Gravity (22 page)

When I get out, Neshama thrusts the phone into my hands. “Call her.”

“What are you talking about?”

She follows me into my room. I plug in my hairdryer and start fluffing my hair. “She called twice when you were in the shower.” Neshama yells over the noise.

I freeze and click off the dryer.

“I answered both times, and then Abba unplugged the phone.”

I relax.

“Ellie, she’s going to call when
Shabbos
is over.”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

“She’ll keep calling. They’ll get suspicious.”

Neshama pushes the phone into my hands and closes my door.

I sit down on the bed, wrapped in my towel, and dial Lindsay’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Finally.”

“Look, you can’t call here anymore.”

“I was wondering when you’d—”

“You’re not even in love with me, are you?” The word furls off my tongue before I can stop myself. I curl up in a ball on the bed.

Lindsay doesn’t say anything.

“Then just forget it,” I say. “Please stop calling.”

“Can’t we just be friends?”

I smirk. “You don’t get it. I don’t want just a friend. I want a...a...” I can’t say the word. “It’s not a game to me. It’s not tag, or hide-and-go-seek, or dare. This is who I am.” I want to
say I deserve more, but this sounds like something you’d hear on a talk show about personal growth. “Aren’t I more important than boys in cars? Aren’t I?” I demand.

Lindsay doesn’t answer. I want her to say, Yes, of course. I want her to tell me that she loves me. She won’t. Lindsay doesn’t love me. A sob rises up my throat. I wait another moment and hang up the phone.

Neshama knocks softly on the door. “Can I come in?”

“Go away.” I sob silently, my chest heaving.

She pushes open the door and sits next to me, wrapping her arms around me. My tears stain the front of her yellow blouse. She strokes my wet hair.

“I thought you had a crush on Joey McIntrye.”

I start to hiccup.

“What about Bo from
Days
? And Danny Durschwitz?”

I start to laugh, still crying. I wipe my chin with the back of my hand.

Neshama passes me a tissue. “The guests are going to be here any minute.”

I nod and blow my nose.

THE GUESTS ARE
similar to the ones from the fall: a few young men, but mostly women in modest clothing, eager to learn. Abba leads the blessings, Neshama and I bring out soup and salad and clear dishes. Ima serves meatballs. I eat without tasting my food, barely listening. I remove more dishes, help bring out dessert and tea. When Neshama and I start clearing the last dishes, Abba stops us.

“Wait,” he says, “I want to show you something.” He clears all the dishes onto the sideboard except one teacup, which he places in the center of the table. Neshama and I gape at Abba as he walks around the table, flapping each corner of the tablecloth, shifting the crumbs toward the cup. He scoops the crumbs into the cup with his fingers. “There,” he says, and places the nuts and fruit back on the table, a pleased expression on his face. “All clean.”

Neshama gives him a skeptical look.

“Come, sit down.” He pats the chair next to him. Neshama and I sit automatically, the other guests resuming their seats.

“Neshama,” my father begins.

“Yes?”

“Tell me, what are the things prohibited on the Sabbath?”

Neshama stares at him. Abba hasn’t tested us like this in years. “All work, including sowing, reaping, gathering, winnowing, food preparation—”

“Ah, what is winnowing?”

“Winnowing?”

“Yes, what is it?” The guests gaze curiously at Abba and Neshama.

She pauses. “I have no idea. I’ve only been taught to memorize, not—”

“Let me explain.” He leans forward, knuckles on the edges of the table. “Winnowing involves beating the wheat to release the kernels. Yes?”

Neshama nods.

“Tell me, Neshama, is this work?”

“Yes, Abba.”

“And may we work on
Shabbos
.”

“No, Abba.” Neshama stares straight ahead, avoiding the guests’ eyes.

“Very good. Now, tell me, when we shake out a tablecloth on
Shabbos
eve, are we not releasing the crumbs from the cloth as if we were winnowing?”

Neshama grimaces. “I suppose you would think so.”

“Then should we consider shaking this tablecloth to be work?”

“I guess,” Neshama says slowly. “In your opinion, but—”

“Then”—Abba slips into a sing-song, his right thumb coming up to accent his point—”by scooping up the crumbs like I showed you, we have found another way to keep God’s word. And when we are closer to Him, then we are closer to bringing Moshiach.” He smiles at the guests around the table. They tenuously smile back at him.

Neshama’s mouth settles into a hard tight line until her lips disappear altogether. She perches on the edge of her chair.

When the guests have left and Neshama and I are alone in the kitchen, I whisper, “If we all just sang and didn’t worry about crumbs, wouldn’t
Moshiach
come faster?” Neshama glares at me and marches into the dining room where Abba is still sitting with his prayer book. She yanks off the tablecloth, sending salt and pepper shakers tumbling, knives clattering, dirty forks flying onto the carpet. She whips the tablecloth, ripping it through the air, the remaining crumbs scattering over the table and chairs. “Who cares,” she yells, “who
fucking
cares?”

Ima pushes open the kitchen door.

Abba gawks, mouth open, eyes wide.

She flings the tablecloth on the floor at Abba’s feet. “How dare you involve me in your crazy ideas? That’s it. I’m finished with your religious crap. I’m leaving.”

I crouch to gather the forks.

Abba stands up. “What are you talking about?”

Neshama gulps, clenches her hands. Her beautiful blond curls have come undone from her bun, descending down her back. “I got into Business at UBC and UVic.”

Abba clutches his prayer book, his eyebrows shooting up. “BC? I thought you applied for programs here.”

“I did, and away too.”

Abba stands up. “How will you afford this?”

Neshama backs against the wall by the buffet. “Bubbie said she’d help.”

Abba paces. “Where will you live?”

“In a dorm.”

“With kosher food?”

“Oh, stop it. I’m
leaving
.”

He stops pacing and looks at her for a long moment. Neshama glares back at him, arms crossed over her chest.

He turns and walks straight out the front door without his coat.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK
I come home every day after school and catch up on all the homework I’ve missed. I keep myself busy so I won’t think about Lindsay. When I do think about
her, it’s not lust or love I feel, but anger. I’m not imagining her skin or hair, but the look on her face in the car. I write a makeup test on Shakespeare. On Wednesday after school I drag Becca and Esther to an
IMAX
film on coral reefs, and in the evening I help Abba make muffins for a school bake sale. He doesn’t talk to me the whole time, glowering in the flour. Neshama is almost never home. She even sleeps at Bubbie’s one night.

FRIDAY AFTER SCHOOL
, Ima asks me to go to
shul
with her.

“Which shul?” I ask.

“Just this one I’ve been going to for a while.”

“What’s it like?”

She pauses, thinking. “It’s like, like one big burst of energy.”

“Oh, well, sure...I guess so.”

She smiles. “You’ll like it.”

Ima’s
shul
is a nondescript building off Bathurst. We go up a narrow flight of stairs to a large multipurpose room, with a screen down the middle and rows of chairs. A modest ark sits on a wooden table at the front of the room. On the women’s side a hallway leads to a bathroom and a small library where we leave our coats heaped on a table.

Ima and I choose seats in the middle.

“Why’s it so quiet?”

“We’re early.”

A few women smile and nod to us as they take their seats. I notice the men’s side has no chairs; the tops of the
men’s heads are visible over the thin screen. The room gradually fills up, grows crowded until there are not enough seats and young women stand at the back. Ima is the only woman wearing a scarf covering her hair. A few young mothers with babies wear stylish hats.

A voice from across the screen calls out, “
Mizmor Le David
,” Sing the song of David; and voices rise around me, male and female, loud and vibrant, passionately chanting the first invocation of the start of
Shabbos
, the Psalm of David. Ima closes her eyes, her prayer book to her chest, her voice blending in with those around her. I haven’t heard her sing since December.

“Sing the song of David, render his words unto him, and let peace into your soul.” Her voice slides through me, breathy and passionate, making me shiver.

The week slips off me: Neshama and Abba’s argument, their silence, Lindsay’s phone calls and her silence. Voices harmonize around us. I start to hum, and the tension melts from my shoulders, my lips forming the words. I haven’t prayed in months, not at school or at home.

The prayer ends, the tune melting into a psalm:
Yedid Nefesh
. I peer over the screen to see who is leading, but all I can see are rows of men’s heads and a small red-headed child dancing wildly on the shoulders of a very tall man.

The room grows more crowded, heat pressing in. Girls in rows ahead take off sweaters and reveal thin bare arms, shoulders even.

We slip from prayer to prayer, one continuous burst of song-filled energy and passion. The tunes are new, but the
words are the same. I close my eyes and let my voice resound with the others. I don’t care what the words mean, I just want to sing.

When the singing stops I open my eyes and file out of the room into the cool spring evening. Sweat evaporates from my hair.

Ima kisses me. “
Shabbat Shalom
.” We stand on the pavement watching people greet each other. We start the long walk home.

“That was really different,” I say. We head up the hill on Bathurst, cars whizzing by.

Ima smiles at me. “The singing is good, isn’t it?”

I nod.

“You can really feel the presence of
Hashem
there.”

I shuffle my feet on the pavement, look down. “Ima.” I clasp my hands behind my back. “Do you really believe in, you know, believe in God?”

“Of course I do.”

“Even after what happened at Beth El?”

She blushes a little. “That’s just people acting foolish.”

I raise my eyebrows.

She sighs. “Look, this is the way I think about it. God—it’s a hard concept. Think of it as just a force.”

“A force?”

“Yeah, like gravity. You believe in gravity, right?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Well, that’s all God is.”

I crinkle my brow. “Something that holds us on the earth? That doesn’t make sense at all.” I swing my hands
down against my thighs. “You can measure gravity—you use Newtons or whatever—but you can’t measure God.”

Ima nods and doesn’t speak. She stops at the intersection to wait for the traffic to clear. “Do you believe in love?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you believe in love?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Can you measure that?”

I swallow. “I guess not.”

“How do you know you’re feeling it?”

I think about Lindsay in her kilt and sweater running down the halls of her house. I miss her bitterly. I shake my head and concentrate on Ima. “You just do.”

“So, what’s the difference? We can’t measure love, but we never deny its existence.”

The traffic light changes, and Ima starts walking. I pause on the sidewalk. We can’t measure love, but we never deny its existence. And God? I jog to catch up to her. “I don’t get it. It’s just the same?”

“Well, that’s the way I think of it.”

“And science?”

Ima looks at me. “Sure. Love, science—I don’t think there’s much difference. Do you want to walk through the ravine?”

The light is starting to fade around us. “We’ll have to walk fast.”

We head down the slope to the path. The snow has melted and the earth looks raw and tired, dark piles of mulch, rotted leaves tamped down.

“In Jerusalem,” Ima continues, “when we walked to
shul
you could see the whole city quieting down, everyone getting ready for rest, the traffic thinning out. I loved that.”

“Ima, what you said about God and love, you think it’s in all love?”

“Sure. I think so, don’t you?”

I kick some rotted leaves. “Even if you love the wrong person?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any such thing.”

“Really?”

“As long as they don’t hurt you.”

“And if they do?”

She glances at me. I squirm. “Then you leave. Fast.” I avoid looking at her. “I still think love is always good. I loved being in California, and I don’t think it was the right thing for me, but I still felt loved there.”

“Do you ever think about going back?”

Ima looks up at the trees, shrugs her shoulders. “I want to be somewhere quiet, somewhere without traffic and, you know, people who judge, the Mrs. Bachners of the world maybe. But not there. I like that
shul
, just song and prayer.” Ima grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I’m really glad you came with me tonight. I knew you’d like it.”

“The singing was good.”

“We’ll have to take Neshama or Abba.”

“I don’t think Neshama wants to go to
shul
anymore.”

Ima’s voice is sad. “I know.”

The light around us dims into shadows, the bushes looming around us. “We’d better run if we’re going to make
it before it’s really dark. Abba and Neshama will be waiting, hungry.”

Ima nods and we pick up our pace, jogging along the dark path toward the streetlights at the top of the hill.

Ten

T
he week before school finishes in June, I come home Friday afternoon to find Ima, Bubbie and Neshama in the living room. Bubbie’s silver hair is cut shorter, and her low neckline reveals a small diamond pendant. Her long nails are the same hot pink as her blouse and her high-heeled sandals.