Читать книгу Questioning Return - Beth Kissileff - Страница 11
ОглавлениеAs much as the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.
—AHAD HA-AM
An hour before the Sabbath, Wendy and her elderly landlady, Amalia Hausman, hailed a cab at the nearest bus stop and headed to the apartment of Amalia’s granddaughter and her new husband. After they climbed the three flights slowly, at the apartment’s door Shani, the granddaughter, and her new husband, Asher, greeted them. Asher took Amalia’s bag to the spare bedroom, and Wendy handed Shani the bakery packages of assorted cookies and the elaborate cake with ornate sugared confections on top, tiers of cake and parve cream within, that she had procured from the winding alleys of Mahane Yehuda.
“You asked me to bring whatever makes Shabbos for me, so I have desserts here,” Wendy uttered cheerfully. Nothing had ever “made Shabbos” for Wendy, but she figured that any dinner could be worth sitting through if there were good pastry at its conclusion.
Shani squealed, “Oh, Wendy, Marzipan Bakery,” reading the name on the boxes. “Did my cousin Leora tell you it’s my favorite?”
“I spotted the bakery with the longest line, and figured,” she shrugged her shoulders, “it must be the best.”
Shani carefully positioned the boxes, along with the homemade gefilte fish Amalia brought, on the counter of her tiny kitchen. Asher excused himself to take a shower, while Shani scuttled around the apartment, turning on and off lights, asking her grandmother what else she should remember, plugging timers and appliances in, pulling electric cords out.
Wendy and Amalia were put to work setting the table. Wendy stretched out the white cloth while Amalia tugged the other end. They arranged the apparatus of ingestion: plates, cups, forks, knives, spoons, napkins, Kiddush cups, salt, challah board, and cutting knife. All was arrayed for the eight people who would just about fit into the space.
Wendy walked around, laying a plate here, a napkin there, counting to be sure there was enough of everything. The rhythmic repetitiveness of this task, the assurance that there was a place for each person, felt soothing as she placed the items around the table. She felt recaptured by pleasant childhood memories, since table setting had long been marked as Wendy’s chore, a good task for the youngest in her family. She remembered Friday afternoons of her youth when she and her mother set the table together before her brother Joel, sister Lisa, and father Arthur returned from school and work. These moments provided an intimacy for Sylvia and Wendy to talk, quietly, peaceably. The week over, setting the table delivered them to the relaxed zone of weekend time, unfettered them temporarily from the tensions and constraints of the week. Wendy felt nostalgic for those Friday evenings of her youth. I should have called my parents earlier today, when it was early morning for them and they were still home, she thought, reflecting on her own youth and home as she readied that of someone else for family togetherness. Other than calling them after her arrival, Wendy hadn’t given much thought to her family, busy as she was preparing herself for her new life, figuring out what things she would need to be comfortable in this new country. Something about the onset of the Sabbath tugged at even her frayed and dispassionate feelings about her parents. It wasn’t—Wendy thought, noting how Shani looked so pleased to see her grandmother, as she came in to inspect their work on the table—that she didn’t love her parents; she did. It was that she wanted them to be people other than who they were, people who were more thoughtful and intellectual, who had opinions on things, who read the New Yorker for the writing and stories as she did, not for the gossipy, short Talk of the Town pieces, cultural listings, and cartoons. Wendy wanted them to love her for who she was and wanted to be, and it seemed currently that she was in the business of disappointing them mightily, ever since she announced that her grad school applications would be in the field of religion and not law. Wendy saw Shani hug her grandmother and speak to her in Hebrew, and so remained lost in her thoughts about whether, even though she missed her parents now, they would ever change their disapproving attitude enough to allow her to feel closer to them.
Asher came out of the bedroom, cleanly shaven, dressed in the Israeli male Shabbat uniform of white short-sleeved button-down shirt, black pants, sandals, and white crocheted kipah with a navy and turquoise-blue diamond pattern around its rim.
“Haven’t you benched licht already, Shani?” Asher said, looking at his watch. He steered the three women to the living room corner where a small table covered by a white cotton runner with a lace embellishment held two sets of candlesticks. A third set was quickly produced. Before Wendy had time to protest, Shani said, “We’ll each light and then say the bracha together.” Wendy’s impulse was to put her hands in her pockets, step away, and disengage, but the skirt Shani asked her to wear lacked a place to hide her hands. Wendy stood behind as first Amalia and then Shani lit their candles. Shani handed her a kindled match, blazing.
Holding the ignited match, Wendy stepped forward to place it on the wicks. It felt so ordinary, holding flame to wick. She remembered reading an interview in a piece she admired about the symbolism of Sabbath candles to the newly religious, which juxtaposed what women said when asked to speak about their religious observances in an essay written expressly for the school they were attending, and afterwards in a follow-up interview with the sociologist. One returnee spoke in her essay of the magic of lighting Shabbes candles: that the candle detonated an explosion of the sacred into her home. The woman said she felt like a superhero action figure. Wendy had made up a title for her, Wonder Woman of the Numinous, as she herself merely put the candle to the flame, no supernal power summoned. The whole account, written for the school in the article, seemed exaggerated and ridiculous—Pow! Blam! Boom!—an attempt to make a dull life seem more exciting.
Actually, the article, by exposing the gap between what the baalei teshuvah wrote expressly for the school and what they said in conversation, was a great model of how a researcher got subjects to speak about their feelings about religious practices. Wendy loved the section about conversation, how the speakers sounded like those who had no excitement in their lives trying desperately to seem like they did; it reminded Wendy of girls she knew in high school who were obsessed with soap operas because the thrill in the sensationalized fictional world made the girls themselves more interesting for being absorbed in it, this drama so disconnected from their actual lives. What irritated Wendy most so far about baalei teshuvah was their flatness, like the dull girls in high school; many BT’s were white kids from the suburbs trying to glom on to a newly ethnic identity to give their bland lives some spice. She’d have to write about that—Did baalei teshuvah exaggerate to make themselves seem more interesting? How would she put on exhibit and showcase the various sides of the ways they spoke about themselves? Her notebook was in her bag—could she sneak off to take notes in the bathroom?
Now, Shani and Amalia covered their eyes and recited the blessing. Wendy stood to the side, having moved over after she touched flame to wick. Reluctantly and slowly, she followed their gestures and summoned her hands over her eyes. She felt like she was back in Hebrew school with someone telling her to read the foreign alphabet, when she didn’t want to make a mistake or embarrass herself, hoping to be as inconspicuous as possible.
Wendy recited the blessing in an undertone, echoing Shani and Amalia, and quickly removed her hands from her eyes. She gazed at Shani and Amalia, their hands lingering over their eyes, standing in front of the candles, obviously deep in recitation of some kind of private prayer that Wendy was unaware of, though she had lit candles with her mother for her whole life at home. Shani removed her hands from her eyes and gave her grandmother a big “good Shabbos” hug.
Candles lit, Wendy felt a shift in the apartment. She couldn’t pinpoint its source. The contrast between smoldering candles suffusing the room, and the last glimmerings of natural light outside, or something in Shani’s mood? Now Shani hugged Wendy, all her movements leisurely and unhurried rather than her previous bustling and stress. Wendy was a bit stunned at the hug, this unprecedented level of intimacy for someone she had met moments ago, but she hugged back, mustering her gratitude for the family’s trust in her as a tenant.
The four of them headed off for the synagogue after a quick glance around the apartment to be sure the food was warming properly and the key was with them. Shani held one of Amalia’s arms and one of Asher’s, while Wendy followed behind the threesome. As they walked through the quiet streets, Wendy was startled at how the city had shut down.
No cars zooming about the street, or bicycles careening in their lanes. No kids goofing around on the sidewalk. The contrast with the clamor and commotion on the street a few hours earlier was stark. It felt to Wendy like a Sunday morning in the suburbs, an indolence overtaking the residents, no one rushing to be anywhere. A general somnolence pervaded the streets, yet it mixed with an effervescence beneath the surface, a rejuvenation in the calm.
When they arrived at what they indicated was the synagogue, all Wendy could see was an ordinary cement box, a school building plunked down, without design consultations, in a spot where the Jerusalem municipality granted the land. Asher took Amalia’s elbow and helped her ascend the steep cement steps at the school’s side to the top level.
Shani turned to Wendy, “It’s probably not what you are used to in a shul.”
Wendy, heaving herself up the narrow stairs, replied, “Synagogues in the States have to be handicapped accessible. This would never make code,” she said, nearly slipping on the cramped steps.
“Adjust your perceptions. You’ll see how special Shir Tzion is once you experience the davening,” Shani added.
Once up the steps and inside, they faced a door, which led to a large gymnasium. They entered separately; Asher stayed to the right, the men’s section, while the three women filed through the back of the men’s section to the left, partitioned off by white muslin curtains on metal frames, hung by what appeared to be round metal shower hooks. There was no art or decor on the walls. Nothing in this space suggested an arena in which to access the sacred. Basketball hoops mounted on either side of the room appeared like heads of a netted animal overseeing the proceedings. The metal folding chairs were of the most clattering and uncomfortable variety.
Wendy couldn’t see the men on the other side of the divider from her seat next to Shani in the middle of the women’s section. She felt disgruntled and disempowered, unseen and unnecessary: They are leading the service; we are here to answer amen and look pretty. But she thought next, It isn’t my life, these Orthodox synagogues. I’ll go to a liberal congregation, or none, next week. I need to just remember that being here is fieldwork. Violet will be proud. And strictly speaking, most of this group isn’t my population since they are religious from birth like Shani. I can just see what is happening, experience it, without thinking about my dissertation. Wendy looked around as the afternoon service wended its way through the litany of words. The prayer leader standing in front was the only man she could see clearly. Women were continuing to enter, a gentle flow of bodies filling up the space, most of them around the age of herself and Shani, though there were older women with older children and young mothers with babies in slings attached to their hips, cradling their offspring as they walked. There was also a sprinkling of women in Amalia’s generation, white and gray hairs still piously covered.
The elegant and colorful dress of the women—long skirts and matching headscarves in vibrant summer prints—contrasted with the overall dinginess of the gym and the thin crust of dust on the floor. Wendy mentally compared the site to the suburban synagogue she grew up attending, Beth Tikvah, with its immaculately kept premises, never a burnt-out lightbulb anywhere. The building was in pristine physical condition, an underutilized empty shell most of the year, except during the High Holidays. Wendy liked those fall holidays, with the hullabaloo of jumbled people, the bathroom where she and her friends tried to spend as much time as possible, to not be in the sanctuary. The restroom overflowed with various excesses and smells from the massive hordes that contrasted with its top-of-the-line fixtures and carefully planned color scheme. Wendy found something about the swarming crowds irresistible; the sheer numbers of worshippers emitted an energy that the synagogue lacked during the rest of the year. The assemblage on an ordinary summer Friday evening, here in this school gym, seemed more akin to a High Holiday crowd in the States, especially in its variety.
Wendy turned to Shani and asked, “Is there a bar mitzvah or wedding? There are so many people.”
Keeping her rhythmic back and forth rocking motion in prayer going, Shani replied mechanically, still poring over her prayer book, “It’s always this way.”
Shani handed Wendy the prayer book she herself had been using, opened at the proper page, and took the one Wendy had been clutching, closed, in hopes that the tighter her grip, the easier it would be to follow.
As Shani handed the book to Wendy, Wendy observed that a new guy had gone to the lectern at the front of the gym to switch places with the one who had been leading the weekday afternoon service. Wendy was surprised to see that both men were wearing informal clothing, the equivalent of casual Friday dress in the States: white button-down shirt, black pants, and sandals.
As the buzz of humming from the wordless tune started by the prayer leader grew from a softer and soothing to a more joyous and raucous level, Wendy found herself relaxing, feeling calm, closing her eyes. She realized, suddenly, the tune was familiar from Friday nights at her Jewish summer camp, Kodimoh.
Wendy remembered first being aware of the opposite sex at Jewish summer camp. When boys and girls prayed together each morning, there was a masculine power in those boys now wearing talleisim, and the sinewy wrap of their black tefillin echoed the newly appearing musculature in the arms of those beginning puberty. The tufts of hair above their lips, beginnings of mustaches signaling masculine growth, seemed to come at the same time they began to wear those white garments that enabled them to sway and swoop in prayer, active and in constant motion as they were in sports. Wendy’s prayer time always seemed wrapped up in noticing those around her, who they were, what was appealing. She never quite understood the prayers at camp, all in Hebrew. But she liked the slowness of moments they brought, and how they enabled her to pay attention to what was around her, particularly if a guy she found interesting was nearby.
The wordless melody, the pent-up buzz of the congregation, was now set free. The prayer leader began chanting the set of psalms that culminated in the greeting to the Sabbath Bride, the Lecha Dodi. The man now leading the prayers had the wide shoulders yet narrow body and hips that Wendy associated with swimmers, as though his arms were more important in propelling him than his legs. As the service progressed his legs remained rooted, but his hands and arms moved. His tallis was entirely white with white stripes, and with his wide shoulders, he looked as though he might bound into the air and soar at any minute, his spiritual force powering his ascent. His voice was a lovely clear tenor, high and smooth, gliding lovingly over each note and intonation, channeling its melody outward. Enjoying his voice, she wondered, Will I ever find myself so seduced by anything as to change my life completely?
She settled back in her chair and concentrated on the singing around her, its twittering sounds, words rising and falling, joining, trilling a note, crescendoing, falling again. The music was now a slow aching tune of yearning. For what? The Sabbath Bride? God? A heavenly Jerusalem? Messianic times? Was there something else to hope for, even actually being in the Promised Land? She’d have to ask Shani later what the worshippers were yearning for.
In the midst of the congregation, crooning, harmonizing, the prayer leader’s voice out ahead, creating the tune that others wrapped their voices around in a coiled helix of melodic shape, was one solo male voice. As the congregation harmonized, his voice kept originating his own harmony, echoing the others’ song but in his own tuneful, melodic, and utterly gorgeous way. His voice above the others made an impression, lulling and thrilling at once. Whoever the owner of this voice was, he had finessed the dilemma of how to be in a group and be a unique individual, doing both simultaneously. Wendy was in thrall, listening, and puzzled over what type of person had the confidence required to soar above the sound of the crowd, and at the same time, the musical ability to improvise. The sound of his voice penetrated her; she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She wanted to concentrate on the sound, blocking out other stimuli to let this ascending voice pulsate through her, to focus totally on her pleasure.
As she listened, a tingly, swoony, feeling overcame her. She heard harmonies from worshippers around her erupting spontaneously, sounding at once improvised and planned. She kept hearing the solo male voice, mysterious bringer of joyful melody. He was singing alone yet supportive of the communal sound, protective of the entirety of the musical montage. She speculated whether, rather than being seduced entirely, absorbed into the fibers of the entire being of another, it would be possible to have a love that was a partnership, a commingling of two voices with separate identities, which together could create a united sound?
The worshippers rose as the service built to its crescendo at the last stanza of the song to greet the Sabbath Bride. While they were standing, she tried to scan the men’s section and find the owner of the voice, or who she would like him to be. On her feet, broken off from the lulling fantasy of lush sound she had been in, yet now in motion as part of the group bending towards the Sabbath Bride emerging at the door, Wendy gazed around and asked herself, When was the last time most of these worshippers had gotten laid? She would have liked to stay in that moment of desire and connection, but getting out of her chair had shattered her pleasurable moment. Feet on the dusty floor, Wendy reverted back to her observer self: Is the intensity here completely a consequence of repressed sexual feelings, my own included? She hadn’t thought about the role of sexuality and its repression in her baalei teshuvah, but it definitely needed to be covered, she decided, feeling under her chair with her hand for her purse with the notebook as the congregation resumed its seats. She didn’t dare write a note in it now, but just wanted to assure herself that she would bolt to get it down as soon as was feasible.
More importantly, Wendy scanned the room, trying to guess where the owner of that voice was located, even though she needed to crane to see the men’s section while seated. She couldn’t discern any likely candidates, but saw a man at the periphery of the men’s section closest to the women; he was pacing and looking over the mehitza, surveying the crowd. He was looking at the women, intently, searching. He looked like he was on military patrol with the preciseness of his gait and the specificity of where he was looking. Wendy looked away; she didn’t want to be a target of his stare. Notes on sexuality and its discontents, she repeated to herself so she wouldn’t forget later as she sat and tried to follow the Hebrew prayers, with Shani pointing to the spot every so often when she became confused.
At the service’s end, Shani smiled and greeted people. Wendy and Amalia hung behind. Shani introduced Wendy to a few women their age as a friend of her cousin, here in Israel to write a dissertation. Some of them asked politely what it was about and Wendy considered how many times she would have to repeat herself, explaining what she was doing in her research and why. She hated the tedium of constantly explaining herself to new people. Could I just be back in Princeton with my grad school buddies, she thought, feeling meager and inadequate for not wanting to retrace her life for new strangers.
The first day of classes at Princeton, after the introductory seminar required for all religious studies graduate students, they adjourned to Café Metro, all eleven of them, to detox after the stress of the first class, worries about the heft and density of the reading, and early anxieties about the final paper. Each one of her cohort had a different background and potential area of research. With this group of people who were so different, she still shared so much: basic values of intellectual inquiry and skepticism, along with respect or reverence for religious phenomena. And all of them, except Matt Lewis, a former crew rower, had been bad at gym in school, like Wendy. Had a basic disconnect from physical skills led them all to academia? With her fellow grad students, she felt so at home, comfortable, and relaxed. As they trained together in graduate school, reading common texts and learning from the same mentors, their modes of discourse and thought became more strongly formed along comparable lines. Could I find a group in Jerusalem to feel at home with this year? she asked herself, feeling alone in the crowded gymnasium, having little in common with most of the people there.
Finally, the group of four left the school where the synagogue met, the happy chatter of people meeting and greeting following them, knots of individuals in threes and fours dispersing in different directions in the Jerusalem evening. As they walked, they heard the Friday night home prayers, Shalom Aleichem and Kiddush, from the windows of different apartments, a chorus of welcoming. But for who or what? Wendy thought. Are they welcoming me here to the country for my first Sabbath? Or greeting only those who are religious at a certain level, an exclusive band of worshippers? Still, Wendy enjoyed these familiar and comforting songs emanating from apartments along their route.
The dinner at Shani and Asher’s apartment was the same mix of comforting and frustrating as Wendy had experienced at Shir Tzion and on the walk home. On the one hand, it was pleasant: delicious dishes that the newlyweds had prepared together kept popping out. First came homemade whole wheat challah with all kinds of Middle Eastern spreads, alongside a wonderful Moroccan salmon with tomato sauce. Accompanying the main course of chicken baked with forty cloves of garlic were a bulgur salad with pine nuts and onions, redolent of some superb seasoning that Wendy couldn’t name, potato kugel, and green salad. There was plenty of wine, and Wendy enjoyed the pleasant tipsiness she got after a few glasses. Her week of moving at an end, it felt good to be able to drink with others and de-stress. Wendy wasn’t a big drinker, but enjoyed booze at parties, to relax, particularly when meeting so many new people. Finally, there were desserts: a variety of cookies and cakes, including what Wendy had brought from the shuk. She hadn’t been to such an elaborate meal since Passover at Grandma Essie’s.
There was pleasant conversation on a variety of topics. The other guests seemed interesting, not what she would have expected from a religious group. They were aware of the latest TV shows, movies, music, pop culture references. She thought they’d be more bookish and serious and less interesting and hip. But there was a moment when Wendy blundered. They were discussing politics, and Asher proclaimed that, now Bibi was in power, since he’d formed the government in June, there wouldn’t be any more terror attacks like those on the number eighteen buses back in February and March. Wendy asked why that should make a difference and what had happened on those buses anyway? Another guest whose name she never caught but whose accent was Canadian, yelled at her, “Why are you coming to this country if you don’t want to really know what’s going on? There have been almost sixty people killed this year, Americans too. You didn’t know about those buses on Rehov Yaffo?”
Shani added, quietly but in a tone that could be heard, “Americans our age. Sara was my friend. You remember her, don’t you?” she said to the group as she tried not to let the others see the tears beginning to form.
Wendy just wanted to fade into the floor, but was rescued by another guest. “Guys, she just got here. When you are in hutz la’aretz, you don’t always know what’s happening in Israel. Give her a chance, would you?” He glared at her Canadian interlocutor. To Wendy, sitting across from him, he said, “Opening your mouth is risky in this country. You see what your innocent question started? But basically Asher’s position is that a tough politician like Bibi won’t let the Arabs get away with these kinds of attacks, that he will stop them. There hasn’t been one since he took office,” the rescuer, Donny, added hopefully.
Asher tried to squelch any ill feeling and changed the subject to give a dvar Torah, saying he had planned to do it later but now was the most appropriate time for it during the meal. The one thing she grasped was that there was a verse about the nature of God being hidden in the weekly portion from the book of Deuteronomy. The word for hidden somehow sounded like the name “Esther”; and the biblical Esther, even without knowing what God’s plan was, was willing to act in a decisive manner. He applied this lesson to some aspect of Israeli politics but she couldn’t follow the names of the politicians and parties. One guy kept making smart aleck remarks in the middle, interrupting Asher good-naturedly. She felt so clearly outside the group when he did this, as she didn’t get any of the jokes.
At the meal’s end, Shani and Asher asked Donny Zeligson, Wendy’s fearless defender, to walk her home so she wouldn’t get lost. He was walking in the same direction to Yeshivat Temimai Nefesh, “the yeshiva for pure souls,” in the Old City and agreed to help get her back to her apartment.
It was strange to feel she needed someone else to give her direction. She didn’t expect she would get lost, really, but there weren’t that many people out on the empty streets to ask directions of, and even if she found someone, that person would need to speak English too. The way wasn’t far, but there were a few turns on the way that had strange angles, perhaps remnants of some older system of navigation, an alternate logic for street layout. She acquiesced to her host’s desire to have her escorted home, feeling vaguely like a teenager, dependent on someone else for a ride from one place to another, incapable of her own mobility.
Wendy and Donny walked side by side on silent streets. Wendy felt obligated out of politeness to converse, though she didn’t know what to say; he had spoken little during the dinner other than assisting her. “What brought you here?” she asked.
He kept walking. She didn’t know whether to repeat herself or just accept that he wasn’t interested in talking to her when he began to speak. “Hashem. I came as part of my undergrad work in Oregon. I was a lousy student there.” He gave a sad smile and tossed his shaggy bangs out of his eyes. “I was, I still am, a pretty big disappointment to my parents. They’re dentists, in practice together. All they want is for me to join them.”
“Two dentists for parents? Did you never get candy? Get your teeth cleaned constantly?”
Donny laughed. “Yes and yes. But they . . . they do love me, even if they were hard to take as a kid . . . or now. The worst horror I brought on them was suggesting I might leave school because I loved working as a line cook in a restaurant, something they considered working class.”
“Celebrity chefs can be a pretty big deal these days.”
“Not good enough for the Doctors Zeligson. So they sent me here for a summer to a program on historic preservation of buildings and objects, because they thought contact with physical objects was what I should do, something that involved learning but also the world of the physical. One weekend the program set up an optional visit to a yeshiva, to let us experience different aspects of the country. I went and just felt . . . at home; it was my place, so I went back there, and then I wanted to stay at the end of the summer. Last summer, so I’ve been here a year now. Hashem’s doing.”
She wanted to ask him how he was so sure, but didn’t want to pick a fight. So she stayed silent, hoping he wouldn’t ask her whether she too believed Hashem was looking out for her.
“How did you get here?”
She decided to just keep it simple. “Shani’s cousin is my friend and classmate in graduate school. My friend told me her family had an apartment for rent. I took it, so Shani and Asher invited me over for my first Shabbat. It was nice but . . .” Wendy paused and decided to just be candid, “I don’t know, I felt kind of like an outsider there, awkward.”
“Me too!” Wendy’s formerly laconic companion seemed more excited by this than by anything else all night. “I mean, if you want to have guests, you need to ask them about themselves, welcome them. I was never asked one question!”
Wendy concurred. “That’s what was bothering me. It was just kind of nice polite general conversation but no one talked to me! I couldn’t figure out why I felt out of place.”
“Hey, they fed us; we shouldn’t be criticizing our hosts,” he said evenly.
“Maybe not, but it is fun.” She grinned at him, wondering if she had said something to offend his sense of what was gossipy speech, lashon hara, and what was not.
“True,” he said, and smiled back.
She was surprised he would knowingly go against doing what he thought he was supposed to. Maybe, as Lamdan had said, it wasn’t so simple: those who believed still did have their human moments of frailty and betrayal. She continued, “No offense, but I really hated that turban Shani was wearing. I felt bad for her because she kept trying to keep it on her head; her fiddling with it made me feel off kilter, you know? White women and turbans just do not work—you know, like white women and dreadlocks?” Wendy didn’t know why she had to be so catty about the turban, except that it did seem way too big for Shani’s head, and ready to topple off at any provocation. The other married woman there that evening was wearing a crocheted maroon hat with silver embroidered flowers and buttons to give it panache.
To Wendy’s surprise, her companion laughed. “I’ll have to remember that: white women—no turbans. Important fashion memo.” They walked in silence for a few more moments. Then he asked her, “So what are you doing this year?”
“Like you, my parents don’t approve of my path either.” She looked over at him and he smiled at her to encourage her to continue. “I’m working on a PhD in American religion.”
“That sounds hard. But wait, if it’s American, why are you in Israel?”
“I’m looking at Americans who come here and become more religious.”
“Oh, like me.”
Wendy had no response.
He added, “It’s okay. It’s good that you’re interested. You should definitely talk to the guys at my yeshiva. There are lots like me, people who just didn’t quite fit in with our families and their expectations.”
“Yeah?” She changed the subject, “You didn’t tell me how you knew Shani and Asher.”
“I don’t. There is some connection through relatives, Asher’s great uncle and aunt, maybe, who live in Portland and are patients of my parents. When they were coming to Israel for the wedding, my parents said they had a son here. Asher got my number from them and invited me. I don’t even know his relatives, and he doesn’t really either since he grew up mostly here.”
“So why did you come tonight?”
“Change of pace, something different from the yeshiva.”
The two had arrived at Mishael 5. Donny asked to come up to use her bathroom, since he still had a long walk before he got back to his yeshiva in the Old City.
Wendy assented. Donny insisted on leaving the door to her apartment open. Amalia was staying over at Shani and Asher’s, and there weren’t other occupants who might come in, so the open door at the top of a staircase where there were no other occupants made no difference either way.
Wendy plopped down on the couch in her living room in a daze. The boxes of books were gone, their volumes unpacked and settled on shelves. The apartment was beginning to look like someone lived there. She needed posters and pillows, throw blankets and knickknacks, the little things that made a place special to its inhabitant. Should she offer Donny a drink or something when he came out? All she had was water and milk, though there was some of that avatiach she’d bought earlier. She should at least offer.
After he left the bathroom, Donny stood for a moment in the hall outside the bathroom to say the bathroom prayer. Wendy heard him saying something quietly, in a soft whisper. She called out, “What?” confused that he was not responding.
He finished his recitation, entered the living room, and stood above her, looking down at her on the couch.
“Can I get you something to drink, a slice of avatiach? I got it at the shuk this morning.”
“I should get back. It’s late,” he said rationally before adding, “Yeah, sure, I’ll have some avatiach before I go.”
Wendy stood, shakily, and then said, “I don’t even know what to cut it with. I must have some knives here.”
“Don’t worry, if it’s too much trouble.”
“No, I’m glad you walked me home. I want to give you something.” As soon as she said those words, she felt her error. He would take it as suggestive. It felt suggestive, though she wasn’t entirely sure what the suggestion would be. He smiled at her; she smiled back, looking at him facing her. She walked over to the counter where the knives could be. She opened a drawer and found a huge knife, long and sharp enough to cut the watermelon, and a new plastic cutting board. She took the hunk of watermelon from her fridge and surrendered it to the counter. With Donny watching, Wendy started to hack at the fruit. The knife seemed powerless, or she was just not strong enough to prevail against the tough rind.
Finally, Donny stepped in. “Allow me. I have great knife skills from my time as a line cook.” He expertly cleaved the chunk of watermelon in two and then dismantled it, stripping the pink juicy flesh from the rind and cutting it into even, bite-size pieces as Wendy stood back, gazing mutely. His body seemed different now with a knife, his movements confident and precise, knowing exactly where each digit and limb should go, how much pressure to apply where. He was in a zone of competency, wielding each section of his body with the same grace as the knife in his hand as he chopped. She looked at him from the side, noting the tautness of his body, the way his perfectly sized butt filled his black cotton dress pants nicely.
“Do you have a bowl for this?” he asked, stepping back, task completed.
Wendy stopped her admiration of his carving skills and opened the cabinets to find a simple clear-glass bowl. She handed it to him. “Thanks,” she said. “I didn’t know how to deal with the tough rind.” That sounded stupid, she thought to herself. Why am I worrying? I don’t like him. I’m just being polite.
He scooped the chunks of fruit from the cutting board with his hand, dripping their pink juices into the bowl. He handed her the bowl, smiling, and rinsed his hands under the sink. “You just need to know the technique. Do things as simply as possible, expend the least amount of effort. Make the fewest cuts in the rind and work the soft flesh.” He dried his hands on a dish towel, fished out a piece from the bowl, and started to hand it to her. She moved closer to him, and opened her mouth. He reached to her mouth and inserted the watermelon directly in her mouth, instead of placing it in her hand as she’d expected. She clenched her teeth around the fruit and he took his hand away without having touched her, as the laws of shomer negia, not touching a member of the opposite sex before marriage, would demand. She put her hand to her mouth to take the remainder of the piece, and when she was done with the first part, chewed the rest. “Mmm, you try some,” she said, handing him a piece. As she did, he moved close enough to take the piece in his mouth. She held it in his mouth; he made no motion to put his hand up to take it. Her hand was close to his mouth, though the fruit was between them so they were still not touching. After swallowing the first bit, he slowly reached his mouth around the fruit and her fingers. She held them there, enjoying the sensation of juices mingling with his tongue on her flesh.
She licked her lips, the sozzled feeling from the glasses of wine at dinner making her bolder than she was otherwise. She stretched another piece towards his mouth. He kissed her fingers as she positioned the watermelon between his lips.
Then, he put a piece of watermelon in his mouth and walked closer to her, close enough that she could take it from him with her own lips. They were standing so that only the piece of watermelon, clenched in both their mouths, was between them. Now, drops of pink juice were scattering the floor as they stood facing each other, watermelon between them. She moved closer, pink flesh mingling as lips and fruit met. They were kissing. He put his arm on her waist tenderly and leaned in.
Wendy felt surprised but pleased by this turn of events. She wouldn’t have pegged him a good kisser, but he was, knowing when to smooth over her lips and when to apply pressure. So different from Matt, the crew rower, who, though so suave in most arenas, was totally awful as a kisser, unaware of how to hold his lips on hers. I am going to enjoy this year more than I thought, she joyfully intoned to herself as she leaned closer to Donny.
He pulled back. “I shouldn’t. I’ve been shomer negia more than a year . . . I don’t know, something happened. Having that knife in my hand . . . Part of the appeal of the restaurant was the proximity of others; I had so many girls there . . . I’m sorry.” He put his head down to the ground in shame and began walking to the door. His manners got the better of his shame and he added, “I . . . you’re a nice girl. I . . . can’t just go kiss a girl every time I find her attractive. You . . . you’re not . . . I want to find my basherte. I wish I could stay . . . Forgive me.” He scuttled out of the room as quickly as he could in light of this confession.
Wendy stood in place, watermelon juice still dripping off her mouth. She found a dish towel on her counter, and wiped her lips and chin, still staring at the door. What just happened here? Did he seduce me and leave, or did I seduce him and he left? Did I want it or was I playing along, flattered as always at any attention? Did he take advantage of me, thinking secular women are easy? I felt like he was weak and lacked confidence, but then something happened; he was different with the knife; he had this kinetic energy whirling about him. Were we equal participants or was I playing a game of corrupt the yeshiva student? The rules may not have been fair, but she wanted to play. He didn’t seem averse; after all, he came into her apartment even if the door was open, and drew close to her to hand her the watermelon. But still, she shouldn’t have let herself play; he wasn’t someone she had any interest in, and it wasn’t fair to toy with someone else’s feelings. That was it: they each had an attraction for the other, but there was no feeling on either of their parts. She wasn’t religious enough for him and he wasn’t academically inclined enough for her; there was absolutely no reason for the allure between them. She could say she was slightly inebriated, or disoriented from the dislocation of being in a new place, both throwing her usual restraints off. Those excuses were false; she knew the kiss happened because of the attraction, which existed like so many other things in life: illogical, irrational, preposterous, but present and enticing. Like the gorgeous male voice in the synagogue, something she was drawn to without knowing why. How many more gaffes would there be this year? How many times would she be drawn elsewhere than expected with unknown consequences? Her desire was like a surging current; once she had thrown herself into the water after it, she would be buffeted to and fro until the waters finally ceased foaming. I want to find a guy worthy of risking the battering and buffeting of the current of desire, who would similarly want to hold on to me as we journeyed the risky course together, avoiding the shoals that could force a vessel ashore.
She imagined a big warning sign from the anthropology department: Never kiss a member of your subject population or you will be unable to write objectively ever again. Would this kiss derail her dissertation? Wendy was determined to have a good time this year and to get her research done—clearly neither was a simple task in Jerusalem.
