DISOWNED (7 page)

Rivkah feels hollow inside.

"And did one of them vote for me?  No, they did not." His eyes glass over for a moment then.

   "Votes or not," Rivkah cries out in real pain then, "Sabbath is Sabbath. Stop smoking. Please."

   "Why should I? I hate them. They hate me."

"It's not that they hate you!"

"They broke my heart," he says softly.

"I'm sorry."

"They'll break your heart too, if you let them. Just like an old kitchen plate."

"Hearts can't get broken so easily."

"Oh no? Just wait and see."

   Henry's sadness is too strong. It overpowers everything. And Rivkah can feel it encircle the room and enfold the two of them as they sit there together upstairs alone. Downstairs, right at this very moment, in the grandmother's apartment, she can hear the front door open and close to welcome the precious Sabbath guests.

Rivkah wishes her mother were here with them now, but every Friday night Molly goes to sleep early and Henry is left here alone to read about the Kotzker Rebbe, and develops strange ideas. But, religious or not, Henry is expected to come down and join the family on Friday nights. Before the election at least he did that. 

   "Come on, daddy. We'll go down together now. You'll have some dinner. It won't be so bad." 

   Through the floor of their apartment Rivkah hears the guests start to sing. The Sabbath songs rise up and surround them.

   "They're not my songs," he murmurs. 

"They're everyone's songs. They're mine, and I want to sing them."

   All Jews are commanded to sing together on the Sabbath. No one may be excluded from the Shabbos singing and no one may exclude himself. Whatever happened during the week between them, the singing washes it all away.

   "Forgive them, daddy," Rivkah commands him now.

   But Henry's fists form tight. "Give me one good reason!"

"You never need a reason to forgive."

   Reb Bershky taught Rivkah that it is the Sabbath itself which brings forgiveness. Without the Sabbath no one could ever find the power to forgive.

But Henry cannot forgive anybody. Will not. If Rivkah stays a little longer he will start to tell her all the people he cannot forgive. Refuses to forgive.

Now the songs from downstairs rise up more strongly. They are songs welcoming the Sabbath in.

"Let them sing their guts out. What do I care?" Henry reaches for another cigarette.

"Stop it!"

"What good does all their singing do? They couldn't give me even one vote!"

 Henry stands up and goes to the window then to look outside. The small streets are dark, with Shabbos candles shining in each window making odd shadows on the pavements below.

  "The Jewish people have been ripped apart, Bekkie." His voice is somber. "Believe me. It's happened to us all."

Next from downstairs come the love songs of Shabbos. The greatest mitzvah of all is love on the Shabbos, between a husband and wife. Then the spirit of God comes to join them and all the world becomes as one.

   "I'm going downstairs." Rivkah goes to the door. "It is forbidden for us to stay up here alone."

   "Oh yeah?" Henry walks close behind her to the door and turns the latch quickly shut. "You're staying up here with me."

   Rivkah is frightened. "There are guests waiting." She reels back against the doorway.

"And what about me? Aren't I also waiting?"

   Then he grabs her arm hard. She flinches and yanks her arm away.

"Take your hands off me."

"I will not."

Rivkah pushes against him. "You're not allowed to touch me."

   "I can do what I like. This is my home. And you're my daughter.

You belong with me."

   "No, I don't."

   "What did you say?" His face flushes hot red.

"Leave me alone. Get away."

   "You are staying with me."

Wild, hot tears start falling now.

"Don't you dare start crying like your mother cries."

   "I am not my mother."

"No. Thank God, you're not!"

   The songs downstairs get louder and louder.

  "Bekkie," her father's voice trembles now. "Please, Bekkie please. You're my daughter! Mine! Don't leave me here all alone. I can't take it. Not tonight."

Then his shoulders heave and start shaking.

  "It's all right, daddy. It's all right, stop crying. I'm not going anywhere."

Where could she go anyway? For now Rivkah is captive in her grandmother's kitchen. When she walks on the street and men pass her, they turn their eyes down completely. It is as if she does not exist anymore.

   Now life between a man and woman is dangerous and she, too, must turn aside. From all of them. Her father and grandfather included. As soon as a girl is Niddah she must learn to be modest, above all.

***

  So, the great pages of Uncle Bershky's Talmud have been officially closed to Rivkah now. After school she stays home by herself, helps her grandmother, and imagines him learning without her, sitting there wrapped up in God's arms.  Rivkah does not sit in God's arms though. She sits downstairs, alone on the stoop and watches life itself whisk past her. She cannot imagine staying here forever, though she has no idea where she can ever belong.

 One early evening in late July, Devorah comes out to the stoop and sits down besides Rivkah. Something she very rarely likes to do.

"You must like it out here," her grandmother begins and wipes her big hands on her apron as she speaks. She has not yet taken it off. "You're out here all the time." 

"Not exactly all the time, grandma." Rivkah wonders why her grandmother is out here.

"Why don't you go and join the other girls walking?" Devorah is speaking much more slowly than usual tonight.

Rivkah lifts her eyes from the pavement where she has been watching a small ant lumbering by. Devorah has never before suggested she join the others.

"You know they're not allowed to be with me because of my mother and father."

Devorah rustles on the stoop. "I'll ask them for you then."

   "Don't you do that! Ever!"

"All right. Calm down. You know, we come from a strange family, Rivkah." Devorah moves closer.

 Rivkah doesn't like it.

   "Something is wrong with everyone in the whole family,"

Devorah speaks slowly and precisely without emotion, summarizing facts. "Everyone in the family is different. All of the children, the daughters especially... Why? I ask myself over and over? Do you think it's because not one of them really listens to the word of God? Not the way they're supposed to."

   "I don't think that's it grandma." 

   "You know, these days you're changing too. I'm frightened for you."

   "It isn't necessary."

   "It is necessary. The way you look me in the eye. It scares me."

   "Grandma, please."

   "Rivkah, I don't want you to hate me."

   "Who said that I hate you?" Rivkah is taken off guard.

  "No one said it. Sometimes I feel it. At night, just when I'm about to go to sleep."

   "Wrong, grandma."

"Promise me, Rivkah, you'll never hate me."

"I promise you."

"You'll have nothing left Rivkah, if you start to hate me."

Rivkah longs to get up and fly like a spring bird then, far down the block. But inside she feels tied by an invisible iron bond to this huge grandmother, who will not stop talking to her.

   "Do you hear me, Rivkah?  The girls in our family are rotten. My daughters all married strange men. And for what reason did these terrible husbands take my daughters and move away from the neighborhood?”

"They must have had some reason." 

"What can you get in another neighborhood? You get assimilated, that's all. And they're doing it, one by one. Pretty soon, there'll be no real Jews left at all."

Now Rivkah wants to get up, cross the street and travel far away. Up on the subway straight down to the beach, to Coney Island, where the ocean is beautiful, and the waves beat wildly on the shore.  But girls in Borough Park do not go alone to Coney Island. They don't wear short skirts there, or run into the ocean.

   "Assimilation. That's how it starts, little by little," Devorah doesn't even realize that Rivkah barely listens. "First one family moves away and then another. Bonds loosen. Ties shake. Soon the Jewish people are lost completely. It was better for us in Europe."

   "How can you say that?"

"Better we die there in the ovens, Rivkah, then lose our soul here."

Now there is silence. That's all. And the silence that rises between them contains far more than words. 

   "You hear everything and say nothing," Devorah breaks it finally. "Somewhere we went wrong. All together. No wonder God hates us all."

   As if pushed by a strong wind, Rivkah lurches away from her grandmother. "It's enough, grandma. You're going too far. God doesn't hate us."

   "How do you know?" The two of them face off at each other.

   "I feel it."

   "And what good are feelings? Feelings are lies."

Rivkah is silenced. Maybe her grandmother is right? Maybe feelings are lies causing us to falter and fall? 

   "We have to pray harder, Rivkah", her grandmother intones.

   "And what if we don't? What will happen then?" Rivkah tries to move a little, but her legs feel wobbly. Like there's nothing beneath them to stand on at all.

Her grandmother's swift eyes take it all in sharply.  "Your legs are shaking now. Good. Let them shake! It's better for your legs to shake than to think that you can trust your feelings. God gave us the Torah over our feelings. Shake. Shake. It's good to shake."

With all of her will Rivkah stops the shaking. Then she tosses her head roughly back, takes her hair and throws it freely over her shoulders as if it were a mane. For a moment she feels wild and beautiful.

The old lady looks at her oddly then. "You want to run away from me. I feel it."

Rivkah's mind suddenly feels sharp and clear. It even has a strange vibrancy about it. She opens her mouth and strange words come out. "My life is
my
life grandma!"

   "What?"

    Rivkah feels the chill that passes through Devorah. "Your life belongs to God, that's who!" says Devorah.

   "Leave me alone."

   "I'll never leave you alone. You think you're finished with me, just like that?" Devorah won't have it. "No. There's still plenty God wants me to teach you too. But you'd rather go running to the men!"

"What?"

   "You can’t stand being with the women.”

And in a horrible, flashing moment Rivkah realizes that is true. She can't bear her grandmother. She longs for her grandpa and her beloved Reb Bershky who are both completely gone from her now.

   Devorah tilts her head back and sneers a little. "You know what they say about women like that?"

   "Stop, please."

"Terrible things. They are cursed!"

   "Don't talk like that, grandma."

   "And since you were little what did you do? Go running to men."

"Not to men. To Uncle Reb Bershky."

"Rivkah, I see it in you. You like the men!"

   Rivkah tosses her hair back into the wind that is playing with it. And what if I do, she dares to wonder?

But the weight of Devorah's condemnation rests upon her heart like a heavy cloud.

"Jewish girls don't like the men! They don't go running after them!"

   "When did you last see me running?"

"Because you can't anymore! You're not allowed. Whether or not you like it, you're stuck here with me now."

   Then out of nowhere Devorah is finished. She gets up, turns her back and sadly walks up the cold, stone stairs.

CHAPTER 7

So, for now, Rivkah follows her grandmother's footsteps. She tries hard very hard to do as she is instructed. She wants to love her grandmother and have her grandmother love her, although strange feelings are stirring within. Feelings she tells no one about either, not even herself. 

Naturally, Henry doesn't approve of what's happening. He doesn't like to see Rivkah so much at Devorah's side.

   "You're with her more than usual, Bekkie."

   "What can I do about it?"

"What can you do? We'll see about that."

 Henry starts to follow Rivkah downstairs to her grandmother's kitchen.  Devorah quickly shuts the door in Henry's face.

He stands outside and bangs hard on it. "Open it up!"

Devorah quickly turns the latch, locking both her and Rivkah inside.

He only bangs harder.

   Devorah leans her whole body against the door. A human barricade against temptation. "There's no reason, Henry, why you should come inside."

"She's My daughter. Open up."

   "We're doing what's right here. You go back upstairs where you belong."

But he just keeps banging and calling out. "Right and wrong. Wrong and right. With you everything's so simple." 

   But even if Henry stands there and knocks forever, Devorah will never let him in.

Later at night, when Rivkah goes upstairs to sleep, Henry comes into her room and sits down at the edge of her bed. Rivkah pretends to be sleeping, but he starts talking anyway. 

"This can't go on forever," Henry says/

Rivkah opens her eyes. "I want to go to sleep."

   "You have to listen to me. I am your father."

   "So?"

"So? So, I am your father," he repeats solemnly.  The sound of his voice alerts her to danger.  "And I am going to take you out of Yeshiva and make you just like the other girls and boys."

   Rivkah can't even really listen. "What other girls and boys?" The world outside is a strange

haze to her.

"When I take you out of Yeshiva and put you into a public school you won't have to be so different from everybody."

   "But I am different from everybody."

"You'll go where boys and girls play together."

She looks at him like he's crazy.

"And you won't have to wear long skirts, long sleeves and those ugly shoes."