Between Gods: A Memoir (13 page)

Later, at contact improv, I lie limply in the centre of the polished studio floor. A woman with blond braids and leg warmers rolls me over onto my side. Pokes at me with her big toe. Leans in with the full weight of her shoulder. The more she tries to engage me in the dance, the heavier my body becomes. I move off to the side of the dance floor and rest against the heaters, watching. Slowly the dancers get started. The ones become twos, the twos become fours and fives. Soon there is a big pile of bodies in the centre of the room. Legs sticking out, arms at odd angles. I try not to think about Auschwitz.

I read
Suite Française
by Irène Némirovsky and the remarkable
Austerlitz
by W. G. Sebald. I read both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir
Maus. The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink and, for the second time, Styron’s
Sophie’s Choice
. Styron’s daughter has written a memoir about her father’s depression, what it was like to grow up in the shadow of such a literary lion, and I gobble that book up, too. I read
The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss, an American writer who is exactly my age. The pathos in these books is so palpable, as is the tragedy of the characters’ lives. My own novel feels stilted and unformed. I have not understood the insidious loss of the Holocaust. Or rather, I have understood all too well but am unable to render a new impression of a subject matter that is so well-worn.

Who are my characters?

They are no one.

Wrong again.

They are my family, and I have failed them.

They are bits of crumpled paper blowing down a laneway at dusk. They are flecks of ash on a dark night in Poland, drifting up to mix with the stars.

I wake in the middle of the night and tiptoe across the soft carpet, upstairs to my computer. There’s a green light beside Eli’s name in gmail. “You’re up late,” I write. “How’re things?”

“
Comme ci comme ça
. You?”

“Meh,” I write. And then: “You’re leaving soon, hey? Let’s get together. Sunday?”

I’m still hoping he’ll introduce me to his mother, but I can’t tell him that, can’t quite let him know what I imagine he could give me.

I press Send and sit at the computer answering other emails, waiting for Eli’s reply. After ten minutes the green light beside his name turns red and then blinks off altogether.

The next morning his answer is there: “I saw your note. I’m not trying to blow things off. I’m leaving the country in 10 days and have a ton of stuff to do. I’d like to see you.” A space. “But I’m busy on Sunday.”

While reading this last line, something blooms in my chest, a bright spreading stain of awareness. I’m looking in the wrong place. I’m looking outside, when I know full well the answers I need are inside me. It’s just so much harder to find them there.

Shabbat arrives over and over, like a suitcase abandoned on a baggage carousel. We now call it “24 Hours Unplugged, Jewish Style.” On Friday evening, Degan guards the hearth while I go out into the darkness, to synagogue. At the car I turn back and
see two high flames from our candles: one for him and one for me.

The temple at Holy Blossom is filled with adults. It’s still “winter” break, and the families with children must all be away skiing or in Florida. I sit beside Debra. I have managed to memorize the chorus of “L’cha Dodi,” the liturgical song sung at dusk to welcome the Sabbath bride, but when the time comes, the congregants bust out into a tune I don’t recognize.

There are, I will learn, as many ways to sing “L’cha Dodi” as there are Inuit words for snow.

One thing remains consistent: in the final verse, we all stand to welcome her, the invisible bride whose presence means the Sabbath has begun. Debra gestures to a woman who happens to be entering the sanctuary; she’s wearing a purple cloche hat and discreetly stuffing her cell phone in her purse. “There she is!”

“You know her?” I ask.

“Of course. The Sabbath bride.”

I laugh but am grateful when the verse ends and we sit back down. All the standing: it’s exhausting.

The rabbi’s “sermon” is a colloquial lecture on a book about Yiddish he’s been reading. He tells us about the expression
Nisht getoygen, nisht gefloygen
, which translates roughly to “It doesn’t fly; it doesn’t even get up.” Meaning that something is completely unbelievable.

The rabbi uses the expression in reference to the Christian belief in transubstantiation: how the bread is literally transformed into the body of Christ during Communion, and the wine to his blood. The ridiculousness of this idea.

The congregation dissolves into laughter.

I lean into Debra, catching her eye. I can tell from her face
that she, too, is hurt, but she braces herself. “Remember,” she whispers, “it’s a defensiveness born of persecution.”

I think of the list of Jewish expulsions that Jordan has sent me. Beginning in the year 19 CE: Rome. The Frankish Kingdom. Germany. England, France. Warsaw. Spain. Sicily. Lithuania. Portugal. Prague.

“And then,” Jordan wrote, “you get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where the history is better known.”

Around me the congregation is still laughing. I think of Debra’s words: “It’s a defensiveness born of persecution.”

I know that she’s right. Still, an incredible loneliness rises up in me. I remember back to the minister on Christmas Eve, to the thin wafer on my tongue: “The body of Christ, given for you.”

Did I feel it was
literally
the body of Christ? No. But I felt welcomed by the symbol, included. Gathered in. Whereas here I feel totally alone.

twenty

I
RETURN TO THE SYNAGOGUE
the next day to hear Eli speak about his book. It’s my last chance to see him before he leaves for Paris. I know with a newfound certainty that he can’t give me what I want. That a Jewish partner would be a shortcut, a hindrance rather than a help. Still, I’m stubborn. I refuse to let him go without some kind of resolution.

The event is held on the top floor, in a spacious solarium from which you can see the sparkly lights of the city spread out below you. When I arrive, fifteen minutes early, the place is already packed. Eli stands at the podium in a leather jacket that he doesn’t remove despite the stifling heat. I try to catch his eye, but he’s riffling through his papers, glancing around at everyone but me.

He gives a little wave, a half smile at a table of young women.

Rabbi Klein has the task of introducing him. She is as
gracious as ever, listing his accomplishments, literary and otherwise, and welcoming him to the stage. Eli opens with a prepared speech. He talks about what it was like to write
Help Me
, and about the mixed reaction he’s had from the Jewish community in general and the Orthodox community in particular. He is poised, but from across the room I can see his pages shaking slightly in his hands. When he’s finished, the floor is open for questions.

A young woman in heavy eye makeup and track pants with
Juicy
written in sparkly cursive on the rear stands up. “That part you read about Israel, and the fence between Israel and Gaza. Did you mean that the fence is
bad
? Because the fence has meant way fewer suicide bombers.”

Eli waits a beat.

“It isn’t good or bad,” he says. “What I was really trying to say is that we need to get past good versus bad.”

An older man with a red
kippah
perched on the top of his head jumps in. “Ambivalence is fine, but aren’t there some things that are clearly right or wrong? Like the question of Israel’s right to exist? Hamas denies even this, if I’m not mistaken.”

The questions have veered toward the political, toward the small portion of his book that deals with Orthodoxy in Israel. Eli uses the sleeve of his leather jacket to wipe perspiration from his forehead. He hesitates, then says, “Again, I think it’s more complex than right or wrong. Especially when it comes to issues of land ownership. Which, of course, should resonate with us here in Canada.”

I cheer silently, but the questioner’s face is blank.

“Because of what we’ve done with our Native Canadians’ land,” Eli clarifies.

But the man won’t be diverted. “Hamas denies us. Am I right?”

Eli sighs. “Yes,” he says. “But not
us
. Israel. And they deny it within their own historical context.”

The man’s eyes widen. “You agree with that?”

A voice from the audience shouts, “We
are
Israel!” There’s a smattering of applause.

Eli flushes. He ignores the comment from the audience and addresses the man in the red
kippah
. “Of course not. I just … Honestly? I don’t have an answer for Hamas,” he says.

After the question period, Rabbi Klein stands back up to thank Eli. She says, “Eli, you have helped open our hearts. We agree with much of what you say. And your words are beautifully written.”

She is generous and kind in her acknowledgement that he’s been controversial.

After, there’s a long line of people waiting for Eli to sign their books. I join the queue. Several people ahead of me is a striking woman with dark eyes and glossy brown hair. She’s a head taller than all the other women in the room, and when she stands next to Eli, they look like two of a set. For a moment I think this might be his girlfriend, returned from wherever she’s been travelling, but I remember: his girlfriend is a redhead.

The woman reaches the front of the line. She and Eli speak intently. He leans in, touches her elbow. I fiddle with my phone, pretend to check my messages. The crowd clears out, but their conversation continues. Eli says something to the tall woman, and a storm of emotion crosses over her face—first sadness and then something close to rage.

I take a few steps back to give them space.

The solarium is now almost empty. Soon I’ll have no choice but to go. I want the chance to say goodbye, but I can’t very well
stand here while they get into an argument. I reach for my bag; Eli looks over and sees me. He gestures me over.

I hesitate, but he gestures again. “Alison, this is Shayna. Shayna is a musician. Alison is a writer.”

We eye each other warily.

The woman—Shayna—sighs. “What do you write?” she asks, clearly out of obligation. I mutter something about my novel-in-progress.

“And you?” I ask. “Do you play the …”

But I can’t think of the name of a single instrument.

“I’m a singer,” she says. She’s pulling on her jacket. “And a kindergarten teacher,” she adds.

“But mostly a singer,” says Eli, making a face to indicate how good she is.

Shayna pulls her long hair back and ties it with an elastic from her wrist. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get going.”

“So long,” she says to Eli. “Have a great trip.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles, but she’s already disappeared out the door.

Eli and I turn to face each other properly. He looks happy to see me, relieved, although perhaps just in comparison to the conversation he’s been having.

“You were great,” I say.

“You thought so?”

“I did,” I answer sincerely.

“You look tired,” he says.

“Why, thank you. And you do, too.”

He laughs. “These things take it out of me.”

“So you’re off,” I say. “To Paris.”

“For better or for worse.”

“I’m guessing for better.”

He shrugs.

“Are you excited?”

He looks like he’s weighing his options, deciding how much of the truth to tell. “I’m ready for a change of scene. It’s been a hard fall,” he says finally.

“No kidding.” I pause. “Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to see me?”

“Tonight?”

“All month.”

He appears surprised. “I
did
want to see you.”

I raise my eyebrows. “I left a lot of messages,” I say. “I really needed some help. With all the Jewish stuff.” My eyes fill with tears. I blink, but they fill again.

“Didn’t I help you?” Eli asks. He leans in, genuinely concerned.

I’m silent.

He smiles, then his brow furrows. I can see he’s arriving at some kind of realization, but I don’t know what it is. I fiddle with my ring. “You should marry a Jewish girl,” I say. “So you don’t have a messed-up kid like me.”

“That’s
exactly
what I’ve been thinking,” he says. He pauses, realizing how his words sounded, and we both burst out laughing.

“Not that you’re messed up,” he says.

“Clearly not.”

“Clearly not at all.”

We laugh some more. Then his face grows serious. “I’m sorry, Alison,” he says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more.”

And as he says this, it becomes clear to me for the second time: it wasn’t his job to help me in the first place. I don’t know how I missed seeing it earlier. There was nothing he could have
done. A trip to synagogue together would have changed nothing.

“I’m jealous of what you have,” I say. “That’s what this all comes down to.”

“
Had
, you mean.” He’s referring to his disenchantment with the Judaism of his youth. But we both know that Judaism, in any of its forms, is there for him should he ever want it back.

“I’m angry about what’s happening to you,” he says. “I hope you know that.”

“I do.”

But another revelation makes itself known to me: he
is
angry at Judaism, but for reasons of his own. We’ve both been using each other. In the same way that he’s been a focus for my desire for Judaism, I’ve been a focus for his anger at it.

“You’re the perfect convert,” he says. “They should want you.”

I smile. “Yes. They should.”

He’s looking over my shoulder at the last group of people, chatting in the far corner of the basement. “Can you hang on a sec?” he asks. “I’m just going to say good night to my mum.”

“Your mother is here?”

“She is. Do you want to meet her?”

“Yes!”

Maybe it’s not too late, I think, picturing her arm around my shoulder as we light the Shabbos candles. But when we cross the room, she isn’t among the few remaining guests.