Willa Coleridge

She had walked past the synagogue at the corner of her street hundreds of times, if not thousands. She had had the urge to go in hundreds of times, but had never had the courage to try it. Men were going in through the main entrance on Hutchison Street and the women were using the side door on Saint-Viateur. It would have been a sacrilege to go in through the men’s door, even daring to think about it. But the women’s entrance, in her head at least, was doable. Except that she lost her nerve every time. She asked herself, “What would be the worst thing that could happen to me? That they would forbid me to go in? That they would throw me out forcibly? Well, I would just go back out, that’s all. What’s preventing me from trying? I should try it, at least.” Standing in front of the forbidden door, the same thoughts would swirl around in her head each time. They would heat up her body and slow down her step, and she would walk on by. She was annoyed with herself. “These people are peaceful, they won’t hurt me, so why am I so afraid?”

It was Saturday. A glorious day when the heat, light and gentle breeze seemed to conspire to fill her with joy. That’s why the residents of Hutchison Street liked to say that rather than have a rainy, blistering hot or muggy June-July-August, it would be better for the month of May to last all summer.

Willa Coleridge went out onto her balcony with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. Standing there, with her back leaning up against the brick wall, she sniffed the air before sitting down at her old coffee table with the paint chipped off. She dropped three sugar cubes into the cup, stirred the coffee carefully, and sipped it. The coffee was good. Another beautiful day had begun. On the other side of the street she could see Xaroula Koutsoukis turned sideways, with her legs outstretched and a large set of earphones perched on her head, and Albert Dupras who was running down the stairs in the pair of khaki Bermuda shorts he always wore. At this very instant, she could have photographed them as she had so often done in her imagination, without being able to attach a name to the faces in her make-believe photo. She had seen them so often, the woman sitting in her stuffed chair that looked so comfy and the man running up or down his stairs carrying a case of beer or an armload of newspapers. She had bumped into them so often, she had smiled at them – a smile of recognition, between neighbours. Xaroula, with her earphones and iPod, would smile shyly, while Albert, always in a hurry, always engrossed in thought, didn’t see her smile and therefore didn’t respond to it.

Albert Dupras was coming home, almost running. He ran up the stairs with a pile of papers and magazines. Willa smiled and wondered what the guy across the street could possibly be doing with all those newspapers. He would read them, of course, but she had the impression that this man, who was always carrying either newspapers or bottles of beer, was particularly attached to those two things. He was always in a hurry, like the Hasidim, but he looked more nervous than they did. When she came home from work, late at night, she would see him out on his balcony, subdued for a change, immersed in his reading, with a beer in his hand. He didn’t have a wife, or children either, she was sure of that, she would have noticed if he did.

She went back inside to pour herself another cup of coffee and then went out again. Almost deserted a short while ago, the street was lively now. Watching people while drinking her coffee, especially when the weather was nice, was Willa’s entertainment. It fulfilled a need, it gave her pleasure, even more than any television program would.

Men with their sons, women with their daughters, walked southward on both sides of the street. The men were wearing black satin suits, white stockings, and some had wide fur hats on. They were all clean and dressed up. “It’s Saturday, and the Hasidim are going to mass,” she thought. She knew that it was their Sabbath, that they were all going off to pray and chant, and that her neighbours prayed often and a lot. Shabbat was their Sunday, she knew that much, but she didn’t know what they called the service they held on Saturday, which was their holy day.

She certainly wanted to get to know them and to learn more about them, there was no doubt about that. But how? So far, all her attempts had fallen flat. Not even a smile of recognition among neighbours. Never. One solution would have been to read up on them, but reading wasn’t her thing. Willa was more down-to-earth, she liked direct contact, she liked to get to know people and to hear them tell their stories face to face. She liked to touch people with her hands and see things with her own eyes, for real.

She got up and leaned on the balcony railing. She watched the flow of human beings down below as they moved along, soundlessly, all going to the same place with a sense of determination and fulfilment. She was envious. She, too, would have liked to belong to a community. Of course, she had her church, which she attended every Sunday. For the Hasidim, though, every day was like one of her Sundays. They supported one another, they had the same God, they observed the same rules and they said the same prayers. They celebrated the same holidays and chanted the same melodies. Their lives were all planned out in advance. Shoulder to shoulder. This is the way life is, until death, each person bolstered by the others, and each person supporting the other members of the group. For them, there was no such thing as anxiety. Naturally, there’s no anxiety when you know where you’re going and how to get there. Life and death were simple and beautiful. The way is paved, clearly marked with milestones along the way. All you have to do is follow the path. Everything is prearranged so that you don’t have to ask yourself any questions. You do what you have to do, and that’s it. Willa was tired of asking questions and getting answers that changed all the time. How was she supposed to keep her spirits up when she was just treading water, day after day, without help or support, with no real ties to anyone, no one to take her hand and show her the way?

She thought about her own life as she continued to watch this river of humanity. The coffee spoon that she was holding slipped out of her hand and dropped onto the sidewalk beside a twelve-year-old girl. The girl looked up. Willa smiled at her to indicate that she was the one who had accidentally dropped the spoon. The girl smiled back at her. A lovely smile. My God. A big girl had smiled at her. My God. Not a baby. A girl who was almost an adult, who would get married in a few years.

This was the first time in twenty-five years that a Jewish person had smiled at her.

For Willa, this was a sign. The girl, who was walking along with her mother, was already way down the street, but something was stirring in Willa’s heart.

The sidewalks became empty again. Willa went back inside treasuring the long-awaited smile. Her children would still be asleep. Friday was their night out and none of them would wake up until one o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday. She put her jacket on, grabbed her bag and went out. She picked up the spoon she had dropped, stuffed it into her purse, and walked in the direction of Saint-Viateur.

She walked past the men’s entrance and kept on going until she reached the women’s entrance. You needed to have a code to get in, she knew that. She waited, her heart beating. A woman was coming around the YMCA building, stepping along in a hurry. Willa knew where she was going and adjusted her steps so that she would arrive at the entrance at the same time as her. The woman punched the code in quickly and opened the door. Without a moment’s hesitation, Willa slipped in behind the woman and followed her through the open door. The woman stopped, baffled. Not knowing what to do with this voluptuous black woman who greeted her politely and said Shalom to her, she let her in. The woman knew all the people who attended their synagogue, and there were no blacks in the community, but what else could she do? Stop her from coming in? Get into a fight with her? She was already late.

The woman quickly walked down the long hallway without looking back, hoping that no one would see her arriving with this Goy, and a black one to boot. Willa had to walk twice as fast to keep up with her. The service had already begun. She could hear the men chanting. At the end of the hall, they went up a few stairs and Willa found herself in the women’s gallery, just like in her dreams. It looked like her balcony, only three times as big, with a wooden railing and curtains that had been drawn open. There were a few rows of women, young and old, sitting on straight-backed chairs. Down below, the men were standing, crowded together, wearing prayer shawls, which she had caught a glimpse of before. Willa sat down, off to the side. Two women were whispering to one another. Two others were giggling. No one had noticed that she was there. A man standing at a small pulpit was singing by himself. Willa was stunned. What was she doing here? Then the man at the pulpit began to talk and the men answered “Amen,” which was the only word she understood. Willa felt as if she were in a dream. Where on earth did she get this desire to make friends with these people? She was so afraid that someone would notice her that she didn’t dare to breathe or move. She was an intruder, that’s what she was, she had forced her way into a place where she was not wanted.

Seated right next to the door, she could have left without making a sound. Out of sight, out of mind. But, inexplicably, something deep down held her there. “What has come over me, what has come over me? Am I crazy or what?” She wanted to see it with her very own eyes, that’s what she had wanted. But she was no further ahead. The mystery of the Hasidic Jews of Hutchison Street was unfathomable. What had she expected to achieve by coming here? To eliminate the barriers? To understand. But understand what? To belong to a community with closed doors?

The prayers started up again, then the chanting, but she didn’t hear any of the women chanting or praying. Perhaps they prayed inwardly. She spotted the girl who had smiled at her a little earlier. When the girl turned around and saw her, she looked terrified and blushed deeply. She looked the other way and bowed her head, slouching down in her chair as if she wanted to disappear.

Suddenly, Willa felt like a Black person. Not a non-Jew surrounded by Jews. But a Black woman in a world of Whites.

Black. Out of place.

The uneasiness of the young Jewish girl had reminded her of her own childhood. When she was a child or teenager, at times when she least expected it, she too would feel uncomfortable. She would feel embarrassed about being who she was. It was a constant struggle. The struggle of someone who is never the same as other people, the struggle of someone who has to apologize for who she is, and the struggle of someone who always has to bear in mind, and never forget, that black is beautiful, too, to avoid falling prey to self-loathing. As her father used to remind her repeatedly, “Don’t you ever forget, Willa. Black is beautiful.”

She wanted to disappear.

The service was over. The women stood up and got ready to leave. Each one of them looked at her before leaving, except the woman who had let her in. They were whispering in the staircase and in the hallway. A chill came over Willa, who sat there, glued to her chair, unable to get up.

A mature-looking woman, no doubt the wife of the rabbi or some other influential person in the community, went up to her and said, “Shabbat Shalom.” Then, she continued in English, “You’re not Jewish, are you?” Willa shook her head. “Why did you come?” asked the woman. “To pray with you,” Willa mumbled.

“Well, come again, next Shabbat, if you like,” the woman said, although Willa could tell from her face that she didn’t mean it. And with a gesture that was quite explicit, she suggested that Willa leave.

Willa left the women’s gallery, went down the stairs, walked the length of the corridor like a sleepwalker. Still in a daze, she walked along without seeing anything around her. Men were gathering on the sidewalk of Hutchison Street in front of the synagogue. Willa had to step off the curb to get around them.

Something suddenly occurred to her that made her smile. If someone had come to her place and said to her, a person who had been born Black, “I want to become Black,” she would have laughed. That’s for sure. If she asked the Jews their permission to be part of their community, they would burst out laughing. There’s absolutely no doubt about it.