I Am Forbidden (17 page)

Eight children?

, enayim, summed to 740, which summed to
7 + 4 + 0 = 11
1 + 1 = 2.

Two children? If she opened her eyes and saw what the Lord wanted her to see, she might have two children? Two was not as many as the other women in Williamsburg, yet how grateful she would be.

But perhaps she should sum bepetach Enayim? Or, better,
petach
only since
be
was a mere preposition? Petach summed to 488
4 + 8 + 8 = 20
2.

If she sat near the Gate to Enayim, she would have two children? No, they would remain two, the two of them, alone.…

In the long hours in the empty apartment, amidst her count of blood and clean days, Mila summed and summed again. Sometimes the letters added to 8, 4, 2.…

• • •

Mila’s reading had turned into a desperate burrowing, the verses in Genesis no longer Scripture and Law, but a story, the story she needed to survive—her story. By day, she bore into the words to bring her womb to life; by night, she held on to Tamar’s hand so that even in sleep she would not let go of it.

T
HE TENTH YEAR
of their marriage, Mila and Josef returned to Paris for Passover with the Sterns. During the flight, Mila gazed at the magazines the stewardess handed out: pictures of Martin Luther King shot dead, of a war in Vietnam, pictures of riots in Paris, women going out into the street, taking matters into their hands … like Tamar.

Enayim
2. Petach
2
.

And Paris?

(Paris)
298
2 + 9 + 8 = 19
1 + 9 = 10
1 + 0 = 1.