that I talked to your ex-husband, Shlomie. He denies all you say, and I believe him. He really doesn’t seem like the type at all.”
Daniella ignored the proffered hand but looked up, suddenly wary, her eyes darting to and fro like those of a trapped animal searching for a place to hide.
“Rebbetzin, even if what you say is true about your ex, you divorced him and threw him out of the house three months ago. He has many reliable witnesses who have testified he was many kilometers away in Pardes Chana when the children were injured.”
“They’re lying!”
Bina went on mildly, ignoring all interruptions. “One of them is a very well-known rabbi who said Shlomie was in his kollel the night Eli and then Menchie were brought in. There were thirty other students in the kollel who saw him there.” She paused. “So, Rebbetzin Goodman, my question to you is this: If your ex-husband didn’t do it, and you didn’t do it, who did?”
Daniella wiped her eyes, looking at her questioner alertly. “Nobody. It was an accident.”
The other detective stepped forward, about to say something. Bina quickly caught his eye, nodding curtly. He stepped back. “Look, Rebbetzin, we are here to help you, to help your children. You have a baby lying unconscious—”
Daniella flinched.
“—another child with third-degree burns. Don’t you want those who did this to your children punished? Why don’t you simply help us, so we can help you—and them?” Bina said gently.
Daniella put her hands into her pockets, kneading something. “My ex-husband did it.”
Suddenly, Bina slammed her hand on the desk. The pencils jumped. “I have a child, almost the same age as your baby. She walks, she talks, she has chubby little arms and legs. I’d kill anyone who tried to harm a single hair on her head! What kind of monster are you to cover for someone who did these things to your babies!”
Daniella suddenly covered her face with her hands.
Morris and the other detective nodded to each other approvingly. Bina pressed her advantage. “Tell us what happened! Be strong, purify yourself, get rid of your guilt, spit it out of you. Those tears aren’t helping anyone.”
Daniella pressed her lips together.
“Look, let’s say there are three kids in the kitchen and you hear a glass breaking. You go inside but no one is talking. So you ask, ‘Which one of you did it?’ No one answers you. But you see that one of them is standing on the countertop opening a closet, and you know it was him. So you’d get even angrier with
him, wouldn’t you? But if he admitted it and said, ‘Sorry, Mom, it fell by accident,’ you’d say to him, ‘Not so terrible, sweetie. It happens. Next time be careful.’ That’s the position you’re in, Daniella. You’re holding the broken glass in your hand, and you have the chance now to cleanse your conscience by telling the truth.”
The silence lengthened.
Bina slammed both fists on the table.
Daniella twitched uncontrollably, visibly shaken.
“Tell me what happened with the heater!”
“I already told you!” She wept.
“What, that the child put himself up against the heater and you right away grabbed him away?”
“Yes.”
“Liar! Those kind of burns don’t come from brushing against a heater! He was forcibly held against it for a long time, the doctors said. Tell the truth already!”
“The child … the child who was burnt…”
“Yes, yes. Your son. Your four-year-old son. Your Eli…”
“Yes, Eli. It was his own fault. He stood there; he didn’t move!”
“A normal child who touches fire runs away immediately!”
“That’s true. It’s amazing that he didn’t…”
“What? That he didn’t want to move away? Wow, you’re trying to sell us that?”
Morris broke in: “Who are you protecting? The court will decide your punishment, but the person who did this must also be punished. You can’t save them. We’ll catch them. And in the meantime, your behavior is disgusting. And you pretend to be religious, God-fearing—”
“I’m not pretending!” Daniella shouted, standing up.
“Sit down! You know, a highly respected rabbi who saw you in your white clothes with the psalmbook in your hand said it was sickening,” Bina told her, something she’d read in the newspaper.
“Which rabbi?”
“Never mind. A well-respected Hassidic rabbi from Meah Shearim.”
Daniella sat down, her strength draining.
“She’s not religious. No religious, God-fearing person hurts an innocent child or let’s someone else do it while she watches. I feel like we’re talking to a brick wall,” Bina said, thinking of the little boy with the horrible burns. She felt the bile rising in her throat. “Where are the handcuffs? Come, let’s go back to your cell, Your Holiness. You’re not going to see us for another eight days. Such a hypocrite!”
“We rolled out the red carpet for you to tell the truth. We couldn’t have been kinder or more understanding. We don’t want to see your act anymore,” Morris added.
“Your poor kids! You should burn in hell—you have it coming! I’m going to make sure you get yours: that you don’t live to see the light of day again, let alone your children!” Bina suddenly shouted, standing up and leaning across the desk.
“Whoa!” Morris glanced at the other detective, who put a restraining arm around Bina’s shoulder, steering her out the door.
Outside, she leaned against the wall, shaking. She felt defeated.
“Don’t take it personally, Bina,” Morris comforted her. “Sometimes, it’s like this. But usually, they are hard-boiled criminals, Mafia types, murderers. But a young mother? I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“So now what?” she asked him.
“Now we offer her a carrot. We let her meet her children. She’s been demanding it all week.”
“You can’t be serious. She could influence them, threaten them to keep quiet.”
“If she does, we’ll know about it. We’ll be watching and recording the whole thing. If she tries to shut them up, the judge will know about it.”
“Go back in and tell her,” Morris said to Bina.
“No, I’ve burnt my bridges.”
“Don’t be naïve. She respects you now. She realizes she can’t fool you. Go back in and offer her time with her children if she talks.”
Bina took a deep breath, opening the door.
Daniella looked up fearfully.
“I’m sorry I got carried away. It’s just … the idea of anyone hurting children the way yours have been hurt. It makes me crazy.”
“When can I see them?”
“We’ll arrange something. They are missing you terribly.”
Daniella’s shoulders slumped, her back losing its defiance.
“My poor children…,” she said softly.
The sudden contradiction of this statement compared to this woman’s heartless behavior was absolutely dumbfounding. Bina tried to decipher this creature in front of her. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle with tiny pieces when you had no picture to compare them to, no way of knowing how many pieces were missing or how the ones you had fit together. What she had so far showed her nothing comprehensible.
* * *
Two days later they brought Daniella back. Her children were waiting for her: fourteen-year-old Amalya, thirteen-year-old Duvie, twelve-year-old Yossi, eleven-year-old Gabriel, and seven-year-old Shoshana. They were in a bad way, divided up among several foster families, missing their parents and each other. But with both their parents under investigation, social services didn’t have a better solution at the moment.
On the other side of a two-way mirror, Bina watched the drama unfold. An interrogation room’s gray walls, and five children who cried when they saw each other, the older ones hugging the little ones. The door opened, and Daniella Goodman walked in, dressed in her now filthy white clothes. The children’s sobs immediately rose into hysterics. They wailed, a white-hot sound that physically hurt Bina Tzedek’s heart. She stared at the mother, who was facing away from her, appalled once more at her youth, her slenderness. Her body was erect, stiff, like a stone sculpture or some robot in a sci-fi thriller. She didn’t try to hug her children or comfort them. She didn’t ask them who was taking care of them, and if they were all right. When Daniella Goodman finally did begin to speak, Bina couldn’t believe her ears.
“Am I hearing her right?” she asked, turning to Morris, who was standing beside her.
He nodded. “She’s saying the same thing, over and over and over: ‘Don’t talk, don’t talk, don’t talk.…’”
Bina felt her face grow hot with fury. Not one hug. Not one word of comfort to those heartbroken children! She had to stay objective, she must, she told herself, trying to reason with some unreasoning impulse that wanted to smash Daniella Goodman’s face in, to shake her until her pious white hair covering went flying across the room and her long-sleeved dress was stained with blood. She closed her eyes, wiping her forehead and trying to settle the turmoil that ripped through her bowels. This had touched some primitive, animalistic part of her, she realized. Something all creatures capable of having offspring must feel in the most primal way. I want revenge, she admitted to herself. I want to hurt her. And then that suddenly gave way to another primal emotion: fear. Who could stand up against such pain from her own children without trying to help them? It was inhuman.
The longer she watched Daniella Goodman standing stoically, allowing herself to be hugged, the greater her disgust for this woman grew. “Remember everything you were taught, children,” she told her screaming children without emotion.
“We miss you so much, Ima,” Amalya sobbed helplessly. “What’s going to happen to us now?”
“The most important thing is to pray all the time,” Daniella told her. “Ask God to get me out of here. They’re yelling at me, and cursing me, and saying terrible things to your mother. But I won’t answer. I’ll be strong. You also have to be strong.”
“Listen to her!” Bina fumed, feeling her face grow hot once more. “The only thing she is worried about is her own neck! She’s telling them to keep their mouths shut! We need to end this!”
“Wait,” Morris said quietly.
The children’s sobs increased. It came from a place so filled with agony and loss and pain, it made Bina feel as if she had never heard anyone cry before. What could these children have experienced in their short lives that had opened woun
ds that deep and full of suffering? she wondered, goose bumps covering her arms and the skin across her back. And how could their mother witness it now without collapsing in tears herself, spilling her guts, wanting to kill somebody?
Perhaps, after all, she truly was a monster. Or someone who had sold her soul to the devil.
“So, what do you think?” Bina asked Morris.
“I think we need to call in a child interrogator, the best one we have. We need to call in Johnny Mann.”
8
Three days after they returned from Joel and Esther’s wedding, Daniella and Shlomie packed their things into a small moving van, piled into the little Fiat, and bid farewell to the Absorption Center. Weighted down with three children, pots and pans and paper diapers, the little Fiat moved heavily down the road toward the Dead Sea, past ancient Jericho, their ears popping as they reached almost a thousand feet below sea level.
Three-year-old Amalya was strapped into her car seat happily playing with her expensive new American Girl doll from Granny, while eighteen-month-old Duvie clasped the plastic steering wheel attached to his car seat, liberally pounding on the squeaky toy horn no matter how many times Daniella begged him to stop. Despite the racket, baby Yossi slept soundly in his expensive, super-safe baby car seat, also brought back from America, lulled by the engine’s steady hum.
The air was dry, but the area around the old town of Jericho was bright with wildflowers and palm trees, their magnificent fronds swaying in the desert wind.
“An oasis in the desert!” Shlomie exclaimed. He had developed a sudden enthusiasm for the move, for their new life together. He was anxious to be more active in the world, to support his growing family, he told her, not for practical reasons but for spiritual ones. He’d decided that manual labor was a holy thing.
“Doesn’t the prophet Isaiah tell us that it is God who teaches the farmers how to farm? Don’t we read in the Psalms, ‘Happy are all who fear the Lord.… You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors’? The Torah condemns idleness: ‘Through slothfulness the ceiling sags, through lazy hands the house caves in,’ King Solomon wrote. And Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon said, ‘Great is labor for it honors those who engage in it.’ As it is written, ‘A pious person should never say: I will eat and drink and enjoy the good life and not exert myself and Heaven shall take pity on me.’ A person must toil and work with his hands and then God sends His blessing!”