by Dan Sofer
Breathe, Dave! Breathe!
He cleared his throat. “Mandy, right? How are you?”
He wanted to dash his head against the wall.
“All good. How about you?” There was a smile in her voice. Not derisive. Encouraging.
“Great. Just great. Thanks.” Dave paced the length of the salon. “You shared a flat with Nat, right, but you don’t sound like a New Yorker.”
“Houston, Texas,” she said with pride. “I moved east five years ago.”
“Right,” he said. “Good.”
Don’t ramble. Keep it short.
“I, um, was wondering. Do you drink coffee?”
“I’ve been known to,” she said. “But you’re British. Shouldn’t we have tea?”
“Oh, no. We got rid of that years ago. Along with manners and the monarchy.”
She laughed. The girl actually laughed.
He stormed ahead. “How about tomorrow night, eight o’clock? At Café Atara on Gaza Street.”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s a date. Here’s my number, just in case.”
A full four minutes after the call ended, Dave removed the wet handset from his ear and stopped pacing.
He had acquired not only a telephone number but a date with Mandy Rosenberg. And he liked her. She was down-to-earth and had a sense of humor. She was cute, even in Mike’s objective opinion. And Mandy Rosenberg was the only girl on Dave’s thirty-year-old desert island. He could not afford to screw this up.
He sank onto the couch. He slowed his breathing down to a mild panic attack. With pale, trembling fingers, he dialed a number.
“Ben,” he said. “I need your help.”
***
Mandy was not in the habit of arguing with rabbis, although, at times, their parables and interpretations pushed the limits of her credulity. This rabbi had gone too far.
“But Rabbi Jeremy,” she said, “doesn’t that contradict the Bible?”
A stunned silence filled the classroom of young women.
The thin British rabbi smiled behind his glasses and long, ginger beard, and leaned on the podium. His black hat and jacket rested on a chair and the collar of his white shirt rose toward his ears. He resembled a benevolent Yorkshire terrier.
“Our Sages say,” he repeated in his soft voice, “He who says David sinned is mistaken.”
“What about Bathsheba? And Uriah?”
Mandy happened to know about King David. As a child, she had begged her father to tell and retell the stories: David and Goliath; David’s flight from King Saul; his friendship with Jonathan; his conquest of Jerusalem; the betrayal at the hands of Absalom, his son. And, of course, the affair with Bathsheba and subsequent elimination of her pesky Hittite husband.
“Those are good questions,” said Rabbi Jeremy. “Hold onto them for later in the course. For now, I’d like to finish the outline.”
Mandy let it go. First day in seminary and already hassling the rabbis.
Her schedule at She’arim started at eight-thirty. The class consisted of twelve girls, mostly nineteen-year-olds on their year abroad who lived in the dorms. Mandy had opted out of the dorms. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
Rabbi Jeremy taught the first class of the day, Introduction to the Prophets. He was recapping the background of the course for Mandy’s benefit when she had felt compelled to interrupt.
What’s with you today, Mands?
The girls broke into pairs. The rabbi introduced Mandy to her study partner, Esty, a painfully sweet New Yorker of about twenty with big eyes and straight black hair tied back. Mandy would have killed for hair like that. For years, she had struggled with dryers and flat irons before she had learned to embrace her natural curls.
“Rabbi Jeremy is amazing,” Esty said after the teacher moved off to assist another pair of girls.
“Yeah?” Mandy raised an eyebrow but held back on the sarcasm. What had ticked her off this time? Was it the rabbi’s gloss of King David or the stardust in the younger girl’s eyes?
“Amazing,” Esty repeated. “Just wait and see. He knows so much. You’re going to love it here.”
The rest of the day flowed without incident. Rabbis and Rebbetzins lectured on Women in Tanakh, the Laws of Cooking on Shabbat, Interpersonal Relationships, and Fundamentals of Faith, interrupted by short breaks and a canteen lunch of chicken schnitzel and mashed potatoes.
Mandy had smiled more than once at the not-so-subtle subliminal messaging of the subject matter: how to be a good Jewish wife.
At five o’clock Mandy skipped the last lecture and the Ask the Rabbi session, and called a cab. She planned to keep her evenings free. This winter break was both a spiritual refresher and a much-needed hiatus from the office. But beyond that, four months in Jerusalem held other promises for a single Jewish girl.
Night had fallen over the concrete jungle of Har Nof. A white Mercedes idled at the curb, a yellow half-circle with the word “taxi” on the roof. Mandy opened the back door and got in.
“Mendele Street,” she said to the driver, a graying, bareheaded man who nodded and started the meter.
She relaxed on the plush leather upholstery as the engine purred and white stone apartment buildings panned across the window.
Five days after her arrival, the sight of Hebrew street signs and storefronts still warmed her heart. Welcome to the Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, the miraculous ingathering of Jews of all shapes, sizes, and colors after two thousand years of exile. Jewish police officers patrolled the streets. Jewish soldiers guarded the borders. Jewish judges resided over the courts. Even the garbage collectors and bus drivers spoke the language of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, celebrated Jewish festivals, and, each day, wrote a fresh page in the story of the Jewish People.
This was Mandy’s first trip to Israel but, inexplicably, she felt at home.
And she loved her new flatmates, despite her initial concerns.
The Internet listing had sought a Sabbath-observant, kosher-eating, female non-smoker. Between the lines, Mandy read “straitlaced” and “uptight.” A brief email exchange with Ruchama, who added a twelve o’clock curfew on visiting boyfriends and displayed great interest in how exactly Mandy planned to cover her share of the expenses, did nothing to dispel Mandy’s first impression.
That first Tuesday morning, Mandy, exhausted from the flight, took an hour-long shuttle ride from Ben Gurion airport to Mendele Street. The apartment building stood four stories high in grubby Jerusalem stone and straddled a tiny parking yard on stone stilts. Mandy dragged her suitcases up the two flights of stairs and pressed the buzzer.
As the door swung open, her concerns evaporated.
A blond bombshell in a pink bikini leaned in the doorway. She threw a nonchalant arm behind her head like a lingerie model and sized up the newcomer with radiant blue eyes.
“Mandy, I presume.” Her voice was rough, sensual, the accent a flawless Bostonian.
“You must be Shani.”
“Very good.” The sapphire eyes sparkled and Mandy knew they would be friends. “Ruchama is the short, fat, mousy one. She means badly but she’s harmless enough. Come on in.” She pulled Mandy inside by her scarf and reached for the suitcase handles. “I’ll help you with these bad boys.”
Mandy shed her coat.
Shani pointed at the ancient radiator fixed to a corner wall. “Central heating,” she explained. “There’s a diesel boiler in the belly of the beast. Keeps things toasty.”
She gave Mandy the cook’s tour. Mandy’s tail wind of adrenaline survived the dank kitchen with its stained twin sinks, rickety cupboards, greasy gas oven, and gargantuan, ancient fridge.
She delighted in the Hebrew terms Shani used. The service balcony beyond the tiny bathroom was a mirpeset sherut; the oblong living room, a sa’lon.
Mandy collapsed onto the couch draped with a flower print dustcover. The owners of the apartment had decorated tastefully in the fifties and then let nature take its course. The fibrous, brown
wallpaper peeled away in places and was blackened above the low telephone shelf where, Mandy guessed, the girls lit Shabbat candles. The dirt-stained floor tiles, warped cupboards, and sagging mattress of Mandy’s narrow bedroom fell several leagues below the smooth parquet and steel four-poster of her 62nd Street apartment. To Mandy it was all part of the adventure.
Shani returned from the kitchen with two mugs of hot chocolate.
Mandy sipped her cocoa on the couch. Her eyelids drooped as the ten-hour flight caught up with her. Outside, the sun climbed in the sky but her body still thought it was time to go to bed. The radiators creaked as they cooled. Winter air seeped through the single-glaze French window at the balcony.
She watched Shani through a haze of chocolate steam. Shani had slipped on a silky kimono and curled up on the armchair. Her luxuriant golden curls cascaded over her shoulders.
“How long have you been in Israel?” Mandy asked.
“My parents moved here before I was born. I had no say in the matter.”
“Any tips for the new girl in town?”
Shani read the answer off the small ersatz crystal chandelier. “When you take a cab,” she said, “sit in the back. Cabbies can’t keep their hands to themselves.”
Mandy added Jewish Perverts to her mental list.
A key rattled in the front door and a rotund woman stormed in and pulled off layers of clothing.
“It’s cold dogs outside,” she said to the room at large.
Mandy directed her confused expression at Shani, who just rolled her eyes.
The woman still hadn’t noticed them. “If I get another night shift this week…”
She turned around, smiled, and walked over to Mandy.
“Ruchama,” she said, extending a large, cold but welcoming hand. She was the negative image of Shani: plain and pudgy but far friendlier than Mandy had expected.
As Mandy soon discovered, Ruchama was also the child of immigrants, and Mandy would learn more Hebrew from Ruchama’s English than from any Ulpan class Mandy had taken in college.
Ruchama placed her hands on her hips and eyed her flatmates like a hen surveying her brood. “Shani hasn’t broken you already, I hope.”
“Give me time,” Shani purred. “We’ve just met.”
The cab ran over a pothole and Mandy bounced on the leather upholstery. They had mounted a bridge over a highway intersection.
Mandy recalled her spat with Rabbi Jeremy and squirmed.
Grumpy, argumentative, and cynical. What had gotten into her?
Had the novelty of the adventure worn off? Was reality slowly sinking in? She was a thousand miles away from her home, her life, and all she held dear.
Was there a deeper cause?
Her thoughts drifted to her father. He had loved Israel. He’d worked on a kibbutz for a year before returning home to start college, where he had met Mandy’s mom. In her earliest memories, her dad promised to take her to the Holy Land and show her around. Was that why she had traveled so far? To fulfill her father’s dream?
The cab dipped down Jabotinsky, made a sharp left onto Mendele Street, and pulled up outside Mandy’s building. She paid the driver and climbed the stairs. She aimed the key at the front door when it opened and a thirty-something man stepped out. He wore a crocheted kippa on his head and an embarrassed expression on his face. Their eyes met for an instant, and then he rushed past Mandy and down the stairwell.
Mandy stepped inside, placed her bag on the living room table, and took off her coat. The radiators were working overtime again.
A boyfriend?
She was pretty sure Ruchama wasn’t seeing anyone and Shani seemed to date a different lawyer or hotshot executive every night and this guy didn’t fit the mold.
A brother?
Shani emerged from her room in her trademark pink bikini, a large red apple in her hand. As the bedroom door closed, Mandy spied a camera mounted on a tripod.
“Who was that?” Mandy asked.
“Who was who?”
Shani sashayed past Mandy into the living room and settled on the armchair. She took a large bite of the apple.
“The guy who just left in a hurry.”
“Oh,” Shani said, her mouth full. She waved the apple dismissively and swallowed. “A client.” She took another bite.
Mandy had never considered that Shani had an actual job. The buxom beauty seemed to laze around the apartment all day.
“Oh,” Mandy said. She considered the pink bikini and mounted camera. What exactly do you do, Shani Weis? Ask no questions, hear no lies. And Mandy needed to shower and dress, pronto.
Ruchama bustled through the living room en route to the kitchen.
“Hi, Mandy,” she said. “Want pasta? I’m making mushrooms in cream.”
“I’d love to,” Mandy said, “but I have a date.”
Ruchama stuck her head out of the kitchen, her eyes wide. “A date? Already?”
“Who’s the lucky guy?” said Shani.
“David Schwarz.”
Shani frowned. “Never heard of him.”
“He’s British. Old friend of Natalie.”
“Blind date?”
“Not really. I saw him at the shiur last week.”
“And?”
Mandy thought of the guy with the neatly parted hair and button-down in the men’s section. A smug first impression raised its hand in the back of Mandy’s mind. Mandy ignored it. Dave was Nat’s good friend. With a haircut and a change of wardrobe, he could look good. After all the stolen glances, Mandy had been sure he would talk to her after the lecture but he had slipped away with barely a word. Did that count as mysterious?
“I don’t know,” Mandy said. “He has potential.”
***
Dave never had trouble with first-date small talk. He had notched up countless flight hours and flew most first dates on autopilot. But he didn’t usually find himself at a table for two with Mandy Rosenberg.
The soft light of Café Atara on Gaza Street glinted on her relaxed auburn curls. Elevator music played in the background. Mandy sipped her latte and smiled.
Dave smiled back and said nothing.
Mike was right. Mandy was cute. Not the classic elegance of Shira Cohen, mind you, but beautiful in a girl-next-door sort of way.
Dave said nothing again. He said more nothing. He had obsessed the entire day over this moment. He had endured a late-night session with Ben and the Pickup Artist’s Bible. Despite all of that, his mind drew blanks.
“So,” Mandy said. “What brings you to Israel?”
Oh, thank God!
But his relief shriveled in mid-bloom. Mandy had asked The Question.
Over the years, Dave’s first date Q and A had evolved a small set of one-liners that served as litmus tests, and a girl’s reactions predicted the outcome of the relationship with depressing accuracy. His answer to this particular question mixed irony and social commentary and often elicited blank stares or raised eyebrows, especially in Americans, who remained largely uninitiated in the joys of British humor.
He cleared his throat.
Here goes.
“The usual story,” he said, deadpan. “I was brainwashed by Bnei Akiva.”
Then a miracle occurred. The beautiful girl across the table laughed.
“It’s true, I suppose,” she said. “The summer camps. Seminars. You should file a class action suit.” Her eyes narrowed, bemused. “What?”
Dave blinked away his stunned expression.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just not used to people understanding my sense of humor. Not without diagrams. By this point they’ve usually called for the men in white coats.”
Another delicate laugh.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She swept a strand of hair behind her ear. According to the Pickup Artist’s Bible, a grooming gesture counted as an Indicator of Interest. Three IOIs and Dave could invite her back to his place. If Dave was that sort of gu
y, which he wasn’t.
Mandy returned to her latte. Dave liked the Southern twang of her voice, at once familiar and exotic. He wished she would speak some more.
The uniformed security guard at the glass door of the coffee shop ushered in a young couple. The awkward body language said First Date.
The silence grew. It developed limbs and eyes and opened its hungry, toothy maw.
What had Ben said? Remember, dammit!
The Pickup Artist’s Bible had said to feign disinterest in the target. Chat up her girlfriends instead. But Dave and Mandy were alone at the table.
What came next?
Dave ordered his fingers to stop fidgeting with the sugar sachets in the little white basin.
Don’t focus on you. Ask about her.
He sucked in a lungful of air.
“How about you?” he asked. “What brings you to Israel?”
“I’m at She’arim for four months,” she said. “But I haven’t made aliya yet. Just trying it out.”
Just trying it out. Code words for Husband Shopping.
He had heard good reports of the seminary in Har Nof, although it was not as frum as Bnos Chava, where Shira Cohen had studied that fateful summer two years before.
“Do you like it there?”
“So far. Although I had an argument with the rabbi on my first day. He said that King David never sinned, which is obviously not true.”
“Bathsheba,” Dave said. “And Uriah.”
“Exactly! If he didn’t sin, why the cover-up? Nathan the Prophet called him on it. He even confessed. Why do the rabbis feel the need to whitewash him?”
Dave had heard the midrashic explanations. The king’s men routinely divorced their wives before setting out to battle in case they went missing in action. Bathsheba, technically, was a divorcee at the time the king got to her. But Dave decided not to play rabbi’s advocate.
Mandy smiled at him. “David is my favorite biblical character.”
Dave chalked up another IOI. He had earned points simply for his name, and finally his parents had justified their existence.
Mandy said, “How about you?”
“Me?”
“Your favorite character.”
“Oh.”
He ransacked the drawers of his Bible knowledge for a safe and worthy answer. Dave didn’t play favorites in scripture. He liked the good guys, disliked the bad.