Christmas for Joshua - A Novel (19 page)

Satisfied, I plugged in the lights, stretched on the sofa, and basked in my glowing handiwork. It was lovely.

The twilight in the windows revealed how long I had napped. The ceiling above me blinked continuously with the blue-and-white lights from my Christmas tree. I heard Rebecca’s voice in the kitchen. Her voice verged on crying as she told someone what an awful thing I had done on the day our daughter was coming home with her new husband.

I swung my legs over to the floor and sat up. The cramp in my left arm shot through my neck and down into my chest. It hurt, and I waited for a temporary dizziness to pass. Hearing Rebecca’s upset voice was also hurtful, but I had to make her understand where I was coming from.

“He’s up,” she said, her steps approaching thought the hallway. “Why don’t you talk to him?”

Standing up, I felt sick. Fighting with Rebecca was rare. We’ve always managed to agree on all the important things, or compromise on what was more important for one of us than the other. But I knew that this situation would challenge us like nothing else.

“Here he is, Rabbi,” Rebecca said.

I shook my finger, but she handed me the phone anyway.

“If you meant it as a joke,” Rabbi Rachel said, “I don’t think Rebecca got it.”

“No joke,” I said. “It’s a beautiful thing. You should see it. Want to come by?”

Now it was Rebecca’s turn to shake her finger, but it was too late.

“
Sure,” the rabbi said. “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

Rebecca left the room without looking at my tree. I assumed she had seen enough of it, coming home when I had been asleep. I followed her to the hallway, but she entered the powder room and shut the door.

I knocked.

“Go away,” she said.

“What’s the big deal? The whole world is celebrating Christmas.”

“
Not in my house!”

“
It’s my house too. And how can this be so offensive to you? Everywhere you shop there are decorated trees and Santa impersonators yelling
Ho! Ho! Ho!
”

“
The more reason I don’t want to see it here!”

“
But I do. I decorated a tree every year until I met you. Why can’t I do it in my own home?”

“Leave me alone.”

“We’re together, not alone.”

She didn’t respond.

Arguing through a bathroom door was not what I had hoped for, but I couldn’t stop myself from pressing on. “What about fairness? I’ve shared all the Jewish holidays with you every year since college. Why don’t you share one of my holidays? Just once?”

No answer.

I tried the door handle. It was locked. “Why can’t we discuss it like adults?”

Inside, the toilet flushed and the vent fan turned on, making enough noise to drown my voice.

Back in the living room, I switched on the sound system and searched the channels until I found Mariah Carey singing “
I don’t want a lot for Christmas…
”

How appropriate!

I turned up the volume until it hurt my ears. Carey sang the familiar lines, and I paced back and forth from my tree to the opposite wall and back, the words pulsating through me like a current. “
I don’t even wish for snow…
”

I peeked into the hallway. The powder room door was still closed, but there was no way Rebecca wasn’t hearing the song at this decibel, which made the words reverberate through the walls. When Carey reached the last line, I sang with her at the top of my voice, “
Baby, all I want for Christmas is…youuuuuuuuuuu!
”

Rabbi Rachel found me in the driveway, where I had relocated after the musical tornado failed to dislodge Rebecca from the powder room. We hugged.

“
Thanks for coming,” I said.

“
What are friends for?” She paused at the doorway and kissed the mezuzah scroll on the doorpost. “I’ve been thinking about the Warnick donation. The concern is that we’ll be the envy of Jewish institutions in all of Arizona. It’s too—”

“We’ll be paying our bills.” I closed the door. “That’s what I’m thinking about.”

“Money isn’t everything. We must consider all the ramifications. I’ve prepared discussion points for tonight’s board meeting.”

“
I think we’re meeting at Judy’s house, right?”

“
At seven-thirty. But perhaps you and I should discuss things beforehand so we’re on the same page during the meeting?”

“
Let’s deal with one crisis at a time.” I showed her into the living room, now eerily quiet.

Rabbi Rachel stood there, contemplating my decorated Douglas fir. She sighed and asked, “Where’s Rebecca?”

“
The rabbi’s here,” I yelled down the hallway. “You can come out now.”

She joined us, wiping her eyes with a trail of toilet paper.

Rabbi Rachel hugged her.

“
Can you believe this?” Rebecca gestured at the tree without looking at it.

“
Aaron told me,” the rabbi said, “about the exclusion from the wedding ceremony.” She turned to me. “Rusty, I’ve never been angrier in my life!”

“Call me Christian,” I said.

“You see?” Rebecca pointed at me. “He’s punishing me for what that old rabbi did to him in Brooklyn. And he wants to change his name to Christian.”

“
It’s not a change,” I said. “It’s a restoration. Christian is my real name.”

“
Then it’s more of a reversion than a restoration, right?” The rabbi passed a hand through her curly hair. The roots were gray above her creased forehead. “Considering what they did to you, we’re all sympathetic. We understand that you’re filled with resentment and want to make a point about your heritage and past.”

“
You bet I do!”

“
It’s only natural. But to insist on being called Christian? And to force a Christmas tree on Rebecca? Of all things, a Christmas tree, which is a pagan symbol? Isn’t it an overreaction?”

“
You’ll also overreact when you hear how they’ve launched a campaign to convert me. They want us to become Orthodox.”

Rabbi Rachel adjusted her black-framed glasses. “Tell me more.”

“Maybe Rebecca should tell you. She’s all for it. She wants us to leave the King Solomon Synagogue, sell our house, and move to New York, where I can operate on rich, kosher patients.”

“That can’t be true! Is it?”

My wife, who stood with her back to the fireplace, pressed the toilet paper into a ball and threw it at me. “That was a private conversation!”

“You called the rabbi,” I said. “How can she help if she’s not aware of all the facts?”

“I called her about the contamination of our home with paganism, not to discuss our private family problems!” Rebecca held her hands forward as if fending off both of us. “I’m really sorry, Rabbi Rachel. I made a mistake calling you.”

“My dear, please.” The rabbi touched Rebecca’s arm. “We’ve been friends long enough. You can discuss anything with me. I’m here for you.”

Rebecca took the tissue I held out to her and blew her nose. “This was supposed to be the happiest time of my life.” Her voice broke. “Now look at me!”

Seeing her so upset, I was flooded with regrets. “Maybe that’s your punishment for marrying a shaygetz.”

She looked at me with teary eyes. “There shouldn’t be a punishment for marrying the man you loved.”

Loved.
Her use of past tense jabbed my chest. “I still love you,” I said, “as much as I did on that afternoon in your parents’ apartment.”

She looked down at the carpet in silence that hurt me more than any words.

“
Look,” Rabbi Rachel said, “you’re both angry now, but if you take a step back and accept the bigger picture—”

“
I’m not angry,” I said.

“
But I am,” Rebecca said.

“
Because I won’t continue on the path of appeasement?”

“
Because you’re turning into a different person!”

“
The opposite is true. I’m finally trying to be true to who I really am. And I’m tired of continuously proving myself as a Jew. I’m the same guy you’ve been married to since college—a Jew named Christian, a Jew who grew up a Christian, who loved his Christian mother and missed his Christian father.”

Every time I said the word “Christian,” Rebecca flinched. “Are you done?” she asked.

“
Christian is my name, and it’s too bad that you’ve so conveniently forgotten it. I’m a Jew whose Christian childhood’s few wonderful memories revolved around Christmas. Why can’t I reminisce, not in secret, but out in the open with those I love? I want to cherish my Christian memories, even as a Jew, and share the experience with my wife, my newly married daughter, and her husband. Is it so difficult to understand?”

“
You know,” Rabbi Rachel said, “this situation reminds me of—”

“
What kind of nonsense is this?” Rebecca glared at me. “You’ve never, ever, not even once in twenty-five years, mentioned this rubbish about cherished Christmas memories. Not even once! So either you’re lying about your longings or you’ve kept it secret, hiding something so emotional from me, which is even worse!”

“
I was in denial, okay? I was afraid of your reaction! Afraid to upset you!” I realized I was yelling but didn’t care. “Haven’t I done enough to prove my Jewishness? Haven’t I celebrated Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkoth, Simchat Torah, Purim, Hanukkah? Have I ever missed any of those?”

Rebecca shook her head. “But Debra—”

“
What about Debra? Have I not taught her to recite
Shema Israel
before falling asleep? And danced with her on my shoulders in the synagogue? And built a Sukkah and spun a dreidel with her? And practiced the Hebrew scriptures for her Bat Mitzvah? And snuck a glass of water to her during the day of fasting?”

The two women watched me in silence. I rarely lost my temper.

“
Haven’t I done it all?” I kept my eyes on Rebecca, determined to make her respond.

“You have,” she said. “You were the best father.”

“
The best
Jewish
father,” I said, “and a pretty good husband too.”

“
That’s why I’m upset now. After everything we’ve been through, how can you do this to me? And worse, to Debra?” Rebecca threw her thumb behind her back. “
This tree!
”

“
Is that really fair?” Rabbi Rachel’s voice was pacifying, like an adult addressing a distraught youth. “Your daughter is an adult now, intelligent and educated. A married woman. Isn’t she capable of dealing with her father’s more complex feelings about Judaism and Christmas?”
Rebecca looked at the rabbi, not replying.

“
The Debra I know will manage just fine.”

“
I don’t want her to manage,” Rebecca said. “I want her to be happy.”

“
Really, Rebecca,” the rabbi smiled, “aren’t you over-protecting your daughter?”

My wife glared at our rabbi and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

This brief retort, which lasted for only three words, was enough to chase the blood away from our childless rabbi’s face. She straightened up to her modest height and walked out of our house.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Judy Levy’s house rested on the northern shoulder of Camelback Mountain. Her late husband, a much older man, had passed away a decade ago. To get there after dark, a driver had to possess the strong nerves of a tightrope artist and the best set of headlights. My nerves were better trained for the more civilized environment of a bloody operating room, but the Volvo’s Xenon headlights threw off veritable sunlight that chased away much of the desert eeriness. I steered carefully up the narrow gravel path, which weaved between giant boulders, pinched a hairpin turn around overgrown cacti, and rattled over a drain wash strewn with pebbles.

A coyote leaped from the bushes and paused in front of my car, observing the intrusion. I hit the brakes. Three more coyotes joined in. They had raggedy tails, wolf-like snouts, and a casual trot that exuded the cockiness earned by reaching the top of the food chain. I sat behind the wheel of my open-top car, a cool breeze rustling the dry weeds around me, and for a moment I was no longer in the very center of the fifth-largest metropolis in America, but alone in the wilderness, auditioning for a role in these carnivores’ dinner.

The moment passed when a pair of headlights appeared in my rearview mirror, and the coyotes ambled into the darkness.

Two more turns and a few hundred yards up the hill, the path ended in a carport, occupied by Judy’s old Jeep Wrangler and piles of scrap metal. There was just enough flat area to accommodate a few more vehicles.

Cantor Bentov and Aaron arrived a moment later, parked their cars, and joined me.

Aaron whistled. “You are the man! Ten million dollars!”

I locked my car. “Not bad, eh?”

“It’s incredible,” Cantor Bentov bellowed. “The best Christmas gift Santa has ever delivered to a bunch of Jews!”