Read The Sabbathday River Online
Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Sabbathday River (9 page)
“Not yet,” she said. “Maybe soon.” She listlessly moved a carrot around her plate with the tip of her fork. “My mother came from Germany after the war. She was the only one in her family to make it out. She had a very specific interpretation of procreation, which she thoughtfully passed on to my sister and me. Basically, she told us that if we didn't have children it would mean Hitler had won.”
Something in Naomi's stomach clenched. “That's pretty heavy for a little kid.”
Judith, unaccountably, smiled. “Oh, I don't think she meant it to burden us. She just wanted us to see the world the way she saw it.”
“She was a character.” Joel shook his head. “Some people coming out of the camps were like that, you know. Almost hedonists. They were determined to have joy every day. Of course she hated almost everyone.”
“Except her daughters,” Judith reassured Naomi.
“Right. The two of you, she completely adored. You were the reason she was saved. I mean”âhe smiled fondlyâ“to have you.”
“Yeah.” Judith held her glass for Naomi to fill again. “That was the whole point to life. Life was a bunch of threads, and the threads were
families, and they were dangling down through the centuries, all the way back to the beginning of time. Or Abraham and Isaac, anyway. And then someone came along and tried to cut through the threads with these big cosmic scissors, and of course he did this very efficiently, but not quite efficiently enough to finish the job, so some little threads were missed. And so now the ones he missed have to make up for the ones he cut.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that's how my sister and I inherited the responsibility of repopulating the world. My sister says it's why she became a midwife.”
families, and they were dangling down through the centuries, all the way back to the beginning of time. Or Abraham and Isaac, anyway. And then someone came along and tried to cut through the threads with these big cosmic scissors, and of course he did this very efficiently, but not quite efficiently enough to finish the job, so some little threads were missed. And so now the ones he missed have to make up for the ones he cut.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that's how my sister and I inherited the responsibility of repopulating the world. My sister says it's why she became a midwife.”
“A midwife!” Naomi was impressed.
Judith nodded. “Rachel went and studied with those women on the commune in Tennessee. They're the ones who wrote that
Spiritual Midwifery
book that tells you how labor pains are supposed to be psychedelic and holy.”
Spiritual Midwifery
book that tells you how labor pains are supposed to be psychedelic and holy.”
Naomi laughed. “And so, has your sister fulfilled her responsibilities? I mean, does she have kids of her own?”
Judith seemed to consider. “Well, yes,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly soft. “She has two. A boy and a girl.”
“That's nice. One of each.” Naomi's voice was bright. It seemed awkwardly bright suddenly.
“Yes,” said Judith. She looked past Naomi, her gaze fixed. Naomi fought an urge to turn around and see what was so completely interesting. But then she spoke. “So what do you think. Would a kid raised in New Hampshire just automatically grow up to be Pat Buchanan or Phyllis Schlafly?”
Naomi smiled at her. “Well, no. But you'd have your work cut out for you. I mean, I've been here nine years and I've never had a real woman friend.”
Until now,
she was too shy to add.
Until now,
she was too shy to add.
“Well, the sixties did get to most places, in the end,” Judith said. “I mean, some places it didn't turn up till the seventies, but still.”
“Nope.” Naomi shook her head. “They headed it off at the Connecticut River. They painted over the road signs so people kept driving till they hit Maine.” She speared a carrot out of the gravy. “It just never really happened here.”
“But how can that be true?” Joel said. “I mean, there's no difference between New Hampshire and Vermont, is there?”
“Actually,” Naomi said, “there
is
a difference. They don't even look alike, really, if you think about it. Vermont has rolling hills and green
valleys; you tend not to get them on this side of the river. A geologist I met once told me that, geologically, they're quite distinct from each other. They actually belong to different plates or something, he said. The back-to-the-land types found this particular land very inhospitable for their purposes, while the land across the Connecticut River was a bit more forgiving. There were something like a hundred communes over there. You know”âshe tore a piece of brown bread and spread it with apple butterâ“Vermont had about a 10 percent population hike in the sixties.”
is
a difference. They don't even look alike, really, if you think about it. Vermont has rolling hills and green
valleys; you tend not to get them on this side of the river. A geologist I met once told me that, geologically, they're quite distinct from each other. They actually belong to different plates or something, he said. The back-to-the-land types found this particular land very inhospitable for their purposes, while the land across the Connecticut River was a bit more forgiving. There were something like a hundred communes over there. You know”âshe tore a piece of brown bread and spread it with apple butterâ“Vermont had about a 10 percent population hike in the sixties.”
“That's a lot of hippies,” Judith observed.
“Not just hippies,” Naomi said. “The other reason was skiing.”
“Skiing.”
Joel laughed. “What does skiing have to do with it?”
Joel laughed. “What does skiing have to do with it?”
“Oh, skiing was terribly important in the sixties. It was new, for one thing. I mean, it had been around for decades, but now there were big centers with lifts and snowmaking, and there were the new interstates to bring people up from Boston or New York for the weekend and still get them home in time for work on Monday. A lot of folks came and got hooked, and they looked around at what was happening in society and just decided to chuck their work and do what they liked. So you had a whole state full of college graduates running snowplows and tending bar. And after a few years, when they'd gotten it out of their systems, they dusted off the old degrees and started up businesses or began selling real estate, or they hung out their shingles, and
voilÃ
: a state full of professionals with residual political commitments. And of course, people go where there are already people doing what
they
want to be doing. People like to be with their own kind. They want to live among like-minded souls. Unlike me, of course,” she said with acrid self-deprecation. Then she smiled at Judith. “You said it yourself, you wished you'd moved to Putney.”
voilÃ
: a state full of professionals with residual political commitments. And of course, people go where there are already people doing what
they
want to be doing. People like to be with their own kind. They want to live among like-minded souls. Unlike me, of course,” she said with acrid self-deprecation. Then she smiled at Judith. “You said it yourself, you wished you'd moved to Putney.”
Husband and wife exchanged a loaded look. “I would have
loved
to move to Putney,” Judith said.
loved
to move to Putney,” Judith said.
“Lots of great people in Putney,” Naomi prompted. “They have a food co-op ⦔
“Yeah, yeah.” Then Judith smiled. “I knew this woman. She was a weaver in Putney. About five years ago she decided to move to Israel. She wanted to try living on a kibbutz. So she's out in the field there, picking lemons or whatever, within shouting distance of the Lebanese border, and a guy comes up to her, says, âDon't I know you? Aren't you in the Putney co-op?'”
Naomi grinned. “Still, I'm glad you came here. Seven more of us and we'll have a minyan.”
“That's supposed to be all men,” Joel said, tearing off another piece of bread.
Judith leaned conspiratorially toward Naomi. “Got him away from New York just in time. There's a religious revival going on. This charismatic rabbi near Lincoln Center's pulling 'em back into the fold like a Venus flytrap.”
“Ouch,” Naomi said.
“Absolutely. It's invasion of the body snatchers, the Goldberg variation. People who toasted the death of God with LSD are studying Talmud with their kids. A woman I worked with started trading cases with me so she could get home before sundown on Fridays.”
“But you're a scientist,” said Naomi to Joel. “How could you possibly reconcile genetics with God? You can't believe in both.”
He had evidently considered this problem before. “I don't know. I think you believe what you believe. You let the details sort themselves out later.”
Judith rolled her eyes. “God's a pretty big detail, sweetie.”
“Well, I'm perfectly comfortable with the fact that there is no God.” Naomi shrugged. Joel, pursing his lips, said nothing. “I used to say âagnostic,'” she went on. “Then one day it occurred to me: who am I kidding? I'm not agnostic. Saying you're agnostic implies that you're engaged in the active, ongoing pursuit of an understanding of God, and truthfully, I hung up my pursuit years ago. It would be like saying you're training for a marathon when you're not even jogging around the blockâit's misleading and even a little dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Joel looked at her.
“Yeah, you get to thinking you're not going to drop dead from a heart attack because you've been doing all that imaginary training. I mean,” Naomi said, “you get complacent about an afterlife because you can't admit to yourself that you really just don't believe. Like the God you don't acknowledge is going to give you points for not admitting your disavowal outright.”
“But how can you be
sure
?” Joel leaned forward.
sure
?” Joel leaned forward.
She smiled at him. “I must lack the gene for faith.”
To her amusement, he seemed to take this seriously. “Perhaps you do. Perhaps it comes down to that, after all.”
“You have to forgive him.” Judith leaned in. “It's his version of a
midlife crisis. This is what a midlife crisis looks like in a man who's basically happy with his life. Like I said, I got him out of New York just in time. In another year, I might have had two sinks, two refrigerators, two dishwashers ⦔
midlife crisis. This is what a midlife crisis looks like in a man who's basically happy with his life. Like I said, I got him out of New York just in time. In another year, I might have had two sinks, two refrigerators, two dishwashers ⦔
“But you said you
wanted
two refrigerators in the new house.” Joel frowned.
wanted
two refrigerators in the new house.” Joel frowned.
“Yeah, sure. But not to keep kosher. It's to keep sane. I'm going to have to freeze all the stuff I haul up from Zabar's. And as you ought to remember, my dear husband, when I'm working, it's dinner on ice. You may have transported me to the land of Live Free or Die, but once I start in Peytonville, you're going to have to get used to defrost and reheat again.” She shook a silver-ringed index finger at him.
“Much
as I love you, you know the cow thieves come first.”
“Much
as I love you, you know the cow thieves come first.”
“I know.” Joel smiled.
Naomi offered coffee and got up to make it.
“It's kind of funny,” she said to Judith, who had followed her into the kitchen, “when my ex-husband and I first came here, I was just charmed by that. âLive Free or Die' on every license plate. I was thinking: âBorn Free.' Lions in Africa. I was thinking, you know, out in the wilderness, the feeling of freedom and exhilaration. Like: go out and really
live
your life, don't just sit around and let it happen to you. Be free! You know? Then one day I was sitting on the porch at Tom and Whit's, watching these two guys stock up their car to go out hunting. They've got a Stars and Stripes tied to the CB antenna and this bumper sticker that says
America: Love it or go back to wherever you came from.
And I look at these guys driving away with their guns on the top of their car, and it suddenly hits me: âLive Free or Die' doesn't have anything to do with being freeâlike, up on the mountaintops looking at the view. It means âBetter dead than red.' That's all it means.” She smirked at Judith. “Isn't that pathetic?”
live
your life, don't just sit around and let it happen to you. Be free! You know? Then one day I was sitting on the porch at Tom and Whit's, watching these two guys stock up their car to go out hunting. They've got a Stars and Stripes tied to the CB antenna and this bumper sticker that says
America: Love it or go back to wherever you came from.
And I look at these guys driving away with their guns on the top of their car, and it suddenly hits me: âLive Free or Die' doesn't have anything to do with being freeâlike, up on the mountaintops looking at the view. It means âBetter dead than red.' That's all it means.” She smirked at Judith. “Isn't that pathetic?”
“The slogan?” she asked. “Or the fact that it took you so long to figure it out?”
Naomi laughed. “Both, I guess.”
“But you're still here. I mean, if you felt that way, why did you stay?”
Naomi's smile faded. “I
like
it here,” she said. It wasn't true, but it should have been true, so she said it and Judith appeared satisfied. After all, what wasn't to like? Goddard was the town people who lived in cities longed for, the one made of classically austere New England
houses and surrounded by unbearably beautiful wilderness. The people here had made room for her, in their chill and unloving way. They had let her build a business for them without burdening her with their gratitude. Judith went out to the table. Naomi turned on the faucet.
like
it here,” she said. It wasn't true, but it should have been true, so she said it and Judith appeared satisfied. After all, what wasn't to like? Goddard was the town people who lived in cities longed for, the one made of classically austere New England
houses and surrounded by unbearably beautiful wilderness. The people here had made room for her, in their chill and unloving way. They had let her build a business for them without burdening her with their gratitude. Judith went out to the table. Naomi turned on the faucet.
She had stayed because of the business, though it was clear to Naomi that Flourish could easily survive her departure, or that she could have found some way to run it from another location. Or perhaps she had stayed because of what she and Daniel had begun together, since she, at least, was still committed to everything they had planned; she was stronger than that small spasm of selfish disappointment that had so easily borne him away. But that, too, had been transformed the moment she reached into the river water and touched the baby, when she saw that the truth was far more simple.
She remembered, years before, how Daniel had called out to the God he didn't believe in as that young girl fired shots from the Sabbathday riverbank: through his panic, a glimpse of something so deeply buried neither of them had even suspected it was there. Now it seemed that the baby might be like that, for herâa buried thing surfacing, a bottle with a message for Naomi alone. And when she deciphered the message, she would know what her life was to be about. She had stayed behind for this, in other words.
“I wish they
were
just cow thieves,” she said when Judith returned to the kitchen.
were
just cow thieves,” she said when Judith returned to the kitchen.
“Pardon?” She set down the dirty plates.
“Oh, thanks. What you said before about the cow thieves? I wish they were just cow thieves. I'm afraid you'll find it's just as nasty up here as it was in Manhattan.” She pressed the button on her coffee grinder, and its whining churn filled the room. Judith waited until it was over.
“I doubt that,” she said. “You have no idea how bad it's gotten. We're seeing gang stuff, like in L.A., and the drugs are out of control. Everything is just breaking down. The kids are the worst. They just don't care anymore. The boys'll shoot somebody and feel nothing at all, and the girls drop their babies down the garbage chute. It's beyond sad, really. It just unspeakable. I got to the point where I started to think it might be better to live somewhereâ”
“We had a baby.” Naomi cut her off.
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