The World Outside (14 page)

Next, it was time for the academic awards. I clapped and clapped until my hands turned red as my friends received their certificates of merit. Devorah Leah was happily clutching hers for creative writing. She might not have been good at math, but there was nothing wrong with her imagination.

Finally, it was time for the biggest prize of the evening: the Chumash Prize. It came with a two-hundred-dollar scholarship to the Bais Rivkah Seminary. I peered at Faygie. She was pale with excitement and hope.
Invariably, she received the top marks on the Chumash quizzes we were given every day during the year.

I squeezed her hand. “Good luck!”

Mrs. Weiss stepped up to the microphone. “It’s time for the last award of the evening,” she said. “Many distinguished alumni of Bais Rivkah have received the Chumash Prize in the past. Traditionally, both the prize and the scholarship were given to the girl with the largest cumulative score on her daily quizzes. This year, we decided to do something different. The Certificate of Merit will still go to the student who received the top test scores. However, the scholarship will be given this year to the student who we feel best exemplifies Hasidic womanhood—devotion to Hashem and Hasidus and family, kindness, intelligence, high standards of scholarship and high achievement in Chumash study. The entire staff of Bais Rivkah voted to decide who should receive this scholarship, which we’ve also increased to five hundred dollars!”

An excited murmur broke out among the students. Everybody was looking at Faygie. She kept a smile plastered to her face. I put my arm through hers and patted her hand.

“Hush, everybody!” Mrs. Weiss pleaded, gesturing for quiet. “It is my pleasure to award the Certificate of Merit in Chumash Studies to Faygie Kauffman.”

Faygie rose stiffly and made her way to the stage to accept her prize.

“Mazel tov!” I whispered after she’d returned to her seat. “Well done, Faygie! I know how hard you worked for that.”

While I was talking to her, I’d failed to pay attention to what Mrs. Weiss was saying. The next thing I knew, Devorah Leah was tugging on my sleeve.

“Go, Chanie, go!” she whispered, beaming from ear to ear.

“What? Why?”

All the girls around me were smiling and clapping.

“You won the scholarship!” Devorah Leah said.

“I did?”

“Yes! Go!”

She poked me in the back and I finally stood up. Thunderous applause broke out in the auditorium as I made my way toward the stage. Everything was swirling around me in a kaleidoscope of color. I saw Mrs. Weiss mouthing “Mazel tov!” as she handed me an envelope. Then more applause and I was back in my seat, with Devorah Leah thumping me on the back.

“Congratulations,” Faygie said quietly. Her eyes were suspiciously bright.

At the end of the evening, we filed across the stage to receive our diplomas, then walked down the center aisle and out of the auditorium in pairs. As I passed the last row of chairs, a person seated on the men’s side, his face hidden by his fedora, looked up and smiled. It was David,
dressed as a Hasid in a black suit and white shirt with his tzitzit hanging out from beneath his jacket. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from bursting into laughter.

My parents, Baba, Avrohom Isaac and Esther followed me out of the auditorium.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” Papa cried.

Baba hugged me tight.

“This is what I expect of a good Lubavitcher girl,” Mama said. “I’m proud of you.”

I couldn’t remember her ever looking at me with such pleasure before. I felt quite mean knowing that I would never use the scholarship. I wondered what she would say if I told her then and there that I didn’t want to go to the seminary. That the Rebbe had advised me to go to Juilliard. I opened my mouth to tell her the truth but closed it again when I saw David coming out of the auditorium. He started toward me but stopped when he saw my parents, then pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and melted into the crowd.

I didn’t remain a good Lubavitcher girl for long in Mama’s eyes. When I arrived home the next afternoon, on the last day of school, she was waiting for me.

“Sit down!” she commanded. Her eyes glittered in anger.

I sank into a chair by the kitchen table. “What did I do this time?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from the blacks?”

“I do stay away from them.”

“Don’t lie to me!” She pointed out the window at Rita Mae’s house. “I hear that you’ve been wasting your time with that Jade girl.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but that felt disloyal to my friend.

“She’s Mrs. Orville’s niece,” I said instead. “You’re friends with Mrs. Orville.”

“That doesn’t matter. The blacks are different from us. They don’t like us. And I told you I didn’t want you to be friends with her!”

“You keep telling me that black people don’t like us. But why wouldn’t they? We’ve never done anything to them. And Papa is always telling stories of how the Jews helped them fight for their civil rights in the 1960s.”

“I can’t answer your question, Chanie,” she sighed. “I wish I understood why they hate us so much, but I don’t. They claim that the police and the politicians at city hall favor us, but that’s a lie. They also say that we ‘lord it over our poor black neighbors.’ ” She laughed sarcastically. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” She wagged her finger at me. “Now listen to me carefully. You mustn’t have anything to do with the blacks. It’s not safe. Can’t you understand that? I forbid you to see Jade again!”

I dropped my head to the table and began to cry. “But she’s my friend, Mama. She’s a good girl.”

“Your friends should be Lubavitch, not a black girl with strange ideas,” she said in an implacable voice.

“Let me at least say good-bye to her,” I pleaded.

“Oh, stop being so dramatic, Chanie! She isn’t going anywhere.”

“She might as well be gone, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Fine. Go and tell her that I don’t want you around her.”

“I can’t do that! It would hurt her feelings.”

“Tell her whatever you want, then.” She started for the door.

“Mama?”

She turned back around to face me.

“Who told you Jade and I were friends?”

“I’m not going to tell you that. It doesn’t matter.”

But she didn’t have to tell me. I already knew who it was.

I marched to the house at the end of the street and banged on the front door. Faygie opened it and smiled when she saw me.

“Hi, Chanie!”

“How c-could y-you?” I was so furious that I was stuttering. “I thought … I thought you were my friend.”

To her credit, she didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about.

“I did it for your own good,” she said simply.

I moved so close to her that I could see my words spray her face. She stepped back without wiping it off.

“You didn’t, Faygie!” I cried. “You told Mama about Jade because you were jealous that I got the scholarship.”

“I should have got the scholarship, yes. And I would have if the teachers knew how worldly you have become. But that’s not why I told your mother about Jade,” she said. “You’ve changed, Chanie. You seem distracted all the time. You prefer going shopping to doing outreach. I knew it was Jade’s influence, and I wanted to help you. I wanted to bring you back to Hasidism.” She grabbed my sleeve. “Can’t you see how beautiful it is?”

She looked at me beseechingly, her eyes full of emotion. I could see she had convinced herself that she’d betrayed me for my own sake. I yanked my arm away.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with you ever again,” I said quietly, before turning on my heels and leaving.

“Chanie, don’t be like that. I did it for you!”

Her words rang in my ears, but I kept on going. I wouldn’t let myself stop, even though I wanted to so much.

On the way home, I stopped at Jade’s house and told her everything.

“So you see, we can’t go to the pizza parlor anymore. Mama would kill me if she found out that we’re still friends.”

Jade tapped her lips with her forefinger thoughtfully.

“We should hang out somewhere where Faygie never goes. But where?”

My eyes brightened. “The library! Nobody I know will see us there.”

“Okay, the library it is.”

I knew we’d be safe in the library, but I also knew that Devorah Leah wouldn’t go there with us. It was the end of the three of us together.

Everything was changing.

CHAPTER 15

I
told Mama that I had to help Devorah Leah babysit her brothers and sisters.

“Where are her parents going?” Mama asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Perhaps I should phone her mother and ask her,” she said.

“Go ahead,” I mumbled, “if you want her to think you’re nosy.” I kept my tone casual.

She gave me a hard look. I was glad that I’d resisted the impulse to wear my Shabbos clothes.

“When will you be home?”

“After lunch.”

“Okay, I guess.” She crouched down beside Moishe’s chair and patted his face. “I’m worried about your brother,” she said. He was huddled in his wheelchair, staring listlessly into the air. “He doesn’t want to eat and he’s much quieter than usual.”

“He has been acting strange lately,” I agreed. “It’s like something is bothering him.”

“I wish he could tell us what he’s feeling,” she sighed. “I’ll ring the doctor and make an appointment. I just hope there’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Me too,” I said. I was worried about my brother, but I had my own problems to deal with.

As soon as I turned the corner of my street, I began to run. I didn’t stop until I got to the subway station. David was already there, leaning against a post plastered with advertisements.

“Hi! Sorry I’m late! I couldn’t leave any earlier. Mama would have been suspicious.”

“No problem. We have lots of time.”

“I’m so glad you’re coming with me.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’ve never gone into the City by myself. Some of my friends take the subway there all the time, but Mama never lets me go with them.”

“She’s protective of you,” he said. “Do you always do what she tells you?”

“I try to, although sometimes she makes me feel like a prisoner. A few times I was tempted to go with my friends despite what she said, but they always stay in the City too long. I would have had to come back earlier to help Mama with Moishe. To be honest, I was scared to take the subway by myself.”

He laughed. “There’s nothing to it. You just have to get used to it.”

The train rattled into the station, and we went into the last car. I gave a sigh of relief when I saw that I didn’t know any of the other passengers. David led the way to two empty seats at the back. He sat down on the seat by the window. I looked around. There were no other empty spots, so I lowered myself down beside him, gingerly moving to the edge of the seat, as far away from him as possible.

Across from us was a girl with pink hair. She must have been about my age, but it was hard to tell with the vivid makeup plastered over her face and the heavy mascara clumping her eyelashes. She reminded me of a grotesque doll. She was grasping the hand of the pimple-faced boy next to her. She must have noticed me peering at her, for she grimaced at me. Then she whispered something into the ear of the boy and both of them began to snicker. I turned my head away quickly, feeling as if the whole world was staring at me.

Most of the passengers sat quietly, absorbed in their own private worlds. But two black boys with ghetto blasters were playfully shoving each other back and forth on the seats in front of us. We had to shout to be heard over their music.

“Are you excited?” David asked.

“Scared is more like it.”

He smiled. “No reason to be. Just do your best. The people at Juilliard can recognize a great voice, and you have one.”

“Baruch Hashem, I hope so.”

Several stops passed, then the train finally rattled into our station. Both David and I stood up. I followed him up to street level. I had to stop myself from clutching his arm at the sea of humanity that greeted us. There were buses overflowing with people, buskers with painted faces pretending to be statues and tall, tall buildings touching the sky. We entered Lincoln Center and, in no time, arrived at the main entrance of the school. Two women were sitting at a table in the foyer, stacks of papers piled up in front of them.

“Can I help you?” asked the younger of the two with a professional smile.

I smoothed down my skirt nervously. “I’m Chanie Altman,” I croaked. “I have an audition at 10:00.”

She examined a list in front of her. “Oh, yes, here you are.” She put a check mark beside my name and handed over a folder. “Here’s your information packet. On the first page, you’ll find your studio assignment and a map of the campus. Good luck.”

I quickly moved away from the table as she said “Next!” to a Chinese boy clutching a cello behind me.

“Open the package,” David said.

My audition was to take place in Studio 12, which the map showed was on the floor above us. David and I climbed the staircase leading to it.

A woman in her twenties was sitting on a wooden chair beside the entrance to the studio. Her attention was focused on a sheet of music. She didn’t even look up as we passed her.