Chapter 44

Three months later Bernie was ordained as a rabbi. The semicha was held on a Thursday night at Yeshiva University, a few blocks from our house. Bernie’s parents attended the service, even though, according to him, his mother practically had to shlep his father there in a wheelbarrow.

“I wish I could invite you in my old man’s stead,” Bernie told my father, and Papa would have gone too, if my mother hadn’t told him to get off that trolley. What she actually said was that people would gossip because it wasn’t appropriate for him to substitute for Bernie’s real father. Yet she didn’t think it was wrong for Bernie to take Shmuel’s place as my father’s son.

My mother also thought it was legit for her to make a special Shabbas dinner at our house the night after the ordination, where my parents could kvell in private, as if he really did belong to them. Earlier, at shul, Bernie had been called up to the bima to chant the Torah and deliver the sermon. Then the sisterhood threw one in his honour in the social hall. According to Ruchel, it wasn’t a hotsy-totsy affair—they served schnapps in addition to wine—but it was clear that our synagogue was proud of him. I was sorry to miss it, but I was helping Mama get ready at home. She’d spent a week cleaning and baking, despite the heat, and the house was redolent with gefilte fish, freshly grated horseradish, and chicken soup liberally laced with dill.

For a few weeks after I’d declined to water ski with Bernie, we were awkward with each other again. He came later each day and sat stiffly on the couch, covering his lap with tomes of Torah commentary. I glued my eyes to the textbooks spread before me on the steamer trunk, and if Mama came in to refresh his tea or ply him with homemade cookies, we’d both look up and smile brightly. I don’t think she suspected anything. Pretty soon, the charade convinced us too. Bernie resumed asking what I was learning in school, and I opened my book so he could trace the blood vessels that branched from the heart to the teeniest capillaries of the fingertips.

The night of the dinner, as we waited for Bernie and my father to get back from shul, my mother was anxious that everything go just right. It was as if she felt that if something were to go wrong—two noodles stuck together, a wrinkle in the tablecloth—she’d be dishonouring God, or my brother’s memory. She opened the door before they reached the top of the stairs, held the enamelled basin and pitcher while they washed their hands, and urged them to sit down. Bernie took Shmuel’s old seat, to my father’s right. Papa deferred to him to make kiddush over the wine and say motzie over the challah. I still clung to the hope that my father would bestow on me the Sabbath blessing given to children, the one he used to reserve for Shmuel. But since that night five years ago when I’d gotten my first period, the same night my brother disappeared, the special prayer had ceased being part of our family’s weekly ritual. When Bernie began to eat Friday dinner with us, I half expected Papa to bless him, but Bernie was already an adult by then so Papa was silent. I was relieved. Not that I was ever jealous of Shmuel, but I would have resented Papa blessing Bernie when he continued to ignore his real child, me.

While the rest of us ate Mama’s cooking, my father talked with Bernie about his sermon. In that week’s Torah reading, God tells Moses he won’t be permitted to enter the Promised Land. Only those born in the wilderness, not the generation who’d been slaves in Egypt, would cross the Jordan. Bernie had drawn an analogy to immigrants coming to America, leaving their elderly parents behind. My father sought a more scholarly interpretation. “Moses takes this news calmly,” he said, “and merely asks God to appoint a successor. Why is it that Moses does not protest?”

Bernie smiled at my mother as she ladled the last meaty kreplach into his soup. “It’s natural. The old step aside, the young step in. Moses accepts that Joshua will take his place.”

“But why doesn’t Moses voice his sense of injustice?” my father asked. “He’s spent forty years leading the rebellious Israelites toward this goal, only to be denied entry at the end.”

My mother and I cleared the table and served the fish. Bernie watched until we sat down again. I wondered if he was being polite or stalling for time. My father couldn’t wait. “Because Moses is confident he’s passed down his wisdom to Joshua.” Having answered his own question, Papa smiled triumphantly. Bernie looked grateful to be off the hook. “But ...” My father held up a finger. “God also says that Moses should invest Joshua with only some of his authority.” Papa picked up his fork and everyone took it as a signal to begin the second course.

Except me. “So,” I asked my father, “Is the Torah saying knowledge and power diminish with each succeeding generation?”

Papa didn’t answer, but Bernie did. “Torah says here what it says at the very end. ‘Never again did there arise in Israel a prophet like Moses.’ No one could match him.” My father smiled his approval that Bernie was quoting scripture to make his point.

“What about all the discoveries made by a young generation of scientists?” It was my turn to argue. “Doesn’t new knowledge give us more wisdom and power than our ancestors?”

My father ignored me and spoke to Bernie. “I read in the Forward that a memorial to President Lincoln was dedicated in Washington. He too was a great leader who freed the slaves.”

Bernie looked at me in silent apology for Papa’s rudeness, but he still addressed his next question to my father. “Will there ever be a monument to Moses for helping to free the Jews?”

Papa answered without hesitation. “It would be wrong, since it was truly God, not a human being, who performed the miracles that ended our slavery.”

I refused to keep my yap shut like a lump of gefilte fish. “What about a monument to Susan B. Anthony now that women finally won the vote?”

This time my father did speak to me. “Ending slavery is a good thing. I’m not sure that women’s suffrage is.”

I waited for my mother to contradict him. Instead she said, “I made a special dessert,” and fetched a poppy seed kindli from the oven. Why did my father have to be so controlling and my mother so meek?

Now Bernie played peace-maker. How many defenders of sholem bayess did my family need? “Perhaps it’s unfair for a monument to single out one individual,” he mused. “Every major accomplishment comes about from many people working together.”

“Yet tonight we’re singling out you.” It was my father’s turn to retrieve something special. He came out of the bedroom with a wrapped parcel. Mama’s eyes widened. Whatever was inside, Papa must have hidden it well for her not to have found it during the past week of frantic cleaning.

Bernie’s hands trembled as he undid the brown butcher’s wrap, then folded back a layer of yellowed tissue paper. He pulled out the silk tallit, glinting with gold thread, that had belonged to my great grandfather and that Papa intended to give Shmuel when he was ordained. For five years, the prayer shawl hadn’t seen the light of day, buried as deep in the closet as Shmuel was at sea.

“Thank you, but I can’t accept this.” Bernie stroked the delicate embroidery and fragile tzitzit, the longest fringes I’d ever seen on a tallit. He held it out to my father.

“You have to,” my father said. “It’s the least I can offer you for giving me back my life, and for making my journey to America worthwhile.”

I was startled when my father put his left hand on my head. Was I at long last to receive his blessing? And if so, for what? Instead, he continued speaking to Bernie. “Now that you’re a rabbi, you’ll need a rebbetzin. I wish I could give you my daughter too.”

I stared down at the honey, flecked with black seeds, crystallizing on our plates, assuming Bernie would do the same. Instead, I felt his eyes on me. When I looked up, I saw the hope on his face.

I should have put the kibbosh on it right away. Bernie was like a brother to me. Yet I said nothing. I thought of our first date, when I’d admitted how Papa’s obsession with Shmuel made me feel like the sibling of an only child. Knowing how I craved my father’s love, did Bernie think I’d accept his offer as a way to finally win it? Would I, in fact, consider such an idea myself?

***

My brain was in such a turmoil all week, I severed two frogs’ legs in biology lab. Suppose I did marry Bernie. Would he let me have a career or insist that being a rabbi’s wife filled the bill? What about Papa? If Bernie agreed I could work, would my father think less of Bernie instead of approving of me? In that case, the point of marrying him would be lost. I needed help to clear up the muddle, but I wasn’t sure who to ask. Not Ruchel. She was anti-marriage, whereas I was pro-career. I thought I could manage both. After all, I was better organized than my distracted cousin.

In the end, I talked to Leah. We’d long ago patched things up again and learned how to be more careful with each other. I only confessed to minor transgressions and she tried to judge me less harshly. Leah alone knew me well enough to understand why I was torn about marrying Bernie. She was also very practical and I counted on her to help me figure out what to do.

“I’m going to shvitz a bucket,” I announced as soon as I walked into her apartment, which was as hot as mine. I lifted my skirt to fan some air between my thighs. Leah gently slapped down my skirt and held my hand firmly as she dragged me two blocks to the playground of our old elementary school. Sitting on the swings, we could imagine we were creating a slight breeze.

“It’s a shame you missed Bernie’s sermon Friday night,” she said. ‘His D’var Torah about leaving parents behind to come to the new world made half the congregation cry.”

“The older half, no doubt. The younger ones were probably praying their parents would go back across the ocean and leave America to them.”

“Shush!” Leah’s laughter jiggled her swing. “Disrespecting parents is against the fifth commandment.”

“I’ll borrow Bridget’s rosary beads and say a zillion Hail Mary’s.”

“I’m happy my bubbe and my parents are here. I’ll have three generations at my wedding.”

“Did your parents speak to the shadchen yet about finding you a suitable match?”

“They promised to do it when the High Holy Days are over, so there’ll be enough time to find someone this winter and then have the wedding right after graduation next spring.”

“Maybe your parents can throw one party for both simchas and save money.”

Leah shook her head. “Who’s got money to spend on one, let alone two? I just hope whoever he is earns enough for us to have our own apartment.” She got that dreamy look that clued me in she was imagining setting the Shabbas table and lighting her own set of candles.

“I hope for your sake, he’s a good kisser.”

Leah blushed, but she smiled. A little sex talk was permissible, as long as it was in the context of marriage. I decided not to push my luck.

“Tell me about the dinner your mother made for Bernie,” Leah said, changing the subject back to Friday night. “Did he talk about his sermon or was he too modest?”

“My father pressed him to cite ancient commentaries that supported his modern position.”

“Did Bernie come up with an answer that satisfied him?”

“I’m really not interested in talking about this week’s Torah portion.” Leah looked hurt. I’d spoken more abruptly than I meant to. “I need your advice,” I said, dragging my feet on the ground to slow down the swing. She stopped pumping too and turned to face me. Things between us were copacetic again. “You know how Papa has basically adopted Bernie as his son?”

Leah nodded and touched my hand. “You said your father’s been less angry since they began studying Torah together. And your mother finally snapped out of her depression.”

“I think women’s rights more than men’s Torah study was responsible for Mama getting better. But,” I winked, “let’s not get in a pilpl over it.” Joking about the name of the café where we had our fight always made us back off another argument. “After dinner, Papa gave Bernie his grandfather’s tallit, the one he’d been saving to give Shmuel after his ordination.”

Leah’s eyes narrowed. “No one can ever replace Shmuel. Is that why you’re upset?”

“I do feel bad my parents treat Bernie like a son, yet I also kind of see him as a brother.”

“So what’s the problem?” Leah fanned her face, then mine.

I took a deep breath and forced out the words, quickly. “My father also wants to ‘give’ me to Bernie as a wife. And Bernie seems to like the idea.”

Leah rested her chin on her hand. “I don’t understand. Not long ago you were carrying a torch for Bernie.” That was an expression I’d taught her. “Why wouldn’t you say yes? Or are you hesitating just to rebel against your father?” She gave my swing a playful push.

“Just the opposite. I’m not stuck on Bernie any more, precisely because he’s like a brother to me. Marrying him would feel incestuous. On the other hand, my father would ...”

“Give you the love you always wanted from him.” Leah finished my sentence.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. It was too hot to cry.

“You could try to think of Bernie more like a first cousin than a sibling. People in the old country married their first cousins all the time.”

“Ugh!” Maybe for Leah, to whom lovemaking was a marital commandment, sex with a relative would be palatable. Not me. “Besides, you’d be the first to admit I’m not cut out to be a rabbi’s wife. Can you picture me as a well-behaved rebbetzin?” I cocked my head demurely and was rewarded by Leah’s wry smile. “I want to look under a microscope, not live under one.”

“As a rebbetzin, you could bring science to the women in the congregation, making their homes healthier and safer. That’s a mitvah as worthy as discovering the cure for some disease.” The argument was similar to one I’d used with Leah, unsuccessfully, whenever I’d tried to talk her into becoming a visiting nurse instead of just getting married and having her own family.

“I don’t want to work quietly behind the scenes. I want to be out front, getting money and recognition.” I was shocked to hear myself say this, after always believing in my own altruism.

Leah’s face twisted, along with the chains on her swing, when she turned toward me. “For shame, Dev. I knew you were ambitious but I never thought you were selfish.”

“What if I am? Where does Torah say that doing good and doing well cancel each other out? In fact, doesn’t God say that if you do good, you’ll be rewarded?”

“Doing good means following God, not money. Success and rewards come after piety.”

“I don’t want to be pious. I want to lose myself in work, not worship.”

This time Leah didn’t smile at my turn of phrase. She scowled. “You’ve changed, Dev. If Shmuel were alive today, he wouldn’t recognize you. Your brother was as smart as you, but he was modest about the gift God gave him. You act like you created intelligence all on your own.”

“Just because you’re wasting the intelligence God gave you doesn’t give you the right to say anything about Shmuel and me. You haven’t even lost so much as an old grandmother.”

Leah untwisted her swing and spoke in a calmer voice, which I saw as a lame attempt at sholem playground, peace in the schoolyard. “What if you got married and started a family first. Your father would be thrilled and your mother would get over more of her grief. Start a career after the children start school. You’d have to forego a fancy degree, but you could work in a lab.”

“If you remember, Bernie wasn’t in favour of women working outside the home.”

Leah pondered and dismissed this problem too. “That was two years ago. He’s not so old-fashioned now. You should have heard him on Friday night. Bernie is a modern man.”

“Not that modern. He’s still an Orthodox rabbi with traditional ideas.”

Leah started swinging again. “Whatever I say, you say the opposite. You never used to be so contrary and narrow-minded.”

“You’re the one whose mind is closed.” Every overheated fibre in my body wanted to dispute and insult her. After two years, I was tired of putes and sults. “Just because all you want is to marry and have babies, you can’t understand that I’m driven to change the whole world.”

Her swinging got faster. “I can’t understand why you’d throw away a chance to marry up, make your poor parents happy, raise healthy children, and help immigrant women do the same.”

Leah jumped down and ran to the schoolyard gate, her empty swing bouncing erratically behind her. I grabbed it just before it crashed into me and waited for the swing, and my heart, to settle down. The pavement baked the soles of my shoes as crisp as the cookies my mother made for Bernie. Leah and I were having more than a pilpl. This was a full-blown krig, and if my father had pressed me, I couldn’t have cited an old commentary with something helpful to say about life in the new world. The laws for wandering in a barren desert, heading to one special place, were useless in helping me decide which path to take in a teeming city with a multitude of choices.

Still burning inside and out, I walked home through streets as deserted as the schoolyard, not teeming at all. The stillness came as a relief and I looked forward to the quiet of our apartment to sort out my thoughts. I couldn’t believe my mother was baking when I walked in the door. The aroma was pure heat; it didn’t even smell like food. “Are you daft in the noggin?” I asked.

“Sunday is baking day, whatever the weather.” She set two loaves of bread on wire racks to cool, put two more in the oven, and wiped her brow with her apron.

“I’ll shop at the kosher grocery on the corner,” I offered. I used to think Papa wouldn’t allow store-bought in the house for religious reasons, but lately I felt his real motivation was to enslave Mama. “I don’t understand why you let Papa make all the rules. Don’t you get a vote?”

My mother filled the cookie pan with crescent-shaped rugelach before straightening up and studying me. “You look upset. Did you and Leah have another fight?”

I pinched off a piece of the raw, cinnamon-dusted dough and sucked it from my fingers.

Mama sighed. “I thought you two were past the age of having fights.”

“You don’t outgrow fighting,” I said. “At least not when you’re stuck in childish patterns of thinking, like Leah.”

My mother sat at the table and patted the chair beside her. I remained standing. “Do you want to tell me about it? I’m a good listener.”

“Just because you listen to Papa doesn’t mean you’re hip to the jive with me. You and I don’t speak the same language, and I’m not talking about Yiddish and English.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, using an expression I regretted having taught her. “Do you want a slice of cake?” She removed the dish towel meant to keep off flies.

I knew she was pretending my refusal to confide in her wasn’t upsetting, but I’d long ago learned to recognize when I’d hurt her. A tiny wrinkle formed next to her left eye, as though she were trying to wink away the pain. “Since when are you interested in my life anyway?” I asked.

The skin around my mother’s wrinkle began to pulse. Truth be told, she’d always been interested, but I was itching for a screamy-meemy fight. Leah had won ours by walking off first and I wanted to be a winner too. I didn’t know what victory meant at that moment, other than making up my mind about Bernie, and I was no closer to a decision than when I sought out Leah.

My mother took the bread out of the oven and picked up the loaded cookie pan.

I took a step toward her. “Just because I’m the only child you have left doesn’t give you the right to cling to me just so you can feel you’re still useful as a mother.”

The pan clattered to the floor at the same time we heard my father coming up the stairs.

“An accident,” my mother said, as my father entered with a look of alarm.

“I’ll make another batch of dough,” I told my mother, kneeling to clean up the mess.

“No, you were right, Dev.” She took the dish rag from me. “It really is too hot to bake.”

I turned to my father. “I’ll run to the store. Can’t you make an exception in this heat?”

“One exception leads to another,” he said, watching my mother wipe up the cinnamon sugar that had sprayed across the cracked linoleum.

“We’re not talking about a golden calf,” I said, “just a bag of cookies.”

“Let Dev finish the baking,” he told Mama. “It wouldn’t hurt her to practice cooking.” Then he faced me. “You can’t serve your family frogs’ legs left over from the dissecting lab.”

I stared back at him. “I didn’t think you listened when I talk about what I do at school.”

“I listen to you.” My father walked around my mother, still on the floor, to sit at the table.

But did he hear what I said? Please God, I prayed silently, make it so.

“I’m listening now.” Papa tapped the same chair my mother had. This time I sat.

“Tell me,” he said, “have you thought more about my offer regarding Bernie?”

I sat on the edge of my seat. “Your offer of my hand in marriage?”

Papa pulled his collar away from his sweaty neck. Mama brought him a wash cloth and said, “Your father just finished a ten-hour shift slaving over a pressing machine. Let him be.”

He motioned her to back off. “Let Dev talk, Rivka. Maybe she has a point. I don’t listen to her enough.” He regarded me expectantly. I recognized the look as one he gave Shmuel when he anticipated an answer whose wisdom would satisfy him. It was not a look he gave Bernie.

My kishkas coiled inside me like the chains on the swing. I wanted to keep stoking my anger, but I was lured by what I took for Papa’s genuine interest in what I had to say. “You can’t make me marry Bernie.” I was prepared to dredge up a Torah passage if need be.

“I would never make you marry anyone. Forcing a woman to marry goes against God.” Papa smiled kindly. I smiled back, happy that he had found the Talmudic rationale himself.

“But I see how the two of you get along,” my father said. I must have raised my eyebrows because he chuckled and continued. “Your father sees as well as listens. Even when Shmuel was still alive, you and Bernie had special looks for one another. I’m right, yes?” The look on Papa’s face was one I had not seen before. What I’d taken for interest was in fact smugness.

“You don’t listen or see.” I pushed away from the table. “You want your real daughter, who you don’t care about, to marry your adopted son, who’s a poor substitute for your real one.”

My mother gasped.

“Well, my learned father, Leviticus 18:9 forbids carnal relations between brothers and sisters, and the answer to your offer is no. Are you listening? Negative! Never! Neyn!”

I stopped talking but even if I had gone on, my father wouldn’t, or couldn’t, have listened. He held his head as though waves of blood were crashing between his ears. Every visible inch of skin on his head and hands was bright red, heated by an equal mix of hot, humid air and boiling rage. “Out!” he screamed, his thick finger stabbing toward the door. “Leave! Go! Avekgeyn!”

I stormed from the apartment and embraced the fiery blast of air that greeted me. Shmuel had left home of his own accord. I’d been ordered out, but in truth it was my own choice to go.