Hush (38 page)

Yankel told me about
Reb
Ehrlich. He told me that he had gone to him early yesterday morning for advice, before we had gone to the cemetery.

“I didn’t tell you right away. I was too shocked—but he wept, Gittel,” he said. “He sobbed like a small child. He said that he knew Devory’s story and so many other stories like it, about both girls and boys. He told me of three boys who had been abused years ago by a
Rebbe
in the
cheder
where
Reb
Ehrlich himself then taught. One parent complained, but who believed her? When the mother said she’d call the police, they threatened her with a call to Social Services. The school warned her that they would call the police themselves and say that she was neglecting her kids—and she’d never see her children again.”

Yankel sighed. He kissed me gently on the head. He said that
Reb
Ehrlich had told him he had known then that the mother was right. He had known because the teacher had confessed to him about what he had done to the boys and
Reb
Ehrlich had promised the mother he would help. But he had kept quiet in the end. The fear and the pressure were too much.

All three boys left
yeshiva
by sixteen. They went to the streets, to drugs. Only a few weeks before, when Yankel had first gone to
Reb
Ehrlich, the mother had called him and said that maybe now that he was an important
rav,
he could go out and find her son and his friends on the streets somewhere—hating Hashem, rabbis, and most of all, themselves. I won’t let you forget them, she said. You who knew, you who didn’t care enough to help—I want you to live with this for the rest of your life.

Yankel was quiet. Then he said, “When
Reb
Ehrlich cried like that to me, I knew that your pain was real, that this was all true. And I should start listening.”

We fell asleep in my bed together.

But Devory came to me that night. She came knocking on my window, knocking, knocking.

“Devory!” I screamed, and I ran to her. But no matter how fast I ran, no matter how far I reached out, I could not get to the window. Devory cried. I could see her eyes opened wide with fear, her lips mouthing my name, begging me to open the window. I reached out to her, but she did not see me. It was windy outside, her hair flew wildly in her face, and she pressed hard against the pane, screaming. And then suddenly a strong rush of wind came, and like an angry demon, it pulled her away. She fought the wind, her hands flailing hard, grasping at the air, calling me—
Gittel, Gittel
.

I opened my mouth to scream. I opened my mouth to answer her, but nothing came out. I was horrified because I realized that I could not say a word. I was suffocating. My mouth was tightly gagged and nothing came out.

Then I woke up. It was light outside. The sunlight streamed through the shades. I sat up in my bed, holding my pillow in my arms, resting my head on the soft, clean linen.

Yankel walked in from the morning prayers. He said that he had prepared breakfast on the table, so why hadn’t I eaten? How would I get through this pregnancy if I didn’t take better care of myself? Things were difficult enough.

I told him I was going to Mr. Glicksman. He said, “You are? Who’s that? Come eat something. The baby is starving.”

Mr. Glicksman was Devory’s uncle. He owned the largest newspaper in the ultra-Orthodox world. Devory’s father used to write a weekly Torah column there before they moved away. I told Yankel I was going to see him today. He said, “Why today?”

I said, “They need to write about this in the paper. They need to write about child molestation.”

Yankel said, “Um…Oh…Are you sure? Okay, why don’t you first eat breakfast?”

So I ate breakfast. Then I went to Mr. Glicksman. My father had called before I left. My mother was devastated at what was happening, he said. Maybe I could come over and we would talk about it. I told him that I could not talk. I needed to take care of things now.

The office of the community newspaper was located on Sixteenth Avenue. It was a busy place. There were desks and computers, and a harried secretary who wanted to know if I had an appointment. I said, “No. I am Gittel Klein—I mean, Geldbart—his niece Devory’s best friend. Tell him that, and that I need to speak to him now.”

The secretary looked at me strangely. She did not know who I was. She went into Mr. Glicksman’s office at the end of the hall. She came out a moment later. She said, “Mr. Glicksman is really busy right now. Would you like to make an appointment and come back next week?”

“No,” I said. I then stood up, walked down the hall, and opened the door to his office.

Mr. Glicksman was on the phone. He looked at me, surprised that I opened the door like that. He hung up the phone and said, “Excuse me?”

“You are excused,” I said. “I am Gittel Geldbart. I was
Devory’s
best friend. Remember—your niece—your sister’s daughter? She was the one who hanged herself on a rope in the bathroom of my house.”

Mr. Glicksman was silent.

“You know who I am,” I continued. “You pray in my father’s
shul
every morning.”

He swallowed. “Of course I know who you are. This is just unexpected.”

“I apologize,” I said. “The unexpected can be really annoying, like when one’s nine-year-old friend hangs herself from a shower rod after being raped by her brother.”

Mr. Glicksman did not answer. He did not have to. He listened silently as I explained to him about Devory, about what I had seen, about almost a decade of denial. His eyebrows rose worriedly as I told him of his obligation as publisher of this newspaper to write about sexual abuse, to put in an article bringing awareness so that it should not be so unexpected.

The phone rang. He ignored it. The secretary came in. He told her to leave. Then when I finished talking, when I could not talk any longer, he turned to me. He said, “You are right. You are right.…” And no, he hadn’t forgotten Devory; how was it possible to forget?

“I know there is a situation. We all know stories. I hear it all the time. But you being right won’t make things happen”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. The
rabbonim
will close down this paper in one week if we put in something on abuse. They will put a
cherem
—a ban—on it, and nobody will dare buy it. There are rules and regulations I must follow. Maybe I own the paper, but the
rabbonim
are the only real bosses of the Orthodox community. We must get permission before we publish anything.” He looked down at his desk. “And it will be difficult to get permission for this.”

I told him I would go talk with the
rabbonim
myself.

“No,” he said emphatically. “You are very naive. I know the system; I know who to talk with and who has the right connections to the
rabbonim
. It is not so simple. You are just a young woman—still a girl. They won’t listen to you. It is you who must listen to them.”

But he promised he would try, really try. He asked that I call him back in a few days. I told him I was going to visit Devory’s grave in a few days. I wanted to know what to tell her.

When Mr. Glicksman did not answer my calls after three days, I returned to his office. He was speaking with an editor, and a line of writers stood outside waiting. His secretary told me that Mr. Glicksman had an appointment soon with an important educator about their next main issue, the evils of the Internet, and that I should return later. I did not want to return later.

I marched down the hallway. I opened the door. I asked a worker sitting there to please leave, thank you very much, and sat down in the chair.

“What happened?” I asked.

Mr. Glicksman leaned forward, his mouth open. His eyes blinked nervously. He sighed.

“It is not so simple,” he said. “In fact, it is almost impossible. I went to
Reb
Shlomo, the biggest
rav
of Lakewood. He just kept saying, some subjects must be dealt with in silence. Some subjects are better left in silence. I went to the
Yushive Rebbe
; he said he would think about it. We had to be careful. It was a difficult subject and could bring a lot of
loshon harah
. I went to two others. Gittel, this could take months. Even if they do agree, they have to approve the article and it has to be written very delicately, very carefully, making sure not to—”

I stood up. I pointed at him. “There is someting else Hashem gave us. It is called common sense. Hashem knows why, given how utterly rare it is.” I threw down a folded paper, a letter I had written, on his desk. I had wanted to read it to him, for him to understand what I meant, but now…

I stepped away. I could feel my swollen belly harden and my heart constrict, beating in my chest like painful jabs. “You…you are a murderer…like all of them.”

I left his office. I left the building. I walked the streets of Borough Park. I passed my old elementary schools, a boy’s
cheder
, the sounds of their high-pitched voices repeating the prayers wafting out the windows. I watched a classroom of preschool children playing in a crowded school yard. They chased one another around. They jumped rope and threw ball, their tightly curled
payos
flying in the wind. I went back home.

Yankel said I must stop. I must stop trying to change what I couldn’t. “We will go to a therapist. We will go every week until you feel better. But you can’t change the fibers of this community. Even men can’t, and you…you are just a young woman. It is you who must listen to them.”

I spoke with my baby. I sat on my bed, stroking my swollen belly, singing Devory’s and my favorite songs. I told the baby that her name would be Devory, and she would be beautiful, smart, and curious.

I did not sleep that night. Yankel, standing in his pajamas near our room, wanted to know why I was not in bed.

“It’s after midnight. Come already. How are you going to wake up tomorrow?”

I explained to him that I dared not go to sleep. Devory would knock on our window and haunt my dreams. She would never let me go again.

Yankel shook his head tiredly. He began to say something but changed his mind. Instead he took a book from the shelf. He sat down across from me and studied the book. It was the
Sefat Emet
, a widely studied commentary on the Torah. He swayed as he learned. His long
payos
moved rhythmically as he rocked back and forth over the pages, whispering the ancient words to himself. His finger grasped at his side-curl. He curled it as he studied. His eyes moved slowly, intensively, like he was having a secret conversation. He turned the pages softly. He touched the lines gently. I made him tea, but he did not notice me anymore.

I watched him learn. At 2:30 a.m. I drank the last of his cold tea. Yankel was slumped over the good book. At 4:00 a.m., I dragged him to bed. At 4:15, I fell asleep myself. It was a dreamless sleep till dawn. Then I woke up again. And fell asleep again. And was jolted awake at 9:00.

It was then that Yankel rushed into the bedroom. He pulled at my blanket.

“Gittel—you must see this. Wake up!”

I groaned. “Is
Mashiach
here? Go
away
.”

But Yankel was frantic. He said, “Gittel—here it is! In the newspaper.”

I sat up and took the paper from him. I scanned the page, and there it was, my letter. My letter was in it. It was in the last pages of the paper, in Reader’s Forum, a popular column published weekly.

Dear Devory,

Last week I went to visit your grave. I am the first to visit your grave since you were buried there almost ten years ago. You died when you were nine, Devory. Only nine. You hanged yourself from the shower rod in the bathroom of my house. You used my jump rope to put an end to your life, the purple one that shone and glittered when it turned.

We all killed you, Devory. We did not let you scream. And when you did, trying to say that your brother was abusing you, that your brother was coming to you at night, into your bed, hurting you horribly, killing you slowly, everyone ignored you. They told you to keep quiet, that you were crazy, that something was wrong with you. And I, your best friend, stayed silent.

I share responsibility for your death. I am guilty because I knew and was afraid to scream. And the terror of watching, the horror of knowing, it never goes away, and always I feel like a murderer. For that I can never forgive them.