Run You Down (12 page)

I did not say anything. I did not say,
But Saul, it almost killed me
.

“Go upstairs. Take a shower if you like. There are linens in the bathroom. Rest.”

After Saul left, I went upstairs. There were four bedrooms in the house, each not much bigger than a closet, all along a narrow hallway. The summer before we left for Florida, your father and I slept together in the room closest to the bathroom. The one with the window that looked over the little concrete backyard. We slept together on a single bed, never exactly comfortable, but so happy to be exactly where we were: together, naked, free. Intoxicated not just by each other but the circumstance, the fact that the long afternoons and sleepless nights seemed to be for nothing but our pleasure. Since I had last been there, the room had been transformed from a flop pad to a true bedroom. Three black-and-white framed photographs hung in a row on the wall across from the neatly made bed: one of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of a placid lake scene—upstate, probably—and one of three old men on the Coney Island boardwalk, standing with their backs to the camera, looking out onto the ocean. There was a small table with a lamp atop it and a fresh coat of pale blue paint on the walls. Everything was clean—even the thin carpet. I closed the door and took off my coat and shoes and then lay down. The morning sun was just beginning to come through the window as I closed my eyes.

I awoke in the early afternoon and used the toilet, avoiding my face in the bathroom mirror. I stood in the hallway and listened, but the house seemed empty. I lay down again and closed my eyes again, looking deep into the darkness for more sleep, more escape. Perhaps I could sleep through the next week, the next year. Perhaps I could sleep until I was dead. It was dark again when Saul knocked on the door.

“Aviva,” he whispered, gently pushing the door open.

“Mmm,” I murmured. I’d had an orgasm in my sleep—my dream a frenzy of seeking relief for the deep ache that crawled and scratched inside me, begging to be satisfied. It was a blur of men and women, lined up somewhere, and me grabbing ahold of whoever didn’t push me away, groping, grinding against them like an animal in heat. The relief, when it finally came, was waves of warm. And then Saul’s voice.

“Aviva,” he said. “Would you like some dinner?”

“Saul,” I said, my face still against the pillow. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted anything. I needed to keep that warm feeling for just a little longer. It didn’t matter that it would be gone in minutes. Minutes was all I needed; all I deserved. I reached out my arm and he took my hand and sat down on the bed. “Lie here,” I said. “Touch me.” I felt his body tense, and I turned over beneath the covers to look up at him. By the time our eyes met, he had consented. He leaned forward and kissed me. It was the kiss I remember most. He was as hungry as I was. He lay down beside me, his uniform belt pressing against my stomach. I pulled off my sweater and I heard him gasp quietly. I had complete control over him. He would do anything I wanted at this moment. He didn’t waste time asking me this and that like your father did at first (“can I touch you here?”), he just tossed back the blanket and climbed on top of me. We kissed and kissed and he held my face in his hands. “I don’t have a condom,” he breathed into my ear. “I want to, but we can’t.” I looked at him. We huffed in unison, both red-faced, exhilarated. “What?” I said, lost, barely listening. “I know, but we can’t,” he said again. I closed my eyes to his protest, smiling, falling back into the swell of the moment, arching my back to unhook my bra. “Just kiss me,” I said. “Kiss me more.” We kissed and I wiggled out of my skirt. I was naked and I felt as safe as I had ever felt. I knew nothing could go wrong. “Please,” he said. But I couldn’t hear him. I pulled down his zipper. He loved me, I thought. How could he not? “Please,” I said. And that was all it took. We both kept our eyes open, each experiencing the other for those few minutes as everything we had ever wanted. Ecstatic, and alone. Afterward, he lay beside me, his hand resting on my ribcage. I turned my head toward him and, mercifully, he did not smile. A smile, I thought, would ruin it. This was serious.

It was dark in the room, and neither of us had anywhere to go, so we fell asleep together. It was long after dinnertime when I woke up. I slipped out of the bed to go to the bathroom. I hadn’t planned to leave, but it quickly became the best choice, for both of us. If my family did not want me in Brooklyn, I would leave. Brooklyn meant less than nothing to me. I had been to Israel three times to visit family and my impression was that it was both much the same and completely different. I needed some completely different. Saul did not need me. Saul was just fine. I dressed as he slept, watching him for signs he was hearing me. He didn’t move—what if he had moved?—and then I was outside, with a subway token back to Borough Park in my pocket.

Eli drove me to the airport. I dressed tznius. I brought very little from Florida, so it was easy to pull on Penina’s cast-off stockings and a shapeless sweater and long skirt and pretend that it was simply practical. Half a day later I was at Ben Gurion, carrying a suitcase toward a taxi stand.

One year later, I agreed to marry a man named Etan Shiloh. He was twenty-nine years old and his family lived in the Old City. The wedding was small. Etan was a good husband to me. I tolerated his humorlessness and he learned to manage my moods. We were married for nearly ten years before he found my birth control pills. And then, just like that, it was over. I was sent back to Brooklyn.

PART 2

CHAPTER TEN

REBEKAH

Iris and Brice don’t wait up for me. And if I want to get to Roseville by eight thirty—right in the middle of rush hour—I figure I have to leave at six thirty, before they’re likely to wake up. I leave a note:

Hey lovebirds
Got a meeting with a Jew upstate this morning. Then headed to try to find my uncle (??) Might stay over … will call. Drinks soon?? xoxo

It’s been months since I’ve driven a car—my old Honda died before the New Year—and driving in New York City is more than a little hairy. It takes almost an hour to get through the Battery Tunnel, up the West Side and over the George Washington Bridge, during which time I am nearly sideswiped by a livery driver and a delivery truck, and end up the product of some serious taxi-driver rage when I accidentally “block the box” near Chelsea Piers. I follow the directions on my Google Maps up the Palisades and then north on the Thruway. The sky is white and the trees lining the road are still winter bare. On WNYC, Brian Lehrer is interviewing the parks commissioner about post-Sandy progress at city beaches. Iris and I didn’t make it to the beach last summer; we were still getting acclimated, I guess, and there is something almost unbelievable to begin with about the idea that the original concrete jungle even has beaches. But listening to this man talk enthusiastically about the Rockaway Beach Boardwalk, and the new Brooklyn waterfront’s pop-up pool makes the prospect of spring—and even better, summer—seem almost real. I wonder if the sadness I’ve been stuck in has something to do with the weather. Does Seasonal Affective Disorder even exist in Florida?

After about twenty minutes on the Thruway, I see signs for Roseville. It occurs to me, as I pull into the vast lot outside of the Target-anchored shopping center, that escaping strip malls like this has been an unexpected perk of leaving Florida. I guess when they first got built somebody imagined that because all the stores are connected by a walkway, the Panera Bread and the Rite Aid and the Foot Locker and the Pier 1 might simulate a kind of neighborhood. But now that I’ve moved to New York City, I understand that a real neighborhood is one that can’t be planned, but that grows like a field of wildflowers from whatever blows in and has the fortitude to survive.

The Starbucks is just inside the automatic glass doors of the Target, across from rows of red shopping carts. Nechemaya, or a man I assume to be Nechemaya because he is the only person I see wearing the ultra-Orthodox uniform, is sitting alone at a two-top with a venti-sized paper cup in front of him, typing intently on his smartphone.

“Mr. Burstein?” I say

He looks up. “Rebekah? Hello, yes. Thank you for coming.” He pushes back his chair and stands up.

I hate not shaking hands with people I meet; it feels like our interaction is incomplete, somehow. But I guess if I’m going to report in the Haredi world I better get used to it. “I’m gonna grab some coffee real quick,” I say. “You good?”

He nods. I wait in line behind a woman in a pink tracksuit talking on the phone to someone with whom she disagrees, and in front of a man with a gray ponytail and John Lennon–style eyeglasses carrying a shopping basket full of recycled toilet paper. At the counter, as I mix in milk, I watch Nechemaya. He takes a manila folder out of the black bag at his feet and places it in front of him on the table. With his left hand, he cups the lower half of his face and smooths his beard.

I sit down and he puts his hands over the folder. I take out my notebook.

“I do not wish to have my name in the newspaper,” he says. “I am not coming to you because I wish to bring attention to myself.”

“Okay,” I say. “I won’t publish anything you tell me now. But can we discuss the possibility again in the future?”

Nechemaya nods. His face is very round, and his beard, though several inches in length, is thin enough that the pale skin beneath it shows through. The beard is not an attractive addition to his face, but I suppose its aesthetic qualities don’t enter into his decision to wear it.

“I have some information I hope you will follow up on. After Pessie Goldin was buried, the man and woman who live in the apartment above hers contacted me. They told me that the day Pessie died the wife saw a strange vehicle—a pickup truck—parked across the street from their building.”

“What do you mean by ‘strange’?”

“I mean unfamiliar,” he says. “It was not a vehicle they had seen before. She said several neighbors saw the truck, too, but she was the only one who thought to write down the license plate number. She gave it to me and I gave it to the police, as well as contact information for the woman who saw the vehicle. About two weeks later, I learned the police had not contacted the woman or, as far as she knew, any neighbors, for an interview. I called and I was told that they could not discuss the case.”

“You talked to Chief Gregory?”

“Yes. I consulted with the other members of chevra kadisha, and the Roseville
shomrim,
and we decided to take the information to Pessie’s family. Myself and another member sat down with her father and mother last week, but they did not wish to pursue it further. They did not want more scrutiny on the family. They have four children younger than Pessie who still need to make shidduch. There are rumors that Pessie was taking drugs.”

“Drugs? You mean medication?”

“Medication?”

“Levi told me Pessie had been taking antidepressants.”

“That may have been what they were referring to. Truthfully, I do not know if they actually believe she had been involved in drugs or if they are just afraid of the rumors. They said Pessie was gone and there was nothing that would bring her back. But when I saw that Levi had spoken out about his suspicions, I contacted him and he gave me your phone number.” He pushes the folder toward me. “I gave this information to the Roseville police chief. Now I am giving it to you.”

I open the folder and inside find a single piece of lined yellow legal paper, torn in half. On it is written, in what I assume is Nechemaya’s hand,
New York LCG6732.

“The neighbors said the truck was blue and white. They could not provide a make or model.”

“Did they see anyone get in or out?”

“No. She said she had been in the back of the apartment and only happened to walk by the front window as the truck was leaving.”

“Would she be willing to talk to me? I don’t necessarily have to use her name. I could just refer to her as a neighbor.”

“Possibly,” says Nechemaya.

“I’d also like to talk to some people who knew Pessie. I know it sounds a little crass, but the more the readers know about her the more they will care, and the more they care, the more likely it is that the newspaper will let me keep covering the story. I tried calling her parents, but the woman who answered the phone hung up on me. Do you know any of her friends?”

“I don’t, but I will make some phone calls. And I believe the neighbors knew her fairly well. I will ask if they are available for an interview.”

“Great,” I say. “I can even do it over the phone if that’s better for them.”

Nechemaya nods. I fold the piece of paper and put it into my notebook.

“Why do you think the police chief never followed up on this?”

Nechemaya draws a shallow breath and flares his nostrils. “It is not like Brooklyn here in Rockland County. These people still think they can make us leave.” He shifts in his chair, agitated. “This chief … I have heard him say in council meetings that he does not work for us because we do not pay taxes.”