The Saturday Wife (46 page)

“Like love, Delilah. Like once-in-a-lifetime, true, take-it-or-leave-it-because-it-won’t-return-again love.” This was his big finale. The title of his hit song. After discreetly surveying the area, he reached out and took her hand in his in wild abandon, pressing it to his heart.

She grabbed it back, massaging it as if it had been injured. “Are you crazy?” she whispered, giggling.

He smiled at her. “I haven’t offended you, Rebbitzin Levi, have I?” He arched his brow.

She glanced at him sideways, in silence.

Going for broke, he reached out and put his hands around her waist. “Please, Delilah. Have mercy!”

Just then, a couple from the shul came jogging around the corner. Delilah turned her back on Joseph Rolland, whose hands fell limply to his sides. “Good Shabbes!” She smiled at them.

“Good Shabbes, Rebbitzin, Dr. Rolland.” They smiled back, not slowing their pace but looking curiously over their shoulders.

Delilah and Joseph stood still, waiting for them to disappear.

“Come with me for a minute!” Joseph whispered to her urgently, taking her by the hand.

“You are insane! What if Mariette sees us?”

“She’s snoring for the next two hours at least. Believe me, I know Mariette.”

She followed him down the stairs into a small private alcove hidden behind a giant potted palm. He sat down, his hands on his knees, then leaned forward, pulling her onto his lap. She smelled his good cologne—she was a sucker for musk—and the dab of something lemony in his hair. A small feeling began in the pit of her stomach, as she remembered her days with Yitzi Polinsky and Benjamin, those sweet, powerful feelings that kept her in a state of drama and excitement, making her feel young, beautiful, and endlessly desirable.

She thought of her husband, also snoring away in bed, and the little boy who was all needs and wants who didn’t see her at all. She thought of Mariette, always so superior, so perfect, and so full of advice, who’d stabbed her in the back with her criticism. She heaved herself up and walked away, back out to the deck, her nostrils flaring as she took deep, heady breaths of the sea air. She felt dizzy, grabbing onto the railing to steady herself. She looked out at the endless sea to where it met the endless sky. She was a tiny mote in the fleeting turnover of creation, insignificant and worthless as dust. Life was so incredibly short, and death so incredibly long. It was startling to her that only a little while ago, she thought Joseph Rolland a lecherous old jerk. And now? She looked up at his face that was close beside her. Here was a man who saved lives. A man who could hold a living human heart in his hands, putting it inside a heartless human being and allowing him to live.

Those hands, those wondrous hands, had touched her own. He wanted her. Loved her. He saw something in her that was worthwhile, a prize to be attained. She felt desired in a way that she had not felt for a very long time.

Inside, the raw unruly pull of passion slugged it out with reason, while all the while in the corner of her mind she was aware of Joseph’s puzzled face close beside her, waiting.

She didn’t want this to be like the others. She wanted something real out of this. Something serious and life-changing. She had to be sure that’s what he wanted too.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything, my sweet.”

“If I say no, will you just go on to your next conquest?”

He was startled. He hadn’t given it any thought, although that was a pretty fair and accurate description. Still, if it was really fun, he might delay the inevitable.

“Is that what you think of me?” His eyes were tender, full of hurt.

“I’m sorry, Joseph.” She reached up and touched his face. He took her hand, kissing the palm. Instinctively, she curled it into a fist.

She looked over his shoulder into a mirrored column, studying her face. Never had her eyes seemed more lovely and tender. Never had her lips seemed more tempting and desirable. This, this, was what life was all about. The excitement of the new conquest. The ability to test one’s charms. The gift of mesmerizing and alluring.

Chaim treated her like he did one of his congregants: He paid attention to her in the hope that he could solve the problem and send her on her way. Most of the time, all he really wanted was to be left alone in his study to read. Of course, when he got the itch, she was suddenly remembered, or if she’d just come back from the
mikva
and it was his religious obligation. She didn’t want to be some man’s religious obligation. Not with those eyes. Not with those lips. She wanted someone who would fling the world over the abyss for her. All the novels she had read—
Anna Karenina, The Thorn Birds
—all the movies she had seen, were swirling through her head. They all made adultery seem funny and charming, exciting and interesting. And the husbands in these books and films were always so dull, so painfully clueless that one couldn’t help feeling sympathy for the free spirit that wandered.

A person can only pretend to be something they’re not for just so long.

Who had said that? Tzippy, she remembered, shuddering a little. Maybe she’d been right. Why should she not be the heroine of her own production? Why should she be stuck in the drab existence that had been forced upon her through no fault of her own when she had the ability, the talent, the looks, the daring, to hand herself another chance, another life?

He moved back. “Can you sneak away tonight? During the party? I know a place—”

“It’s much too dangerous!”

“Life is full of worthwhile dangers, Delilah,” he whispered, prying open her fingers one by one until her palm was once more naked and exposed. He pressed his lips full inside it.

“Not on the boat,” she whispered.

TWENTY-NINE

S
aturday night on the calmest ocean in the world, Rabbi Chaim stood outside the magnificent ballroom of a cruise ship, holding a cup of wine in his shaking hands, while two men beside him held a burning candle of twisted wicks and a bag of fragrant spices. As hundreds watched, Chaim closed his eyes and concluded the recitation of Havdalah, the traditional prayer that denotes the end of the Sabbath day and the beginning of a new week: “Blessed be You, God our God, King of the Universe, Who has made a distinction between holy and profane.” He had a feeling the profane would be taking over in record time.

The ballroom doors flung open. Silver lanterns wreathed in white roses hung from birch branches. Trapeze artists flew through the air, turning somersaults and catching each other by the wrists. And who was that on stage? Three voluptuous Black girls wearing… well, one couldn’t be quite sure, but something with strands of material and feathers and Lord knows what else, that covered roughly eighteen percent or less of what
needed to be covered. They began to sing a song specially written for the Bar Mitzva boy, who was invited onstage. And then, as the child looked on, they began to bump and grind and wiggle their behinds in their signature way, moves that had earned them millions, international fame, and even music awards.

“No, no, no!” Chaim moaned, closing his eyes.

He felt someone hug him. “What’s wrong, Rabbi? You don’t like girls?” Viktor Shammanov grinned cynically, putting his arm around him. His eyes were bugging out of his head, drinking in the girls’ bodies as if they were water and he was dying of thirst. It was then he realized Victor Shammanov was not the man he was pretending to be.

Chaim got up abruptly. “Excuse me.” He weaved his way unsteadily through the crowd, drunk with shame and disappointment and helplessness. The party swirled around him, the serving stations, the huge video screens, the thousands of flowers, the noise from the stage, as one famous act followed another. Was that a white horse? Was that a small elephant? Was that David Copperfield, the magician?

Maybe, just maybe, he could get him to make the whole shebang disappear.

A very skinny, extremely long-haired, vastly tattooed guitarist was jumping up and down in black leather pants. The drums were something out of deepest Africa. And the guests, his congregants? They were all out on the dance floor, gyrating and bumping and grinding. There was one in particular, some blond bimbo in a really tight gown, her hair whipping from side to side as she shook, and wriggled, and boogied, practically lap-dancing her partner right on the dance floor. Who was she with? Could it be Dr. Rolland? He was also going wild… and the woman was definitely not Mariette. Chaim moved closer, angling for a better view.

No. It just couldn’t be! He found a chair and collapsed into it, putting his hands over his face and feeling the blood rush into his head in shame and humiliation. Without another look, he got up and walked quietly back to his cabin.

“I can go now?” the babysitter asked, before he opened his mouth. He nodded, and she took off like a homing pigeon, thrilled, to find the source of the vibrating booms that filled the ship. Maybe she’d enjoy it, he thought, and he could claim
that
as a good deed when he stood before God and was grilled on how he could have let all this happen.

Like Aaron facing Moses just after the Golden Calf debacle, he
thought desperately of some way to exculpate himself and transfer the blame, something along the lines of “What could I do, Moses? You know what these people are like. All I did was throw the gold into the fire, and oops, out came a calf!”

Not particularly convincing, was it? he thought, ashamed to face God.

And as Chaim Levi sat there in the dark, rocking his baby son in his arms, looking out at the dark sea for answers, many thoughts went through his head, many questions. Like chemical elements poured into a beaker, disparate ideas began to churn and fizzle and send up strange odors.

He thought about Benjamin. How strange a coincidence it had been that he lived in the same building with his grandfather’s chiropractor. And how, after his grandfather’s stroke, he never once telephoned or even paid a shiva call, simply vanishing. How Delilah had wanted him to go to the theater with her that night, and how she had come home so late and acted so strangely. He thought about the color in his grandfather’s cheeks when Delilah walked into his hospital room, and how he had tried to sit up and pull out his tubes. How old Mrs. Schreiberman had physically attacked his wife and had to be hospitalized. And how Delilah had met the woman on the subway while she was sitting next to Benjamin, and how nervous she had been about it.

The ideas sloshed around in his head, bubbling, congealing, and changing colors as they began to react.

“Delilah, have you seen the rabbi?” Joie asked.

For the first time that evening, Delilah looked around for her husband.

“I don’t see him.”

“Can you find him, please? Viktor has a spectacular surprise for everyone, but he wants the rabbi to be there! Hurry.”

Delilah didn’t ask any questions. She wandered through the ballroom, then finally went back to their cabin.

As she opened the door, she saw the back of his head.

“Chaim?” She walked around. He had the baby in his arms. His eyes fluttered open. “Joie sent me to get you. Viktor has some important announcement to make and he wants to be sure you’re there. Put the baby down and come. Where’s the au pair?”