Hadassah slowly wound a lock of silky hair around her forefinger into a tightening coil.
“What did you tell him?” Tamar asked, appalled at the image the words evoked.
“I said: ‘It won’t happen to me, Rebbe, I’m not going to disappear.’ He nodded. But he was as sad as I have ever seen him. And then he said: ‘I can’t stop you. I can’t stop anyone. Go to the university. And then move to Israel, to Jerusalem. This is where our future is. There is no future for us here in America. No way to keep the children from going to the party, from disappearing over the mountain. If you go to Israel, whatever happens,
at least you won’t disappear. You’ll be part of the Jewish people, part of Jewish history.’ ”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“I looked at him. He seemed older than I’d ever seen him. And for the first time, what he said didn’t sound wise, but simply old-fogyish and incomprehensible. I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was on my way to college. I couldn’t wait to get to the other side of the mountain… And for the first few months in college, it made even less sense.
“College was great. I learned so much that was worthwhile. Literature full of moral dilemmas, moral choices: Tolstoy’s ‘Alesha the Pot,’ Dostoyevski’s
Crime and Punishment
, Turgenev’s ‘The District Doctor’ . . . I could go on and on. And then I’d get to Shakespeare, and that would take a few weeks. Tales of modesty, humility, hubris, self-sacrifice… I saw it as a wonderful complement to what I’d learned in the Bible.
“Then there was Professor Milgram, who taught us about his experiments in testing people’s submission to authority. How many would give others electric shocks if they thought the ‘doctor’ was taking responsibility. It taught me about the human mind, how it molded character. And then, of course, there was history, the whole cycle of Western civilization. We were being introduced to beautiful music I’d never heard before, paintings and sculptures I’d never seen. My life felt so enriched. I couldn’t understand why your father was so apprehensive.
“It was also the first time I’d experienced so many different kinds of people. They were a smart, sophisticated group, from good New York public high schools. I felt like an ignorant child among them. But then, toward the middle of the term, students kept disappearing. I kept asking: Why isn’t Jean or Joan here today? And someone would whisper to me: ‘Hepatitis.’ I couldn’t figure out why everyone was coming down with hepatitis. So I very naively asked: What is this, some kind of epidemic? And
then someone enlightened me. You got hepatitis from shooting up with dirty needles. I was floored! Such pretty, smart girls!
“Another very bright girl who sat next to me in psychology started telling me how her boyfriend had moved in with her. She explained how living together made more sense than going out on dates because all the guys ever wanted on dates was to push you down on the car seat
splat!
and you’d have to fight, fight, fight to get them off you. Her boyfriend wasn’t working because he had a few felony convictions because of radical student politics. But she said she didn’t mind doing all the cleaning and cooking and shopping and working to pay the rent because she just ‘oohfed’ him. That was the expression she used. ‘I just
oohf
him,’ she’d say, hugging herself and giving a big, dreamy smack with her lips. And wasn’t that better, she asked me, than living with her parents and fighting off guys in cars? But toward the middle of the term she started complaining to me that he was slapping her around and didn’t want to have sex anymore.
“I wondered where all the ‘oohf’ had gone.
“Another girl in my English class, a lovely blonde, very gentle and sweet, told me her boss—this overweight, middle-aged, married
yutz
store owner—had pressed her up against the door after closing time and told her he’d set her up in an apartment of her own. That he’d take care of her.
“I smiled, because I was waiting for her to tell me how she’d kicked in his… bloated misperceptions. But then she said she was thinking about it. Rents were high. She was finding it hard to work and keep up with her schoolwork and papers. That it wouldn’t be so bad.
“That really shocked me. It was too sad, too awful. I realized all the things we were learning—psychology, English, history, music—left a person adrift. They didn’t give you any direction on what to do with your life, how to live each day meaningfully.
“But I kept thinking, There has to be more. I looked for
it in the theater, in the opera, in the ballet, in plays and movies. I listened for it in concerts, and searched for it in museums. I felt lost, as if I were playing some never-ending children’s game that kept sending me back to the beginning when the end seemed near. And I began to see that there wasn’t really going to be any counterpart, anything that wrung my heart like Yom Kippur or filled it with contentment like Shabbos. Or anything like hugging the Torah that day in Temple Emanuel—that feeling of being one with the universe, with goodness. I wasn’t going to find it in witty dialogue, screaming sopranos, or the stylized movement of people in pink tights.
“I began to accept that what passed for seriousness, for spirituality, was only this odd posturing, these empty slogans about changing the world, not trusting anyone over thirty, and bringing down the Establishment. But what, I kept asking—I think I really wanted to be convinced!—what will we change? And what happens when
we
get to be thirty? And what are you going to replace the Establishment with?
“I never heard any answers.”
“You should have asked Cliff. He had plenty,” Hadassah said dryly.
“I mean answers that made sense, that rang true. Most people, especially my women friends, felt the same way I did. But they got intimidated and sort of pushed the questions to the back of their minds. They’d start parroting stuff like ‘There’ll be time enough once the Establishment is brought down to deal with that question.’ Or ‘We’ll build a new society together.’
“But they never convinced me. All those ‘don’t ask any questions’ intimidation and mind control techniques had already been used on me in Ohel Sara. They didn’t work. I knew dogmatic garbage clothed in piety when I heard it. Believe me, Mrs Kravitz was much better at it than Johnny SDS radical with the unwashed feet.
“And so I decided that a college education was one thing, and answers to my life were something else. I didn’t drop out of college, but I went back to Orchard Park, where some of my first answers had come from. I enrolled in the highest-level, most serious women’s seminary program I could find and started learning Torah, Mishnah, Jewish history, and the prophets again. But this time as an adult, with teachers I wasn’t afraid to question. I went to college during the day and went to seminary at night…
“It’s so strange, Hadassah, isn’t it? We both went to college and came out with such different conclusions? So, choices, Tamar. Do you understand mine any better now? Will they help you with yours?”
Chapter eighteen
“I shouldn’t have come. I don’t think either of you can help me,” Tamar said.
“What?” Hadassah exclaimed, her half-closed lids flinging open in surprise.
“Nothing we’ve said?” Jenny murmured, stricken.
“What did you think I could learn? You’re both so completely different from me… always have been. Hadassah was always the princess in her enchanted castle, high above the rest of us ordinary folks. The great Kovnitz Rebbe’s daughter… And now she thinks she has the right to do anything she wants… that she’s beyond any rules.
“And you, Jen… you were also never really part of my world, tied down by obligations. Did you listen to your own story? ‘I had total freedom of choice,’ ‘I was a free agent.’ And now you’re going to college in the morning and to an ultra-
frum
women’s seminary at night, looking for answers in both places. And if something you learn makes sense to you, you’ll do it. And if it doesn’t, you simply won’t. Things don’t work that way in
our world, Jenny! There are no choices. At least, I never found I had any. If you love G-d, if you have faith, then you have to do everything the rabbis tell you, no questions asked! The worst decisions I ever made, the ones that got me into the most trouble and deeply hurt my parents, happened because I tagged along with you, letting you talk me into thinking I had a right to defy things!”
“Tamar, that can’t be true!” Jenny exclaimed.
But Hadassah just looked at her steadily, her expression entertaining just a flicker of change, a slight paling, then a deepening of color. “Care to explain?”
“Didn’t I tell you both we shouldn’t be lying to our parents that day we went to Manhattan? Didn’t I try to get you two to leave early for home? And then you go and tell your father it was my fault, Hadassah. Why else would he have forbidden you to see me anymore? . . . Do you have any idea how that broke my parents’ hearts? The great Rebbe of Kovnitz banning their precious little Tamar from seeing their Hadassah? Thinking badly of her? And my father wasn’t well to begin with! And my mother was sick with worry, working day and night. All they had left was their religion, their standing in the community. And your father gave them this
zetz
just when they needed it!”
“First of all, I never lied to my father about that trip to Manhattan,” Hadassah said quietly, pouring herself a large vodka and orange juice. “I told him, in fact, that the whole thing was my idea. He forbade me to contact the two of you after that because he thought
I’d
be a bad influence on
you
.”
There was an eerie quiet. The three women listened to the whir of the air conditioner, the soft flap of drapes against the windowsill, the muffled honking of distant traffic.
“Oh, he knew Jenny and I were in touch, but that didn’t bother him so much. I guess he thought Jenny could hold her own against his willfully dangerous daughter. But you, Tamar,
you were corruptible and thus needed to be protected. Anyway, I hate to remind you, it was
you
who insisted on calling your parents that night. Your parents got a
zetz
only because they misunderstood my father’s intentions. Besides, compared to the
zetz
I got, what happened to your parents was nothing… Believe me!”
“What do you mean?” Tamar demanded.
“Jenny knows some of it, but I never told anyone everything—I was too embarrassed. Until the day I got married, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house by myself, except for school. One of my father’s Hasidim drove me there and picked me up. I wasn’t allowed to talk on the phone without my mother being in the room. My room was searched for reading materials, records, inappropriate articles of clothing. Everything they didn’t approve of was taken away and burned. And the worst part… they cut off my hair…” Her voice caught.
Jenny’s eyes filled. “You told me you got tired of taking care of it,” she whispered, stunned. “Your beautiful hair!” She shook her head, wiping her eyes. “He tried every way he knew how to keep you from disappearing over the mountain, and wound up pushing you there instead. It’s so sad. It’s my fault, really. If it hadn’t been for me, neither of you would have gotten into trouble. I had no idea what I was getting us into. Can you forgive me? Forgive each other?”
“For that. But I can’t forgive Hadassah for calling you now behind my back!” Tamar said bitterly.
“But why? Why didn’t you want me to know?”
“Because I knew what you’d tell me, Jenny. What you always tell me: to love G-d, to have faith! As if I don’t! As if I need reminders! All the things you’ve just discovered, I knew when I was five years old! We had a deal, G-d and I. He was supposed to take care of me—” Her voice broke. She buried her face in her hands.
“Tamar,” Jenny implored.
“Let her cry, little hypocrite…”
“Hadassah, really…”
“No, I’m just sick of all this garbage! Let her hear the truth! You always kept telling us the right thing to do, huh, Tamar? But you also came to Manhattan with us, didn’t you? You lied to your precious
Mameh
and
Tateh
exactly the same as I did. You know what? I’ve never considered you more religious than I am. You’re just a better actress, that’s all. If you’re so religious—why don’t you go to a rabbi now and ask him the precious law, ask him what the
halacha
says about rape and abortion, et cetera, et cetera? But no, instead you sneak off to me, hoping that I’ll encourage you to get an abortion… Why is that, Tamar? It couldn’t be, could it, so that later on you could say you didn’t know the
halacha
and Hadassah, the wicked apikorsa of Orchard Park, talked you into doing this awful thing?”
“That’s a disgusting… I never even thought… or planned… Believe me, where I’m coming from, seeing Hadassah Mandlebright is not something to be proud of… to mention to people!”
“Then why did you call me, Tamar?” she said with deadly calm.
“Because you are the most selfish person I know! I wanted you to tell me what a person with no conscience, not an ounce of self-sacrifice or concern for her family would do in my situation. I wanted to know what someone who is the opposite of me would do! And you told me, didn’t you? ‘Screw ’em all!’ Isn’t that what you said? I should have known! But who knows, maybe you’re right. All my life I’ve tried so hard to be a good person, and where has it gotten me? Maybe it all was an act, but I was the best, the
goodest
girl you ever met.” She wiped her eyes.
“My parents survived Hitler, so I had to be a good girl for them, protecting them from any more harm or pain or worry. I let Rivkie push me around and never made trouble. And I really
tried to fight all those feelings our teachers taught us weren’t nice for a good religious girl to have. I tried never to be jealous; never to talk behind anyone’s back; never to refuse to lend my things, even if the people who asked me never lent me theirs…”
“And you’re trying to be a good girl now, too, aren’t you?” Jenny said thoughtfully. “You want to do the right thing for Josh and your family and even for this baby. You aren’t thinking of yourself even now.”