Jerusalem Maiden (17 page)

A horde of toddlers with running noses and beset by flies played in front of the house. Esther called out Ruthi's name, but when she received no answer she climbed the narrow stone staircase. She passed a woman using the top landing as her kitchen yard and wound her way around cots to a door. At her knock, Ruthi's head peeked out. With sunken eyes, she beckoned Esther in.

Esther stifled a gasp. Ruthi's ankle-length nightgown had stains all over its front. Her skin was pasty and her cheeks hollow. A bluish splotch colored her forehead. Her shaved hair had grown four centimeters and was coming in light brown, not the pretty sun-streaked honey color of her maiden days.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Ruthi burst into tears. “Did you see him? Did you?”

Esther looked around, confused. “Who?”

“Yossel! That's who. You saw him at the wedding, right? How I hate him! He's Satan! Hashem help me—”

Esther put her gift of a tiny pear on a table littered with dirty dishes. The room reeked of Ruthi's body odor and rotting food. The bed was unmade, and the water in the bowl on the commode was grimy.

“They tell you nothing. It's horrible!” Ruthi thumped her chest so loudly it echoed like an empty drum. “What did I do to be punished so? Why do I have to bear this drooling beast? God, I hate You! I hate what You've done to me!”

“Shhhhhh. You've just spoken the forbidden name.” Silently Esther told Him, “Forgive her, Hashem, she doesn't know what she's saying.” She tried to put her arm around Ruthi's shoulders, but her friend shrugged her away.

“Do you know what he's allowed to do in Hashem's name?” Ruthi demanded.

Esther shook her head, fear rising in her stomach.

“Men pinch. Hard.” Crying, Ruthi lifted the sleeve of her gown. Yellow, green and violet bruises ran up the arm. “See? This is what the
yi'chud
is! Why would Hashem want that of me?” Ruthi's fist beat on her chest. “My punishment, my atonement, my penalty—”

Esther grabbed her arm to stop the pounding, but Ruthi's other fist took over. “You've committed nothing that needs atonement—” Esther began, but stopped at the sight of more bruises on Ruthi's neck.

“He grabs and twists.” The knuckles of Ruthi's two fingers made a twisting motion. “How can I go on like this? How? You tell me!”

“Tell the
rebbetzin
you want a divorce,” Esther said, thinking of the rabbi's wife who counseled women in crisis.

“On what ground? That doing the mitzvah hurts? He provides me with the Halacha's three requirements: food, shelter and coitus. Shall I ask for a divorce because I pray on my knees to be spared the coitus?”

Esther hid her shock about Ruthi's explicit uttering of the immodest word. Whatever it was, clearly the
yi'chud
was more painful and repulsive than she had imagined. But she was also certain that Aba didn't pinch Shulamit, or hurt her in any way. “Bruising you is not a mitzvah,” Esther said, racking her brains to remember other brides who so suffered.

“Why do you think a husband is called
ba'al
, owner? An owner is allowed to do whatever he pleases. Yossel says it's in the Talmud.”

“A
ba'al
is supposed to love and respect his wife, not beat her. He's supposed to praise her as in Friday's Woman of Valor.” Esther's tone softened. “Let's go directly to the rabbi. Now.”

“He knows,” Ruthi cried. “He told me to be a more obedient wife to his
eeluy
.”

Tears gathered behind Esther's eyes. “Let's have you take a cleansing bath at the
mikveh
.”

“So I'll be pure for him?” Ruthi stomped her foot. “No!”

The hair on Esther's arms stood up. With her filth, Ruthi was extending her
nidah
days so Yossel wouldn't touch her. “I'm going to your mother,” Esther said, starting for the door.

“Ha!” Ruthi's snickering stopped her. “She already said I couldn't come back home.”

That's what would happen to her, too, if she hated her groom, Esther thought. Her family wouldn't take her back. “You must wash up. You stink.” Esther lifted a can off the floor, closed the door behind her on Ruthi's protests, and went to fetch whatever water remained in the communal well.

How bad was Aba's
shiddach
for her? He had spent no time on this search, and given her wild reputation and lack of dowry and his eagerness to make room in the house, this orphan might also be either lame or a fool—or someone who'd pinch and hurt her.

She stayed at Ruthi's throughout the afternoon, cleaning, scrubbing and washing clothes. With no food in the cabinet, they ate the pear, and Esther fried stale bread for both of them and mashed garlic on top. “My Aba says that a Jewish woman makes something out of nothing,” she said about the meal, wondering how Ruthi could make something out of her awful lot.

The daylight gathered quickly as if a cape had been thrown over it. With the somber purple descending upon the mountains, Ruthi's crying and chest thumping resumed in dread of Yossel's return from his yeshiva.

“Come home with me. Share tea with us and stay the night,” Esther said.

“You go,” Ruthi said. “I'll eat my horseradish of a life.”

From the window, Esther saw the Turkish soldiers circling the wall of the Old City, their swords clattering and their guns clicking at the ready. She would have to cross empty fields at dusk. Feeling powerless and bewildered, she hugged Ruthi and bade her good-bye. As she walked downstairs, disappointment made her stomach heave. Wiping the cold sweat off her brow, she broke into a run.

Although Ruthi must have heard about the Kaminskys' misfortune, she had not inquired about news of Naftali. And Esther hadn't discussed her plans for their employment.

H
er groom insisted on meeting her! Esther sent God words of thanks. This was her chance to make Nathan Bloomenthal, who must be checking the accuracy of the tales about her insanity, withdraw his proposal. But she must do it without reinforcing the rumors—and without embarrassing the tortured Aba.

How could she make the groom rescind his proposal? Esther sniffed her armpits. They smelled acrid. She wished that alone would send the groom away, except that all Jerusalemites suffered from the same shortage of clean water.

She added a few drops of precious drinking water from the earthenware jar to the bowl of barley flour. She would prepare a display of foods so Aba wouldn't be ashamed of their naked poverty. Not only was Aba unsuccessful in collecting loans made, but he now spent whatever money he had bribing any Turkish official who might have possible influence upon Naftali's return. Esther would show Aba that she was the kind of Jewish woman he admired—one who made something out of nothing. Perhaps for a few short moments he would be proud of her. Perhaps for a few short moments his torment over Naftali's fate would be eased.

The tin canisters on the shelf were empty. How were they expected to feed a guest when their meals consisted of olives, herring and an occasional wedge of yellow cheese? Shulamit cooked soups from whatever lentils they could buy and herbs collected on the hills. Friday, Aba had brought home a fish from the Jordan River, and Shulamit had stuffed it with matzo crumbs, chopped onion, and the one egg the hen she had raised laid before it froze to death.

With quick movements, Esther kneaded the dough. She would top each pastry ball with an almond. Without oil and wheat flour, she couldn't match the feast Ima must have once dreamed of for welcoming a groom, but Aba had brought home sugar cane, and Esther now boiled it with stunted figs, lemons and apples harvested in a garden of one of Aba's customers who had fled the stricken Jerusalem. She arranged a plate of raisins and dates around a fresh pomegranate, the fruit of fertility, whose 613 grains represented each of God's decrees.

After inserting the baking pans in the oven, she tilted the heavy top of the zinc table until the dirty water swept over the upturned sides into a pail. She carried it out to water Shulamit's sorry attempt at a vegetable garden. Aba had vetoed the idea of raising a goat for its milk; he wouldn't have an animal passing the winter nights in the house, as
falachs
did.

“Next thing I know you'd get a cow,” he had told Shulamit, and she had laughed. Her cheer mellowed her arguing with him, so unlike Ima's strictness. Shulamit's adoration of Aba was tender, visible in the care with which she dusted his desk or brushed his black hat.

Esther walked to the lone cypress in the communal yard and broke a couple of twigs to decorate her platter—not to delight the groom, but Aba, she reminded herself. She was a trapped animal, soon to end up like Ruthi just to please Aba.

And then she knew what to do about making the groom change his mind.

S
he waited for Asher at the corner of The Latins' Street, right inside Jaffa Gate by the niche where an ancient well had once quenched the thirst of weary travelers. A torn newspaper tumbled about, bouncing in the wind. Upon seeing her, Asher signaled for Esther to turn left onto the cobblestone alley. He hurried a few steps behind her, his breathing labored.

“I'm sorry about your brother,” he said at last. “It's awful.”

Tears sprouted in her eyes. What suffering were his captors inflicting upon Naftali right now? Where, in the vast Ottoman empire, was he?

The short alley ended at a set of double wooden doors large enough to allow in a troop of horses. She stopped and tightened Ima's shawl against the cold, fighting her trepidations. A Jerusalem maiden didn't enter a church. If word got out, the groom would surely withdraw his offer. She would just step in, stay no more than a moment and then leave, her virgin mind forever corrupted.

A regular-size door had been cut into the gate, and Asher pressed on the handle and walked in. Esther glanced down the alley, hoping and dreading being caught. Only God, from whom nothing was hidden, was witnessing her.

The scent of wax and incense greeted her in the dark. It wasn't the familiar heady smell of the synagogue, tangy and steeped with dusty old books and mildew, but something sharper, lighter.

“This is the church of the Latin Patriarchate.” Asher spoke in Yiddish as if not to desecrate Hebrew in this place. “Come, hear me play the organ.” He pushed aside a velvet curtain, and Esther's breath caught in her chest as the vast space opened up around her. The ceiling was as high as the sky.

Her eyes raised, she took a tentative step forward, then another. All around the top perimeter of the church, stained-glass windows were illuminated by the wan midday light. The purity of the colors pouring through the glass was unlike anything she had ever seen, dazzling against the frescoes on the ceiling and high into the dome, featuring angels and prophets floating among clouds against the blue wash of the sky.

Dozens of chandeliers made of suspended metal circles, like horizontal cartwheels, were fixed with canisters whose many ornate holes would allow light to pour on the long center aisle. But they were unlit. Instead, along the pillars on both sides, torches cast circles of light, shrouding everything behind them in shadow.

As if this place was his, Asher walked down between the rows of pews.

Esther was aghast at his boldness. “May we walk here? May I?” she whispered. “Is this the men's section?”

“There are no separate men's and women's sections here. Anyway, anyone—Jew, Muslim or Hindu—is allowed here at any time. It's open day and night.”

Men and women praying together? In the synagogue people were so crowded their shoulders and thighs pressed. She couldn't imagine how here a man could battle the temptation of an errant curl escaping a married woman's kerchief, or a virgin's voice right next to his ear, its sweetness distracting him from fully worshipping God.

She walked behind Asher, her eyes drinking in the carved arches, the vaulted ceiling, the gilded railing of the gallery. Every square centimeter had been treated with a mason's chisel, a carver's knife or a painter's brush. Her head filled with awe at the thought of the artisans who had once toiled here.

When she brought down her gaze, she stopped short.

In front of her loomed a sculpture larger than life, with a golden halo painted on the wall behind it. It was clearly a pagan idol: a grown man, naked but for a loincloth. He was hung on a cross, his nailed limbs limp, his head lolling.

Crimson flushed her ears. She averted her eyes. This was worse than the naked torsos she had glimpsed in Mlle Thibaux's art books.

“This is Jesus,” Asher said.

“May his name be erased,” Esther mumbled the curse. “Is he just a sculpture? That's all he is, an idol?” She dared look up again and noticed the polished grainy wood with painted yellow hair, blue loincloth and red blood—the primary colors of the rainbow. In front of the idol dozens of candles burned, and the wax smelled fruity. She hadn't imagined that Christians were merely pagans who worshipped what was no more than a version of the Golden Calf. “Isn't their Hashem the same as ours? He can't have an image. He can't be seen in the flesh.”

“Jesus is their Son of Hashem,” Asher explained. “Not Hashem Himself. They believe in one god, but then they have Jesus and Mary and a flock of saints that also possess divinity.”

“That's what makes them
goyim
. That's why they aren't the Chosen,” Esther said. The assertion helped restore order to her mental chaos. In the pictures in Mlle Thibaux's art books, Jesus had been clothed in rags and had lain in his mother's arms. He hadn't been hung up to dry like a bleeding gourd. “He's blond. A Crusader's
mamzer
.” She stifled a giggle at the disrespect his believers had shown him; it was well known that some Arab children exhibited the shame of being the illegitimate offspring of past European conquerors. But the look of suffering on the sculpture's face seemed genuine, as were the skin and matted facial hair.

Asher shrugged and picked up a torch from its cradle on the wall. “A church is built in the shape of a cross. This is called a ‘nave.' ” He pointed to a gallery. “I'll play up there—”

“I can't stay.” Esther turned to leave. Now that she'd visited this house of pagan worship and heard Asher's explanation—no doubt imparted to him by his monk friend—a new mark of Cain must be imprinted on her forehead.

“Please.” As Asher turned left behind the pillars, his torch illuminated the back wall. Esther gasped.

The wall was covered with a gigantic painting in ochre colors. She grabbed another torch and moved closer. Her eyes were level with a prophet's bare toes in desert-dusty sandals. His staff was a dead tree branch that had miraculously sprouted twin leaves. At his feet crouched a maiden with a black braid, just like hers, begging for compassion. The composition of high and low figures and the red of the girl's dress contrasting the cream of the prophet's robe created a perfect balance.

There were more paintings just past this one. How was it possible that this glorious art in the style of the Old Masters had hidden merely ten minutes away from her home? Mlle Thibaux had never mentioned that such works existed right here, in a Jerusalem church—further proof that, unlike Asher's Christian friend, Mlle Thibaux hadn't tried to steal Esther's soul.

“It must be a sin to feast the eyes like this,” Esther mumbled. The Tenth Commandment decreed not to covet, but she was coveting: to be allowed to explore this play of hues and shadows, to preserve exactly the colors and shapes He had created on huge canvases like this one. She coveted her own childhood, when she had believed that God granted her His approval.

She walked on, her eyes feasting on a painting populated by characters and scenes she couldn't place in a biblical story. They were from the New Testament, she realized with a shock. She gazed at them. Did the Talmud or the Halacha forbid looking? Only if it risked the chance of rousing the urge. And it surely did. A long time ago, Aba had warned her not to let the urge enter her house as a guest lest it become her master. That squatter-master now reared its audacious head.

Suddenly music erupted, then bounced off the walls as succeeding notes cascaded and tumbled all around her, rich, smooth and fluid as fresh cream. The walls and ceiling moved farther away, exposing a new dimension of beauty. Esther hooked the torch on a free pillar cradle and, her arms stretched out from her sides, pivoted toward the center aisle, her ears searching for the source of the passionate music.

To the left of Jesus and his cross, a door opened to a stairwell. The wood on the ascending railing was polished and smooth and smelled lemony as she climbed the stairs, the music propelling her forward. A landing led her to a dimly lit area.

In a balcony, not quite standing or sitting, Asher bent toward rows of keyboards and vertical gleaming pipes. His black hat was gone, leaving only his yarmulke to cover his head, and once again, his shoulder-length
pe'os
were twisted around his ears. His arms moved over the keys with expertise. His face was contorted, his expression both absorbed and exhilarated.

Outside a small clear-glass window, snow flurries glided about, uncertain whether to land. Esther leaned against a column and closed her eyes. The haunting music lifted her up and out of the building. She floated past the thousands-of-years-old David Citadel merely two streets over, then north to the mountains overlooking Wadi El Joz. There, in the monastery ruins, she remembered the dazzling pebbles, fig tree, and the open air; her teacher's encouraging smile, her canvas, paints and linseed oil. She remembered Pierre, whose bouncing footsteps brought him close, closer—

Esther's knees buckled. Horrified, she opened her eyes wide. The church inspired evil thoughts. Since entering this place, she had even forgotten about Naftali. The rabbis had warned that music caused “ribaldry and lightheadedness.” This was proof they were right.

Just then, a monk clad in a brown cassock belted with a rope pushed out from the shadows, his arm raised in greeting. Startled, Esther scrambled toward Asher and banged on the lowest keyboard to chase Satan away.

The noise of an angry thunder exploded in the room. Asher jumped. As the discordant sound rebounded off the walls and reverberated throughout the church, Esther pressed her hands to her ears. “Stop!” she shouted. “Let's get out of here! Now!”

R
usted axles screeching, horses' hooves clanking, Zalman's open-bed wagon stopped in front of the house, and Esther's apprehension grew. The orphan groom couldn't walk! He must be also lame.

She was wearing the brown dress with the coppery blue ribbons she had sewn for Avram's bar-mitzvah almost three years earlier, the dress's hem and chest let out. With the tittering Hanna, Miriam and Shulamit's two daughters squeezing behind her into the window, Esther craned her neck and caught the back view of a tall, thin man. Nathan Bloomenthal wore a fedora and a charcoal-gray European suit—not the Haredi hard-rimmed black hat and long shiny black coat. And even though he didn't limp, he carried a walking stick! Esther's throat tightened. Aba must be so desperate to get rid of her that he'd matched her with a secular man. Only lepers and traitors were excommunicated from their
klal
.

“He's a
goy
!” Hanna shrieked, her eyes twinkling.

Esther nodded miserably. She had been appalled that Asher considered becoming a modern Jew. This one was worse, a foreigner dressed so fastidiously. If Yossel, the
eeluy
, acted as he did, what might a foreign
ba'al
do to her?