by Naomi Ragen
“A farmer!” his father said with a hearty laugh, slapping his Shlomie on the back, impressed with his new muscles and work-roughened hands. He toured the hothouses and orchards with pride, the opposite of Daniella’s parents.
“How can you live this way, Daniella?” Her mother shook her head, utterly shocked. Menial manual labor was something that had been absent from her family for many generations. Daniella’s father and his wife, who felt the same, were more polite, careful to be encouraging and kind, even if they were unable to hide their misgivings completely.
If only Joel had come! Daniella mourned. He would have understood her pioneer life and spirit, what she and her husband had achieved! But most of all, she missed her grandmother. There is nothing lonelier than making a family celebration without your family, Daniella thought.
“Is it anything serious with Granny?” she asked her mother, who moved her head from side to side in vigorous denial.
“Your grandmother just doesn’t like that long plane ride. When baby Shoshana is a little older, you’ll take the whole family back to Pittsburgh to see everyone. That is, if you don’t have another baby in the meantime.”
Daniella made a face.
“Well, you can’t blame me. That seems to be your pattern, no?”
“What’s the problem, Mom? Too many grandchildren for you? An overload of nachas? I’m sure you brag about them all the time to your friends.”
That was absolutely true. “No mother likes to see her daughter turned into a baby machine, especially when her daughter has so much else going for her. Is it Shlomie? Is he forcing you?”
“What? How can you even say such a thing! We are partners. And no one was ever sorry they had another baby.”
That stopped her mother. But the conversation gnawed at Daniella.
She took a few long walks and had a private talk with God. They were blessings, she told Him, and He shouldn’t think her ungrateful. But why so many blessings in such a short time? she asked Him.
Eventually, she made her peace with it. After all, this was the life she’d chosen, and she wasn’t sorry. Her aspirations to be someone, to have a degree, a job, had all fallen by the wayside. This was her life now: A wife. A mother. All her thwarted ambition, her competitive striving for excellence, she poured into this new avocation. She would be the best wife, but especially the best mother.
She knew she had a way with children. Unlike other mothers she met, who treated children like another species, she always treated them like equals whose opinions mattered and should be respected as far as humanly possible. They were people, she’d tell skeptical friends, if you bothered to get to know them. From the moment they were born, each one had their own personality, interests, loves, and hates.
Amalya, her firstborn, had been a delicious baby. Beautiful, with her father’s dark hair and her grandmother’s sapphire blue eyes, she was placid and good-natured, the kind of child who only woke when she was hungry and then almost immediately went back to sleep. She grew up to be a sweet, docile, kind little girl, who looked after her younger siblings and was quietly helpful without even being asked. Naturally devout, she memorized all the Bible stories she learned in school each week and was stringent about ritually washing her hands and reciting her blessings at mealtimes. She loved crayons and blank paper, drawing charming, imaginary little animals that she kept in a folder. A shelf in her pink and lavender bedroom overflowed with Steiff teddy bears and expensive dolls her great-grandmother, grandmother, and grandfather had sent her for birthdays and Chanukah: American Girl dolls with fancy wardrobes, Barbies, and Bratzs. Soon, they’d need a room of their own, Daniella smiled to herself. But no matter how much Amalya was given, she took care of her things, and in her own childish way, cherished them and could always tell you exactly who had given her what and for what occasion. Sometimes, with her quiet ways, she got lost among her more vocal siblings.
“We should have called her Blessing,” Shlomie always said, stroking her long, straight, almost black hair. And on those rare occasions that she needed to be disciplined, Daniella felt almost guilty at raising her voice. “It’s like yelling at an angel,” she told her husband.
David, or Duvie, her firstborn son, was just the opposite. A hell-raiser, he ran almost as soon as he could walk. He loved anything with wheels, graduating from a tricycle to a bicycle in record time. He was a cut-up with a lot of energy, playing soccer, flying down the road on a skateboard, or helping his father in the hothouses. He was a master of practical jokes but never did anything remotely mean or hurtful. He watched over his younger siblings, who idolized him.
Daniella’s biggest problem with Duvie was his teachers. Ever since nursery school, they were always complaining that he wasn’t focused, that he daydreamed and didn’t listen. But as they got to know him, they realized that his quick mind usually grasped the material so speedily that it wandered off as they catered to slower wits. He learned to read by himself in record time. He had just turned five when they moved into the new house. He looked nothing like his father. Blond and brown-eyed, he’d inherited her brother Joel’s angelic, round face and large, oval eyes with almost girlish lashes, which contrasted sharply with his strong, lean, little boy’s body.
Yossi, four, born during their time at the Absorption Center, had been the largest of all her babies, almost double Duvie’s weight. She put it up to all that fresh bread and butter she’d eaten during her pregnancy when her Hebrew wasn’t good enough to ask for anything else in the grocery store. He was still a chunky toddler with a sweet smile who loved nothing better than to eat. He was downstairs finishing his first breakfast when his siblings came down in the morning and was always pleased to join them for a second helping. While Duvie had been trying to teach him how to play soccer, his chubby little legs didn’t see the point, and he gave up in frustration, taking out his Legos along with a plateful of snacks.
Compared to his siblings, he was very slow in everything: the way he walked, the way he talked, the speed at which he did what you asked him to do. But more than any of the others, he was her cuddly bear, a little mama’s boy who was never far from her side. Everyone was instinctively gentle with Yossi because he cried so easily and was so good-natured and giving. His favorite objects were not toys but picture books. He could sit for hours quietly turning pages, smiling and laughing to himself. Daniella sometimes worried about him being off in a world all his own and tried hard to get him to put down his books and run around outside with the other kids. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But as a mother, she respected his differences and didn’t try too hard to make him into another Duvie. In nursery school, he tended to sit quietly in corners, seldom raising his voice. But his teacher had no complaints. “I wish more of them were like him,” she told Daniella, who nodded, her concern lightening.
Gabriel followed Duvie around worshipfully, begging to try out his skateboard and to be given a ride on his bicycle. He was covered with cuts and scrapes, but there was nothing to be done other than locking him in the house.
Shoshana, four months, was an easy baby, waking at five and going back to sleep until almost noon, so that Daniella had time to get the others ready and out the door. When she looked back at this time in her life, she could almost feel the soft flesh of tiny, demanding arms, legs, and bottoms all over her, her flesh and theirs mingling, becoming one. She loved them so much.
But it was a constant struggle to keep her head above water. The mountains of laundry that seemed as high and insurmountable as Everest each day. The larger and larger cooking pots that needed to be refilled constantly with nourishing, tasty food. The constant running low on milk and diapers and toilet paper and having to shop, again and again and again. And the house, as much as she loved and appreciated it, was hard to keep clean without household help of any kind, which they simply couldn’t afford. Yes, it was all that. But a joy, too.
She managed, but just. And then she was pregnant again. When she reached month four, she sudden
ly started spotting. Her doctor put her on complete bed rest.
“It’s impossible! I have five little kids.”
“Well, if you want to have six you’ll have to find a way to manage.”
Shlomie wrote her grandmother, who immediately sent a check for full-time, live-in household help. She was furious he’d gone behind her back.
“To save a life, all is permissible,” he’d answered with equanimity, refusing to apologize. After all, he was only following her lead, no? The children came first, before their parents’ silly pride and even self-respect. Whatever harsh thing she said (oh, she could be very harsh!) he let roll off him like oil on a Teflon pan. While domestic harmony was important, saving a life was paramount per all the laws of the Torah.
Holed up in the bedroom with Shoshana, there was little Daniella could do but accept the situation. They found a very efficient woman who cooked, cleaned, and took care of the children. In addition, the entire community chipped in, making a rotation schedule in which every day another volunteer picked up the children from school, while someone else took the baby for an hour or two, and someone else dropped off a lovely dinner.
Daniella, used to endless activity, felt she was in prison. But soon she got used to it, secretly reveling in her newfound idleness, making up for years of overwork. She relished the undivided time with baby Shoshana, something she’d never had with the others. Even with Duvie she’d been working in the jewelry store. If you had nothing else to do, having a little baby by your side all the time was the most marvelous thing in the world.
But then, despite all their efforts, she awoke one morning to find the bed soaked with blood. Rushed to the hospital, there was nothing anyone could do to save the fetus.
“You’re young, you’re healthy. There is no reason you shouldn’t have more if you want them,” her doctor assured her.
At home, she took to her bed. She felt useless, guilty, cursed. Why would God do this to her? What was she being punished for? she wondered, completely convinced that the baby’s loss was preventable. Perhaps she hadn’t prayed hard enough? Or perhaps God could see inside the dark shadows of her heart where she kept hidden the shameful secret of her ingratitude, her unhappiness, and her fatigue? God had known that she didn’t want this baby, even if she hadn’t been able to admit it to herself.
She wrote her grandmother, asking her to come. “I don’t know when I’ll be up to bringing all the kids on a plane. I miss you so much! I want you to see your great-grandchildren.”
To her surprise, she got a phone call from her mother. “Your grandmother has cancer. She doesn’t have long. There’s no question of her, or any of us, traveling just now. If you want to see her, you’d better get here fast.”
Daniella was numb with shock.
Only two weeks after the miscarriage, she found herself on board a flight to America with all five children, Shlomie staying behind, unable to leave the hothouses. The trip was a nightmare: eleven hours with four kids running up and down the aisles, spilling cups of juice and soda, vomiting, the two youngest screaming with ear pain and fatigue.
Gabriel, and especially baby Shoshana, really should not have been on an airplane filled with dangerous germs. But sometimes, she thought, you have to make difficult decisions for your children. Would it be better for them never to have met their great-grandmother? Or for her grandmother to die without ever having seen them? She couldn’t bear the thought of such a loss.
They stayed three weeks in her mother’s spacious home. Almost immediately Duvie, Yossi, and Gabriel came down with the flu, keeping her up all night. But thankfully, Amalya and the baby were fine. The problem was, she couldn’t take the sick ones into her grandmother’s hospital room, which broke her heart. But at least she took her oldest and her youngest.
Her grandmother was propped up on a pillow, her hair carefully coiffed by Phillipa, the woman who had been looking after her all these years. A swipe of pink lipstick gave color to her pale face, and matching nail polish highlighted her still beautifully manicured fingernails. Still, her face was haggard, and there was no question—as much as she desperately wanted and tried to hide it—that she was in terrible pain.
“Don’t keep her too long. She needs her rest,” Daniella’s mother warned.
“Oh, don’t be a yenta, Claire! This is the best medicine in the whole world. My granddaughter and her babies,” her grandmother scolded, holding out her arms. “Come, my darlings.” Carefully, Daniella placed Shoshana in them.
“I wish I had a camera,” Phillipa said.
Her mother took out her cell phone and snapped a picture. “Now, you get in with Amalya,” she instructed Daniella, who crouched down beside her grandmother’s bed, her arm around her daughters, her face resting next to her grandmother’s on the pillow.
Later, she would never be able to look at that picture, look at the expression of terror on her own face.
Her mother and Phillipa took Amalya and Shoshana down to the cafeteria to get themselves coffee and something sweet to share with Amalya, leaving her alone. Daniella pulled a chair close to the bed. Her grandmother’s elegant hands with their long fingers and magnificent rings reached out to her. She clasped them.
“So tell me, Dani, are you happy?”
She nodded. “You can’t imagine. Thanks to you, we built a lovely house. Shlomie is getting really good at being a farmer. You wouldn’t believe all the tomatoes and strawberries … imagine!”
They both laughed at the irony.
“You shouldn’t have come here so soon after losing the baby.” Her grandmother shook her head.
“I had to. Next time, I won’t wait so long to come.”
“Oh, darling, there isn’t going to be a next time,” she said softly, stroking Daniella’s hand.
Daniella put her hand over her grandmother’s. Tears stung her eyes. “What am I going to do without you, Granny?”
“You’ll do fine. I want you to know, you and your family are never going to have to worry about money.”
“Please … don’t!”
“Oh, don’t act silly. Don’t pretend. You and I don’t have that kind of fakery between us. We never did.”
Daniella nodded, dabbing her eyes.
“They are beautiful, beautiful children, Daniella. Such a blessing! I could only have the two, your mother and your uncle Arthur, God rest his soul. In such a dangerous world, you need a lot of children. Take care of them well.”
“It’s my life, Granny,” she said with simple sincerity.
“I know, I know. But take care of yourself, too. Children need a strong, healthy, happy mother with her feet on the ground. Especially if their father is a luftmensch.”
Daniella knew what that meant. It meant a person floating in the air, with no real profession or connection to the realities of life. I should be insulted, she thought. If only it wasn’t such a perfect description of the man she’d married.
Truthfully, she worried all the time about the work Shlomie was doing. Often, he’d forget to turn off the taps, which flooded the plants’ roots, rotting them; or he’d put in too much fertilizer, risking burning them. So far, Marwan had always been able to save him in the nick of time. But she wondered if the day wasn’t far off when he’d succeed in achieving a disaster so complete it would ruin them.
“Don’t worry, Granny. I’ll take care of him, too.”
“Ha, right—that’s the spirit, girl!” Her face suddenly went from palest white to deep red. She groaned and closed her eyes. “Go, Dani! Take care of your babies. I don’t want you to see me like this.” She pressed a button. The room filled with nurses. Daniella felt herself crowded out toward the exit. She couldn’t even manage to say good-bye.
12
The police rounded up Yissaschar Goldschmidt and Shmaya Hod, but they couldn’t find Kuni Batlan.
“All these guys look the same, with the beards and black hats and suits,” the sergeant said.
Bina winced. “I know. Like all the Chinese
look the same, right? You know, Sergeant, the Chinese think all us Westerners look the same.”
He looked at her sideways, wondering if she was trying to be funny.
“All I’m trying to say is, these three are vital to our investigation. We must talk to all of them. Can’t you put out an alert in the haredi community? Talk to some of the more influential rabbis? After all, these guys are dangerous child abusers. I’m sure they don’t want them running around loose in their communities either.”
“Thing is, Detective,” the sergeant drawled, “at the moment, we are on the outs with the haredi community, big-time.”
There was no need for him to elaborate. Not a day went by when there wasn’t some other headline-producing battle between police and an increasingly vocal and belligerent minority among haredim. First, haredim had a campaign to put women at the back of public buses, abusing and insulting any female who resisted. When they tried this on gun-toting girl soldiers, though, the police had to be called in, and the men were arrested, causing riots and the burning of tires and garbage cans in haredi neighborhoods. This was followed by the beating of women at the Western Wall who wanted to form their own prayer quorums and read from the Torah, some of them choosing to wear the hitherto male religious accoutrements of prayer shawls and skullcaps like their Conservative and Reform American sisters. They were cursed, physically accosted, threatened, and even had chairs thrown at them. But when the police were called, they oddly decided to haul the women off for creating a “disturbance of the peace.” Soon, the indignant women returned with court orders, and the police had to spend time hauling off the belligerent men.
And then there was the haredi campaign to keep public parking lots in Jerusalem closed on Saturdays in order to encourage people not to drive and thus, in their minds at least, prevent the desecration of the Sabbath. To that end, every Saturday, haredi hotheads blocked roads with noisy demonstrations, which police had no choice but to break up, thus ruining their own Sabbath rest. Resenting overtime on the weekend, the cops broke up the demonstrations a bit more roughly than was strictly necessary, at least according to the demonstrators.