A Town of Empty Rooms (13 page)

She did not remember much about the building — mostly its unripe smell and the constant, aggravating sensation that she was about to
cough. They had walked together through the rooms, and she, too, could see the Southeast North Carolina Jewish Community Center, could see the ways in which the rooms transformed into shining glass. The rooms could be anything, and she, Serena Hirsch, could help build them. “Now look at that picture,” he said, handing her a photo of a clean white room. It could not possibly be of the building they had seen. Was he kidding? Did he simply substitute another photo? Unsettled, she put the photo down.

He wanted more; that was a longing that also billowed within her. He wanted the center to be enormous, and beautiful, and full of people who would gather — reasonable, even loving — all the time. They would open their doors to feed the hungry of Waring, they would tutor the uneducated, they would use themselves to do good. He was not satisfied with the ordinary world. It was what she had felt walking out of Saks a couple months before, those diamonds in the shopping bag, the cool, unrelenting desire for transformation.

“I like it,” she decided. “I think it was in that left wing.” She was in with him, quickly, before she could stop herself.

“Yes!” the rabbi said. “That's where it was.”

“Serena, there was no left wing!” said Betty.

“There were areas we didn't all see,” she said. The rabbi nodded at her briefly, stormed to the other side of the table, and placed his hand on Norman's shoulder.

“Who moves to vote?” he said. “Establish this building as the future site of the SENCJCC — ”

“Not yet!” said Betty. “It's a toxic dump!”

“It's not a
dump!
” he said, his voice rising. He was talking faster, stepping closer to Betty; he was sweating. “Why can't you just trust me?” he said, his voice rising. “What's the damn problem — why can't — ” Then he stopped, turned, and ran out the door. It slammed so hard the building shook.

They all sat around the foldout table in silence.

“Should somebody go after him?” asked Tiffany.

“Why?” asked Betty crisply, making a note.

“Rabbi Golden is a man of strong opinions,” said Tom, carefully. “That is not a crime.”

“I move that we table this issue until next meeting,” said Norman. “And, Betty, I want my pen back.”

“But, Norman, it is such a nice pen.”

“I want it back.”

Betty silently handed it over. Norman scribbled a line on a pad to see if it still worked and then pocketed it. “My surgery is scheduled for a week from Friday,” said Norman. “Four days after Rosh Hashanah. Not a sweet New Year. Think of me.”

They walked, clutching their pens from Norman, into the night. The rabbi had slipped into the darkness. Betty was striding next to Serena.

“There was no left wing,” said Betty. “I didn't miss that. Those were not pictures of that building.”

“Maybe there was,” Serena said. She was annoyed at Betty now, to question this quality . . . vision. She was seeing it now, the glass community center, a radiant structure rising out of the ruined building. Who cared how they found their way to it? “It's a great idea. It would be a beautiful building. Why can't we just go ahead and do it?”

“We all have our own ideas,” said Betty. “My ex-husband was a master at telling me I was crazy when I was sad, or demanding when I was mad. It's taken me years to figure out what is real.”

Serena sensed that Betty wanted to say something more, but instead the older woman hugged her, briefly, and got into her car.

 

 

 

ROSH HASHANAH FELL ON OCTOBER 3; Serena told herself it was her duty as a board member to attend services, but somehow she wanted to go. The general and complete ignorance of the entire county to the fact of the Jewish New Year made her determined to attend. She had taken her son out of school at noon to attend the children's Tashlich service. “Doctor's appointment?” the secretary asked.

“It's Rosh Hashanah,” Serena said. The secretary looked up.

“What?”

“The Jewish New Year.”

The secretary paused and then stamped
Excused
on a slip. “Lashane tov,” the secretary said.

“L'shanah tovah?” asked Serena, surprised and touched.

“I had a Jewish friend once,” she said. “My best friend, third grade. She was Jewish. I'm not. I consider it — a privilege.” She coughed. “We've come a far way, don't ya think? Excused. Have a good day.”

At 2:00 PM, the rabbi took a small, ragged band of children to the river for the Tashlich service — they would be writing down things they wanted to change about themselves on (biodegradable) rice paper and releasing it into the river. The parents were wearily trying to throw out suggestions about what the children might want to improve in the coming year, and the children were ignoring them.

“How about not tormenting your brother?” said one mother.

“How about not leaving the room a total mess?” said another.

The children's responses were beautiful in their innocent greed.

“I want long hair,” said a tiny girl who had a pixie cut.

“I want a new Nintendo,” said a boy, eyeing those of the other boys who had snuck them in. “Red.”

They reached the wide gray river in which they would throw their sins. The rank smell of fish, industry, and gasoline rose into the air. The rabbi swooped into the cloud of children. They had all been dressed formally, the girls in princess dresses, the boys in button down shirts; they had no idea why they were here.

“How do any of you feel connected to God?” he asked them. No one had an answer to this. He rubbed his forehead. “Okay. How do you feel when you are connected to people?” he tried.

“Like Siamese twins?” asked one girl.

“God is nice. He made us. You know, Adam and Eve? Duh. So he made us,” said another girl.

“He made me?” asked Zeb.

“Okay, how do you feel when a friend's mad at you?” asked the rabbi. “Or how do you feel when you're disconnected?”

“Like, say I'm talking on the phone to someone,” said a boy, “and there's a thunderstorm and I'm having an important discussion where I'm telling them some Nintendo cheats, and then suddenly the power goes out and
boom
— ”

“Right,” said the rabbi, looking a little lost.

They all stood, overlooking the gray river, which swept by, currents cutting through the water like long, graceful sashes.

“Serena,” said the rabbi. “Do me a favor. Turn around. Link arms.” Suddenly, she was back-to-back with the rabbi, feeling the back of his torso pressing against hers; they were locking elbows. “Okay. Move.” He tried to walk forward, and she tried to walk the opposite way; they were frozen, struggling. She felt the ripple of his muscles in his back, the ridge of his spine; it was too close, suddenly. She held her breath, glad she was linked with him, and afraid the others would see her gladness. The kids shrieked, laughing.

“Watch!” The rabbi called. “Can we move this way? What happens? Are we stuck?”

“Jump!”

“Move to the side!”

They tried to follow the kids' orders; they were really stuck. He was strong. So was she. Suddenly it occurred to her that he had somehow chosen her, that he also wanted to feel this confinement.

But he was clever; he changed the subject. “If you feel too many rules from God, if you feel too stifled, if you can't really be your best self, then you and God are like this.”

“Kids,” she said. “Watch what happens now.”

She slipped her arms out from his and jumped free; they both fell forward. “Kids!” said the rabbi. “Use your best selves. You can get rid of your bad twin and find your good self. Now let's think about what we want to throw into the river.” He started passing out pencils and rice paper. She stood, a little far away, looking at the children, reaching up and grabbing the pencils, writing down the things they wanted to throw away.

 

 

 

THAT NIGHT, AROUND 7:30 PM , there was a knock at the door; it was Brittany, a fifteen-year-old who lived across the street. Dan held the door open, puzzled.

“Yes?” asked Dan.

“I'm scheduled to babysit,” said Brittany.

“For us?”

“Come on in,” Serena said to the babysitter. Serena was wearing a black silk dress and coat as though they were going out.

“Where are
you
going?” asked Dan.

Serena looked at him. “I thought we might go to services,” she announced brightly.

“We?” he asked.

“It's Rosh Hashanah,” she said.

“So?”

“Why don't you come with me — ”

He rubbed his face. “Come on, Serena,” he said. “I'm busy. No.”

He was surprised that she seemed to dim at this. “Please,” she said.

They stood in the doorway, the babysitter shifting from foot to foot, smiling, but also aghast. She had signed on for her $5 an hour, and she did not want to see this display of marital discord. Serena wanted him to come. It was Rosh Hashanah, the start of the New Year — there was a logic to that, in a way. They could just decide it was time to start over. Perhaps they could pretend that they were as they had been, as they thought they would always be.

Dan looked away. He did not want to go; he did not want to admit to her how he dreaded the feeling he would get in the Temple. It made no sense to him, first off, the muttering in Hebrew, the marching around with the Torah, the standing up and sitting down for no apparent reason. But mostly he feared the sensation that others were part of this, of this and of everything, and he never would be, and, secretly, that his wife was solidly part of this, had figured all this out. It was one reason that he had been drawn to her — her assumption that she belonged in her family, that she belonged here, even at Pepsi, even if they didn't appreciate her — but marrying her didn't mean that he absorbed this quality; he was merely spectator to it. Now he felt left out and sometimes, embarrassingly, competitive. How could he feel competitive over the Temple, of all places! It was not a feeling one was supposed to have in a marriage, he thought. But there it was.

“It's the New Year,” she said, and she seemed so intent, and she sparkled in a way that caught at his heart, for she looked beautiful and
nostalgic, and the babysitter stood there, polite, shaming them into an outing. He threw on a jacket and they left.

They rode together in the car. It felt strange to be going somewhere formally dressed, as though they had been hurled into civility. She had purchased this dress seven years ago, off the sales rack at Macy's, a black sheath with glimmering threads thrown in. Dan was wearing the navy jacket he had always worn to corporate parties. The radiant purple dusk spread out across the city; it was as though they were impersonating themselves in an earlier life.

The car was quiet. “You look nice,” he said, as though they were on a first date. Perhaps, in a way, they were.

“You, too,” she said.

Serena wanted to sit in a pew near the front. Dan turned this down, as he felt his reluctance was naked, so they settled on the fourth row from the front. The day's dying light fell through the stained glass windows, creating radiant colored squares on the floor. The congregants stepped through the translucent light gently, as though through pools of water. There was the melodic engine of the almost hundred-year-old organ rolling, heavy, through the room.

Dan watched her expression when the rabbi strode up onto the pulpit. He was wearing an almost blinding white suit, the sort of suit that advertised purity so slavishly it seemed ridiculous, fraudulent. Clearly, he had consulted no one on this. He noticed that Serena was watching the rabbi intently. The light through the windows was darkening. The rabbi looked at the congregation arranged in front of him, his face suddenly, brilliantly, awake.

The rabbi stood on the bima. He gazed out at all of them. Showtime.

“L'shanah tovah,” he said.

When he turned to face the Ark, he lifted his arms to indicate that the congregants were to rise, his arms coming up with a slow stateliness; it seemed that wings were rising from his back. It was a gesture of the deepest confidence, that he knew the others would follow him, but, more, that he believed that his role was to be followed.

He turned and, clutching the Torah by its wooden handles, held the scroll up before all of them. It was heavy, but his arms did not tremble. The gesture threw her back, fully, to her childhood, and her eyes filled
with tears. She had sat with her father, watching the rabbi of their Los Angeles temple lift the Torah; that moment was gone, vanished — there was no way to recover it. The service, the sight of the sanctuary, was a trick; it was a way to remember him, and it was like a hall of mirrors, distorting the air. She missed her mother and sister, who lived in Los Angeles and whom she had not seen since the funeral. She touched her eyes, embarrassed. Dan noticed her crying. He put his hand in his pocket and lifted out a Kleenex. She took it.

Serena watched Rabbi Golden lower the Torah onto the lectern. She watched his hands grip the brown handles, watched his arms tense under his suit. “This is our covenant,” he said. “This is what has bound us for five thousand years.”

The rabbi gazed out at the congregants all standing in the sanctuary; it was as though he understood all of them.

Chapter Eight

SHE TRIED TO KEEP HER children from going into Forrest Sanders's yard, but it felt impossible; the three-foot-high chain-link fence could be hopped in a moment. And Forrest wanted to talk to them. After his initial enthusiasm, his attempt to advertise himself as a decent man, Forrest seemed intent on one activity: lending her things. He kept an eye on their backyard to gauge what she needed. When her yard filled with leaves, he loaned her his rake and green plastic tub; when a branch was dangling off her azalea bush, he showed her how to use his garden clippers to take it off. She took the sharp things offered over the fence, thanked him, returned the tools, and hoped that would comfort him. She did not understand why he constantly tried to lend her things until she realized he wanted to incur a debt.