Sotah (23 page)
And, blessedly, she didn’t know it might never happen to her again.
T
he
tena’im
ceremony was to take place in a small hall behind the synagogue a week before the wedding. Although the bride’s parents had politely suggested that it seemed a waste, coming as it did so near to the wedding itself, Judah and his mother had been pleasantly, though firmly, insistent. They had even agreed to pay all expenses.
“My son will feel more relaxed once it’s taken care of,” Mrs Gutman explained. “With a lovely girl like Dina, you can’t blame him!”
Mrs Reich had smiled understandingly. Yet she felt slightly troubled, as if there were some lack of faith, some doubt in the air, polluting the calm, confident joy that should reign before a wedding. Nevertheless, she saw no reason to object.
A week before the engagement, Judah had shown up at the house one evening unannounced, stammering and bumping into furniture, knocking over glasses of water. Barely looking at her, he had handed Dina a velvet box. Inside, burning against the dark velvet with rich, fiery beauty, was a watch of eighteen-karat gold. The band was an exquisite hand-wrought gold filigree, such as Yemenite craftsmen are famous for. The dial was surrounded by twelve tiny, perfect diamonds, and twelve small rubies marked the hours. It was an expensive, subtle, and breathtaking creation, as unlike the clumsy, heavy gold watches that weighted down the arms of her engaged and married friends as a piece of Waterford to a jelly jar.
Dina spent many happy hours looking at it, running a finger over the beautiful handiwork, convincing herself that it was real and it was hers. Still, one thing bothered her. He hadn’t consulted her. He had simply gone out and bought it. Most of her engaged friends had been taken along, or at least had gone separately to the jeweler with their mothers to discuss their preferences, letting the jeweler pass on the information to the groom and his parents. Of course, she couldn’t have imagined anything more beautiful or more to her taste than the watch he had chosen, but still, not to have been consulted at all rankled her.
She had no way of knowing that Judah’s reason was simply the fear she might reject it because of its cost. Often brides chose jewelry they didn’t really want in order to impress their in-laws with their lack of materialism. It was considered bad form for a future daughter-in-law to set her heart on something too expensive. This was Judah’s fear, that Dina might ask the price and be shocked and give up the piece he so wanted her to have. So he hadn’t discussed it with her, just brought it over and almost dumped it on her with a really inappropriate lack of ceremony. His eyes kept flicking to hers, then down to the floor. When he glimpsed her reaction, her blue-green eyes turning suddenly as bright and fair as a lovely spring morning, he felt he had been amply rewarded. He’d floated home in a daze of happiness.
He had taken on a great deal of extra work in order to pay for it and all the other things he wanted her to have. Everything had to be the best. He consulted with his fellow carpenters, and his shop had become the scene of many loud debates over the relative merits of American refrigerators, German stoves, and Dutch washing machines. Judah listened carefully, remembering every word but keeping his decision close to his heart. Price did not enter. The apartment in which he would welcome his fragile, adorable new bride would be a wonder of mechanical efficiency. Everything would whir and grind and mix with delightful ease, with the touch of a button.
“A drier? What does she need a drier for?” his mother pleaded. “With all this good, hot sunshine, winter and summer? It takes a minute to hang it out! You’ll spoil her!”
But he just smiled, stubbornly resolved. If there was anything that could take a minute’s work away from his dear future wife, he would track it down, buy it, and plug it in. There was no reasoning with Judah on that point.
As for furniture, he had resolved to shop for it together with Dina, letting her pick out what she wanted. But he hadn’t counted on the outpouring of gifts from the rough, silent men around him. There was a finely grained coffee table, a kitchen set with built-in benches, a bookcase with glass shelves … all handmade with care and singular affection.
The bedroom set, a collective purchase of the members of the carpenters’ minyan, was the biggest surprise. Each piece of hardwood had been carefully chosen by the men from the lumberyard, and the work had been entrusted to their most respected senior member, a man everyone knew as “the Austrian,” because before Hitler he had been foreman of a prestigious Viennese custom furniture workshop. Though now reduced—as were they all—to making boxy pine kitchen cabinets, the Austrian had not forgotten his old skills.
The design was a bit old-fashioned and heavy, but there was no mistaking the skilled and loving craftsmanship that had gone into its creation. All the joints were either smoothly dovetailed or were secret haunched tenons, a complicated version of the simple mortise-and-tenon joints, one that beautifully concealed all the rough edges. The carving on the headboard and the night tables, the almost mirrorlike finish that brought out the lovely, rich grain of the wood, filled the men with admiration. They couldn’t wait to give it to Judah.
“Judah,” Lazarovich called out one morning. “You know, we’re not going to have a minyan this morning. The Austrian refuses to come. He says you’ve insulted him. What did you do to him, Judah? So soon before your wedding to start fights, to create such anger. Why, I’ve never seen the Austrian so upset!”
Slowly Judah wiped his hands and looked at the man. His face was deeply troubled. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Why, perhaps he wanted to read the Torah last Monday and I didn’t let him. Perhaps that’s why,” he mused, full of honest distress. “I will go to him right away!”
“Good idea.” The man nodded. “No use letting these things fester. Besides, how will we pray this morning without a tenth man? You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, now, would you? A real
shandah
that would be! And you two weeks before the wedding canopy! Go quickly, quickly,” he called after Judah’s hurrying figure, almost bursting with laughter.
“Reb Nissim, it’s Judah Gutman,” he said, tapping on the dusty workshop window. “I want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t know if I want to talk to you,” came the haughty reply.
Judah’s heart sank, his chin falling to the top of his chest in dismay. “Please, Reb Nissim, just a word. I’ve come to apologize, to beg your forgiveness … I’m not a good
gabbai
, I always make mistakes about who should be called up to the Torah. I keep telling the men to replace me, that I’m totally worthless at it. I always insult people, because I am just no good at it …”
Slowly the door inched open. Judah stepped inside, still apologizing profusely, abjectly. And then the lights went on and he saw the Austrian’s broad smile. His eyes darted in confusion around the room. It was filled with all his friends from the minyan and practically everyone else who worked on the Street of Carpenters.
Roars of delight greeted Judah’s dumbfounded surprise. And then he saw the bedroom set.
“For you, a wedding present from the minyan,” the Austrian said with deep pleasure. “And Judah, you are an excellent
gabbai
. You never make mistakes.”
To their great surprise, and for the first time in their long relationship, Judah Gutman got up before them and spoke: “
Chesed
, loving-kindness, is what G-d loves most to see in human beings. G-d himself begins the Torah with an act of kindness by clothing the naked Adam and Eve, and he ends it with kindness, by himself burying Moses. There are so many good deeds one person can do for another. You can lend your possessions, give charity and free loans. You can welcome guests into your home, visit the sick, comfort mourners. But one of the biggest acts of kindness is to gladden the heart of the bride and groom.” He ran his hand over the lovely dark wood. “As it is written: ‘Whoever gladdens the bridegroom is privileged to acquire Torah, and is considered as if he had made an offering in the holy Temple, or rebuilt the ruins of Jerusalem.’ Our father Abraham, through whose merit we continue to live, gave only goodness and kindness to all the world. And all of you are his true sons. May G-d bless you all!”
They saw he was close to tears, and they felt their own eyes welling up. Even the younger, coarser men who wore no skullcaps and had come just out of curiosity, found themselves oddly moved by the big, silent fellow’s sudden articulateness. They all loved Judah Gutman, and never more than at that moment.
Afterward he had had no choice but to tell Dina that some of the furniture too had been acquired without her. She was understanding. A gift, after all, was a gift. He did not see her bite her underlip in dismay when she saw the dark, old-fashioned set she would have no choice but to live with every day for the rest of her married life.
“The house seems to be filling up,” she said dryly.
He smiled at her gratefully, missing completely the pointed, critical edge of her words. The more things a woman had, the better she liked it, no? And he wanted to give her everything in the whole world. His only regret was that it wouldn’t fit into a three-bedroom apartment. Thus, he was already scheming how to get another mortgage and trade the place in for a four-bedroom apartment and then maybe a duplex cottage with a garden … He envisioned working his fingers to the bone, humming all the while a hymn of thanksgiving.
The day of the
tena’im
arrived. He and his mother were picked up by one of his fellow carpenters and driven to the hall. He had invited all ten men in the minyan and their wives. He would have invited the whole Street of Carpenters if his mother hadn’t stopped him.
Dina was already there. He sucked in his breath. This gorgeous, wonderful girl! His bride! His whole simple, innocent soul expanded and rose with unrestrained joy. She looked heart-stoppingly fragile, almost luminous to him in her soft, high-collared pink dress that fell in soft pleats from her small, delicate waist. Too beautiful to be real. Her eyes rested on his a moment, the golden lashes dropping down in modesty, making shadows on her soft, rosy cheeks.
She was the embodiment of everything sacred and good to him. Everything worth living for. A gift, a reward from G-d himself.
He walked over to the table where the men were sitting drawing up the official engagement papers. These stated the date and place of marriage, the financial obligations of both sides, and the monetary penalty to be leveled in case of breach. The rabbis were there and the bride’s male relatives. The groom initialed the agreement quickly, without reading it. Then Dina’s father, reading it over carefully, did the same. When it was signed, Rebbetzin Reich and Mrs Gutman took either end of the same plate and smashed it to the floor. Cries of “Mazel tov!” rang out. The men formed rings and took wild, leaping steps as the small band began to play. The room filled with cries of joy and the stamp of dancing feet, which grew more meaningful and more frenzied by the minute. The Austrian balanced a chair on his forehead, and a great clapping began with whoops of laughter. Then he added a bottle of wine and on top of that a plate of cakes.
Dina sat behind the partition that separated the men from the women, surrounded by her female relatives and friends.
“Now, you are almost a bride!” Dvorah hugged her. She was in her fourth month of pregnancy. Baby Shlomie was crying in a carriage, and she walked over to him tiredly, her hands massaging a sudden ache in her back.
“Come and see all the fun!” Chaya Leah urged Dina. “Why, he’s now put a jug of water on top of the plate!” Her eyes blazed in excitement.
“In a minute,” Dina said calmly, with an icy sense of growing panic: the
tena’im
had been signed! It was easier to marry and get a divorce than get out of it now! What have I done? she thought with a little horror, thinking of Sruyele, that pitiable, forlorn relation who had disgraced them all. She looked past the merrymakers to Judah and wondered in a paroxysm of fear: Who is this man, anyway, this stranger? She wrung her hands and felt the gold watch. As she looked at it, she felt a sudden new confidence. She had this lovely watch. And her own apartment filled with everything you could ever dream of. And then she thought of Judah, his powerful frame, his shy eyes.
He was such a good man; everyone said so. She wanted to love him, to appreciate his goodness and respond to his obvious passion for her. He wanted her, of this she had no doubt. Whether or not she really wanted him was not important. As Dvorah said, that would come. She would learn to love him, as Dvorah had learned to love her husband. She looked again at the lovely gold filigree, suffused in brilliant light. It was the beginning of a beautiful life.
She got up and wandered to where Chaya Leah stood looking through a gap in the divider. Judah was in the middle of a circle. His large frame was moving with mincing, self-mocking daintiness in a Hasidic dance to the rhythmic clapping of the delighted men who joined him. He was deliberately exaggerating his clumsiness, his bigness, his awkwardness, eagerly forgoing his dignity to increase the joy and laughter all around him, as was traditional on such occasions.
“Just look! He’s wonderful!” Chaya Leah called out.
“Wonderful,” Dina repeated, trying to suppress the slow burn of humiliation that crept up her cheek as she watched him.
“
I
don’t know why you’ve left it for the last thing,” Dvorah complained. She, Dina, and their mother were headed for the wig store. It was three days before the wedding.”What if you choose something that needs to be styled and set? They might not be able to do it in time for the wedding!”
“Then I’ll just cover my hair with a
tichel
after the ceremony,” Dina replied calmly, refusing to get nervous over the million and one little details that vied for her attention each day. There never seemed to be an end to it. The gift for the groom (a beautiful tallith, prayer shawl, with a hand-embroidered tallith bag). The flowers. The menu. Choosing the blankets and sheets her parents were giving them as a wedding gift.