The Sacrifice of Tamar (51 page)

“
Tateh
. . .”

He was her father. G-d had entrusted him with guiding her pure soul through this dark, false world and he had failed
utterly. She had wandered off the only chosen path, disappearing over the mountain. A whole world had been lost—a loss incalculable and completely without replacement. And he was responsible.

“
Tateh
,” she repeated, her voice strangely young, pleaded. “Is there a blessing left for me?”

He looked up at her, startled, his old, sharp eyes going pale and liquid, moisture gathering at the corners. He tried to read in her face those chapters of her life unknown to him. In the soft creases near her eyes, the downward pull around her mouth, he learned of passion and happiness, betrayal and bitter disappointment. And in her eyes, he saw a need still unsatisfied, and a stubborn, unrelinquished glow of hope.

Something told him, he would never see her again.

“Please,
Tateh
. Even Esau got a blessing,” she begged, her voice finally cracking.

Esau, Isaac’s wicked son, who had forfeited his birthright and blessing to his pious twin, Jacob. But Isaac had loved Esau. He had saved him a blessing.

He moved toward her painfully, laying his hands on her warm, bent head. “May G-d grant you what you pray for, my daughter,” he told her, wondering what that could be and why it was she wept.

Sitting in a corner of the hall, Tamar watched Hadassah and her father slowly part, each going in their own direction. And then she glanced at Jenny, kneeling in front of Menachem, tying his shoelaces.

Raising a child was such a mystery, she realized. There were no neat formulas, no guarantees. And it really didn’t matter if you started out with the longed-for, perfect child of your womb, or with the adopted, handicapped offspring of strangers. There was no predicting if in the end you’d wind up polite acquaintances, enemies, or lifelong partners in the most powerful bond of love human beings can know.

She looked down at the little stranger, the cocoa-colored baby sleeping peacefully in her arms. Already his eyes, the shape of his mouth were growing familiar to her. Soon he would wake up, she thought. She didn’t know how much he ate or how often. If he suffered from colic or slept peacefully through from feeding to feeding. It would take time, she realized, until she knew all of these things. Until she recognized the meaning of each cry, understood what would make him happy. And each day, something would become a little more familiar, a little less strange. And in the end, you just had to hope there would be love.

She waited for Josh, wanting to share this with him, feeling suddenly full of hope, and almost girlishly anxious. The whole bris, they had said hardly a word to one another. But that wasn’t important, she told herself. Hadn’t he done what she asked of him, despite his own objections? Hadn’t he brought Aaron to the bris and stood by his side before the whole community?

It had all worked out, she thought, almost happily. Everything would be all right now. Their lives would simply continue, flowing over this hump, like a river flows over rocks in its path.

She waited and waited. But still, he did not come.

She watched the hall empty out, the catering staff gather the soiled tablecloths and fold up the chairs. When they took away the long partition separating the men from the women, she saw Josh standing there at the other end of the hall. She lifted her hand in a small, shy greeting.

She saw him look toward her, and then she saw the unmistakable, deliberate movement of his head as he turned away.

Her heart did a sickening somersault. She felt giddy, almost faint as she realized how thoroughly and profoundly she had misunderstood. “Sara, tell
Aba
to come over. I need to speak to him.” Her voice was weak with fear.

And suddenly there he was, towering over her, blocking out the light. His face told her everything: that he was full of hurt
pride, loss, and shock; that the bris, which she had found so beautiful and life-affirming, had for him been a public humiliation; that he had lost his status, his ability to fulfill his dream in the yeshiva world; that his whole marriage had been a lie; and that his pure wife was unbearably tainted.

Like the terrifying beat of tribal drums, her heart tattooed the message into her mind. Their marriage was over. Her position in the community was over. Life as she knew it, was over.

“Thank you for bringing Aaron. For being so kind to Aaron,” she whispered hoarsely. “Thank you for coming to the bris.”

“Kindness had nothing to do with it!” he said brusquely. “Aaron is my son—that is the Law. This baby”—he looked away—“had to have a bris. That too is the Law.”

She saw through his gruffness. No law in the world could make Aaron his son. And even if Aaron had been his natural offspring, even then, no Law required a father to give up everything he had loved and worked for to help a son. And no Law demanded that a bris be performed in front of four hundred people when a quorum of ten men would have sufficed.

She loved him. She wondered if everything that was to come would change that, and whether his love for her had been pulled out by the roots or simply cut down to the ground, awaiting a simple change of season to sprout again. “Then I wish there was a Law that said you had to forgive me,” she whispered.

“It’s not a question of forgiveness, Tamar! You are just not the woman I thought you were.”

She felt the words flash through her like a surgical laser, leaving a deep and bloodless wound.

She swallowed hard.

“We will go away, Aaron and I. I’ve made inquiries. There are positions for both of us at a small day school in Detroit. There’s some money in our account here. I’ll send you more. I don’t know yet about the girls. Maybe… later…”

Her whole life—everything that was dear to her, that she had built up over so many, many years—she could almost smell the smoke, see the flames of the great conflagration leaping up and consuming it all, like some offering on the Temple altar.

Where would she go, a religious woman with no husband, two blond daughters and a black baby? She could not think of a single place she had ever lived where such a woman would not be an outcast. What would happen to her, to her daughters? What had happened to Hadassah, she thought with cold fear.

Here was the end of the story, then, happening as she had always known and feared it would from the moment her hands had reached through the dustballs beneath her sister’s bed, desperate to find and hide the flotsam of her ravaged life.

She closed her eyes and trembled, waiting for that knowledge, for the hardness in his eyes, the unforgiving tightness around his mouth, to annihilate her. And then a sudden vision came to her:
Tateh
, beaten down, humiliated because the wallpaper could not be replaced. Because appearances could not be kept up. She felt a hard kernel push up out of her soul like the cutting edge of some early spring bulb. She examined it, and found it to be indifference.

She did not share his ideas, nor his pain. Neither did she feel humiliated by the beautiful ceremony she had just witnessed or by the child in her arms. Her life was separate from his, and had been for a long time, she realized. His judgement of her was no longer her judgment of herself.

She felt a sudden, inexplicable relief.

“I’d like to speak to Aaron now.”

She could tell the words surprised him. He had expected her to plead, perhaps, or simply to prolong their parting. He seemed disappointed, almost deprived, as if he had been watching a play whose final act did not live up to his expectations.

She would not agree to let him take the girls. But somehow,
she felt it would not come to that. He did not realize it now, but he would miss her. He was a married man, used to his comforts. There would be no one to warm his bed, to bake his challah, to light the Shabbos candles, she comforted herself. He would soon enough find life without her unendurable.

Unless, unless… he could always divorce her and find another woman to marry. The pious widow of some
talmid chachom
. She thought of the nameless, faceless woman who might take her place and hated her.

She looked up and Aaron stood over her, much as Josh had. But unlike her husband’s, his face was pale and soft and without anger.

“I don’t want to wake the baby, so you’ll have to bend down,” she told him, her eyes wet. This was going to be harder, much harder, she realized.

“Aaron…” She could think of so many things to say, but nothing that really needed saying. “Take care of your father,” she finally whispered, wiping a stray eyelash off his cheek with her thumb. “You know he can’t cook. He’ll forget to eat. And it’s cold in Detroit. Make sure he dresses warmly…”

She felt his arms clasp around her, around his son, his head hiding itself in her shoulder, like a little boy’s.

Chapter thirty-seven

June 17, 1993

Dear Josh

I got your letter and was happy to learn that you and Aaron have decided to come back to Israel for a visit this summer and look around for possible teaching positions. As I said, there is a yeshiva here in Beit El where I think you might both find your place.

Winter in Detroit must have been cold. I am glad the people you met there were so warm. Still, I am not sorry that you write you miss me. I don’t know what will happen between us. You were right. I’m not the woman you thought. You’d have to accept that—even like it. I do.

Can our long exile from each other be coming to an end at last?

Malka and Sara are happy in Beit El. The sunshine, the being constantly outdoors with a million girlfriends, agree with them. They have become very Israeli. Sandals and no stockings. Jeans, skirts. They felt very strange at first, it was so different from Beit Yaakov. But they are learning so much. Most of all, they are learning how to think, how to question. They are not afraid to ask questions.

They miss their father, their brother.

I am glad Aaron is anxious to see his son. Little Duvid grows taller each day and smarter. My little wise man, I call him. My little King Solomon…

She sat in the garden of her rented house in Beit El, writing. She put down the pen a moment and looked at the baby taking some drunken steps around the grass, falling as much as he stood. “Very good, darling. Again,
matok sheli
,” she called out to him. He giggled and crawled very fast toward her, laying his soft head of dark wooly curls in her lap. She laid her chin on his fragrant head, nuzzling him.

It was late afternoon, and wonderfully cool. She looked up at the sky and saw some beautiful light pouring down on the earth through the clouds. The sound of birds mingled with the triumphant call of the rooster and the braying of some far-off mule.

She felt a peace descend on her that she couldn’t explain or understand. Not the peace of resolution, but of transcendence. The sense of sitting in the spot G-d chose for her, the perfect place for her to be alive. Everything that had happened to her, everything that she had done, all of it together, had brought her here. There was nothing to regret or mourn. All of it, like the symbolic steps and gestures of some strange modern dance, had led her to this place, to the sense that the light pouring down was meant for her alone, to warm her heart, bleaching out all the bitterness, the darkness; lightening her soul.

It was a gift unearned, this sense of peace, of fulfillment, she thought. For so much still had to be righted, so much could never change. The gift was that she could accept it, accept her
life, all that had happened, all that was still to come; the confidence that the calm center of her life could not be touched. That finally, she’d claimed it.

She thought of her sister, Rivkie—of her soft comfortable existence that had never been disturbed; her pale, bloated faith that had never known the rough tear of calamity, the piercing of tragedy. She thought of it and found there was no anger or envy in her heart.

She thought of her son, of Aaron. G-d had given him his life, with all its difficulties and challenges. She did not hope to understand why. He would have to find answers for himself or live with the silences when there were none. As she had, as every human creature born in any time and place in human history must. She was not responsible.

She had a simple faith, but real and deep, that G-d’s goodness was like the sun pouring down, touching every human creature. And it didn’t matter if you had all your limbs, or a perfect brain, or a wonderful home, or the envy and respect of others… That sun poured down on you equally, making you grow, warming your heart. It was like manna, she thought, landing all around you, lying there waiting to be gathered. Waiting to nourish you.

Aaron’s portion was there, too. He would have to look around for it, open his eyes to see it and his arms to gather it. She could not do this for him or even imagine it for him. But the manna was there, for her, for Josh, for Aaron, her daughters, her grandson… For everyone who lived.

The stones of some ancient cemetery gleamed calmly in the distance. But I am still alive, still warm, she thought. My eyes still see, my ears still hear. And every day I taste the sweetness of small victories—a bird I never saw before, the smile of a friend, an unknown plant growing in my garden.

Until she lay beneath those cold, white stones, she would not deny that unearned joy growing inside, spilling over, taking
wings and flying above her, like some strange new bird. She would try to follow it as it spread its wings and flew effortlessly, wind carried, circling, around and around, filling itself with sunlight and fresh blue skies.

She felt alone in the world. Happily alone. And safer than she had ever felt. And all over, she saw green sprouting, even over the hard rocks. New growth. Everywhere. Flowers, vines, twining around the old altars, covering them, so that they could never be used again. So that even the archaeologists would not be able to find them.