“Hi!” Shayna smiled as she batted her eyelashes at the rabbi’s grandson.
Shimshon’s eyes widened momentarily at the sight of the lovely blond. “So you’re Hindy? My grandmother had only nice things to say about you — that you’re a ‘truly nice and capable, unspoiled girl.’ But she never said — I mean … ”
Shayna burst out laughing, her green eyes sparkling with merriment. “Oh, but I’m not Hindy! I’m Shayna, the second sister! There are two more girls and five more boys. Hindy will be down in a minute. She was so nervous about meeting you that she tripped and tore her stockings.” She fell silent as Rabbi and Mrs. Goldfarb descended the stairs.
“
Shalom aleichem
.” Rabbi Goldfarb extended his hand to Shimshon.
“Would you like something to eat, maybe?” offered Mrs. Goldfarb, leading Shimshon to the dining room table.
Shayna beamed at Shimshon. “Hindy baked the rugelach. They really are the best.”
Mrs. Goldfarb saw the interchange. “Shayna, maybe you should go upstairs and see if Hindy is ready.”
“No, Ma, Hindy will be down in a minute.”
Mrs. Goldfarb gave her second daughter a look. “Shayna. Now. Please.”
• • •
Hindy came down the stairs. “Um, h-hi.” She mustered up her courage to meet Shimshon Kaplinsky’s eyes. He was gorgeous. He was so perfect … He was everything she could have dreamed of.
He looked at Hindy all dressed up. He saw her fancy black leather shoes; her clean, neat clothes; and her short, overweight body. He saw her piggish nose and unstylish hair. He took in Hindy’s appearance within thirty seconds and judgment was given: she was ugly.
Hindy saw the look. That disappointed, forbearing look she got from every boy who looked her way. The look that meant that they could be friends at best. She stopped smiling.
Why bother?
“Have a nice time!” Shayna called after them as they exited the door, her laughter ringing in their heads as they drove down the block.
• • •
It was the Shabbos after Simchat Torah, and Daniel and Rachel strolled along Brooklyn’s long pedestrian walkway on Ocean Parkway.
“So, will you marry me or not?” Daniel said as Rachel walked beside him.
It was a cool fall day. The wind was blowing brown, golden, and green leaves from the trees that paralleled the blocks like rows of erect wedding guests waiting for the bride and groom to pass.
Lined with wooden benches and filled with elderly Russian men playing chess on the built-in concrete chess tables, the concourse was full of religious Jews walking to shul or to visit with friends or family. With busy traffic on both sides of the walkway, Ocean Parkway was the place to be when a girl wanted to see and be seen.
She did not stroll in such a public place unless she had something to announce publicly. She didn’t have a fellow eat with her family — as Daniel had just done at lunch with the Shines — unless he soon was to become family.
Rachel knew these unspoken rules and was unsure of having Daniel for lunch, but Daniel had insisted and so had her mother.
He was respectable, that was for sure. But every time she waited to hear the word — to hear
jump!
— all she heard was silence. She still didn’t feel ready to make an announcement.
“You never should have sent her to art school. That’s where she gets these crazy ideas,” Suri Kaufman had admonished Debby Shine on the phone. “First my Leah decides she wants to stop dating altogether and does who knows what during Simchat Torah, and now Rachel doesn’t want to commit to the best catch in town?”
Rachel had been helping Debby make chicken soup in the kitchen before the holiday when Suri harangued her on speakerphone.
“She says she doesn’t hear anything telling her to jump,” Debby tried to explain as she chopped up an onion with the speed of a Ginsu chef.
“A voice?” Suri sounded genuinely shocked. “So you give her a voice.
You
tell her to jump, Debby.”
“I don’t know.” Debby sliced the carrots on her yellow Formica countertop with extreme force. Although she had shooed Rachel out of the kitchen, Rachel continued to listen to the conversation from the hallway.
“Humph.” Suri cleared her throat. “So Rachel is just playing around, not serious about marriage?”
Rachel knew that such a truth would have serious implications: that she was a tease. Her reputation could be ruined, and then nobody would want her.
Debby spoke in a quiet voice. “She says she doesn’t feel ready.”
“Ready? She needs to feel ready?” Suri demanded. “This is something out of a TV show. Next she’ll say she needs to find herself!”
Debby swallowed hard. “Rachel had said something about wanting to find herself before she got married.”
“Leah told my sister the same thing. What nonsense! Finding oneself — are these girls lost? Like a pair of misplaced eyeglasses?”
“I don’t know, it’s the kids these days … Maybe she isn’t ready.”
“Debby, were we ready when we got married? We got married! We knew what was what. You are spoiling her, darling; you are spoiling our little Rachelli. You have to be tougher, or she’ll let this boy get away and we’ll both have an old maid on our hands.”
Rachel heard her mother hang up the phone and knew well what this conversation meant: That while her mother didn’t want to meddle in her daughter’s affairs, Rachel’s behavior was
pas nisht
. She’d been going together with Daniel for a while now without a hint of an engagement, and the situation was inappropriate. It was getting out of hand. It was not good for Rachel’s future. And it was her mother’s obligation to help Rachel get on with things.
So before Shabbos, when they had finished cooking and they’d sat in the kitchen drinking iced tea, Debby let her daughter know how she felt about the subject.
“Rachel, you either get engaged to this boy or you have to break up with him,” she said firmly. “It’s just not nice. Not for you, not for him. Not for our family and not for his.”
Rachel nodded. “I know, Ma.”
Debby grabbed Rachel’s hand. “If there’s anything holding you back, let’s talk about it.”
“I just feel nervous about it, Ma.”
“Mamale,” Debby said, “if it’s just nerves, you’ll have to get over it. Nothing is perfect. You’ll just have to take that leap of faith.”
• • •
Rachel remembered the conversation with her mother as she continued her stroll with Daniel Gold down Ocean Parkway.
“I don’t mean to put pressure on you,” he said, “but you are beautiful.” Daniel held out his hand, ticking off each finger as he listed Rachel’s qualifications: “You are funny, talented, have a good family, and I enjoy spending time with you. All my friends like you.” He raised his hand close to Rachel’s face, careful to hold himself back from touching her. “You have positive attributes, Rachel. But I don’t know how long I can go on being in a relationship with you without touching you. You know the Law allows romantic touch between the sexes only when married. And I wouldn’t feel good about breaking the Law. I think I love you, Rachel. Say you’ll marry me.”
Other pedestrians passed the two by, and Rachel sat down on a green wooden bench to think this through.
I don’t love him,
she thought.
Who needs love, though? True love comes from giving. From being married for years.
But with Jacob Zohar I felt —
Don’t go there, Rachel. Ma wouldn’t approve and Leah would be too hurt.
But I don’t love Daniel Gold …
What’s not to love? It’s only an issue of passion. And that will grow in a stable marriage — everyone in the community says so. Right?
Daniel sat down beside Rachel, giving her space to consider his proposal. She observed his chiseled face, his even nose, and his perfect teeth.
Passion,
she thought. Passion had been a failed dalliance of the past. She had let her heart feel for Jacob, and all it did was break. Feelings, Rachel thought, had no place in choosing a husband. For a decision of this consequence, she had to think not with her heart, but only with her head. Silently, she ticked off Daniel’s attributes: She enjoyed having Daniel take her places, and he was an engaging conversationalist — if stubborn and obnoxious at times. But nobody was perfect. And with his looks and brains, she’d have cute kids. So what was missing?
Daniel gave her an encouraging smile.
Rachel smiled back.
Jump? Why hesitate?
she wondered. Was it simply her fear of marriage? Ma had laid it out clearly for her: She either got engaged or had to break up. It was inappropriate to keep dating.
Daniel moved closer to Rachel and placed his hand possessively on the top of the bench near where she sat, as if he were holding her — but he didn’t touch her.
Rachel wondered what it would feel like to lean her head back on his arms. Would she feel a thrill? She knew it certainly wouldn’t feel like touching a wet fish. If she had these thoughts, she imagined how difficult it must be for Daniel to abstain from contact with her, too.
It’s true,
she thought.
It’s not nice to go for so long without an announcement.
Daniel leaned his head in toward Rachel’s neck but didn’t rest his head on her shoulder. Rachel felt the tension of desire to touch, keeping in mind that it was forbidden.
It’s not right to tease like this. Jump?
Now Daniel was putting his cards on the table, too. Daniel Gold, with the impeccable resume.
“
You just know,”
Malky had once dreamily gushed to Rachel, but Rachel thought this was the usual line, easily said by those who made the jump. When all was said and done, whether one knew her mate a day, a year, or ten, ultimately an entire marriage was one big jump.
A Hassidic man approached on the concourse, dressed in his black hat and surrounded by fox fur, a black frock, and knickers. Unlike her Orthodox lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox Hassidim tried to live exactly according to the lifestyle of their Eastern European ancestors. At eighteen, their kids were encouraged to marry after only a few meetings with parents in tow.
The Hassid passed by singing a familiar holiday tune under his breath.
Jump?
All the Hassidim Rachel knew were able to jump, and while nothing was ever easy, surely plenty of people were happily married. But she heard no inner voice telling her anything. All she heard was silence.
Maybe it is the effect of art school, where anything is tolerated and everything goes. Maybe I
do
have to limit myself if I want to get married. And it sure wouldn’t be bad to limit myself with a catch like Daniel Gold.
The sun low in the sky, Rachel listened to the rumble of passing cars and the pigeons cooing as they waddled by her feet. She looked up and gazed intently at Daniel. “Okay. Why not?”
Daniel smiled. “Good.
Mazel tov
,” he whispered, and all of Rachel’s doubts settled uncomfortably in her stomach.
Not a minute past the end of the holiday, the phone rang at Hindy Goldfarb’s house. Hindy was putting the little ones to bed, Shayna was out with friends, and Freidy was cleaning up. Mrs. Goldfarb took the call.
“Aha. I see,” said Mrs. Goldfarb from the phone in the kitchen. “Well, I’ll have to talk it over with my husband. It’s — yes, quite unusual. No, I don’t know what the protocol is in such a situation either. I’ll get back to you with an answer.” With heavy shoulders Mrs. Goldfarb walked into the living room and met her husband’s eyes.
Reb Goldfarb looked sympathetically at his wife. “Trouble?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to do.” Chaya stifled a tear. “The rebbitzen called and — ”
“It’s not a match?” interrupted Reb Goldfarb, who felt hurt every time his sweet Hindy received yet another rejection.
“No, it’s not,” confirmed Chaya. “But even more awkward is that the rebbitzen asked — well, Shimshon Kaplinsky noticed our Shayna and would be very interested in seeing her instead.”
“Ah,” sighed Reb Goldfarb, as he tapped his foot on the threadbare carpet. “But Chaya, do they know that our Shayna is not like our Hindy?”
“They don’t know Shayna and think she’s probably sweet like Hindy.”
Reb Goldfarb shook her head. “Does Shayna have what it takes to be the wife of the next great leader of the Jews?”
Chaya Goldfarb shrugged. “God works in mysterious ways. Maybe Shayna would grow beautifully, married to such a boy from such a family.”
“And maybe not.” Reb Goldfarb said as his glasses slid down his nose.
Chaya Goldfarb raised her palms. “It’s all in God’s hands.”
He adjusted his glasses to see more clearly. “I think it’s okay,” he said, but his brow furrowed in pain. “Now,” he whispered to his wife, “we just have to figure out how to tell Hindy.”
• • •
On the first workday after the holiday, Hindy sat in her creaking wooden chair in front of her computer, as she reviewed the tallies of Mr. Green’s South American import/export corporation.
Five million dollars.
She rubbed her eyes, thinking maybe she wasn’t seeing correctly. No, there was a sizable discrepancy between the cash coming into Green’s company and huge amounts of charitable contributions being made. The outgo did not fit the sales tallies.
What’s going on?
she wondered. She’d noticed a while ago that a few thousand dollars here and there seemed to be misplaced. She’d been working it out with Aryeh Kaufman in Accounting before the Sukkot and Simchat Torah holidays. They’d been off for more than eight days since then, and suddenly she was confronted with a backlog of the company’s receipts. More than two weeks’ worth and — she thought as she tried to keep her tired eyes open — over five million dollars.
“Denise, have you seen these?” she asked her co-worker about the latest figures.
“I saw them, but I still don’t know what’s going on. Harry must be into some new South American venture that’s really raking in the bucks. He hasn’t said anything to me about it, though. What are you thinking, Hindy?”