Invisible City (28 page)

“Dad?” I say. “Are you okay?”

He smiles weakly, and puts his hand on mine. My dad is a young man compared to the fathers of most of my friends; he was still in his thirties when I started college. He wears his sand-colored hair a little bit long; it curls around his ears and falls over his forehead. He was just a boy when he became a dad.

“How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asks.

“I think I’m okay, Dad,” I say. I’m glad you’re here, I think. I’m glad you’re mine.

“What were you doing?” he whispers. “Why were you all
alone
?”

I close my eyes. “I made a mistake, Dad. I didn’t see what was happening. I just…” I just wanted the story. I wanted to
know.
But I don’t say that; he won’t understand.

“I feel like this is my fault,” he says. “All the questions you have, about your mother. And I could never really answer them, could I?”

“I don’t even know if there are answers, Dad,” I say. But even as I say it, I know that I don’t believe it. If I believe in anything, I believe that there are always answers. You just have to ask the right question of the right person at the right time. And my dad, loving and incurious and satisfied in his life with Maria and his children and his church, was never the right person. But the Orthodox women who knew Rivka Mendelssohn, they are. All week, I’ve looked at each of them and asked myself: Is this Aviva? Is she frumpy and kindhearted like Sara Wyman? Guiding others on the path out of the community that suffocates them. Is she timid and unhappy, like Chaya? Married now, bearing babies—grandbabies, even. Accomplished and content like Malka? I want her to be like Rivka: responsible, admired, agonizing over how to balance her long-held beliefs with newfound ideas and emotions. But I don’t think she was. Or is. I think that if she’s like any of them, she might be like Miriam. Beset by an inconvenient, undesirable illness. And in way over her head. I want to tell my father about all these women. About all the things I’ve learned about them. About the new perspective I have. But the stories seem too long to tell now, and so I say this: “I think maybe I forgive her, Dad.”

He looks at me with soggy, hopeful eyes. “Oh, Rebekah,” he says, reaching for me, clumsily wrapping his arms around my bed-bound body. “I’m so glad.” And then we both start to cry. I’m not sure what he’s crying about, or whom he’s crying for—his injured only daughter, or the woman who left us both behind—but me, I’m crying because I’ve finally seen a little bit of the world as Aviva saw it, and it nearly killed me.

I stay in the hospital a few more days while they monitor me for a possible blood clot. When I leave, Dad and Maria and Iris and I all pile into a livery car and go back to Gowanus. After they get me in bed and my dad and Maria go back to their hotel, I tell Iris to bring in the newspaper. I avoided the article I knew they’d published while I was in the hospital because I knew it would stress me out, but I told Iris to get a copy so I could read it when I got home.

The story about the cover-up is teased on the front page (“Hasidic House of Horrors” in white letters on a red banner) and gets three-quarters of page seven:

INSIDE THE “HASIDIC HOUSE OF HORRORS”: NYPD TURNED A BLIND EYE AS JEWISH “COPS” COVERED UP MURDER

By Rebekah Roberts and Larry Dunn

Who you gonna call? Not the NYPD.

A private security force made of members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community tried to keep the murder of both the infant daughter and the wife of the group’s primary benefactor under wraps—with the help of New York’s Finest.

The
Tribune
has learned that instead of calling 911, relatives of eight-month-old Shoshanna Mendelssohn turned to a group known as Shomrim, which means “guards” in Hebrew, to whisk the child’s body away to a Jewish funeral home and avoid an official police inquiry last year.

The child’s father, Aron Mendelssohn, 49, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Borough Park Shomrim. Mendelssohn’s wife, Rivka, was found dead in the family’s scrap yard along the Gowanus canal last week.

The NYPD allowed a group affiliated with Shomrim to take Rivka Mendelssohn’s body from the scene without examining it for evidence.

“It’s time for the secrets to stop,” says Malka Grossman of Mandel Memorial Funeral Home in Borough Park.

Grossman prepared both Shoshanna and Rivka Mendelssohn’s bodies for burial. In the Jewish tradition, bodies must be cleansed by a member of the same sex.

According to Grossman’s notes, obtained exclusively by the
Tribune,
both Shoshanna and Rivka Mendelssohn sustained blunt force trauma to the head.

Grossman says she handed her notes to Shomrim with the belief that they would be turned over to police.

But the NYPD says they never saw her notes.

“For years, top brass have let the Orthodox police themselves,” says a department official. “It’s all political. They vote in a bloc. They contribute to campaigns. They want to be left alone.”

The Borough Park Shomrim declined to speak with the
Tribune
.

Last year, the group received more than $25,000 in funding from the City Council.

Aron Mendelssohn has been charged with improper disposal of a body. Mendelssohn’s sister, Miriam Basya, 30, was shot by police on Tuesday after threatening an officer with a pair of scissors. Police tell the
Tribune
that they believe it was Basya who murdered both Shoshanna and Rivka Mendelssohn.

“There is violence in the Orthodox community, just like any community,” says Sara Wyman, founder of a Manhattan-based support group for the ex-Orthodox.

“Many would rather keep this unpleasant side from the outside world.”

Police Commissioner Donald Evans told the
Tribune
that, in light of the Mendelssohn case, the department planned to “clarify” the relationship between the NYPD and Shomrim.

“It’s a good story,” says Iris.

“Not exactly thorough,” I say. I’d like to write some follow-ups. Look into the “hospital” where Miriam was sent. Interview Baruch. Maybe profile Dev and Suri, and Sara Wyman. But not now.

I go to bed early, and the next morning when Iris goes to work, Tony comes over with coffee and bagels.

“How’s Darin?” I ask. “Have you seen him?”

Tony nods. “He’s okay. He’s on desk duty, but he says that’s normal after a shooting.”

“Had he ever shot anyone before?”

Tony shakes his head. I take his hand and squeeze it.

“I know you were looking out for me when you told him about Saul,” I say. “I’m sorry I got so angry.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m glad I did it, considering. But I’m sorry. I broke your trust.”

I smile. “Your big mouth probably saved my life.”

“Listen,” he says, “I wanted to explain about my mom.”

I almost object, but I’d like to get to know him better, and what’s going on with his mom is clearly a major part of his life.

“She isn’t always like that. She has Alzheimer’s.”

“Really? But she’s only like…”

“She’s fifty-five. It can hit you young. And she had it for two years before she told me or my sister. But she’s only been violent like that once before.” He sighs. “I’m sorry you had to see it. Once should have been enough.”

“What are you gonna do?” I ask.

“My sister’s coming down for the weekend. I don’t know. If we can do it, we might hire a part-time nurse or something. I know eventually she’ll have to go … somewhere.”

He’s looking at our hands as he talks, embarrassed.

“I’m really sorry,” I say. He looks up. “Please don’t worry about me. Let’s just call it even on mama drama, okay?”

This makes him smile. Oh Rebekah, she’s so funny.

“You have a sister?” I ask.

“I do,” he says, leaning back. “Her name Meredith. She lives in Delaware.”

My dad and Maria return to cook dinner for me and Iris. While we’re eating, my dad asks about Saul.

“Have you spoken to him?”

“I haven’t,” I say.

“He called your phone,” says Iris.

“When?” I ask.

“The first couple hours. I think I sounded kind of hysterical. I meant to tell you—I’m sorry. I just forgot.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “So he’s not in jail?”

“He’s not,” says my dad. “He called me, too. He wanted to explain.”

“Why did no one tell me this?”

“I didn’t know how you’d feel,” says my dad. “I haven’t heard your side of the story.”

My side of the story. They mean, do I blame Saul for what happened. What could have happened.

“I don’t blame him,” I say. “I mean, I don’t think he thought he was putting me in danger. Maybe he should have, a little, but he was … desperate.” And he wanted to do the right thing.

After dinner, my dad asks how I would feel about him meeting up with Saul.

“Maybe just for a coffee,” he says. “I’d like him to meet Maria.”

I tell him I would feel just fine about that, and that evening, after they leave, I call Saul.

“How are you?” he asks. I can hear a bus backfire wherever he is.

“I’m okay,” I say. “I’m alive. I’m bald.”

“Bald?”

“It’s a long story,” I say. “Saul, I’m sorry about Binyamin. Sara told me. I wish I’d known.”

“Thank you, Rebekah,” he says. “Can I see you?”

“Yes,” I say, “my dad wanted to see you, too.”

“I’d like that.”

“But first I want you to do something for me,” I say.

“Tell me.”

“I want you to get me in to see Aron Mendelssohn.”

Silence.

“I think they’re still holding him. Disposing of a body.”

“Yes,” says Saul.

“Do you know anybody at the detention center?”

“I do,” he says.

SATURDAY

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It takes almost an hour of ID checks and waving electronic wands to get into the visiting room at the detention center in Downtown Brooklyn. Aron Mendelssohn is wearing plastic slippers and jailhouse orange. He is allowed a yarmulke, but his sidecurls are straight and hang low, grazing his shoulders.

I sit across from him at a long plastic picnic table.

“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.

“You are welcome,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I say, my hand going automatically to my head. I am still wearing the scarf.

“It will grow back,” he says.

“It will,” I say. “I hear you’re not talking to the police.”

He nods. “I read your article in the newspaper.”

“It doesn’t really tell the whole story,” I say.

He shrugs. “How can it?”

Good point.

“Did Miriam kill Rivka?” I ask.

Aron nods, almost imperceptibly.

“And Shoshanna?”

Again. Yes.

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” he says. He pulls on the end of his black and gray beard, which crawls over most of his long face. Without his big black hat and heavy coat, he seems smaller. His voice is soft. “Shoshanna, of course, I thought that was an accident. A tragedy. I came home and Rivka and Miriam were in the living room. Rivka was shivering. She’d left the children with Miriam while she went to run errands. Miriam and Heshy had only moved upstairs a few weeks before.”

“Where had they been living?”

“In Rockland County.”

“I’ve been told Miriam was … hospitalized?”

Aron nods. “Miriam is nearly twenty years younger than I. During much of her childhood and adolescence I was in Israel. I knew there had been difficulties. My father felt that the most important thing for the family was that she be safe. He felt safe meant away from other people. He found a place, upstate, for women. For years there were no problems. I returned from Israel while she was away. Rivka and I married. And then when Yakov was perhaps three years old, Heshy, whom I had known in Israel, arrived, looking for a
shidduch
. There was a dinner where they were introduced, and it was a match. They married and remained in Rockland County, where Miriam’s home had been. We hoped they might have children. They did not.

“Rivka and Miriam were very close once. When my father passed away, she felt a responsibility to care for Miriam—just as my father had cared for Rivka in her childhood. After Shoshanna was born, we brought the baby upstate. Miriam looked well and Rivka asked if she and Heshy might come live at the house, in the suite upstairs. Heshy told me he did not think it was wise. He said Miriam wasn’t ready to return to Borough Park. He was surprised when he learned Miriam had asked Rivka to make arrangements. I remember he told me, ‘There are too many eyes in Brooklyn watching her. Too many hands to hold her down.’ I thought it was strange, what he said. Later I realized he was using her words.”

“She thought people were watching her?”

Aron sighs. “Of course people are always watching. At shul, at the market. You are Jewish?”

I nod.

“But you do not understand,” he says. “In your article, your write that ‘Shomrim’ is Hebrew for ‘guard.’ This is not completely accurate. The more precise translation is ‘watcher.’ There are many in this world who hate the Jews. Who would see us gone from the earth. And so we must protect each other.

“Rivka felt we could protect Miriam. And I did not believe Miriam should be hidden away because of her illness. She told me that my father had been ashamed of Miriam’s behavior, her outbursts. Rivka told me she had begun reading about mental illness and that she believed Miriam suffered from a condition that could be treated. She said that we should set an example to the community by welcoming her home. It never occurred to her, I don’t think, that Miriam’s illness—or what she had become in the years of isolation—should frighten her.

“And when she came home and found Shoshanna…” Aron’s face is soft now, and he begins to weep. “We made a terrible mistake.”

“Why did you let Miriam stay, after that?”

“We believed the baby’s death had been an accident. We mourned together.”

“What did Miriam say happened?”

“She said that Shoshanna had fallen out of her chair in the kitchen while Miriam was feeding the other children. But later she said Shoshanna took some food—a radish, I think she said—from the counter and choked on it. I should have known then. Rivka was hysterical. It was one thing or the other, she said. She fell or she choked. I felt perhaps Miriam was confused. That Shoshanna’s death had been traumatizing and she was misremembering. I did not think she might be lying.”