Sotah (17 page)

He felt his annoyance grow.

“Dvorahle, my dear,” he called out softly. He opened the bedroom door, and she was lying there, her head resting on the pillow, her eyes shut. He felt alarm replace his vague resentment. He touched her shoulder, shaking her gently.

“Are you all right?”

Slowly she opened her eyes. He saw the pupils dilate and the look of grim distaste and resentment flash with unguarded swiftness across her features. He was familiar with the look, but usually it was replaced quickly by a pleasant smile. Now it just stayed there, frozen.

He was immediately defensive. “I got home as soon as I could. The others are still there. The
rav’s shiur
went on longer than we expected. It was, as usual, wonderful. But I left early, seeing as you haven’t been feeling well.” He looked at her expectantly for some sign that this was appreciated. Seeing none, he went on the offensive: “I see there is no dinner.”

She stared at him, the grim distaste deepening.

“Well, at least can I know what’s wrong? Is it the baby?” He began to grow alarmed.

She shook her head, and the slight movement made it explode with pain. “I went to the clinic today …” She lay back, closing her eyes. “I took a pregnancy test.”

He sat down beside her heavily, his hands reaching out for hers. But she kept them clasped together, tight under the pillow. “I called them in the afternoon for the results.” She paused.

“Well?”

“It was
shlili.
”

“Shlili
?” he said almost stupidly.

“Negative. That is, I’m not.”

He felt a twinge of faint disappointment coupled with relief. “My dear, it’s so soon after the first one. We’ll have others. There’s no need to be so disappointed.”

She opened one eye and looked at him in contempt. “I’m not disappointed, Yaakov.”

“You’re not?” He felt himself slipping down that slippery slope into dangerous waters that he always felt now with his wife. Try as he did to find something to latch on to that would hold his head above water, he seldom did. Now was no exception. “I don’t understand.”

“As usual,” she whispered. “What do you understand about me, Yaakov? Do you understand anything? Do you know who I am, how I live, what I feel? Or am I just a strange woman to you, living under your roof? I didn’t want another baby, Yaakov. I hate being home with this one! I’m bored, I’m tired.” She caught herself. There was a limit to just how honest she could be with him. She could never go the limit, the distance she had to in order for them to be really close, because it would mean describing the biggest obstacle of all to her happiness. Him.

“So you’re not pregnant! So what’s the problem?”

Were all men like this? she wondered. Were all of them so thick that you needed an industrial-strength drill to bore a few ideas into their heads, to let some light and air shine through? How much did she have to spell it out for him? All day he learned. All day. And yet what did he know?

She tried to imagine her mother and father having this conversation and felt her cheeks burn with shame. Her mother would never speak to her father this way! She’d be mortified if she knew any daughter of hers had such feelings, or expressed them. Why couldn’t she be like her mother? Why couldn’t she look forward to the idea of ten or eleven children, one after the other, with faith and joy and submission to G-d’s infinite wisdom?

She began to weep uncontrollably. Yaakov reached out and held her in his arms. “Sha, my darling wife. I know it’s so hard for you, for all women. And I don’t do enough to help you. I’ll try harder.” He stroked her hair gently, soothingly.

She buried her face in his shoulder. “I didn’t want another baby. I was so frightened, Yaakov. I’m not such a good mother. I get angry and I yell at the baby. My own little baby! I love him so much, and yet today I yelled so loud, I frightened him! How could I do that? And I was so angry and resentful when I thought I was pregnant again. I’m so afraid G-d will punish me. I lose my temper all the time.”

“All the time?” he whispered gently, stroking her head, her cheek. “Is that your nature?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember ever feeling this way for such a long period of time. If it is, won’t I be able to change?”

“Can a fish become a lion?” He smiled sadly. “You’ll have this nature until you die.”

“It can’t be true! People change, they improve.”

“G-d gave you this nature so that you should constantly work to overcome it. If you were always perfect, always feeling correctly, acting piously, you might feel like the creator of yourself, your own boss. It’s weakness that reminds us of G-d, that makes us cry out to him in need. Listen, when you bump into the wall, are you angry at the wall?”

She smiled faintly shaking her head no.

“No, you can’t get angry at the wall. Or the baby. Or me. We’re just the messengers. G-d’s sending you the message, reminding you of your weakness and also comforting you, telling you that you have the strength to overcome it, to go beyond your nature.”

“Doesn’t G-d have more important things on his mind than me and my temper?”

“Do you get
naches
from the baby? From every tiny little flicker of his eye, every tiny step forward he makes—holding his head up, grasping a spoon? Do you have more important things to think about? G-d is also a father and mother. He’s our creator. He takes pleasure in us, in every tiny step we make to transcend what is base and shameful in our natures.”

“I don’t know if I can please G-d. I’m so tired, so very tired. I can’t even imagine having another baby!”

“He won’t give you one until you’re ready.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Does that mean that we … can … prevent it?”

He held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes, shocked. “You can’t mean it? My dear wife, to prevent G-d’s will from happening? To defy him?”

“It’s not like that. It’s just, taking a break, a breather. You know, the
halacha
allows it.”

“Only under very strict circumstances, if the mother’s life, her health, are in danger.”

“Yaakov, can’t you see I’m not up to it? Not yet.”

“We’ll talk about it, my dear. You’re feeling tired, weak. You’re not yourself. I’ll help you more. Have you eaten? Wait, I’ll make you something.” He tucked her back in with motherly care and then went into the kitchen. He leaned heavily against the sink, anger, frustration, and sorrow mixing together; resentment, compassion, and love fighting each other off, making him feel weak. He took off his good suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and began to wash the dishes.

He searched his mind for appropriate knowledge to help him. Of course, there was the passage in the Talmudic tractate
Yevamot
of a contraceptive tampon used by lactating women to prevent any harm to her or the baby. This extended to women only. Men were forbidden to use any device. The L-rd punished Onan by death because “he had spilled his seed unto the ground.” Modern views, in light of the Holocaust and the need to replenish the Jewish people, were stricter. Each case had to be decided individually by a rabbi. Some considered the mother’s mental state, and others required there to be a purely medical reason for the request.

He finished the meat dishes, then started on the milk ones. He felt an irrational mourning fill him, as if he had lost something. They only had one child! They had not even yet fulfilled the mitzvah of “be fruitful and multiply,” which required at least two children, a boy and a girl. He had always expected to be the father of many children. And now, so soon, she was talking about birth control!

Then a thought came to him that literally knocked him over. He sat down heavily on a chair. Perhaps it was just
his
children she didn’t want! Perhaps it was him? His stomach turned over with hurt pride and a sense of failure. Perhaps she didn’t, and would never, love him.

He had been so patient. So kind. So considerate. He had tried in every way to be good to her. But it hadn’t helped. Yet he took small comfort from their recent talk, her pretty, soft head leaning on his shoulder. She was a good girl, Dvorah. He loved her.

But did she love him? And if she didn’t, what would happen?

He felt an emptiness gnaw him, taking large, painful bites from his lungs and chest so that he could hardly breathe. She was his wife. She was supposed to learn to love him. He would make her love him. He would try harder to reach that pure, good part of her nature. He would try to encourage it, to nurture it.

He went to the refrigerator and took out eggs and milk. He found a frying pan and poured in the scrambled eggs. He put it on a newly washed and dried plate, made a salad, toast, and orange juice, and placed it all on a tray. Ignoring with fortitude the rumblings of his own empty stomach at the sight of it, he took it into the bedroom.

“Dvorah, eat something!”

She sat up and smiled at him and at the tray, a smile that warmed him and took away some of the emptiness.

“This is so nice, thank you!”

He sat on the bed just watching her eat, hoping his stomach wouldn’t grumble too loudly.

She took his hand in hers and kissed the knuckles, for the first time not noticing how heavy they were, noticing only the smell of dishwashing liquid, and that they were kind. An unfamiliar jolt of desire went through her as her lips touched his soft fingertips.

“Thank you for being so good to me. For being so patient.”

“I love you,” he said with simple, helpless honesty.

She searched his dark eyes and, satisfied, relaxed. Her husband was a good man. He loved her. And she wasn’t pregnant. She ate with appetite. It tasted wonderful.

Chapter fourteen

T
he baker had had a red beard and flaming red hair, both of which seemed dusted with flour—or perhaps it was just her imagination, she thought. He had taken her to a coffeehouse on Ben Yehudah Street and insisted on ordering her two kinds of cake, a roll, and a croissant, all of which he had proceeded to taste and analyze. She had spent two hours listening to a blow-by-blow comparison of yeasts, mixing machines, oven temperatures, and cookie cutters. In a corner of her mind she could see him grown ten years older, the mild midriff bulge now visible through his good dark suit inflating to truck tire proportions. She could almost feel the heavy, dead weight pressing into the mattress beside her; see him shuffling through the house at daybreak to get to work, coming home early. He’d be there, bothering her, talking shop, just when the children needed to be tended to, and she’d have to pretend to listen and be interested. Worst of all, she’d caught him looking with deep concentration at her breasts and legs, a look of hunger. After that vision, she hardly heard a word he said and was too alarmed to eat anything.

The accountant was, if possible, even more talkative. And he played the game of Jewish geography—favorite pastime of the
haredi
world—with more interest, forcefulness, and persistence than she had ever believed possible. All evening it had gone something like this: “Are you any relation to Morris Reich, from the Munkatsch Yeshiva in Poland? No? Your family is from what town in Czechoslovakia? Teich? My father had a very close friend in Teich, Gluckstern. Mr Gluckstern was a banker. Very well known. Did your father ever mention a Gluckstern? No? Well, what about the Reich family that lives in Kiryat Arbah? Any relation?”

After about an hour of this, her nerves felt raw. He was the first real male
yenta
she had ever encountered. He didn’t say one word that could be mistaken for an idea.

Garfinkel couldn’t believe she wouldn’t go out with either of them again. “So the baker talks about baking, is that something to hold against a man? You know how much he takes in clear every week? Two thousand shekel. And that’s only what’s on the books! And the accountant, so he’s interested in families and he talks a little too much. He’ll soon learn all about your family and stop asking questions. Anyway, he won’t be home most of the day, and Shabbat he’ll go to shul. Listen, you know what happens to girls who are too particular?”

She knew. Garfinkel was pressuring her mother and father in his not-so-subtle way. He came to Mrs Reich’s wool store and sat down and gave her a long speech about young girls making up their minds while there were still lots of offers coming in. The baker was desperate to go out with her again and wanted to settle everything quickly and have the engagement party at the end of the month. The accountant too was in a hurry. He had even offered to forget about a dowry altogether and to pay for the wedding himself. He too wanted the
tena’im
held as soon as possible.

What about the carpenter? Mrs Reich suddenly asked. Is he also interested?

Garfinkel didn’t like the question. Judah Gutman was not for Dina Reich. The
shadchen
was a bit embarrassed by the strange impulse that had prompted him to bring the two together in the first place. Judah was too big, too quiet. And although it was true he had a good business, he was not in the baker’s league, nor could he hope to build up the accountant’s steady income. Aside from that, he was the only one of the three who was not breaking down Garfinkel’s door. He hadn’t heard anything from Judah after the date, and finally, although it was bad business practice to be the first one to call, he had had no choice but to contact Judah’s mother. She had sounded close to hysteria.

“What have you done to him?” she’d accused. “He eats nothing! He walks around like a mourner during
shiva!
”

“So he liked her? So he wants to see her again?”

Her voice had taken on a pitch that made the phone wires tremble: “He won’t tell me anything!”

“So he wants to go out with her or not?”

“What’ve I just said? He tells me nothing. Nothing.”

In every business there were certain customers who were simply not worth the trouble. Judah Gutman and his mother were a case in point. But now, faced with Mrs Reich’s reasonable interest, he felt that in this case he had not acquitted himself with his usual thoroughness and style, a fact that, gone unattended, could have serious repercussions. A man’s wealth, after all, was his good name.