Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale (24 page)

CHAPTER 27
 

Rabbi Isaac Weissman stood in the doorway, wearing his nervousness. “Please, come in,” the rabbi said, beckoning the young man into his home.

“Thank you,” Benjamin Frankel responded, appearing equally uncomfortable.

They shared a clammy handshake and forced smiles. The rabbi took the young man’s coat, and led the way to the living room where Rachel and Hannah were waiting.

“Hannah, Rucheleh, this is Benjamin Frankel, the young man that Reb Blesofsky has been telling us so much about.”

A moment of silence loomed as Rachel’s eyes met Benjamin’s.
A
pleasant
looking
fellow,
she thought. Tall, thin, dark-haired with soft blue eyes, and sharply dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, starched white shirt and burgundy tie. She took special note of the tie, a sign that he wasn’t one of those rigid Hasidic men who refused to wear ties, fearing it made them appear like the gentiles. Seeing that he was more like her father, and some other Lubavitchers who were more liberal about such things, brought a sense of relief.

“My friends call me Binny,” the young man said, as he and the rabbi took seats.

A
gentle
voice
, Rachel noted. “My friends call me Rachel,” she said.

The young man seemed to ease up a bit. Rachel had been told that this was also his first
shiddoch
, and that he was a shy sort. She had a sense, from the way he looked at her, that he was as pleased with her appearance as she was with his.

“So, your family is from South Africa?” Hannah asked, trying to make conversation. She had already known almost everything there was to know about the young man.

“Yes, there is a small Lubavitcher community there. My father is in diamonds.”

Rabbi Weissman: “And they sent you here to study?”

Binny: “Yes, to study, and to be closer to the
Rebbe
.”

Rachel had to admit she was impressed, though still apprehensive. She’d been told by her parents that he was one of the brightest rabbinical students in the seminary.
Should
bode
well
for
our
children
, she thought fleetingly, and then it hit her—
children
would be what a man like him would want,
lots
of
children
,
as
soon
as
possible
. And her job would be to take care of them, run after them, and keep the home. That, after all, was the Hasidic way.

She felt a sudden wave of anxiety. How could she possibly marry someone like Benjamin Frankel and fulfill her dreams? How could she tell her parents the truth without breaking their hearts? But she couldn’t think about all that right now, it was much too overwhelming.

“It’s funny, I’ve never seen you around the neighborhood,” she said.

“Rucheleh, Binny is a rabbinical student,” her father said. “He doesn’t have time to hang around the neighborhood, or stand outside the
shul
on
Shabbos
, looking at the girls. He studies, eats, and
dovens
in the yeshiva! Yes?” He looked to Binny for a reply.

The young man nodded. The rabbi was quite accurate. In the Lubavitcher community, the rabbinical students were known to be isolationists. They studied, day and night, amongst themselves, and they held their own private services in the yeshiva on the Sabbath so as not to waste time traveling to and from the synagogue. They rarely ventured out for any reason, and the younger students often competed for the honor of doing their chores, for they were not to be bothered with mundane worldly matters.

Binny Frankel was well suited for such an existence. He was from a wealthy family, a large home with many servants, and had been catered to his entire life. There had been no pressure on him to work, so he was able to come to New York and continue studying for as long as he wished. His plan was to complete his rabbinical studies, and eventually join his father’s business, setting up a branch in New York. But that would wait until he was ready. First, he would find a proper wife: an obedient, dutiful daughter of Israel. And it seemed to him, as he sat in the Weissman living room gazing at his first such prospect, that Rachel Weissman was perfect for the job.

Unable to sleep, Rachel found herself besieged with thoughts and feelings about the evening she had spent with Binny. The worst of it was that she had actually enjoyed herself. It would have been simpler if she hadn’t.

Pictures of him passed through her mind; detailed images, the clarity of which rendered her powerless to ignore. Haunted by sensations of unwanted delight, what was she going to do?

In truth, it had been a rather short date—about an hour of conversation in the living room after the rabbi and Hannah had excused themselves; a walk to a small dairy restaurant on Kingston for some coffee and Danish; another walk around the neighborhood. Small talk, nothing serious. Tidbits of life in South Africa, happenings in the yeshiva, and the exchange of some extremely sanitized jokes.

At the end of the evening, he asked to see her again. It bothered her that she’d said yes so readily.

“Next week, perhaps?” he added.

“Next week is fine.” A slight hesitation.

“Sunday evening?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call in a few days, just to confirm.”

He accompanied her upstairs to her apartment, and said good-night at the door. It was already late, and a good time to end the evening. She found her parents waiting in the living room, her father engrossed in a religious text, her mother perusing a newspaper. They looked up and asked about the date. Her answers were evasive, unrevealing, telling them only that she thought he was “nice enough,” and that she would see him again. They were thrilled.

Despite the hour, she needed to call Esther. There were two phones in the Weissman home, one in the kitchen, the other in the master bedroom. She used the one in the bedroom and closed the door for privacy. This was nothing new for Isaac and Hannah; they had grown used to it, sometimes even
kibbitzing
about their daughter’s idle chatter with girlfriends. This time, however, they were curious.

Rachel told Esther everything. She described Binny in vivid detail, and seemed to have lost control over her mouth while doing so. That was, until Esther’s father had to make a business call. The girls hung up and promised to talk more tomorrow.

Now, lying in bed, Rachel couldn’t get this young man out of her mind. Despite her efforts to find fault with him, she came up empty.
Don’t
worry
, she told herself,
I’m
sure
he’ll
give
me
a
reason
to
be
rid
of
him
soon
enough
.”

She had to believe that. She desperately needed for it to be true, for she could allow nothing to stand between her and her dreams.

As consolation prizes go, Paul Sims regarded Chava Feuerstein as perfectly acceptable. The first time he saw her, he was surprised; he’d expected a real
meuskheit
, a homely one, as punishment for his audacity. He had even considered cancelling the
shiddoch
, but when Chava came to the door, he was glad he hadn’t.

She was average height, had a pleasant face, curly brown hair, and a seemingly shapely figure, though it was hard for him to tell just how shapely considering the way Hasidic women dressed. She also had an inviting smile.

Their first date had seemed a bit dull, however. She didn’t talk much, and he could have sworn she wasn’t interested. When Reb Blesofsky had left a note for him to call her again, he was puzzled. But agreeable.

She was the daughter of a poor shoe salesman, and her mother suffered from manic-depression. Both facts placed her very low on the
shiddoch
list. Like Paul, she was eighteen, and she had already dated several boys from Hasidic families, all with situations similar to hers, but nothing had worked out. Now, she was agreeing to date boys from non-Hasidic homes. Paul was the first.

Reb Blesofsky was actually pleased with the match, despite the reasons for which he’d originally gotten involved. He had checked Paul out, and had learned that the boy hadn’t lied about coming from a wealthy family. The only snag was that Alfred Sims would probably sooner strangle the
shodchin
than give him a nickel.

Paul’s decision to see Chava again was partly because he’d heard that Rachel had gone out with Benjamin Frankel several times. He wasn’t acquainted with the young scholar everybody referred to as “Binny,” but he’d had more than an earful about the young man’s wonderful qualities. The word was that Rachel and Binny would soon be engaged, and Paul was starting to realize that he needed, somehow, to get on with his life.

On their second date, Paul and Chava both seemed more self-assured, for each knew that the other was now there by choice.

“You know,” Paul said, “things are much different in Crown Heights than I’d thought they were before I came here.”

She looked curious about what he meant.

They were sitting beside one another on a couch in the T.W.A. terminal at Kennedy airport. It was the middle of winter, and there were few indoor places for Hasidic couples to go. Bars and movies were
verboten
, so the airport was a popular spot.

Paul had borrowed a car from one of his teachers for the occasion. The rabbis in the yeshiva would do almost anything to help their students get married. It was a great
mitzvah
.

“I mean,” Paul continued, “I never realized how much of an outsider I would always be, no matter how hard I tried to fit in.”

“I know the feeling.” She almost whispered, as if she were talking to herself.

“You do?”

“Yes. In many ways, I’m also treated like an outsider.”

“How’s that?”

She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well, my mother’s illness, which I’m sure you’ve heard about, and the fact that my father doesn’t make a lot of money. They discriminate against such things.”

Paul had known all this, of course, but it felt good having her share it. “That’s okay, my mother’s crazy too,” he said.

She was silent. At first, he thought he’d offended her, wondering how he could have been so stupid to say such a thing. She looked into his eyes; he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. And then she started to laugh. Relieved, he began to laugh too.

He told her the story of how he had become a Lubavitcher, offering frank details about his parents, and even mentioning that he’d seen a psychologist. He talked about his relationship with Rabbi Weissman—which had been dwindling as of late—and he also brought up Rachel. Of course, he downplayed his interest in Rachel, describing his feelings only in the past-tense.

Chava talked about her family as well. She, too, was an only child, and her father had to work very hard to support her and her mother, especially with the psychiatric bills. “He often has to work so late at the store, he doesn’t get home till after ten. That’s why you haven’t met him yet.”

“And why haven’t I met your mother?”

“These days she doesn’t get out of bed much,” she said sadly.

Paul didn’t know how to respond. After a few seconds of silence, he noticed an airplane pulling out toward the runway. “Come,” he said gently, standing up, “let’s go watch the planes.”

She looked at him and smiled. It was one of those moments in which ordinary people might have shared a kiss or a tender touch, but such was forbidden for unmarried Hasidic couples. The smile would have to do.

By her fifth date with Binny Frankel, Rachel Weissman knew she was running out of time. In Hasidic circles it was expected that a man would propose marriage at this point. Prolonged courtship was frowned upon.

Rachel had known from the start that, by all objective standards, Binny was a catch. Fearful of hurting her parents, she’d played her role flawlessly. She would make the perfect wife.

“I want to live in a house, a big house,” he had said on their third date. “I want my children to have a lot of room to run around, as
I
had in South Africa.”