Bee Season (26 page)

Aaron finds it impossible to read along with the responsive prayers now, but he makes an attempt to sing, trying to recall the pleasure the melodies once brought. Once upon a time he aspired to his father’s place. Now Saul seems more like an organ grinder leading a troupe of trained monkeys.

Aaron’s nonparticipation makes it even more difficult than usual for Eliza to concentrate on the service. She keeps checking to see if Saul has noticed his son’s silence. She’s pretty sure he hasn’t. At one point Elly thinks she hears Aaron saying something under his breath, but when she turns to him he suddenly stops. At the Silent Amidah, Aaron ignores Eliza’s attempts to start up a game of Sheep, returning to his seat in the first wave of sitters. Elly persists until she is the last one standing, until her father and Rabbi Mayer have turned away from the ark to face the congregation again. She wants to send her father a signal, to let him know that something is wrong, but instead Saul only winks.

At the end of the service, after the initial
oneg
rush has passed, Eliza follows her brother to a corner of the synagogue where he is retreating with his cookies.

“What’s wrong?” she whispers even though there is no one to overhear them.

“What do you mean?” Aaron replies coolly, hoping to stay his sister’s curiosity.

“I mean, you were barely even singing. Are you sick?” She knows he’s not.

Aaron shakes his head. “I’m fine. I’m really good, actually.” And it’s true. The stifled feeling born of entering the synagogue has been replaced by the certainty of having discovered something better. Aaron looks at Eliza and thinks of the Indian children at
ISKCON
.

“Let me ask you something, Elly. What do you think of all this?” he says, gesturing to the chairs, the
bima,
the
siddurs
stacked like small black bricks at the back of the room.

Eliza looks at him blankly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how does being here make you feel?” If he had his beads with him it would be easier to explain. “Does it make you feel close to God?”

Aaron’s voice is suddenly eager, his excitement plainly written on his face. Eliza feels as if she has been offered a rare backward glimpse into a time before she and Aaron became virtual strangers. She racks her brain for something to extend the moment.

Eliza is a little embarrassed by the way she pictures God. A seminal viewing of
The Ten Commandments
at a susceptible age has impressed the voice of John Huston booming from the clouds into Eliza’s mental cement. Though it has been years, Eliza still remembers the power of that voice, the utter certainty.
Take off your shoes, for you are on hallowed ground.
While waiting for the right time to sit down during the Silent Amidah’s games of Sheep, Eliza still occasionally listens for that voice, unsure whether it will be heard by the whole congregation or just by her but ready to whip off her shoes either way. Elly has a feeling she’ll need something better than that to impress her brother.

“I used to think God was a voice that could talk to people,” she says, avoiding the more embarrassing present tense. “But I don’t know what I think anymore.” She blushes at the small lie, her belief in John Huston shaken by its exposure to light and air but still intact.

Aaron nods sympathetically, but he’s only being polite. He has remembered Chali’s words:
Everyone must come to Kṛṣṇa on their own time.
Eliza isn’t ready. If he were to talk to her, she would want to talk to Saul. Aaron isn’t ready to face his father, his beliefs still too fragile to survive outside the
ISKCON
temple.

“Yeah, well, it’s a tough thing to figure out,” Aaron says, his face already closing up, the moment gone.

Throughout their summer of daily studying, Saul has not offered Eliza one of his books. Saul’s occasional references to his library have become an unintentional taunt, these the toys she cannot have, the doors she cannot open. Eliza has adapted to this by coming to view her father’s books as framed prints or potted plants, decorations which bear no relation to the unexplored worlds Saul describes with such enthusiasm and utter disregard for her feelings.

So that when Saul does reach for a slim leather-bound volume Eliza cannot help but feel that something momentous is about to happen. There is care in the way he carries the book on the short journey from its shelf, as if it were constructed not of leather and parchment but of flesh and blood. Eliza tries to mask her excitement as Saul places the book soundlessly on his desk. He turns to the first page, the bindings creaking like aged floorboards. Saul buries his face in the book, then gestures for Eliza to do the same. The sharp, dry scent of old paper, the combined smells of dust, leather, and time.

“Otzar Eden HaGanuz,”
Saul says.
“The Hidden Eden.
In this book, Abulafia describes the process of permutation. There’s a lot in here you already know, but some of it will be new. This book is the middle step. Once you have mastered it, you will have mastered words, and once you have mastered words, you will be ready to receive
shefa.
”

Saul passes the book to Eliza, allowing her to hold it in her hands. The book leather is cracked, but its pages are smooth and not nearly as stiff as she anticipated. She eagerly turns past the initial pages to where the text begins, then stops, trying to quell her disappointment.

“It’s in Hebrew,” she says quietly.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Saul replies. “It’s a reproduction of a reproduction — a copy of a handwritten copy made sometime in the centuries between now and Abulafia’s lifetime. There’s something evocative about the arrangement of the Hebrew letters, their shapes and angles, which adds another level to their meaning and is, of course, entirely lost in the translation you’ll find at the back of the book.”

Eliza’s face brightens.

“You didn’t think I’d offer you a book you couldn’t read, did you?”

Tucked between the pages toward the back, thick enough that Eliza should have noticed them before, are pages of lined paper covered in Saul’s assertive script.

“I translated this a few years after college, right around the time I met your mother.”

It is strange for Eliza to imagine her father’s hand, so much younger than it is now, forming these confident letters, strange to be holding something her father did before she was born. It is the closest Eliza has ever come to a snapshot of her father as a young man.

Eliza spreads the pages on the desk beside the book and begins to read. There is a lot of metaphorical language that sounds silly but which Eliza knows she’s not supposed to laugh at, like when the mind is compared to a horse and a person who permutes letters to a warrior. Another passage reads, “A permuter for silver, a furnace for gold, but God tests the heart,” which reminds Eliza of “A stitch in time saves nine,” and seems to signify just as little. Her initial thrill at having finally been given a look at one of her father’s books begins to fade. Her father must have been wrong. Not only is there nothing in here she feels she knows, but there’s nothing that seems even vaguely familiar. Elly wonders how to tell her father that, far from opening a new door, he has presented her with an impenetrable wall. When Saul speaks, it is as if he has been reading her thoughts.

“Don’t let all the flowery language bother you. They all wrote like that, but eventually they get to the point.” He points to a paragraph halfway down the page. “Read that and tell me what you think.”

It will arouse in you many words, one after the other.

The words, which before had seemed as distant and dead as Abulafia himself, are suddenly affixed in her head as if born there and not across an ocean centuries before.

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” Eliza whispers, amazed someone could describe so well an experience she thought was hers alone.

“There’s more,” says Saul, skipping over the biblical quotes and pointing to a passage that a younger Saul in his enthusiasm wrote darker and larger than the rest:

This is the lowest gate.

“That’s what we’re aiming for, Elly. In twenty years of trying, I’ve never been able to reach the lowest gate. Once you’re there, the words will be yours. I’m sure of it.”

Later that night when Eliza imagines this coveted gate, she drifts into dreams of her father’s outstretched hand.

Saul decides that tonight will be the night. He drinks a cup of coffee just before bedtime and heads upstairs with a Leon Uris novel. At 4 A.M. the bedroom door opens and there is Miriam, her shirt already unbuttoned, one hand pulling off her skirt.

“Miriam, we have to talk.”

Miriam startles at the sound of Saul’s voice, instinctively covering her breasts with one arm.

“I didn’t know you were still awake.”

It’s the first time during these encounters that she has actually spoken. Saul feels a rush of optimism at the sound of her voice. Miriam rebuttons her blouse and fastens her skirt before heading to the bathroom. Saul gets out of bed, follows her in.

Miriam is brushing her teeth. Sink is separated from shower and toilet by a door. Mirrors on opposite walls create a repeating reflection, infinite Miriams scrubbing furiously at their teeth in front of countless Sauls naked except for faded and slightly sagging Jockey briefs. Saul waits for Miriam to finish. When she spits into the sink, there is blood.

“These past few nights have been so strange,” he begins. “Tell me what you really want.” His voice is gentle but firm. “Tell me what you’ve been feeling.” For hours he has been preparing, barely reading his novel at all, weighing the varying impacts and repercussions of each potential word he could say.

I want to fuck,
Miriam thinks, the harshness of her language surprising her.
If I don’t, I’m afraid something will happen.

“I want to go to sleep,” she says. “I’m tired.”

“Miriam, please. We need to talk about this.” He touches her shoulder but she moves away, begins to undress again. “Tell me what has been on your mind.”

A house. A house I have never seen before but which has part of me inside it.

Saul follows Miriam from the bathroom and into bed. Miriam pulls the covers up to her chin.

“Haven’t you liked it?” She is too ashamed to more than whisper the question, which is less an inquiry than an attempt to embarrass her husband into silence.

“It’s not that,” Saul says too quickly. “Please don’t think it’s that. It’s just that it could be so much better if you would just allow yourself to — if we could just — ” Saul, who once took such pleasure in discussing sex, now finds himself unable to speak. “Please let me make love to you,” he whispers, more supplicant than seducer.

He strokes her hair, then cradles her face with his hands. When he begins to kiss her, Miriam wills her mouth to respond.
Perhaps this will work,
she tells herself, but her skin is as dead to his hands as if shot full of Novocain. She considers feigning pleasure but knows Saul will be able to tell, doesn’t wish to humiliate him further. She analyzes his progress down the length of her body as she might evaluate a legal argument, mentally commending him for covering all the right points. She wishes he could be satisfied with a passing grade.

“I want to make you feel good,” he whispers in her ear, breathy and desperate. He is hard though he hasn’t let her touch him, has pushed away her hands. If he would let her, she would put him between her legs and enjoy the blankness only possible when he is inside her. But he is a man with a mission now, his hands and tongue stroking and probing, a safecracker with his ear to the lock. She doesn’t know how much time passes, decides it is better not to look at the clock. Finally he stops, his patience spent.

“What do you want? Just tell me what you want.” There is a hard edge to his voice.

“I would like sex, please.” At the sound of her words, their prim ridicule, Saul recoils.

“You don’t. You’re dry. Every night it’s the same thing. It can’t be what you want.”

“How the hell would you know?”

She says it so quietly. She turns away, wondering if sleep will be possible. In the back of her mind she is considering waiting until he has fallen asleep to take him. Even as she hates herself for thinking of it, she knows that she might. But Saul grabs her, no gentleness now, and rolls her back toward him.

“You want sex? Fine. I’ll give you sex.” He parts her legs and thrusts himself inside. She feels her skull bump against the headboard, notes the way her backside bunches up the sheet.
This is what I want,
she thinks to herself as she feels her insides rubbed smooth and blank, Saul’s force quieting her more than any of the times she was acting alone. At first Saul looks at his wife’s face, waiting for the slightest signal to stop, but Miriam’s eyes are closed, her face maddeningly serene, and he has to stop looking at her altogether, focusing his frustration into his hips. He has never treated a woman this way, never. He is not cruel.

“Thank you,” he hears her say and he can feel wetness on his face, trickling from his eyes. He does not understand. How can this be what they’ve become? He hates himself for it feeling so good, hates her for saying that she wants it and now it is over. He can stop. There is some blood. He feels sick. He rolls away from her and out of the bed.

Miriam hears the bedroom door close and realizes she is alone. Saul’s footsteps sound on the stairs. She wonders if he is leaving her, pricks her ears for the click of the front door, but there is nothing. There are no sheets or blankets downstairs and she considers bringing him some, but she is so gloriously sleepy now. She hasn’t felt this tired in a long, long time. She closes her eyes.

He sleeps in his study now. The children do not know. He creeps upstairs each morning to change into his clothes. One night she tries his door, but it is locked.

It seems only fitting to Aaron that, having gained his own Sanskrit nickname, he should be invited to spend a weekend at the temple. Aaron has been waiting for this all summer, knows it’s the first step toward becoming a devotee. He accepts immediately.