The Saturday Wife (28 page)

Chaim, it was true, had suffered. But look where he was today! The rabbi of a rich and important and thriving congregation in such a beautiful spot, a place that loved him and treated him so well. Why, just the other day Mariette Rolland had told her that her husband was a “blessing” to Swallow Lake! And Felice Borenberg had mentioned how much she loved to listen to him speak.

One day, she knew, he would thank her.

Full of gratitude, having put the past behind her, she was determined not only to become a good rabbi’s wife but the
best
rabbi’s wife. Chaim, having landed this position, was suddenly the focal point of her admiration.
She wanted to help him, to become queen to his king over the moral lives of the people around them.

She smiled and said hello to everyone, even those who treated her coolly. She made weekly sit-down dinners for twelve. She agreed to open her house to monthly sisterhood meetings. She stayed on the phone for hours listening to problems and offering solutions. She even prepared and gave a
shiur
for women on the Torah portion of the week.

And then, one morning, she found she simply couldn’t get out of bed. Her limbs felt like lead and her head swam. She felt hot, thirsty, depressed, confused.

“You are doing too much! I tried to tell you to slow down. Darling, don’t forget you’re pregnant.”

“I’m fine. Pregnancy isn’t a disease,” she told him curtly, quoting Mariette Rolland, who’d recently told her all about how she’d canceled only one day of work appointments to give birth to her last daughter.

She suffered strange cravings, waking Chaim at 2
A.M.
to search for passionfruit sorbet and peanut-butter brownies. She fell prey to bouts of depression: “I look like a cow! My mother has nicer ankles! And just look at my stomach, my boobs… .”

Chaim stared at her, shocked and dumbfounded. The truth was that pregnancy had brought a blush of radiant health to Delilah that made her body softer and rounder, her skin gleam with a luscious dewy softness. She looked sexier than ever. And if everyone was looking at her, he had no doubt as to why.

“Delilah, darling, you’re more beautiful than ever, really” he did his best to assure her.

“Don’t lie to me, Chaim! I know everyone’s staring at me, thinking how ugly I look! And I’m sick of these goody-goody dresses with the Peter Pan collars and bows! I’m sick of these sensible low-heeled old-lady shoes. I want my body back! I want this
thing
out of me!”

He couldn’t reason with her. And then, one morning, he overslept, missing the morning minyan. That same week, he found his eyes closing and his head nodding when he tried to prepare his sermon. He awoke with a start several hours later with nothing accomplished.

He didn’t know what to do. He had zero experience with pregnant women, viewing Delilah as a delicate piece of china carrying a soft-boiled egg, imagining that the slightest jarring motion would do irreparable damage to both. With a touch of desperation, he sought out someone who
could advise him. The only person who came to mind was Josh, who had been through this only recently himself.

Josh was surprised to hear from him. Once Chaim had gone against the ban and accepted the job at Swallow Lake, they’d lost contact completely, much to Josh’s delight. “Well, this is really not such a good time for me.”

“Please, Josh, I’m in trouble,” Chaim confessed.

“What’s wrong?”

“My wife—that is, I—
we
are expecting our first child. Delilah is very worried—depressed—and frankly I’m not getting any sleep. This is a new job. I’m afraid the congregation will begin to grumble.”

Josh put his hand over the phone and hissed to his wife, “It’s Chaim Levi. Delilah’s pregnant and driving him crazy.” She shook her head, backing away. “Please…” He made a begging face.

Rivkie took the phone. “Hi, mazal tov, Chaim! How wonderful… . Hmm, hmmm… . Yes, some women have harder times than others. Why don’t I call her? . . . No, no bother at all, I’m happy to help. I apologize we haven’t been in touch. You know what it’s like, or you will, a new baby—”

Delilah was not particularly happy to hear Rivkie’s voice, the voice of judgment. She hadn’t forgiven their silence when Chaim got the job at Swallow Lake. But Rivkie was very sympathetic and supportive, and Delilah found herself actually enjoying discussing her feelings with someone who wasn’t a member of the congregation with an ax to grind, someone with whom she could be completely honest.

“I’m frightened, Rivkie, and I feel like hell. I’m throwing up. Even the smell of Sabbath food makes me want to puke my guts out, let alone preparing these meals for guests. And I can’t stand all these needy phone calls, all this meaningless shul chitchat, when all I want to do is just go to sleep! If I only had the weekends off, but that’s when we’re most
on.”

“I know. It’s hard. But people will understand if you’re honest and give them a chance. Tell them how you feel. Drop out for a while. It’s OK. You are in for such an exciting, wonderful experience! Start focusing on the fun aspects of having a baby. Have you planned your nursery and layette yet? Why don’t you go shopping? And most of all, you’ve got to get yourself a doula.”

“A what?”

“It’s a Greek word that means—well, helper, servant—slave, anyhow, not really sure. They are women who help you through the birth. I had one. She was wonderful,
baruch Hashem.

“You mean, a midwife? I already have a doctor.”

“No, no. She doesn’t have any actual medical training at all. She doesn’t deliver the baby.”

“Then what
does
she do?”

“Well, before the birth she gives lessons to the couple so the husband can share and participate in the birthing experience. She gives massages with aromatic oils. She sings and dances and says special prayers to ease your spirit and comfort you. And once you’re in the delivery room, she—”

“She comes to the delivery room? What does she do there? I mean, if she has no medical training. All you need is an epidural, right?”

There was silence on the other end of the line. “We don’t believe in epidurals. Giving birth is a sacred experience, a gift from God. When you get all drugged up, you cut yourself off from the connection to God, and your body—”

Delilah’s heart missed a beat. “You mean to tell me you went through labor and delivery cold turkey?”

“It was a fabulous experience, believe me! Extremely spiritual. Never have I felt closer to God, more like His holy vessel. I’m not saying it wasn’t hard. I mean, they call it labor, right?” She chuckled. “And of course there was some pain,” she admitted dismissively, “but that just made it more real. Believe me, I wouldn’t have missed it. And my doula was wonderful.”

Where did she get this stuff? Delilah thought enviously. She could just see herself repeating those words in a lofty and pious tone when the young women of Ohel Aaron came to her for advice. In general, anything she could lift from Rivkie would be wise, she told herself. She didn’t actually want the doula—it sounded pretty grim—but what she did want was to impress people on how she had breezed through her pregnancy and child-birth on spirituality alone. Besides, you could always get rid of the woman and have an epidural if things didn’t work out.

She took down the woman’s name and phone number and then refocused the discussion in a more useful direction. “Where did you go to shop?”she asked.

Rivkie was full of useful information. “But you know, Deliliah, the Jewish custom is not to make any preparations at all and only buy baby things once the baby is born.”

“Not even diapers?”

“Nothing. But you can take down ordering information.”

So, one afternoon, she got Chaim to drop her off at a mall with a Pottery
Barn for Kids. There, Delilah made a remarkable discovery: A baby was made to be accessorized! She imagined herself standing over a white French-provincial baby crib, smiling with maternal joy at her designer-dressed infant angelically asleep in its color-coordinated sheets, bumper, and blanket, a matching rug at her feet and matching wallpaper all around. She took a catalog and furiously wrote down numbers.

She looked around at the other pregnant women who wandered with shining eyes among the treasures. They too were lumpy and thickened. But among the women carrying small babies or wheeling toddlers in carriages, a fair number were already back to being thin and young, she noticed, cheering up, imaging herself back to normal too, the only remnant of her pregnancy a double-D bra cup and glowing hormone-enriched skin.

She went on a cancellation spree, telling everyone she needed her rest so the dinners and sisterhood meetings and long phone calls and the
shiur
were all off until further notice. When a panicked Chaim mildly suggested she might try to stay a little more involved, she said, “Rivkie did the same thing when she was pregnant. She says it’s perfectly all right. People will understand.”

To Chaim’s surprise, everyone did. They were extremely understanding, even sympathetic. Besides, no one had the stomach to start interviewing new candidates all over again, and word had gotten around that the new rebbitzin wasn’t the world’s best cook and her attempt at a
shiur
had been basically to steal a whole chapter straight out of one of those books by Nechama Leibowitz, the Bible scholar, which most people had read already long ago. So they were only too happy to forgo her dinners and lectures.

Remarkably, the less Chaim and Delilah did, the more their popularity rose. The women loved how the rabbi was taking care of his pregnant wife, and the men deeply sympathized with his plight. The fact that his sermons seemed to go from lightweight to featherweight was not only accepted but appreciated. Who wanted moral discomfort and inspiration disrupting their otherwise relaxed and pleasant weekend anyhow?

Within a few weeks, Delilah underwent a remarkable transition: She seemed to blossom. Her nausea lifted, and she began eating like someone just coming off a five-month stint on Weight Watchers, wolfing down food in alarming amounts. She sank back into her new role as baby maker like a pasha into his pillows

Chaim, stretched to the limit from doing laundry, shopping, cooking, and cleaning, in addition to his work as rabbi, often wondered what she
did all day. Every time he saw her, she was sitting around with her hand on her stomach, rifling though yet another baby catalog, adding more numbers to her list. She insisted on hiring a local doula, recommended by Rivkie’s doula.

“I don’t know. She’s very expensive. Do you really need her?”

“Don’t you want this to be a spiritual experience for me, Chaim? After all, it’s God that is forming this child in my womb. I want to feel God during my labor. And if I’m all doped up, how can I do that? Besides, Rivkie said it was fabulous.”

He dragged along with her to private coaching lessons, where the doula—a petite dreamy yoga instructor with prematurely gray hair covered by a pious snood—lectured him on understanding his wife’s emotional needs and helping to ease her physical pains. He learned to coach her through contractions, to remind her of breathing techniques. He was taught to dab her lips with ice, to support her back, to adjust her pillows. Chaim, surrounded by demanding women, did everything that was asked of him, reluctant to say a word. He was simply grateful that now both he and Delilah were sleeping through the night.

They had begun to think their lives would go on this way forever, when one night, while they were in a movie theater and she was halfway through a box of popcorn, Delilah leaned over and gave the box to Chaim, complaining, “My stomach is killing me.”

He was immediately alarmed “Maybe we should go home.”

“No, I want to see how this movie ends.”

By the time the closing credits were flashing on the screen and they got into the car, she had the worst stomachache she had ever had in her life.

“I’m swearing off popcorn forever,” she said.

By the time they got home, she was in agony, barely making it to the bathroom. It was there she saw the tiny blood-tinged mucus and understood that her labor had begun.

“Call the doula! Get my bag!”

In the midst of a maelstrom of horrible physical pain that filled her with panic, she heard Chaim’s calm voice. “Relax, darling. Everything is under control. Just take a shower if you feel up to it. Do you need help getting dressed? Remember to breathe. Do you want me to massage your back?”

She grabbed his cheeks like pincers, squeezing and shaking him back and forth.

“Get me to the hospital, you idiot!”
she screamed.

The ride took forty minutes. Her contractions were coming sixty seconds apart, with peaks that lasted close to two minutes. The pain was intense, disabling, paralyzing. Chaim, his cheeks still stinging, was afraid to open his mouth. He was actually happy to see the doula, who arrived with a small bag and a large Zen smile.

“I know you are in pain, Delilah. But try to remember, your pain has a wonderful purpose. It’s actually a gift. It’s a blessing, this pain. It’s preparing your body. Just think, if your body wouldn’t be prepared, how would your baby be released into the world? Thank God for the pain, Delilah. Say a prayer, thanking God for it, for His kindness. Appreciate and give thanks for every contraction—”

“Get that woman out of here before I kill her!”

The doula’s smile faded. “Perhaps you’d like a Shiatzu massage?”

“If she lays a hand on me, she’s a dead woman!”

“Oh, dear.” The doula sighed. “This is a difficult situation. Let’s try some visualization techniques… or maybe you’d like me to sing? I’ve got a tambourine with me. Here, let’s try. Think of your womb opening, allowing the sacred passage of this blessed new soul into the world:
Pisku li, shaare tzedek, avoh bam, Odey yah.
Open for me the gates of mercy, I will enter and bless You,” the doula sang, shaking her tambourine.

“I want my doctor! I want an epidural!”

“Now, now, you know how we feel about epidurals… . Here, let me try some aromatherapy. Let me see.” She rummaged through her bag. “I’ve got some lovely lavender, some sage… .” She opened some bottles, spilling the liquid into her palms, rubbing her hands together to warm them. “Now, just a touch of this on your forehead and behind your ears—”