In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (13 page)

Ya’allah
—he knocked his forehead. Why had he given the treasure to the rabbi? Maybe Sheikh Tawil wouldn’t be happy with him. This was the
one he needed to make happy, not Rabbi Isaac, no matter how nice the rabbi was to him. In fact, hadn’t the rabbi and the professor mocked him the other day with their questions about the Koran? His throat burned and prickled at the memory. He crouched down now, looking closely at the old rocks. He tipped his bucket of debris into his wheelbarrow, and as it poured, he examined the stones and rocks and dust with eagle eyes. After an hour, he found a piece of Islamic blue tile and nothing else. He put it into his pocket and continued hauling rocks.

At the bottom of the steps lay the neck of a jug. Before he could reach for it, a worker took a step and the jug cracked under foot.
Laa
. Mustafa’s heart pinched. What could it have been used for? He went on dumping and loading the rocks. As he let his haul of stones fall into the wheelbarrow, a coin peeped from under a rock. He wedged it out and that’s when he saw a cross, bronze-colored, dented at the edges. He knelt clumsily and stared at it. “What’s wrong with you, Twisty Head?” the man next to him shouted.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, and hastily stuffed the cross and coin into his rucksack. “I must go, I’ll be back in a minute,” he said to some workers nearby. He walked fast toward the Gray Lady mosque, where Sheikh Tawil was surely praying the afternoon prayer. Since he had a few minutes until his boss came out, he scrambled over to look at the Jews praying at their wall below. He stared, struck by the sight of so many Jewish women, swaying from side to side, or bopping their heads like some birds pecking at the ground for crumbs. His eyes fixed on a tall girl, her red hair waving like a flag. He recognized her because she came so often, and on a motorcycle, too. She prayed like she was the only one there, her long red hair moving and praying with her, and he thought Allah would have no choice but to grant her wish, even to her, this Jewish girl. A few feet away, a bride angled her arms behind her head while a photographer snapped her picture in front of the Jewish Wall. Suddenly, her dress ripped under the arm. Mustafa sneezed in shock and pity, but when he opened his eyes, the bride had disappeared. Where could she be? He craned his crooked neck and saw three old beggar women surrounding the bride, stitching at her dress with needle and thread. On the men’s side, a big party was happening, a dark-haired boy reading from the big scroll of their Torah while women threw candy at the boy from behind a fence. Maybe he should
come back late at night and see if he could find any candy. So much excitement at the Jewish Wall. He guffawed. Out of one slab of ugly rock they made such a big holiday.

He returned to the Gray Lady mosque and paced outside until the sheikh emerged, removed a pair of dusty shoes from a cubicle, and gingerly inserted his feet inside. The sheikh’s eyes were glowing and soft, as though shining from his recent prayers. “What is it, Mustafa?” He patted and adjusted his robes.

“Look,” Mustafa said. “Look what I found at Solomon’s Stables.” He placed both relics into Sheikh Tawil’s palms.

The sheikh tossed the coin from one hand to the other, spat on it, rubbed it, and bringing it close to his eye, squinted hard. “Hebrew letters,” he said matter-of-factly. Then he brought his arm back and flung the coin with all his might like some schoolboy. He threw it so far that Mustafa didn’t see where it fell. Next the sheikh took the cross, turned it over in his hands and hurled it to the ground and it broke into five pieces. Mustafa stared, stupefied, as the sheikh crushed each shard with the heel of his shoe. “You don’t need to bring me things like this. Let them get taken out with the garbage to Wadi Jehinun. Every night the garbage is dumped there.”

“But …” Mustafa hesitated, “aren’t they worth something? They’re so old.” And he had dug them out of the ground himself.

“Allah forbid.” His wispy brows lifted in derision. “Junk,” he stated, “and no one needs to know about it. It only causes trouble.” Catching the bewilderment on Mustafa’s face he said, “Why, I’ll tell you a true story about the Prophet, peace be upon him. When he was just starting out in the year 620 I think, with few people on his side, he came to the Kaaba, at that time a shrine for gods. All the Arabian tribes worshiped idols there. When the Prophet arrived at the Kaaba, he didn’t destroy the idols—in fact, he even protected an idol so that it didn’t break.” As Sheikh Tawil spoke, he jiggled his cane at Mustafa’s dustpan for him to sweep up the broken cross pieces. “You see, it would have done him no good then to destroy these idols of stone. However, when he came back years later, with a full army, he broke the idols into bits and pieces, destroyed them. In its place he built our Mecca and proclaimed the truth of the oneness of Allah.” Here, the sheikh lifted up his reedy voice and his eyes took on a look
both dreamy and stern: “So it says in the Koran: ‘Say the truth is come and falsehood gone; verily falsehood is ever vanishing.’ Well,” he said, passing a hand over his eyes, “now do you understand? There is a time to protect and a time to destroy idols.”

Mustafa thought of the Christian lady and Maryam and Rabbi Isaac. “Idols,” he repeated dully. Something poked him in his pocket. “What about this?” He held up the Islamic blue tile.

“Ah, that’s a good one, Mustafa. I’ll bring it to the Islamic Museum for safekeeping.” He held out his hand and Mustafa reluctantly passed it over. “All right, enough sermons. Work, work, work.”

And when will I get my promotion
, the janitor wondered, as he mournfully tripped across the hot stones of the Noble Sanctuary.

Isaac entered the kitchen just as Shaindel Bracha set a huge dented pot on the stove. She pressed the lever on the gas gun and a flame ignited under the pot. “There.” She turned around, wiping her hands on her lavender apron that hung on her round hips. The funeral had passed—a quiet affair without eulogies; the rebbe once spoke how the soul shudders at its own funeral, to hear the lies being said about it.

“Come, please sit,” the rebbe’s wife said, tapping the square Formica table. Through the curtained window facing the courtyard, he saw people milling around.

It was hard for him to look at her seated across the table. He was afraid of the sorrow he might find. As for himself, he was a wreck. He could barely sit straight. Each breath cost him. He ran his hand against his beard. It had strayed all the way down to his collarbone. And still no hat. He would buy himself one tomorrow. But to even think about shopping—or shaving—seemed too great an effort or simply an indecent act.

The old oven let out a creak. The refrigerator groaned its own nigun. Even the kitchen air seemed to simmer with a tune of sadness.

“So,” the rebbetzin said.

“Hmm?” Isaac was tracing a pattern in the napkin holder and he glanced up. Except for a reddening around the eyes and lids, she looked fairly composed.

“As you may have noticed,” she said, “I’ve been staying at Mrs. Edelman’s place.”

Ah, yes. He knew where this conversation was heading. His days at the courtyard were about to end. So be it. He choked back a sigh. “I knew you were staying some place, but I didn’t know where.” He pushed his next words out by force, hard, dry pellets: “Anyway, I’ll be moving out and
renting a place of my own, so it’s not necessary to vacate.”

“Oh, but it is necessary. You stay, I’ll leave.”

He leaned forward slightly. “It’s your house, not mine.”

“This is true, it’s still my house.” She smiled a little. “I’ll come back during the day. I just won’t sleep here.”

“But why?” It didn’t make sense. He didn’t belong. She did.

“You’re needed here. It’s all in your hands now.”

He gazed across the table at her. “What’s in my hands?”

She pointed with her rounded little chin toward the window. “The courtyard, the people.”

He nodded. “Of course, I’ll help out. Whatever is necessary, Rebbetzin. I can organize the volunteers; I can check on the factory; I can even make chicken soup. Though I’m not the best cook,” he wryly observed.

She flicked her wrist outward, dismissively. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll come back to handle those matters. But the people, Isaac.” She looked at him. “They need you.”

He stopped fiddling with the napkin holder. “What are you saying?”

“You have a rapport with the people. Believe me, you’ll find your way,” she said to his astonished face. “They need you to take over.”

How could she even talk this way? The rebbe had just died. “Ridiculous. I can’t stand within ten cubits of your husband.”

“That’s true,” she conceded, slipping a white thread of hair back under her turban. “But my husband isn’t here. You are.”

He shook his head vehemently. “I’m not a rebbe.”

“The people respect you. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

“A respect by association,” he said curtly. “Because of the answers I brought back from the rebbe. On my own, I’m nothing.” Oh, please. Couldn’t she go away, stop this nonsense? But it was her house.

“Do you really believe that?” Her light brown eyes looked with a skeptical warmth into his, as if refusing to be held by his rules.

“Nu
,” he wavered, “I did learn some things from the rebbe. But my strength came from knowing I could turn to him.”

She folded her plump arms resolutely.

“I could do more harm than good,” he added. “What if I make mistakes? Who will guide me?” A big itch threatened to overtake his entire body.

She stood. She gestured energetically. “Come with me.” Reluctantly, he got to his feet, giving one last scratch to his right calf. She walked down the hall to the front door. He followed. She opened the front door to the cottage, and they stared out at the jumble of people. “There’s where you need to be.” Her arm stretched out.

The import of what she wanted him to do hit him full force. To bear the weight of the courtyard alone, to assume total responsibility. Surely this wasn’t what the rebbe intended when he asked Isaac to stay awhile. “I can’t!”

“You can,” she said in an even voice.

“I’m not a kabbalist! I don’t even have rabbinic ordination.” He looked sideways at her, and she appeared unmoved. “I don’t know how,” he said. “Besides, who could ever fill the rebbe’s shoes?” His voice cracked a little. “Not me. Absurd.”

“ ‘In a place where there’s no man, be a man,’ ” she quoted the sages. “Look, it’s madness out there. Chaos.”

He peered out, turtle-like, venturing only so far. “A flock without a shepherd,” he murmured.

“So you see?” she said with a lilt in her voice. “Go.”

“You keep saying that, but with all due respect, I can’t do this alone.”

“Maybe you will have a little help,” Shaindel Bracha said ever so quietly.

“Really? How?”

“Maybe I can help you.” Her pale cheeks went even paler. “A little.”

“What? Help me?” he sputtered. He stopped to contemplate the implication of her words. His brow furrowed in dismay. “Why, dear Rebbetzin, you couldn’t possibly—” His hand tried to complete the ridiculous thought. “You don’t know how to—” He broke off.

“No one need know,” she said, lowering her voice even more. “It will be our little secret.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. If he had to explain that she could never be in the same league as her husband, then what was the point? True, Shaindel Bracha possessed goodness. Like his mother, like many women. But greatness, to draw strength from weakness, to wring one pure tear from the most degenerate Jew, to stand up to evil—that was the province of the rebbe. “Rebbetzin,” he stalled, “I—”

She clapped her hands as if the matter had been decided. “There’s
nothing to worry about. Now out you go.” Without touching him she managed to get him out the door.

And so he entered the courtyard. He passed between two men in wheelchairs who stared morosely at the trees while they smoked—refugees from the sewing factory. Mazal the beggar shuffled by, plastic bags spilling out of her pockets.
“Tzedakah
,” she said, jiggling her can under everyone’s nose. “My apartment burned down.” He gave her a few shekels, and she took a seat next to an odd-looking woman he knew was Mazal’s poor crazy daughter Frecha. Patches of hair stuck out like withered weeds from Frecha’s near bald head. The young woman called out from under the olive tree, “I slept with Melech. He was very good. I slept with Yonatan. So-so. Dudu I slept with. That one really loved me.” There were others in the courtyard, people he didn’t recognize. Even the cat seemed disoriented. Gilgul twisted midair and kept lunging at bushes and running from person to person.

A Hassidic teenage boy, his face purpled with acne, rushed up to him. Isaac, hands clasped behind his back, tried to listen. It was the same courtyard, but how faded it looked. As if someone had fiddled with the knobs of the universe and altered the setting. A post-Rebbe Yehudah world. Even the sun looked different in the sky, bleached, sad. He glanced at a baby-faced soldier making his way through the courtyard. A teenager was playing patty-cake with someone’s toddler. A woman in a black dress with a shopping cart of laundry recited psalms under the olive tree. He went from one person to the next, listening to people, offering advice, taking down questions (
Master of the Universe
, he implored,
what am I doing?
) It didn’t seem real although he had done this a hundred times before. How could he care for them, respond to them? It was like being asked to explain the impossible. He stood alone, naked of protection and guidance. Unless you could call the delusional promise of the rebbetzin help and guidance.

About an hour later, the courtyard’s iron gate creaked open and he saw Tamar step inside while unsnapping her helmet. She shook out her head, and her red hair flew, unbound. She paused near the rosemary bushes and took in the chaos at a glance. Next, she picked up Gilgul and cradled him, all the while her eyes wandering the courtyard. That’s when it struck Isaac. The fortieth day must have arrived. She’d completed the prayer circuit,
hadn’t she? And things hadn’t gone well. Somehow, he didn’t think she would be here, in the courtyard, if she’d been answered.