Paradise Park (46 page)

M
IKHAIL
was seeing the little girl and her mother to the door; he was ushering them rather hastily out of the apartment. When they were gone he rushed over to me. “Sharon.
Baruch Hashem
, you’re here. You spoke to the rebbe?”

So I told about my audience with the rebbe while Mikhail paced back and forth in the living room with his hands clasped behind his back. And I told him about going to ask my parents for their advice—and their answers being so noncommittal. And detached, I wanted to say. Distant! But somehow I couldn’t speak so freely with Aunt Lena in the room. It felt strange trying to tell him all this with his aunt standing there—despite the fact that she’d told me the story of her life, and had started on Mikhail’s history too. I said, “I couldn’t tell, from what they said, exactly what their answer would be.”

“Did you explain to them that this was what the rebbe advised—that you should go to them?” Mikhail asked me.

“But they don’t know the rebbe,” I said. “They don’t really”—my voice dropped lower—“they don’t really
care
what he says.”

Mikhail looked somewhat offended, standing there in his black trousers and his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his black velvet yarmulke on his head.

“It’s awful,” I confessed. “They don’t get how holy the rebbe is. They don’t understand the value of his words.”

Mikhail put up his hands. “It’s enough. It’s all right. I understand. What can we say? We can only try. I before did not know from the rebbe either! Time only will tell them who he is.”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully.

“Im yirtzeh Hashem,”
God willing, “in time they will learn and they will know.”

“Im yirtzeh Hashem,”
I said. “But what about—in the meanwhile … ?”

“In the meanwhile I will play,” he said, and he pulled a chair for me right up to the piano, and he seated me, just as if he were seating me at a grand table for a formal dinner party. He adjusted the bench with the knobs on each side, because he was so much taller than his little piano student. And gently he laid his fingers on the keys. Without music he played one piece after another of Scott Joplin. He played all those Joplin rags, and I’d never heard them played that way before. I’d always heard them tinny and quick and kachinking along like old-time ice-cream-parlor music, but Mikhail played them like so slowly I nearly fell off my chair. He was so sure, and he bent the rhythms in such a way—I’d never realized the “Maple Leaf Rag” could be so sexy. He was beyond good. He was a natural. All over again I felt that mix of joyfulness and awe and jealousy. I was envious of him, so at home in his instrument. But it was just a twist of envy like a twist of lime. When I looked at Mikhail I saw a person who was deep down much more subtle and humorous than I had ever thought. I saw there was magic inside of him. It wasn’t grace; it was a smaller magic of Mikhail’s own. It was his own self that shone in his eyes; it was his own energy that emanated through his fingertips.

Then he played Debussy for me. He played
Suite Bergamasque
like jazz. The room was starting to fill up, as if vines and plants were opening leaf after leaf. The room was starting to fill as if a twilight lavender had come inside. And I thought, This is better than words; this is better than anything I have ever said, or anyone has ever said to me. But then he stopped.

“Go on.”

“Listen.”

He played for me the niggun that had come to him. The Sign he had actually received from the third rebbe of Bialystok—which was just a
melody he played out with his right hand. Just a pretty yet plain melody that sounded to me like all the other nigguns that we Bialystokers hummed and sang around the Shabbes table. And Mikhail put his hands down and he hummed. He hummed the niggun just as he said he had heard it in his ear.

“What do you think?” he asked me.

I looked down at the keyboard. I stared at the silent white and black keys. “How do you know,” I said, “that the niggun was really a sign from God we had to get married—and not just … you know, wishful thinking?”

Mikhail grinned at me. “I did wish it,” he said. “And that is why the niggun came.”

For one long moment I stared at him. I just had to take that in. I had to catch my breath while all the facts I’d delicately been balancing, like for example, that although he played like an angel, this guy was living with his aunt, and had gone nuts at least once in the not-too-distant past—all those facts came crashing to the ground. Because all at once Mikhail had told me the one thing I really wanted to know. That he wanted me underneath everything else—beneath all the signs and miracles, and even the most wonderful Messianic portents—which of course I absolutely believed, but still. He wanted me in the old way, older than the old religion. And then the getting-married thing didn’t matter anymore, and the amount of time we’d spent together, and all the matchmaking. None of it got in the way at all. I thought, He loves me. He does. And I also thought, Aunt Lena is eavesdropping on us. I was sure of that. But I didn’t really care. Instead I whispered to him, in such a low voice he had to lean closer to hear. “Okay, but there’s just one thing.”

“What is it?”

“I’m sorry for asking. It’s just a prejudice I still have. It’s just a vestige—do you know what I mean? Left over from my former life. I know people don’t do it in the community. I know it isn’t done. Don’t be shocked, okay? Please? I have to kiss you first.”

For a second he did look shocked. Then his mouth crinkled up. “You want to know if I taste like a frog or a prince.”

I burst out laughing, just hearing him put it that way.

He leaned closer just a quarter of an inch more, and he kissed me. He
put his two hands on my face and he kissed my lips. He kissed me like he played, deliberately, gently, not too fast.

And there wasn’t anything between us anymore. Our religious costumes that we wore, our pious language that we spoke, the things that we believed, the innocence that we put on—none of that stood between us. We were just two people, equal seekers, and we understood each other. We really were on the same plane.

So that was how we got engaged. Aunt Lena brought out a bottle of slivovitz, and we each made toasts, and we each drank shots, and Lena said again how Mikhail was a son to her and how she wished him this time everything that he deserved and that we should live a long and happy life and never want for anything, and Mikhail should one day, despite that there was no support for art in this country, achieve recognition for his gifts. She didn’t mention my gifts, but I didn’t take offense, since I realized naturally, given her age, Lena was going to be thinking more about the man’s career, and also she’d just met me. And I said we must drink to the coming of the Moshiach when truth and justice and liberation would all triumph, and Mikhail said, and also when peace would cover the earth. And then Aunt Lena said again, how she had hoped so long for Mikhail to find happiness. And she said, “Sharon, I have burned many many candles for this.”

“Really? What do you mean?” I asked.

Mikhail said, “She burns candles for what she hopes from God.” “Wow,” I said to Lena, “that’s unusual for a Jewish person.” “She is not Jewish,” Mikhail said.

My drink went down the wrong way. I started coughing and gagging, and the liquor burned my throat. Mikhail had to thump me on the back. Aunt Lena sat me down and got me water. “Oh,” I said. Cough. Cough. Splutter. Cough. “She’s not?”

“She is not,” Mikhail said.

Aunt Lena shook her head.

I composed myself. I got my breath. “But, wait …” I began.

Then Mikhail told me. He began telling me the whole history and explanation of his family, which had some Christian—very pious Christian—people in it. Despite the fact that he and his parents, of blessed memory, were of course Jewish.

“When my sister married Mikhail’s father she of course became Jewish,”
Aunt Lena said. “When she died she gave Mikhail to me, and she said, Lena, he must be raised a Jewish man.”

I guess I looked somewhat taken aback. I shook my head at the two of them.

Mikhail said, “Please, I beg you. Do not think worse of me!”

But being over my initial surprise, I said, “Why would I?” I said, “Isn’t there room in God’s heart for all the religions, whatever people’s personal beliefs might be? Isn’t believing in itself the most important thing?” I said, “I’ve learned that, if I’ve learned anything!”

Mikhail looked so relieved, since to a lot of people—even to his own rebbe, to whom otherwise he would tell everything—he had actually been afraid to mention his aunt’s background, because he had the fear that, given their stormy history and theological differences with a lot of Russian Christians, somehow the Bialystokers might not accept him into the bosom of their community if he brought up the subject of his aunt’s religious faith.

“That is so sad,” I said. “That is so awful to think that we would be prejudiced like that in America,” I said. “When any minute the Moshiach will arrive, and anytime now there will be such harmony from all the voices in the world rising up together. Let’s drink to that!” I said. Aunt Lena was already pouring another round, and so we raised our glasses, and we did.

And we made more toasts and Mikhail played wedding songs, sacred and secular. He played Hasidishe tunes, and he played Mendelssohn, and a Hawaiian wedding song I hummed for him and he harmonized on the fly, and I wished I’d brought my guitar so I could play along. And then we had lunch, which was omelets that Aunt Lena cooked, and since I had to go return my car and catch my bus, we called the Karinskys and we made plans. First I would go to Brooklyn and get ready, and then Mikhail and Aunt Lena would rent a car and follow, and then a week from Sunday we would be married.

I tell you, when I got back to Brooklyn I was changed. Whereas before I had hemmed and I had hawed, and I had sat up nights ambivalent and melancholy, now this enormous happiness came over me. And I said to myself, Now I am ascending! I am marrying, and I am joining myself to
another soul, and completing my arc, and fulfilling my Hasidishe destiny. I thought, here I am rising, I could literally feel myself rising upward, my soul was so light and springy, lifting up like rising bread. Every once in a while I did wonder what Mikhail and I were going to live on, and how we’d all fit in Aunt Lena’s apartment, but mostly I thought of his spirit, and how together we would live as Bialystokers in such joy. And I thought of his music, just the way Mikhail played, just the chance to live with someone who had a gift like that (even if the concert world had not yet discovered him). I felt like I’d never have to listen to the radio again. I would never need any other sound.

As far as the wedding went, there weren’t any fancy preparations to be made. We were going to have both the ceremony and the reception in the Karinskys’ house. There weren’t really any invitations to send out, which was good because the wedding was at such short notice. Mainly it was going to be the Karinskys with all the kids and one of their rabbi friends. I kept meaning to invite my parents, but somehow whenever I tried to pick up a phone to call my father, I couldn’t think what I would tell him. I rehearsed a thousand conversations in my mind, but in the end I couldn’t think what I would say. The words just wouldn’t come. As for Mom, I felt guilty being prejudiced, but I didn’t feel right having a witch at the ceremony. Witchcraft ran counter to this whole Jewish life I was embarking on. In general, Mom ran counter to everything the Karinskys believed. I figured she would offend them in some way, or make them uncomfortable. I guess I was afraid she would embarrass me. Mrs. Karinsky kept asking about my parents, and telling me she hoped that they would come, and I kept telling her that I was definitely inviting them. In fact I already had invited them, except their health was poor. Except they didn’t like to travel. Mrs. Karinsky looked puzzled. I could see she wanted to ask more, but she didn’t, which was a relief. I was trying to cut down on my lying, since I was in the process of ascending upward. To be honest, I’d never thought about cutting back on lying before. In all my previous phases, rebirths, et cetera, it had never once occurred to me that lying might be bringing me down. Yet now, being engaged—not only in an altered state but in an altered state along with someone else—lying felt different. It wasn’t anonymous anymore. To me lying had always been like an anesthetic, or a little pill you took for privacy, and comfort, and forgetfulness, when it came to talking
about your parents. But now I had Mikhail, and he knew me on the inside—as someone dedicated to truth, and love, and the Messianic age. Now I could see myself through Mikhail’s eyes, and lying looked like a disgusting habit—just so petty and destructive, just polluting the reality around you. Therefore I was planning to quit, or at least wean myself, as in smoking. As in, just occasional fibs outside.

I
N
the meantime, Estie came over, and she brought her white wedding gown for me to try on, which cheered me even more. How silly I’d been to think that marriage would dissipate Estie’s powers. There she was, as wise as ever, in her married woman’s wig, which had bangs that hung down in her eyes. In the girls’ bedroom, Estie’s old room, I stepped into all that shining white satin of the wedding dress. But the bodice wouldn’t button in back. “Whoops!” I said. “It doesn’t fit. I hope that’s not a bad omen.”

“God forbid!” Estie exclaimed. “Im
yirtzeh Hashem
we’ll find you another one. There’s a whole wedding-dress library, did you know that? My aunt keeps dresses in her basement. Fancy gowns—gorgeous—that brides donate. She lends them to whoever needs. And she has every size.”

With the wedding gown gaping in back I sat down on the bed next to Estie. I said, “Estie, I don’t really care about a wedding dress. That doesn’t matter to me.”

“You have to wear a gown!” she exclaimed.

“It’s not important,” I said.

“But you’re a bride!”

“I think, maybe it might be a little bit different for me,” I said. “I mean, I’m a lot older.”

“It doesn’t matter what age,” she said. “You need a gown.”