The Devil in Jerusalem (2 page)

The boy was four, little more than a year or so older than his brother, a painfully thin, dark-haired child with silky long side curls. He lay quietly in bed, his eyes open vacantly, his calves covered in bandages, not uttering a single moan or cry. He seemed almost unconcerned, apathetic, Dr. Freund thought in surprise, which slowly turned to astonishment bordering on fear as he studied the child's chart.

“My God!” suddenly burst from his lips.

Only then did she raise her head and look at him.

“You are?”

“I'm Dr. Freund.”

“You're not the doctor I saw before. I asked him when we can go, but he didn't tell me. Do you know?”

She spoke Hebrew fluently but with a pronounced American accent, he noted, which would explain the baby's clothing. “Go? You want to go?” he answered incredulously, his eyes never moving from the chart:

 … burn wounds on scalp, neck, chest, and right and left arms. A long scar on the upper abdomen, judged to be the result of a heated object held against it because of the clear perimeters of the scarring and the various changes in skin color.…

The list of injuries went on and on and on. But the worst were:

 … two deep, wide third-degree burns the entire length of the backs of calves fitting the profile of burns caused by either a hot liquid poured on them or they were placed into the liquid, or a burning object strongly and forcibly held against them. The burns are mirror images, probably caused by an identical process. As for the age of the wounds, it is difficult to assess given the influence of numerous factors: infection, scratching, various attempts at healing. The damaged skin requires surgical intervention and extensive skin grafts.

Dr. Freund lifted the blanket off the child, examining his battered body and extensively bandaged legs. The chart indicated both legs were infected, yet the child wasn't displaying even mild discomfort. Morphine would explain that. He guessed a relatively high dosage. One really didn't like to drug such small children, but in a case like this … But morphine wasn't listed. In fact, aside from ibuprofen, he couldn't find any pain medication at all on the chart.

“I … I'll … return in a moment,” he murmured, more out of habit than a desire to communicate with this strange, stony presence at the child's bedside. He hurried out the door looking for a nurse. Outside, he found two waiting men, one in police uniform.

“Dr. Freund? I'm Detective Morris Klein, and this is Officer Cohen. We're responding to your call.”

Dr. Freund held up his hand, gesturing to them to hold on a minute. Hurriedly, he cornered a nurse. “I can't find the pain medication on the Goodman child's chart. What is he taking and in what dosage?”

She looked down, shaking her head. “He's not taking anything, Doctor, except ibuprofen. And that only when we insist.”

He couldn't move. “
What?
”

She shrugged. “He isn't showing signs of distress, so we…”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “It's impossible.”

“I know,” she said. “No one can believe it. Even when we change the bandages over his raw skin, he doesn't cry or even complain. He seems … indifferent.”

For a moment, a cold current of fear raced up his spine. He had once seen a veteran combat soldier reduced to a howling animal clawing the walls during bandage changes on similar burns. And this was just a little boy, a baby, really.

It was unimaginable. It was unnatural. It was, he realized—even to a veteran practitioner of the medical profession who specialized in treating children with traumatic injuries—inexplicable. He had never come across anything remotely similar.

“Did you talk to the mother? Has she said what happened?”

“She hasn't said anything. Not since they were brought in.”

“Brought in? You mean she didn't call the ambulance herself?”

“No. Apparently social services did. They brought him in against her wishes.”

“About what time was this?”

“I think the ER sent him up here yesterday, about five p.m.”

And only a few hours later, his brother was brought in! Dr. Freund was glad, then, he'd involved the police, any residual guilt disappearing.

He returned to the officers. “Please, follow me.”

Daniella looked up at them, closing her book of psalms and setting it aside.

“Ima!” the child suddenly sobbed at the sudden crowding of strangers, his small hands clutching her desperately.

“Who did this to you, Eli?” the detective suddenly demanded. “Who burnt you?”

“Don't talk!” she warned the child, even as he buried his head in her bosom. “Don't talk, don't talk, don't talk.…”

The contrast between the child's obvious attachment and love and the mother's pitiless words left all three men reeling.

“Would you mind coming with us for a few moments, Mrs. Goodman?” Detective Klein asked politely.

“Rebbetzin,” she replied, pulling the child's hands off her and standing up.

To their surprise, the child made no move to protest, obediently crawling back beneath the covers. She was walked down the corridor flanked by the detective and the police officer, trailing the doctor, who led them into an empty conference room.

“Would you sit down, please? I'm Detective Klein and I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Open the door!” she demanded.

All three men glanced at each other in confusion.

“Why?” Dr. Freund asked.

“A married woman is not allowed to be in a closed room with men who are not her husband, father, or brother. Even with a son, it is questionable.… It's a religious prohibition,
yichud
,” she said piously.

“Look, lady, cut the crap!” Detective Klein ordered with sudden harshness. “Tell us what happened to your children! Who did this to them?”

At first, she didn't hear the word “children.” Perhaps because she was so focused on what she would say—what the Messiah wanted her to say. She had practiced it, rehearsed it like a child about to go onstage in a school production, still unsure of her lines. She put her hand into the pocket of her skirt, searching for the paper on which it had all been written out for her in case she forgot. But she wouldn't forget. She would rather die.

“There was a fire in our apartment in the Old City. A blanket too close to an electric heater. The child was hurt. We took him to a private doctor. His wounds are healing—anyone can see that.”

“How long ago was this?” Dr. Freund asked.

“Two weeks ago.”

He jumped up. “You mean to say he has been walking around with those burns for weeks!”

“I took him to a burn expert! Someone we all go to in our community.”

“An ‘expert' or a doctor?” Detective Klein asked pointedly.

“I didn't ask to see the degree.”

Detective Klein looked down at his papers. “And who is Rabbanit Chana Toledano?”

She lifted her head sharply. “A friend, a healer, who agreed to look after him.”

“Why did you take your four-year-old to a friend instead of looking after him yourself?”

“I told you. There was a fire. We needed to move out temporarily. He needed rest. She took him in as a
chesed
, a kindness.”

“She is the one who called social services. She says she asked you for your medical insurance card so she could have his wounds treated at a hospital and that you refused. She says you came and picked him up that same day and took him away. Is that true?”

“I thought I knew better how to take care of my own son than she did, a stranger.”

“I thought you said she was a friend. Why would you leave your injured son with a stranger?”

She looked down, her grip tightening around her book of psalms.

“What's your answer?” Detective Klein pressed.

“I don't know what you want from me.”

“Why not try the truth for a change?” the policeman cut in.

“I take care of my children! I'm a good mother! I took care of my son!”

“How?”

“I'm sitting here in the hospital with him, aren't I?”

“Only because social services sent the police to your house after Rabbanit Toledano called them to report her suspicions,” the detective said dryly. “But we'll get to your son and his burns later. Tell us, Rebbetzin Goodman, why is your other son, your three-year-old, lying in the emergency room unconscious?”

She looked up, stunned, her distress real and overwhelming. “Menchie? My Menchie?”

For the first time, the doctor and the police saw something human and recognizable in her face.

“I must go to him!” She jumped up, starting for the door. The policeman barred her way.

“Where's your husband?” the detective asked.

“Which one?” she said softly, looking down.

The men raised their eyebrows. “Maybe you didn't hear us. We asked about your husband,” the detective probed.

“I'm divorced.”

“Have you remarried?”

She hesitated for a surprisingly long time before finally shaking her head no, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Detective Klein.

“Your ex, then. Could he have done this?”

“I told you. It was an accident. Besides, I haven't seen Shlomie … in…” She suddenly stopped, as if changing her mind about what she wanted to tell them. “Can I go now to see my baby?”

“No.” The doctor shook his head. “Not until we get some answers. Sit down!”

“Please! What answers can I give you? I've been here all night!”

Detective Klein and the police officer exchanged a glance, raising their shoulders in a slight shrug. That at least was verifiably true.

“Let her go,” Detective Klein told the doctor.

“If you say so,” Dr. Freund agreed reluctantly, feeling disgusted and angry, like a moviegoer who finds himself confronted by scenes of sickening violence to which he had no idea he'd bought a ticket.

 

3

Daniella Whartman and Steven (Shlomie) Goodman met in an Orthodox Jewish summer camp in upstate New York in July 1994. She was seventeen years old, a precocious high school graduate of a religious Jewish day school in Pittsburgh, and he was twenty, a born-again Jew from a thoroughly assimilated family who had surprisingly found joy and a new life beckoning to him ever since his Bar Mitzvah introduced him to God.

Certain smells still triggered Daniella's memories of that time: wet bathing suits, Sun-In oil, and the sugary scent of raspberry juice served in large, plastic pitchers that the campers called “bug juice.” It was her sixth year at camp, her first as counselor. Before that, she had been a
chanicha
. All the campers were
chanichim
, the Hebrew word for student. They were all encouraged to speak Hebrew—the language they would need when they all presumably immigrated to Israel to build their homeland. At least, that was the ideal of the camp.

But for most campers' parents, the real incentive to part with the hefty camp fees each summer was something else entirely: the hope that their children would be inoculated with enough Jewish identity to give them immunity from the lure of a
shagetz
or a
shiksa
.

When the camp offered Daniella the job, her mother—who felt it only fair Daniella earn back a tiny bit of what had been spent on her over the years—insisted she take it. Even though it was her last summer before college, Daniella, whose hopes of traveling to Israel and Europe with friends had been dashed by her family's sudden financial straits, whether real or imagined, reluctantly agreed. “College tuition is bad enough, now especially with your father out of work…,” her mother moaned dramatically.

But it was just her mother trying to make a point, Daniella knew. As owners of a chain of jewelry stores founded by her great-grandfather, Daniella came from a wealthy family. “That's Grandma's money, not ours,” her mother would shout whenever the topic came up. But her mother ran the main store and was well paid. Besides, Daniella couldn't see that her mother had economized on her own spending, trading in a practically new car for an even newer one.

Still, she didn't complain. Being a counselor was certainly a much better option than being stuck in the house in the unbearable, wet heat of a Pittsburgh summer.

There was basketball, canoeing, archery, and swimming interspersed with prayer and study sessions as well as arts and crafts—
omanut—
where they labored over wire mezuzah holders and clay menorahs. It was strictly Orthodox, but not crazy like some of the Hassidic camps where boys and girls were sent to different parts of the country. While there were no formal dances, or other organized coed activities, the two groups were often left alone to mingle naturally.

The first sign of a coupling occurred during the traditional Friday-night walk by the dimly lit lake. It was all so innocent, the religious prohibition against
negiah,
physical contact, having been firmly pounded into their heads on numerous occasions so that even the most daring didn't go beyond gentle hand holding or a chaste kiss. And while there possibly might have been an occasional rebel who got to first base, no one ever got to second. As for home runs … well, you might as well have dreamt of being a blond goy in Norway.

Saturdays were Sabbath days, reserved for communal prayers and lively dinners with Sabbath songs and Grace After Meals sung out loud, each table competing with the other to show how much
ruach
they had. Given the materialism in which most of the overindulged chanichim were drowning in 1990s America,
ruach
, spirit, spirituality, was at the root of all the camp wished to instill.

Their success was mixed.

The boys spoke Hebrew and joined prayer quorums but wore Izod shirts with collars turned up, their hair stiff with gel, while the girls willingly made challah bread and crocheted skullcaps but also spritzed on Sun-In to lighten their hair and were slavishly addicted to Birkenstock sandals, Dr. Martens, and skorts.