The Sea Beach Line (49 page)

“My mother and her husband observe certain things. They are not Orthodox, but they are not without faith. Regular American Jews, I guess. I think they belong to a Reform congregation in Santa Fe. I'm not sure.” The rabbi nodded. “My father was different. He was without rules. My stepfather says I must say kaddish for my father.”

“If you are a mourner, it is only right that you should recite the mourner's kaddish for your father. When did he die?”

“I don't know for sure. Within the past year.”

“What was his name?”

“Alojzy. Alojzy Edel.”

“What was his Hebrew name?”

“I don't know. I think he said in Israel he went by the name Assaf? I'm not sure.”

“He lived in Israel?”

“Yes. He wasn't from there. But he served in the army.”

“I see. Where is he buried?

“At sea. His body is under the water. It will never be recovered. I had an idea that maybe I could paddle a boat, or a rubber raft or something, out off the coast to where I thought he was. And recite kaddish like that.”

“No, that wouldn't do.” Hayyim shook his head back and forth. “You can't say it by yourself. It doesn't work like that.”

“But it's between me and him.”

“No. It's between you, and him, and Hashem, and the Jewish people. Perhaps you've heard the saying: ‘nine rabbis can't make a minyan, but ten pushcart peddlers can.' You need to pray in a minyan. It can't be done in solitude.” He looked at his watch. “It's almost time for maariv. You could come down to the chapel to daven with me and the other men.”

“I don't have the strength to walk,” I said. The trip to the hallway and back had wiped me out.

“I can get a wheelchair and push you.” He smiled. “But you'll have to leave the scissors here.”

The chapel was down on the third floor. There were about a dozen men in the room, all holding prayer books. Two old men were in wheelchairs like me, with non-Jewish attendants standing by to push them. Several men wore scrubs and kippot. Their skin ranged from lighter than mine to black. Some of them must have been doctors and some nurses, or technicians or aids of some sort. A Russian-looking man wore a security uniform with short sleeves, and I could see the faded, greenish tattoos on his arms. Beside him stood an Orthodox man in
a three-piece suit and talis. He could have been an off-duty doctor, an administrator, or just a visitor. So these were the Jewish people. I took my place amongst them, and Hayyim placed a siddur in my hands. We faced southeast. I knew we were praying in the direction of Jerusalem—Rayna's new home—but I felt as if we were trying to make our peace with the ocean, where the storm had come from.

The familiar words of the Shema began. This prayer was soon followed by the silent Amidah, which I pulled myself up out of my wheelchair for. I remained standing for the mourner's kaddish.

May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified.
The Talmud says that God spends a quarter of every day playing with the Leviathan. Perhaps they were playing now. Perhaps that's what the storm was.

May there be abundant peace from heaven
. The harbor surged in the storm. There was no peace on land or sea. Alojzy's bones would be picked clean by now. The surging waters would tear his bones apart and scatter them.

May Hashem create peace for us, and all of Israel
. I could let Alojzy go, so long as it meant the man could have some peace.

Amen. Do widzenia
.

As Hayyim and I waited outside the chapel for the elevator to come, the power cut out again, and the hallway went dark. Strips of very dim safety lights came on along the edges where the walls met the floors, and machines continued to hum from rooms, but the hallways remained dark, and the elevator call lights stayed off.

“Isaac?” Hayyim said, searching for me with his voice.

“Yes, Rabbi?” After my experience with the Glupsker Rebbe, I spoke the word “rabbi” with less respect than I once had.

“Perhaps I might speak a word of Torah, to make the most of our time?”

“Fine.” We had prayed maariv. Now we would have a
shiur
. I was in his hands.

“You know of your ultimate namesake, the patriarch Isaac? You know that he was bound by his father, Abraham, who was going to make a sacrifice of him?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“When Isaac lay on the altar, he looked up at his father's face, and saw his father was truly ready to slaughter him. Abraham's eyes were filled with a dark storm. He was far from Isaac, and Isaac could not reach him with his own pleading eyes. Then the storm cleared, but Isaac didn't know why. He couldn't hear the voice of the angel calling out to Abraham, telling him to stay his hand. Only Abraham could hear that.

“After he was untied, and rose from the altar, Isaac turned away from his father. Abraham went back home, but Isaac left and went farther east, to study at the Academy of Shem and Eber. Shem taught his students the law, and he told them stories of the days before the flood.

“We learn later in Genesis that when Isaac was old he was blind. He could not distinguish his son Jacob from his son Esau. Do you know why this should be? Do you know how Isaac was blinded?” The rabbi waited for an answer.

“Perhaps he was just old,” I said.

“No,” Hayyim said. “Everything happens for a reason. There is always a cause and an effect. An action and a consequence.” I flipped through the volumes of tales in my mind.

“Tears,” I said. “Angels' tears.” The story came back to me as I spoke. “Hashem and his angels looked down on Isaac on the altar. Isaac was facing up toward the heavens. The angels cried at his plight, and their tears fell into his open eyes. Blinding him.” A related story said the tears had melted the knife in Abraham's hand. Now that I had been stabbed myself, I was less inclined to believe that such a thing was possible.

“This is a common explanation,” Hayyim said. “It is related, amongst others, in Rashi's commentary. But it is just a story. One of the problems with it is that Isaac was not blind until much later. When Isaac first met his bride Rebekah, he saw her approaching from across the field on her camel, so he cannot already have been blind then.

“After Isaac was married to Rebekah, and their sons were born, he received word that Abraham was on his deathbed in Hebron. Isaac had not seen his father since the trip to Mount Moriah, but he was determined to see him once more before he was gone.

“Isaac arrived too late. By the time he made it to Hebron, Abraham had already breathed his last breath. His youngest wife, Keturah, had bathed his body, and laid him out in his linen shroud to await burial. When Isaac entered his father's tent, he asked Keturah to remove the cloth from his father's face. He thought he might learn something by gazing upon the dead man. Perhaps he could understand what happened so many years ago on the mountain.

“The moment the cloth was pulled back, and Isaac looked upon his father's face, he was struck blind.”

It seemed like Hayyim was going to keep speaking, but just then the lights came back on. The elevator rumbled and the doors pulled open. If there was more to the rabbi's story—a moral or lesson—I didn't want to hear it. I didn't need anyone else interpreting a story for me.

“I think I can manage to get upstairs myself,” I told him. I appreciated that Hayyim had brought me down to the chapel, but I still didn't feel comfortable letting a stranger stand behind me.

“You are sure? It's no problem for me to push you.”

“I'm fine on my own.” He released his grip, and I rolled myself into the elevator.

I was glad to see Hayyim disappear behind the doors, but felt anxious in the confined space. A few other people were inside the elevator with me, including two men who had been in the minyan. One of them, a nurse, helped me maneuver the chair out into the hallway on my floor, then left me to my own devices. Even without having to walk, using my arms to roll the chair's wheels took a lot of energy out of me.

When I finally made it to my room, I climbed out of the chair and went into the bathroom. My legs felt wobbly, and I had to lean against the wall while I peed. My weakness was probably tied to dehydration. A nurse would need to reinsert the IV into my arm. In the meantime, I leaned against the edge of the sink, and gulped some water from the faucet. I washed my hands and face.

I pulled up my gown and examined my injuries in the mirror. My whole left side was a mix of black bruises and red inflammation. The gash itself was longer than I expected, nearly a full inch. Roman had
caught me at an angle. I would be in much worse shape if the shaft of the screwdriver had gone straight into my kidney. The emergency room staff had stitched the cut up with black thread.

So, I thought, this is how it happens. This is how a body becomes scarred. Al used to walk around the apartment with his shirt off. He always wore blue jeans, not ripped or dirty, but clean, bright blue jeans that he was proud of. He put his jeans and chains on right after he showered, but he'd leave his shirt off until it was time to leave the apartment. His torso was strong and manly, despite the gut. He had so many scars, all over his arms and shoulders and chest and belly. Some were thick and some were razor thin. Some had healed as raised, lumpy ropes, while others were flush with the skin around them. I asked my father about his scars once. He shrugged and said, “I have been cut. Is life. They will cut you too, boychik. You will bleed.”

Acknowledgements

Thank you, as always, to Oksana Mironova for putting up with everything.

This novel began when I was in the MFA program at the City College of New York. I would like to thank everyone I met there, including professors Keith Gandal and Peter Trachtenberg, and my many talented peers.

Thank you to Corey Eastwood, Daniel Fishkin, and Will Crofoot for being insightful readers.

Thank you to Liat and Blaine for providing me with a tent in the woods when I needed to escape.

Thank you to Jonathan Mukai for the crabbing trips and the talks about the old street days.

Thank you to Peter Aaron for discussing spiritual matters with me. Thank you to Catherine Tung for discussing material matters with me.

Thank you to my editor, Michelle Caplan, who saw more in my manuscript than I did.

Thank you to the Nadler/Watson family for their ongoing support.

Peace to all the street vendors in New York City. I know it gets cold out there.