Hush (30 page)

At 9:03 a.m. there was a knock on the door. It was a delivery from Breakfast Bagel with a bouquet of flowers and a tray of ready-to-eat, fresh-from-the-oven bagels, lox, eggs, and two salads.

To the young Geldbart family: From your loving parents.

I spread out my new floral tablecloth that was meant for
Shabbos
, but Surela said I should use it for the week of
sheva brachos
to impress my new husband.
Sheva brachos,
meaning “seven blessings,” are the blessings that are recited over a cup of wine as part of a festive evening meal that continues every night for a week after the wedding.

I set the table with the floral cutlery, and then said the morning prayers, sending up an extra word for a happy marriage, a long life, health, and wealth—but first a baby—and waited for Yankel, who had left for prayers as soon as he got out of bed, looking furtively around as if guilty of a secret crime.

I wore my simple-but-elegant-for-home house robe, applied not-too-much makeup, and waited. Yankel had gone to
shul
with my brother Yossi, who would be his guardian for the week. For seven days after marriage, every bride and groom needed a guardian, any available relative, who accompanied them anytime they left the house. It was a tradition, or a law, begun in ancient times to protect them from evil spirits.

I heard quiet footsteps coming down the carpeted stairs. I grabbed my wig, pulling it over my head, and I looked in the mirror. It was crooked, definitely crooked. The bangs were hanging over my ears, the side was in the front, and my real hair stuck out everywhere. I pulled the wig frantically to the right. Too fast. The bangs were now hanging over my other ear. I shoved it hard to the left. Still crooked. Forget it. I would wear a kerchief.

But the wig would not come off. I pulled at the tip and yanked it hard. A clump of hair came out, my scalp tingled, but still it hung on. A bobby pin in my hair had gotten tangled in the net and I stared in the mirror, unable to keep the thing on or take it off.

Yankel was walking into the kitchen. I rushed to the door of the bedroom and shut it. In tears I stared at the phone. Should I call my mother to come help me?
However
did they get their wigs on? I tried once more. This time I pulled it off gently from the back. Then, reaching in for the bobby pin that had ruined my grand and regal entrance, I yanked it out. Holding the cursed wig in my hand, I shoved it back onto the foam head that held it. Then I put on a kerchief.

When I walked into the kitchen, Yankel was sitting at the small table, smiling shyly. Flustered, I sat down. We stared at the food spread out in front of us. We each picked up a fork. Yankel began with the lox, trying to cut it with the knife, but it kept slipping everywhere.

“It’s good,” he finally said.

I cut up the bagel into small pieces. I daintily placed a square in my mouth. Pieces of lox slid out from between the bagel. I pushed them back with a fork.

“Y-y-yes, it is.”

“Where did your parents buy it?”

There was a hair in the lox. A brown, curly hair. I considered vomiting the lox onto the table. I reconsidered it and forced myself to swallow.

“Bagel Breakfast. I mean Breakfast Bagel. Your parents also bought it.”

I pushed the hair and hid it in a napkin.

“Oh?…That’s nice.”

“Yes. It is.”

Somehow, we finished breakfast. I jumped up to clear off the table. Yankel wiped off some crumbs from the table, folded them in a napkin, and looked around.

“Where is the garbage?”

Garbage? Garbage. Where was the garbage?

I opened the closet door under the sink.

“Here it is,” I said, relieved.

He laughed awkwardly. “The most important place in the house—the garbage.”

I giggled.

“Wait,” I said, pointing near the door. “There is your suitcase. Your mother dropped it off here before the wedding.”

“Oh, yes,” Yankel said as if surprised to see it. He pulled the small suitcase to the bedroom, opened it up, and began unpacking. There were two neat piles of white shirts and undergarments. The rest was black. A black
bekeshe
, a black plastic raincoat, a black spring coat, a black heavy coat, a black cotton home robe, black slippers, black
kippa
s, black socks, black pants—cut specially loosely on top so as not to mistakenly show any bulge—and a black watch. There were also off-white woolen
tziztis,
which
Chassidish
men wore over their white shirts, and a bottle of white antidandruff shampoo. I picked it up and put it in the bathroom.

Yankel tried to make conversation. He said that he still had an entire box of antidandruff shampoo bottles in the hotel where his parents were staying, and he hoped we would have room to store it.

I said oh. I asked him if he had ever had dandruff and he said, um, uh, he, uh, used to have a little but then his mother began sending antidandruff shampoos to
yeshiva
with instructions to finish them all completely, so no, he no longer had any. I said okay.

We then went back into the kitchen. It was only 10:03. Yankel stared at me; I stared at him. “I…I think I’ll go prepare lunch,” I said, and ran to the closet and pulled out the other new tablecloth for when my in-laws came. Yankel sat and watched.

“Do…do you need help?”

“No,” I answered promptly.

Fourteen minutes later, lunch was ready. It was now 10:17 a.m. I took out a book to read; Yankel sat in the chair and swayed over the Talmud. At 10:42 a.m. I called my mother. She picked up after half a ring.

“
Oy
, finally! Good morning, I was waiting for you to call! I was wondering if I should call you or not, but Surela said I shouldn’t dare. Would I want my mother to call me on the first day after marriage? Well, come to think of it, she did, and I remember how relieved I was. Your father and I had
nothing
to talk about.
Nu
, so
how
was the breakfast? Did Yankel like it? Did you ask him if he likes avocado? Sruli says that is all they eat in the
yeshivas
in Israel, and I wasn’t sure whether to include it or not. In the end they did not have fresh avocado anyway—only from yesterday—and I said no way. I am not sending a new couple avocados from the day before. Tomatoes I wasn’t so sure if they were from yesterday or today, but, look, you can’t have a salad without tomatoes and Israelis
love
salad. Bubba Yuskovitz called me and told me—don’t you dare send breakfast without salad, Yankel simply will not eat, so I told the man, okay, include the tomatoes.”

At 11:03 a.m. we called up Yankel’s mother. She asked me how my
shaitel
was. It was difficult in the beginning, and how when she got married thirty years back they only had synthetic wigs.
Oy,
how it itched! It was one hundred degrees, summer in Jerusalem, don’t ask, and there she was trying to get used to horsehair that felt like straw in the simmering heat. I just didn’t know how lucky I had it, human hair wigs were nothing to adapt to, though I really had to know which wig stylist to use, so many of them had no idea how to take care of a good wig and after twelve months, there you are, two thousand dollars in the garbage.…

At 12:03 p.m. we ate lunch. Yankel kept eyeing the lox and finally asked me if I minded him eating lox with his fingers. His brother-in-law told him that in America the girls ate only with a fork, and I said,
neh
, who cares, and grabbed the last piece of lox, tore it apart, and after throwing aside the forks, we finished lunch.

At 1:03 p.m. my brother came to take Yankel to
mincha
prayers. When he returned, I asked him if it was true that before they were married grooms made lists of what to talk about during the first few days. Moishe, Surela’s husband, had told her that
Reb
Ehrlich, the
Yushive rav
, gave them subjects to speak about—but she had promised not to tell me. And I had promised not to tell Yankel, so that it shouldn’t get back to Moishe, who would be mad at Surela for telling me. Yankel turned as red as the fresh tomato I was cutting and said, “No way. Well, yes, um,
neh
, um, maybe, it depended, I’m not sure.…”

At 2:03 p.m. I began preparing for
sheva brachos
. I ironed my suit, chose a matching pair of beige tights, and stared admiringly at Yankel’s perfectly starched white shirts folded, layered, and piled like a stack of freshly cut white paper.

At 3:03 p.m. I took a nap. When I awoke I found Yankel, his head on his arms, sleeping on the kitchen table. When I walked past him he jumped up. I told him to go to bed, but he hastily said no, no, no, no, it was just fine, just fine, but when he saw that I had finished napping, he closed the door to the bedroom and went to sleep himself.

At 6:00 p.m. I called my father and said I was dressed and ready to go to
sheva brachos
right then, and he should come pick me up. I was bored, had nothing to do, and we’d been married for eleven whole hours, which was a long time to talk about nothing.

“Are you crazy?” he asked. “It’s called for seven and nobody shows up till nine.… Go read a book. What do you think? A relationship happens in one minute? You know what your mother and I spoke about the first month? The weather. So how’s the weather? The weather is fine. Is it bad weather? Could be worse weather. It looks like nice weather. Yes, it looks like nice weather. What is the weather today? I am in the bed across from yours. I do not know what the weather is today. What we would have done without the weather, only Hashem knows. But after a month, I left my filthy socks on the floor, and
oy
, did she have some other things to tell me.”

Eventually, the clock struck eight and we arrived in the newly renovated basement hall of the Satmar
yeshiva
. It was a beautiful evening. Everyone said I looked absolutely stunning, more beautiful in the wig than without it, and wow, you could never tell it wasn’t a Shevy. And oh, so
how
does it feel to be married?
How
does it feel the day
after
? A relief, wasn’t it? And don’t worry; it gets easier; simpler, smoother, better.

“I also didn’t have a thing to say for the first month,” Chaya, a relative of one kind or the other, told me. “Until the first time he walked over my newly mopped floor, and we haven’t stopped arguing since, ha-ha.” She patted my back and glanced at my waist. “Just checking for extra movement. Don’t worry, don’t worry, it’ll come faster than you think.…”

It happened on Wednesday, on the fourth day of
sheva brachos
, at 3:00 p.m. I had just placed a full bag of garbage by the front door after washing a small pile of two dishes, three spoons, and one cup. I meticulously dried them, admired the towel with the cute little embroidered apples on it, and hung it up on the hook before walking to the closet, putting on my coat to take out the garbage, and going to the door. That’s when I noticed. The garbage was gone!

It had happened…only four days after marriage! I dropped my pocketbook on the floor, ran across the room, grabbed the phone, and called my mother.

“Yankel took out the garbage,” I announced breathlessly. “He took out the garbage!”

My mother gasped. She threw the phone on the floor and called my father from her cell phone. “You hear me? He took out the garbage. Even earlier than Surela’s husband did—remember it took him two weeks to think of it. I thought I would
plotz
—but it’s only four days and already Yankel took it out. I knew he would be a good husband. I just knew it!” Then I could hear her dialing someone else on her cell phone, “I’m telling you I can’t believe it…”

Within two minutes my cell phone rang. It was Bubba Yuskovitz.

“I knew it! I knew it!” she screeched. “Did I tell you my grandson was special? Did I tell you? He is a
mensch
! A
mensch
!
My
grandson, may he live till one hundred and twenty, as soon as I saw him in the nursery when he was born, I
knew
he was something special.…”

“
Nuuuuuu
, so what do you
say
?” Aunt Sarah asked when she called, as if it had been a little secret between us. “Your parents picked the right boy after all, didn’t they? See, trusting one’s parents is the best idea…
pah
! Those
modernishe
who think that they’ll fall in love and all the other
shtism
. Taking out the garbage! That’s what counts.…”