The Saturday Wife (45 page)

“Arthur, I tried—”

“Try again!” Arthur shouted, scandalized. “Get Delilah to talk to them!”

Chaim looked around for her. She was in the center of the dance floor, clapping. “Delilah,” he hissed, taking her arm.

She turned around and looked at him. “Isn’t this great?”

“What’s the matter with you? It’s a desecration of the Sabbath!”

“Why?”

“Because they are playing music!”

“But they’re not Jewish! They can play!”

“No, they can’t! Jews aren’t allowed to pay people to work for them on the Sabbath. Everyone has to have a day of rest. Arthur Malin is furious.”

“Arthur Malin has five maids who work for him on the Sabbath on a regular basis! All of these people have maids who work for them on the Sabbath. And besides, aren’t the waiters working? Aren’t the sailors who are running the boat working?”

“That’s different!”

“Why?”

“It’s—” He suddenly felt his head swim. He had to talk to Viktor again. To explain. He looked around for him, but his host was now in the center of an impenetrable knot of dancers, sitting on his haunches and kicking out his feet as he balanced bottles of beer on his head. Right next to him was Delilah.

He turned around, dizzy, groping his way toward the bar. “Double scotch,” he said. He held the glass in his unsteady hand as he weaved his way through the long halls back to his cabin. He unlocked the door and looked in on his sleeping son.

“You can go now, thanks,” he told the au pair. “I’ll watch him.” Then he stumbled to the veranda. The night air was mild and cool. He sat down in a deck chair, gulping down the liquor, watching the dark waves as they carried him farther into the night.

The next day, the guests, hung over and exhausted, dressed in their good suits, their pastel hats, their custom wigs, their spike-heeled Jimmy Choos, their diamond earrings and brooches, made their way to the ballroom-turned-synagogue to witness the Bar Mitzva of Anatoly Shammanov.

All eyes were on Delilah, who was dressed in a pink brocade suit. She sat next to Joie, who wore a little black dress and a diamond-and-onyx necklace that looked like the Crown Jewels and cascaded down her generous cleavage like a waterfall inside a cave. A pashmina, brought along because
Delilah had advised her friend that cleavage in the synagogue freaked out the rabbi, lay forgotten in her lap. Delilah didn’t notice. She was totally preoccupied with examining the truly amazing creation on Joie’s head: a hat with a large stylized horsehair flower and striped coque feathers.

“Love the hat!” Delilah whispered.

“Thanks! Love yours,” Joie giggled.

Anatoly mounted the steps that led to the bimah, stepping up to the plate, as it were, to read the scripture of the week from the Haftarah. Unlike the whiz kids who read the entire Torah portion from the unvoweled and unpunctuated scrolls of the Torah, all he had to do was remember to read the transliterated Hebrew words of a short selection from the Prophets to the tune he’d been taught.

Chaim stood next to the child, wondering which of them was more nervous.

Anatoly cleared his throat. Then he began:

Omigod. She saw Chaim wipe beads of sweat off his brow as he whispered to the boy, probably feeding him every incoherent word. At this rate, it was going to take hours. She slid down in her seat, casting nervous glances at Joie. But Joie was just looking at the boy with a fixed smile on her face, and was that—could it be—a yawn? Delilah exhaled. As long as no one broke down in tears, or ran away, or admitted defeat, it would be fine.

Joie leaned in and whispered. “It’s a shame his mother didn’t come.”

Delilah looked around the packed room, surprised there could be anybody left behind in the Ukraine. “Why isn’t she here?”

“Because she’s a bitch. Besides, she’s not Jewish, so all this upsets her. I mean, she had him baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church when Viktor wasn’t looking.” Joie grimaced. “Can you imagine? Viktor hit the ceiling, of course. He put the kid’s head under a faucet and washed it off. ‘He’s my son, and he’s a Jew, like me!’ he told her.”

Delilah swallowed hard, looking up at her husband, who stood sweating next to the boy at the bimah. According to Jewish law, a person was the
same religion as his mother, not his father. “So he was converted, right? Anatoly, I mean?”

“Converted? Why? His father is a Jew. Anyhow, the rabbi who converted me said it wasn’t necessary.”

Delilah stared at her husband, standing with his arm around the Bar Mitzva boy, a Greek Orthodox Christian.

Forty-five excruciatingly long minutes later, the torture finally ground to a halt. The child was pelted by candies, and finally, finally, the fun could begin in earnest, as soon as the pesky restrictions of the Sabbath day were over. But first, they had to sit through Chaim’s sermon. Delilah leaned back, sighing.

Chaim walked up to the podium. He coughed, then wiped his glistening forehead with a tissue. “When the Jews were in the desert, God asked them to build a tabernacle. Not because God needed a sanctuary. After all, God is everywhere. No, He asked it of us, because He knows the limitations of human beings. He gives us the sun, and what does He ask of us? To light a candle. A measly little candle. That’s all.”

Delilah looked up, suddenly guilt-stricken, the words playing in her head like a familiar tune. She had heard this before.

“But for many, even that is too much. Remember that when you feel the sun on your face every morning, when a healthy, beautiful new child or grandchild is placed in your arms. Remember all God does for you and the little He asks.

“Place yourself at His service, Anatoly, on this your Bar Mitzva day, the day a Jew becomes responsible for his own sins before God. Your parents are absolved. They are not responsible for your sins, and you aren’t responsible for theirs. Now you control your life and your relationship to God. Give Him your devotion. Accept His demands on you.” He hugged the child and motioned for him to sit down. Then he turned to the congregation. “Under His guidance, let us eliminate from our public and private lives every aspect that is not worthy of our relationship with Him. Those who resist God will be shattered.”

Delilah looked around at the startled faces of the audience, who shifted uncomfortably in their seats. What was Chaim doing? she thought, alarmed.

“In the words of the great Samson Raphael Hirsch, joy is only to be found in the advancement of good and right. May your sons step into your place and may
you,
the parents, be
worthy
of emulation,” he said pointedly.
“Don’t depend on material prosperity to save you, or the approval of other people. The future depends on ethical and dutiful conduct.”

Delilah darted nervous glances at Joie, who stared straight ahead, attempting to suppress yet another yawn. Delilah tried to motion to Chaim to speed it up, but he never even glanced in her direction.

Chaim closed his book and kissed it with reverence. “Anatoly, I congratulate you. May your parents be blessed through you and may you be blessed through them.”

Delilah let herself exhale in relief.

While the prayer service continued, most of the women filed out. They strolled slowly around the deck, waiting for the men to finish so they could go into the dining room and partake of a magnificent kiddush, to be followed by a still more elaborate lunch, whose combined caloric intake would be enough to wipe out famine in a small African village. In the afternoon, they would groaningly fall into bed, sleeping through the numerous, annoying constraints of the Sabbath day until the sun sank into the sea, and the party they had flown halfway around the world to attend could begin.

Delilah found she was too excited to nap.

“Where are you going?” Chaim called after her sleepily.

“I’ll be back soon. I just need to walk some of this food off.”

She closed the door behind her.

“Well, hello,” she heard over her shoulder. She turned. It was Joseph Rolland.

“Oh, Shabbat Shalom,” she said primly. “Where’s Mariette?”

“Now, now, we don’t want to talk about Mariette, do we, Delilah?” He smiled at her, a smile he used confidently, whipping it out and dusting it off like a faithful surgical tool that had performed miracles numerous times, even on the comatose and half dead. Delilah, who had been hoping to run into Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, gave him a respectful nod-to-older-man, which—had it been taped and shown to the morality police—would have proclaimed her innocence.

This surprised and wounded Dr. Rolland, who was used to the magic of his white coat immediately transforming women into eager contestants on the win-a-night-with-Joseph-Rolland game show. It made him feel that he was losing it, that he was getting… old. He looked her over, her image suddenly transformed from an amusing dalliance into a seriously important project upon which much depended.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

She hesitated, then shrugged. What could she say?

“You know, I’ve been wanting a few moments alone with you for some time.”

She looked down at her shoes. “Really? Why?”

“Well.” He thought fast. “I don’t think enough people really appreciate how difficult your job is.”

“Oh, that’s certainly true. It’s really nice of you to say so.”

Encouraged, he kept going. “I mean, the constant visitors, the politics, the catering to everyone’s needs. And you are so young! It doesn’t seem fair that those soft fine shoulders should have to bear so much.”

Delilah straightened her back, feeling almost as if he’d caressed her. Where was this leading? she wondered. “No one forced me into it.”

He inhaled, surprised by her resistance. He wasn’t used to working very hard where women were concerned. But he liked a challenge, and his ego was involved, so he was willing to put up with it. “No, no, that’s true. But sometimes our lives take turns that we don’t expect. We drift along until one day, we wake up and find ourselves so far from where we thought we’d be, with so many needs that have gone unmet for so long… .” He stopped, his hands gripping the guardrails, as his eyes looked with what he hoped was* mysterious longing off into the sea.

Delilah stood still. Was he for real? Rich, attractive Dr. Joseph Rolland, with the international jet-setting career and the wondrous mansion with its own gazebo, outdoor pool, and tennis courts overlooking the lake, had “unmet needs” that Mrs. Perfect didn’t have a clue about? And he was standing here, opening his heart to… her?

She was, above all, flattered. “I know what it’s like not to be understood.”

He turned his full attention to her. “I sensed that in you from the moment I met you. That… yearning. That desire for something… better, deeper.”

She began to protest mildly. He raised both hands, finding hers. “Sssh. Don’t say anything, Delilah. I’m not asking anything of you. Just to be near you, when I can. To speak to you, when you’ll let me. I’ve never met anyone like you. Don’t try to talk me out of it. We’re like two rivers, you and I, flowing along, and some force of nature has brought us together. There’s something in our souls that are propelling us, making it happen.”

She bit her lip, trying to hide a smile, considering the idea. It was all
very well and good and might even be fun, she thought, like some afternoon soap. But quite aside from the whole morality of the thing, the Ten Commandments “adulteresses shall be stoned” issue, she did not want Mariette Rolland as an enemy.

“I am Mariette’s friend,” she murmured.

“And I am her husband and lover and the father of her children. This is much more difficult for me than it is for you.”

Couldn’t argue with that, although something was askew with the reasoning, she understood. “It’s immoral.”

“Morality! God tells the Jews to murder every last person in Amalek, men, women, children, even the cows and sheep. What’s moral about that? A person has to listen to his God-given brains, his heart, not follow rules blindly! I mean, Abraham was willing to slit the throat of his only son. That’s where blind faith leads you… . Some things are above morality.”

Now she was thoroughly confused. The willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only, beloved son when God asked it of him was considered the ultimate test, and Abraham had passed it with flying colors. His willingness was the foundation stone of the Jewish faith. “Above morality? Like what, for instance?”