Gravity (11 page)

The fan whirs above me, cool air swirling down over my sweaty head. A sob catches in my throat. Eyes closed, I take some deep breaths until the tears recede.

Hunching over my lap, I read Mrs. Lowenstein’s note again. My head aches, and my hands leave sweaty splotches on the thin paper.
Evil impulses.
I choke back nausea and carefully hide the note in the inside pocket of my bag.

I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. Just as I am replacing the book, Rabbi Lowenstein enters the room. He is a tiny man in his early sixties with a gray beard, crinkly brown eyes and a rounded belly. Unlike the rest of our teachers, he talks, leaning back in his chair, without using his hands to accentuate his points. “Doing some homework, Ellisheva?” he asks pleasantly. He balances a stack of texts against his chest.

“Oh, just some research,” I mumble, staring at my loafers.

“Very good. It’s nice to see a student starting the year off right.” He glances at the cover of my book. “Doesn’t your father teach
halacha
?”

“Um, yes he does.”

“Well, I’m happy to answer any questions you have. I’m sure your father is a great help.”

I blush. “Yes, yes he is.” I smile weakly and nod good-bye.

I burst out of the building and jog toward the ravine, not stopping until I reach the slope down into the trees. The dense green foliage tunnels the sun-dappled path, the maples touching overhead. Shuffling toward Bubbie’s house in Forest Hill, I pass afternoon joggers in sleek running tights; moms walking their kids; elderly couples, their lapdogs yapping at the squirrels.

“Ellie, come on in.” Bubbie plants an air kiss near my ear. I breathe in perfume, cigarette smoke and blue cheese. I follow her through the paneled hall past the living room with its black-and-white floral wallpaper. Bubbie’s house is full of pristine white sofas and black hard-edged furniture

She wipes her hands on the apron covering her wool slacks and turtleneck sweater. “I’m just cleaning up from my bridge group. The girls brought all this sumptuous food. Would you like some sandwich loaf?” She points to a cream cheese-covered dome of bread layered with tuna, egg and salmon.

“Is it kosher?”

“Kosher style.”

“Neh.”

“Here.” Bubbie reaches into one of her white kitchen drawers and takes out a box of the kosher biscuits she keeps for Neshama and me.

She carefully covers the sandwich loaf, her fuchsia fingernails snared in plastic wrap.

I take a bite of biscuit. “Bubbie, these are so stale.”

She shoves the box in the trash. “Well, you obviously don’t come by often enough.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what?” Bubbie rummages in her enormous refrigerator. She pulls out a plate of raw vegetables.

“I’m reading about the ice age and how the glaciers carved the rock. You know, the Canadian Shield.”

“Sounds great. By the way, did you ever hear from that Lindsay?”

“No...I left a message, but she hasn’t returned my call.”

“That’s odd.” Bubbie scrubs her hands at the sink. “Did you have a fight or something?”

“No, not really.” I pinch my arm, squeezing until it hurts. I take a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you something—”

Bubbie interrupts, “Let me just get one thing. I’ll be right back.”

I hear her climbing the stairs as I wander through the kitchen. A stack of dirty china plates with pink roses waits by the sink to be washed. Silver monogrammed dessert forks dry on a dishcloth. I sit down at the kitchen table and pull out Mrs. Lowenstein’s letter.
Evil impulses are often just like a bad habit.

I used to suck my thumb and chew my fingernails. Neshama picked her scabs until they bled. I pinch my arm again, my fingernails leaving white impressions.

When I hear Bubbie coming back I ram Mrs. Lowenstein’s letter in my pocket. Bubbie pulls out a chair next to me and puts a pink floral cosmetic bag on the table. She uncaps a bottle of nail polish remover and starts rubbing off the fuchsia polish. The acrid smell burns my nostrils.

“You didn’t like that color?”

“I thought I’d go back to this one.” She lifts a bottle of burgundy polish with the tips of her fingers. “More subdued. You wanted to ask me something?”

“Oh...I wanted to ask you...do you think people can change?” I twist the polyester edge of my skirt, lean on one elbow.

“Can you do my right hand?” Bubbie holds out the cotton swab. “What do you mean?”

I rub off the polish. “Well, just become different.”

“Your mom certainly has changed,” Bubbie says. “From Eaton’s and her scarf collection to that convent thing and now this, this new plan.” She draws burgundy polish over her
thumbnail in one long stroke. “And your sister is determined to change.”

“Yeah, maybe. That’s not what I really mean. Besides, Neshama isn’t changing that much.”

“No?”

“Well, she’s always wanted to be different.”

“I guess so.” Bubbie holds out her fingers.“ Do you like this color better?”

I nod yes, chew on a hangnail.

“I’ll do yours if you like,” Bubbie offers.

“Neh, I don’t think Abba would like it.” I kiss Bubbie’s cheek. “I gotta go.”

“Stop by again soon.”

I jog back home through the ravine.

Neshama and Ima are slowly transforming day by day, Ima into her own self-styled prophet, Neshama into Bubbie.

Lindsay wants to become a stripper instead of a private school girl.

Me, I just want to be normal.

AT HOME IMA
is typing in her and Abba’s office. “Hello,” I call to her.

She looks up, says, “Oh, hi,” and goes back to her writing.

I join Abba in the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” I ask.

“Salmon. Can you set the table?”

I nod and start pulling dishes out of the cupboard. From the corner of my eye I watch Ima pounding on her typewriter.
She pulls out the paper, reads it over, then leans forward and licks the words, one long reach of her tongue from the bottom of the page to the top. I watch her rip off a corner, put the scrap in her mouth. She rests back in her chair, chewing.

I sigh and turn back to Abba. “Can I ask you something?”

Abba starts washing small red potatoes. “Shoot.”

“Jews are chosen, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, what if you do something that makes you un-chosen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say, you’re like Bubbie—not religious.”

“You’re still chosen.”

I pull out place mats from under the counter. “What if it’s something worse, like...like you’re a leper?”

“A leper?” Abba turns to look at me.

“Just say someone was.”

“Lepers are still part of the chosen. Jewish lepers, that is.”

“Okay, what about if you do something the Torah says you shouldn’t do, and you do it regularly and know it’s wrong?”

“You’re still part of the chosen, you’re just not living up to your potential. What’s this all about?”

“Oh, nothing really.”

We are quiet a few minutes. I finish setting the table. “Abba, do you ever find a part of the Torah you can’t follow?”

“Like what?”

“Um...well, oh, forget it.”

I decide to bite the inside of my cheek where no can see, and to memorize the periodic table of elements whenever I think of Lindsay. I’m not keen on psalms.

SUNDAY MORNING I
get up early, and Abba drives me to the Ontario Science Centre. Other than the ravine, this is one of my favorite places.

“So, what are you going to see today?” Abba asks me.

“Ima found me these shells in Israel in the desert, in Mitzpe Ramon.” I pry open the lid on the canister of sand and show him the white swirls. “I want to learn more about them.”

“Shells in the desert?”

“Yeah, water used to cover everywhere, even Israel.”

“Interesting,” Abba says. “Do you need a ride home?”

“No, that’s okay. I’m meeting Becca later.” Becca has convinced me to sneak into
Dirty Dancing
. Neshama started rumors at school, hushed whispers about the bulge in Patrick Swayze’s pants. Becca has been talking about it all week.

Abba drops me off, and I head up to the natural science exhibit. The shells Ima found are actually a fossil called ammonite, part of a squid-like marine animal that existed from the Paleozoic era to the end of the Cretaceous era. The Egyptians considered the fossils to be divine and called them ammonite after the God Ammon.

On the bus to the movie theater, I think about the patterns the sea would have left on the sand as it receded. The sea was there before Abraham and Sarah, before there
was even the Torah. No wonder the Egyptians thought ammonite was divine. If we still prayed to the sea, loved it the way Jews loved
Hashem,
we wouldn’t dump toxins in our lakes, or overfish our waters. We would pray for the sea’s health and abundance. I shiver at the thought of a Divine Sea. Out the bus window, all I can see are endless concrete buildings and asphalt roads. I could take the subway all the way down to Lake Ontario, but, there too, it’s just a concrete shore. All I have is where water used to be.

Up at the cottage there were hummingbirds whirring around the feeder and bluebirds cawing for peanuts. And in the lake Lindsay swam, her bare arms and legs glimmering wet, her hair alive, like rippled grass down her back. Lindsay. I bite my cheek and glance at the elements I copied onto my wrist:
Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium
.

I meet Becca at the theater at Yonge and Eglinton. She giggles with delight. I keep glancing around us nervously. We don’t see anyone we know. The theater lights go down and the music comes on. Becca fixes her eyes on Patrick Swayze’s swiveling hips. I keep mine on Baby’s.

That night at home I lie in bed and flip through my geology book. Inside are the words I’ve been looking for:
molten
,
estuary
,
erosion
. Pages and pages on volcanoes spewing, landmasses slipping, tide lines ebbing. I can smell the salt of the sea, hear the bubble of lava, feel plates shifting. I imagine Lindsay expertly maneuvering her canoe. I bite my cheek:
Hydrogen
,
Helium
,
Lithium
,
Beryllium
.

I read until my eyelids start to close, my mind saturated with sand dunes shifting, glaciers carving paths and leaving
lakes behind. Like when I swam with Lindsay, the way she teased me, the delicious scent below her ear. I bite my lip. I must want to change, become the person I was before the summer, the Ellisheva Gold whose name means “God’s promise,” the Ellisheva who wanted to marry the ocean, but would settle for living by it.

A car passes, the headlights flashing shadows across the wall. Yes, change. I clamp my cheek in my teeth.
Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen
,
Oxygen
, Lindsay. Like breathing oxygen.

BY
YOM KIPPUR
, The Day of Atonement, I know big chunks of the periodic table backward and forward. I know which elements form ionic bonds and which are least reactive. Since I can rattle helium to lithium and think about Lindsay’s hips at the same time, I’ve decided to memorize the Latin for echinoderms instead, starting with sea stars: Sunflower Star,
Pycnopodia helianthoides
.

At
shul
, I sit between Ima and Neshama at the back of the balcony. The fans swirl warm air above us, the men’s chanting rising from below. Neshama slumps in her chair, her head tipped back, silently counting the lights in the ceiling. She absently pats her growling stomach, licks her lips. Ima stands to my right, swaying, quietly mumbling prayers with the rest of the congregation. Neshama and I purposely led her to the back, just in case. She stood all of
Rosh Hashanah
, singing and swaying. She didn’t sit down except for the sermon.

For once the women’s section at Beth El is quiet. People are tired, hot, hungry, faint from fasting, perhaps even
engaged in prayer, asking God to forgive them for their sins. Whispered greetings are the only conversation. Requests for forgiveness, the response nodded. “All the best for the New Year.”

“You too, have an easy fast.”

Not even Mrs. Bachner notices Ima. She’s busy with her daughter and her five grandchildren visiting from New York.

We stand for the confession, Neshama wiping her forehead and sighing for the zillionth time. The
shul
is always too hot on
Yom Kippur
and we’re always overdressed in our new fall clothes. My tan jacket with the shoulder pads and big buttons rests in a wrinkled heap on the back of my chair. I chant,
God and God of our fathers, pardon our sins on this Day of Atonement. Forgive us the sin of disrespect for our parents. Forgive us the sin of licentiousness, unchastity, wanton looks. Forgive us the sin we committed by unclean lips
. Forgive me for holding Lindsay’s salty shoulders, kissing her minty lips, wanting to stroke the curve of her waist.

My eyes jolt open, my cheeks burn. My tongue flits to the raw sore in my mouth, making me flinch. I reach my hand around to the back of my head, twist a strand of hair around my index finger and pull, the hair ripping at the roots.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

Neshama picks a hair off my shoulder. “That thing with your hair.”

“What are you talking about?”

She holds up a dark strand. “This.”

“Just forget it,” I whisper.

After two weeks of cheek biting my mouth was so raw, blood oozing, I decided to pull my hair out instead.

Neshama shrugs and focuses on pushing back her cuticles.

I open my book again. Please forgive me for girl lust. Please help me change. Please.

We stand for the Torah reading, a quiet chorus of women’s voices. I hear Neshama on my left, and from my other side, Ima’s voice, pure and clear. She sings out, her eyes closed, her hand across her heart, her voice round and whole, but breathy at the edges as if she’s singing with all the air from her lungs, her chest pushing out.

Ima’s voice soars louder and louder, sending shivers down my spine. In it I hear true contrition. Mrs. Zissler glances back at us, then Mrs. Blume. Mrs. Bachner turns and makes a
tsk-tsk
noise. My shoulders tense. I look at Neshama nervously.