The Big Nap (11 page)

From the outside, the building where I hoped to find Fraydle hiding out was fairly nondescript. It was Spanish-style in the way that most Los Angeles houses of the 1930s are, that is to say it was stucco with wrought-iron railings. The façade was thickly covered in ivy that had been inelegantly hacked away from the windows. The entry was through an archway whose stone-faced interior walls were covered in brightly colored graffiti, some of it in Hebrew.

Isaac and I passed under the arch and into a courtyard. Once, it must have been beautiful. A stone fountain dominated the center of the yard. In its large oval pond, a mermaid balanced on her tail, her face raised to the sky. Her nose was chipped off, and there was a rusted pipe poking out of the top of her head. At one time water probably cascaded down in a lovely mist. Now, the bone-dry pond was filled with cigarette butts and the odd beer bottle.

The ground-floor apartments opened out into the courtyard, two on each side. The tenants of each of the eight apartments were obviously responsible for taking care of the area immediately in front of their front doors. One had decorated carefully, with colorful flowers growing in large tubs and a pair of Adirondack chairs. Most of the others had at least a folding lawn chair or two. One or two were barren of porch accessories.

In the back corner of the courtyard, I noticed a flight of stairs leading up to the second-floor apartments. These were accessible by a long exterior hallway, like a wraparound porch, that circled the second floor.

Number 4 had in front of it a pair of beat-up lounge chairs with webbing that might have once been red but had faded to a rusty pink. There was a green window box propped against the wall next to the door and a tomato plant climbed out of the box and up the wall. I glanced down at Isaac. He had spat out my finger and was busily sucking on the folded front of his Baby Bjorn. I kissed the top of his head and knocked on the door to Yossi’s apartment.

Within moments the door opened. Yossi stood there wearing only a pair of low-slung jeans. His bare chest was covered with a thatch of black hair that thinned down to a line as it crept down his flat stomach into the top of his pants. The button of his jeans was undone. It was everything I could do not to stare at him. It had been a while since I’d seen a bared twenty-something chest in the flesh. I looked up into his blue eyes. He didn’t look particularly happy to see me.

“Hi,” I said.

“She is not here.”

“But she’s been here before.”

He looked me up and down for a minute. I hadn’t bothered
to change after yoga so I was still wearing nothing but a pair of leggings and a T-shirt. “You are a friend of Fraydle’s parents?” he asked, sounding doubtful.

“She worked for me. I told you that at Nomi’s, remember?”

“You are not Orthodox?”

I laughed. “Do I look Orthodox to you?”

He looked me up and down again, reading my T-shirt carefully as if trying to decide whether the Starfleet Academy was the flagship of a brand new chain of yeshivas. “Today, not so much. But at Nomi’s you did.”

“What are you talking about?” I tried to remember what I’d worn to the Israeli restaurant. And then I realized. A long black skirt, long-sleeved white shirt, and, most damningly, a beret to hide my hair. Of course he’d thought I was Orthodox. As soon as he’d seen me, Yossi had probably assumed I was a friend of Fraydle’s parents or, at the very least, a member of her community. No wonder he wouldn’t talk to me.

“Yossi. We need to talk. I’m not one of Fraydle’s parents’ friends. I’m not Orthodox. I’m just a woman that Fraydle worked for once who is worried about her. Just like I’m sure you are. She’s missing and if there is anything you know that can help me to find her, you need to tell me. Her parents and aunt are out of their minds with worry.”

He leaned against the door to his apartment for a moment and then, shutting it carefully behind him, sat down in one of the lounge chairs. He motioned me to sit in the other. I perched carefully on the edge, bouncing Isaac gently. I was afraid that if Isaac sensed I had actually gotten off my feet, he would start fussing. Miraculously, he seemed not to notice.

“Is Fraydle here, Yossi?”

He leaned back against his chair with a sigh and said, “No. She is not here. She is not with me. I wish she was with me. I asked her to come with me many times. But she always says no. Deep in her heart, Fraydle is a good girl. She does what her father tells her to do.” This last part was said with bitterness.

“Yossi,” I said, “was Fraydle your girlfriend?”

He scowled. “Can she be my girlfriend if she is not allowed to see me? Can she be my girlfriend if we never spend more than an hour or two together?”

“I don’t know. Can she? Listen, Yossi, I know she left here very upset not long ago. What happened?”

He didn’t answer.

“Tell me, exactly what are you and Fraydle to each other?”

He didn’t answer.

“I know that you don’t think this is any of my business, but maybe we can work together to figure out where Fraydle has gone.”

He remained silent.

“Is it that you’re afraid I’ll tell her parents about you two? Is that it?”

Silence.

Finally, Yossi sighed. “It doesn’t matter now.” He took a deep breath as if to fortify himself for the story he was about to tell. Then he began: “Fraydle and I met about nine or ten months ago. I came to her aunt’s store on my third day in Los Angeles. I was staying with an old friend of my mother’s. This woman asked me to shop for her in the kosher grocery stores, so I came in with a long list and Fraydle helped me. She found everything on the list and even helped me to carry the bags and boxes to the bus stop.
And she talked to me. Just for a minute. But she was so beautiful. Her eyes. You know how beautiful she is.”

“Yes, her eyes really are quite remarkable. Violet, like Liz Taylor’s,” I said.

“Who?”

“Elizabeth Taylor? The movie actress?”

He shook his head.

“Okay, whatever—you met, you talked. And then?”

“And then not so much for a while. I came to the store every day, every two days. Sometimes she helped me. Sometimes she stayed in the back and her aunt helped me. And then, one day, I came to the shop and she was not there at all. I came only to see her, I needed nothing. I bought a chocolate bar just to buy something and I went to the bus stop to wait for my bus. Fraydle was sitting on the bench waiting also for the bus.

“At first I thought it was only a coincidence that we met, but she told me later that she waited for me. I sat down next to her and we talked. All the time we talked, she looked around to make sure nobody noticed that we were together. When the bus came, we got on. I sat down in a seat and she sat in the seat in front of me, not next to me, so no one would think we were together. We rode around the entire city. For two hours we rode the bus, talking and talking. She told me about her family, about the books she read. I told her about my family, about my military service, about Israel. We just talked. Finally, the bus made a full circle and we were back on Melrose and La Brea. We made a date to see each other again on the bus.

“For two months, that is all we did. Three, maybe four times a week we would see each other. I would get on the bus by the house where I was staying, and she would get
on at her corner. We would ride for one full circle. Sometimes she had one of her baby brothers or sister with her. She would hold the baby and we would talk and ride the bus. Once or twice people got on with her, people from her synagogue or other Hasidim from the neighborhood. We always sat in different rows, so when that happened we just pretended to be strangers.

“After a while, we started getting off the bus in different parts of the city. We went to the La Brea Tar Pits. We went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We went to cafés.”

I interrupted him. “She ate at non-kosher restaurants with you?”

“No, never. She drank only water or tea. Once, she sipped my latte. She never ate.”

“And that’s all you did, Yossi? Ride the bus and tour Los Angeles?”

“For a long time, yes. And then I got a job. I work as a security guard. It’s nights and weekends, mostly, but sometimes I have to work during the day. We saw each other less and less. One week, we missed altogether. That was very bad.”

“So what did you do?”

He swallowed nervously and paused for a moment as if to decide whether or not to continue his story.

“I got this apartment. I took it because it was near her house. She would come here when she could get away, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. I never knew when she would come, and sometimes I was at work so I missed her. But still, we met a few times every week.”

“It’s a little unusual for a Hasidic girl to meet a man at his apartment, don’t you think?” I asked.

“We are in love!” he said. “I love her. She loves me. It is not like what you think.”

“No, I’m sure it’s not. I’m sorry,” I said soothingly. “So when was the last time you saw her?”

He sighed. “A few weeks ago she came here, as usual, but afterwards she told me it was the last time. She told me that her parents had found a
shiddach
, a match, for her and that she’d accepted him.

“I knew they were bringing men to her. Each time before she rejected them. But this time, she said yes. I begged her, please marry me. I begged her, come with me back to Israel. She said no. She said she had to do what her father told her. Fraydle is always a good girl.” He rubbed his eyes angrily. “So, that is our story. I saw her only once after that. I came looking for her at her aunt’s store. I walked around the neighborhood, and I found her in the park with your baby. I asked her again to come with me. I showed her these.” He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled airline ticket folder. He handed it to me. Inside the folder were two TWA tickets to Israel. One was in the name of Yossi Zinger. The other read Fraydle Finkelstein. The flight had left at four o’clock the day before.

“All the money I saved these past months I spent on these tickets. You see, they are business class. Not coach.”

I looked at the crumpled tickets. The tickets had cost $3,140.21. Each. “But she wouldn’t go,” I said.

“No. She said, ‘I love you, Yossi.’ But I know she loves her father more.”

“Maybe she was afraid. She’s a young girl; maybe the idea of leaving her home and her family was just too scary for her.”

“Maybe. But she has left now, hasn’t she? Where is she? Where is Fraydle?”

“I haven’t any idea. Is there someone you can think of who might know? Did she have a friend, maybe someone outside her community to whom she would go?”

“Me. She had me.”

“What happened the day she left here, crying?”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of your neighbors saw her leave your apartment in tears.”

He looked intensely uncomfortable. “Nothing. Just . . . just a fight about her not wanting to come to Israel with me.”

At that moment, Isaac began to howl. I stood up and started bouncing him up and down.

“Okay, honey. Just one more minute.” I turned to Yossi. “Look, I have to go pick my daughter up at school and get this baby to bed. But we need to talk more. Is there a number where I can reach you?”

“You can call me on my cell phone,” he said. Ah, L.A., where even illegal-alien security guards have wireless connections. I paced back and forth with my crying baby while Yossi went inside for a piece of paper and a pen to write down his number. I crammed the scrap into my purse and, with a quick goodbye, hustled out of the building.

I
arrived at Beth El Nursery School to find Ruby sitting in the time-out chair. Brenda, my favorite of Ruby’s teachers, was hovering around her, obviously at a loss. Ruby’s arms were crossed over her chest, her shoulders were raised up to her ears, and she was scowling so hard her cheeks had turned white. Business as usual.

“Hey, Ruby. Hi, Brenda. What’s up?” I was doing my best to come across as upbeat and cheerful, with just a touch of concern. I probably sounded just like I felt: embarrassed and wondering whether anyone would mind if I chose this moment to throttle my kid.

“Hello, Juliet. Ruby’s having a hard time this afternoon.” I’d never heard Brenda sound anything but sweet before. I’d never even known irritation was part of her repertoire.

“It sure looks that way,” I said. “What happened?”

“Honestly, I wish I knew. She had to spend two minutes in the time-out chair because she bit Alexander, but that was half an hour ago. She’s refused to get up.”

“You bit Alexander!” I said, crouching down to Ruby’s level. “What were you thinking? You know biting is a bad thing to do.” I looked up at Brenda. “This really isn’t like her. She’s not a biter.”

Brenda just smiled thinly.

“Ruby! Talk to me!” I said. “What’s going on here?”

My daughter looked up at me, her grim little face screwed up in outrage. Clearly, it was too much that her mother had joined her oppressors. Tears gathered in her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. She collapsed into my arms with a wail. I stroked her back and murmured, “Okay, honey. Okay. It’s all right. It’s over now. Tell Mama what happened.”

“It’s not fair!” she sobbed. “Brenda is mean!”

“Brenda is not mean, Ruby. She’s nice. You like Brenda. She put you in the time-out chair because you did a bad thing, not because she’s mean. But kiddo, you could have been out long ago. You’re the one who chose to sit here all afternoon.”

She looked up at me. “Alex bited me first! I just bited him back. But Brenda didn’t see him bite me. She only saw me bite him. But I bited him
back.
I told Brenda that I’m not getting up until she says she’s sorry for giving me a time-out and not Alex.”

That’s my kid for you. Willing to ruin her own fun just to prove a point. Well, for all her sweetness, Brenda was too firm to give into the convoluted sense of justice of a three-year-old. But neither did I intend to spend the day, week, or month indulging this sit-down strike.

“Here’s the thing, Ruby. Brenda didn’t do anything
wrong. She’s not going to apologize. I’m going to get your lunchbox, and then Isaac and I are going to go home, get the stroller, and walk to the store to get a chocolate bar. You can either come with us, or stay here all day.”