The Devil in Jerusalem (6 page)

“I don't know, Granny. Maybe.”

“Just don't get too fanatic. Promise me?”

“Never!”

The truth was, she wasn't sure of anything. All she had was the broad outlines of a life imagined in uncomplicated, youthful passion, a life of total, uncompromising commitment to ideals. Some of her ideals were religious—a love for spiritual purity, for sanctity, for truth and goodness—and some were half-formed visions drawn from books, movies, Zionist youth groups, and summer camp. But it was all so abstract. She had no idea what that kind of life would actually look like, or where it would take her, when put into practice.

Only one thing filled her with absolute certainty: she wanted to be a mother. Her youthful passion to help others, to save lives, she now poured into her desire physically to create and nurture life. That was now her highest ideal, the purest way she could imagine to fulfill both her destiny as well as her womanliness: to be the person whom God had intended her to be. Her entire education at the hands of kind, learned rabbis and rebbetzins had reinforced that longing, and her relationship with Shlomie cemented it as the cornerstone of their lives together. Motherhood was the ideal of Jewish womanhood, Shlomie often said. After having failed at her studies, she allowed herself to agree.

Although in her younger years she had felt just the opposite, now when she looked at photos of haredi women and their numerous children—all beautifully dressed for the Sabbath and the holidays, the mother herself in her finely coiffed wig wearing designer dresses, calm and smiling—she saw the face of God.

She would be nothing like her own mother, she convinced herself. Her kids would have fun. There would always be time to read stories, and comb dolls' hair, and play catch. She didn't want to be admired for her medical degree, beautiful house, jewels, clothes, accomplished husband, she told herself. She wanted to be called a great mom.

That's why it didn't matter about college and birth control, she told herself. She would have no profession other than mothering, no outside interests that would interfere with taking care of her children, every one a precious, multifaceted gem that she would fashion and polish, bringing out their full potential for godliness.

She fingered the material of her wedding gown. It was fancier than she'd wanted. She would have been happy getting married the way they did on a kibbutz: in a white cotton dress with a garland of fresh flowers around her head, followed by a ride on a hay wagon and a picnic. Instead, it was going to be black tie in some ostentatious hotel with obscenely expensive kosher catering. Her mother and even her understanding granny had insisted. And everyone would have to be dressed
just so
. Her mother was even calling up distant cousins to interrogate them on what they were planning to wear!

Her grandmother had connections with a bead salesman who got Daniella into one of the few bridal gown factories still on American soil (although the seamstresses were illegal aliens paid wages little higher than those of their overseas counterparts). They'd custom-fitted her dress, lining the sheer sleeves completely so that no flesh at all peeked through.

While she'd wanted to do her own hair and makeup, she'd compromised, allowing her mother to engage a religious woman who would come to the house on the day of the wedding. She had nothing against makeup per se; she just didn't want to look like Jezebel when she walked down the aisle, like so many other, usually sensible girls who mistakenly relinquished their faces to the ministrations of “experts” on their crucial day. And even though no one ever said anything bad about a bride on her wedding day, it was obvious to her that this was the case.

She'd already had a consultation the week before. A little lipstick and mascara, that was it, she'd insisted. “Shlomie, my fiancé, doesn't like thick makeup and, after all, it's for him I want to look nice, right?” she'd explained to the affable, bewigged young woman, who nodded approvingly. “My hair—can you just put it up with tendrils floating gently down on either side of my cheeks? With all that dancing, it's bound to come undone anyway, so I might as well start out that way!”

The only extravagance she'd permitted herself was the loan of her grandmother's diamond coming-out tiara, to which she planned to attach her veil. Ever since she'd been a little girl, she'd admired the photos of her granny in her white debutante dress at the Cinderella Ball. She'd been one of the only Jewish girls in Pittsburgh to be invited, thanks to Daniella's great-grandfather's wealth and well-known philanthropic works. No one could say no to his face, no matter what they surely must have said behind his back in those anti-Semitic days.

Daniella's mother, Claire, had also participated in the ball, even though by that time the family had become more religiously observant. She simply wore a dress with less cleavage, danced with her brother, and avoided the non-kosher champagne.

The Cinderella Ball was still going strong. Daniella, too, had been invited but refused. What would have been the point? Was there ever anyone less eligible to be presented to Pittsburgh society in hopes of finding a suitable husband than herself? She had found the only man she could envision being married to: a kind, gentle, scholarly, devoutly pious boy who shared her dreams and ideals and who had never owned a pair of black, lace-up dress shoes, much less learned how to waltz.

They were very much in love, very much in sync, she told herself. She understood that her family couldn't begin to fathom this, but that was not her problem. She was going to live a better life than the one they'd chosen, a life in which every act and emotion was genuine and pure, unpolluted by hypocritical social demands or money and materialism. No one in the yeshiva world had lots of money, but they all managed somehow. With God's help, she and Shlomie would, too.

Across town, at the very same time, Shlomie Goodman was trying on a brand-new black suit. As was usual with religious Jews, he had not seen or spoken to Daniella for more than a week. Their next meeting would be in front of hundreds of people as he walked toward her, accompanied by his parents, and a twenty-piece orchestra, smiling into her face just before veiling it, as had been the custom ever since Jacob got stuck with Leah.

“What about a tie, Dad?” he asked his father, who wasn't really an expert.

A machinist in a tool and die factory, Arthur Goodman had exactly two suits and two ties hanging in his closet: the ones in which he had gotten married and which no longer fit him, and the ones his wife had picked out for him for his son's upcoming wedding.

“Well, son, you know, you should really ask your mom about such things.” He cleared his throat. “How you doin', Steven?”

“
Shlomie
, Dad. I'm called Shlomie now.”

“Right. Shlomie,” his father said, pronouncing it “Slo-me.”

“Oh, I'm great, great! She's … Daniella's … I just … well…”

His father patted him on the back. “Yeah, she's a doll, your Daniella. A real sweetheart. I want you to know that. Your mom and I, we're real happy for you. Just—and don't take this the wrong way, son—how are you going to support yourselves?”

“Always so practical!” Shlomie grinned. “You don't understand, Dad, the world I'm in … it's not the same as yours. People aren't practical. They want to study, to bring themselves closer to God. There are thousands and thousands of such people sitting in yeshivas all day long, just studying.”

His father scratched his head. “Who pays for their lunch?”

“They don't starve, Dad!”

“Yeah, but how does it work, exactly?”

“I don't know. Government subsidies for yeshiva students, charities…”

“What, like welfare?”

“No, no, Dad, nothing like that!” He sighed. “It's, like, to learn is the highest purpose in life. To learn Torah, that is. And people who can't do that, they get part of the merit of those who do by helping them. It's mutual. You take, but you also give.”

“I can't get my head around that—I'm sorry, son. I wanted you to … We wanted a better life for you than ours, me and your mother. We wanted you to go to college, make something of yourself. But ever since your Bar Mitzvah, you've gone places I've never been in my life. I respect that. It's why I never dragged you into the tool and die makers union. But now, I'm not so sure I did you a favor.”

“Oh, Dad! Can you see me with my math skills learning computer drafting? Or juggling weights and gauges?”

His father chuckled. “Dropping them on your own or someone else's foot, more likely!” Then he turned serious. “I was never much of a philosopher myself, and I'm not a great reader. But I remember this one book they made us read in high school,
David Copperfield.
There was this character, Mr. Micawber, who was a great guy, really kind, nice to his family, but always in debt. I remember this line that went something like this: ‘Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty-one pounds, result misery.'”

“Oh, Dad!”

“Remember it, son!”

Shlomie looked at his father. He was a tall man, taller than he'd ever be, his body large and solid, two feet planted firmly on the ground. His hands were also big, work roughened, full of scars from abrasions and scratches, the leathery ridges between his fingers permanently stained with paints and oils that could never be entirely removed.

He'd long ago given up on the idea of competing with his father. He'd taken another path entirely, one his father had never trodden. He patted his father's shoulder. “I'll be fine, Dad. Don't worry. Eventually I'll get a job. I'll support my family.”

“What are you both doing up there?” his mother's voice drifted up the steps.

“Hi, Mom! Dad's giving me his philosophy of life.”

His father looked at him oddly, then looked away.

“Oh, didn't know he had any! Leastways, he never shared it with me.” She laughed, entering the room. She patted her son's shoulders, almost giddy with happiness.

He was her child, small-framed and almost delicate for a boy, with what people like to call an intelligent forehead and big, gentle blue eyes like her own, which still had a shine of innocence about them, like when he was a newborn; a boy who didn't like rough sports and enjoyed reading.

While they couldn't say it to each other, both she and her husband had breathed an enormous sigh of relief when he'd brought home Daniella. A woman, after all, no confusion about that, thank God! Of course they—she—would have loved him all the same. But this was so much less complicated both for Steven and for them all, wasn't it?

And such a lovely, lovely girl! From such a fine family. Everyone in Pittsburgh had heard of the Auerbachs and the Whartmans. Old money. That lovely Victorian mansion in Highland Park. But a sweet, modest girl, without her nose stuck up in the air like you'd expect, wouldn't you? Though you couldn't say the same for the mother. A new boyfriend. At her age. Imagine! She laughed to herself, nodding. Money didn't buy class, that was for sure.

“What's so funny, Mom?”

“No, nothing. I'm happy, Steven. Really, really happy. Never had a grandmother of my own. And now, I might actually be one!”

“Hey, what's the rush! Let them get married first, Marsha!”

She chuckled, dimpling like a girl as she hugged her son.

Shlomie put a smile on his face but he couldn't help wondering:
Was
he rushing into this? Or was he simply taking advantage of something wonderful that had been granted to him like an unexpected gift, this pretty, smart, spirited girl who was so attentive and admiring?

He had never experienced anything remotely like it. How could he not want it all settled, before the clouds vanished before her eyes and she realized who he really was? He had no doubt that it would happen one day but hoped there would be a good life and a few children tying them together before it all unraveled.

Other times, he was more optimistic. Was it not written: forty days before conception, a heavenly voice calls out, This man for this woman? She had been chosen for him, a heavenly gift, a reward. It was humbling. He would spend the rest of his life trying to be worthy of her, trying to bring them both closer to God and to holiness.

He didn't feel any guilt for her dropping out of school. It had never been his idea. He would have waited patiently for her if she'd wanted to be a doctor. But she didn't want to. She'd opened her heart to him about that. She'd never wanted to.

So there it was. Who knew the future? As the Baal Shem Tov wrote, “A leaf cannot fall from a tree, unless it be God's will.” He would trust in Providence.

 

5

Hearing the screeching of jets, Detective Bina Tzedek looked up, squinting at the blue, Mediterranean skies, wondering if it was just practice or if they were actually going somewhere. As an Israeli, her ear had become attuned to the sounds that ushered in momentous, life-changing events in her small country. From personal experience, she knew that you could just be going along, your day completely ordinary when—
whoop
—out of nowhere, a siren would sound, signaling the end of normalcy and the beginning of anything from a civilian drill to a rocket attack to even the beginnings of a war.

It was the same with her job. Every morning, she just never knew what was going to land on her desk. She took a deep, calming breath, taking in the blooming rows of colored violets that bordered Yemin Moshe. She loved this daily morning walk from her home in Talbiya to the bus stop. No one could understand why she didn't drive to work, a detective, a modern, powerful professional in control of her own life and those of many others. What was it about steering wheels and horns and the screech of tires that she found so distasteful that she avoided them whenever possible?