They had taken Papa to Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and rushed him into Intensive Care.
When I arrived, my half sisters were clustered protectively around Mama, both of them ashen-faced as if already sitting shiva—mourning my father’s memory.
They glared at me as if I were a murderer.
“How is he?” I asked.
They refused to answer.
The drab waiting room was silent, except for the quiet echoes of my mother’s sobs. I knelt down beside her as her head lay buried in her hands.
“Mama, is he … alive?”
Her nod was barely perceptible. Then I heard the muffled words, “He’s still unconscious.”
I looked up at my sisters and demanded, “What do the doctors say?”
Rena took pity on my desperation and whispered, “He’ll live. But tests they did say he’ll have some paralysis.” She paused, and added, “It’s pretty likely that his speech will be … slurred.”
Malka, the eldest, hissed at me, “You did this to him. Let this be on your conscience.”
I didn’t need her castigation. “C’mon, where is it written that obedience demands you automatically enter your father’s profession?”
I turned my attention back to Mama. “Has anyone called Deborah?”
She nodded.
Rena explained, “I phoned the kibbutz. She’s coming—”
“Wonderful,” Malka muttered. “She can finish the job her brother started.”
Suddenly my mother stood and shouted, “Shtil, kinder! Stop this bickering. You are all his children—all of you. Now, Danny, you go Sunday and meet your sister at the airport.…”
I nodded.
“And you’ll stay at the house tonight.”
“No!” Malka objected.
Mama looked at her sternly. “Excuse me, while Moses is … ill, I make the rules,” she said.
They arranged for my mother to sleep at the hospital. My sisters and their husbands could walk there after morning services.
Both couples left before night fell, so they could at least ride home on the bus.
I waited with my mother, shared a partly defrosted kosher dinner provided by the hospital through which we barely spoke, and finally, when she had been given a sedative, left for home.
As I wandered through the darkened streets, something in me prayed I would be mugged.
Because I wanted to be physically assaulted for the unspeakable crime I had committed.
Though she was exhausted from the flight, and fraught with worry, Deborah looked healthier and prettier than I had ever seen her. Tanned and slender, she was totally unlike the pale, slightly overweight teenager I remembered.
We hugged each other tightly, in a moment of both joy and sadness. I had been at the hospital earlier and could reassure her that Papa had regained consciousness at six A.M., spoken briefly with Mama, and then gone to sleep.
“When can I see him?” she asked urgently.
“So far they’re only allowing Mama to go in. They may let him have more visitors this evening.”
“Danny, what exactly happened?”
I told her of my Great Betrayal and Malka’s accusation of attempted patricide.
“Listen, Danny,” she said affectionately, “no law says we have to live out our parents’ fantasies.”
I looked at her. A lot more had changed than her appearance.
Understandably, Deborah felt pretty grimy from the plane trip and wanted to wash and change. While she was showering, I sat on the bed, happy to be in her room again.
A small overnight case was flipped open, and underneath two paperbacks I noticed a photograph of a radiant woman holding a handsome blond baby. The background clearly was the kibbutz.
The woman was Deborah.
And it did not look like someone else’s child.
I was in such mental disarray that I couldn’t find the words to broach the subject with Deborah on our ride to the hospital. The focus of all my anxiety was my father’s health.
When we arrived my half sisters and their husbands were all crowded around Papa’s door, keeping impatient vigil.
Naturally, Malka greeted me with another reproach. “You didn’t come to services yesterday.”
I protested that what I did with my life was none of her business. I did not feel I owed her the whole truth, which was that I had felt too guilty to appear in public. I had spent the entire morning up in my room praying on my own. But she continued haranguing me, arguing that if I had come to shul they could have called me to the Torah and then said a special prayer for Father’s recovery.
I retorted that if she felt so strongly, she could have gone to Beth El, the new Reform synagogue on Ocean Parkway, where women are called to the Torah.
“They’re not real Jews,” Malka retorted. “They have organ music—like a church.”
“They had all kinds of music in the Holy Temple,” Deborah said. “Read Jeremiah 33:11, and you’ll find an allusion to Psalm One hundred being performed by the Levitical chorus and orchestra.”
This stupid debate would have become even more acrimonious had Mama not appeared from inside the room. None of us dared ask how he was. We merely gazed at her.
“He talks—a little fuzzy, but he talks,” she began quietly. “The doctor said the girls can see him one at a time—”
“Thank God,” Malka muttered and started to go in.
“No.” My mother stopped her. “He wants to see Deborah first.”
My eldest sister froze in her tracks. “Why?”
“Because that’s what he wants,” Mama asserted.
I could see that Deborah was herself unsettled by this curious disregard of family hierarchy. Scarcely daring to breathe, she tentatively opened the door and entered.
She was in with him for about ten minutes, after which he spoke with the other sisters. As we stood outside, I asked Deborah how he was. She shrugged “Okay”—and had to bite her lip to keep from crying.
“What’s wrong? Is he still angry with you?”
She shook her head. “He … he asked me to forgive him.”
In the ensuing moments, I allowed myself a scintilla of hope. Perhaps he and I might also have a miraculous reconciliation.
When she came out, Malka answered the question before I could even pose it. “He doesn’t want to see you, Daniel—not at all.”
“But why?” I pleaded.
“He says his son must become a rabbi. The Master of the Universe demands it.”
At that moment, Deborah—bless her—gripped my arm and squeezed it hard. It kept my heart from stopping.
It was strange. During the bus ride home from the hospital Deborah and I scarcely exchanged a word. I assumed she was silent out of concern for Father. I later discovered she had been thinking the same about me. And yet we had so many things to share. So many thoughts that could only be our secret property. Despite the distance and the lapses in communication, we knew that we were still the best friends that we had or would ever have.
By the time we got home, I could no longer bear the suspense. I made us both some lemon tea and sat down across from her.
“Deb,” I started tentatively, “can we have one of those heart-to-hearts we used to have when we were kids?”
“I’d like that, too.”
I then asked her straight out, “Deborah, do you have a child?”
She answered without blinking, “Yes.”
“How come you didn’t tell me you were married?”
She hesitated for a moment and then said, “Because I’m not.”
I was too shocked to say any more and assumed she would interpret my silence as a subtle question mark, a delicate demand for more information. But she vouchsafed none.
“Hey look,” I remarked at last, “I’m not making a moral judgment …”
Her mouth was closed so tightly that her lips were white.
“Okay,” I said in defeat, “if you don’t want to tell me—”
“No, no,” she cut me off. “I do, I want to. But it’s just so hard.”
“Fine,” I answered, “drink your tea. I’m in no hurry.” In truth I was burning with curiosity and could not keep myself from asking, “Was he somebody from the kibbutz?”
She held back for a moment, then answered softly. “Yes, someone at the kibbutz.”
“Oh, I guess those stories about ‘free love’ aren’t apocryphal.”
What an unthinking shmuck I was. That really hurt her.
“It wasn’t just an affair,” she protested, tears welling in her eyes. “He was in the Air Force.” She added softly, “He was killed.”
“Oh, God,” I said, desperately groping for words. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.”
I put my arms around her. We held each other tightly for a moment, then wept together.
Ironically, she tried to comfort me. “Danny, Danny, it’s okay. The baby’s got grandparents on the kibbutz—and about a dozen brothers and sisters.”
“Does Papa know?”
She shook her head.
“Mama?”
She shook her head again.
“But why? It would still bring them some joy to know about the baby. By the way, is it my nephew or my niece?”
“A boy,” she answered tonelessly. “His name’s Elisha.”
“Elisha—‘God is my Salvation,’ ” I translated as a reflex. “That’s lovely. What made you choose it?”
For some reason she was unable to answer this straightforward question.
“Hey, Deb,” I said as cheerfully as possible. “This is still something we should celebrate. Mazel tov. He looks like a sweet kid. I wish you’d brought him along.”
I couldn’t keep from adding, “He might even have consoled Papa for my premature death.”
“C’mon, Danny.” came her rejoinder, “don’t talk that way. You two will work it out.”
“No,” I shook my head. “He swore he’d never speak to me again unless I’m Rabbi Luria. And that means never.”
“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t go through with it,” she said. “What difference would a few more weeks have made? That might have pacified him—and bought you time.”
“That’s just it,” I answered, growing angry. “I wanted to stand up to him, to show him that he couldn’t push me around anymore.” Her face seemed frozen as I murmured, “Yes, I know I’ll burn in Hell for this.”
“I thought we Jews didn’t believe in Hell,” she said.
“Sorry, Deb,” I pedantically corrected her. “We do—it’s called Gehinnom. So if you want my future address, better write on asbestos.”
She looked at me quizzically. “I don’t get it. You believe in Hell. You believe in the Day of Judgment. Do you believe in God?”
“Yes.”
“Then why can’t you be a rabbi?”
“Because,” I answered, pain wrenching me, “I don’t believe in myself.”