by Naomi Ragen
This material would be Xeroxed and placed in the wrinkled, determined hands of numerous other local matchmakers, maybe even emailed to them as far away as Baltimore and Jerusalem. Hopefully, the network would be able to find in some remote outpost a person who was looking for a thirty-four-plus-year-old woman from beyond “the Wall” with a Band-Aid–covered tattoo, born out of wedlock from a one-night stand to a mother who dressed like a biker chick and who was now shacked up with a lapsed Sikh.
Or not.
When she got home, she poured herself a large gin and tonic. Nursing the glass, she studied the two little birds, remembering.
12
They had started out as part of a group of runners who met every morning to jog through the campus and then collapse on the lawn. Each morning, they ate breakfast together. She, Laurel, Carla, Morris, Arsenio, and Joshua.
But it was always Joshua and she who wound up running side by side for some reason, whether by accident or because he (or she?) measured their steps to keep in stride. She loved the way he moved, powerfully yet with surprising grace for such a large man. He was at least six three. She would have expected him to be a jock—basketball, even football, material. Goodness knows, Santa Clara never stopped trying to recruit him. Jesuit Catholic or not, it was a sports-crazy institution. But he had no interest at all in competitive sports: “The only person you need to compete with is yourself.” He shrugged.
And he did, challenging himself with a double major in biology and comparative religion. “I want to be a doctor, or a writer, or both, like Maimonidies,” he said, only half-joking. “What’s the point of saving a life if it goes morally to waste?”
His father was a doctor, and he had an uncle who was a conservative rabbi in New Orleans. He was deeply involved in the campus Hillel. Because of him, Leah also got involved. She helped organize a charity fashion show whose proceeds went to Israeli victims of terror, and a Passover seder for local Jewish high school students.
She gave him all her papers to read for Father Joe’s class, which inevitably led to deep, wide-ranging, and—more often than not—consuming discussions about eternity, the existence of angels, the Messianic age, and if man was born good or evil.
Josh believed passionately in the innate goodness of human beings.
“Even after the Holocaust?” she’d question him.
“There were good people even then. Look at Yad Vashem’s list of Righteous Among the Nations—very ordinary people who took enormous, life-threatening risks to save strangers. Granted, they were a handful, but it shows that man even under the worst of circumstances has an innate goodness nothing can destroy.”
“You could also say it proves the opposite. The fact that so few had the courage to help shows the majority were innately evil.”
“No. It only proves that human beings are born with the capacity for both. It’s leaders who create conditions that allow the good in men to blossom or—like Hitler—the worst. That’s why the most noble thing you can be is a good leader. That’s why Moses was the prophet closest to God, because he was shepherding a people, trying to talk them out of the evil inclinations in their souls, to lead them out of a wasteland to the golden promised land where they would become a nation of priests and a holy people.”
“So, you want to be Moses?” She laughed.
“I want to be Joshua.”
“The prophet Joshua, who replaced Moses? Or my running partner Joshua?”
“Your running partner.” He grinned.
“I don’t understand.”
So he told her a story his uncle had told him. “One day, a great Chassidic rebbe came to his followers. He had tears in his eyes, and his face was as white as a ghost. Everyone crowded around him. ‘Reb Zusia,’ they asked, ‘what’s wrong?’ ‘I saw the moment of my death,’ he told them. ‘There I was passing to the other side, surrounded by angels who lashed me with questions I couldn’t answer.’ ‘But, Rebbe,’ his disciples asked, ‘what do you have to be worried about? Of all of us, you are the most pious, learned, and modest. Every one of us has been taught and uplifted by you. What could the angels possibly ask you that you couldn’t answer?’ He looked at them sadly. ‘If they would have asked me, “Why weren’t you a Moses, leading your people out of slavery?” or “Why weren’t you a Joshua leading your people to the Promised Land?” I would have had an answer. I could easily say, “Prophecy was not given to me, nor strength and wisdom of leadership to bring an entire people into their inheritance.” But they didn’t ask me that. “Zusia,” they said. “There were many kinds of men you could truthfully say you did not possess the talent or wisdom to be. But there is one thing for which you have no excuse and that no power in heaven or earth could have prevented. Zusia, why weren’t you Zusia?”’”
She’d never forgotten that story. It was so Josh.
He’d grown up in a large, warm family. His Jewishness was like a second skin. It wasn’t a burden or a discussion. It was Josh being Josh. She envied that so much, the naturalness of it, the lack of struggle and temptation. They had made the slow journey from acquaintances and running partners, to friends, until one day it had grown into something more. And that, too, had been natural and effortless.
She remembered the moment it happened. A rainy day in November when almost everyone had already left for Thanksgiving. It was just him and her on the running path. Halfway through, it started to pour. They laughed, shouting at each other that they were completely nuts as the rain pounded through their thin hoodies, soaking their shirts and running pants and making their running shoes squish every time their feet slammed against the wet pavement.
“Come on, don’t chicken out!” he kept calling out over his shoulder, and she pushed herself to keep up until, miraculously, she overtook him. By then, they were both exhausted and soaked to the skin. Her dorm room was closer, so she motioned him to follow her.
“What about your roommate, the born-again Christian?”
She smiled. “She’s gone for the holiday. Here, take this,” she said, throwing her ratty old terry cloth bathrobe at him as she dashed into the shower. “I’ll just be a second.”
She would never remember a more delicious shower, the hot water neutralizing the chill, turning her skin a bright, warm pink. She wrapped herself in a thick bath towel, then hurried out, leaving the door open for him. She had to laugh. He looked so funny, his broad shoulders pinched by the tiny sleeves leaving most of his broad chest exposed, and only just barely covering his groin and behind. His long, solid legs were covered with dark hair. He smiled, pursing his lips, giving her Kim Kardashian poses, making her laugh until she cried. Then she remembered how cold he must be. She rummaged in her closet for a bath towel, throwing it at him. “Go!”
While he showered, she rubbed herself dry, putting on soft, dry clothes. “I have absolutely nothing that will fit you,” she called out to him. “I’m taking your wet things downstairs to the dryer.” When she returned, he was sitting on the bed, the towel around his slender waist, his chest bare.
He was so beautiful, she thought. She didn’t think beyond the need to touch him, to feel the muscles beneath his skin. All the things that she loved about him, his sincerity, his modesty, his self-deprecating humor, his joyful ambitions to make a better world, were all contained in this beautiful package. This was a whole human being, she realized, every part of which she loved.
She sat down next to him and put her arms around his neck and pulled him toward her. “I love you,” she said, shocking herself. How had this slow growth, the unfolding of petal after petal, finally produced this amazingly wonderful full bloom?
He said nothing, his lips widening into a smile. Then he pulled her toward him, his big hands warm and gentle, his whole body responding to hers, both of them moving to a rhythm that was ancient and godly and as human and natural as breathing.
Afterward, both of them had felt only joy without a single taint of guilt or regret. How could that have been? They were like Adam and Eve bef
ore they bit into the apple and were polluted by the knowledge of good and evil.
She loved this man, and he loved her.
The way the sky transforms in reflecting the different rays of the sun, so was time colored by her love for Joshua. Every day, every hour, every minute they were together was like dark earth in the spring, new feelings, new ideas budding into life under the fertilizing rain of their connection. To be that close to another human being, to know what they are thinking when they uttered certain words, or were confronted by a particular view, was to lose that existential loneliness we are all born with. It was magical, filling life with freshness and wonder.
She had never known what kind of thing her heart could be, how changeable, how flexible, expanding without end and shrinking almost to nothing, completely dependent on their closeness or distance. She hadn’t known she was capable of such joy, such despair, the highs and the lows. Through knowing and loving him, for the first time, she came to know herself, what she was capable of being, of feeling, her limitations and weaknesses, her strengths. He brought out in her the deepest, clearest, most compelling version of herself she had ever known.
They did not agree on everything. In fact, they disagreed, sometimes vehemently, all the time, each one of them fiercely maintaining their own views, refusing to budge about politics, the environment, women’s rights, organized religion. It would reach a crescendo of conflict, of passionate, furious disconnection. And then, for no reason at all, the barriers would melt like ice in the sun. No one changed their mind. The climate changed. It was as if they’d been asleep and suddenly awakened. What did these things matter, these silly, petty disagreements? What did they really care, after all, who won the election, or if the government should raise the minimum wage, or whether or not illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote, when they had each other, when they were building a future together?
That future, it was everything. Whatever they did, it shone in the near distance, palpable, life affirming: the home they would buy and furnish; the children they would cradle and nurture. They envisioned their hair growing gray and their bellies slack, surrounded by the family they would create—children and grandchildren—warmed by the knowledge that they would invest their lives in making the world a better place not only for their offspring but for all future generations.
Lying in the crook of his strong, tender arm, all things seemed possible. He would be a wonderful doctor. And she would show him how to turn his lifesaving ideas into a program that would touch and better the lives of millions. It would be more than a business. It would be a calling, and they would be in it together. How often did they whisper their plans to each other watching the setting sun go down over the hills of Northern California, filled to the brim with hope and joy?
He proposed the summer of their senior year in Yosemite during a hike along Glacier Point Road. As her head swam from the dizzying heights and the otherworldly views of the mountains at sunset, he threw down his backpack—that ugly orange-and-green frayed piece of baggage with all the sewn-on souvenir patches that had seen him through all his adventures—getting down on one knee and taking her hand in his. Their lives together would be one beautiful trail after another, he told her. They would help each other when they got tired and encourage each other to go ever further. Together, they would see God’s creation.
“Joshua, look!”
He turned, and there, flying over the mountain into the blazing fire of the setting sun, were a pair of eagles. They watched, mesmerized, as the birds swooped and dove and rose, playing with the air, companions, adventurers, lovers.
On the way back, delirious with happiness, they passed a tattoo parlor that had in its window two eagles in flight.
“Let’s do it!” She laughed.
“Well, you’re not really supposed to.” Josh shook his head, smiling.
“Just a tiny one, inside our wrists,” she pleaded, insistent for some reason she could not even explain to herself.
He’d given in, laughing, and they’d sat there as the tattooist promised them both exactly the same tiny tattoo in exactly the same place inside their wrists. “Right above your ulnar artery,” he said.
“That’s our main blood vessel, so be careful,” Josh teased.
“That’s why we do it, man. Very romantic,” said the artist, an obese slob in a leather biker vest with no shirt on. She thought he was disgusting. But she loved the tattoo. It marked the moment she went from being single in the world to being a couple, banishing loneliness from her life forever. It was the end of the miserable childhood that had been thrust upon her, the beginning of a new life, her life, freely chosen.
They planned the wedding for the following June. He’d just been accepted into Stanford School of Medicine. She wanted to go on for an MBA. She didn’t have the grades for Stanford, and even if she had, the tuition was about three times that of San Jose State—and even that wasn’t cheap. They moved in together right after graduation: a perfect, roomy, two-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale, halfway between the two schools.
A few weeks before Thanksgiving break, Josh came up with the idea of hiking Zion National Park. He’d been there with his family when he was a teenager, and he wanted her to see it. “It’s God’s cathedral. The red stone cliffs, the canyons and waterfalls. You cannot believe how beautiful it is,” he told her.
For some reason, she resisted. “I don’t know, Josh. We’ve got so many expenses right now with tuition and the wedding,” she hedged.
In response, he took her into his arms. “I don’t want to have that kind of life, where you are always putting off what you want to do because of something else you want to do. Look, it doesn’t have to be expensive. We can drive there. It’ll take about eleven hours. So we can do it over two days and spend one night with my friend, who lives in Bakersfield. Afterward, we can go visit my uncle in Las Vegas for the weekend. It’ll be a blast! Besides, I’m so tired of school. I need a break.”
“But won’t it be cold and rainy in November, no good for hiking?”
He thought about that. “Yes, probably. But it’s worse in the summer. I prefer the cold to the heat. And we’ll be careful.”
How many times had she gone over this conversation in her mind? A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? She could not help but blame herself. As with any tragedy, there was always the “if only I hads” that tortured you. Why hadn’t she just refused, said no, put her foot down? But in the end, she finally knew that the true answer was because she had wanted to please him. This is what they did. They pushed each other forward to do amazing things, things other people didn’t have the brains or the guts or the vision to do. Why not go to one of the most beautiful places on earth and spend some time there when there were no crowds and no oppressive summer heat? Why not? After all, they weren’t afraid of a little rain, were they? They leaned on the “we’ll be careful” as if it were solid, stainless steel, not a rickety bridge of twigs; as if saying it meant that you could somehow control the unpredictable forces of life and nature.
The day of the hike, he was so happy, shouting the words of Walt Whitman as he walked along the trail:
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
They had already been to the Court of the Patriarchs, those beautiful peaks named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And now they made their way up to the Emerald Pools. A light rain had begun to fall.
“It’s okay. The rain is only dangerous if we are going inside the Narrows, which we aren’t. There could be a flash flood. What we are doing is perfectly safe.”
Yes, she thought, reassured, her growing do
ubts as her steps grew slippery on the rocky slope fading away for the moment as she concentrated on the magnificent view. They were being careful, she told herself as they began the trail from Zion Lodge across the bridge and up the paved road to the lower Emerald Pool. It was an easy hike, she reassured herself, watching people holding their children’s hands, carrying babies on their backs. Past that, the hike was on rockier terrain. They took a detour to the second Emerald Pool. Sitting by Heaps Creek, they dangled their feet in the water, eating apples and taking photos of each other and the marvelous scenery.
“Smile,” she told him.
“Wait, I’ll do this standing up.”
He pulled himself up.
And then it happened.
His foot slipped on the algae-covered rock. He fell heavily to his side. She thrust out her hand to him, but he didn’t take it. Before she could even react, his body slid over the rocks to the canyon one hundred feet below.
She sat there, numb, unable to move. Was she dreaming?
All the rest of it was a blur. She remembered lifting his backpack and lugging it down along with her own, then abandoning it on the way as she realized it was impossible to carry the weight for both of them. Her next memory was collapsing into the arms of the park rangers as they began to question her.
“It’s my fault,” she’d wept. “If I had just grabbed his hand faster, I could have saved him.”
They shook their heads. “If he had taken your hand, you would have both gone over. There was nothing anyone could have done.”
She never believed that.
She sat vigil with his body at the ranger’s station until his uncle arrived, and then his parents. And all the while, she kept thinking, Maybe he will wake up. Maybe some doctor will come and say, “It’s not as bad as they are telling you. I have this pill … this shot … this operation … that will cure him.” And all night long, she stared at the tiny eagles on her wrist until she could almost see them fly away.