Jephte's Daughter (11 page)

Isaac awoke earlier than usual, too tense to sleep. He would be leaving the next day. He paced through the garden, oblivious to the gorgeous riot of late summer flowers, their almost stiflingly thick fragrance. He was in a panic, totally confused. It had all come so close to him and he had let it slip through his fingers. How? Why? he thought desperately. What have I done? It was not just the power, the wealth, he admitted to himself. It was the woman. He wanted her so badly, with all the force of his repressed love and lust and youthful imagination. How, after seeing her, being so close to her, could he ever go back to Meah Shearim and marry a dull girl with short, mousy hair and thick ankles? She had opened his eyes to women and now he would be lost forever. Just as the Ha-Levi home had opened his eyes to the pleasures of soft, comfortable chairs, obliging servants, and excellent food. It was not fair, he thought, to have shown him all this only to deny it to him! It was pure torture. A small hope still flickered inside him. She had not said no. Ha-Levi had firmly, if cryptically, assured him that he would have some additional time alone with Batsheva to—how had he phrased it?—“sort this thing out.” Or some such very American phrase.

He sat in the garden thinking of all this when he heard a sudden rustle and when he lifted his eyes, she stood there, shyly, holding a flowering branch in her hand. She lifted it to her nose to breathe in its sweet fragrance, covering her face so that only her eyes were visible, shy and searching, full of doubt and hope. And suddenly he saw with crystal clarity, as desperate men sometimes do under the terrible, abject fear of their need, what he must do.

“Batsheva,” he held his hand out to her, “please. Come sit by me.” He spoke in English, carefully measuring every word.

She walked toward him slowly, reluctantly. When she got near him, he reached out and lifted her chin so that their eyes met. He hid nothing from her. She saw the depth of his despair, the strength of his passion, his incredible longing and his unbearable fear. She saw it all, but perceived none of its tortured complexity, looking as she did through the filtering lens of youth, vanity, and inexperience. She had never looked into someone’s soul that way. She was appalled but at the same time excited. The intimacy of the act touched her quivering, sensitive, innocent soul the way nothing else could have.

Slowly, clumsily, he got down on one knee. She had to keep herself from laughing out loud, he looked so ridiculous. But also boyish and touching and very loving. He took both her hands in his—an act they both knew was totally forbidden. A man was not allowed to touch a woman until they were married. The daring unexpectedness of the act thrilled her, sending shivers up her spine. It made her see him as one of those desperate romantic lovers who must break all social taboos, being true to his passion only. A very Lawrentian lover.

“Is this how they do in America?” he said earnestly. She burst out laughing and lifted him to his feet, getting up with him. His face turned beet red, and he turned away, mortified, her laughter ringing in his ears.

She touched his shoulder gently. “Isaac. Please. I am not laughing at you. I am laughing because I am so happy.” He turned around to face her, full of apprehension.

“Yes, it is true,” she answered the question so clearly written on his face. “I have decided.” That was a lie. She had not decided anything. She had agreed merely to talk to him. But suddenly he had her in his arms, the first male arms that had ever held her hinting of the joys she knew were her birthright as a woman. And she knew it was too late to turn back, even if she had had the strength or the inclination to do so.

The extravagance with which the Ha-Levis prepared for the wedding of their only daughter was comparable in style, if not entirely in scope, with that of royalty. A famous designer was flown in from Paris to design the wedding gown and trousseau, and materials were ordered from all over the world—the finest silks and satins from China and England, the softest wools, the most warming flannels (for sheets and pillowcases in the icy Jerusalem winters). It was a grand shopping extravaganza. Even for Batsheva, used to the quick and easy flow of money that answered her every need, the sheer scale of purchases made to furnish her first home was overwhelming in a dreamlike way. She found herself surrounded with beautiful choices: which pattern of shimmering crystal? Which fragile, almost transparent china? Which exquisitely carved silver? She began to lose her doubts. It was so easy, was it not, to fill one’s life with happiness? All the choices were open to her, laid at her feet, awaiting her pleasure: the most elegant furniture and the latest appliances, works of art, bedding and wallpaper in delicate Laura Ashley patterns. And all the while, her father stood at her side, with a checkbook in his open, indulgent hand, and a pleased smile that never left his face. He let her choose, but guided each and every choice firmly with his quiet, almost offhand suggestions, so that she never even realized they were really his choices. Then it was all packed and shipped to Israel to furnish the expensive house he had purchased for the newlyweds. And it had all been done in an incredible three months from the moment she had left the garden with the memory of Isaac’s warm hands on her own.

Sometimes, amidst all the excitement, Batsheva found herself simply forgetting about Isaac, about the wedding, caught up in the sheer power and joy of being a bride-to-be. Never had she been consulted so carefully, been catered to so wonderfully. She had made the right decision then, she told herself. Yes. The freedom was beginning already. But every once in a while, she would feel, inexplicably, a cold shiver run down her spine. More often, she would wake up in a sweat, dreaming she was being kicked or that animals were biting at her flesh, their mouths attaching to her painfully, sucking her blood. She would try desperately to pull them off. But they would not come off. She would try to scream, but find that she couldn’t do that either. She was totally helpless.

But in the daytime, she was herself again, happy and full of plans, directing the servants to pack up crates and crates of her English books, her cameras and darkroom equipment. All her daytime dreams were bright, covered with a wondrous pink glow, like advertisements for engagement rings or photos taken at sunrise. Awake, she thought of her marriage as a wonderful, exciting adventure, but one that would take place in a safari park, where nothing really dangerous or unpleasant could actually happen.

In the large, lavishly furnished living room of the ostentatious home his father-in-law had acquired for him and his bride, Isaac Meyer Harshen walked silently, his hands clasped behind his back in the attitude of a pleased explorer, surveying the longed-for new world. In the background, he heard the vague click of pots and pans in the kitchen where his mother and sisters were examining the riches from America.

“This is a kitchen for a princess. One could cook for twenty children with such a big oven,” Mrs Harshen announced, pulling her head out of the large American appliance, adjusting her wig over her forehead. It was an old wig and looked almost like straw. It covered a head that had long ago been shaved to prevent stray hairs from escaping into the light of day. In case anyone should mistake the wig for hair, she wore a kerchief with ugly brown and blue flowers on top of it. Her heavy, shapeless legs were covered with thick, almost black stockings with seams, and her shoes were wide, dull orthopedic leathers made to order by a tradesman in Meah Shearim who had learned his trade in the Ukraine in 1924 and had found no reason to update his styles or his claim of being able to cure every ailment with his shoes. There was nothing on Mrs Harshen that was not practical and functional; even her earrings were merely small gold dots to keep the holes open. No trace of adornment for so frivolous a reason as beauty could be found anywhere on her stern, uncompromising person. “A young bride with such a kitchen,” she scoffed. “Does she know how to clean a chicken, to bone the carp for gefilte fish?” She looked at the new refrigerator greedily. Such a big American one. Her son deserved only the best. But this girl, a spoiled American, would she be able to keep it clean, full of decent, kosher food? “They buy everything canned there, I hear,” she told him. “Even the kugels come frozen. And what is this?” She opened up all the cupboards and fingered the shiny stainless-steel pots, the pretty porcelain serving dishes, with envy. One especially. She held it up to the light, her stubby, practical fingers tightening around it with avarice, even as her eyes surveyed it with contempt. A fragile, translucent white bowl trimmed in tiny, hand-painted blue flowers.

Leah Harshen, seventh-generation born in Jerusalem, was a product of generations of men and women who had learned to live on the edge of poverty with dignity and resourcefulness. They had learned how to cut a chicken into fourteen portions that could serve a family of twelve children for Sabbath dinner; learned how to mend and let out a pair of sturdy pants so that it might serve four growing boys in succession; learned how to bargain to fill the house with quantities of fruits and vegetables just at the edge of rotting to make up the sparse menu. There had been no money in the Harshen family now for generations, save for that which brides and grooms and fathers-in-law could contribute. The Harshen men all went early to the study halls to begin a life of scholarship; they did not learn professions, expecting to be supported in their quest for knowledge by their yeshivoth, their wives, their fathers-in-law, and eventually their students’ families. They were never supported in more than a subsistence existence, since most brides and grooms worthy of marrying into the Harshen family came from large families in which many sons and sons-in-law had chosen a similar path to holiness, and thus the only people employed, usually the mothers and sisters, or a father who headed a rabbinical academy or taught there, had to spread whatever money there was among the many. That, and a small stipend from the yeshivah that came from charity from abroad and, occasionally, a rich relative from America, made up the difference.

In Israel it is very unpleasant to rent an apartment. There is no rental housing as such, and apartments are usually the private residence or the house-bought-for-the-children of a very particular landlord who at the end of each lease may ask the tenant to move. He may want higher rent, or may need to turn it over to a child who is marrying. And since mortgage terms are almost impossible to meet, in order to own an apartment one must be able to come up with almost the entire sum in cash—the equivalent of forty thousand dollars for a small one-bedroom place in a walkup to five hundred thousand for a luxurious villa such as Isaac Harshen and his family now surveyed. The Harshens themselves lived in a tiny two-bedroom house with a back porch covered with corrugated tin that served as a bedroom. At night, the entire house became one large sleeping area with mattresses unrolled in the living, dining, and even kitchen areas for the parents, unmarried sons and daughters, and any guests.

Thus, face-to-face with wealth for the first time in their history, the Harshens had two immediate reactions: an appreciation bordering on stupefaction that such riches were in their grasp, and, more subtly, a contemptuous disdain for those whose spiritual level allowed them to waste time and effort on the worldly pursuit of such extravagances.

Leah thought of the future daughter-in-law she had never met. That spoiled child. Her poor son would have his hands full, teaching this American girl what it meant to be the wife of a
talmid chacham
in Jerusalem, the holy city. They said she was a
frum
girl, a pious girl, but what did they know of piety in America? She had seen the American religious girls on their trips to Israel, traipsing through Meah Shearim in thin dresses that clung to them, outlining their legs. Dresses in bright colors that called indecent attention to them, like
prutzas
. With stockings the same color as their legs and no seams so you couldn’t even tell if their legs were naked or not, and shoes so open you saw the cleavage between their toes.

She walked through the living room and opened the French doors to the terrace. From there the whole city lay before one, sparkling white stone that had an other-earthly look. The sun was just setting, casting a pink glow on the white stones that, by law, all buildings in Jerusalem new and old shared, giving the city a continuity and purity. Nestled in the hills, the whole city seemed to rise toward heaven, buoyed by the clouds themselves.

“This would be a good place to hang the laundry,” she told her Isaac.

He looked at his mother as if seeing her for the first time. Fat, ignorant woman. “We have an electric machine that dries the clothes.” His tone was barely respectful and she looked at him carefully, but did not say anything. Something strange was happening to Isaac Meyer Harshen. A slow and subtle transformation of soul that even he was not fully aware of and would not be until it was far too late. Had his fate decreed differently and he had taken as bride a plain, simple, and pious girl brought up like his sisters, whose straight and narrow mind never wandered, and who would have brought with her into the marriage the same austerity and near-poverty he was accustomed to, he would have no doubt continued his upward striving in the houses of study without distraction and led a satisfied pious life, enjoying what he could of the severely rationed material things of the world that would come his way. But like a beautiful piano of fine polished wood, if one moves it from a dry, hot climate into the full, moist air of the seashore, it will retain its beauty, learning to live with its new environment. But try to bring that instrument back to its dryness, and rot will immediately set in. And so it was with Isaac. He fingered the thick, down-filled velvet pillows of his couch, running his hands over the cream-colored material, enjoying its luxurious softness. He sat down and leaned back, closing his eyes, remembering the house in California with its silver gates and liveried servants. Although he should have been hurrying back to the house of study, he could not bring himself to move. He was trapped by the comfort, the luxury. If one believed in such things, one might say that Isaac Harshen’s Evil Inclination had his hands full on his shoulders, pressing him down with all its might.

There she was, as in a dream. A queen sitting on a throne surrounded by her court. He was walking toward her, the bridegroom she barely remembered. Behind him thousands of Hassidim, a sea of black and white, frothed toward them, creating a roar of sound. He walked solemnly, his eyes barely open, reciting psalms. He was frightened, no longer himself. He felt God peering into his soul and he was ashamed. He closed his eyes tighter and trembled for all the sins he had committed since his youth. On either side his arms linked with his father and father-in-law. They, too, were serious, walking toward the bride. She was a vision like no other so that even the most pious men could not but stare at her. The dress glittered in a soft glow of light as moonbeams bounced off the tiny pearls embedded in the precious duchess silk satin.

The bride, calm, feeling herself a kind of performer, wished to please everyone and did not think of the man advancing toward her, because if she did she might tremble. She might cry out, bringing up a primal scream of fear. She tried not to think of his thick dark hair and the firm skull, precious, underneath. Of his long, gentle fingers. She tried to remember she did not know him. And her mind did not conceive at all the serious bond she was about to create. She was young and had always been able to get what she wanted of indulgent parents and outwitted teachers. She was sure of her beauty as a magic tool that would open up that which was closed to her, turning all noes to yeses. The bride, barely eighteen, looked up at the groom, who was now not to be ignored, standing before her intimately in front of thousands of the faithful. Their eyes glimpsed each other’s souls for a moment, then retreated, afraid. He brought the veil down over her face. The procession continued under the vast, eternal sky of Jerusalem, holy city, the angels rejoicing and weeping at the ability of human beings to make their own choices, even if they defy God’s.

Her mother and mother-in-law led her, lighting her way with candles. Her mother’s step was cautious, hesitant, her mother-in-law’s heavy and determined—she stepped on the bride’s white train and left the imprint of her sensible shoe. They delivered her to the men, standing beneath the wedding canopy. She took small careful steps, circling the bridegroom seven times. Seven blessings were read out and the cold rim of a silver goblet filled with wine was pressed against her dry, nervous lips. She sipped, tasting nothing, and the wine traveled down her throat with a burning, irrevocable clarity. It was done! The crowd erupted in an avalanche of stamping feet. The voices of joy, of thanksgiving, sang out, filling the vast empty space, bouncing off the ancient white stones. “Still will be heard the voice of the bride, the voice of the bridegroom in the hills of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem.” “Still the flame glows, my Father yet lives.”

How many had been the destroyers in this place, Abraham Ha-Levi thought. Yet the Jews survived, they came back to Jerusalem to fill the city with the sound of weddings, of continuation. The father looked up to heaven and felt in that dark interminable space a presence that filled him with forgiveness. He could forgive himself now, for not being a true Ha-Levi, because he had done his role, like a true servant of God. He had fulfilled his mission by bringing his daughter to this place to marry this man. He could forgive God for standing by silently, for withdrawing His protective wing from his father and brothers in the flames of the burning synagogue, from his mother before the gas chambers of Auschwitz, from his dead son. God had allowed this marriage to take place, had given him a daughter and now a new son. In his deepest soul, he whispered: Hallelujah.