The Saturday Wife (24 page)

He sat down, watching her, amused. Here she was, back in rabbi’s-wife mode, making sure she had a perfectly kosher meal in the most unkosher of settings.

“Finding everything you need, dear?”

She looked up at him.
Dear?
Such a husbandly term, she thought. It made her feel strange. She unwrapped the sandwiches and placed them on paper plates. He sat down across from her at the all-purpose table he used for dining in his living room, reaching out for some food. A sudden, heavy silence fell on them both. Delilah looked around her. She was alone with another man, a man who adored her. A man who was probably expecting something more than a sour pickle.

And would she give it to him? Would she pole-vault over the fence and land straight into the quagmire of unforgivable commandment breaking, where she would be transformed for all time from a creature that tiptoed close to the edge of volcanoes to one who had actually fallen right inside, all her convictions, what she told herself about herself, going up in smoke, singed and blackened and unrecognizable?

And would it be worth it?

She thought back to the dates she had had with Yitzie Polinsky, the thrill that had filled her body at his touch, the sense of release and satisfaction she had felt in his arms. How he had made her laugh… .

Yitzie.

The bum.

Was Benjamin another Yitzie? Would she again be reduced to begging God for a miracle to save her from ruin? And, more importantly, was the risk worth taking? Were the rewards worth desiring? She looked at him: his fair skin, his long fingers. Then she looked around the house. He lived like a tramp, she realized. And the posters that he had hung on the walls were, she realized, famous ads for vodka or cosmetics she had seen hundreds of times in many magazines, absolutely nothing original.

“Let me get you something to drink, Delilah. Rum Coke? Bloody Mary?”

“Sure,” she said, suddenly needing less clarity.

All she wanted was a little excitement in life. Something to break the routine. To take her out of herself and give her a glimpse of the possible, a future where the sun rose and set by a new horizon. But the more she looked around—the broken floorboards, the scratches on the Plexiglas coffee table, the missing knob on the kitchen cabinet door—the more she felt she had taken a step backward, not forward.

She drained the glass he put in front of her and felt the soothing flow of alcohol loosen the tight knot of dismay pulling ever tighter in her chest. Her body felt warmer, calmer. Her mind was less judgmental, more open to suggestion.

“Why don’t I put on some music?” Benjamin suggested.

He was now on familiar turf, his role in this scenario a comfortable fit for his talents. He wrote advertising copy, created ad campaigns to convince people to do and think all kinds of things for all the wrong reasons. He seduced them to smoke by convincing them it would make them appear smart and muscularly independent and daring to the opposite sex; to eat high-cholesterol sweets because it would make them part of a crowd of youthful, healthy, beautiful people; to purchase cars that would put them in endless debt because it would show how successful and rich they were. And now he was busy creating an ad campaign that would convince the rabbi’s pretty wife that sleeping with him would make her life easier and more enjoyable.

He shut off the overhead lighting and lit a few lamps, an amazingly simple gesture that instantly created an atmosphere of intimacy and romance. He put a music disk into the stereo.

“Frank Sinatra!” Delilah exclaimed, finishing her second drink and reaching for a pickle. She started to hum along, then sing outright, finally getting up. “I did it my waaaaaaay!” she sang, sudden tears filling her eyes.

Uh-oh, Benjamin thought.

She put her arms around him and sobbed. “I’m such a bad person. Such a bad, bad, awful person!” He felt the shoulder of his new Ralph Lauren shirt dampen and wondered if she was wearing waterproof mascara. He put his arms around her and kissed her on the temple, smoothing back her soft shiny hair. It smelled like almonds and honey, he thought, wondering what kind of shampoo she used and who wrote the ads. They stood in the middle of the living room, clinging to each other as the music played. He patted her softly, then let his hands run smoothly up and down her back. She arched toward him like a cat.

She was tired, tired of everything, of the hypocrisy of it all, of straining toward a happiness that never seemed to get any closer, of craving money and a nice house and a passionate love life. She was tired of playing the dutiful little rabbi’s wife in her modest hats and wigs and long-sleeved over-the-knee clothing; tired of cleaning out people’s neglected, debris-filled mouths, flirting with elderly men, and kowtowing to their judgmental wives.

She wanted to smash something. To hit Chaim over the head for his consistency, his placid acceptance, his calm ability to wake up every morning and get through the day. Why not, then, just smash her life?

She felt the arms of the man around her. He was a cipher. Not important at all. She didn’t care about him, not really. She didn’t even know who he was, with his
treife
kitchen and no mezuzah on the door. He might as well be a goy, a Gentile prince. He didn’t even have money. And, she finally realized, he probably didn’t have a very good job either, if he was living in some run-down Bronx walk-up decorated with cliché posters produced by other, really successful ad men.

But what did any of this matter? She needed someone to fall in love with, someone who would destroy the channels through which her life flowed, allowing her to irrevocably change direction. He was at the moment the only one available. It would be good, she thought, her hands reaching up to caress the back of his head.

It would be good enough.

She felt his hands harden their grip around her, leading her into the bedroom.

She followed, almost in a daze, allowing herself to be led. He bent over her, kissing her full on the lips. She tasted the pastrami. She pushed him back.

“What?”

“I—I’ve got to
bentsch,”
she told him.

“You’ve got to…
what
?”

“Bentsch.
To say Grace After Meals.”

He sat down on the bed, flabbergasted. “By all means.” He waved her off.

She sat down by the table, trembling, wiping his kiss off her mouth. She took a little Grace After Meals book out of her purse, the souvenir of some cousin’s wedding.

“Blessed art thou, O God, King of the Universe, who feeds and sustains the whole world with grace, compassion, and pity.”

She felt the flush of shame crawl up her throat, turning her face hot.

“Tear God, you who are sanctified to Him, for there is no want for them that fear Him. Young lions have always become poor and suffered hunger, but they who seek God shall never want for any good thing. Avow it to God that He is good, and His love endures forever. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

She finished, wiping her full eyes. And there was Benjamin, leaning on the doorpost to the bedroom, completely naked. She stood up, grabbed her purse, and ran out the front door and down the staircase.

Just as she neared the last landing, the door to the doctor’s office opened and someone stepped out into the dark hallway. She veered to the side, nearly knocking him over.

“Delilah?”

She stopped and turned around. Horror washed over her.
Oh, no!
she thought.
No, no, no!

There stood Chaim’s grandfather, coming out of his weekly visit to the chiropractor. She stared at the old rabbi, her cheeks burning. Then she looked over the old man’s shoulder. There, just above, running down the steps after her, was Benjamin, wearing a half-opened bathrobe. She motioned to him in hysteria.

“Delilah! Wait, don’t go! I’ll put my clothes back on!”

She watched helplessly as the old rabbi slowly pivoted, looking up the stairs behind him.

She turned and ran, down the steps and out into the street, not looking back. She sprinted to her car, her heart pounding as she rummaged frantically through her purse, searching for the car keys. Her hands trembled. She felt faint and breathless as a slow panic rose in her chest. In what seemed like an hour, she finally managed to open the car door, start the engine, and drive off.

When she got home, Chaim was already there.

“So, quite a day, no? You must be exhausted.”

She stared at him.

“Your double shift at the clinic? All those patients?” he repeated, puzzled.

She didn’t hear him. It was as if he were one of her patients, his mouth stuffed with dental cotton and instruments, trying to make himself understood.

He came to the bedroom. His forehead was wrinkled. He was moving his lips.

“I’m not feeling very well, Chaim. I think I’m—” She barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up her entire dinner.

He was immediately concerned. “Do you want me to call a doctor? Do you have fever?”

She wished he would just shut up; his solicitations and good-natured concern were making her feel even sicker. She put on the shower, blocking him out, waiting for the inevitable and terrible ringing of the phone, which would usher in the apocalypse.

I have to think, think, she told herself. It’s not so bad. What does he know, the old man? Then she remembered that look he had given her and Benjamin at lunch and his abrupt leave-taking. In slow motion, her brain did a retake of the slow turn of his head toward the stairs.

She was lost. This was the end. He was old but nobody’s fool. And if he had heard the rumors from Mrs. Schreiberman, he would feel it his religious obligation to tell his grandson of his suspicions, because a man was not allowed to live with a woman suspected of committing adultery. The fact that nothing had happened wouldn’t matter.

Once Chaim threw her out, who would take her? Damaged goods. A divorced woman. A rabbi’s wife thrown out of the community. They wouldn’t even allow her to pray in an Orthodox synagogue. They’d whisper
behind her back for the rest of her life. And all those girls from high school who had considered her a bleached blonde from a poor family, a girl who would never be their social equal, would gleefully tell one another, ‘Did you hear what happened to Delilah? Didn’t we all know it?”

She heard the phone ring. She heard Chaim gasp. And then she heard him pound on the bathroom door.

“Delilah!”

She took a deep breath and wrapped herself in a towel as attractively as possible, giving herself a quick once-over in the mirror before opening the door.

His eyes were wild. Her heart sank.

“It’s my grandfather. They’ve taken him to the hospital! He’s had a stroke!”

Delilah stood absolutely still, her brain computing all the possibilities. Finally, she moved toward her heartbroken husband, laying a hand on his shoulder and looking deeply into his anguished eyes.

“Major or minor?” she asked him.

THIRTEEN

R
eb Abraham hung on for several days. The family held vigil next to his bedside. Attached to an intubation tube that went down his throat, he looked at them silently with open eyes that seemed to yearn for a method of communication. Everyone tried to talk to him, but he gave no response until Delilah, very reluctantly, entered the room. The transformation was remarkable. Color rushed into his white cheeks.

“Look, he’s so happy to see you!” Chaim exulted. “He looks better already!”

Mrs. Levi pursed her lips sourly, amazed and chagrined.

Then the old man tried to sit up, his hand shaking uncontrollably. He snatched at the intubation tube, trying to pull it out of his mouth. Delilah froze. The family, alarmed, rang for the nurse, who injected some kind of sedative into his intravenous tube, and he sank back into oblivion. And then, on the morning of the fourth day, Chaim’s phone rang. It was his father, telling him it was all over.

Chaim was distraught. He blamed himself. If only he had taken the time to accompany the old man on his weekly appointments, to help him climb the stairs. If only he had checked more thoroughly the treatments the old chiropractor was foisting off on him as therapy. Obviously, that quack had to be responsible; after all, his grandfather had collapsed right outside his door.