Jephte's Daughter (26 page)

She took her purse, but packed no bags. Empty, she thought. Clean and empty. For the last time, she went through the house and thought: This has never been my house, my home. Everything in it, all the beautiful furniture shiny with wax, the polished crystal and silver, has the cold gleam of objects in a museum. Like her mother, she, too, lived in a house where nothing was hers. She was merely another one of the objects put into the house, like the curtains or the piano, to fulfill someone else’s dream, someone else’s needs. My bridal bower and love nest. A young bride’s first home, she thought mockingly, with a final ache, giving up the dream of her youth. She had imagined it so differently as a young girl! But that did not matter anymore. She was past caring, past regrets. She closed the door quietly, finally, behind her.

The police received the missing-persons report the same evening, but did not feel it necessary to do anything until the next day. By that evening, they had already located a clerk in a shorefront hotel in Tel Aviv who remembered the young, beautiful rich woman and the little Hassidic boy—an incongruous pair. He remembered thinking it odd, too, that they had no luggage, and that with such a small child she should ask specifically for a room on the highest floor overlooking the sea. Usually people with small kids avoided the high floors. She had registered late in the afternoon and spent the night and had gone out twice the next day. The second time, about three in the afternoon, she had not returned. Oh, yes, she had asked him about boat rentals at the marina.

By the time the police got into the room and found the suicide note addressed to Abraham Ha-Levi, Los Angeles, and located the rental service with the missing motorboat, the gray dress and the child’s black vest, covered with tar and seaweed, had already washed up on the beach. They found the boat capsized far out at sea, whether drifted or driven there, they could not tell.

In Jerusalem, the Ha-Levi Hassidim ripped the pockets off their black waistcoats and covered their heads with ashes. They could hold no funeral because there were no bodies.

“We’re going to be late, pet,” Graham said impatiently. “Can’t you call her tomorrow, for pity’s sake?”

“It’s her little boy’s third birthday. Actually it was, I’m already four days late,” Elizabeth said calmly. Lately Graham had been getting on her nerves. He’s getting fussy, she thought. A fussy old man. The unspoken insult made her look at him brightly and smile. She had been on the phone for twenty minutes, getting busy signals from Jerusalem. “I’ll try once more and then give up,” Elizabeth pleaded, pressing the redial button. He sighed and turned on the television. She heard the phone connect and the long, slow rings—nine, ten, eleven…“Hello!” she shouted; the connection was terrible, like speaking to someone on the moon. “I’d like to speak to Batsheva, please. This is her friend…Yes, Batsheva Harshen…Could you put her…What’s that?” She put her hand over the receiver, “God! Shut that thing off! Please, this is a terrible connection, could you speak a little…God, no! No, oh, please, dear God, she couldn’t have. Please say it again. Batsheva, God, no!” She let the phone smash to the floor. Graham dove for it.

“Hello, who is this? Are they sure? How did she? When? Could you speak up a little? All right. We’ll call back later. Good-bye.”

Curled up in a fetal position on the couch, Elizabeth rocked, hugging her shoulders. Graham sat next to her and she hugged him, sobbing into his shoulder. “Why, Graham, why? She was so happy the last time I spoke to her. She loved that little boy so much. How could she do that to him? To herself? How? Why?”

“Drink this, here. Down the hatch now, that’s a good girl,” he said soothingly, handing her a brandy and pouring himself a vodka as he spoke. When she had finished, he refilled the glass. Then suddenly, she sat up.

“It’s my fault.”

“Good heavens!”

She got up and paced the floor. “I remember now. We were discussing Anna Karenina and I said…oh my God, Graham! It’s my fault! I put the idea into her head! We were having this stupid discussion about why Anna did it and I told her that I thought suicide was a way of taking control, an act of courage. My God! I did it,” she screamed hysterically. He slapped her sharply across the face and grabbed her arms, holding her tight.

“Now you listen to me, you silly fool! That girl had a husband who was beating the daylights out of her. She was black and blue all over. I should think that that had a little to do with it.” He felt her stop struggling and go limp.

“She never told me that. How do you know that?”

“I saw the marks when her skirt accidentally rode up when we were getting into a cab. I spoke to her about it later. She said there was nothing she could do. Something about being Jephte’s daughter.” He was feeling a little uncomfortable now and beginning to realize he had made a serious mistake.

“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this before, when we were in Jerusalem, when I could have done something?” She got up and paced the floor, pulling painfully on her hair. “You knew, yet you kept it a secret.”

He avoided her eyes. “I thought you knew…I…” he faltered.

“Liar!” She pounded his chest with her fists. “You knew she was married to someone who beat her, and that she was desperate, and you let me leave Jerusalem without trying to help her. What was it, Graham? Were you afraid she’d move in with us and spoil your love nest? Was she too pregnant for a threesome?”

“I’m getting a little too old for these theatrics, pet,” he said, grabbing her wrists and holding them a little tighter than necessary to keep them away from him. “I’m also a little too tired and too bored with Ms Ha-Levi Harshen—may she rest in peace—to pretend anymore. Yes indeed, I knew that if I told you about the black-and-blue marks you’d go running off to kidnap her and I wasn’t about to be saddled with hiding a pregnant Jewess from her monied Hebraic clan, who wouldn’t hesitate to have me fired from Cambridge. Trust the Hebrews, my dear, their money allows them endless liberties.”

“You never did care anything about her, did you? It was just a way of impressing me, keeping me believing that you were really—”

“What? What do I need to be for you? Good, decent, moral—no, more than that!—a rock of moral strength, a giant of spirit infused by the best in Western culture and civilization. While you, my dear, were not above taking a bribe that resulted in this poor, misguided child’s eventual leap into the sea. So please, don’t look at me all fire and brimstone.” He drained his glass. “We are the same, my pet. Empty inside, waiting for someone else to do the heroics so we can latch on to them and take some satisfaction, some sense of being alive. We’re two phony hypocrites, selfish and indulgent, who care for no one, for nothing. But I at least have one thing you don’t: self-knowledge.”

Stricken, she stopped struggling and let her hands hang helplessly at her sides. “It’s true. I let her marry him—that monster! That brute!” Then a certain light came into her eyes, a flash of intuitive understanding. “A scholar,” she said with quiet contempt. She looked up at Graham. “Another scholar, learned in all things, trained in the pureness of philosophy, in the delineation of the most delicate shades of emotion, the highest categories of truth.” She shook her head. “I’m not like you, Graham. I may have done selfish, immoral things, but I care. I want to be a better person. I haven’t given in yet to all the ugliness in my soul. I’m a country girl, and yet I was sitting right on a pile of it and never smelled it.” She laughed low—a harsh, tortured sound. “Get out of here, Graham,” she said softly.

“A splendid idea.” He rose, picking imaginary lint off his neatly pressed gray wool slacks and tweed jacket and getting into his overcoat. “I hope to return when you’ve come to your senses, pet,” he called after her as she disappeared into the bedroom.

“You don’t seem to understand,
pet
.” She came back to him, holding a valise in her hands. “I mean get out of my life, for good. You can get the rest of your things later. Now give me back my keys, you bastard.”

“Elizabeth, dearest, you don’t mean this. You’re upset about your little friend, as of course you should be. You’ll feel better in the morning, darling, and I’ll be there to share it with you.” He spoke calmly, but his years of experience with coeds told him that this chapter was ending. His panic rose.

“The goddamn keys, Graham,” she said sharply, her palm upturned. He reached into his pocket and dropped them finally into her hand. She pocketed them.

He walked out of the door, the youth gone from his step, his shoulders suddenly stooped, heavy with the burdens of middle age. “You’ll change your mind. Won’t you let me help you? I can make you feel better, I know I can.”

“You’re so right, Graham. I feel better already,” she said, slamming the door in his still-pleading face.

She walked slowly back into her bedroom, crawled beneath the covers, and buried her face in a pillow. She thought of the sunlight glinting off the polished brass fireplace screen at the Ha-Levis’, the smell of roses fresh from the garden in little crystal vases on brightly polished wood. She saw Batsheva, a little ninth-grader, her hair braided with red bows, her gray-blue eyes wide with friendliness and excitement, bending over clean, new books, Penguins whose pages had never been turned before. How her face had looked up with curiosity and pleasure, asking, asking, asking, seeking to understand a whole world denied her, wanting to be part of it, yet struggling to keep faithful to her own world. She had struggled so. Why had she finally given up? What had pushed her over the edge? She would never know. If only I could talk to her, beg her forgiveness, Elizabeth cried inside herself.

The gray wash of insomnia kept the blackness of sleep always a little at bay. And then a word came to her: repentance. She remembered once Batsheva had told her the three stages of repentance: recognition of the evil deed, sincere regret, and finally a deep-rooted change that would allow one, in the identical circumstances, to act differently. Slowly, in the dark reaches of the the endless gray night, she passed through them. When she awoke, she felt fragile and clean, as if she had spent the night in fasting and prayer. And deep in her soul she felt some change had taken place.

She found a church and lit two candles. And on her aching knees, she watched their small, brilliant, fragile flames flicker, illuminating the darkness.

Abraham Ha-Levi, sitting on the floor, his exquisite suit ripped to shreds by his own hands, heard the door open and more voices enter. He closed his eyes wearily, waiting for the people to come in and sit down and offer condolence. For seven days, as is the custom among Jews, he was forced to receive the comfort of friends and strangers. He wanted desperately to be alone, and yet just to prevent that was the object of
shiva
, the seven days of mourning. After the loss of a child, or a mother, father, sister, or brother, husband or wife, one was not allowed to be alone.

Voices. So far away, and suddenly he heard the whispers of his classmates and felt the icy, cold breeze of a Polish winter come through the smashed windows of the university. Go home, the professors shouted. Your grades will be sent to you. The Germans are in the streets. Be careful. No Jews allowed on the train. Jews not allowed to travel. The valise wrenched from his hands. Helplessness. Rage. Hide. Do not be caught. The train’s acrid smoke, the strange palpable silence of the passengers. And every new face that boarded: A policeman? A soldier? An ache in the stomach, a spasm of death-fear. Midnight. Silent steps with no backward glance and then, suddenly home! Running footsteps, pounding on the door. Mama, Mama. Silent tears in rivulets down her dear face. But I am home, Mama. I am safe, why do you cry? Where is Papa? Where is Aaron, and Joseph and Gavriel? Her soft caress. Sleep, she says. In the morning you will see them. But now, sleep child, dear child. Her warm caress, the waxy smell of the burning Sabbath candles reaching their end. But I will only kiss them, Mama, and wish them goodnight. In which room does Papa sleep? Running through the silent house. Empty, soundless. Mama’s piercing, manic cry. Mama, Mama, where are they, what has happened? The synagogue, she cried. It was not my fault. I was not home. I would have gone with them, gladly.

Aching, tired legs pound the streets, and when they arrive, the smell of cold smoke. Burnt wood. The white-and-black cloth of a prayer shawl, singed. Two Hebrew letters from a Torah scroll. And then…then…the bones—white bones in the rubble. The smell of burnt flesh. The heave, the heave of nausea. A death-longing.

He opened his eyes and heard the voices around him discuss the weather, the high price of tomatoes, the fall in the stock market. Well-dressed Jewish matrons of Los Angeles and their solid, comfortable husbands. The sunlight bouncing off an alligator purse and well-shined shoes pierced his eyes like a knife. He shut them again.

Give him the money, Mama pleads. The guard grins, his heavy fist circles a gun. The first time I aimed my gun at a small child, the guard says, I had to close my eyes. The second time I looked with one eye. By the third I did it with both eyes open and enjoyed it.

Give him the money, but not the tools.

Why do they push me? I am going into the train. But there is no room. Do not move or you will crush a child. Someone has vomited. Airless, suffocating.

At the end of the line, they will kill us all. We must escape.

Shut up, fool! You lie, little fool. We will tell the guards about you when we stop. Shouting voices, enraged voices. Mama, they will not listen, come with me. I will cut open the barbed wire that seals the windows. We will jump. I will go first, then you must follow. Mama, Mama.

You are the remnant, son. You must continue in your father’s footsteps, your brothers’ footsteps. You must wear the crown of the Ha-Levis. I am not worthy, Mama. I can’t, Mama. You must promise me, son, you must vow it to God that you and your children will continue this, it is God’s will. A sacred vow. Make it. Make it. Now, on your father’s holy grave. Your brothers’ holy graves. Slowing down. The train moves into the mountains. Clip—one gone. Clip, and the second. Then the third. An opening. Jump! A crack, a thud, a piercing pain in the shoulder and the back. Down on the ground. Mama, jump! Mama!

A scream. She will not follow.

Vow it! Her pale lips mouth the words.

I swear it, Mama, Mama. On my father’s holy grave. On my brothers’ holy graves. I vow it.

The rumble, the soft rumble of the cattle cars. Gone. Alone. Forever.

“Do you want to eat? You must eat, my darling.”

He opened his eyes and looked at his wife. Her tearstained face. Still tears left, he wondered. Fortunate woman. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

He was in the garden now, Batsheva on his lap, her soft cool lips on his cheek, her arms thrown trustingly around his neck. And what have you brought me now, Aba, dear Aba? I have brought you a great gift, little princess. And where is it, Aba—the tickle of small hands thrust deep into his pockets, the cry of joy, the ecstatic hug, the wet urgent kiss on the cheek. He felt no tears well up. He was dry, he thought. Nothing human was left him. No human emotions. He was simply a drawing, a still life, all emotion frozen and long past. A memory. Not all, he thought. Out of all the things human beings feel in their short, tortured time on earth, out of all that joy, sorrow, compassion, love, respect, honor, awe, surprise, gratitude, and judgment, only one emotion had been left him: anger. But it was so strong, so deep, it made up for all the others. He felt he could destroy the universe with it. But he didn’t know who or what he was angry at, so it stayed locked up within him, an atom bomb deep and silent in an underground silo.

At first he thought it might be Batsheva. It should be her, he thought. But then he thought of her letter and he knew it wasn’t. He had memorized it, word for word, and whenever the voices grew too intrusive, he would simply repeat it to himself, drowning out everything else.