Acts of Faith (28 page)

“I can’t bear it,” she wept. “He’s sent away both my children. Where will you go, Danny? When will I see you again?”

All I could do was shrug. I was afraid to talk, fearing I would burst into tears and throw myself into her arms for the comfort I so badly needed.

But she had asked a valid question. Where
was
I going to go? I’d probably get a night or two in the dorm before they kicked me out for being a traitor—and then what?

“What will you do, Danny?” Mama sobbed.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Maybe I’ll go to graduate school next fall.”

“And study what?”

“I don’t know. I’m much too confused right now.”

I didn’t say I was tending toward Psychology, not wanting to incriminate Beller.

The reins with which I had held back my anger now slipped, and I vented all my rage on my poor mother.

“Do you think this is easy for me?” I shouted. “Do you actually think I wanted to hurt you—or even Papa? I’m upset. I’m very …”

She put her arms around me and wept so copiously that her tears stained my shirt.

“Danny, we’re your parents,” she implored. “Don’t just leave like this.”

I could not stand any more.

“He’s thrown me out,” I shouted. “To him I’m not a person—I’m just a link in his goddamn ‘golden chain.’ ”

“He loves you,” my mother pleaded. “He’ll get over it.”

I challenged her. “Do you honestly believe that?”

Mama did not move. She was torn into shreds of conflicting emotions and felt more lost than I.

I looked at her with sadness and compassion. After all, she had to remain in this house of perpetual mourning.

I kissed her on the forehead, took my suitcase, and ran down the stairs into the street.

I reached the corner, turned around, and took one final glance at the neighborhood where I was born and grew to manhood, the familiar homes of the people who had formed my childhood, the synagogue where I had prayed since I was old enough to read. The eternal flame would burn above the ark, but I knew it would never light my face again.

My punishment had begun.

I got back to the dorm and walked into my room, which—like my emotions—was in total disarray. Open books were spread out on the bed and the radiator, all remnants of my previous chaotic existence.

With unconscious irreverence I pushed several books to the floor and sat on my bed. Late as it was I felt a
desperate need to talk to someone—on the telephone at least. But I couldn’t muster the guts to wake up Beller. And I knew Ariel couldn’t provide the spiritual consolation I needed.

There was no one. So I just sat there motionless as my entire universe ossified into sadness.

I can’t recall how long it was except that during the time I was grieving the first dawn of my banishment had turned into day.

When I heard a knock at my door I thought for a moment it was one of the deans—or maybe two—come to kick me out … or put me in front of a firing squad.

It turned out, however, to be one of my former classmates from down the hall.

“Hey, Luria,” he said in a tone of annoyance, his excursion to my room having taken him away from his studies, “there’s a call for you.”

I shuffled to the pay phone and picked up the dangling receiver.

It was my mother.

“Danny,” she said, voice like a zombie, “your father’s had a stroke.”

A
fter her Modern Hebrew Poetry class, Deborah’s instructor, Zev Morgenstern—a tall, sinewy Canadian immigrant in his midthirties—stood at the doorway waiting to invite her discreetly for a cup of coffee.

She was flattered. Moments later they were sitting in an outdoor café—Zev trying to enjoy what looked like plastic cheesecake, and Deborah eating the sandwiches that would have been her dinner, since on Tuesdays and Thursdays she would arrive back at the kibbutz after the dining room had closed.

Zev had just concluded the seminar with a brilliant explication of Yehuda Amichai’s poem, “Half the people in the world,” evoking comparisons with the Roman poet Catullus, as well as Shakespeare and Baudelaire.

“It’s exhilarating,” Deborah enthused. “Back in Brooklyn they never even told us there was any Hebrew literature outside the Bible. I think you’re right to rank him among the greats.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Zev responded. “By the way, he lives about three blocks from me. I could take you to meet him some time, if you’d like. I think he’s as good as Yeats, don’t you?”

Deborah’s smile narrowed. “I’m embarrassed to say my acquaintance with English Lit sort of stopped at
Julius Caesar.
”

Zev smiled. “Well, if you’ll allow me to lead you across the Rubicon, I’d gladly give you a one-man tutorial in Modern English Poetry. Can you stay for dinner after next week’s class?”

She was torn. Inexplicably trying to deny herself the pleasure of this man’s company, she replied, “I’ve got a thirteen-month-old baby, and I should really be back at the kibbutz before he goes to bed. But I could come an hour earlier, if that’s okay with you.”

Zev could not suppress a monosyllabic expression of surprise. “Oh.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know you were married. I mean, you aren’t wearing a ring.”

Deborah shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Well, actually I’m not. I mean …”

She had never actually told the elaborate lie to which her fellow kibbutzniks were accomplices, believing that it shamelessly exploited the tragedy of Avi’s death, but now she allowed herself to continue.

“He was a pilot,” she began slowly. She did not have to say any more.

“I’m sorry,” Zev said sympathetically. “When was it?”

“Over a year ago,” she answered. “Lebanon.”

“And so he never saw his son.”

Deborah shook her head. “No,” she answered softly. “His father never saw him.”

“Well,” he commented at last, “you have the kibbutz. I’m sure they give you lots of moral support.”

She nodded, then glanced nervously at her watch. “I
think I’d better be going. I hate driving on those narrow roads at night.”

She stood up. Zev rose as well.

“Don’t forget next week. I’ll bring the books.”

Deborah smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”

In the year since Eli had been born, she had given no thought to seeking a relationship with any man. After all, she told herself with bitter irony, she was a woman who had never married but had been widowed twice.

She wondered why Zev had singled her out. There were far prettier girls in the seminar, and yet he had always given her a special smile when she entered the classroom. And whenever he read poetry out loud, it seemed as if he was reciting it just for her.

She had to admit to herself that she had found him attractive. Before they even said good-bye, she was looking forward to seeing him again. The thought both pleased and confused her.

The sun was setting, and atop Mount Carmel Deborah could feel a cooling breeze from the sea.

Ninety minutes later, when she pushed open the door to her
srif
, she was astonished to find a cloud of cigarette smoke. Sitting behind it was Boaz Ben-Ami.

Deborah took one look at his expression and let her books slide to the floor.

“All right,” she demanded, her heart pounding. “Tell me.”

T
hey had taken Papa to Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and rushed him into Intensive Care.

When I arrived, my half sisters were clustered protectively around Mama, both of them ashen-faced as if already sitting
shiva
—mourning my father’s memory.

They glared at me as if I were a murderer.

“How is he?” I asked.

They refused to answer.

The drab waiting room was silent, except for the quiet echoes of my mother’s sobs. I knelt down beside her as her head lay buried in her hands.

“Mama, is he … alive?”

Her nod was barely perceptible. Then I heard the muffled words, “He’s still unconscious.”

I looked up at my sisters and demanded, “What do the doctors say?”

Rena took pity on my desperation and whispered, “He’ll live. But tests they did say he’ll have some paralysis.” She paused, and added, “It’s pretty likely that his speech will be … slurred.”

Malka, the eldest, hissed at me, “
You
did this to him. Let this be on your conscience.”

I didn’t need
her
castigation. “C’mon, where is it written
that obedience demands you automatically enter your father’s profession?”

I turned my attention back to Mama. “Has anyone called Deborah?”

She nodded.

Rena explained, “I phoned the kibbutz. She’s coming—”

“Wonderful,” Malka muttered. “She can finish the job her brother started.”

Suddenly my mother stood and shouted, “
Shtil, kinder!
Stop this bickering. You are all his children—all of you. Now, Danny, you go Sunday and meet your sister at the airport.…”

I nodded.

“And you’ll stay at the house tonight.”

“No!” Malka objected.

Mama looked at her sternly. “Excuse me, while Moses is … ill,
I
make the rules,” she said.

They arranged for my mother to sleep at the hospital. My sisters and their husbands could walk there after morning services.

Both couples left before night fell, so they could at least ride home on the bus.

I waited with my mother, shared a partly defrosted kosher dinner provided by the hospital through which we barely spoke, and finally, when she had been given a sedative, left for home.

As I wandered through the darkened streets, something in me prayed I would be mugged.

Because I wanted to be physically assaulted for the unspeakable crime I had committed.

Though she was exhausted from the flight, and fraught with worry, Deborah looked healthier and prettier than I had ever seen her. Tanned and slender, she was totally unlike the pale, slightly overweight teenager I remembered.

We hugged each other tightly, in a moment of both
joy and sadness. I had been at the hospital earlier and could reassure her that Papa had regained consciousness at six
A.M.
, spoken briefly with Mama, and then gone to sleep.

“When can I see him?” she asked urgently.

“So far they’re only allowing Mama to go in. They may let him have more visitors this evening.”

“Danny, what exactly happened?”

I told her of my Great Betrayal and Malka’s accusation of attempted patricide.

“Listen, Danny,” she said affectionately, “no law says we have to live out our parents’ fantasies.”

I looked at her. A lot more had changed than her appearance.

Understandably, Deborah felt pretty grimy from the plane trip and wanted to wash and change. While she was showering, I sat on the bed, happy to be in her room again.

A small overnight case was flipped open, and underneath two paperbacks I noticed a photograph of a radiant woman holding a handsome blond baby. The background clearly was the kibbutz.

The woman was Deborah.

And it did not look like someone else’s child.

I was in such mental disarray that I couldn’t find the words to broach the subject with Deborah on our ride to the hospital. The focus of all my anxiety was my father’s health.

When we arrived my half sisters and their husbands were all crowded around Papa’s door, keeping impatient vigil.

Naturally, Malka greeted me with another reproach. “You didn’t come to services yesterday.”

I protested that what I did with my life was none of her business. I did not feel I owed her the whole truth, which was that I had felt too guilty to appear in public. I had spent the entire morning up in my room praying on
my own. But she continued haranguing me, arguing that if I had come to
shul
they could have called me to the Torah and then said a special prayer for Father’s recovery.

I retorted that if she felt so strongly,
she
could have gone to Beth El, the new Reform synagogue on Ocean Parkway, where women are called to the Torah.

“They’re not real Jews,” Malka retorted. “They have organ music—like a church.”

“They had all kinds of music in the Holy Temple,” Deborah said. “Read Jeremiah 33:11, and you’ll find an allusion to Psalm One hundred being performed by the Levitical chorus and orchestra.”

This stupid debate would have become even more acrimonious had Mama not appeared from inside the room. None of us dared ask how he was. We merely gazed at her.

“He talks—a little fuzzy, but he talks,” she began quietly. “The doctor said the girls can see him one at a time—”

“Thank God,” Malka muttered and started to go in.

“No.” My mother stopped her. “He wants to see Deborah first.”

My eldest sister froze in her tracks. “Why?”

“Because that’s what he wants,” Mama asserted.

I could see that Deborah was herself unsettled by this curious disregard of family hierarchy. Scarcely daring to breathe, she tentatively opened the door and entered.

She was in with him for about ten minutes, after which he spoke with the other sisters. As we stood outside, I asked Deborah how he was. She shrugged “Okay”—and had to bite her lip to keep from crying.

“What’s wrong? Is he still angry with you?”

She shook her head. “He … he asked me to forgive him.”

In the ensuing moments, I allowed myself a scintilla of hope. Perhaps he and I might also have a miraculous reconciliation.

When she came out, Malka answered the question before
I could even pose it. “He doesn’t want to see you, Daniel—not at all.”

“But why?” I pleaded.

“He says his son must become a rabbi. The Master of the Universe demands it.”

At that moment, Deborah—bless her—gripped my arm and squeezed it hard. It kept my heart from stopping.

It was strange. During the bus ride home from the hospital Deborah and I scarcely exchanged a word. I assumed she was silent out of concern for Father. I later discovered she had been thinking the same about me. And yet we had so many things to share. So many thoughts that could only be our secret property. Despite the distance and the lapses in communication, we knew that we were still the best friends that we had or would ever have.