by Naomi Ragen
“So, did you call this ‘devout Jew’ where you bought the plants and tell him what he did to you and our friends? Did you demand he pay for the damages?” she asked forcefully, already knowing the answer. Inside, she felt half dead from weariness. It was the last straw.
“I tried many times, but he isn’t picking up his phone. He’s vanished.”
“Did you call the father of the man from kollel? Did you get in touch with the friend who recommended him?”
He shook his head. “It’s not their fault. I don’t want to embarrass them. That would be a sin.”
“And what you did to the people we know here in Yahalom, to Yochanon and Essie, that wasn’t a sin? Never mind that we’re ruined.… What are we going to do?”
“God help us!” he said fervently, his eyes brimming over with tears as he sat down on the floor next to her, patting Shoshana’s small back. “I’m so sorry, Daniella. It’s all my fault.” He wept.
Luftmensch, she thought furiously, unmoved.
The children came bounding back into the room, their hands filled with dolls and other plastic treasures. At the sight of their father, they stopped dead and stared.
She looked at their stricken faces. He was their father. She reached out, patting him on the head. “It’s all right, Shlomie. It’s all right. God has preceded the blow with the remedy.”
Slowly, and with none of the joy she’d expected to feel, she proceeded to tell him about her grandmother’s last will and testament.
15
Detective Tzedek pulled up to the parking lot of one of those massive, ugly apartment complexes built back in the sixties to house dirt-poor young couples and penniless immigrants. While it had undergone subsequent renovations by the slightly more affluent people who had purchased the apartments from their original owners, the building nevertheless remained an eyesore, with cheap add-on porches of clashing styles cluttered with old appliances and children’s toys. The overall aesthetic effect was appalling.
There were so many entrances labeled with numbers and letters that she finally gave up and asked someone if they knew a Rabbanit Toledano. To her surprise, she was led immediately to the woman’s door by the first person she asked, who waited patiently as she knocked.
A plump, short, older woman in a dark wig covered by a kerchief opened the door. She wore a shapeless flowered dress and orthopedic shoes. She smiled at both of them.
“She was looking for you,” the young man said.
“May God reward you for your kindness, Moshe,” Chana Toledano blessed him.
A joyous smile spread across the young man’s face, as if he’d been told he’d won the lottery.
“And God bless you, Rabbanit Chana,” he thanked her, walking away beaming, satisfied.
Bina watched this display, her curiosity growing. “I’m Detective Tzedek of the Jerusalem Police. I spoke to you earlier?”
“Yes, please, come in, sit down.”
The house seemed like a clinic of some kind, the tiny living room cluttered with cheap folding chairs arranged in a neat circle.
“I knew you were coming so I sent everyone away. Otherwise, this room would be overflowing.”
“What is it you do, Rabbanit?”
“I have gotten the reputation of being a healer.” She shrugged modestly. “The truth is, I know a few homeopathic remedies my mother taught me and which seem to help people. But I always remind them, I’m not a doctor. They need to go to a doctor.”
They went into the kitchen, which was spotless. A stew boiling on the stovetop filled the small space with pungent odors of cumin and cinnamon.
“Can I offer you a drink?”
“Yes, thanks. I’d love a coffee.”
She made it Middle Eastern style, thick as mud, and poured it into tiny cups. It was delicious.
“I guess you know why I’m here.”
She nodded. “About the Goodman child, Eli; heaven have mercy on us! How is the child?”
“Thanks to you, he and his brother are in good medical hands. Eli is healing. But his brother…”
Her face went ashen. “I don’t know anything about a brother.”
“His younger brother, Menchie. He’s in a coma.”
The woman shook her head mournfully. “God watch over us. Such things among God-fearing Jews…”
“Apparently not,” Bina said softly, taking a deep breath. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course. Whatever I can do to help.”
“Can you start from the beginning?”
“It was about a month ago. Right before Rosh Chodesh. I don’t know the secular date.”
“All right. Just tell me what happened.”
“I got a phone call from a woman I didn’t know. That isn’t so strange. I get a lot of phone calls from people I don’t know who have heard of me and need help. But she wanted me not only to heal her boy but to take him in and keep him.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her to first bring him over. God help me, I’ll never forget it. Such a sight!”
She pulled out a small amulet that hung around her neck, kissing it three times.
“Can you describe what happened?”
“She was dressed like on Yom Kippur, God save us! All white. I never saw … anyway, she had a small boy with her—a beautiful boy, but so skinny! He could hardly walk. He was limping, limping so badly. At first, I thought maybe he broke something, fell down, hurt his ankle. You know small boys, always running, falling, God forbid, breaking bones. I told her to take him into my examining room and to take down his pants so I could see the legs.” She shifted uneasily in her chair. “God help me, I never saw such a thing! Like raw meat on the butcher’s counter! No skin, no skin left at all, just covered with pus and redness and swelling. Somebody had tried to treat it but didn’t know how. The wounds had been neglected for a long time, God help us. I’ll tell you the truth. It made me cry just to look at them! I couldn’t even think how much pain such a little child must be in from such a wound! But, God have mercy on us, he didn’t cry. Not once. And the mother, she just looked at the wounds. Didn’t wince, didn’t say, ‘oy, my poor son,’ didn’t say anything you’d expect a mother with such a child to say. Just stared, like she was reading a recipe for challah. I can’t tell you how much this bothered me.
“I asked, ‘How did this happen?’ So she starts in with a story about a blanket next to a heater catching fire.…” The woman shook her head slowly. “Fairy tales. What she described, that kind of burn, it’s like when you burn yourself on a havdalah candle, God watch over us. It’s not so even. It’s a red spot here, another spot there. A person moves around, tries to get away. What her boy had, it was like someone held a blowtorch to his poor little legs, the way you do to a stove when you kasher it for Passover.
“But I didn’t press her, since I saw what I was dealing with. Instead, I asked her why she didn’t take him to the hospital right away, why she waited until now. But instead of an answer, she gets up and says maybe this is not such a good idea, and she starts pulling up the child’s pants, getting ready to leave.
“When I see this, I understand I can’t let her leave with him—that if I don’t try to help this child, no matter how he got the burns, no one will.”
“So you were suspicious even then?”
She cocked her head to one side and gave Bina a shrewd look. “I’ve seen things in my life. But what could I do? Besides, many devout Jews avoid hospitals.”
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “They think that a God-fearing person would have more success interceding with God to heal their loved ones than a secular doctor. So in the end, I stopped asking questions. I took pity on the child and agreed to keep him and try to help him.”
Bina tried and failed to understand such thinking. “You took in a stranger’s injured child?”
She shrugged. “God had sent this child to me. What else could I do? But I wasn’t born yesterday. First I made he
r sign a paper saying in what condition she brought this child to me, and that it was her wish that I keep him and try to help him heal. Here is the paper. You see the signature, the date?” She handed Bina a handwritten letter that described Eli’s wounds in great detail and ended with, “I ask Rabbanit Chana Toledano to care for my child.” It was signed “Daniella Goodman,” and dated three days before he’d been brought to the hospital.
Bina sank back into her chair, her spine tingling. “Why … why would you agree, Rabbanit Toledano?”
“I didn’t want to. But I couldn’t let her just drag the child out of here, could I? He could hardly walk, poor baby.”
“What happened?”
“She left and the child stayed. I expected him to struggle, to cry, to run after her. But he didn’t do anything. He was like a toy, a doll. He didn’t open his mouth.” She shook her head in wonder at the memory, as if it was still undigested. “I put some healing solution on the burns and waited to see what would happen in the morning. But the next day, I could see that it wasn’t what he needed. The wounds were too deep and they’d been neglected for too long. He needed a doctor, maybe even a surgeon. I called the mother and asked her to send over the child’s medical insurance card so I could take him to the hospital. But she refused. She told me that under no circumstances was I to take him to a doctor. God help me, I was shocked. I screamed at her that what she was doing was rishut, evil, satanic! She hung up on me.
“An hour later, she was already at my door. I begged her to let me take him to the emergency room. I asked her again how he’d gotten hurt. But she just shook her head, said it was her child and it wasn’t my business. God help me if she didn’t pull pants over those wounded legs and drag that child, limping, out of here. That was when I called social services.”
“How long was he with you?”
“Overnight and a few hours.”
“Why didn’t you call the police right away, Rabbanit Toledano?”
She bit her lip. “Did I do something wrong?”
Bina thought about it. If not for this woman, who knows how long this situation would have continued, how many more of the Goodman children would have been fatally injured by whoever, and whatever, had injured the two youngest? Still, in a normal society, who agrees to take in a stranger’s injured child? Was it an act of incredible generosity or spine-chilling dysfunction?
“Are you going to arrest me?” the woman asked.
Bina shook her head. “No, of course not. You meant well. But the next time, Rabbanit Toledano, for your own sake, you must call the police immediately.”
“If I call the police, even once, this clinic, it is closed. No one comes to me for help ever again. Are you going to close me down?”
Bina hadn’t thought of that. “Are you paid for what you do?”
She shook her head, shocked at the thought. “Heaven forbid. But sometimes people bring me presents, out of gratitude. I don’t want to offend them, so I take their gifts and give them my blessings.”
“What kind of remedies do you use?”
“Come, I’ll show you.”
The “clinic” consisted of a small bedroom made up of shelves with old glass coffee jars holding all kind of herbs and liquids.
“How long have you been practicing, Rabbanit Toledano?”
She closed her eyes, thinking. “Fifty years,” she said.
“And has anyone ever been injured?”
“God forbid! If it doesn’t help, I send them to the doctor straight away. But sometimes, the doctors send them to me.”
Bina thought about it. Maybe she should inform local police and shut her down. But people would only find another “healer,” and maybe the next one wouldn’t have harmless herbs, send people off to doctors, and call social services when necessary. She took a deep breath. “Rabbanit Toledano, the real reason I am here is this: While he was with you, did the child say anything about who had done this to him?”
The woman shook her head sadly. “Believe me, I asked him, again and again. But he was terrified, as if he’d been threatened, warned, not to open his mouth.”
Don’t talk, don’t talk, don’t talk, Bina suddenly thought, the words Morris had written up in his report, the words of Daniella Goodman in the hospital room.
“From your experience, Rabbanit, what do you think happened to him?”
She looked down, then suddenly she looked up, straight into Bina’s eyes. “What do you know about the kabbalah?”
“What?”
“The kabbalah. You’ve heard of it?”
“Of course. Who hasn’t?”
“Then, what do you know?”
“Nothing. Red strings and Madonna.”
“Madonna?”
“Never mind. But why are you asking me? What does kabbalah have to do with this?”
“That child … he had fifteen amulets around his neck, with secret kabbalistic formulas, some I’ve seen many times and some, handwritten, that I’ve never in my life seen before.”
Tikkun, Bina thought. “And you think … what?”
“The amulets were the work of someone who has delved into the forbidden. Practical kabbalah, or kabbalah maasit. Magic. Long ago, someone told me that sometimes, those who dabble in such magic use children in their ceremonies.”
Bina felt a tremor go up her spine. “Use?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know anything more than that. And I don’t want to know! You need to go to a kabbalah master, someone who delves into these things. But I’ll tell you this: that child has been touched by real evil; Satan himself polluted that child.”
The words were chilling.
“Who is this Satan, Rabbanit Toledano?”
“Ask those who have met him,” she answered cryptically. “Ask the children.”
Bina felt suddenly weak, as if the breath had left her body.
“You look pale,” the woman said, concerned.
“No, really. I’m fine.” She reached into her pocket. “Here is my card; if you think of something, anything, please call me.”
The woman nodded, taking it. “You do God’s work. May I give you a blessing?”
“Of course!” Playing along, she lowered her head, allowing the woman to place her hands over her scalp.
“May God watch over you and see that your next birth is smooth, healthy, and without any disruption.”
Bina looked up, stunned. How could she have known her last birth had been so traumatic?
Outside, she took a deep breath, placing a steadying hand against the side of the building to stop her trembling. I’m a young woman of childbearing age, she thought rationally. It was simply a good guess, completely random, nothing more. But somehow, she didn’t quite believe that either, the way she could no longer believe that there was no such thing as the devil.
Her phone rang. It was Morris.
“Where are you?” His voice sounded strained.
“Interviewing Toledano.”
“Get anything?”
“A few real surprises. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
“Hurry. Put your siren on if you have to.”
Her jaw dropped. “What’s up?”
“Eli, the four-year-old with the burns? He’s started talking.”
16
They left like thieves in the night, Daniella thought, heartbroken. All those people who had been so kind to them—Yochanon and Essie!—all their newfound friends, their good neighbors! Instead of the hugs and kisses and exchange of phone numbers, there was a moving truck at midnight. While most of their neighbors’ losses would be covered by insurance, still, she could not face them, feeling she had returned evil for good.
For even though nothing of what transpired had been her doing, she felt ultimately responsible. It had been her, after all, who flew off to America to satisfy her own selfish needs, leaving Shlomie behind to care for all the children. She beat herself up over it. How could she have done it? The accident (that’s how she decided to vi
ew it, focusing solely on the watering incident, glossing over his choice to buy infected plants and distribute them) had no doubt come about from exhaustion as he tried to manage everything in her absence. If she had just been there, where she was supposed to be, where it was her responsibility to be, none of it would have happened. As his wife, she was his helpmate and partner. They were one. His failure was her failure. They were equally responsible. Humiliated and full of guilty regrets, all she wanted was to put the past behind her as quickly as possible.
They rented a large apartment in a luxurious building in central Jerusalem, then set about looking for a permanent place to live near good schools and enough yeshivoth to keep Shlomie happy. The house in Yahalom they would sell later, she thought. It should be easy enough, with new people arriving daily, and all those families still in caravans. She was heartbroken over the idea of another family moving into her dream house.
Shlomie himself went into a deep depression, hardly rising from bed except to say his morning, afternoon, and evening prayers. And then, one day, weeks later, out of the blue, he came into the kitchen, his eyes burning with excitement.
“I have the answer!” he told her ecstatically.
“What was the question?” she answered wearily.
He seemed taken aback. “What do you mean! The answer to why all these terrible things have happened to us.”
She was holding Shoshana with one hand, while with the other she kneaded the dough for the Sabbath challah. “I’m listening.”
“It’s a punishment from God.”
She looked at him, stunned.
“We came to the Holy Land to be holy, to be close to God, right? And instead, what did we do? We abandoned learning Torah for digging in the dirt! Of course God is angry with us.”
Daniella listened to him halfheartedly, hearing only every other word. She was skeptical, especially since this explanation left no room for the natural consequences of stupid human choices. But she didn’t tell him that. He’d been upset enough with himself. What did it matter anyway? You couldn’t change the past.