Authors: Joshua Braff
There are five cars in the Danowitz driveway, including my mother's. It must be a holiday. I think there's a Jewish celebration of some kind on every single day of the Jewish calendar. Aside from the weekly ceremonies, Shabbat and Havdalah, there's Tisha be-Av and Lag ba-Omer and Asarah be-Tevet and Purim and of course the heavy hitters, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Each one commemorates a mass slaughter of some degree in which the Jews of the time became too prosperous or joyous and wound up very dead. Today must be one of those days. I park about three houses down and start to feel the nervousness of my intentions. Ring the bell, ask where Miriam is, see her, say hi, say sorry, hand her the photo?
As I ring the bell my stomach drops and burns. Becca Danowitz sees me through the glass and cannot fake her utter disappointment. I can't tell if it's her impenetrable mean streak or just the lack of respect she holds behind her eyes, but she will forever look at me as if I've let the entire religion down with my ignorance, youth, and raw stupidity. It's there, even when she tries to smile, like she's doing right now as she opens the door. I can see the bottom row of her teeth and the raised mole that invades her right eyebrow.
“Hello, David. We weren't expecting you. I'll get your mother.” Standing on the porch, I lean my head in and look for my sister. I see the
mechitzah
separating the men and women. This one's made of a heavy wood and has triangular holes cut into it.
“What are you doing?” my mother says, and she's there, at the door, with more shock on her face than pleasure.
“Hi, Mom.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
She looks back into the house where Debra stares at me.
“David?” Debra says, and moves to me. I hold her with my eyes closed, so close to me. My mother is watching, waiting.
“This isn't a good time,” my mother says. “We're having a celebration.”
“Oh.”
“Have you come to apologize?”
I tap the photo in my left pocket and know she's right. It isn't a good time. “I'm sorry, Mom.”
“Well, just as I've told Dena, you
betrayed
me. That's how it feels. A betrayal of trust. Trust is earned. How are you going to earn it back?”
I see Peter Rabbi walking up behind her. He's about my height and has a black and gray beard that's wider than it is long. I feel some relief when a smile forms behind the hair on his face.
“Da
vee
d!” he says, opening the door and taking me by the shoulder. Just like that, I'm in the house and on the
male side of the screen. I look back for my mother and sister and see them heading into the kitchen. The room is small and dimly lit. It has a low ceiling and a velvety, mustard colored couch covered in plastic. A swirly gold-framed portrait of the Grand Rabbi hangs above the fireplace. His beard is black in this one and he's young, a teenager maybe, grinning like a regular person you might know. Hundreds, maybe thousands of books are stacked on shelves and in milk crates pushed into the corners on the wood floor:
In the Land of Prayer, A Maimonides Reader, Fundamentals of the Rambam.
Two men in fedoras are on the couch. When they see me, they stand and one of them asks me if I'm Jewish. I nod and he asks me if I was bar mitzvahed. I shake my head and he asks if I lay tefillin?
“No,” I say, and he wants to know if I'd like to do it now. “No,” I say. “I'm just here to see my mother and sister.”
The two of them speak in Yiddish for a moment and one asks, “Are you Miriam's son?”
“Yes.”
They both smile and offer their hands. The taller one is called Yussi and the guy with all the questions is Svi. They sit back down and continue their discussion so close to each other that the brims of their hats overlap. They speak in both Yiddish and English. I think they're talking about a farm animal or a plowing animal and what to do if your animal kills another man's animal. Some Talmudic thing. Another man, older than Yussi and Svi, about thirty, with freckled skin and a red-haired version of the Hasidic beard,
stands alone by the window. He grins at me and takes a sip from his glass.
“
Shalom aleikhem
, my name is Avram. Stolichnaya?” he says, holding up the bottle.
“No, thank you.” I can see my mother through the
mechitzah
. She's talking to Becca and looking my way.
“Friend of Pinchus?” Avram says.
I shake my head. “Sorry. I don't speak Yiddish.”
“No, no, Pinchus, Pinchus, the rabbi, Mr. Danowitz.”
“Oh, Peter,” I say, and Svi and Yussi both look up at me.
“We'll start in two minutes,” Becca announces from the dining room.
I look for Debra through the wall but only see Sarah. She is taller and nicer and blonder and foxier than any
baalai teshuva
I've ever seen. When I wave to her, she waves back with a smile, a flirty smile. Svi and Yissi are standing now but still talking about the farm animal.
“Verse thirty-five,” Yussi says. “A man's beast injures his neighbor's beast and it dies, they shall sell the animal and divide its price. They shall also divide the dead animal. So the lesson here is that because the ox had never shown any tendency toward harming any other livestock, the owner is only obligated to pay half the damages.”
“Half?” says Svi. “No.”
“It was an accident, a onetime thing. If the ox had previously gorged another ox or any other animal and the owner didn't slaughter it or, or, or, or . . . pen it up for doing so, then the owner bears full liability.”
“So just lie,” says Svi. “If your ox has gorged and gorges again, just say it's never happened before.”
Avram laughs like this:
hut, hut, hut
. Like machine-gun fire. He holds his glass against his cheek.
“Give it a rest for a while, boys. Isn't your life about to change, young Svi?”
Svi smiles, nods, and pulls the brim of his hat lower.
“David,” Debra says and I walk to the
mechitzah
. She puts her finger through the triangular cutouts. I hook my thumb over her pinkie and we laugh a little.
“I'm so glad to see you,” I say.
“She's so mad about yesterday.”
“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought you. It was a mistake. I was only thinking of Dad and what he'd want.”
“Dena,” my mother says, and our fingers come apart. “Over here now, please.”
“It's time,” Debra says. “Shaindee is about to announce she's a
kallah
.”
“A what?” I say.
“A bride.”
All of the women and Peter Rabbi come out of the kitchen and to the front hall. Yussi, Svi, and Avram all walk next to me. Shaindee, Sarah's older sister, is pretty like Sarah but already a snood, you can tell. It's all behind the eyes and the way she walks, like a waddling, wearisome duck. She sits on a folding chair in the center of the room. Sarah sits next to her and the rest of the family stands around them. Peter Rabbi says a prayer: “
Od Yishama B'arai Yehuda
U'vchutzos Yerushalayim, Kol Sason v'Kol Simcha, Kol Chatan v'Kol Kalah
. Let it speedily be heard in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, the sound of joy and the sound of happiness, the sound of a bride and the sound of a groom.”
Svi now walks around the
mechitzah
and he and Shaindee both stand together. I look at my mother and her eyes are tearing.
“Svi and I,” says Shaindee, “wrote in to the grand rabbi last week.”
My mother walks from her spot and is now behind Becca, who's begun to yelp softly in what I believe is Yiddish.
Shaindee takes a piece of paper from a pouch in her apron. “I'd like to read this to you. It's what I wrote to the grand rabbi last week.”
To the honorable and holy, our master, our teacher, our rabbi,
My name is Shaindee Danowitz. Three years ago I saw you on the street in Brooklyn and you looked into my eyes before a man called your name and you looked away. Do you remember that? I have enclosed my picture in the hope that you might remember me. I know that you see many, many people each day and are so intelligent, wise, generous, giving, noble, selfless, and kind. I understand if you don't remember me or my face. I am writing you today to ask for your blessing. I would like to become a
kallah
. The man I'd like to marry goes by the name of Svi
Kutensky and he is a seller of fine jewelry in the diamond district of New York City, New York. I am the daughter of a
baal teshuva
rabbi named Pinchus Danowitz. His
shul
, Ohev Shalom, is located in Vincent, New Jersey. My mother is also a
BT
and her name is Becca Danowitz. Svi and I have obtained the blessing and approval of my parents. And although Svi's parents, Jules and Edith Kutensky, are conservative Jews who live in Maryland, they are very supportive of our union and know that we will build a true and everlasting Hasidic home. It would please us both to no end if you allowed us to marry and to form such a family. I hope you will call or write us soon. Please feel free to keep the picture.
Sincerely,
Shaindee Danowitz
“And?” says Avram.
Hut, hut, hut.
“The office called the house two days later,” says Shaindee.
“And?”
“And I am a
kallah
!”
The group surrounds them and the
mazel tovs
are said loudly and often as the women kiss each other and the men pummel Svi with aggressive back patting. Peter Rabbi yells, “Now we dance,” and Svi and Yussi start pulling me by my elbow toward the living room. “No, thank you, no, no, no,” I say, yanking my arm back. “No, really, no thank you, I don't dance.”
“You'll like it, David,” says Peter Rabbi. “It's a celebration. All the men must dance.”
“It feels good,” says Svi. “I promise.”
I have to nearly throw my arm to get free of Svi's grip. “Enjoy yourselves, okay? I'm not a dancer.”
“You must, David,” says Peter Rabbi. “A
wedding
has been announced. My daughter's wedding and you are a guest in my home. All the men in this home must dance together in celebration. Please. Now. Come.”
Svi has a record album, which he hands to Peter Rabbi and in seconds a fast and rockin' version of some Hebrew wedding song starts, “
Od Yishama B'arai Yehuda U'Vchutzos Yerushalayim
. . .” Svi approaches me again and takes hold of my wrist. I cannot fucking believe this. I look down at my arm and then through the
mechitzah
, back at my stripper/Hasidic mother, who isn't helping me at all.
“Just do a little,” she says, and I'm taken, dragged, literally strong armed onto a pile of stale Lichtiger manhood. My God, a circle of bodies whose hands squeeze the shoulder of the guy next to him to form a sphere, a spinning wheel of black garb that attempts to keep up with the drums and horns of this fast moving song. And as I'm flung around and around it's like a nightmare, truly I'm stuck on some Hasidic carousel of sweat and vodka and Hebrew prayer. I can only see the
mechitzah
and not the faces that look through it as I'm whipped around the room. Faster and faster we climb, these seemingly sedentary men now airborne
and feather light, whirling me round and round and all I can think about is what would happen if the Polaroid fell from my pocket. Avram has a monkey-wrench pinch on my already sore shoulder and it kills so I leap out of this fucked up situation by counting to three before diving out and nearly tripping on the sofa. But I'm out and on the other side of the
mechitzah
. All the woman glare at me like I just shot God and I take my mother's hand in mine. “I need to talk to you.”
“Why are you pulling me?” she whispers.
“Go back and dance, David,” says Becca.
“I don't want to dance. I want to talk to my mother. In private.”
“When the song is over,” Becca says.
“It's ended twice, it's just repeating now.”
“When it's over, David,” my mother says.
“No!
Now!
” I don't plan to say it that loud but it comes out in a shriek.
Peter Rabbi walks around the divide. “David!” he says. “What are you doing?”
“I told you I don't dance.”
“May I talk to you in private, please?”
“No. You may
not
.”
“Mom? Are you gonna talk to me? Huh? Mom?”
She stares at the dancers, the song repeating again. “I am celebrating, David. I don't want to do anything but celebrate this blessing.”
I fling open the front door, leap from the top step to
the sidewalk, and run to the car, where I turn on the ignition and blast the radio. Then I yank out the keys and slam them on the dash. “Fuck
yooooooooou
! You lying, two fuckin' faced Hasidic wannabe
stripper
! You have to be fucking kidding
meeeeee
!”
A person is there, suddenly there, on the sidewalk, a coat wrapped around her. It's her. I do not know if she heard me. Her eyes are bloodshot but her mouth shows fury for the disruption on this day of days for the Danowitzes. I open the door and get out and walk to her.
“I told them I didn't dance, Mom.”
“You were rude to the rabbi.”
“I drove here to talk to you. I found something today and I wanted to talk about it.” I reach for the Polaroid and put it in her hand. She takes it, glances at it. Her eyes widen before blinking, and then I see tears.
“Proud of yourself?” she says softly.
“What?”
She looks down at it again, then gives it back to me. “So what?” she says.
“You were a dancer?”
“And now I'm not.”
We stand there, staring at each other and I can see that she despises me.
“I'm someone better,” she whispers. She takes a long deep breath that has her face pointed up at the sky. “It was exciting for you,” she says. “To come here today. To my friend's home. You found that. Or your father gave it to you
and you couldn't wait to hand it to me. Couldn't contain the thrill of seeing me, of hurting me.”