The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (18 page)

‘Yes, but Mrs Gelb­mann, we both know that Chani hasn't been to sem. Is he aware of that fact? And more to the point, his parents? Oh. Really?' Her mother was listening intently again. ‘Good. Yes. Very good. Ok, ok, I'll talk to her and I will let you know. Thank you, Mrs Gelb­mann. Yes and you, yes im yirtzeh HaShem. Goodbye for now.' Her mother hung up.

Chani shot into the living room, her slippers skidding on the lino.

‘Chani-leh, I know you were listening!' scolded Mrs Kaufman.

Chani knew better than to pretend otherwise. She threw herself into plumping up the cushions. Her mother shuffled up behind her.

‘Well at least you're blushing! Since when has listening in on other people's private conversations been the right thing to do, young lady?'

Chani rolled her eyes at the bookshelf. She spun to face her mother. ‘Mum, please, not now! Just tell me! Who is he?'

Mrs Kaufman dropped onto the sofa and patted the space next to her. Obediently, Chani sat down.

‘His name is Baruch Levy. He comes from a wealthy family, it seems, although I haven't heard of them. Clearly they don't go to your father's shtiebel.' Another sniff. 'He's a yeshiva bocher with a place at Or Yerushaliyim, but tell me what sort of yeshiva bocher arrives late to a wedding and starts looking at all the women?' queried Mrs Kaufman. She turned to face Chani, her mouth twisted in distaste. ‘And I dread to think what you were doing that made him notice you!'

'Mum! All boys look, even frum boys. Surely Dad looked at you? A little glimpse here and there perhaps? I wasn't doing
anything
. I promise. I was behaving myself. I wasn't even aware anyone was looking.' She stopped herself before mentioning that Shulamis had seen him staring.

Suddenly she burned to meet him. She swept aside their differences. He was young, Shulamis had said. And tall. And he had bothered to pursue her this far. If she did not move quickly, he may lose interest and turn his attentions elsewhere.

‘Mum – it doesn't matter – I want to meet him.'

Mrs Kaufman, not wishing to appear too keen, was in favour of letting a little time elapse before returning the shadchan's call.

‘Very well, I'll talk to your father and I'll call her after Shabbes,' she sighed. ‘But let's not get our hopes up. You know how it is, Chani-leh with these shidduchim. So many girls waiting in line. Too many choices for these silly boys, nu? Not a true mensch amongst them! Ok, so you're a little talkative but who wouldn't want you?' She stroked Chani's hair.

‘I know, Mum. Can't you call her back tonight?'

Her mother tutted. ‘Chani, a little pride, a little decorum.'

‘Oh Mum! What does it matter? He'll probably reject me in the long run anyway. Better to get it over and done with now. Or he may just . . . just . . .'

Mrs Kaufman gave her daughter a wan smile. Chani was radiating ripples of panic and her stomach lurched in recognition of her daughter's fears. What if no one wanted her? It had been easier with the others. Perhaps HaShem had His reasons for the delay. She wished He would hurry up though. Soon Chani would lose hope as the shidduchim offered became less and less palatable. She would slip and flounder her way into spinsterhood, jaded by endless disappointment. Mrs Kaufman could not bear to think of Chani growing old alone. As if cursed. The taint would spread, infecting her younger daughters. Not until Chani was wed could another search begin.

November 2008 – London

The Rebbetzin walked at a smart pace, her feet beating time against the slickened pavements. She passed the mysterious Christian centre on the corner after the station. Today there were no Africans crowding its doors, dressed in their Sunday best, the women looking regal in patterned head wraps and matching dresses. The building was large, square and grey, and had once belonged to the BBC. It looked nothing like a religious building and still smacked of a public institution with its glass barred swing doors and notice boards. She had often wondered what it would be like to attend a service there. She would have liked to hear the singing. The centre behind her, her mind wandered back to the past. They had been so happy once.

 

The changes began shortly after they had left Israel when the children were still young, and had continued ever since. Most of them the Rebbetzin had accommodated willingly. She had little choice – Golders Green was not Nachla'ot.

Chaim had had to knuckle down, study and work hard to become an accepted rabbi. He had to forego the knitted white skullcap and loose, light-coloured clothes he had favoured in Jerusalem. Here, the congregation did not dance and sing feverishly to welcome in Shabbes and, consequently, proceedings tended to be much more staid.

Everything slowly became more rigid and conservative, including her husband. He threw out all their old pop records, replacing Elvis Costello and The Jam with the sound of famous cantors singing psalms and liturgy.

She took to wearing dark, wintry, neutral shades that made her feel old and frumpy. Her brilliant headscarves in a myriad of hues and textures were exchanged for mop-like sheitels. She put away her bangles, heavy ethnic silver jewellery and her rings encrusted with lumps of turquoise and malachite and wore only her wedding ring. On the outside, she became the model rabbi's wife, a paragon of virtue, modesty and kindness. She visited the sick, she attended Rosh Chodesh meetings, she prayed and baked and cleaned and welcomed and brought up her children in the approved Yiddisher way. She smiled even though her cheeks ached from the effort.

She missed Jerusalem but knew she could never go back. This busy new life left her with little time to think. She did not want to think. It was better to muddle on, to be grateful for the daily routine, for the endless round of holy days and festivals that marked the passage of time. To watch her children grow and become part of a warm, secure, if at times stifling community. The Rebbetzin was lulled into a vague contentment.

Chaim became increasingly pious and formal in his outlook and for the majority of the time, she conceded to follow him, as the supportive spouse. They had little choice. The more they fitted in, the more successful Chaim became. The audiences increased at the lessons he gave. More people attended his services at the local shul. He was no longer just the junior rabbi; he was the next in line. Rabbi Rubowski could not go on forever.

 

One day, Chaim arrived home to find a shiny green bicycle in the hall. It was a lady's bicycle and had a large wicker basket attached to the handlebars. He tried the bell and it gave off a pert trill.

The Rebbetzin appeared, wiping her hands on her apron. The children were eating an early supper in the kitchen. She watched her husband. He tried the brakes and felt the tyres.

‘So, what do you think? I bought it today.'

‘Where did you get it?'

‘There's a small bike shop in Hampstead.'

‘Must have been expensive, no?'

‘It's second-hand.'

‘Looks new.' He rang the bell again, wheeling the bicycle forward to hear the whirr of the spokes.

‘So, where do you intend to ride your new steed?'

She paused warily, alerted by his sarcasm. ‘I thought I would ride it around here when I visit anyone sick or elderly. I can bring them a thermos flask of hot soup, or freshly baked chollah in the basket – see it's really useful, plenty of space for my shopping too. It would help me get around quicker. And it would keep me fit.'

Chaim let out a long, tired sigh. Then he faced his wife.

‘Rivka, it's a lovely bike and I wish you could ride it, but you know you can't. It's just not appropriate, and by appropriate, I mean modest, for a grown woman, a rabbi's wife no less, to be seen on a bike, pedalling around town.'

The Rebbetzin gritted her teeth, forcing herself to whisper so the children would not hear. ‘Chaim, I am going to ride that bike. Whether or not it's appropriate. I am sorry but the community can think what it likes.'

He gazed at her. ‘What about what I think? I'm your husband and I don't like the idea of you being seen riding a bike. It's just not right.'

She glared at him. The urge to shout was almost irrepressible, but it would get her nowhere. ‘So you are commanding me not to ride it?'

‘I am asking you politely and calmly. Please don't.'

‘I see . . . so now we live by your rules alone.'

‘No, you know that's not true – you rule in the house. HaShem rules over us all.'

‘Well I don't think HaShem would take offence at a woman riding a bike.'

‘No, but Rabbi Rubowski might . . . and he's due to retire after the Yom Tovim. Listen, ride it on the Heath on a Sunday, no one will see you. We can drive it over in the back of the Volvo. I'll stay with the kids. They can play on the swings.'

Rivka leant against the wall and eyed her husband. His beard was longer and more tangled than ever. There were dark shadows under his eyes. His briefcase was battered and his shoes were scuffed. His tiredness hung over him like a grey cloud.

Still, she was not going to give in. She loved her new bicycle and the freedom it would give her was too tantalizing to forsake without a fight.

‘I see. So if I give up this bike, then you should give up watching football on the telly.'

The television was their little secret. Locked away in a heavy pine cupboard in their bedroom, even the children had been warned never to mention it to their friends at school. Chaim and the boys would pile onto their bed to watch football in the evenings if a big match was on.

Chaim's face fell. He loved football. And Rivka loved Eastenders, her guilty pleasure. Yet she was banking on her husband giving in.

‘It's not the same. Nobody knows about the telly. It's hidden away in our house, we don't watch over Shabbes, and we don't watch anything inappropriate.'

‘Ah, but we all know what Rabbi Rubowksi thinks of television, don't we? It's a vindow of feeelth, it's Sodom and Gomorrah in the home!' She mimicked the rabbi's rant.

Chaim gave her a wry smile. ‘Rivka, please, I am begging you now. Don't ride that bike around here. Please, for my sake. For our sake.'

Her husband gazed at her with sad, serious eyes. She could not hurt him by disobeying him. He was changing. They both were. In Nachla'ot he would not have cared if she had ridden a donkey around town.

She stared at the bike; her hand lingered over the narrow leather seat. She pulled away.

‘Ok. You win. I'll take the bike back in the morning.'

He clutched her arm. ‘Thank you. I'm sorry. But this means a lot to me.'

The next day, she could not bring herself to return the bike. Instead, it remained leaning against the wall, gathering dust. She told herself she would ride it on a Sunday on the Heath. But the Sunday passed by, as did the one after, and the one after that; filled with duties and visits, simchas and prayers.

Eventually, she no longer noticed the bicycle. It had become part of the furniture. Until today. Now she remembered what she had given up and what she had become.

 

The Rebbetzin walked on, brooding. Opposite the station, the shops had changed hands rapidly over the passing years. Several brightly lit sushi restaurants, cafes and a small supermarket had sprung up, serving the needs of the growing Japanese community. She glanced curiously inside the childlike, pastel interior of the café. Everything looked very clean and white – almost like the interior of a spaceship. A television flickered high on the wall.

Several months after the bicycle incident, the Rebbetzin had gone upstairs to watch Eastenders. She groped for the key, her hand disturbing the dust at the top of the cabinet. It was not there. Perhaps it had fallen down the back. The cabinet was too heavy to shift.

She marched out of their bedroom, annoyed that she had already missed the first five minutes.

‘Chaim!'

There was no answer. She leaned over the banister.

‘Chaim!' she called louder. His beard and spectacles appeared. He was dressed in an apron, his sleeves rolled up. In his left hand, he brandished a cooking spatula.

‘Yes?'

‘Can you come upstairs for a minute?'

‘I'm in the middle of frying latkes with the kids – can't it wait?'

‘Where's the key to the TV cabinet?'

‘I threw it away.'

‘What? Since when?'

‘Since yesterday.'

They eyeballed each other. Chaim dropped his gaze first, rubbing his aching neck. The Rebbetzin stormed down the stairs and stood opposite him, hands on her hips.

‘You threw away the key without consulting me first? Why?' she hissed.

Chaim looked rueful. He scratched his head, tugged on his beard and waved the spatula about. ‘I'm the main rabbi now at shul. I can't tell other people not to watch TV if we have one at home, can I? How much of a hypocrite can I carry on being?'

‘What about us – your kids? Me? What about our enjoyment? No one would ever have found out! We've always kept shtum, the kids know not to talk.'

Her voice was a furious whisper.

‘I know, I know. But next year, Michal will be eleven and we want her to go to Queen Esther, right?'

‘Nu? They don't need to know!'

‘Come on, we have to sign that agreement when we fill in the application forms saying that we don't have a TV in the house. I'm a rabbi. I can't lie! We have to get rid of it. I'll get Tzaki to come round with his van tomorrow.'

‘So, we do what everyone else does – we move the telly into the garden shed whilst we sign the form and move it back into the house when she gets accepted! Technically, that way we are not lying, because it won't be in the house when we sign!'

Chaim pushed his spectacles higher up his nose. He sighed.

‘No, I can't do that. I can't lie like that. I am sorry. The TV has to go. It's just not appropriate any more in this house.'

‘Fine! You can tell the kids then. Let it be on your head when you tell the boys they can't watch football any more.'

She wheeled round and stomped upstairs.

‘I'll miss the footie as much as they will,' Chaim called up after her.

The door to their bedroom slammed with such force that the framed photo of the Lubavitch Rebbe slipped. The Rebbe gave him a lopsided smile, his raised finger now pointing in the direction of their bedroom, rather than at the heavens. Chaim gave him a nod, righted the picture and plodded back to the kitchen.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, the Rebbetzin retaliated by visiting the station café which had a small television perched on a shelf in one corner. She would drop in during the early afternoons before the children came home from school, nestling in with a steaming cup of tea, as far away from the window as possible.

Whatever was on she watched; it was the act itself that mattered. She imbibed a daily menu of news, second rate soaps, the flogging of suspect antiques in various market towns, or the dullest of them all, darts competitions.

This small rebellion gave her a sense of vindication. The owner of the café began to reserve her seat for her. Soon she was on nodding terms with the other locals, the genteel elderly lady nibbling at her Danish pastry, the school kids bunking afternoon lessons to share a sneaky cigarette over a plate of chips, and the bus drivers who would sit and mutter in a male coven of their own at the back of the café.

Her clothes stank of bacon grease and chip fat but she persisted in her transgression, enjoying every minute. Until Mrs Gottleib, her busybody neighbour from across the street spotted her through the window and marched in to greet her.

The Rebbetzin had been glued to the screen, anxiously awaiting the outcome of a game show when a large, familiar, female shape obscured her view.

‘Ahh, my dear Rebbetzin Zilberman, what a surprise to stumble across you here, in this' – Mrs Gottleib took an unsavoury sniff and waved her hand dismissively at the café and its inhabitants – 'unusual, little place.'

The Rebbetzin remained seated, desperately trying to see past Mrs Gottleib's voluminous sheitel. But Mrs Gottleib would not budge. Her stout legs seemed to have taken root amongst the sticky tiles of the café's floor.

‘Oh, I just come here to relax a little, find a moment to myself – I find it so helpful when one needs to recharge, Mrs Gottleib.'

‘Really, Rebbetzin Zilberman, I find I can do that at home perfectly well. A ten-minute nap on the couch is all I need – that is if I get the chance. It's a rare thing these days! But I see you are otherwise engaged here, my dear Rebbetzin. I don't wish to disturb you.'

Mrs Gottleib had not turned once to look at the screen. Instead her shoulders braced themselves against the evil transmission bouncing onto her broad back.

The Rebbetzin laughed weakly. ‘Not at all, Mrs Gottleib, not at all. How is Mr Gottleib? And your children?'

‘Baruch HaShem, thank you, everyone's fine. Well, I must be going, I haven't got time to waste, my Kallah is coming for dinner with her newborn, my sixth grandchild. One must count one's blessings, Rebbetzin!'

‘Baruch HaShem, Mrs Gottleib! Do pass on my best wishes!'

Mrs Gottleib gave her a fiendish, self-satisfied smile and ambled out. The café door shuddered as she let it slam behind her. She gave the Rebbetzin a little wave as she passed the window and was gone.