Acts of Faith (9 page)

“Could you maybe give me a for instance?” the Rav asked.

“Well, I’d like to go to college.”

“ ‘College?’ ” her father echoed with amazement. “For what purpose should you want to go to college? Did your mother go? Did either of your sisters?”

“Times have changed,” Deborah answered with quiet determination.

The Rav pondered for a moment, then reached over and patted his daughter’s hand affectionately. “You’re very special, Deborah. You of all my daughters … are the brightest and most pious.”

Deborah lowered her head, hoping to mask some of the delight this compliment had given her.

“So,” the Rav continued, “we won’t restrict our search for a good husband just to Brooklyn—or New York City even. I assure you, there are many worthy candidates in Philadelphia, Boston, or Chicago.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Well,”—her father smiled—“I have already taken the liberty of making inquiries.”

He leaned over, kissed his daughter on the cheek, then patting Rachel’s shoulder whispered, “I’m working on a difficult ruling. Don’t wait up.”

When he had left the room, Rachel took her daughter’s hand in hers. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. He’ll never force you.”

Deborah merely nodded, thinking, He didn’t “force” Rena either. Father had a way of creating a tidal wave, drop by drop.

“Mama, is it written in stone that a girl has to get married when she’s so young? I mean, God didn’t mention this to Moses on Mount Sinai, did He?”

“Darling,”—Rachel smiled indulgently—“it’s our tradition to get married early. Besides, nobody’s rushing. I’m sure I could convince your father to let you wait a year or maybe even two.”

“I’d still be only eighteen,” she answered plaintively. “I can’t imagine myself at that age having to cut off my hair and put on a wig.”

Deborah looked at her mother and her
sheitel
of synthetic hair and wished that she could disappear. Rachel’s smile reassured her.

“Want to know a little secret?” she began. “It isn’t the end of the world. I hear lots of fancy socialites wear wigs.”

“Not to make them unattractive,” her daughter countered.

Rachel sighed with exasperation. “Listen, Deborah, hold your horses for a minute. Why not wait and see what kind of prospects your father comes up with? Maybe he’ll find someone with the strength of Samson and the mind of Solomon.”

“Oh, sure,” said Deborah with a tiny laugh. “And we’ll be married by Elijah the Prophet.”

To which her mother responded, “Amen.”

Rachel Luria did not exaggerate her husband’s resourcefulness.

In April of Deborah’s seventeenth year, he came home from evening prayer waving a manila envelope.

“Aha, I knew it,” he declared. “I knew Chicago was the place to look.”

He turned to Deborah with a flourish and announced, “My darling, in here is your future husband.”

“Then he can’t be very big,” she joked weakly.

“But this boy is Rebbe Kaplan’s son. He has all the virtues anyone could want. You’ve heard the expression tall, dark, and handsome?”

“Don’t tell me,” said Deborah facetiously. “It’s Gary Cooper.”

“I never heard of any Cooper boy,” her father said blankly. “I was discussing Asher Kaplan—a tip-top candidate. Not only is your future husband steeped in piety and Torah, he’s six foot five and plays basketball for the University of Chicago. Under special dispensation, of course.”

“With or without his skullcap?” she asked sarcastically.

“With, naturally,” her father countered. “That’s what makes him so unusual. And he never plays on Saturdays, unless the game’s after
Shabbes.
”

“Wow!” Danny interposed in awe. “Like Sandy Koufax of the Dodgers. He never pitches on Jewish holidays.”

“This Koufax boy I also never heard of. But Kaplan—”

“I don’t know,” said Deborah, hoping levity would dismiss the topic. “He sounds too athletic for me.”

“Will you at least meet him?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course, my darling.” Her father smiled. “It can be any time you want.”

Deborah sighed, defeated.

After an enthusiastic exchange of letters between the two fathers, Asher Kaplan was dispatched to Brooklyn on his chivalrous quest. He lodged with cousins two blocks distant from the Lurias.

Deborah got her first glimpse of him in synagogue that Saturday morning, when she peeked over the white curtain which protected the women from men’s lustful gazes.

There was no room to doubt that he was six feet five inches tall. And he lived up to the “handsome” part as well, with his shock of auburn hair and chiseled features. Moreover, he was unbearded, and though his sideburns were of the required length, they did not spiral into curls on either side.

When her father honored Asher as a visitor by calling him up to read the Torah, he not only chanted the initial blessings by heart, but went on to demonstrate that he could sing the music of the text itself with complete fluency.

Moreover, he was chosen to come last and recite the portion from the Prophets. Those were practically the same prenuptial honors granted to her sister’s husband. Deborah half-joked to herself that maybe Mama would be taking her that evening to the
mikva.
She had to admit that, had she not been under such pressure, she might have found him appealing.

Mama, who was sitting next to her, could not keep from whispering how impressed she was with Asher Kaplan’s singing.

“What a golden voice,” she gushed.

C’mon, Mama, Deborah thought to herself. Do
you
have to be on his side too?

After the service, while her father with Danny in tow was introducing their Chicago visitor to various important worshipers, Deborah and her mother hurried home to remove
the cholent from the tin stand covering the burner on the stove which had been warming it all night.

By the time the men arrived, it was clear to Deborah that even Danny had given the candidate his seal of approval. His admiring eyes kept gazing up at Asher as if his head were in the stratosphere. Clearly, if there was going to be a battle, she would be vastly outnumbered.

All through the meal, Rav Luria’s face was flushed with self-congratulation. He was certain that he had found the special bridegroom for his special daughter.

He even let Asher lead the after-dinner discussion, and the Chicagoan’s explication of the Torah portion was yet another demonstration of his fitness to be the Silczer Rebbe’s son-in-law.

Asher scarcely looked at Deborah. Outside of “Nice to meet you,” in Yiddish, he had not addressed a single word to her.

They spoke of Jeremiah’s warnings to the sinners, whose misdeeds were “written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond.”

At which point Deborah interrupted and recited the next verse. “It is graven upon the tablet of their heart.…”

All faces suddenly fixed upon her, wide-eyed with astonishment.

She had done some preparation too.

At long last the great moment arrived. The entire family went for a stroll in nearby Prospect Park. Rabbi and Mrs. Luria kept a careful and discreet ten paces behind “so the children can get to know each other.”

Asher was desperate to make a good impression on Deborah. Not only because Chicago was counting on him, but because he genuinely liked her.

At first sight he had been taken by her large brown eyes and sultry aspect. He had genuinely admired her voice when they had sung the Grace After Meals, and the pluck with which she had entered the men’s conversation.

“They didn’t exaggerate,” he remarked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My parents told me all these wonderful things about you and your family. For once it wasn’t false advertising.”

He paused, hoping she would reciprocate.

She sensed this, and finally said, “And you—you’re just as tall as they told me.”

Is that all? thought Asher to himself.

“I hear you’re a real
eshes chayil
,” he said, tossing her the ultimate accolade for a Jewish girl.

“In other words, ‘good wife material,’ ” Deborah replied tartly. “Actually, it depends how you translate the Hebrew term. I mean, if
gibor chayil
means a hero in battle, why couldn’t
eshes chayil
mean a
woman
in battle?”

Asher wrinkled his forehead and shook his head, inwardly deliberating whether it would be wise to engage his bride-to-be in a semantic quibble. He decided it was best to placate.

“Can we change the subject?” he pleaded.

“I don’t know anything about basketball,” she replied.

“Well then, do you want to know about my prospects?”

Deborah merely shrugged.

They walked along for several minutes, each pretending to admire the foliage.

Then Asher spoke again. “Well, just in case you’re interested, I’m not going to be a rabbi.”

“Oh?” she replied. “Is your father upset?”

“Not really. I’ve got two older brothers who’re already leading congregations of their own. Anyway, I just thought you might like to know that I’m going to be a doctor. What do you think of that?”

“I think that’s wonderful,” she answered sincerely and then after a moment added, “Do you know what I want to be?”

“A wife, I hope.”

“Oh, I will eventually,” she replied. “But I’d like to be something else as well.”

“What else is there?” he asked.

“I’d like to be a scholar.”

“But you’re a woman.”

“So I’ll be a woman scholar,” she replied.

Exasperated, and feeling the clock running down, Asher put on a full-court press.

“Deborah, do you mind if I ask you a simple question?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you like me?”

“Yes,” she replied uneasily.

“Well, do you want to marry me or not?”

“A simple yes or no answer?” she said.

“Yes,” he replied.

Deborah looked up into his hazel eyes, and uttered, “No.”

I
t was a few minutes before eleven on Friday evening.

Deborah Luria sat alone in the living room reading her Bible. As always, she had left the Song of Songs for last.

She was so engrossed that she barely heard the key turn in the front door lock. Even then, her reverie was broken only when the new arrival murmured shyly, “Good
Shabbes
, Miss.”

She looked up. It was the gentile boy her family and the neighbors had engaged to extinguish the lights.

Aware that it was improper even to be in the same room with him, Deborah nodded her head and began to rise to her feet.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I must be holding you up.”

“That’s all right. Actually, I’m a little early. I can go take care of the Shapiros and come back.”

“No, no,” Deborah protested. “I’ll stop reading.”

She closed the book, placed it carefully on the table, and left the room.

“Good night,” the young man whispered. But she seemed not to hear.

When Timothy Hogan had first begun to work for the Lurias, he had barely noticed Deborah, who was then a shy, gawky adolescent with dark, curly hair. Yet with the
passing of time he had fallen under the spell of her exotic beauty.

He knew it was wrong, yet in moments of weakness he would pray that when he arrived to perform his Friday duties he might catch a glimpse of her.

He watched her dissolve into the shadowed hallway and realized he had behaved improperly. These girls were not supposed to talk to
any
boys—much less Irish Catholics. Though she had spoken only a few words, the echo of her lovely voice lingered in the room.

Curiosity impelled him to overstep the boundary once again. He leaned forward to see what she had been reading and was struck by the fact that this pensive rabbi’s daughter had been sitting all alone with the Holy Bible.

Upstairs, Deborah undressed in the darkness of her room, but as she lay on her pillow and the onset of sleep relaxed her thoughts, she could still see the blue light of Timothy Hogan’s eyes.

I must tell my father, part of her said. But then of course Papa would fire him, and I would never see him again.

But I was wrong to answer him. Why
did
I?

Suddenly it dawned on her.

Tim Hogan had been speaking Yiddish.

Although she made a solemn oath to go to bed earlier the following Friday, she was still downstairs when Timothy arrived at the unprecedented hour of ten-thirty.

“Please don’t let me disturb you,” he said, a slight tremor in his voice.

She pretended to ignore him. But she did not rise and leave as she had the previous week.

After another moment, Tim asked softly, “Would you like me to come back later?”

She sat up and said almost involuntarily, “How come you know Yiddish?”

“Well, it’s been four years since I started working for the families, so I’ve had a lot of time to pick it up. Anyway, it’s sure a lot easier to speak than to read.”

“You can
read
—?”

“Only very slowly,” Timothy answered. “You know Mr. Wasserstein is almost blind. After I started helping him on Friday nights, he persuaded me to come in a couple of afternoons a week so he could teach me to read the
Daily Forward
to him.”

Deborah was touched at the thought of their eighty-year-old neighbor reaching into the semidarkness of his memory to explain Hebrew letters to this young Catholic boy.

“But how can he teach you if he can’t see the page?”

“Oh, he’s worked out a very interesting system. He knows the Psalms by heart, so he makes me turn to the one that begins with whatever letter we’re learning. For example, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ begins with
aleph
, ‘When Israel left Egypt’ begins with
bet.
And so forth.”

“That’s very clever,” Deborah said with admiration. “And very generous on your part.”

“Oh, it’s the least I can do. Mr. Wasserstein is so lonely—except for me, his only contact with the outside world is
shul.
”

Suddenly, he suppressed a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Deborah asked.

“He keeps joking that I’d make a good rabbi. Sometimes I actually think he’s serious.”