Hush (25 page)

The engagement was made by Yosef Yitzchak, the
shadchan
’s idea. He was
Yushive
’s biggest matchmaker. He said he had thought of the
shidduch
months before I had even turned eighteen. Yosef Yitzchak the
shadchan
used to live in Borough Park before he moved to Israel five years ago. He had
davened
in my father’s
shul
and they had kept in touch after he left. My father always described Yosef Yitzchak as a good man with a large heart and a larger mouth. There was no detail the man did not know about every
Yushive
family going back three generations from both sides. He knew that Mrs. Blumbaum’s great-grandmother’s sister, back in Lodz, Poland, in the 1900s had run away from home with Yoneh Goldberg’s great-great-uncle’s brother, then a neighbor, to join the Zionists. He knew that Brachala Zalts’s sister had cancer, back when it was a classified secret because people still thought it to be contagious. He knew that the rich Reich family was no longer rich. They had gone bankrupt a while back, but kept it secret till he’d married off the last of his children.

My mother said Yosef Yitzchak had made over seventy
shidduchim
in the last two decades by sheer persistence. He never gave up until the families agreed and the couple was engaged. He had even once finished a
shidduch
over the phone. The groom, from Belgium, was supposed to fly into New York with his parents, but the flight was canceled and the next one was in three days. Yosef Yitzchak explained to the parents that there was no reason to wait. The poor girl was so excited, why drag it out three long days, and since when did the customary twenty-minute meeting between the boy and girl before the
L’chaim
make the marriage any better?

So they spoke on the phone and then got married and were miserable, and the C
hassid
blamed the
shadchan
, who said, “Eh! Phone or not, they would have gotten engaged the same. What’s a useless conversation to blame for a bad marriage?”

But that was a rare incident. Uusally, a boy and girl had to meet for at least twenty minutes but no more than forty before the
L’chaim
, set up since the night before, to see that they weren’t repulsed by each other. And if they were, there were usually ways to fix it. When my sister, Surela, met her husband, Moishe, she couldn’t bear his crooked teeth, ugly glasses, and bad skin. My mother said, “Crooked teeth you can straighten, ugly glasses you can change, bad skin you can clean.” The main thing was the kind of husband he would be, and she would have to get married to know that. So they got married and she got used to his crooked teeth, ugly glasses, and bad skin, and five years and three children later they were perfectly happy. He took out the garbage, helped with the children, and even cleared off the
Shabbos
table whenever they came for a meal. A true
mensch
.

Yosef Yitzchak said that the boy he had in mind was just as perfect. He had thought of it when he noticed the boy walking down the Jerusalem street where he lived. He had been looking out the window of his small apartment on a sunny afternoon when he observed a fine young
bachur
, a son of the Geldbart family, two buildings down, walking along, twirling his nice, long, curled
payos
—and a boy who knows how to curl his
payos
like that—it shows something about him, especially one strolling up a hill immersed in an energetic Talmudic discussion with himself. And that’s when it hit him. Of course. It was a perfect
shidduch
.

The Geldbart family was a good one. Chaim Geldbart, the great-grandfather from Lodz, had already been a
Chassid
eighty-five years ago. He had been one of the first
Yushive Rebbe
’s closest
Chassidim
, and according to Yosef Yitzchak, who swore he knew from a reliable source, the man didn’t dare
pish
without asking the
Rebbe
. They say that he was so faithful to his master that when the
Rebbe
died, the poor man fell ill and never quite recovered from the shock. The Geldbarts had eleven children, all of them
Chassidim
, but
nebech
they were all killed in the Holocaust except Lazer Geldbart, who eventually moved to Israel and opened up a small bookstore on Strauss Street.

And the boy’s mother? Now, she has a real
yichus
. Her great-great-grandfather from her mother’s side had met her great-great-grandfather from her father’s side in the
Yushive Rebbe
’s home in Poland. The
Rebbe
had commanded they make a
shidduch
between their sixteen-year-old son and daughter back home in Lublin. It took them so long to get back home, the engaged couple did not know they were engaged until the day of the wedding. And her great-aunt Leah from the grandfather’s side, who used to bake special carrot
kugel
for the
Rebbe
that only she knew how to make, was the only woman in the entire
shtetle
. Every Friday that carrot
kugel
was delivered promptly to the
Rebbe
himself, and that was the only
kugel
the holy man would eat. And her great-aunt, murdered by the Germans, may their names be erased from Earth, was the closest friend of the
Yushive Rebbe
’s second son’s wife herself. A family with solid foundations, indeed.

The first time my father heard of the
shidduch
, a few weeks back, he refused to listen. Yosef Yitzchak had called him up from Jerusalem excitedly.

“Mazel tov, mazel tov!”
he practically shouted. “Your daughter is engaged!”

“Is she?” asked my father.

“Well, she will be,” he answered. “I have the perfect boy for your daughter, believe me. The
Rebbe
himself would take him for a son-in-law.”

My father protested. “My daughter’s not yet eighteen!” he said. “The day she turns eighteen in two weeks you can call me back. Until then, leave me alone.”

So he left us alone for two weeks, until he arrived in America on some fund-raising mission for a
yeshiva
, and with a grunt and an “ahhhh, it’s nice to be back,” he sat down in our dining room. I listened excitedly from the kitchen to his enthusiastic banging on the table as he extolled the virtues of his next-door neighbors.

My parents were impressed.

“Chaim Geldbart, named after Lazer’s father, had a small grocery with which he supported his wife and eleven children, but with his wife Golda’s agreement, he stopped working so that he could spend more time with the
Rebbe,
and Golda, a Woman of Valor, a
tzaddekes
herself, took over the business.” He jabbed a finger at my father’s nose. “And remember the carrot
kugel
I told you about? I tell you, it was the only cake in the entire
shtetle
the
Rebbe
would eat—and if he trusted Chaim’s wife’s great-aunt Leah from the grandfather’s side, then so could you.”

My parents were very impressed.

“Everyone in Jerusalem knows the Geldbarts! You could ask who you want! Chaim is a good man with long
payos
, a longer beard, and a mind of a
rosh yeshiva
. Until today, his son learns every night with him in the main
shul
. He never misses a night.”

My parents were so impressed, I could almost hear the excitement swirling through their minds.

“I’m telling you,” the
shadchan
continued, clapping his palms together, “he is a
sheineh bachur
, the best! I would’ve taken him for my own daughter, except I don’t have one, so I’m offering him to you, unless of course you don’t want him, and I could call up the head of the
Yushive Yeshiva
in Israel. He would
love
to have him.”

And so on, until the last cookie crumb was finished, and the bottle of soda was emptied, and my parents, holding their hands over their hearts, promised they would seriously consider the
shidduch
.

My father walked Yosef Yitzchak to the door. My mother came into the kitchen. She put the plate in the sink and chewed her lower lip the way she did when she was thinking intently about something. “Well,” she finally said. “It sounds worth investigating.”

“It does,” I said elatedly. “But what’s the boy’s name?”

My mother looked at me. “The boy’s name?” She blinked, then ran to the door.

“Yosef Yitzchak! Yosef Yitzchak!” she shouted. “What’s the boy’s name?”

“The boy?” He sounded startled. “Ah. Yes. The boy. His name…Eh, well, he is eighteen years old and the
Yushive Rebbe
,
Reb
Yaakov Meir, died around that time, so probably his name is Yaakov Meir, or Meir Yaakov, or something similar. The entire generation of boys born then was named after the
Rebbe
, so what else could it be?”

He chuckled. “Look,” he said reassuringly. “What could his name be? It’s either Yaakov or Yosef or Moishe or Srulcha! One of them for sure! Don’t worry, the boy has a name, I promise. I’ll find out and get right back to you.”

My mother returned to the kitchen. “He said he’ll find out his name.”

“But what about English? He lives in Israel. Does he speak English?”

My mother ran back. “English, English! Does he speak English?”

I could hear the door open. “English you also want?” he said. “Actually, he happens to speak English. His mother grew up in Los Angeles so they speak English at home.”

And the investigations began. My mother called my brothers; my father called my uncles; my cousins called their friends, and information poured in.

The boy didn’t wear glasses. He was thin. There were eight children in the family and he was the fifth or sixth or seventh. My brother Yossi had once seen him when he learned in Israel in the same
yeshiva
some years back, and if he recalled correctly, he remembered that someone had pointed Geldbart out to him in the study hall and said that he was one of the best learners in the grade. He was almost sure.

My brother-in-law had actually learned with the second to the oldest Geldbart brother and said that he had a brilliant mind and could not be beaten in Talmudic debates. Yet he was also a likable man, one who thought simply of himself. The mother was thin. She volunteered twice a week at the hospital. She baked the best
lokshon kugel
—noodle strudel—in the neighborhood.

My cousin had a friend whose friend learned in the grade under the boy’s grade and he promised that he was a
bachur
with many other friends and a kind heart. Did he know him personally? No. But he had seen him learning vigorously in the study hall and someone who learned vigorously in the study hall evidently had many friends and a kind heart. And he wasn’t bald. He was eighteen and four months. His friends loved him. His brothers adored him. He did not have dandruff. And his name was Yankel. Yankel Geldbart.

My parents and I were satisfied: a grandfather from Lodz, a great-aunt with a chosen carrot cake, and a boy with a name. What more could a girl want?

We met on a cold, sunny December afternoon. My brother had gone to the airport to pick up the parents and the groom; my mother had chased my younger brother out of the house. She nervously spread the guests-only embroidered tablecloth in the kitchen, where we would meet, and the gold-trimmed glass cups with schnapps in the dining room. I wore a new black suit with white trimming, and my father, pacing anxiously around the table until my mother yelled that he should stand still already, smiled briefly at me and said that I already looked like a bride.

I brushed my hair again. I touched up my lipstick. My sister, Surela, had applied the makeup earlier and my mother and I had sat in front of the mirror staring intently into my reflection, trying this lipstick then that, smudging on beige eye shadow then brown, until we agreed that it was just so—not too much so I looked modern and not too little so I looked too young. I put on the Versani shoes, my first $180 high-heeled shoes, and my parents had proudly watched as I clicked precariously around the room. Now was the time to spend, they said.