To Rise Again at a Decent Hour (28 page)

She smiled at me.

She released my hand and resumed sterilizing.

“But about Abby quitting,” I said.

“She’s pursuing new opportunities,” she said. “She’s always wanted to be an actress.”

“But that’s not the only reason she quit,” I said.

I told her what was being said in my name on Twitter. I removed my me-machine and read her my most recent posts.

“Aren’t you curious about all that?” I asked her.

“Why should I be?”

“Because those posts are in my name.”

“Did you write them?”

“No, but shouldn’t you wonder if I did?”

“What for?”

“What for? Betsy, many of these comments can be construed as anti-Semitic. Which would seem to imply that I’m an anti-Semite.”

“Are you an anti-Semite?”

“Of course not,” I said. “But the Internet sort of implies I am. Isn’t it important to you, to know if I am or not?”

“But you just said you weren’t.”

“But I had to come to you and tell you that. Once you heard why Abby quit, shouldn’t you have come to me? Shouldn’t you have voiced some concern? We’re talking about one of the ugliest prejudices in the history of mankind.”

“But I know you. You aren’t that way.”

“But shouldn’t you question just a little the possibility that maybe you don’t know me?”

“I don’t understand what your point is, Paul. Are you an anti-Semite, or aren’t you?”

“The point is you’re not curious! You’re not showing any concern! What if I
am
an anti-Semite?”

“But you’ve said that you’re not.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I’m going to finish the sterilizing now,” she said. “If you wish to tell me that you’re an anti-Semite, I’ll be right here.”

“Prove I’m not!” I cried. “Have a look online and prove it!”

She left the room. That was all she and I said on the subject.

My last patient of the day was a marketing executive with three cavities in need of filling. I conveyed that information to him and then was called away momentarily. When I returned, the marketing executive said, “I don’t think I’m going to have them filled.”

His X-rays were still on-screen. He could see his cavities as well as anyone. I looked again at his chart. He was well insured. There was no financial reason not to have his cavities filled. And I took it on faith that oral upkeep was at least of some concern to him. Otherwise, he would not have made the appointment.

“Okay,” I said. “But I do strongly recommend having those cavities filled at some point. They’re just going to get worse over time.”

He nodded.

I said, “Is it the pain you’re worried about?”

He looked puzzled. “It’s not painful to have a cavity filled, is it?”

“No,” I said, “that’s why I ask. It’s not painful at all. We numb you.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “No, it’s not the pain.”

“So just out of curiosity,” I said, “if it’s not the pain, why not have them filled? They’re just going to get worse over time, and then you really will be in pain.”

“Because I feel fine right now,” he said. “I don’t feel like I have any cavities.”

“But you do have cavities,” I said. “I just showed you where your cavities are. Look, they’re right here.”

I started to show him a second time.

“You don’t have to show me again,” he said. “I saw them the first time. I believe you.”

“So if you believe me, and you see there’s a problem, why not get it fixed? You have three cavities.”

“Because I don’t feel like I have them.”

“You don’t feel like you have them?”

“I don’t feel like I have them,” he said.

I was growing a little frustrated.

“Okay,” I said, “but indulge me for a moment. Look here, at the screen. Do you see the areas in shadow? One, two, three. Three cavities.”

“According to your X-rays,” he said. “And that’s fine. But I’m just telling you how I feel.”

“How you feel?”

“Right now I just don’t feel like I have any cavities. I feel fine.”

“But cavities aren’t something you always feel. That’s why we take the X-rays. To show you what you can’t feel.”

“That might be your way,” he said, “and that’s fine, but it’s not my way.”

“Not your way?” I said. “They’re X-rays. They’re everyone’s way. They’re science’s way.”

“And that’s fine,” he said. “But my way is how I feel, and right now I feel fine.”

“Then why did you come in? If you feel so fine and you don’t care what the X-rays say, why come in?”

“Because,” he said, “you’re supposed to. Every six months, you’re supposed to see the dentist.”

“Dr. O’Rourke?”

Connie was standing in the doorway.

“Will you excuse me?” I asked the marketing executive.

I went straight over, never happier to see her. “That guy in there,” I whispered, “won’t take my advice and get his cavities filled, because he says he doesn’t feel like he has any. He says he feels fine, so why should he have them filled? I’m showing him his cavities on-screen, and he tells me that’s just my ‘way.’ X-rays are my ‘way,’ he says. Science is my ‘way.’ His way is to feel around with his tongue and everything feels fine so just ignore the X-rays and the expert opinion. And when I ask him why he came in if he feels so fine, he tells me it’s because he’s supposed to! Every six months, you’re supposed to see your dentist! Is this really how people think? Is this really how they get along? Is it that easy?”

“My uncle Stuart’s here to see you,” she said.

I was quiet. “Again?”

The waiting room was empty with the exception of Stuart and an Asian woman sitting next to him, sunglasses perched on her head. They stood, the sunglasses came down, and Stuart introduced her. Her name was Wendy Chu, and she worked for Pete Mercer.

“You know Pete Mercer?” I said to Stuart.

“Not me personally,” he said. “I only know Wendy.”

Wendy was so petite and youthful looking behind the sunglasses that she might have been struggling for straight As in the seventh grade. She handed me a business card. Reading it, I was reminded of what Mercer had said in passing about having hired a private detective. The card read “Chu Investigations.” I looked back at her. We’ve come a long way, baby, from fedoras and frosted-glass doors.

“And how do you know Wendy?” I asked Stuart.

Wendy answered for him. “Funny things happen when two people go looking for the same woman.”

“What woman?”

“Paul,” said Stuart, “we’re here to ask you a favor. Would you accompany us into Brooklyn when you’re finished for the night?”

“What for?”

“There’s someone Mercer would like you to meet,” said Wendy.

“Where is Mercer?” I asked.

“He’s no longer involved,” she said.

“Involved in what?”

She looked at me blankly behind her sunglasses.

“I still have a patient,” I said.

“We can wait,” she said, sitting down.

“What’s going on?” I asked Stuart.

“As a personal favor,” he said, “come with us to Brooklyn.”

I returned to my marketing executive, who was sitting in the chair, patiently waiting. I sat down chairside and gave him a long look before throwing up my hands. “What are you still doing here?”

He was perplexed. “You told me to wait,” he said.

“But why listen to me?”

“Because you’re my dentist.”

“So you’ll wait when I tell you to wait, but when I tell you to have your cavities filled, you refuse?”

“I told you, I don’t feel like I have cavities.”

“But you do!” I cried. “You do have cavities!”

“According to the X-rays.”

“Yes, precisely! According to the X-rays!”

“But not according to how I feel,” he said.

We took Wendy’s car into Brooklyn, to the Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights. Hebrew dominated the storefronts and awnings. Identically dressed women walked the streets pushing prams (not strollers but those upright pram things with big metal wheels), men in black hats, black suits, and black beards stepped into and out of minivans while talking on cell phones, and innumerable children of all ages defied the austerity of their sidelocks and somber dress to play as children will on the stoops and street corners. The sun was setting and the streets were orderly. With the exception of the tinted windows passing by shuddering with bass, we might have been back in the seventeenth century.

On the way over, I learned that I would be meeting with Mirav Mendelsohn, the woman with whom Grant Arthur had once been in love. I didn’t understand why. I told Stuart that I already knew all about her. Mirav had been born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Los Angeles before she fell in love with Arthur. When her family found out she was seeing a Gentile, they expelled her from the community. They eventually sat shiva for her as though she were dead. Over time, Arthur made one discovery, and then another, and another and another about his ancestry, and about who he really was. He felt duty-bound to leave Mirav and the life they had made together in Los Angeles, to devote himself to the arduous task of re-establishing a community of diasporic Ulms.

“Sounds pretty,” said Wendy. “But maybe not the whole story.”

Stuart told me that Mirav abandoned Judaism, married a materials magnate, and was divorced after raising two children. Responding to an ever-growing urge, she changed her name back to Mendelsohn in 2007 and reentered the Orthodox community.
She was now living at a Hasidic center and teaching traditional Jewish practices to female proselytes.

We arrived at a kind of campus or housing network, with synagogue, school, and dormitory, where those individuals committed to a new life as Orthodox Jews received instruction. Mirav was teaching a night class. The women concluded class by singing. We stood outside, waiting and listening. I will never forget that one unbroken song of shifting melody and tempo changes and the novices’ imperfect command of both, while one voice remained steady: a strong, joyous voice, a guiding and correcting voice, a voice glorying her Maker while leading those unsteady faltering voices, derailing and dying and devolving into laughter, to the ringing harmony of a pure instant or two. It was Mirav’s.

Once class was over, Wendy made introductions, and Mirav led us to a commons room. It smelled of old books and burnt coffee. The walls were adorned with a variety of Jewish folk art: playful illustrations of menorahs and dreidels, Hebrew letters trotting colorfully across Torah scrolls. There were bent figures at the Western Wall, roughly sketched; prayer shawls aswirl on magical gusts of wind; exultant feasts; dancing families. My favorite was an enormous paper cutout of Noah’s ark, laden with every animal, and a dragon, too, floating in what looked like a calm Caribbean Sea.

Mirav wore a silk head scarf patterned with paisley and a long black skirt. I found her to be open and forthright, speaking to us with earnest intent until she cast off that earnestness with an easy laugh. She gave me the impression of being a joyful person, not unaware of the shit and the misery and yet still joyful. I was always startled to encounter such people. I liked them instantly and all out of proportion to our acquaintanceship.

“Can I get anyone coffee?” she asked as we sat down.

We all declined.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Stuart said. “I know you’ve done this already for Mr. Mercer, but would you mind doing it one more time, for my sake and for Paul’s?”

“Sure,” she said. “That should be easy enough.”

And with that she took us back to 1979.

Her uncle owned a small grocery in Los Angeles, in a neighborhood not far from her parents’ house. She would walk there in the afternoons to get things for her mother. On her way home one day, Grant Arthur came up to her and offered to carry her bags. He was dressed in bell-bottom jeans and the kind of shirt that only John Travolta wore. He asked her if she was Jewish. She said she was. He asked what that life was like, where she went to church, and if she minded not celebrating Christmas. She told him that her father was the rabbi at Shalom B’nai Israel and that Christmas was something she had cared about only as a little girl. He wanted to know if the Jews really ate so differently from Christians. What exactly did Jews eat?

“At first,” Mirav told me, Uncle Stuart, and Wendy Chu in the commons room, “I thought he might be mocking me. But he wasn’t. That boy, he was so guileless. So eager. He was really just so innocent.”

The next time she went to her uncle’s grocery, he came up to her the minute she left the store. She suspected that he was watching her, but she never knew how or from where. He told her that he had found a rabbi, Rabbi Youklus of Anshe Emes, who had agreed to oversee his conversion to Judaism. Rabbi Youklus was going to teach him everything there was to know. He had already learned about Shabbat, which happened every Saturday. That was a big difference between Judaism and Christianity, he said. Christians
always worshipped on Sunday and never had a big meal the night before, unless it was a dinner party or a fund-raiser. Rabbi Youklus had promised to invite him over for Shabbat. Did she know by heart the blessings made when the candles were lit? And all the other blessings and songs? He said he liked, as he put it, “all those rituals and prayers and things” Jewish people were always doing. He couldn’t wait to sit inside the rabbi’s house and see how it was all done. She liked listening to him. He animated her everyday world, and it made her feel special for the first time. She was seventeen.

“It never occurred to me to ask which came first,” she said, speaking directly to me, “his interest in Judaism or his interest in me. I’m not sure it matters, even now—if I ‘inspired’ him, or however you want to put it. Deranged him!” She laughed with a lot of spontaneous heart. She turned to Stuart. “Isn’t that what we do when we fall in love, derange each other?” He smiled at her as I had never seen him smile, as if he, too, knew what it meant to be deranged by love. “But no, I never thought that Judaism was just a convenience for him—‘a way in.’ Or the other way around: that
I
was a convenience for whatever he was ultimately seeking. I think he saw me and he liked me, but I also think that he was in that neighborhood, that specific neighborhood, for a reason. He wanted to be a Jew.”