The email was brief. Hi, Liana. Was at the game. Saw you on the kiss cam. Not prying. If you’d like to talk, I’m in the synagogue office all day; just stop by. Rabbi N.
Of course.
Rabbi Nacht was one of the few people in Liana’s life who had the same allegiance to the Mets as she did, especially now that her father was gone and Phyllis had crossed over to the dark side with Irv. She was momentarily surprised that the rabbi would have been watching the kiss cam closely enough to notice her and Danny, but she guessed that they’d made quite a spectacle of themselves.
Well, maybe it was a blessing in disguise.
Perhaps what she needed was some rabbinic guidance; Lord knows, nothing else was really working. Her New Year’s resolution to figure out her future was suffering the fate of most such vows. Just like all those flabby people with good intentions who join the gym on January 1 with lofty goals of exercise and weight loss that inevitably peter out by February, Liana’s goal was sputtering too. And it didn’t help that her ability to think clearly about Jakob was being sabotaged by Danny.
She took a shorter shower than usual and dressed in a conservative skirt and top. She walked down the block to DT and went around the side of the building, where she pressed the button next to the door leading to the office and the rabbi’s study. Rabbi Nacht’s secretary buzzed her in. “Hi, Liana,” she said, recognizing her from the clothing drive she had helped out with the month before. “Do you have an appointment?” Before Liana could answer, the rabbi poked his head out of his office.
“It’s fine, Judy. I asked Liana to come by.” He motioned for her to come in and sit down. Liana sat stiffly on the guest chair opposite the rabbi.
Why did I come?
They surveyed each other across his desk. He watched her, saying nothing, waiting patiently for her to begin. Liana crossed and uncrossed and recrossed her legs, fidgeting with her hands. She had no intention of starting this discussion; he was the one who had intruded on her day at the ballpark. The telephone on his desk rang.
“Excuse me,” the rabbi said, peering at the caller ID screen. “I’ve been waiting for this call.”
“Of course,” Liana said, relieved at the reprieve. But as she looked at the rabbi for a signal that she should give him privacy, she saw his shoulders slump very slightly, his head bowed. He spoke so quietly she couldn’t have heard what he said even if she’d tried. After a couple of minutes, he hung up the phone, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.
“Do you know the Robinsons? Their son—he’s twenty-one—was in an accident. He didn’t make it.” The rabbi spoke evenly; his tone was neutral. Not unfeeling, but tragedies were part of his training, and he’d been a rabbi for many years.
“No, I really don’t know anyone,” Liana answered. “Listen,” she said. “I think I should come back another time.” She started to get up.
“What makes you think I want to be alone? Please don’t go,” he said. The poker face of a few moments earlier had dissolved; the pain was obvious. Before long, the rabbi recovered himself. He looked at Liana and said, “May I ask you a direct question, Liana?”
“Okay,” Liana responded.
“What on God’s green earth was going on there yesterday?” he said. Liana was so shocked she was unable to utter a sound.
The rabbi continued, “I’m sorry to have put that so crudely, and you know from our conversation in Atlanta that I try not to jump to conclusions. But, to be honest, I was surprised and frankly curious to see you on the big screen just sitting next to that man who clearly wasn’t Jakob, and then, the next second, that kiss . . . well . . .” He paused, appearing simultaneously entranced and repelled by the vision in his mind’s eye.
The rabbi shook his head from left to right, as if clearing the scene away on the Etch A Sketch Liana used to play with as a child.
“I just . . . I guess, from what I’ve seen over this past year—I like you and Jakob so much as a couple. I thought things were moving in a good direction—that it was significant that you went all the way to Atlanta for Maggie and Zach’s wedding with Jakob’s family. You seem very committed to one another, and I love seeing you two in synagogue on Friday night. Of course, it isn’t really any of my business.”
Liana sat quietly through the rabbi’s sermon, staring at her feet. She appreciated that he’d noticed how serious and loving a couple she and Jakob were, how they belonged together, but could he see how much strain there was too? How pressured she felt to live up to Jakob’s expectations and how neglected she sometimes felt? She guessed that the kiss cam episode had given the rabbi some insight that everything was not as idyllic as it seemed, even if he had misinterpreted what he’d seen happen with Danny Shea.
When Liana failed to respond, the rabbi tried a new tack. “Do you have feelings for that young man on the jumbotron?”
“It’s complicated,” she answered.
“Life is complicated, Liana.”
“That’s what my mother says,” Liana answered.
“Your mother is a wise woman,” Rabbi Nacht replied.
“So I’ve been told.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Rabbi Nacht tried again.
“You know, Liana, there is a midrash, a traditional story, that asks, ‘If God created the world in six days, what has he been doing with himself since?’ And the rabbis give the answer, ‘Matching couples for marriage.’ If you and Jakob are meant to be together, then it’ll happen . . . when the time is right,” he added.
“Rabbi,” Liana said, “I love Jakob—we love each other. But we are in such different places. He’s sure about what he wants in life, professionally and personally, and I’m still figuring things out. This isn’t going to sound right, but . . . sometimes I feel like even though he has carved out a special place for me, I’m not the center of his world.”
“And is he always the center of your world? It didn’t look that way on the big screen yesterday,” the rabbi said.
“Hey! I thought you weren’t going to judge!”
“And I’m not. But what I hope you’ll consider is that sometimes we get so focused on what we are getting out of a relationship that we fail to focus on what we are putting into the relationship. It’s a give and take, Liana, and if you let the giving take precedence, in my experience, the rest will work itself out.”
Liana pondered what the rabbi had said and decided to be more blunt.
“I’ve given myself a deadline to decide if I want to marry Jakob or if I should let him go. It’s coming up pretty soon, and I don’t know what to do.”
There. I said it out loud.
The rabbi was so serious and studied Liana for so long that she thought she might have stumped him. But, as usual, that wasn’t the case.
“Liana,” he said, “I have a couple of thoughts for you.”
She smiled sadly.
The rabbi leaned back in his chair, his fingers pressed together as if praying, and looked up at the ceiling—for inspiration or to avoid putting too much pressure on Liana, she wasn’t sure.
“As you know, in the Genesis story, God created Adam first, and only later did God say ‘It is not good for Adam to be alone,’ so he created Eve. But in the Bible, Eve’s role isn’t described as ‘wife’ or ‘soul mate’ or ‘life partner’—rather, she’s described in Hebrew as Adam’s aizer kenegdo, a helper opposing him. Our great sage, Rashi, explains that this describes the ideal relationship as one in which two people struggle to complement and complete each other—like two imperfectly cut pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that just barely, but beautifully, fit together as one.”
Liana nodded. “Kind of like the yin and the yang?”
“I guess, yes. I suppose every philosophy has a similar concept, because it’s true,” the rabbi said, a smile playing on his lips. “But it isn’t always pretty. If you and Jakob challenge one another and demand what you need from each other, but you do it in good faith and in a supportive way, you don’t always have to be on
exactly the same page. Sometimes you’ll disappoint each other, and that’s part of the relationship too, and it can make you stronger.”
Would Jakob think that kissing Danny Shea was done in good faith? She shuddered.
Then the rabbi said quietly, “So that’s Rashi. Do you know what Babe Ruth said?”
She shook her head.
“He said, ‘It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.’ Don’t give up on yourself and Jakob yet, Liana. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to tell you that he’s the one God meant for you to marry. But I can tell you that I’ve seen you interact, and I see the love you share. And I’d hate for you to throw it away because you have set yourself some sort of artificial deadline. You’re a young woman, with your whole life ahead of you. Be patient. Wait for your moment.”
Liana thought about Deb, another young woman who should have had her whole life ahead of her and who, if Liana carried out her friend’s wish, the rabbi would soon be burying.
“Rabbi, can I ask you something else?”
“Of course. I’ve got plenty of time; the Mets aren’t playing tonight,” he said.
When she went to speak, Liana found her voice had retreated to a safer place. She could barely whisper, “My friend is sick.”
The rabbi nodded slowly, his concern evident. When she seemed unable to continue, he gently prodded her. “What’s your question, Liana?”
She sat up a bit straighter and willed herself to speak. “I want to pray for her, and I don’t know how.”
The rabbi looked at her directly, waiting to catch her eye. When she finally looked up from her lap, there was such kindness in his gaze that she could have wept.
“Well,” he said, “first of all, I take issue with your premise. Whenever you realize that you, Liana Cohen, aren’t in control and you sincerely turn for help to a power greater than yourself, you’re praying. There are no magic incantations, and there’s no particular language that needs to be used. Your heart will seek mercy and healing for your friend, and that will be your prayer.”
Although she recognized the validity of the rabbi’s answer, Liana pressed on. “My friend isn’t religious, but she has a notion about doing things ‘right.’”
The rabbi nodded again, and it was a comfort just knowing that he’d heard so much from so many before. “If by ‘right’ your friend means ‘in the traditional Jewish way,’ then let me show you the words we say in our daily prayers.” The rabbi pulled a prayer book off the bookshelf behind him, then came around his desk and sat in a chair next to Liana.
“Here, on page 118, there’s a general prayer asking God to ‘bring complete recovery for all our ailments,’ and then you can insert a more specific prayer that God ‘speedily send a complete recovery from heaven, healing of both soul and body, to the patient.’” The rabbi paused, looked at Liana, and pointed to the smaller print, adding, “And then you insert the person’s Hebrew name.”
Liana, who had been buoyed by the straightforwardness of the rabbi’s answer and by the words of the prayer, suddenly deflated.
“I don’t know my friend’s Hebrew name or if she even has one,” she said, her legal mindset assuming that this deficiency would preclude her.
The rabbi was unfazed. “That’s okay. It happens to me all the time. When it does, I just close my eyes and envision the person, and I believe that God will know who I’m talking about.”
Liana knew that she should get going; she had already taken far too much of the rabbi’s time. But she felt weighed down, as though by asking him about the formal prayer, she’d committed herself to something she might not be able to carry through. The rabbi, as if reading her mind, offered an alternative.
“There’s another traditional prayer, Liana, that’s easy to remember—it has the feeling of a mantra almost, or a chant. Moses had a sister, Miriam, and God made her sick because she spoke harshly about Moses’s wife. When Moses saw that Miriam was suffering, he uttered the shortest and most poignant prayer in our liturgy. It’s just five words: ‘El na, refah na la,’ which means, ‘Please, God, heal her.’ It isn’t flowery, but it gets to the point.”
Liana tried it out a few times, to make sure she remembered it correctly. She thanked the rabbi for his time and for taking an interest in her and Jakob. She was halfway out the door when the rabbi called to her.
“Liana. I want you to remember something important.”
“Yes, Rabbi?”
“If your friend doesn’t get better, I don’t want you to conclude that God is not listening to your prayers. God hears you. Sometimes the answer is ‘No.’”
CHAPTER 21
“They say that April is the cruelest month, Bobby,” Liana ruminated during one rainy afternoon in the office. She stared out the dirty window, watching the drops splash off the sill. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault, but as her mood plummeted, Liana found that his sitting just inches away from her was increasingly disturbing.
Deb was barely leaving her apartment now, as the doctors no longer had any more experimental chemo drugs to offer her. A couple of times a week, Liana went to visit her, bringing food that she used to love but could no longer eat and toting shiny hardcover books for Max about elephants that could fly or sheep that could dance. Liana would sit on the couch between Deb and Max and read the books over and over as Max laughed with delight, yelling, “Again, again!” as he pulled at her curls and Deb “rested her eyes.” After an hour or so, Deb would be sound asleep and Max would need lunch, and Georgia, the private nurse that Steven had hired, would politely thank Liana for coming and escort her out the door.
In a strange turnaround, Liana felt more invested at work than she had in some time, although things were heating up as the last quarter of the fiscal year began. She was way behind, having spent much more time than she should have allotted on Danny’s case over the summer, and she knew that it would take a great push for her to make the quota this year. That being said, she was working diligently and with a renewed sense of purpose. One unexpected side effect of her encounters with Danny, however surreal and imprudent, was that she’d rediscovered the human beings behind the names on the transcript pages.
Her new client, Gillian Black, had been convicted of killing her boyfriend while they sat in the front seat of his parked car. Gillian had testified at trial that the gun discharged while the boyfriend was choking and punching her. Based on this testimony, Liana was arguing that the jury should have been told they could consider whether Gillian had acted in self-defense. Liana let herself imagine Gillian’s terror as she sat in that car with someone whom she had once trusted.
What would I have done in that situation?
While her professional life had improved, the situation with Jakob had ground almost to a halt. She tried to follow the rabbi’s advice, taking a step back before she reflexively complained about Jakob’s work obligations and instead acknowledging the pressure he was under and giving him space. Without Liana penciling herself into the interstices of his schedule, Jakob threw himself into his work with no respite. He ate his meals either at the firm or on his way home and rarely returned to his apartment before eleven at night. Liana gave up on inviting him to Friday night services, preferring to go alone and glean what spiritual boost she could rather than feel as if she was taking him away from something more important. They were both grateful for the nights Jakob escaped earlier from the office and came straight to Liana’s apartment, where they would fall into each other’s arms and make love, hungrily but with a sense of impending sadness. There had been no knock-down-drag-out fight, no accusations or harsh words that couldn’t be retracted, no ultimatums issued, and no formal breakup.
But we’re in trouble.
Liana was depressed. Maybe not at a level warranting medication, but she was utterly and desperately miserable.
One Saturday evening in late April when her phone rang and she saw Katie’s number on the caller ID, she almost let it go to voice mail but forced herself to answer.
�
�Oh! I’m glad you’re home!” Katie said, putting on a cheerful voice.
“Where else would I be?” Liana droned.
“Okay, whatever. You need to come out with us tonight. We’re going for rice and beans at your favorite hole-in-the-wall on Broadway. It’s amazing we’ve never gotten violently ill from food poisoning there,” Katie said.
“I don’t think so. But thanks for asking.” Liana marveled at the perseverance of her friends, even now, when being around her was such a drag.
“Come on, Liana. This is getting nuts. You have to get out of your apartment. Charlotte wants to see you; she’s so gigantic, I swear to God she’s having twins. She won’t confirm or deny, just gives me this vague little smile when I bring it up. And I want you to get to know Rob better. You’d like him. I think he’d get along with Jakob. He also likes Bob Dylan and John Berryman and all those highbrow sorts of cultural figures.” Katie was trying really hard, and Liana appreciated it, but she still couldn’t muster the strength.
“I’d just be a fifth wheel, Katie. I’m not going to call Jakob and tell him he needs to come—I have to reserve those requests for when I need him on something really critical.”
“What happened to your New Year’s resolution?” asked Katie, who was never one to let a sleeping dog lie. “Are you really planning either to tell Jakob you’ll marry him or break up with him by your thirtieth birthday? May I remind you that we are two weeks away and counting?”
Liana needed no reminding. But as the date crept closer, she wondered whether she would have the courage to make any decision at all. Maybe she would just let things play out; surely some resolution would eventually come. And as much as he loved her, Liana didn’t think Jakob would wait around for her forever.
“I don’t know.” Liana sighed. “I guess I don’t always govern the timetable of everything,” she said, picturing her mother, Deb, and Rabbi Nacht sharing a cappuccino and a chuckle over Liana’s naïveté in believing that she was in control of anything.
Unreasonable Doubts Page 23