Hush (32 page)

It was still in the darkness. I could see Yankel through my half-opened eyes as he lifted my blanket, gently, hesitant. He touched it again, lifting it slightly. I closed my eyes and held my breath. My throat was clenched so tightly I could not breathe. My body turned to stone. I could hear him breathe, could see him standing over me, watching my still form. Then I heard him move away quickly, silently, sitting on his bed, then pulling up his blanket until I could hear him no longer.

I wanted to get up, to run. I wanted to pound on his bed, to scream at him that a C
hassid
did not love, a
Chassid
did not touch in the depraved ways of goyim. How dare he lift my blanket that way? What would the
Rebbe
say, a scholar, standing over his wife like that, and in the presence of Hashem? But I could not open my eyelids. They weighed down heavily on my face, as if someone had glued them shut. Perhaps I was dead; he had done something and it had killed me.

Then I sank down deep into sleep, and misty shadows quickly turned dark. Black.
Come into my bed, Gittel, come into my bed.
Why was it so dark? I hated when it was dark and I was awake, the only one in the house.
Why are you crying, Devory? Don’t cry.
Her mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t dare make a sound. Her long screams of agony echoed loudly in my head. I covered my ears, shuddering, but I could still see her mouth opened in horror.
Devory, don’t scream like that; Devory, don’t scream.

Then it was morning. Yankel was gone when I awoke, to
shul
, to prayers, to his guilt. I did not see him until after work, when we met by my parents’ home for dinner. The table was set with the guest tablecloth, guest dishes, and guest cutlery. There were three main courses and six sides, all recipes from my motherin-law of Yankel’s favorite food: moussaka with inlaid pepper, tahini with extra spices, and chicken soup with
kneidlech
as soft as cream. “A little of this, a little of that,” my mother preened, gently pulling at the white tablecloth to even out a wrinkle. “When Surela first got married, she and her husband ate here for almost a year before she began cooking at home, remember, Gittel?” I nodded.

“It takes time to learn how to cook,” she said, sprinkling a dash of red pepper on the tahini. “How long did I eat by my mother?” She tucked a wayward hair into her snood. “I don’t remember, but the first time I cooked at home, she cried. Was she ever overprotective.”

No one moved during those first weeks of sparkling dinners. My youngest brother stared in awe at Yankel, my father cracked jokes he had prepared beforehand, and my mother fussed politely, “
Oy
, leave the poor new
chassan
alone. You want more moussaka? More soup? More salad? Just a little more potato? It’s not that different than in Israel, is it? Where there are Jews, there are Jews.…”

We ate dinner by my mother the next day, the day after, and the next. At home I made sandwiches for lunch as Yankel concocted salads I’d never heard of and took out the garbage whenever it was full. Friday, I made a
letcho
, some conglomeration of fried vegetables my mother said that his mother had said that he liked, and Yankel, sitting at the table, said it was delicious. Really. No, of course he couldn’t tell I had never made
letcho
before, even Bubba Yuskovitz would enjoy it. With a satisfied sigh I sat down across from him, spooning a generous forkful into my mouth. And spat it out all over the table. My mother screamed at me when she heard.

“You put in what?! How can you read two tablespoons of pepper where it says a teaspoon?” My father laughed at my tears. “It is the husband’s duty to suffer through the first year of marriage food,” he informed me. “Your mother still has no idea how much food poisoning she gave me that first terrible year.”

That evening I found Yankel hunched over the two high school albums I had brought from my mother’s house. He wanted to know what a tennis racket was. And a basketball. “I didn’t know girls are allowed to play ball,” he said, sitting on our small couch looking curiously at pictures of camp and school trips. “The last time I played ball was when I was in seventh grade. Only the bums played ball past
Bar Mitzvah
, and in
yeshiva
there were no balls allowed.”

He was fascinated by the games we played and the places we went. “At
yeshiva
we go once a year on a hike to different nature places where there are no women or inappropriate people. The rest of the time we spent at the
yeshiva,
except of course when we go to the
Grand Rebbe
.”

When I asked him for pictures of his friends, he laughed at my question.

“There are no cameras allowed in
yeshiva
.”

And he was shocked at the mixed seating on buses right in the center of Borough Park. He had wanted to take the bus home from
kollel
, but a woman sat right near him as if he weren’t there, and he had quickly run off.

“It was mixed,” he said. “How could they allow that? In Israel, on all the religious buses, the women sit only in the back, the men in the front.”

But Yankel knew how to open a book, my father proudly said. That boy had a real head. It was a pleasure learning with him on
Shabbos
.… The
Rosh kollel
—the head of the
yeshiva
for married men—announced to my father when he met him at a wedding that indeed Yankel was truly what they said he was—a
masmid,
a
tzaddik
, a
fineh bachur
. Eh, would he donate a few hundred dollars more to the
yeshiva
? It was especially tight this year. Ah, one could indeed tell the man was the proud descendant of a
geshmake
carrot
kugel
.

But life was not all good. I had just gotten my period. Again. I was not pregnant yet. When I first felt the familiar monthly cramps, I cried. I told my mother that Hashem was punishing me. Sarah Pessy and Rochel Leah, who had gotten married two weeks after me, were already pregnant.

My mother told me not to worry. Surela had waited seven months until she had finally become expectant. Now that was something to cry about. But two months? Give it some time.… But I did worry. I worried as we walked to my parents’ house in the snow to light the Chanukah candles. I worried as we ate the
latkes
—potato pancakes—and
suvganiyot
—sugar jelly doughnuts—my motherin-law sent fresh from Jerusalem. I worried as my aunt peered down at my waist and said, “
Nu, shoin,
anything doing? Don’t worry, it’ll come, Hashem willing, Hashem willing, they’ll come so fast you won’t know what to do.” I worried as I went to the
mikvah
again, came home, did
it
, fell asleep praying, and worried, really worried, when my husband tried to kiss me. Like Leo and Kathy. In the middle of the night.

Again, he stood over me. Again, he lifted my blanket. My eyes were closed; I pretended to sleep. But then he bent over. I felt his warm breath on my cheek and his lips, flushed and hot, brushed mine. I jumped as if touched by fire. Yankel straightened up and stared at me in shame and horror. He fled to his bed. I went to the bathroom and washed my face. I sat on the toilet seat for over an hour.

When I entered the kitchen at dawn, unable to sleep, Yankel already stood near the table. He was pale and trembling. He had tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. It was a
goyishe
thing to do. I don’t know why I did it. It’s my
taavah
—my evil desires. I wasn’t allowed to do that. I’m sorry.…”

I advised him to speak with
Reb
Ehrlich. This was a serious matter. He turned crimson. “No, no, no. Never. He will not believe I did such a thing. I can’t do that. He’ll think I am a
shaygetz
, he just won’t believe it, I can’t do that.”

We did not talk much that day. I went to work. He learned. We ate in silence. That night he came near me again. I watched him through my slitted eyelids, pacing up and down the room, coming closer, moving back, coming closer, and finally returning to his bed. The next morning after he had gone to learn, I called
Reb
Ehrlich. I told him who I was.

“Of course, of course,” he said kindly, his low voice in heavily accented English. “So what’s on your mind? Tell me, something is bothering you?”

I blushed but, determined to put an end to this horrifying business, I told him everything—the kiss, the walks, the pacing, the lifting of the blanket. What was wrong with my husband?

“I hear…I hear…,” he said, his voice rising, slowing in a singsong chant. “It’s not the worst thing, don’t worry. I know it is bothering you, but there is men and there is men,
vus ken min tun—
what can we do? Hashem gave some men more hormones than others.… I know you are a good girl, you don’t want this, but sometimes it is too hard for men.… We try, we try, of course we try, and this way is the ideal way, but there are those who can’t do this, so we do something else, a little more, just a little more. No, it’s not the worst thing, it’s the last resort, of course, but one more time a week, and I tell you, he’ll calm down, he’ll calm down.… You want me to talk with him? I’ll talk to him, I’ll talk to him, don’t worry, I talk with every new
chassan
.… Of course, we have to make sure it doesn’t go too far, always keep the lights out, the covers on—this is the holiest time, Hashem is there, right there with you. We must always do this the right way, but Yankel is a
fineh yingeman,
a fine young man. He’s just a little mixed up now.… Call me back in a few days and tell me if things get better, okay? Don’t let it sit on your mind, you can always call me.”

---

Distracted, I arrived at the teacher’s room at the
Yushive
school in the early afternoon. As if twice a month wasn’t enough.… Shany, pregnant already with her second child, ambled over to me, a tuna sandwich in hand. She told me that Chani, a classmate of ours, was separated from her husband. I stared at her, stunned.

“I’m telling you,” she said. “Everyone is talking about it. I’m not sure why, but I heard that there were, you know, problems in the bedroom.… He wanted to do all sorts of things. Shany told me that he acted like a goy. I knew they were never a match. I have no idea how that
shidduch
happened—I could have told them right away that it would never go.” I took out a pile of tests and began marking them. Shany munched on her sandwich. “But you know, I have really good friends from other
Chassidish
schools, I mean not everyone obviously, but a lot of them, these people do
everything
…could you imagine?” She lowered her tone until it was merely a whisper. “They don’t even wear a nightgown or
anything.
”

It was 12:41 p.m. I had to go into class in ten minutes. Annoyed, I turned to my papers, but Shany continued.

“I asked my friend, the Satmar one, if—I mean I didn’t ask her, of course not, but she told me, you know, hinted to me that they just did
it
whenever
they wanted. He gives her
massages.
Hashem, could you imagine? It’s weird…I mean, it’s not allowed, is it? She told me that she really admires us. We must be going straight to
Gan Eden
.” She sighed tiredly and stroked her swollen stomach. “I have no idea how I am going to manage with this baby. My one-year-old is so wild. I don’t know what I am going to do. I mean I’m not complaining, however many Hashem gives…” She sighed, slowly got up, and walked away.

I had little patience for her nonsense. There was something more profound bothering me. Why wasn’t
I
pregnant? Besides Shany, who was already with her second child, and Sarah Pessy, in her third week of pregnancy and wearing maternity clothing, I had just found out that my cousin Chevi, who got married three months before me, was pregnant. I had been married more than two entire months now. What could be wrong with me?

After class, I called up my mother from the teacher’s room depressed and wanting to talk. My mother, breathless and agitated, told me that she had been trying to contact me all morning.

“Listen, eat dinner at home today, I have too many errands to do. I prepared food for you—it’s on the counter. I have to go talk with Totty. He is so upset, I don’t know what to do. You know Mr. Weinstein, who works with Totty? His brother
Reb
Duvidel Weinstein teaches in the
Me’or Ha’Talmud cheder
and was arrested today. Someone accused him of, you know, doing inappropriate things with his students. It’s probably nothing, but of course it’s all over the
Daily Post
, and Mr. Weinstein’s mother
nebech
has cancer, remember her? She used to be in our bungalow colony. I must go help her, poor woman. She must be devastated. She helped me so many times when I wanted the bungalow facing the lake, and when I was giving birth to you, she took the rest of the kids for two weeks.… Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I won’t be home in the evening, so I prepared delicious food for you in plastic containers. And, Gittel, get rid of your stuff piled up all over the house! There are boxes of pictures just sitting there, notebooks, arts and crafts, and every prize you ever got since first grade! You haven’t looked at these things in years. You have your own apartment now and I don’t have room!” And she hung up.