YUSSEL WOKE UP TOO EARLY IN THE MORNING, FELT A LUMP IN HIS stomach, found himself prone, which isn’t a kosher position, rolled over onto his left side, which is not only kosher but good for digestion. The lump didn’t go away. He couldn’t tell if it was heartburn or depression.
He sat up on the edge of Grisha’s bed, sighed, rinsed his hands, mumbled the Eighteen Benedictions, thanked God he woke up with a lump in his stomach and not in his pants, thanked God he wasn’t a woman, thanked God he was going back to Far Rockaway, stuck his head out of the tent, and, as they say in the Torah, lifted up his voice in a voice that shook the land, and yelled for Ernie. “Ernie!”
What had woken him up was a woman presenting a Music Minus One “Gong Show” live from the mountain. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” She didn’t know all the words. It was a sin for Yussel to listen to a woman singing live. Her voice blasted, bounced off the mountain, aimed for his tent, sank into his stomach. She sang something very intimate he shouldn’t hear.
Yussel tossed his blanket over his head and shoulders, went outside, yelled for Ernie again. The morning was cool and dark, like standing inside a glass of iced tea, the flagpole clinking, the moon still in the sky, not a star missing from the sky. The woman’s voice cracked and scraped against the rocks. Babe’s chickens woke up, joined in. There was nothing seductive about her voice. It was the loneliness in it, like a wolf cry in the wilderness, that gave him a lump in his stomach. “Ernie!”
Ernie came running, stumbling, rubbing his eyes, buttoning buttons on the fly of a pair of wool khaki army pants.
“I don’t want to hear a woman singing! I bought you a sound system, didn’t I?”
“I didn’t hear her.”
“How could you not hear her?”
“Stand still,” Ernie whispered in awe. Ernie grabbed Yussel’s arm.
Yussel grabbed Ernie’s arm. Something large and leather-cold slid between his legs, over one bare foot, out of his tent.
Ernie whispered again. “You know how many sandwiches you could get from her if she was a salami? Jesus, I wish she was an Isaac Gellis salami.”
So did Yussel. All of it passed over his foot in a slow slide into the dark. Maybe six feet long, as thick as his arm. Yussel’s hand was white on Ernie’s arm.
“She likes Grisha.” Ernie laughed a dirty laugh. “She thought you were Grisha. So, what do you want to hear? ‘Hatikvah,’ Peer Gynt, Jewish aerobics?”
Yussel washed his hands again, poured the basin water over his polluted foot. “Hatikvah” blasted into the dark morning, the lights went on in the Arizona, in Babe’s bus. He heard voices in the tents. It had been a mistake to turn on the music because now everyone was waking up and someone was sure to see him leaving, try to stop him, plead with him to stay, carry on. Yussel groped for his shoes, his clothes, tossed his pajamas into his overnight, looked both ways out the tent door, and took off.
Very softly, he walked around the tents, around the adobe huts, over snake holes the size of number-ten grapefruits. Just as he ducked around the far side of the Arizona, a woman stood in his path. His heart stopped. It was still too dark to see her features. He smelled musk. Why do women have to smell?
She whispered a significant whisper. It was the same voice from last night that said he looked like a Moses. “I know who you are, Rabbi. Don’t think I don’t know who you are.” Natalie, saying what she used to say to his father, whom she’d decided was the Messiah.
“Sure you do, Natalie. I’ve known you since we were kids.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Yussel didn’t ask what she meant.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
He shouldn’t have said, “Don’t tell anyone.” He was being funny.
“I knew it.” She wrapped the shawl tighter halfway up her face, turned away from him melodramatically, pregnant now with their secret.
Yussel hid behind the Arizona, waited until she was gone. It was growing lighter. Natalie hated men because she thought they all had one big secret that would give her inner peace. Someplace she’d heard about the wonder Rabbi in Kansas who was giving out answers, so she’d walked to Kansas, arrived at the door of the shul, filthy, ragged, with amebic dysentery they found out later. “If you don’t let me study with you I’ll go out into the world and be a sex machine.” The Rabbi said okay but she’d have to wear a skirt, be clean, keep kosher. Then she could study with him and not be a sex machine. He threw her clothes into the garbage can, gave her Bloomke’s favorite sweater and skirt. Ever since Yussel could remember, her fingernails were chewed to the bone and now and then she’d have bruises on her neck, sometimes new and blue, sometimes old and orange. A bride of violence, his father called her.
When Natalie fought with the Rabbi because he wouldn’t tell her the secret, she’d disappear with this or that dark-haired acned kibbutznik who’d come from Israel to Kansas to see the wonder Rabbi with the answers. “So tell me, Rabbi, I’ve been waiting a lifetime …” she’d say to his father. Nothing the Rabbi could tell Natalie satisfied her because she knew he was holding back the answer. Once she ran away to be a sex machine with a Moroccan Jew who sold fake Gucci bags from the trunk of his taxi, who beat her, whom the Rabbi told her to stay away from or he wouldn’t teach her Torah. The last time Yussel saw Natalie, he’d been visiting his father. She’d come in drenched from a thunderstorm, her hair matted, a bloody nose, a holy book clutched to her chest. The Rabbi didn’t stand up, didn’t approach her, kept rolling the wax into a candle. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from the cab driver?”
“I had an accident in my kitchen, Rabbi. On a cupboard door.”
His father had turned his back on Natalie. She still clutched her holy book; he rolled his wax. “So?”
“I have a problem, Rabbi.”
It was the line that led straight to his circumcised heart. He turned to her immediately, his face softened, he smiled. The room lit up with the sweetness of that smile.
“In the Torah it says …” She flipped, panic-stricken, through pages. She’d been studying with the Rabbi for a dozen years. She was pushing thirty-five, still knew nothing. “You know about milk separated from meat? You want me to read it to you?”
“I know it. I know it. What’s your problem?”
“Do I need a garbage can for meat and a garbage can for milk?”
His father stood, faced Natalie, looked at her with those terrible majestic eyes. “Tell me, why do you have a bloody nose?”
She left, slammed the front door angrily. All night it rained like a monsoon. At daybreak when Yussel got up from the sofa to pack, he looked out the picture window. Natalie was halfway up the small acacia tree on the corner, up in the branches. He could see the soles of her boots. He woke his father. The Rabbi came to the window in his pajamas. He cranked open the side window. “One garbage can. You hear me? One.” Yussel remembered saying, “Why don’t you just send her over to the Lubavitchers?” And his father had answered with pained patience, “Because there’s a soul inside all that confusion. Because someday I may break through. Because someday she may understand. Because that’s our job.” Natalie had climbed down, shook water from her hair, brushed leaves from the suede, gone home.
Yussel slipped past the Arizona unseen, crossed the last hundred feet of flats, climbed the little spur to the mound of highway, tossed his overnight in the backseat of the Shanda. Mishugge people. The lump in his stomach was hardening, sending out vines. He put the AAA Trip-Tik map into his head, thought about what route he’d take back to Far Rockaway, looked around one last time just in case he was making a mistake, which he knew he wasn’t.
A small deer chewed on dried flowers on his father’s grave. The sky blushed pink behind the mountains. Banks of clouds rolled against them, hit the peaks, dropped over them in smoky bagels. The peaks glinted like knives in the rising light. Under the water tower, a silver mirage shimmered like a lake. It was no place for him or his family. He couldn’t find his keys although he was sure he’d left them in the car.
They weren’t under the seats, in the overhead, on the floor. He was on his hands and knees in the back of the car when Grisha banged on the side. Yussel jumped up, banged his own head on the roof of the car.
Rust flaked off the car, dandruff from Grisha’s eyebrows. “Nu?”
“Keys.”
Babe climbed the slope up to the highway, rubbed her eyes. You could read by the diamond ring she wore. She saw Yussel’s overnight. “What’s the matter?”
“He can’t find his keys.”
“You leaving, Yussel?”
“I’m leaving.”
Grisha banged the side of the car again. “What’s taking you so long?”
“I can’t find my keys.”
Babe gave Grisha a dirty look, smiled sweetly at Yussel. “Yussy, you have to kosher the kitchen before you go. At least that much.”
Yussel searched in his pockets for the third time. “The kitchen’s not kosher? How do you eat?”
“Cold food, sometimes from the microwave, paper plates, plastic stuff,” Babe said.
Yussel tapped his fingernails on the cracked plastic of the steering wheel. “Just to kosher, that’s all. Not for Shabbas.”
“Also to negotiate about the mikveh when the well-digger gets here. Today, he’ll be here today.”
“You can’t negotiate with him, Babe?”
“He doesn’t do business with women. It’s the West. Men are men. Women are women.”
“So, Yussel, what do you say? Okay?” Grisha’s fingers dug into Yussel’s forearm.
“The water’s already boiling for the koshering, Yussy.”
“Okay, okay, koshering and the well-digger. That’s my limit.”
Babe took the car keys from her apron pocket. “You’ll miss Chaim’s morning service. Go.”
Yussel drove to Chaim’s house. On the way, Grisha passed him in Babe’s Lincoln and Yussel passed his father standing next to a flood ditch, one door gleaming in the sun rising over the desert. Yussel backed up. His father smelled of linseed oil. He wore a creamy satin robe piped in navy blue, a navy blue silk handkerchief folded into his pocket, navy blue silk pajamas piped in cream, navy blue slippers with his initials on the fronts. The other door was lead. His father knocked on it. “A little token of my son’s esteem. My son. Packs and leaves and thinks filthy thoughts about my wife.”
“I’m not going to feel guilty. I’m not staying and that’s that.”
“Tricks, filth, Yussele. Other men’s sons, they’re giving charity, studying Talmud, earning merit for their fathers in the World to Come. My son …” His father banged on the lead door. “My son packs and leaves and thinks filthy thoughts.”
Yussel could feel the banging zing down to his toes, up and into his nostrils like a tuning fork. He could feel where the hair was missing in his nose. “Don’t blame me. You put yourself there.”
“You can get me out.”
“You put your money on the wrong horse, Totte.”
“If there were another horse, Yussele, believe me, I would have bet on him. My lovely beautiful saintly Bloomke can’t help me. If she’d been a son…. Some horse. A mule, a jackass, I have for a son.”
“You want to walk?”
His father knocked with his knuckles on the doors, then on Yussel’s head, which rang because he hit it with precision on the spot already sore from the Shanda’s roof. His father sighed. “If I were a priest, I wouldn’t have a family. If I didn’t have a family, I’d be a saint today. I’d be sitting today at the feet of HaShem instead of shlepping around with a jackass son. I’ll wait in the car.”
Chaim’s maniac dogs screamed, hurled themselves against their fences. Yussel shielded his eyes from the bright sun to look through a square of thick shower-stall glass cut into Chaim’s front door. Swimming behind the glass, Chaim and his lump-faced low-browed stump-legged Miracles of Creation, who looked as if they’d been grown underground in manure, davened the morning service. Grisha, Feldman, Bingo, Slotnik, Ernie were with them. Seventy-five dollars a week, add Yussel, now it was ninety dollars a week; 360 dollars a month it cost to daven by Chaim.
Chaim, a nobody who came from nothing, living like a prince with his Jewish room service, Yussel’s SL, a cathedral-ceilinged bunker, ebony woodwork, his velvet Maurice Villency matching everything covered in clear plastic, a turquoise bar, picture windows draped like brides in ivory satin, track lighting, a rosewood bimah, a backlit china closet with more silver than Grand Sterling. All of this on a sidewalk and seventeen other houses on sidewalks, near shopping for the wives when they came out, a computer programming business already set up so his people could earn a living in the wilderness. Yussel had goornisht mit goornisht, nothing with nothing.
Most of Chaim’s court Yussel knew from Far Rockaway. Zipper Pinsky; Fifey the Kluger, which meant Fifey the Smart because he was so dumb; Johnny Atlas, which wasn’t his real name; Velvl the Shecter; Mendl Weiss from Rikers Island. Mendl had served on Rikers Island for selling hot TV’s in boxes that had no TV’s inside. But “only to goyim” was his defense, except the judge wasn’t a Jew. He was paroled early when he demanded a kosher kitchen at the jail and Corrections wouldn’t pay for it. One thing, garbage or not, Chaim’s court was strict to the letter of the law. Only when it came to anybody outside the congregation were they crooked. Yussel was outside the congregation.
Yussel was dazzled by the silver of the crowns on the Torah, the gold embroidery on the satin covers, the gorgeous spice boxes, the Torah pointers, the menorahs. He couldn’t wait to see if the turquoise bar was really turquoise, if the leaves on the ficus trees were really silk, which would mean the trees went for three hundred bucks apiece in the Flower District, plus delivery.
Yussel pressed a button. Electronic chimes rang the six notes of “Ain Kaloheynu.” The dogs went up an octave to the edge of the sound barrier. The davening stopped. Lights flashed on and off on the second floor, as if someone were signaling Paul Revere. Mendl, wearing a Patagonia shell of gray fleece under his crumpled black gabardine jacket and probably a bulletproof vest under his fleece shell, came to the door, looked with narrowing eyes through the glass, yelled over his shoulder to Chaim, “You want Reb Fetner?”
“Fifteen dollars a week. Three meals on Shabbas,” Chaim yelled back.
Yussel was out in twenty minutes. Real silk, real turquoise. Chaim must have something he gives to his congregation that they give him such gifts. Something rotten but impressive. On the way to the Arizona, Yussel passed a jackrabbit crucified on a barbedwire fence.
“See, a sign. Out of fear and impulsive action, the rabbit traps himself. There, Yussele, is a rabbit who didn’t pay attention.”
Yussel shrugged a shoulder halfway. “On the other hand, there’s a fence that by standing in one place, things come to it. I don’t like signs, Totte. I don’t want to live in your crazy universe.”
“Two Jews out here in the wilderness, you should be nice to Chaim. You depend on each other.”
“I owe him nothing.”
“You owe every Jew, Yussele. Fetners especially owe. Didn’t I tell you already? Just as the Angel who wrestled with Jacob, Chaim comes to wrestle with you until you see the dawn. Until you see the light. Maybe that’s Chaim’s job. To get you through the night. Maybe that’s the only reason he exists—to challenge you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I exist so he can have my SL, my blood.”
“Cuchem! Wise guy! You think you’re not being challenged? HaShem’s putting pressure on you. Harder and harder. Measure for measure. I know how He operates. You ignore HaShem at one level, believe me He’ll get you at the next level even worse. So I’m telling you, you’re being asked to be kind to Chaim.”
“Why doesn’t HaShem ask Chaim to be kind to me?”
“Something in you needs correction.”
“In me? The guy’s out for my blood. I should be kind to my own murderer? I’m only human, Totte.”
His father found Q-Tips, cleaned out his ears, his keyholes. “Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you’ve forgotten you’re more than human, that man is more than man. Maybe you don’t know who you are.”
“You think I’m something else. I know who I am. I’m an insurance agent from Far Rockaway. Period.”
His father sighed a terrible sigh, pushed his hat back, leaned against the seat, held his beard with his right hand, folded his doors. “Listen, a who-you-are story. One day to the Maggid of Trisk, your ancestor, the famous Rabbi Urula, came for Shabbas. When Reb Urula sat down with the Maggid for the evening meal on Friday night, he saw that the Maggid didn’t eat.
“ ‘Why don’t you eat?’
“ ‘I don’t eat because I don’t feel well.’
“ ‘And why don’t you feel well?’
“ ‘I don’t feel well because I don’t sleep.’
“If it weren’t that Reb Urula was the son of the illustrious Meor Vashemesh, the Maggid of Trisk wouldn’t have even answered this much.
“The next day at the second Shabbas meal, the Maggid didn’t eat. Reb Urula asked, ‘Why don’t you eat?’
“They go around again with I don’t eat because I don’t feel well. I don’t feel well because I don’t sleep. So by the third meal, the Maggid still has not eaten. Reb Urula, who was after all one of the elders of his generation and deserved respect even from so famous a man as the Maggid of Trisk, was persistent. Finally the Maggid told Reb Urula the truth. And this is what he told him:
“ ‘Long ago when I was a very little boy, my father of blessed memory woke us up and told us to get dressed warm because we were going to take a ride in the wagon into the forest. This was very strange. It was so early we knew he hadn’t even davened yet. Something very important was happening. The sun wasn’t even up yet. The forest was pitch black. Steam rose off the horses’ backsides. Frost was on everything. We drove very fast and very far into the forest, deeper and deeper. The road ended. Still we went on. Finally we came to a small hut, one room, maybe a woodcutter’s shack. My father stopped the wagon. He told us to stay in the wagon and be quiet and watch for an old man with a long white beard and when he comes we should tell him our father is waiting for him in the little hut. So my father left and went into the hut and we pulled blankets around us and huddled into the straw. We could see a little sunlight come through the pines. The sun came up higher and higher and then sure enough a wagon came into the forest and stopped behind our wagon. There was an old man with a long white beard and sad eyes. He said to us, “Children, where is your father?” ’
“ ‘We pointed to the hut and he went into it. Now it was almost noon. The sun was overhead someplace but the forest was still dark and cold. We ate bread, cheese, waited. They were in the hut for hours. There was no sign from them, no sound. We waited some more.’
“ ‘Finally the old man came out of the hut and walked to his wagon. His back was bent over as if he had a heavy pack. Just as he was about to climb into his wagon, he paused and gave a sigh, a terrible sigh. Then he climbed in and drove away.’
“ ‘My father came out of the hut and took up the reins of the wagon, turned it around, and drove home very slowly. The old man with the white beard was the Messiah. My father had to tell him not to come because the generation wasn’t ready for him. From that deep sigh, I don’t sleep.’”
Yussel’s father lifted his hat, scratched his head with both hands. “That, Yussele, that’s who you are, who we all are, from the generation that saw the Messiah and told Him the world wasn’t ready. No small potatoes. I told you this story so you too can know here in your forest, in your generation, who you are, what you can be. Maybe it will be your generation and you’ll have to tell the Messiah you aren’t ready. Maybe you’ll be ready.”
“Yeah, yeah. He’ll tell me he has a message: Sell your kids; buy Kuwait.”
“Why are you fighting this? Circumcise your heart, Yussel. Make a relationship with HaShem. Attach.”
“I believe in Him. That isn’t enough?”
“Yussele! I believe in Evel Knievel. But I don’t have a relationship with him.”
Yussel pulled up in front of the Arizona, helped his father out. His father listed to the side with the weight of the new door, dragged a foot, worked out forward motion downhill, rotated his arms like propellers to balance himself as he climbed down the spur, collapsed at his grave. “I’ll wait here in case I have visitors.”
Yussel’s congregation—mostly young women—was crowded into the kitchen and beyond in the social hall to meet him and help kosher the kitchen. Yussel said a sullen hello to people he knew, to people he’d never seen before, would never see again. Mostly he said hello to sneakers, hiking boots. He made sure not to smile.
“You want me to take your coat?”
Yussel shook his head no, kept his coat on, nobody should think he was staying.
The kitchen was as trim and sleek as a dining car. The stove had burned on high all night and now people cleaned white ashes from the ovens and burners. Steam from the boiling pots formed drops and slid down the windows. Babe mopped her brow, sighed, snapped orders. Yussel poured a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette. Babe told him to go outside if he had to smoke. Yussel put out his cigarette, banged around, already sore, slammed drawers, grabbed handfuls of silver, piles of pots, plunged a fire-hot brick into the boiling water, dumped in forks, knives, spoons, pots, pans, everything, swore mightily at his father. His congregation watched him, studied him, looked away when he looked back at them. They washed, dried, cringed, avoided Yussel with little steps, backward, sideward, gave one another big looks. Slotnik, tall, slouched, shook his hand, mumbled something about studying, left. Natalie stared hungrily, nodded knowingly when Yussel glanced her way. He was burning up in his coat, dying for a cigarette.
When he finally took a break, he found his father in the pantry off the kitchen, sitting on top of boxes of noodles, sacks of brown rice, bags of potatoes. Yussel took off his coat, lit a cigarette, saw the Flower Child in the smoke.
“Hah! Look! Mr. Lump-in-the-Pants himself. Someone should take down your pants, Yussele, and make you stand naked in front of your congregation. You, such a filthy person you are, that you should criticize me! With your thoughts? Filth! You better watch yourself about my wife, Yussele, putting such ideas into Chaim’s head. Don’t think I forget.”
Yussel exhaled slowly. “You tell me, where does filth come from, Totte? And where do thoughts come from? And where does lust come from? I should only thank Him for good thoughts? I should only thank Him for wealth, not poverty; for health, not sickness; for life not death? He’s the One Who sets up the longing, the desire, the evil inclinations.” Yussel jerked his thumb Heavenward. “Don’t blame me. Blame Him!”
“A little willpower goes a long way, my darling son.”
“What good is willpower when He’s already given me diarrhea?”
“Vey iz mir. Vey iz mir. I don’t have enough shame with a lead door? I have to have shame from my own Yussele, my blood? I should have two lead doors, maybe a ball and chain? What do you want, Yussele?”
“I want only to be comfortable. Me and my family, period. In spite of you. In spite of everything.”
“That’s not even Jewish, comfortable.”
“I’m going to drive up the mountain, dip the pots and pans in a stream, finish the koshering, drop everything off back here, leave. I just want you to know. I don’t want my wife to pay the price. I don’t want my family to hate me. I don’t want my wife to leave me. I don’t want to live your life. We’ll be home in a week. You want to take a ride up the mountain?”
“No, no. Think your filthy thoughts by yourself.”
Somebody changed the “Hatikvah” tape to Jewish aerobics. Between beats of rock and roll, women on the tape shouted, “Oy gevalt, two-step, turn.” Anything was better than “The Gong Show” from the mountain. The rhythm speeded up the work.
Grisha refused to help in the kitchen, sat at the bar, dealt the cards. Yussel wanted Grisha to help in the kitchen. “Who’s ahead, Grisha?”
“Baruch HaShem, He owes me.”
“You couldn’t talk to HaShem while you’re drying dishes?”
Grisha grunted. “Slotnik studies. I’m studying.” And dealt another twelve piles of cards in a circle, with one in the center.
Yussel didn’t have the time or the strength to argue. All morning he worked furiously so he could get on the road before dark, get home in the morning, finish packing, drive to Far Rockaway.
Just before lunch, a strange car pulled up, left. He heard the little lisp. She wore her big turban like a white cloud around her head and a long white dress, loose, almost a robe. She looked like a Jamaican priestess who kills chickens and reads their guts. She herself wasn’t so extraordinary. It was the sense she had of herself—the way she walked, the way she held herself, the way she stroked herself, the softness, the juiciness of everything. Yussel felt his apron rise, smelled baby powder.
“Man!” the Jackalope screamed like a parrot. He carried suitcases and an easel. She was planning to stay.
Babe swooped in like the wrath of God. “What are you doing here?”
“Who are you that I should ask your permission?”
A door slammed. Natalie ran in, wild-eyed, arms winding up like a baseball pitcher, her face twisting into one dread mask after another. The Blondische, who was right behind her, trying to stop her, stepped between Natalie and the Flower Child, threw her arms round the Flower Child. “Don’t you lay a hand on her, Natalie!”
“The Black Widow’s here. What are you doing here, Black Widow?” Natalie yelled. “We don’t want you here!”
The Flower Child pushed the Blondische’s braid from her own face to answer Natalie. “I belong here.”
“You killed him.”
“That’s a lie, Natalie.”
“House! Lady!” the Jackalope shouted at Natalie.
The Blondische turned to Natalie and Babe. “Why don’t you leave her alone? It’s not her fault. She has every right and more to be here. It’s not her fault.”
“People like you killed my husband, Natalie. If it wasn’t for people like you, he’d be here today.”
“Like me? You killed him. You … with your … your body and your demands, your crises. You killed him. And we do not want you here!”
“Lady!” The Jackalope screamed a parrot scream. His mother grabbed him by the arm, dragged him into the kitchen. She held her head high, but her lower lip trembled. “You can’t defend me, Yussel?”
Yussel shrugged. He couldn’t look at her. Of course he should look at her, be kind to her, but he couldn’t. She wasn’t his problem. His mother was his problem, his own wife was his problem but not his father’s extra wife. Also she was a big girl. Also he didn’t want to have weeping women around. Also, he didn’t want a sexpot around because he couldn’t handle it, that much he’d admit. He couldn’t handle it. Hadn’t she managed for herself before she met his father? She’d manage for herself again, find her friends in San Francisco, or something. It wasn’t Yussel’s problem.
She set a green eyedrop bottle on the table. “Chlorophyll for the altitude. It will help. And some Chinese tea for flatulence.”
Yussel grunted, read the directions on the bottle.
“Your father used it when he came out here.”
“He came out here?”
“We both did, a lot. He said it was holy land. You didn’t know that?”
“My father was a liar.”
“Your father loved you. He told me that many times. You must never say anything bad about him to me. I’m his widow.” On which word her voice hardened as if she’d hit a switch. “I have a role here, Yussel.”
“We’ll have to talk about it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. He told me I had a role here and you had a role here. He expected me to be here and I’m here. It was his wish. I’m going to sleep with my friends in their tent. My son can sleep with the men.”
“Uh …” Yussel could feel his ears turn red. He didn’t want her around. Yussel handed the Jackalope two potatoes. He banged them together happily.
“He’s very excited to be on a trip, to see you. He won’t be any trouble. He’ll sit for hours.”
“Didn’t I ask you not to come?”
The Flower Child stretched both arms out at her sides, palms up, empty, to show him she came without weapons. It was the gesture of a dog rolling over and offering up his belly. What she didn’t understand was that she was all weapon. Yussel felt very sorry for her. Just in his father’s memory he should be kind. He couldn’t. She moved closer, smiled her little smile. “My house is full of tears. Death comes up into the windows. I long for your father as a hart longs for a flowing stream. Here there is life. Here I have friends. Also a student of Chaim’s was bringing down meat from Kansas City and staying for Shabbas.”
He looked at his watch. “You drove through the night? It’s forbidden to be overnight with another man, even in a car.”
“I had my son. Nobody was alone.” She smiled, opened her eyes wide. He didn’t want her here. Maybe it was only to protect his own ass, maybe it was to protect Shoshanna, maybe it was to protect the community from the fighting, but he didn’t want her here. He didn’t care why.
“Shoshanna’s the Rebbitzen here. There’s no place for two of you. It creates too many problems. Shoshanna wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
Her eyes grew big with tears. He felt the lump in his stomach expanding. He couldn’t handle having her around. He felt terrible for her, but he couldn’t handle it. The tears ran down her face. She licked them up with her tongue. He just couldn’t handle it. Women. He turned his back. “It just won’t work.”
“Look at me, Yussel. I drink my own tears like wine, Yussel. You’re my family. You’re all I have. What’s to become of me? You won’t even look at me.”
He knew she was standing behind him, staring at his back, maybe doing her Charlie Chaplin step, her apology for any human traits she might have by mistake. Yussel wouldn’t look at her. “What do you want from me? It won’t work.”
After she left, his father came to him. “You sure what you’re doing is okay?”
“It’s okay with me. She’s a big girl. She’ll make a new life.”
“You don’t think you’re kicking her out?”
“If that’s what you want to call it, I’m kicking her out.”
“You couldn’t let her stay and ignore her a little, try to work it out?”
“She’s not the kind of woman you ignore.”
His father clucked his tongue. “Listen, you’re also a big boy. You know your heart.”
“You think I’m wrong, Totte? She’d ruin the community. She’d wipe out Shoshanna with a swat. She’d be all over me.”
“You have to weigh these things. What’s wrong for you may be right for me. Who knows? One thing …” The Rabbi came closer, leaned with his elbows on the counter, pinched his eyes and looked hard at Yussel. “One thing, HaShem weaves your destiny from your choices. So make sure you’re making the right choice.”
“So how do I know I’m making the right choice?”
“You won’t know probably until it’s too late. Only HaShem knows the consequences.”
Yussel called his father’s house. “I’m coming home. Pack everything. We’re leaving for Far Rockaway. It isn’t going to work.”
Long pause. Yussel smelled trouble.
“I’ve made up my mind, Shoshanna.”
Longer pause.
“I have to get out of here.”
“A Fetner would stay for Shabbas.”
“I’ve made up my mind.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Yussel.”
Long pause from Yussel. He couldn’t expect her to understand sex, lust, filth. Even him, the way he was right now. “No. I’m leaving tonight, as soon as the koshering’s done. I’ll be home for Shabbas. That’s final.”
“Nothing’s final except death.”
“It should only be.”