The Origin of Sorrow (52 page)

“Yahweh told the angel Yetta. She instructed me to tell you.”

“It’s a mistake. Let me speak to Him.”

“Speak to Yahweh? I just told you, only angels speak to Him. You tell me. I tell the angel Yetta. Yetta tells Yahweh.”

“Only if it’s important,” he heard her voice in the background say.

“The new Chief Rabbi? Of course it’s important. Listen, Leo, tell Yetta to tell Yahweh that I’m choosing Rabbi Jonah. Tell Him I’m closer to the situation.”

“Closer than Adonai?”

“Just tell Him.”

“He might not appreciate it.”

“I’m still the Chief Rabbi, am I not? Jonah will do just fine.”

“Jonah will do what fine?” The voice was Gilda’s as she carried into the room a bowl of hot soup.

“You heard me, rebbetzin?”

“You were talking in your sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Have it your way. Look, I brought you some nice soup, to make you well.”

The Rabbi thought: It’s decided now. I won’t be getting well. But there’s no need to alarm Gilda. Instead, he told her, “The soup is delicious.”

“You haven’t tasted it yet,” Gilda said.

“You can’t ask him, of course,” Guttle had said. “But you can tell him that if he happened to be interested, you would be interested. But if not, then to ignore what you said. He’ll be flattered, without having to give a direct answer.”

Rebecca hugged Guttle, kissed her cheek. “I wished I’d had the nerve to speak with you last week. I bought a bottle of this new wine from France — champagne, they call it. I was going to ask him then. But I became frightened. What if he has no such thoughts about me? I would feel like a fool. So I sat all through dinner and I didn’t dare.”

“Nothing’s lost,” Guttle said. “You’ll tell him tonight. If he becomes Chief Rabbi, he ought to have a wife.”

“Wife. The word alone sends chills through my body. I’m thirty-nine years old. What were you, sixteen when you married? I think it’s easier then.”

Guttle smiled at Rebecca’s flushed cheek. The Doctor seemed to be a young girl again. “You’ll be fine.”

“If he’s interested.”

“You can only let him know your feelings. I would think he would know them already, but with men you can never tell. Sometimes they wear blinders, like a horse. Once you open his eyes, it’s up to him. I never asked why you preferred to be alone all these years. And I never asked him. About some things you don’t pry.”

“My work.”

“I know. And his work. But Lev got married.”

“Look what happened.”

Guttle had turned away to look at the river. Rebecca’s eyes followed. With much shouting, sailors were hauling up the anchor on a large two-masted sailing ship that would be setting off towards the Rhine, its cargo to Frankfurt delivered.

The tea water was boiling. The bubbling brought Rebecca back to the moment. Simcha was in the dining room. She removed the kettle from the stove — and heard a knocking at the front door.

“Who could that be?” she said to Simcha as she passed, wiping her hands on a dish rag. She opened the door to find Brendel standing there, looking agitated, her hair disheveled.

“Rebecca, is Georgi in his room?”

“I think so.”

“I need to run up and see him for a moment. It won’t take long.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No. Yes. I can’t talk now. Can I go on up?”

“Of course.”

The Doctor stepped aside as Brendel hurried by. Her feet flew lightly up two flights. Rebecca heard her knock on Georgi’s door, exchange a few sentences with him. When Brendel came down, looking about for Rebecca, she found her in the dining room.

“Oh! I didn’t know you had company. Good evening, Rabbi. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s not a problem,” Rebecca said. “We’re about to have tea. And some of your mun cake. Would you like to join us?”

“I wish I could. But I have to go now.”

She turned and was out through the door before they could ask her anything else.

“What was that about?” Simcha wondered.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen Brendel so flustered. Something is wrong.”

“She went up to see Georgi, so it must be about the shop.”

“Perhaps. But why didn’t Yussel come?”

Neither had an answer. Rebecca returned to the kitchen and poured two glasses of tea. She set them on the table. Simcha sliced off a piece of cake, yellow cake marbled with poppy seed mun, and put it on a plate for her, took a slice for himself.

“So,” Rebecca said. Her stomach was thumping as if it had a heart of its own. Now was the time, she thought, if ever she was going to speak.

“Emil . . .”

“Rebecca . . .”

They had spoken at the same time. Both of them smiled.

“You first,” Simcha said.

Rebecca could hardly speak. “No, you first. You’re my guest.”

“Very well. I have an important question I want to ask you.” Simcha sipped at his tea.

Her blood was pounding in her ears, her wrists, her groin. For a moment she closed her eyes. Perhaps Yahweh was being kind, and she would not have to confess her feelings first. She glanced at the framed drawing on the wall behind Simcha’s head, Hiram’s charcoal sketch of she and Brendel whirling about at Guttle’s wedding. Her heart was whirling even faster now. Where, she asked herself, has the calm and competent Doctor gone? My body is acting sixteen.

“I have been thinking about marriage,” Simcha said.

Yes! Her heart wanted to sing out the news like a songbird heralding the dawn; she still remembered such sounds. Yes! She kept her trembling hands beneath the table.

“I know that will sound strange to you. I’m fifty-one years old, I never thought to wed.”

“Not at all,” she managed to say, her voice sounding to herself like a dry rasp, plaster being ripped off a wound.

“But some think I may soon become the Chief Rabbi.”

“Of course you will.”

“Not necessarily. Rabbi Jonah is of the old school, the same as Rabbi Eleazar. I think he will be the choice.”

“Jonah is almost as old as Eleazar.”

“He still has a few years left, I would imagine. The point is, I’ve thought about it, and decided that the Chief Rabbi, whomever he is, ought to have a wife. He would seem more solid, more trustworthy, with a wife behind him. Then I thought more, and decided that whether I am named Chief Rabbi or not, Emil Simcha ought to have a wife. It’s time.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“I was wondering how you feel about that.”

“About you taking a wife? If you want to, I think it would be wonderful!”

“Good.” He bit into the soft cake, chewed, swallowed. “I don’t need your permission, of course, but we’ve become quite close, and I wanted to see how you felt.”

Permission?

“Several times now I have had lunch with the widow Baumgarten. Thelma, her name is. The food was fine. Her house is very clean. She is a bit on the portly side, compared to you, for instance— ”

Compared to me …

“ —but I think she would do nicely as a Rabbi’s wife. Should I become Chief Rabbi, I would need someone to keep that large house clean. And to cook dinner for guests. The Chief Rabbi must entertain, after all. So I am planning to ask Thelma tomorrow if she will marry me. I wanted you to be the first to know.”

Rebecca gripped the table, trying to stop the room from spinning. To gain time, to think straight, she tried to drink some tea, but her hand was trembling on the glass.

“I’m glad you have no problem with that,” Simcha said.

“Why would I have a problem?” She was sure her voice was quivering, but he seemed not to notice.

“Of course, we’ll still be friends, you and I.” He took another bite of cake. “You want to hear something funny?” His mouth was half full of mun. “When I first got the idea to marry … ” He swallowed the chewed cake “ … I thought of you.”

The intake of her breath was sharp, as if someone had grabbed a private part of her. She coughed, to cover the sound.

“Then I had to laugh at myself. Imagine, Doctor Kirsch cleaning house for me, while her patients wait at the hospital. Imagine her scrubbing floors on her knees, instead of cleaning people’s wounds. How selfish could I be?”

Rebecca said nothing.

“You’re being quiet. I was not wrong, was I? You would not want to dust my house and scrub my floors, would you?”

She forced a smile. “I would not.”

“Or wash my shirts and things? Of course you wouldn’t.”

“I have my work at the hospital. I think that’s more important.”

“Exactly. That’s what I told myself. That’s when I decided on Thelma. She and I don’t converse as you and I do, but she’s a good woman. She has children already, they’re grown, so we won’t have to deal with that part. Me with my scar and the pits on my face, it’s just as well.”

Rebecca pictured the bottle of champagne, leaning alongside the block of ice in the ice box. Her fingers felt at least as cold. She was holding her emotions rigid, as if they were not fluid, but brittle bones; as she did before scraping a gangrenous leg, while her assistants fought to hold the patient still. She had last done that … was it only yesterday?

“I’m sure she’ll make a good wife,” Rebecca said.

“I’m happy to hear you say that.” He placed his napkin on the table. “Thank you for a wonderful dinner, as always.” He stood. “But now I must be going. It’s getting late, we wouldn’t want people to talk.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” she said, escorting him to the door.

“Good night, Doctor,” he said, as he stepped into the lane.

“Good night, Rabbi.”

The freshet of night air that swept in from the river felt good, but she did not want to go into the lane. Closing the door behind him, she returned to the dining room, took up the tea glasses and the cake plates and carried them to the kitchen. She would wash them in the morning. She pictured again the champagne; she could pop it open, a bit of alcohol would be relaxing. But the whole bottle would make her sick, and once she started, she might not stop. Turning down the lamps until the flames died, she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, took off her shoes, her stockings, her dress, her corset. In her pale blue shift she lay on top of her quilt, breathing evenly, looking at the ceiling.

Scrubbing floors. Washing shirts. At least she hadn’t made a fool of herself.

On the floor above her, Georgi Pinsky also lay on top of his quilt, staring at the ceiling, thinking again and again of what Brendel had said to him. “When you open the shop in the morning, Yussel won’t be there. If the police come looking for him, tell them you don’t know where he is. Nothing else. You don’t know where he is.”

That was all. She wouldn’t answer questions. She said she couldn’t, not yet.

“I don’t know where he is.”

What would the police want with Yussel?

“Rabbi, it’s me, the cherub Leo. I have a message.”

“From Yahweh?”

“The angel Yetta informed Yahweh that you were planning to choose Rabbi Jonah. Yahweh had an idea — He’s good at that sometimes. He instructed Yetta to tell me to tell you that since He created man with free will, you are free to choose whomever you desire. You may select Rabbi Jonah over Rabbi Simcha, if that’s what you want.”

“I knew He would be reasonable. We’ve always been on good terms, Yahweh and I.”

“Wait, I’m not finished. Yahweh said I should ask you whether, since He created man in His image, that means that He, Yahweh, also has free will.”

“Of course it does. Who could have more free will than Adonai?”

“Good. Because He said that if you choose Rabbi Jonah as the new Chief Rabbi, He, Yahweh, will strike Jonah dead. On the instant.”

“On the instant?”

“That’s what He said.”

“You mean, with lightning, like in the Bible?”

“Lightning He finds too dramatic nowadays. An affliction of the heart, most likely.”

“He would do that?”

“Joking He wasn’t.”

“That’s some free will I have.”

“The choice remains yours, Yahweh said.”

“Tell Yetta to thank Him for me.”

The Rabbi’s irony was lost on the cherub.

“Once you announce your successor, you’ll be able tell Him yourself.”

“Tell Him myself? I thought only angels . . .”

“Are you listening to me? You will be able to tell him yourself, angel Avram.”

“Angel Avram?”

“Dummkopf!” It was the female voice in the distance.

“Oy, vey. I wasn’t supposed to tell you yet.”

“That’s all right, I won’t tell a soul. I’ll die quicker, before He changes his mind. But I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“What wouldn’t you tell anyone?” Gilda asked, carrying in a small bowl of porridge, to see if he could keep it down.

“Sit, Gilda, sit. Have I got news!”

“About the new Chief Rabbi?”

“That, too.”