DISOWNED (5 page)

And at this very moment, standing alone in her bedroom, one hand gripping the door, Rivkah feels her grandmother's strength rise up and land inside of her. She feels it pierce through her like a golden arrow. At this very moment she feels as if she could fling the door open and face the entire world.  Breasts or no breasts!

   And could it be this strength itself that is making my breasts grow early and strong, Rivkah suddenly wonders? Then she thinks of words from the Torah. I will be kind to those to whom I will be kind. God's words echo perpetually through the Torah and through the lives of the people who have turned Torah into their flesh and bones.

   "Not one daughter I have who is just like me," Devorah mutters to Molly now. "Not one granddaughter either. This is a tragedy for all the Jews." 

But maybe God does not want to create exactly the kind of daughter Devorah is expecting, Rivkah thinks. Could it be he wants a wild branch instead, someone like me, who can bring new life to everybody? Rivkah feels at this golden moment as if she is completely her grandmother's match. 

  We're not all weak here, grandma, Rivkah longs to call out, to face this old lady head on and do what her mother refuses to do.

  "Frighten her, Molly," Devorah is almost hissing now.

   Rivkah's hand slides back and forth around the doorknob. I'll walk out there between the two of them, and stand there like a mountain of another kind, she thinks. She cannot bring herself to do it though. Not yet. Once the door is open, there will be no stepping back inside. Not ever. No place to hide anymore.

   "Did you hear me?" Devorah continues. "I said frighten Rivkah!  Scare her, Molly. She has a mind of her own. She'll come to no good."

"You do it, mamma," Molly is swaying. Soon her heart will start palpitating. She'll go to the couch, fall on it and bury her head in the soft cushions. 

   But Devorah has only contempt for her. "I should do it?" Devorah laughs a funny laugh. "You must be crazy!"

   "Please, mamma," Molly cries out in sudden pain, "please, you do it for me!"

"Rivkah won't listen from me," Devorah spits out. "She doesn't like me, and everyone knows it."

   For a moment there is a dead silence. Then Molly starts to cry an odd wail. 

   "Cry, keep crying. What do I care? You think I'm like your stupid Henry? One cry and I'm right in your arms?"

   "She's your granddaughter too. And she's only a child."

That was the first time Rivkah ever heard anyone actually call her a child.

   "Some child. She can fight all she wants, but she'll never win against me."

"It's you," Molly dares now. "You don't like Rivkah! You never did. You never will. She's not fighting you. You're fighting her."

A wild silence falls between the two of them. A silence that has no beginning or end. A strange passion enters Molly and opens her mouth. It sets her tongue loose. "And she's your own granddaughter too!"

But this old woman cannot be done in. "So, I don't like her. Is that a crime? So, I never did? I never will?  So what, Molly?"

   Like little knives her words escape, fly out and catch them all unaware. They land with precision inside of Rivkah, first tearing her here, then there. 

   "But why don’t you like her?" Molly yells back.

Devorah holds her ground completely though, undaunted by issues such as like or dislike. “There are some questions that have no answers. I don't like her and she doesn't like me. Why do we have to? There's no law."

   "There's a law," Molly starts to cry.

She's never liked me? Rivkah thinks to herself, her hands growing numb one at a time.

   "No law at all," Devorah is insistent. 

"If you look long enough, there's a law," Molly's high voice has turned into a wail, "there's a law and it says, you must love all your children."

   "No. Only God you must love with your whole heart and soul. So what? I don't like Rivkah."

Grandma, Rivkah starts shouting inside. What do you mean, you don't like me?

   "She runs from me whenever she is able. But now she won't be able to, Molly."

   Rivkah's heart starts beating wildly. Little beads of sweat burst over her throat. Why won't I be able?

   "Who will have her now? Not even Reb Bershky. He won't be able to let her in! She's a woman now, Molly. She's not allowed to be alone with him."

  Not go to Uncle Reb Bershky anymore? Rivkah's mind starts to spin. Because I'm a woman? The words won't sink in but her body knows. All by itself it starts to shiver under her thin, second hand dress. Not run to her Uncle, her precious Reb Bershky?

   She leaps out of the hallway closer to the both of them.  But they barely see her. They refuse. They just stand looking through and past one another.

   "Nobody said it was easy to be a mother,” Devorah continues. “Why should it be different for you?"

Then Devorah turns, walks forcefully to the apartment door and slowly opens it up. Outside the apartment, Devorah stands for a moment on the landing at the top of the staircase.

   Rivkah longs to run to her, throw her thin arms around her, grab her and pull her back inside. She longs to make her sit down and tell her face to face why she'll never like her.  Why? But, after only one more moment she hears the old lady's heavy footsteps thumping back downstairs. One after another they pound on the stairs, like a hammer banging the nails solidly into the coffin of Rivkah's childhood.

   Soon the front door downstairs opens and closes. Rivkah runs to the window to look out. From behind she watches her grandmother walk down the block. The old lady walks with the strength of ten women, five oxen and six generations of Torah Scholars lined up behind her, pushing her along.

After Devorah is out of sight, Rivkah goes to the kitchen and sits down at the table besides Molly who is pale white by now, trembling, aimlessly sorting papers that are spread out in front of her. They have been spread out there since late last night. 

   "What did grandma want?"

   But Molly ruffles through the papers abstractedly.

   "Mamma, talk to me," Rivkah pleads now.

"What are you doing here?" Molly is disconcerted. "I thought you left for school already. It's getting late. Get going."

   "I just came in from outside," Rivkah lies.

   "Well, go back outside. I'm busy right now. I'm working on a poem. A beautiful new poem. Do you want me to read it to you?"

   For a split second, the lie hovers between them and then disappears.

   "Not right now."

   "It's an important poem. Part of a new book and there's a publisher interested." Molly always says there's a publisher interested every time she finishes a book.

Rivkah just stands there and says nothing.

  "You and my mother!  You don't believe in me." Molly attacks Rivkah suddenly then, grabs a piece of paper and holds it in her hand.  And whether or not Rivkah wants to hear it, Molly reads her the poem on the last page:

  "In the middle of the heartless sky,

Tiny birds fly and disappear,"

Rivkah shudders ever so slightly then.

   "You don't like it. All right then, what do you want?"

 "Tell me why grandma came up here!"

"You're interrupting my work! I'll tell you later when my mind is clear. There's a time and place for everything. Go out, hurry, or you'll be late to school."

But Rivkah cannot go anywhere. "I'm not going to school today.  How can I?"

   "So, don't go. It's fine. You can use a day off now and then. Stay home if you want to and rest yourself. Go back to bed. Read. Have good dreams."

   Then she puts her poems down and for a moment looks insubstantial, almost like a mirage that has floated in the bright morning sunlight. Then she looks inexpressibly sad. Too sad really to take account of Rivkah. For a moment, Rivkah longs to reach out to her.

   "Mamma, please," she moves a little closer.

   "Don't touch me. Not now. I've a poem to write!"

   But Rivkah is undaunted. Are you afraid of me, mamma? Do you think I'm like grandma?

Even though Rivkah hasn't said it out loud, Molly rustles a little and cries out, "what do you want from me? What?"

"Tell me what grandma wanted!"

"I'll tell you when the time comes."

"When is that?"

"Oh God," Molly's eyelids start fluttering then uncontrollably. "When will all of you realize that all artists have bad days? What are you trying to do to me? Do you want me to hate you like my mother hates me? Hates me for no reason at all!"

The both of them shiver then at exactly the same moment.

   "Go to school. I demand it!"

   Rivkah turns swiftly, goes to the door, opens it, goes out on the landing, and like her enormous, impeccable grandmother, follows her huge footsteps downstairs.

  Once outside, she walks slowly, not towards school but in a different direction. This time she passes by the family business where her grandmother is busy at work. Rivkah flings the door open and waits for Devorah to look up from the table she is working at.

Startled, Devorah looks up at once. "What's wrong?"

   Rivkah stands for a long moment, wanting to say good-bye. Instead she starts talking rapidly. "My mother isn't feeling well today. I'm not going to school. I have to bring back some food

from the grocery."

   "There's plenty of food in the house."

"But mother doesn't feel well. I don't want to leave her alone. And there's nothing she can do about it. It's her artistic soul."

Devorah's cheek clenches tight. "Artistic soul, nothing!" She comes out from behind the table with both hands on her hips. "My mother had an artistic soul. Ask anyone who came from Poland. She wrote all day long, day after day after day. But God blessed her with strength and wisdom. She wrote about what was true. She found people answers. They came to her with questions from everywhere. That's a real artistic soul."

They both take a deep breath then at the same moment.

"But your mother," Devorah continues, "who does she help? No one, not even herself."

The very worst thing you could say about someone in Borough Park is that they helped no one.

"What's the point of the poems she sits there writing?" Then the old lady threw her head up to the sky.

   "She tries, grandma," Rivkah answers loudly.

"Tell me once when she really tried."

Rivkah can't think of one time to tell her. 

   "Someday, Rivkah, if God is good to you," Devorah goes on, "you'll have an idea of what it means to really try. If God is good to you only. If he finds you acceptable." 

   Drops of ice gather and coalesce in Rivkah's mind. Will God find her acceptable someday? How can he? With a father like Henry, and a mother who dares to write poems about an empty, heartless sky?

"When a person really tries," Devorah continues, her eyes grow crystallized, "the whole world feels better for it. When you see that has happened, then you know someone has really tried!"

  Then as quickly and suddenly as she started, she is done. She starts to turn back to business. But Rivkah won't let her. She looks at her grandmother and glares.

   "Don't look at me like that!" Devorah seems frightened.

   But a door has closed inside Rivkah. Fear of Devorah is starting to melt. Still, Rivkah hangs on tenaciously hoping to hear just one more word.

   In the new silence between them Devorah knows she must speak. She relents suddenly and steps forward. "And I hope someday, Rivkah, someone comes to teach you what it means to really try."

CHAPTER 5

But despite Devorah, and despite the neighbors who won't face her and pretend that nothing is happening, Rivkah's breasts are growing anyway. Along with this, she is growing taller. Her legs are taking on a shape of their own. Her hair is silky and suddenly she does not look anything like the other girls in Yeshiva at all.

   "She doesn't belong in Yeshiva," her father announces to her mother over and over, his lower lip twitching. "A girl like this."  He can't believe his eyes.

   "Like what?" Molly shoots back at him enraged.

   "You've got to buy her a bra, Molly."

   "You're a sick man, Henry. Sick!" she yells.  "We know what you think about all day long. You men. All of you. And in a religious household, no less."

   "How would you know?"

"You're sick," she insists.

   "Well, did you ever think, Molly," he shoots back at her now, "that maybe, just maybe, I am fine the way I am?"

Then he stands up very straight, for a beautiful, unexpected moment.

   "Go downstairs to your grandma," Molly suddenly turns to Rivkah who has been watching them quietly from the corner of the room.

Rivkah tosses her head back. More and more these days, she does not listen. Why should she? A new kind of power is flowing through her now.  "I'll go down later, maybe -"she says.

   "Just do as I say," Molly repeats more emphatically.

 Henry puts his paper down.  "Your mother is upset," he warns.

   "Because of me?" Rivkah speaks up in a voice now that has grown colder.

"Cover yourself up, Rivkah," Molly says fiercely, throwing her a long, sharp glance.

Even if she wanted to, Rivkah could not obey. A strong premonition has arisen within. Of what? She's not sure. She can't catch it or hold it. It cannot be tasted, seen, felt or even comprehended. But it is with her more and more these days.

   "Did you hear me?" Molly is insistent. "Look at you."

   Their eyes lock for a deadly instant as Molly's face flushes."Do you see other girls look this way?"

   "What way?"

    That does it.  From out of nowhere, Molly starts to shriek.  "Cover yourself! Cover yourself from head to toe like you're supposed to! Like we're all supposed to. Modest. Be modest or else you'll be ruined!" 

   "Ruined?"

"Don't act like you don't understand me either," Molly starts to pant now. Rage, pure rage, pours from her. Actually the rage is startlingly beautiful. Her eyes open wide and little white sparks start to fly.