The Beautiful Possible (5 page)

“
Nu
?”

“A haiku asks us to reenvision the object it describes. A simple frog becomes more green, more moist, more embodied; a white butterfly becomes an acrobat, a ballet dancer, a celestial being.”

“And the words of the Shema transform how we understand God at any given moment,” says Sol.

“As you wish. But God is not a noun.”

“Is God a verb?” asks Sol.

“God is a parenthetical thought, rabbi. A commentary you add to your days; something to justify the karma of your actions.”

“I wish I could ride on your caravan of brilliance. My mind would be so open.”

“Your mind is beautiful just the way it is,” says Walter. “You wear your learning well. It doesn’t constrict you.”

Sol smiles at him. In just a few weeks, Walter has morphed from a dirty-haired stranger to an intriguing friend. He still dresses in his green kurta, but his hair is clean and when he
remembers to wear a yarmulke, it no longer sits awkwardly on his head.

“You could be one of us if you wanted,” says Sol. “You would be a good rabbi.”

“Don’t kid yourself.”

To Sol, the refugee’s lack of faith challenges him to sharpen his own. After they learn together, Sol sits alone in the beit midrash and thinks of ways he can counter Walter’s arguments, prove to him that God is really a noun. He wishes he could see Walter as Morris does: a lost soul, an illiterate Jew who wears the wrong clothes and sniffs yellow powder. But Sol loves what Walter teaches him; together they release interpretations as if they are breaking open pistachio nuts and savoring the sweet green meats. With Walter as his chavrusa, Sol believes he will never stray as a rabbi; he will always know how to unlock kernels of passion and meaning.

“She’elah: If a man claims a chavrusa in his youth, are they destined to learn together in the future?” asks Sol.

“Teshuvah: Everything is explained in the World to Come,” says Walter.

Sol thinks of Rosalie and Walter as milk and meat, requiring separate dishes and a designated lapse of time that must pass between eating one or the other. Rosalie is his bashert, his soulmate, who insists on wearing a flapper dress to their wedding. At night before sleep he imagines their first time together. Like he did as a boy Sol practices kissing the back of his hand, only now he imagines how he will kiss her
down there
, as the Radish
explained during an impromptu counseling session. Sol has no idea what to expect but he believes Rosalie will guide him well. She is that kind of woman.

Wife here. Chavrusa there. Another set of dishes. His father had once said to him,
I left behind my chavrusa in Poland and he was the love of my life. God only knows what happened to him. If you have a chavrusa keep him close and he will sustain you as a husband sustains a wife.
Day after day Sol and Walter envelop themselves in the words that carry them to ancient study halls, steamy bathhouses of men and Hebrew letters dancing together in an eternal tango. Whatever sex may be, thinks Sol, nothing beats the frolic of two men’s minds, this holy fire, thought merging with thought in perfect knowing and boundless joy.

December 1946

A December blizzard blankets the city with three feet of snow. Classes are cancelled and Sol invites Rosalie to the Seminary for afternoon tea. She arrives early and steps out to the courtyard, a silent field of white. Rosalie digs her boots into the knee-deep snow, steps forward into the middle of the yard, opens her arms, and spins. This is happiness, she thinks. This cushion of snow, this gray shawl of a sky, and Sol, the man who will escort her into the future. She is ready to cast aside any lingering doubts and buy a wedding dress. Rosalie picks up a twig and writes:

She spins again, opening her mouth to catch the falling flakes, and spies Sol standing at a window. He runs out to the courtyard, pulls her by the waist, and leads her to the arcade where they kiss
in the shadows. Rosalie opens her eyes and notices a man without a jacket standing beside Sol.

The man shivers and Rosalie turns to him.

“You must be freezing!”

She pulls on Sol’s lapels. “Give this man your coat!”

“This is not any man,” says Sol, smiling. “Rosalie, meet Walter Westhaus, my beloved chavrusa.”

Sol drapes his coat over Walter’s shoulders and clears his throat. “You sneaked up on us. Walter. Meet Rosalie, my fiancée.”

“At last!” says Rosalie. “I have been waiting for this. Sol adores you! I hope you’ll tell me about India and the ashram and how you got here—Sol is so secretive.”

Walter glances from Rosalie to Sol and then back to Rosalie. “You make a beautiful couple,” he says.

“Thank you,” says Rosalie. “Don’t you have any boots?”

When the arrangements were made for Walter to study at the Seminary, he was assigned a dorm room that was infested with mice. Walter would be awakened by a mouse nibbling on his arm and another one slinking up the sleeve of his tunic. Rather than ask the other students how they tolerate the infestation he scouts out other places to sleep. He samples every closet and crawl space in the building, choosing a different place to lay his head each night. No place in the building is rodent-free, but he never returns to his room.

On cold nights Walter sleeps in a basement boiler room, huddled in the warmest corner. When he wants to study he camps out in attic rooms crowded with Hebrew books, some torn and
used, others stored in their original boxes. He opens volumes at random, forcing himself to decipher the meaning of the words. On nights when he can’t sleep, Walter finds an empty classroom and takes a seat. He imagines a rabbi who would not teach law and textual criticism as the real rabbis do. Walter’s rabbi would pull away a curtain and reveal Sonia to him. Sonia would not appear as she was in this life—blond hair cascading down her back, her voice poised for Brahms—this Sonia would step out from the curtain and escort him on his American journey, explaining the meaning of things. Then the rabbi would vanish and Sonia would become the rabbi. Instead of lieder she would sing wordless songs and answer all his questions.

She’elah: Why do these men wear leather straps that tear into their arms?

Teshuvah: The straps are a ladder to the infinite. They spiral on the arm and twist around the middle finger because one day the body will lie in the ground but the spiral goes on forever
.

She’elah: Why won’t I wear those straps, no matter how many times the rabbis insist?

Teshuvah: You can’t cross your own boundaries, schatzi.
The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer
. But you will help them understand their strange tribal ways.

She’elah: Why did you die and I am here?

Teshuvah: I left the bedroom to look for crackers. I was shot instead of you. And now you are alone in this building where Paul Richardson dropped you off like a parcel of laundry.

As he sits in the empty classroom Walter feels certain that Rabbi Sonia has touched his shoulder but when he looks up he
remembers that he is alone. This building where men learn about God and Torah is the only home he has.

On Friday nights the rabbinical students dress up in bow ties and serve dinner to one another in the dining hall. Sol is an eager waiter. He escorts Rosalie to an empty table and pours her a glass of water. She spots Walter standing in a corner, perfectly still.

“Walter!” she calls.

He nods and smiles at her. He looks so thin, she thinks. So very lost. She walks over and offers her arm.

“Open spaces in this building make me wary,” he says. “I can’t always make my way across the wide foyers.”

“But you live here. Didn’t they give you a room?”

“Overrun by mice. I find other places to sleep.”

“Sol didn’t mention—”

“Your Sol doesn’t know me as well as he thinks.”

Rosalie escorts Walter to her table, now occupied by Morris and two other students. Walter’s leg trembles under the tablecloth and Rosalie places her hand on his knee to keep it steady. Morris glances at them and nods.

“Gentlemen and Rosalie,” he says. “I have a burning question, an inquiry that will affect the course of Jewish life in America. Maybe our refugee friend can answer.”

Walter turns to Morris. “Go ahead, rabbi.”

“On Shabbat is one allowed to dip a tea bag in a cup of hot water? Or—and here is the clincher—should the hot water be poured over the tea bag?”

“Is this religion?” asks Walter.

“Every detail,” says Rosalie. “Art lives in the minutiae.”

“Then religious practice is an art form,” adds Walter.

“You remind me of Professor Heschel,” says Morris.

“I hear he’s teaching here now,” says Rosalie. “He was my matchmaker! Any of you in his class?”

“I am,” says Morris. “But he’s too mystical for me. I can’t figure him out.”

Rosalie closes her eyes for a moment and remembers Heschel’s lecture, and how Sol smiled at her for the first time. She glances at Walter and then turns to Morris.

“Isn’t that your job from now on? To understand people?”

Morris laughs. “When I graduate I become a rabbi. Here I am still a boy, a fountain pen, an ingénue in the ways of God.”

Walter turns to Rosalie and whispers in her ear. “That’s the problem,” he says. “No enlightenment. Rabbis like Morris with their picayune questions. How can a tea bag open a door to transcendence?”

“Ah,” says Rosalie. She pulls a bag of Swee-Touch-Nee from her pocketbook and immerses it in her water glass. First a blush, then a darkening stain, then saturation.

Rosalie smiles. “Transcendence in a glass.”

“But you haven’t answered my question,” says Morris. “The pouring of the water is what matters, not your little home economics demonstration.”

“Jewish life is home ec,” says Rosalie. “Who is going to make Shabbat for you when you graduate, Morris?”

“That’s enough, Rosalie.” He moves to another table and the other students follow.

Walter and Rosalie are alone.

“She’elah,” says Walter. “If a woman learns with men will they be seduced by her presence in the beit midrash?”

“Teshuvah,” says Rosalie. “The woman will be permitted to learn with the men if she agrees not to speak. After all, her voice may arouse and distract them from their holy Torah.”

“Why don’t you sit next to me in the Radish’s class? I could use a companion.”

“No women allowed,” says Rosalie.

“I can ask. Your fiancé would be proud to have you as his audience. The Radish calls him an
ilui
, a Talmudic prodigy.”

“My handsome genius.”

“Your Sol is a man of deep faith,” says Walter.

“One of us has to be,” says Rosalie.

After he finishes serving, Sol sits beside Walter, grabs a fork, and helps himself to the leftover chicken on Walter’s plate.

“How about we find a coveted place for Rosalie in the Radish’s class?” asks Walter.

“That,” says Sol, “will never be permitted.”

Rosalie turns to him. “You’re the one who is refusing me.”

“Of course not,” he says. “I’d love for you to be in my class. You would be so proud of me.”

“We will test it out,” says Walter. “If you don’t ask the Radish, I will. I’m the treasured guest—he won’t say no to me.”

“Okay with you, Sol?” asks Rosalie.

He reaches over and kisses her cheek.

“If that’s what you want.”

The Seminary attic is cluttered with books and papers waiting for burial—faded prayer books with missing pages, a volume of Talmud munched on by bugs, discarded source sheets, solicitation letters inscribed with biblical verses that were never mailed. Prayer shawls are strewn about, some with holes, some never worn. Just like in the dorm rooms, mice scurry everywhere. In a corner, a Torah scroll lies on a low table, properly covered with a suit jacket that Walter borrows when one of the rabbis scolds him for improper dress.

The attic has become Walter’s sleeping loft. He has named it the geniza, a holding place for cast-off sacred books, which he has begun to sort and shelve into an organized library. After class he invites Sol for a tour. “It’s the place,” says Walter, “where the dead visit on Mondays and Thursdays to read Torah, enlighten me, and then return to the World to Come.”

The floor is littered with books and Sol is reluctant to step over them.

“I can’t walk on a prayer book,” he says. “I’ll look from here.”

Walter takes Sol’s hand. “Trust me,” he says. “I won’t let you tread all over your holy words. I’ll keep my rabbi fit for his profession.”

Walter points out the books he shelved. “Look at my feat of organization. Rashi here, mysticism over there, Talmudic
responsa
in this corner.”

“Did you bring me up here to show off how you’ve progressed in your learning?”

Walter sits against a wall, opens a file drawer, and pulls out a bottle of whiskey. Sol sidles up beside him.

“Yours?”

“Someone shares it with me. Every time I check, it’s down a bit. One of your rabbis.”

“And yours.”

“Ha!” says Walter. “This is your world, not mine.”

“Why don’t you talk about what happened?” asks Sol. “All the students are trying to figure out how you escaped from Berlin, traveled to India, and wound up here, with us.”

Walter offers the bottle to Sol who takes a swig and passes it back.

“What are you looking for, Sol? A tale of suffering so you can try out your pastoral skills before you graduate?”

“It’s not that—”

“What’s motivating your great curiosity? A tad of voyeurism, perhaps? Or maybe I can give you a way to test-drive your compassion—extra sweet because you get the full package in one story. So here it is, my friend. When she was shot, her wetness was still fresh on my hands. Both of us so tender. Had she not been killed with my father we all would have probably been gassed by now. I am your living symbol—”

“Stop,” says Sol.

“No. Take it all. Take my life. Take it so you can seem learned, wiser, so you can pretend to be a real rabbi who has seen something outside the four cubits of your small American life. No one will dare call you a thief if you use my material for your sermons.”

“I’m sorry. I’m only trying—”

“You have no idea that you mock me. You actually believe you can offer me consolation. I find that incomprehensible.”

“I want to help,” says Sol.

“What do you see when you look at me? A lost man wearing a cotton tunic in the middle of winter? An emblem of tragedy you can use to test out some kind of theology? Even now, you are thinking of a way to offer some comfort, show off your rabbinic talents.”

“I’m not vulgar,” says Sol.

“And I’m not one of your teachers, preparing you to lead a deluded flock. I’m a guest here. And I couldn’t care less about your profession.”

“But I care,” says Sol. “Deeply.”

“That’s obvious,” says Walter. “So go ahead. Practice your craft. Offer me your best words.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can. Go ahead.”

“Your fiancée who was shot,” says Sol. “You will chase her all your days. She calls to you from the World to Come.”

“Oh! That’s a good one. Home run on your first time out, rabbi.”

“I’m not insincere,” says Sol.

“I can see that.”

Sol inches closer to Walter. “You could be one of us too.”

“I hold nothing of your wisdom.”

“I was cruel,” says Sol. “I’m sorry.”

“You will be a good rabbi,” says Walter. “And I understand. Honestly, I do.”

They pass the whiskey bottle in silence. I went too far, thinks Sol. I will lose him if I’m not careful.
Keep your chavrusa close to you always
, his father had said.
Do not let the flame of your learning burn
out with time or misunderstanding. Let it be a marriage for you. Never be mean, always be loving—

Sol takes the last swig and lets the bottle roll on the floor. Walter turns to Sol and takes his face in his hands, bringing their noses to touch. The gesture is one of apology. Walter is just about to let go when Sol grabs his cheeks and kisses him.

Sol’s lips tremble against Walter’s and he closes his eyes. Walter lays his hands on top of Sol’s, removes them from his cheeks, and holds them together.

“This, my rabbi,” says Walter. “This is not meant for you.”

Sol pulls away and covers his face with his hands.

“Of course not,” says Sol. “I lost myself.”

He brushes himself off and steps toward the door.

“I was mistaken. I’m sorry—”

“It’s all right,” says Walter. “I understand.”

Sol closes the door behind him and sits at the top of the staircase, resting his head in his palms. Of course Walter understands. The refugee knows me too well, he thinks. Sol imagines Walter leading him by the hand through an intricate palace made of Hebrew words.
You don’t need language to find your way through these rooms
, he says.
You can leave your conjugations behind; no need to know Aramaic, no need for your Jastrow dictionary.

Sol listens to the traffic of students milling about in the hallway and shifts his body to the side of the stair so he won’t cast a shadow.