The Devil in Jerusalem

by Naomi Ragen

  Adding fuel to the fire was a challenging social upheaval in which the average Israeli was finally fed up with yeshiva students who not only had draft exemptions but were also being supported by monthly stipends from the public till, even though their families paid virtually no taxes. Police, who had all served in the army and sent their sons, and who paid a considerable amount in income taxes, were only human.

  For all these reasons, police contacts with haredim were fraught. The result was a simmering public volcano ready to explode in which the police were given the impossible task of keeping order and preventing incidents that would trigger widespread tensions overflowing into violence. Yes, you could say the police loved going into haredi neighborhoods about as much as the haredim loved having them there.

  “Look, Sergeant, I appreciate the difficulties. But just get it done, okay?”

  He nodded. “What about the two we found?”

  “We’re talking to them. We’ll talk to them some more,” she said evenly.

  “No luck, huh?” He shrugged. “Now you know what I’m up against.”

  Unfortunately, she did. She thought about her first session with Shmaya Hod.

  He came in looking like a typical yeshiva student, but on steroids: side curls down to his shoulders, white socks pulled up over his pants, a long satin black waistcoat straight out of the closet of an overweight, medieval Polish landowner. The first thing he did was demand that Bina leave the room, because it “wasn’t modest” for them to be alone together.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not alone. You see that window? It’s two-way glass. Two male detectives are out there watching every move you make—just in case you’re suddenly overcome by irresistible lust.”

  He sat down, his face reddening. He refused to look at her. “What do you want from me?”

  “Tell me about Daniella Goodman and her children.”

  “I was asked to help her, as a chesed, a good deed.”

  “I know what the word ‘chesed’ means,” she cut in. “Not only that, but I know what the word ‘tikkunim’ means as well,” she said evenly.

  He suddenly stared directly into her face. “What did she say? Did she lie about me?”

  “Who?”

  “The mother. Because whatever she said, she was responsible. She was the mother.”

  “So why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “I am a God-fearing man who was doing a mitzvah! I had nothing to gain from it. And now she accuses me of all kinds of evil! Such a lack of hakarat tova!”

  “Oh, so you think she should be grateful for what you did to her children?”

  She saw the color drain from his face. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

  “No smoking.”

  Reluctantly, he put it back. He closed his mouth, pinching his lips together, his fat arms enfolded over his heavy chest, his thumb and forefinger picking nervously at the mustache hairs around his twitching lips.

  “Whose idea was it for you to move in with her and ‘help’ her? And, by the way, if you are too frum to be in the same room with a woman, how is it you had no problem moving in with Daniella Goodman after her husband left?”

  “It wasn’t like that at all!” he sputtered in rage. “I am a God-fearing man!”

  “Yeah, so you already said. So, I’ll ask you again: How did it happen you moved in with her?”

  “She asked us to come! I was never alone with her.”

  “That’s funny. She says you and the others were sent to her.”

  “Did she say a name? Did she say who sent us?”

  The rise in his anxiety level did not go unnoticed by any of the detectives.

  “That’s for me to know,” she answered. “But why don’t you tell us your side. Otherwise,” her voice rose dramatically, “you are going to jail for a long, long time, you Scumbag! Hitting children in the head with hammers, starving them, holding them up against burning heaters until their skin peels off … Not to mention,” here she took a deep breath, almost unable to go on, “what happened to the baby, to Menchie. If he dies, that’s murder. You know how long a murderer spends behind bars? Especially someone who murders a child?”

  He jumped up. “I had nothing to do with that! Menchie wasn’t assigned to me. That was Kuni Batlan.”

  “Oh, so you each had assignments? Who made up these assignments?”

  He sat down. “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

  She leaned back in her chair. “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “No. But I know you have to get me one.”

  “That’s true. But a lawyer isn’t going to be able to save you. Not with all the evidence we have against you.”

  He tapped his foot nervously.

  “So why don’t you try to cooperate? If you tell what happened first, if you help us, then we can cut you a deal. Believe me, the other two are going to sing when they understand we know everything. One of them will get the deal, because then we won’t need you. We are talking about life behind bars.”

  She could see the information register. He sat up stiffly.

  “I … First I want to speak to a lawyer.”

  “Who was behind all this!” she screamed, pounding the desk. “Whose idea was it to torture these children”

  He looked up, a sudden, secret gleam in his eye. “Ve Tahar libanu, be Torah techa,” he suddenly sang loudly, banging his fist on the table, his eyes closed.

  And purify our hearts in your Torah, and dedicate our lives to your commandments.

  “Get him out of here!” she said to the window.

  Handcuffed, his feet in chains, they dragged Shmaya back to his cell, but not before he looked back at her and smiled.

  She put her head down on the desk and covered it with her hands. She could feel a migraine coming on.

  “I think I’m going home early,” she told Morris. “I don’t feel well.”

  “Look, kid, you can’t let this get to you,” he said mildly, not wanting to risk discouraging her. He needed her. “If you do, you’re not going to last long in this profession.”

  “I feel tainted just being in the same room with these people.”

  He nodded, patting her shoulder understandingly.

  “I used to think we were all more or less the same, you know? But that sometimes the worst in people took over. They get stupid or greedy or both. But this…”

  “Just remember, it’s not your job to figure out the universe. All you need to do is put two and two together until you get four.”

  She stared at him. “You’re telling me this is not getting to you?”

  He exhaled, running his fingers through his thin, graying hair. “You see this mown lawn? Every case, I lose a few more hairs. It was the only thing Kojak got right.”

  “Who?”

  “Ah, was that before your time, little one? A television show with a detective who was completely bald.”

  “So what now?”

  “We find Batlan. We come down twice as hard on Goldschmidt. Put him into solitary for a week so he’ll be well marinated and softened enough to spill his guts. But in the meantime, there is someone else you should talk to.”

  “Okay, send them over.”

  He shook his head. “She hasn’t been arrested. The opposite. She’s the one who blew the whistle on this whole horror. A haredi woman who lives out in Ashdod. The White Witch brought Eli to her after he got burnt. This woman was the one who eventually alerted social services and got us involved. I think she could be helpful.”

  “You want me to call her?”

  He shook his head. “I want you to go down there and sit across the kitchen table from her and get her to tell you everything she knows not only about this case but about this world. When you are trying to catch fish who are hell-bent on avoiding the bait, sometimes you have to dive deep into the water holding a net.”

  13

  Ten days after they returned home, Daniella got the call from her mother.

  “Your grandmother passed pe
acefully last night.”

  And though it was expected, Daniella felt a tidal wave of grief batter her body, her heart, her mind. Phone still in hand, she felt her knees hit the floor, hard.

  “Why didn’t you call me earlier!” She rocked up and back on her haunches.

  “What could you have done?”

  “Gotten on a plane to be at the funeral!”

  “Ima!” Yossi said, wrapping his fat little arms around her neck, while Gabriel crawled over, and Shoshana started to cry in her crib.

  “Take care of your children,” her mother said.

  “Don’t you dare hang up!” she shouted into the phone. “Do I still have time to make it? “

  “It’s in two hours,” her mother informed her.

  “What! You can’t do that to me!”

  “What does this have to do with you? It’s Jewish tradition to bury the dead as soon as possible. You know that.”

  “But exceptions can be made! Did you ask a rabbi?”

  “There was no need. No need at all,” Claire huffed, offended. “This is what the family decided, what your grandmother would have wanted.”

  “What, for me not to be there?” she shouted, frightening the children, who now all began to cry. “Listen, I’ll call you back.” She hung up, gathering Yossi and Gabriel into her arms and picking up Shoshana from her crib. She sat down on the floor, holding them.

  “Shh … shhh,” she crooned, trying to comfort them even as tears of grief and loss fell in torrents down her own cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, Mommy,” Yossi said, wiping away her tears with his chubby little fingers.

  She buried her head in his sweet-smelling tender neck. “What would Mommy do without her cuddly bear?” she told him, kissing the soft, pudgy folds.

  When Shlomie came home, he was sympathetic. “She had a long, happy life and now she is in Paradise.”

  Daniella stared at him, thinking, What an idiot! But she only said, “What does that matter? They are burying her, and I can’t even be there.” She felt empty, inconsolable. “I won’t even be able to make a shiva call. I hate being so far away. I just hate it.”

  “Do you want to go? I’ll watch the kids.”

  “Really? You’d do that?”

  “I’m sure the neighbors will help me out.”

  “I’ll take Shoshana with me. Are you sure you’ll be able to manage?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s only for a week.”

  If it had not been during her unclean days before immersion in the mikva, a time when no physical contact was allowed between husband and wife, she would have hugged him. Still, while she was immensely grateful, she couldn’t bury her serious doubts about Shlomie being able to manage on his own. Had her need to be with her family and visit her grandmother’s grave been less compelling, she might have put off going altogether. But as it was, she felt she had no choice.

  She forced herself to overcome her fears. After all, it was just for a few days and he wasn’t really going to be on his own. Her wonderful friends and neighbors would be there to help. Whatever she thought of him, she trusted them completely to make sure nothing bad happened to her children. Nevertheless, it was with a heavy and foreboding heart that she kissed them all good-bye, boarding the long flight to New York for the second time in a month, this time with only baby Shoshana to care for.

  Shiva was such a wise custom, she thought as she sat on her grandmother’s couch. Seven days of complete abandon to mourning and loss surrounded by friends and relatives and neighbors who dropped by to pay their condolences. It felt so right to be sitting there, next to her mother and brother, the baby in her lap, as they passed around photos of her grandmother.

  “Such a fantastic, elegant lady,” someone murmured. Daniella opened up the picture album, studying the photo of her grandmother as a debutante: the abundant blond hair piled high like a crown, encircled by the diamond tiara, the striking blue eyes staring a bit rebelliously and with a touch of contempt at the camera, the small, perfect bouquet in her white-gloved hands. It was everyone’s favorite photo.

  “She was never like the other girls. She always had a mind of her own,” Daniella’s mother murmured, shaking her head as if such a thing needed to be excused, Daniella noticed, annoyed. Typical.

  Later, when the house had emptied out a bit, Daniella fed Shoshana, put her down for a nap, then curled up on the sofa leafing through the rest of the photographs.

  So, this was the whole of life, she thought, beginning with the first page: Granny sitting in an old-fashioned pram pushed by a nanny in uniform; a toddler on the beach in a big floppy hat, squinting at the sun; the third-grade class photo, her shining face framed by two long, blond braids, as she smiled into the camera. And suddenly, there she was a young teenager, sitting on a horse during a vacation in California when she was in junior high school, all loose, thin, gangly limbs, her golden hair long and straight beneath a smart riding helmet. And there was her coming-out ball, her engagement photo, her bridal gown, and then her first child … and so soon, it seemed, her first grandchild.

  And with each page, the years seemed to spill like water from a jug, until there was not a drop left. There was the last page, filled entirely by the photo they’d taken together in the hospital with Amalya and Shoshana, just two weeks before her grandmother died.

  Daniella closed the book, her heart aching, the tears spilling down her cheeks. And now there were no more pages left, no more time to create and record events. Her grandmother had vanished from the earth. And there was no one to take her place.

  That will be my life, too, she thought, if I’m lucky. When I die, the people I loved will say: there is no one to take her place. She hoped at least her children would feel that way, because as far as she could see into the future, there didn’t seem to be any other way she would make herself useful in this world. It saddened her in a way, that she, who had had such ambitions, such high hopes of saving lives and making the world a better place, would be reduced to caring for only a handful. But if that was the destiny she had been handed by fate, she would pour everything she had into it, caring for those few, her family, making sure her children were nurtured to become the very best people they could be in this life, she told herself.

  On the last day of shiva, the mourners and their friends went to visit the grave. Without a gravestone, which had not yet been laid, it was just a naked, rough, rectangular patch of newly turned earth, rather brutal and disturbing, Daniella thought as she stood there reading psalms that had been chosen for her grandmother according to the Hebrew letters of her name. She tried to imagine her granny’s soul now freed, floating with the angels. Closing her eyes, she strained to feel her grandmother’s spirit, her loving arm draped around her shoulder, smiling one of those wicked, conspiratorial smiles they had so often shared behind her mother’s back.

  To her surprise, she felt a warm glow of happiness suddenly fill her heart.

  There were spirits, she believed. There were angels. If only we could break through those barriers between the dream of life and the reality of the inexhaustible creativity of God; if there were some way we could bring ourselves closer to Him, to the wonder and holiness of a truer reality, which could overcome and banish the horrendous illusion that was death. If we could but see life and death for what they really were: part of an endless cycle of decay and rejuvenation. If we could only comprehend what holy creatures we were, with every chance of touching the God Who created us and resided within us at every passing moment of flowing time.

  Back at the house, the family partook of a catered buffet, picking at slices of smoked salmon, sushi, and roast beef, which they carried around in small, square plates, talking in subdued tones. Daniella sat in a corner, holding a sleeping Shoshana in her arms. Joel sat down next to her. He put his arm around her.

  “How are you doing, Dani?” His eyes were full of compassion.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder wordlessly. “What am I going to do without her? I feel so e
mpty.”

  “She really loved you.”

  “She loved you, too.”

  “Of course, but with you, it was always something special. Now that I have kids I sort of understand it better. You love them all the same, but not really. You love them each differently, because they aren’t just a generic ‘child.’ They are people. You can’t help getting attached to some of their qualities and being turned off by others. You and Granny just clicked. You brought her so much happiness.”

  She looked up at him. “Do you really think so? I was so needy.”

  “I don’t think so. I know so. And helping you was her greatest joy. I know you don’t feel that way, but as an objective observer, I can tell you that allowing her to help you, getting her involved in your life, gave her some of her happiest moments on earth. Believe me.”

  She buried her head deeper into his warm, strong shoulder. “I miss you so much, Joel! You have no idea.”

  “Hey, I’m always just a phone call away.”

  “And I never call, I know.… I just don’t ever have that minute I need to sit down and spend it on a phone call. I love the kids, but five kids, all so young. It’s crazy.”

  “I’m sorry about the miscarriage. That must have been hell.”

  She nodded. “I guess God figured I wouldn’t be able to cope. He was probably right. My biggest fear is not bringing them up right, neglecting them. Sometimes, I think I’m a big fake. That I’m not really equipped to do any of the things I promised myself I’d succeed at.”

  “That’s human. Everybody feels that way sometimes, Dani. We are all faking it, hoping no one finds out,” he said, grinning.

  She laughed, punching him playfully. “You have never in your life thought you couldn’t succeed at anything. You are such a hard act to follow.”

  “We are not in competition, sister. And from where I’m sitting, your life looks pretty wonderful.”

  “Really?” She was sincerely surprised.

  “Really. You’re living the dream. Pioneer in the homeland after two thousand years of exile. Raising Jewish children who will never know what it is to live outside their own country. Farming organic vegetables. I mean, who can compete with you?”