Sotah (33 page)
It was only then that she had some glimpse of how far she had traveled down that foreign, strange, unmapped road. She no longer had any signposts, any markers, showing her what to expect ahead or even how to get back to where she’d inadvertently (or perhaps not. Perhaps not?) turned off.
The bell jangled at the door, breaking her reverie. She looked up and smiled at the two sweet little teenagers in their Beit Yaakov uniforms, their hair combed and pinned smoothly back. The sight of them filled her with a sharp, almost painful pleasure.
The hours passed, enveloping her in a haze of confusion and mixed feelings that alternated between dreamy anticipation and harsh self-loathing. She forgave herself and punished herself. She tried to make the wild churning in her chest stop. I will close the shop early, she suddenly thought. Before he gets here. I will leave him a note on the door not to come ever again.
She felt an incredible release at the thought, a reprieve. She wrote quickly—a firm, almost harsh message that left no room for doubt or ambiguity. She spoke of conscience and G-d and warned him she would tell her husband and his wife if he continued to pursue the matter. She put on her coat and walked deliberately to the door. It was six-thirty. He was due to arrive at five minutes to seven. But before she could tape the paper to the opaque, patterned glass of the door, an older woman advanced towards the store. It was Mrs Schwarzberg, a former neighbor and a good friend of her mother’s.
“Not closing up? Too early, too early!” She brushed past Dina and into the store. “What would your mother say? A half hour before closing time? How do you expect to make ends meet if you don’t work,
maideleh
, eh?” She smiled to show she didn’t mean any of it. “And how is your fine husband, your little one?”
“
Baruch Hashem …
” Dina smiled at her uneasily, crushing the note and stuffing it into her coat pocket.
I
t is strange on what insignificant and foolish trifles whole lives depend. Accidents of time and opportunity, small last minute decisions, petty considerations not worth a moment’s thought, may build or irretrievably smash a person’s whole life. We worry about the future, plan for it, think of it in grand and abstract terms, when in fact those incidents that actually shape and define whether we shall live decent, satisfying lives or shameful wasted ones are often too silly to imagine.
Dina Gutman, respectable
haredi
wife and mother, would not even remember later, under the crushing weight of almost unbearable suffering that was to fall on her, that the entire avalanche had been triggered simply because an old woman had not been able to make up her mind whether to buy pink or yellow yarn. The woman’s wavering indecision kept Dina in the shop just long enough to make it impossible for her to escape her fate.
She heard the clang of the doorbell like some dark omen as Noach Saltzman stepped over the threshold, bringing with him the tantalizing, cold scent of the dark night.
“I waited outside until your customer left,” he explained, taking off his coat and hanging it up next to hers.
“You don’t need to apologize. After all, it is you who are doing me the favor,” she said, unable to take her eyes off the two coats that hung with such strange intimacy, the sleeve of her small, pastel tweed intertwined with his dark, fine wool. It was almost as if they were embracing. “I’ll just get the books. I suppose we should leave the door open?” she suddenly remembered.
Noach Saltzman knew exactly what she was talking about. She was talking about
yichud. Yichud!
It was the well-known rabbinic prohibition of a man and woman other than husband and wife being alone together in any place where there was no chaperon and it was unlikely that they would be disturbed. It was a law that was very strictly defined and very closely adhered to in the
haredi
world. A woman was not allowed to be alone with any man except her husband, grandfather, father, son, grandson, or brother. The problem began when a girl reached age twelve and a boy age nine. Thus a twelve-year-old girl couldn’t baby-sit for a nine-year-old boy. Nor could a boy over thirteen baby-sit for a girl over age three.
Situations that were particularly common and warned against included a woman being alone in the house with a salesman or repairman or a secretary being alone with a boss. Thus doctors treating
haredi
women left the examination room door slightly ajar; men taking elevators passed it up if there was a single woman inside; and women taking a cab opened one of the windows or avoided it altogether.
Yichud
had in the past posed a not inconsiderable stumbling block for a man like Noach, and he had become an old hand at dealing with it.
“Why, of course, leave it open if you like. I’m afraid, though, it might mean endless interruptions with people coming in thinking that the store is still open. I’m sure you want to get finished as quickly as possible and get back to your husband and son at some reasonable hour tonight. Why don’t we just close the door and leave it unlocked?”
She hesitated. “Well, would that be enough? I mean, according to the law?”
“Yes indeed. The
Radvaz
and the
Ezer Mekudash
permit it.
Sefer D’var Halakhah
says this was the view of the
Chazon Ish
as well. Tropper’s book,
Kuntres Yichud
, on page nineteen cites the decision of the Gaon Rav Eliashiv and HaGaon Rav Sheinberg, who both agree,” he said with sober, rabbinic authority.
Dina felt herself flush, mistaking his practiced ease for scholarship. She felt ashamed of herself. He was a
talmid chachem
, a scholar! He even mentioned Judah and the baby and was concerned about them! Why, he was merely a good person, doing her a great selfless good deed, a true
chesed!
All the impure thoughts, all the dreaming, the passion, had been in her imagination. It was her sin only. The thought that she’d been but a hairbreadth from sending that note with all its horrible implications made her knees weak.
“I’ll just put the ‘Closed’ sign up, then,” she managed weakly.
“Fine …” He nodded as if he didn’t know full well that no rabbi would agree to such an act. For the moment she put up such a sign, no one would likely bother to check if the door was locked or not, leaving them in utter, forbidden privacy. Of course, he thought it better not to point that out to her.
She spread the worn books across the counter and pulled up a stool for him across from her, leaving the full length of the table between them.
“I can’t make heads or tails out of it, and that’s the truth,” she admitted, fumbling with the books. “It’s so awfully kind of you,” she repeated, feeling rather speechless all of a sudden. It was the warmth of his physical presence in the small, dark room. She could almost taste his breath in the air. She shivered involuntarily.
“Cold?” His voice was low, concerned.
“A little,” she admitted reluctantly, feeling instinctively that this was too intimate a detail to share.
“Can I get you a sweater, or perhaps your coat?”
“I forgot to bring a sweater tonight,” she said, praying that he couldn’t somehow divine that she had done it deliberately, not wanting to hide the clinging contours of the soft, silky material over her breasts and shoulders.
“It’s a lovely dress,” he said slowly.
She said nothing, watching his eyes linger, as if hovering over her body waiting to land. She felt the odd sensation of having suddenly been bathed and rubbed dry a little too hard. All her body tingled painfully, but with heady refreshment. Perhaps, then, not imagined? Perhaps, then, all true? She glanced at the clean, long fingers, the thick scholar’s beard. Was it possible? Someone like him? She felt a sinful humiliation; she felt a satisfied pride.
A strange silence then settled over them, broken only by the whispery flap of pages being turned, the labored clicking of a cheap battery wall clock, and their slow, measured breathing. Far away, as if from another world that had nothing to do with them, a car’s horn sounded, footsteps advanced and retreated, a dog barked.
“You’ve got it a little confused …” He finally looked up and smiled. Their eyes met. His were cool, like a blue lake, with a black defining rim. She found herself mesmerized by his intensity, or perhaps her own reckless longing. “Here, let me show you.” He pulled his chair around the table, putting it very close to hers. He did it in a very nonchalant, businesslike way. After all, how could he possibly explain the books to her if one of them were looking at them upside down? She tried not to look at him again, to still the almost painful excitement at the center of her body that throbbed so shamelessly. “If you would just make these two columns one, just add the numbers together, it would simplify matters for you tremendously.”
“Yes,” she whispered, understanding nothing. “Yes, of course, how stupid of me.”
“Not stupid.” He smiled at her. Something strange was happening to him. He felt himself trembling. He had never felt like this before, and it frightened him. Things were totally out of control. He resisted an almost uncontrollable urge to rub his shoulder against hers. It would be so easy, just a tiny, accidental half step closer and it would be accomplished. He resisted with all his might. No, it would scare her away. She was like a lovely little bird eating out of his hand. One harsh, sudden movement would send her flying high and far. And he did not want that. No, now more than ever, he did not want to do that.
It was almost nine when they finished. She entered his car naturally, forgetting her earlier awkwardness. Already she felt comfortable with his holding open the door for her, felt at home in the gray upholstered bucket seat. As she adjusted the seat belt, reducing it to half its length, she gave a brief thought to Noach’s wife. Heavy and unattractive. A sly, humorless woman who squeezed all the joy out of observance, leaving the mitzvot as dry and hard as parched desert earth. Dina was astounded by the harshness of these thoughts. After all, it was wrong to think badly of others, especially those who had not harmed you in any way. Causeless hatred, it was called. And she had no reason to hate Mrs Noach Saltzman. At least not any she could admit rationally.
Noach got into the car. His sudden presence, so close, was exhilarating and yet somehow exhausting as well. She felt she was fighting some intangible foe each time he was near her. All her senses were alive, alert to the danger. Yet what happiness! It was like being reborn to all the feelings that had lain so dead in her for so long. The car began to cruise smoothly into traffic.
He inclined his head to her, speaking in soft, low tones: “Look, I know it’s late, but there is something I want to see. Would you mind if I took a small detour? I really hate to miss it.”
What could she say? It was his car, and he had spent all evening helping her. It seemed so childish and petty to object, her mind scolded her, while her heart beat with joy and excitement. She wanted to go with him.
She nodded wordlessly, looking at her watch. What would Judah think? Yet somehow the idea didn’t frighten her. Judah would be kind and understanding and sweet. He would accept whatever explanation she gave him, she told herself a little smugly.
They rode quietly for twenty minutes when he suddenly pulled over.
“Come out for a minute, won’t you?”
A small prick of fear entered her heart. Yet she did as he asked. She could not believe her eyes. They were in some dark, high spot—she had no idea where, Talpiot, perhaps. She found the whole city spread out before her: astonishing, enchanting, luminous, yet suffused in mystery. It had all the elements of a great work of art. For the first time she grasped the full significance of this place she called home, her birthplace, its familiarity replaced by an overwhelming strangeness born of new insight.
It had been here, this earthly Jerusalem, for thousands of years. Her footsteps followed those of ancient ancestors who had never ceased to cling to its hills and valleys, to call it home. Their bones, long turned to dust, infused the very earth with meaning and obligation. It was a holy place.
She went back into the car and sat on the other woman’s seat, her face white with shame.
Noach joined her hurriedly. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She only nodded. “It’s late,” she told him coldly. “My husband will be waiting.”
His head swam in confusion. This was his romantic spot. Women usually grew all soft and sentimental here. Dina’s sudden coldness filled him with confusion and a sense of failure. He started the car, then let the motor die. “Why are you angry?” he asked her, peeved.
“It’s not. I’m not …”
“You are,” he insisted, “and I think I have a right to know why. What have I done?”
“It’s not that … I’ve …” She couldn’t find the words.
“Is it so wrong to try to find a little happiness? Is it so wrong to try to be with the one person in the whole world who makes you feel it’s worthwhile to be alive?”
His words were electrifying. If he had punched her, she could not have felt more horrified, surprised, or helpless.
“You mustn’t say these things to me!”
“I love you, Dina. You must know that.”
“How can you say that?! It’s wrong, evil. It’s a sin. We don’t even know each other.”
“I know you.” He reached out as if to lift her chin, yet at the last moment curled his fingers back without touching her. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to force her. Her eyes had no place else to look but directly into his.
She was completely shaken by the unexpected intimacy, the way he had reached out to her, and most of all, his astonishing words. She felt like a willing captive in some tale of romantic piracy spirited off to some faraway island with no clue as to how or why she was to get back.
He smiled, yet his eyes were so full of pain.
“Are you very unhappy?” she asked him as if he were a child.
“Do you know what it is to live so many years without love, without passion? It’s like being dead.”