In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist (9 page)

Tamar stood, swaying slightly to the movement of the bus, a wistful look in her eyes. The driver shouted something, and the people in the aisle squeezed deeper into the bus. Small groups of teenagers moved their hips to the music, unimpeded by the cramped space. Outside, the shops and stalls were flitting by in a blur. Yet here in the bus, time had slowed.

The bus jerked to a halt, and someone let out a strangled cry—a petite
elderly Yemenite man. “My hat!” he cried, his hands fumbling at his head and lap. “Who took my hat?”

Isaac craned his neck and reached reflexively for his own hat. Then he froze. A teenage girl was making off with the old man’s gray fedora. She skipped off the bus while twirling the hat, her friends high-fiving one another as they dismounted. Isaac held out his hand, as if he could stop them! But it was too late. The last thing he saw as the bus pulled off was the girl tossing the hat, Frisbee-like, into a dense crowd of shoppers. The Yemenite man put his tiny hands and face against the smudged bus window, his mouth moving, making inarticulate sounds. As the bus took off he fell back in his seat in despair. He looked at his palms in disbelief and then at the back of his hands, then he lifted his pleading eyes toward the ceiling of the bus as high as they would go.

The radio played the Beatles’ “Michelle,” and the bus driver sang along, oblivious. Everyone else was looking at the ground or at some other place, just not at the old man. Shame flooded into Isaac’s eyes. Such a pinched raw feeling in his heart. That this should happen in the holy city, Jew to Jew? An old lady in a pantsuit said under her breath, “Brat teenagers.”

Isaac slipped from his spot and wound his way to the Yemenite. Now he stood before the old Jew. “Here, try this.” He took off his wide-brimmed hat and gently placed it on the old man’s wispy-haired head. The Yemenite halfheartedly lifted a hand. “No, no. I can’t take it.” Then he peeped up. “Does it look all right?”

Isaac angled his face to the right, to the left, bottom and top. He kissed his fingertips. “Excellent.”

The old man touched the hat’s brim self-consciously. “Let me pay you.”

But Isaac shook his head vigorously. “Really, it’s nothing.”

The old man insisted, “A few shekels at least,” and he pressed some coins into Isaac’s hand.

As he wended his way through the aisle back to Tamar, he got some God-bless-you pats here and there. “What’s going to be,” he said, standing before her, slightly shaking his head.

Her eyes had never left him, he saw. She was staring funnily at him. “You just gave a stranger your hat.”

“Yes. He needed it.”

“You made an act of kindness as matter-of-fact as tying your shoes,
or”—she closed one eye—“flossing your teeth.”

He faintly rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t such a big deal.” For goodness sake, why was she staring at him like that? It bordered on irritating.

“Hats aren’t cheap,” she insisted.

“Anyway, I needed a new hat. What’s going to be,” he repeated with a sigh. “You know, the sages wrote that the temple was destroyed through groundless hatred and that it will be rebuilt from the foundation of groundless love.” He nodded. “That’s what’s going to be.”

Tamar broke into a broad smile. “Yes!” She made a power fist and a number of passengers glanced her way. “Groundless love. Love for no reason at all. Love just because.”

The bus moved on sluggishly through the traffic, like an overfed hippo. A child ate from a bag of Bamba and the salty corn snack filtered through the air. Tamar’s eyes kept raking Isaac’s face as they stood in the bus aisle.

He took off his glasses, held them up to the window. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he said finally.

“Like what?”

“Like a horn’s growing out of my head.” He rubbed his glasses with a tissue.

“You …” she hesitated. “You have hair.”

He replaced his glasses and ran his fingers through his front bangs. He could feel a faint line etched in his forehead like a crescent, where his hat had been. “Of course I have hair.”

“I mean,” she blushed, “lots of it. I don’t know why, but I just assumed you were bald. And it’s not even graying, like your beard.”

“Not yet, thank God.”

She kept staring at him with her huge green eyes. “Are you married?”

“No, I’m not. Why do you ask?”

“The next time you go on a date,” she ordered, “take off your hat. With it on, you look fifty. With it off, you look thirty-two.”

He chuckled, then blushed fiercely. “Not quite. But thank you for the tip. I’ll remember that one.” He coughed. The conversation had gone beyond him and needed some reining in. “Speaking of dates, tell me, have you met anyone yet?”

“Nope.”

“What day are you up to now?”

“Day thirty.”

Had a month passed since they’d last met?

“These matchmakers, why don’t they get it?” Tamar went on. “They keep introducing me to working professionals. But I want someone …”

“Yes?” He leaned slightly forward.

“Who learns Torah. And if not that, at least let him be teaching it or doing something meaningful. Not these investment bankers or actuaries.” She shuddered, and her gauzy little neck scarf fluttered.

“Actuaries can lead spiritually meaningful lives, too, Tamar, and make wonderful husbands.”

She looked squarely at him. “I didn’t turn my life around and become religious for second best. I want the best.”

“The best what?”

“The best kind of Jewish family,” she said with an edge to her voice.

“You realize,” he said with a certain frankness and gentleness, “there is no such commandment for a woman to marry a rabbi.”

“Commandment?” She drew back. “You think this is about commandments?” She looked at him incredulously. “This is about what I want!” She shook her head. “Growing up, my house had no tone, no atmosphere. Television reigned supreme. That there was a shred of Yiddishkeit only made it worse, like a”—her huge eyes roved—“like a bride dressed in filthy overalls and a veil. All I can tell you is, I want the total opposite for my own home.”

He stood, clasping the bus pole. Once, he, too, had longed for the ideal. But then everything collapsed. “So it’s a yeshiva man you want,” he mused, massaging his beard. An idea struck him. “Do you know? I just thought of someone—he learns at the same yeshiva where you work. Tall fellow. Light brown hair and a blond beard. Joseph?”

“Oh, I think I know who you mean.” She frowned. “Joshua. Joshua from Los Angeles.”

“That’s the one.”

Tamar gave him a withering look. “Please. He’s so young!”

He drew back. “Well, how old are you, young lady?”

“Twenty-eight. I meant, young in attitude and religiously. He’s just a beginner, and me, I’ve been religious, I’ve been in this world for five years.”

“I suppose that makes you a veteran.” He smiled indulgently. “Well,
Tamar,” he said mildly, “I wish you a lot of luck finding the best, though life usually has something else to say.”

“Luck?” She said the word like it tasted bad. She snapped, “What’s that supposed to—” The bus jerked to a halt and she looked around. “Oh no! My stop. Gotta go, it’s my big day!” She bounded off the bus, her ponytail flying about her back.

Well, he thought. It might take a lot more than a forty-day
segulah
to find her mate. Not many Torah scholars were flocking to a woman who rode a motorcycle and who gestured so dramatically that half the bus had turned to watch her. Though she had a point. The boychik Joshua was hardly in her league.

Tock, tock
. The Haram sun was so hot it hit Mustafa like a hammer against his skull. It wasn’t even summer, he thought, and the sun wanted to become his enemy. Thanks be to Allah, he knew how to be patient with the heat. Like his grandfather used to say, “If you are a peg, endure the knocking. If you are a mallet, strike.” It was the Arab way to endure. He was emptying his rucksack into a garbage bin when he saw Sheikh Tawil tapping his way down the Stairs of Scales of Souls. Dust from his rucksack powdered up into Mustafa’s eyes, and he sneezed.

“You are needed at the construction site,” the sheikh called out, his dark cane swinging from side to side.

Mustafa nodded, took up his tools, and began to walk toward the site.

Sheikh Tawil leaned smartly on his cane and observed him. “Lately, I see you work better than anybody,” his boss commented. “I see how well you listen. I know you can take on more responsibility. I’d like to see that happen. I see you like I see my own son,” he said, though the official couldn’t have been more than five years older than Mustafa, who bobbed his head.

“Oh yes, honored sheikh, I’m a good worker, I am ready for more responsibility,” he said to the sheikh who was already tock-tocking away.

Yawaladee!
he exulted, as he tilted and listed sideways toward the site. Sheikh Tawil wanted to make him a boss—he, stupid Mustafa.

He scuttled over to the construction area, breathing in along the way the good smells coming from the mint and basil bushes. He took his place at the top of the human chain that brought the pail of debris from Solomon’s Stables. After grabbing a pail, he ran to the truck, emptied the pail, returned to the line, and exchanged the pail for another.
“Hela hob, hela hob
,” the men sang as they worked, but Mustafa was thinking about his
promotion and didn’t join in. Could it really happen? He had been at this job for many years. But now, ever since he started working hard, with honor, like a kohein, his work had stood out. His good luck was thanks to the Jew Rabbi Isaac.

Now he would have more money, too, with the promotion. Right away, he thought of the things he would buy. First of all, jewels for his mother—necklaces, bracelets, and earrings so heavy they would pull on her lobes. “Gold jewelry brings honor to the wearer,” she liked to say. But who had money for luxuries? His brothers and sisters helped pay the rent, electricity, food, and that was hard enough. Still, what if he, the poorest, ugliest son, bought his mother jewels? He who had only brought her humiliation would now bring honor. The very thought made him stand taller, and he even pushed his neck two centimeters the other way, so that for a minute he looked like the others, almost.

Still, the money seemed a faraway thing. Once, he had tried to save money to buy fancy jewelry for her birthday, not just silly presents. For three weeks he gave up going to Fatima’s Laundromat and washed his clothes by hand. A small sacrifice if it could buy his mother a gold bracelet. But Ali, his flatmate (really his landlord), finally forbade him, said it was bad for the sink. But now everything could change—in a month, no, a week! Sheikh Tawil wanted to make him a boss. He would do his job better than anyone. He, who never had money, would now have much more. His mother would not say she had a toothache when he wanted to visit but would welcome him back to the village. Maybe he would even fix his neck. But no, that would cost too much money. Anyway, many years ago, a doctor from Jordan who happened to pass through his village, examined him and said there was no hope. What did it matter? He would have extra money to buy jewels for his mother.

“
Ya’allah, ya’allah!
” urged the worker next to him. “You’re messing up the rhythm.”

With new energy, he grabbed the pail, ran, and poured. The worker below grunted with approval at his quickened pace. The sweat trickled down his neck. He emptied another pail. Faster, faster. His neck and shoulders streamed with sweat. A round gray thing rolled past his shoe, and he crouched to stare at it. It looked old, from long, long ago. What could it be? He mopped his forehead and temples with a corner of his kaffiyeh.
Maybe he could bring it to the rabbi. The Jew would like it, even more than the spout. Rabbi Isaac would look at him with happy eyes, maybe even give him more of that soup. If he left it here, it would just get crushed by a worker’s foot. So he plucked the grayish ball off the ground and put it into his satchel. After work, he walked down the mountain, holding it in his hand like it was a snack. No one stopped him. Only the Jews and the tourists got checked when they came or left the mountain.

When he arrived at the courtyard, the rabbi was busy talking to someone. Mustafa let loose a stream of saliva on the gray ball and rubbed it in with his thumb. A soft reddish color emerged. When it was his turn, he shambled forward, stopping the rabbi midstep. “I have a present for you.”

“Another present?” A frown line made a cleft in the rabbi’s forehead. But he was smiling. “Really, Mustafa, it’s not necessary to bring me anything.”

“But it comes from the Noble Sanctuary. Don’t you want to see it? I think it even has letters.” He pointed to dark squiggles on the side.

“Letters?” Rabbi Isaac cocked his head.

Mustafa merely held out his hand. The rabbi’s cheeks paled, his lips twitching as he read the words to himself. “No, it’s not possible,” he whispered. Now he looked flushed. “Wait a minute. I have to speak with Rebbe Yehudah.” He rushed into the cottage. It was quiet. Then Mustafa heard him talking in a loud voice, maybe into a phone. The rabbi came back a bit later with a kitchen towel. He gently, gently, wrapped the round thing, and held it close. “Are you busy?”