Hush (31 page)

And Surela, who called just as Yankel walked back in from afternoon prayers, said, “See, marriage is not so bad. Before you know it they start learning that hey—life is not
yeshiva,
and they even learn to help.”

But my aunt from Lakewood advised me otherwise. It was the last day of
sheva brachos
and she sat near me as we munched on the cranola dessert she had brought special from Lakewood. She shook her head disapprovingly.

“A husband shouldn’t take out the garbage. He’s a Torah scholar; you must treat him with the appropriate respect. Imagine wasting a minute of Torah learning on taking out garbage! You want a garbageman for a husband, let him take out the garbage. You want a king, treat him like a king.…”

My mother, admiring Goldy’s new dress nearby, overheard somehow and in less than a second was standing at our table.

“If he is a king, then she is a queen,” she said sweetly, “and as this is a kingdom without servants, it would do well to treat each other royally.” Then she pulled me away to meet a friend she hadn’t seen since seminary.

On Thursday, a day after the last
sheva brachos
, Yankel’s parents returned to Israel. On the way to the airport, they stopped in for a last visit. His mother described her harrowing trip to Manhattan in the morning, where she had not been for so many years, and how she had forgotten what it means to live among goyim.

“Once you live among only Jews, you could no longer imagine living this way. America is a good country, good to the Jews, for sure, but goyim are goyim, and as we saw in Germany, they are capable of anything.…”

I agreed, but told her that Israel wasn’t exactly safe either. The Arabs would be perfectly happy to take over for the Germans, and we then argued about which one was more dangerous, who was inherently crueler than who, and how long it would all last before there would be another Holocaust and so on and so forth until we reassured ourselves once more that regardless of where and when, we were Jews, and we were chosen, and everybody hated us.

Then my motherin-law hugged me, kissed me, and wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, why am I crying.…?” She patted my cheeks gently and shook a finger in mock warning at Yankel. “You can always call me if he gives you problems; I’m still good at screaming.”

That night Yankel and I had our first argument: one week, seven avocado salads, and three garbage bags after the
chuppah,
Yankel insisted that
Chassidish
women did not have breasts.

I had hung up my bra on the bathroom rod to dry that afternoon, after I had washed it. Yankel had used the bathroom, but when he exited, he seemed upset. He had seen that “thing,” what was it called? It doesn’t matter. He had never seen a “thing” up close before. Wasn’t it the stuff
goyishe
women wore to make men look at them? Wasn’t it the stuff he had seen as a child in Tel Aviv, where he went once for a doctor’s appointment, and his mother pushed him fast close to her and told him to look down, so he shouldn’t see
shiksa
things—?

I disagreed with him. I told him that
Chassidish
women also had “that,” they just didn’t show it off—which was why he had never seen it before. But Yankel just stared at me suspiciously. He was worried, disturbed, and frustrated.

“It can’t be,” he said. “They” were
goyishe
and Jewish women were not allowed to have them.

We argued for a long time. He said that there was no way his mother or sisters had “that,” so I should stop talking nonsense. And I said “that” was something that Hashem gave for children to drink milk from. Yankel stared at me as if I were insane and said that there were cows for a reason, and a
Chassidish
woman would never let her child view such “things” and maybe just in America they had “that.” Things were a bit more modern here, and that in Israel, forget about it, if a woman had “that” she would never be able to make a
shidduch.
I argued that he would see in the wedding pictures, his mother’s fitted gown showed “that” clearly, and that he had no idea what he was talking about.

I hid my bra in my drawer immediately, but at supper—though my mother had sent over my favorite meal—we ate in dead silence.

After Yankel left for prayers, I stood in front of the mirror, staring intently at my chest. The sweater lifted a bit, two small points on a flat surface. In seventh grade I had cried when they had first grown, because I was only the third girl in my class to have them. My mother had dragged me to the store and said that Hashem gave everything for a reason. One day my babies would be nourished by this special gift, and I should just thank Hashem I didn’t have big ones like Shany. She had already grown to a B cup, and her mother ran around desperately trying to find the tightest underwire bra to make her chest look smaller. Surela had always been jealous of me because I had such small ones. Hers stuck out in every outfit she bought, so embarrassing. I thought of calling her immediately to ask her where one bought a bra that made them disappear all together.

But that night, after prayers, Yankel returned smiling sheepishly. He said that he had gone to
Reb
Ehrlich and asked him if it was all right for his wife to have “that” and the
rav
had confirmed that indeed it was okay.
Chassidish
women were allowed to have “that” too. I sighed in relief.

On Monday morning my father drove me to the
Yushive
elementary school for a job interview. After he dropped Yankel off at the
kollel
where he learned, he peered into the rearview mirror hesitantly and asked me how, well, you know, it was all going. Of course he didn’t mean to butt in, but he was still my father, and as he had said before my wedding, marriage could be difficult at times. And though of course it was a private thing, there were common difficulties and if I needed, I could talk to him. He could always give some useless advice.

I said, sure, yeah, it was fine, I guess. I mean, it could be worse, ha-ha. I suppose it was all too new, weird, and strange. We still needed time for a few
gezinta
arguments to warm up to married life. My father hastily changed the subject. He said that perhaps I would consider doing a degree now that I was married. He heard that there were girls doing a BA in special education in Sarah Sheneirer, the ultra-Orthodox, completely kosher,
Bais Yaakov
girls-only school. As my father pulled up in front of the school building, I said I would discuss it with my friend Pessy, a teacher in the school, who was getting married in two weeks and had studied in the program.

The interview with Mrs. Katz, the principal, went smoothly. I promised I could control a fourth-grade class anytime. She said she knew my mother since high school when they went to camp together. I said a salary of thirteen thousand dollars a year for a full-time job would be fine. She said she remembered my aunt from when they were still young and skinny, and that I would start teaching as soon as the regular teacher had a baby. After the meeting, I went to the teacher’s room, where I met my friends, who gave me a hearty
mazel tov
and said I looked so cute in the
shaitel
, and now suddenly that they were looking at me from
that
angle I looked just like my mother and my sister. Was I planning to finish seminary? It was a waste of time and you could get a job without it. It’s not as if you got paid one penny more with or without the seminary diploma—experience was all that mattered.

I discussed it that evening with my father, who said I should do it because an advance degree never hurt anyone. Surie said I should ask my mother because how would I make supper, be pregnant, teach, and study at the same time? And my mother said, what is your father talking about? Who needs a degree? It costs a fortune. You could make supper, be pregnant, teach, and take care of babies without it.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Two weeks after my wedding night I discovered I wasn’t pregnant. Then there were five days of blood, seven clean ones, and some ten nervous rechecks to see that I had followed the laws of family purity down to the last detail. Now I sat on a leather chair in the
mikvah
waiting room. I was ready, sort of, to immerse myself in the water of the
mikvah
—the ritual bath—to cleanse myself from all impurities, for only then could a Jewish woman receive her husband again.

The six-block walk from my apartment to the
mikvah
had been one of knee-jittering fear. I hurriedly ran the whole way, my face buried in a shawl. Every person I passed, knew, just knew, exactly where I was heading. My heart thumped and jumped as I prayed to Hashem that I wouldn’t meet my teachers, my cousins, or my mother in the
mikvah
, or I would drop dead of embarrassment right there on the granite floor and never have children to raise in the sacred way of Borough Park and its
Chassidim
. I entered the unmarked building, received a number, and sat huddled in the corner of the couch reading my Psalms near another fresh-faced bride.

It was finally my turn. The bathroom was pretty. There were pink tiles, a long mirror covering half the wall, and lush, white towels folded neatly on a shelf. There was a bell to ring for help; a container filled with scissors, clips, and Q-tips; and a package of disposable slippers.

I prepared myself. I filled the bath with hot water, scrubbed and rubbed every piece of skin until it shone red, and kept a relentless stream of prayers heading in the direction of heaven that He send me children, but before Chevi had them or I would have a heart attack.

After the obligated hour, I rang the bell. The
mikvah
lady arrived to check me. She checked my toes, rubbed my fingers, looked over my back to see if there was any
chatzitsa,
a scratch, a nail, or a hair that would block the space between the holy
mikvah
water and my skin.

I followed the
mikvah
lady down a long, narrow hallway past the other closed bathrooms into a small room. In the room was a narrow, deep pool with steps going down into the water. It was there I would immerse myself.

I removed my bathrobe. She held it high up so that it covered her eyes. I walked tentatively down the steps into the water and stood on my tiptoes in the deepest part. She then looked down over the railing and watched me submerge, in and out, in and out, in and out, six times—saying a prayer between the third and fourth submersion—
Blessed are you, Lord, our G-d, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us concerning immersion,
coming up each time to her voice echoing through the small room, “Kosher! Kosher! Kosher!” and I focused reverently on the cleansing of all sin, but most of all on getting my hair all the way under the water—for if as much as one blasphemous hair surfaced, if as much as one tip of one strand reached the surface, if only one split end detached itself from my scalp floating unsuspectingly up above the water unnoticed by the
mikvah
lady, then I would give birth to miserable children with spiritual defects, physical maladies, and mental disabilities, and it would be all my fault. What would I ever tell Yankel?

“Kooosher!”

I coughed up the water in my mouth. Too much chlorine. I looked up at the
mikvah
lady. She motioned to me. One more submersion, just one more—deep, deep into the water—every inch of disobedient hair, deep inside the holiest of holies.

I rubbed my eyes. I stumbled up the
mikvah
steps dripping wet, looking back frantically for wandering hairs. The
mikvah
lady helped me with my robe, shaking my hands, and smiling kindly. “
Tizsku Li’mitzvos
, may you merit more
mitzvos,
may you merit more
mitzvos.
”

Yankel was in the kitchen when I arrived home. A weak smile, an uncomfortable nod, and a blush as he turned back to the Talmud.

At 10:14 p.m. we entered the bedroom. I lay in the darkness, my nightgown up to my waist, and advised Hashem’s presence to leave the room. He could hover right outside in the kitchen, just not in here, around all this—it was outrageously immodest; there were things even Hashem shouldn’t see.

At 10:28 p.m. Yankel fell off my bed. He stood up quickly, mumbled something, and hurried to the bathroom. I heard the shower running and, relieved that it was over, fell into a deep sleep. I dreamed of Devory, could see her clearly staring at me in the shadows, when I suddenly felt him touch me. I did not know if I was awake or still dreaming, only that I was frozen and did not move as he came near me.