Jephte's Daughter (3 page)

Some of her earliest and happiest memories involved Sabbath afternoons. Sitting in her father’s lap, the back of her head pressed into his shoulder, she never tired of listening to his patient retelling of the stories of the Torah, which were as beloved and familiar to her, as firmly entrenched in the life of her imagination, as Cinderella, Snow White, and the Three Pigs were for other children. Rachel and Leah, Sarah and Abraham, were as close and real to her as her parents, her friends.

Her favorite story was
Akedat Yitzchak
, the near-sacrifice of Isaac. The shivers would run down her spine imagining kind old Abraham, who had waited so long for a child, holding his cherished son’s hand and leading him away to be sacrificed because God had asked him to. She imagined the old man’s terrible sadness and fear and yet his brave steps forward. She imagined the boy’s trusting eyes fixed upon his father, his faith never wavering even as he laid himself flat upon the rock and waited. And because she knew it would all end well because God was good and hated cruelty of any kind, and that father and child would get all the credit without actually sacrificing anything, the story always made her happy.

She loved those instances in the Bible where people took flying leaps of faith headlong into the fearsome unknown and God was always there, like a good father, His arms outstretched to catch them: the children of Israel plunging headfirst into the swollen waters of the Red Sea; Daniel in the lion’s den; Moses defying Pharaoh. Not only did they all come through unscathed, but they were also showered with rewards. All you had to do was believe.

And as she listened to her father, trusting implicitly in every word he said with every ounce of her mind and heart, she sometimes forgot that these were God’s words and not her father’s, imagining that he and God were one, teaching her how to be wise and good, directing her steps and keeping her from all harm.

Most of all, she loved the Sabbath day because as long as she could remember, it had been her day with her father. No matter what he did all week or how much work was left still to be done, by Friday at sundown he put it all behind him, crossing some invisible border from one world into another. In the Sabbath world, there was no such thing as bank overdrafts, unsatisfied customers, lazy workmen, unscrupulous subcontractors. The phone would ring unheeded. He never, under any circumstances, spoke a harsh or saddening word on the Sabbath. For a man who hardly had time to talk to his family during the week, he suddenly had all the time in the world, and he gave it generously to her and her mother.

The Sabbath was a rare day of freedom for her mother, too. In those days of her early childhood, before the wealth had come, bringing with it a house full of servants, she had seen only her mother’s back most of the time: leaning over the stove or sink, bent low to make the beds and wash the floors. But on the Sabbath her mother was even forced to leave the dishes unwashed until after sundown.

Her mother took on a special beauty as she sat wearing her girlish print dresses and little hats in the synagogue. She loved the special timbre of her mother’s voice as she joined her father in singing Shabbat
zemirot
, and the way her skin glowed in the light of the Sabbath candles. She loved to watch the way her mother’s eyes lit up when her father said the
kiddush
over wine and how her lips trembled as she sipped the sweet liquid from the silver cup he held for her. It was only then she saw clearly the beautiful, hidden current that flowed so strongly between her parents. It was like static electricity erupting into visible golden sparks on a cold winter’s night. Those moments, and when she saw her father reach over and gently squeeze her mother’s hand, were the only times that she thought of her mother as a person with a separate existence, rather than an appendage to her and her father, simply “Ima.”

It was difficult not to take her mother for granted. She was always there, hovering at their elbows at mealtime lest they not take enough to eat or take too much and injure their health. She carefully doled out the portions, making sure he and Batsheva got the most succulent slices of roast beef, the tenderest morsels of chicken. And only when her father decisively put down his fork and knife and announced: “I’m not eating another bite until you sit down,” did her mother finally take her place by the table, taking whatever was least desirable and leaving the rest for them as second helpings. Batsheva, looking at her father, very early adopted his attitude of helpless exasperation with her mother’s rather silly self-sacrifice. It was only many years later that she understood it for what it was: the misdirected outpouring of a simple heart overflowing with boundless love.

Mrs Fruma Ha-Levi had been the baby of the family, the youngest of a second marriage. Her mother, like the woman who had mothered her older half-sister, had died young, weakened by inhaling steaming pots of boiling laundry and beating endless city dust from rose-patterned pillows, finally killed by the poisons in the rank tenement air.

One of Fruma’s earliest memories was that of her sister looking down at her with contempt, finding new specks of dust where she had been entrusted with polishing, streaks of moisture on plates given her to dry. It had taken years for her to see her sister honestly; not as a bully but a frightened girl just a few years older than herself, with a household and small child thrust into her young, unready hands. Her sister had hardened simply to keep from dissolving. It had taken great courage.

But time somehow hadn’t made her any kinder to herself. She remained convinced she was hopelessly incompetent, impossibly deficient. Sometimes she would admit grudgingly that she had always been a good student. Her teachers, especially the kind old rabbis who had taught her to read Hebrew and say the daily prayers, had praised her for learning so quickly. In rare moments of insight, she was even willing to admit that it was not lack of intelligence but rather lack of confidence, a timidity, that made her seem and feel simple, even stupid. She lived in constant dread that her husband and child would see her with her sister’s eyes.

As a young girl she had dreamt few dreams, made few plans. Only once she had envisioned herself walking through the desert in a beautiful flowing gown like the queen of Sheba, gaining comfort from the dream’s impracticality. It was so far removed from reality it gave her nothing to strive for, to fail at. Her father, a butcher, had been a grim and humorless man who had taken out his frustrations over losing two wives and being left with only daughters by hacking away at meat with unnecessary vigor. She had never been pious enough for him. Never obedient enough. Never clever enough. His eyes registered a chronic disappointment when they looked at her, saying: “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”

And so the first time she had looked up over the bloodstained counter in the butcher shop and her eyes had met those of Abraham Ha-Levi, she had felt herself the poor girl in a fairy tale face-to-face with the handsome prince who embodied her only hope. And even though he had courted her and married her—with no ulterior motive she could ever see—still, the feeling had remained that his attraction and love was undeserved good fortune capable of vanishing any moment in a puff of smoke.

Her husband was in many ways like a wonderful father. He never criticized, but always smoothed things over, accepting her shortcomings, never pushing her beyond herself. In the early days of their marriage, the house had been a shambles, the result of having promised herself, never again, as long as she lived, to dust, polish, or dry a thing when out from under her sister’s thumb. And he had accepted the chaos, as he had accepted her cooking, night after night of over-cooked, if not downright burnt, meatballs and dry stew. After a hard day’s work, he had patiently dusted off the shelves, washed the morning and afternoon dishes, done the laundry, until finally his love had broken her down, the way her father’s and sister’s criticism never could.

She had taken up her dustcloth, her mop and broom the way an artist takes up his paints and brushes, in joy and determination. She had bought every cookbook, studying them as if for a degree, practicing endlessly to perfect the most savory kugels, the lightest cakes, the most succulent gefilte fish. Her reward had been his few words of praise and the knowledge that she, for all her shortcomings, was able to take care of him and make his life easier. She never dreamt of being an equal partner to him—he was beyond her from the first, a brilliant, handsome man who had impossibly fallen in love with her. Whatever position she held in his life, as long as it enabled her to be near him, to care for him, was good enough.

When Batsheva was born, after the years of heartbreaking childlessness, she looked at her from the first as a tiny version of the man she loved, a being superior to her in every way. She left discipline and instruction completely in his hands. And when her husband and her daughter disagreed, she stepped back and watched in helplessness and wonder, the way a simple jury member might contemplate the clash of two brilliant and learned lawyers.

Because of this attitude, Fruma Ha-Levi exasperated her daughter in other ways as well. For example, for as long as Batsheva could remember, there had been Sunday-afternoon outings that her mother consistently refused to join. “You two go,” her mother would urge, making a little shooing motion with her hands. “What do I understand about such things? Go, go. Enjoy yourselves.”

Thus, while her friends spent their Sundays with their parents at the Bronx Zoo or Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, she and her father would explore the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and Whitney, as well as fine little uptown and SoHo galleries.

At first, Batsheva had held on to her mother’s hand and tugged her, but later she came to accept her refusal as inevitable and even desirable. She had her father all to herself for a few precious hours. With him as her guide, she explored a whole world her friends knew and cared nothing about. He did not lecture her, but she learned from his silent pauses and lingering attention, his expressions of skepticism or total admiration, how to appreciate the finest in art, sculpture, and photography; what was really a masterpiece and what was merely novel and pretentious. She learned to follow his footsteps carefully.

Her friends were sensible, practical girls who admired tangible things. To them, a fine mohair sweater or a pair of calfskin gloves were beautiful. Even a pretty oil painting might capture their imagination as they envisioned it over the couch, matching the rug.

By the age of nine, Batsheva already perceived the unbridgeable gap between herself and almost everyone she knew. For all her senses were constantly honed and the world around her was a completely different place from the one her friends saw. They would never even notice the light hitting an old door, dissecting it into a symmetry of shapes, which brought the sting of wondrous tears to her eyes.

And the more she learned to admire the skilled hand, the wise eye of the artists and photographers she loved, the more she began to perceive the world as a giant canvas and God as the greatest artist of all. So that later, when she finally learned about Darwin, the idea was as absurd and incomprehensible to her as the suggestion that the Mona Lisa had come about because a few cans of paint had accidentally tipped over and dripped their colors onto a chance canvas.

And with every beautiful thing she saw for the first time, her love for Him grew—filling her with an ache of gratitude for simply being alive and bearing witness. It was a love that had nothing to do with pleasing parents and teachers, that owed nothing to periodic school brainwashings and rabbis’ speeches. It was secret and independent, and it informed the core of her being.

Often she longed for a sister or a brother who would understand. Or at least a cousin. But as an only child of a mother and father whose relatives were all dead, she had no one but her parents. And really, not even both of them since only her father understood her completely. Her mother, in giving her love and approval so unconditionally, had relinquished her role as teacher. In many ways, she was her father’s “creation,” the product of his instruction. However, her mother’s love gave her enormous confidence and independence. There was simply nothing she could ever do to lose it. She sensed early that this was not the case with her father.

She perceived, however, in the growing gap between her and her friends, that her father had actually given her the dispensation to go her own way. Once, perversely, she had written a composition describing the beauty of an altarpiece she had seen at the Metropolitan. Not surprisingly, a shocked Rebbitzen Finegold had ripped it to shreds: “Anything used for idol worship cannot be beautiful,” the woman had said severely. When Batsheva related the story to her father, she forced a few tears but not enough to blur her seeing quite clearly—and with triumphant satisfaction—his dismissive wave of the hand, as if dealing with an insect too insignificant to squash. By age ten, tired of battling, he had switched her to a different elementary school: “One where they will teach you more than Bible stories and how to make challah dough,” he told her dryly.

There she met an American-born crowd of American-born parents who felt traditional religious girls’ schools were too heavy on morality, self-sacrifice, and modesty and too light on social studies, English, and math. They were parents who expected their daughters to learn trigonometry and pass the Regents; parents who longed for sons who would be Talmud scholars and doctors, and daughters who would go to Brooklyn College and become rabbis’ wives and teachers in the public school system. The teachers were Israelis who spoke crisp modern Hebrew, saying “To-rah,” not “Toy-reh” “
galut
,” not “
gah-lus
,” in sharp distinction to the Old World, European rabbi-teachers of the school she had left.

And although she felt a palpable lessening of pressure to dress, behave, and think in certain limited ways, she still felt left out. She began to resent her father’s silent insistence that she was different and begged to be taken to amusement parks and playgrounds, insisting that her mother come along as well. But then, after tramping around in the grass, a few stomach-turning hurtles down the roller-coaster, she became bored and listless and eager to return to the old pattern of her Sundays, finally accepting the irrevocable fact that, like Eve in the garden of Eden, her eyes had been opened and there was no turning back.