“This is where you’ll have your wedding,” Zaideh said to Aunt Faiga, as the tour finished in the immense living room. “Panski!”
He stood on a flowered blue Persian carpet by a rosewood baby grand piano. Lee had given up piano playing at the age of eleven, midway through the “Poet and Peasant Overture.” Mama hoped she would now resume her lessons. If not, the baby grand was still a rich touch, and Mom had got it cheap. In fact, buying at the bottom of the depression, Mama loaded up with amazing bargains. To this day she lives among those possessions. The carpet and the piano are worth about twenty times what she paid for them, but dollars were then harder to come by. Mama never bought anything on credit in her life; hard cash or no deal.
“Papushka,” pleaded Faiga. “No! Not here! Boris won’t like it.”
“You’ll get married here,” said Zaideh, “and you’ll walk around Boris seven times. Here there is room.”
“I’m not walking around Boris seven times,” Aunt Faiga exclaimed. “Not once, either.”
Aunt Faiga and Zaideh were on a collision course in matters of ritual. Faiga felt that she and her groom, Boris, both atheists, were conceding enough by having a religious ceremony. I had met Boris, a sweet-natured youth, whose thick orange hair stood out in stiff waves from his head. Boris would not put on a yarmulka even in Zaideh’s home. Gentiles did, but not Boris. It might not have remained long on that hair, but we had no way of finding out. Boris would not wear a symbol of the opiate of the masses on his head, so he explained. It was odd to see Boris sitting bareheaded, talking perfect Yiddish to Zaideh. It was almost as though he had no clothes on. One wondered how he endured it. Zaideh was quite amiable toward him, but Boris himself looked ill at ease, and kept passing his hand over his springy orange hair where the yarmulka should have sat. He stuck to his principles, all the same, like an abalone to a rock.
Now while Zaideh might have preferred that Faiga marry, say, the Kotzker Iluy, he was above all things a genial realist. He liked Boris. Boris was a nice Jewish boy, except for the Communist loose screw, for which he was not to blame. Boris too had left Russia at seventeen, and Zaideh knew all about that, and could make allowances. Zaideh figured the blemish would pass off in the course of time, like warts.
Nor was he far wrong. Boris had a good heart. He had agreed, for instance, to put on a yarmulka for the ceremony, and had even okayed a canopy, a khupa. Now, I had heard Boris assail the canopy as a survival of the primitive open tent under which the groom, in Bible days, deflowered his bride in the presence of parents, relatives, and legal witnesses, so that all would know by the visible bloody evidence that he had got himself a virgin. Or, if there was no blood, she would be stoned to death then and there. I have no idea where Boris had picked up this colorful bit of anthropology, which Zaideh said was sillier meshugas even than his communism. How, then, could Boris have agreed to be married under a canopy? Well, in Pop’s words, “Once you’re eating pork, let it drip from your chin.”
No, the clash was on what happened under the canopy. By Jewish custom, old as the Jerusalem hills, a bride walks around her beloved seven times. One can see in old Yiddish films how elaborately this was once done, with a procession of women holding lighted candles, accompanying the girl in her seven circuits. Aunt Faiga was digging in her hooves, saying this made no sense to her. When pressed for the logic behind the custom, Zaideh had explained, “Who doesn’t walk around her groom seven times?”
Anyhow, said Faiga, there was no room in Zaideh’s little parlor, which would be jammed with guests, for her to go circling Boris. Zaideh said there was plenty of room. Mama had suggested inviting fewer guests, so as to leave room. Papa’s idea was that guests could step outside at circling time, to make room. I had jested that Boris could turn himself around seven times where he stood, which would give Faiga seven exposures to his perimeter, if that was the idea. Zaideh had commented on my proposal that it was all he could expect from a shaygets raised in Wicked America. And there the matter was deadlocked.
My sister Lee stood there in her sheepskin coat, a look of amused scorn on her face, as Zaideh and Aunt Faiga argued. “Zaideh, I went to three weddings in Palestine,” she put in, “and the bride never walked around the groom. Not once.”
“There you are!” exclaimed Aunt Faiga. “Even in the Holy Land they don’t walk around.”
“The Holy Land!” said Zaideh with scorn. “What kind of Jews live in the Holy Land?”
This may sound odd, but the fact is that the Zionist pioneers were held in low repute, by Jews of the old school, as irreligious rebels.
“Hell will freeze over,” Lee said to Faiga, “before I walk around any man. Don’t you do it.”
“Over my dead body I’ll do it,” Faiga assured her. Faiga was fond of English idioms, but did not yet hit them right on every time.
“Don’t talk Turkish,” exclaimed Zaideh. It was his word for English. “What are you two saying?”
All during Faiga’s truculent talk she had been glancing longingly around at this gorgeous room. Now she suddenly reversed her field. “Would you really have the wedding here?” she asked Mom. “Maybe Boris would agree. Not,” she added forcefully, “that I’ll walk around him. Let hell be frozen first!”
Mom and Pop assured her that they would be delighted. As excited talk sprang up about staging the wedding in our flat, Lee beckoned to me. She led me into the pretty bedchamber that was hers, all pink and flouncy and mirrored, and threw her sheepskin on the big bed covered in quilted pink satin.
“You’ve grown a foot!” she exclaimed, hugging me and giving me a quick kiss. “And you’re an absolute stringbean, and your voice is so deep!”
“High time,” I said to Lee.
“But Davey, what in God’s name is the matter with Papa?”
“Papa? Nothing. He’s fine.”
“He looks awful. Terrible! He’s aged twenty years. When I first saw him, I was frightened.”
To me, Pop looked the same as always. I said so. Lee pulled cigarettes from the sheepskin and lit one with a nervous scratch of a wax match; the first of a billion cigarettes, or so it seems, I’ve since seen her smoke.
“So, you’re hooked, too,” I said.
She shrugged. “Ever tasted arak?”
“What’s arak?”
“This.” From the bottle she had brought off the boat, she poured big slugs of a clear liquid into two bathroom glasses. We drank, I choked, and she laughed. “Now, Davey, why on earth are we living in a place like this? With all this expensive furniture? And what about that Cadillac? Have they gone crazy? Is Papa making that kind of money?”
“It’s all for you,” I said, “so that you’ll meet a nice fellow.”
She reddened, drank off her arak, and plopped down on her bed. “Can you keep a secret? I’ve met a nice fellow.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. Her flushed face was both troubled and radiant. “I’m going to be married, Davey. So Mom’s wasted a lot of time and money. The only thing is, he’s married now. He has to get a divorce, and he’s going to.”
And there it was, straight from Lee. Uncle Velvet had told the truth. I was floored. I was barely past telling ghost stories at parties, and my infatuation with Dorsi Sabin was just igniting. Such passion was over my head.
“Lee, do I have to know about this?”
“I’ve got to tell someone. Anyway, you’re responsible.” She laughed joyously. “He’s Moshe Lev, the one whose address in Jerusalem you gave me. He teaches history at Hebrew University, and he can fly an airplane, and I’ve gone up with him, oh, several times.” She poured herself more arak.
“Does he have kids?”
Her face fell. “Three.” She drank in a swift swooping motion, emptying the glass. “But the kids like me. That won’t be a problem.”
Mom appeared in the door of the room. “So, what are you two hiding for? Come out, Lee, and meet Rabbi Geiger, from the temple. And since when do you smoke?”
“What, a rabbi? Christ, I don’t want to meet a rabbi.”
“Don’t be like that. He’s come to welcome you. Take five minutes to be nice to him. And get rid of that cigarette! He’s very smart and handsome, and he’s a bachelor.” Mom left, raising her voice. “She’ll be right with you, Rabbi.”
“Gawd,” Lee said. “What’s Rabbi Geiger like?”
“Holy Joe Geiger?” I said. “He’s indescribable. Go on out and meet him. Just tighten your chastity belt.”
***
So out sails Lee to greet the rabbi, brandishing the bottle of arak, her hair wild as a witch’s, her eyes flashing antagonism. She looked mighty pretty.
“Rabbi Geiger, this is my daughter, Leonore,” said Mama, her genteel smile at the rabbi modulating into a horrible frown at Lee and her bottle.
“Hi, Rabbi,” said Lee. “D’you like arak?”
“Love it,” said Rabbi Geiger. “Lived on it for a year.”
This stopped Lee cold. She stared at Geiger. He stood there bareheaded, holding a black derby, in a black overcoat with a velvet collar, into which a white silk scarf was tucked; a plump-cheeked man of thirty or so, with thick slick black hair, a neat mustache, and a look at once ministerial and faintly raffish; let’s say, as though Errol Flynn had been cast as a priest, and was trying hard but not quite getting into the part.
“Really?” said Lee. “On arak?”
“Well, not a whole year, and I didn’t exactly live on it.” Rabbi Geiger smiled, spreading the mustache and showing a lot of Errol Flynn teeth. “I got my M.A. in Bible archaeology. I worked on the digs around Megiddo, and I did drink a heck of a lot of arak.”
“So you’ve been to Palestine?” Lee’s tone warmed.
“Yes, and you’ve just come from there, I understand, Leonore. I stopped by for a moment to say”—he switched to Hebrew—“Brukhim ha’ba’im (Welcome, newcomer).”
“Take off your coat,” said Mom. “Stay a while.”
“I have to conduct a funeral,” said Rabbi Geiger, “otherwise I’d be delighted.”
“Anyone we know?” Pop asked, looking somber.
“Oh, no. I didn’t know the gentleman, either. The family is from out of town. The gentleman dropped dead last night at a performance of George White’s Scandals. The funeral parlor has engaged me to perform the sad duty.”
“Well, have some arak before you go,” said Lee with grudging cordiality, pouring the stuff into glasses on a sideboard.
“Not too much,” said Holy Joe.
Zaideh and Aunt Faiga, who had been off somewhere in the apartment, at this moment returned to the living room. When Geiger saw Zaideh his hand slipped into a pocket and whipped to his head, depositing there a small black yarmulka. The reader remembers my whipping off the yarmulka when the President caught me studying the Talmud. It was exactly the same motion, in reverse.
“And this must be your father,” said Geiger to Mom.
Mama introduced them.
Zaideh gave Holy Joe a sharp quizzical glance as they shook hands. “O dos iss der rebb-eye?” he said to my father. (“This is the rabbi?”)
He sounded friendly enough. But again, if you knew Zaideh, you heard the overtones. Neither Zaideh, nor anyone else of the old school, called a rabbi a “rabbi.” Zaideh was a Rov, with a guttural capital R—R-r-rov; in direct address, Rav. When Zaideh said, “rebb-eye,” he was talking about a strange and scarcely believable form of life. There was no animosity in it, just incredulity. Contemplating the smooth-cheeked mustached young man in the black Chesterfield and white scarf, holding a black derby and wearing a small black yarmulka, Zaideh might have been having his first glimpse of a platypus.
Holy Joe endured the scrutiny with aplomb, and said to Zaideh in tolerable Yiddish, “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Rav Levitan. I’ve just dropped by, to greet your granddaughter with the traditional, ‘Welcome, newcomer.’”
Zaideh opened wide eyes, smiled, and said to my parents with surprise, “Er ret gor vi a mentsch.” Rough translation, “Why, he talks absolutely like a man.”
Aunt Faiga said brightly to Mom, “Let’s ask Rabbi Geiger about walking around Boris seven times.”
“Great idea,” put in my sister Lee. “Rabbi, my aunt here is getting married soon. What about that business of the bride walking around the groom seven times? Is that really the law?”
With a side glance at Zaideh, Holy Joe said, “Well, it’s a question that can be discussed on several levels. Basically—”
But Zaideh had caught Lee’s swift rotary gesture with her finger, and his mind was not slow. “So? What does the rebb-eye say?” he asked Faiga. “Doesn’t even he say you should walk around? Of course he does. What else can he say? He talks like a man.”
Faiga had some trouble with “several levels,” and she rather fudged Rabbi Geiger’s answer. In her Yiddish paraphrase, Holy Joe said it wasn’t actually necessary to walk around, it depended which floor you lived on. Something confusing like that. Zaideh turned a clouded-up glance at Rabbi Geiger, who hastily said in Yiddish that Faiga had misunderstood, that a young rabbi never gave a ruling in the presence of an elder, and that was all he had meant to say. He hadn’t mentioned floors.
“Nu, nu,” said my grandfather. Zaideh’s doubled “nu” could mean a thousand things. In this instance it expressed skepticism, distaste, and a strong desire to drop the subject.
“Well,” Rabbi Geiger said, “I must get along to my sad duty.”
“You haven’t drunk your arak,” said Lee, offering it to him.
“Ah, yes. Well, it’s a cold day.” He accepted the glass and pronounced a flawless blessing in Hebrew.
“Amen,” said Zaideh and Pop.
Rabbi Geiger tossed down the arak, slid off his yarmulka, and put on his derby. Smiling graciously at Zaideh, and indicating Pop with a nod, he said, “Your son-in-law is a very fine Jew.”
With a smile quite as gracious, Zaideh replied, “How can he be a very fine Jew, when he goes to your temple?”
“Touché,” said Lee, grinning at Geiger. “What do you say to that?”
Unperturbed, Holy Joe said to her as he buttoned up his coat, “That too can be discussed on several levels.”
“What did the young man just say?” Zaideh asked Faiga.
“He says different people live on different floors,” said Faiga.
“Again? Is he crazy?” said Zaideh.
“I didn’t say quite that,” said Holy Joe in Yiddish, with great good humor. “And let me repeat, Rav Levitan, it’s a joy to have the Goodkind family in our midst, and to meet a R-r-rov of such great learning.”
“Nu, nu,” said Zaideh.
Geiger shook hands with Lee. “I hope I’ll see you at services,” he said ministerially, yet with a tinge of Errol Flynn in the tone. The door closed. Silence. We all looked at each other.
“He’s cute,” said my sister Lee. “Maybe I’ll try the temple, at that.”