Acts of Faith (13 page)

Her eyes, glazed by the mist of melancholy, would react to the sight of a huge pile of oranges as if sunlight were dazzling her.

Even the normally phlegmatic Leah sprang to life, cheerfully bargaining with merchants for delicacies her family could afford only on this special night.

To Deborah, this little taste of liberty made her long for more. It did not escape her attention that the street that gave the Mea Shearim quarter its name ran only one way—
in.

It was here in the market on a bright April Friday that she had what she first thought was a hallucination. No more than ten yards away, she caught sight of a girl about her own age—wearing a
sheitel
, but an attractive one—handing packages to a tall, athletic, red-haired man in a skullcap.

He saw her and called out, “Deborah! Deborah Luria, is it really you?”

She waved in recognition just as Leah whirled around and asked suspiciously, “What’s going on? This is somebody you know?”

“Oh, yes. It’s Asher Kaplan.”

“Never heard of him.” Leah frowned. “He isn’t one of us.”

“He’s from Chicago,” Deborah began to explain, just as Asher approached.

“Hello.” He smiled. “Small world, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she replied, thinking, Asher, you’ve just enlarged mine more than you know.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m staying with some friends,” she answered. Then introducing Leah, continued, “This is Rebbitsin Schiffman. We live in Mea Shearim.”

“ ‘We’? You mean you’re married to her son?”

“What are you saying?” Leah replied with annoyance. “My oldest boy is not even
bar mitzvah.
”

She did not like this brash American. True, he was wearing a skullcap, but he was also sporting a T-shirt that said, in Hebrew,
Koka-Kola.

“What are you doing here, Asher?”

“I’m on my honeymoon,” he replied with a touch of shyness.

Trying to muster the appropriate enthusiasm, Deborah responded,
“Mazel tov.”

“Thank you,” Asher replied. “So you must be studying at the university, huh? I remember you had big academic plans. Mount Scopus is so beautiful—Channah’s father is a professor at the Medical School.”

Just then his wife caught up with them. She was attractive even in her wig—tanned, with sparkling brown eyes.

“
More
friends, Asher?” she playfully chided. Addressing the two women, she explained, “We’ve been here only three days and he must have run into two hundred people he knows.”

“Come on, Channah,” he retorted, “lots of my father’s congregation emigrated here.”

Suddenly it occurred to Leah.

“You don’t mean
the
Rav Kaplan from Chicago?”

“Yes,” Channah responded proudly.

Asher addressed Deborah with a sheepish smile. “Now do you see why I’m going to be a doctor? At least the first question out of a sick patient’s mouth won’t be ‘Are you Rav Kaplan’s son?’ But you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”

Deborah glanced nervously at Leah. “Uh, my father wanted me to … you know … live a little in the Holy City.”

Asher turned to Mrs. Schiffman and politely asked, “May we invite Deborah to lunch with our family at the King David on Saturday? Channah and her mother could come by and walk with her. It’s within the
Shabbat
limit.”

Deborah looked at Leah, her eyes pleading.

“Well, if your mother-in-law is coming, I don’t think my husband would object. But why don’t you call me this afternoon before
Shabbes?
”

“Fine,” said Asher. And then to Deborah, “We look forward to it.”

The encounter made Leah more animated than usual. As they lugged their packages past Hacherut Square, she remarked to Deborah, “How do you know this boy?”

“It was a match my father tried to make,” she answered blankly.

“So what happened?” Leah asked, eyebrow raised.

“I turned him down.”

“Are you
meshugge
in the head?”

“Yes,” Deborah replied, overcome with melancholy.

Deborah had never seen anything as opulent as the dining room at the King David Hotel, with its lofty ceilings buttressed by huge, square, roseate marble pillars. Its
Shabbat
noon buffet was legendary.

There were endless tables laden with gefilte fish and herrings in a half-dozen sauces, chopped liver, enough
cold cuts to feed a cavalry, and multicolored salads of fruits and vegetables, plus a dozen different varieties of eggplant.

And those were only the hors d’oeuvres. Then there was the hot food—cholent, boiled beef, baked chicken,
kasha varnishkes
, stuffed veal, and
kishkes.

Dessert filled two whole tables—cakes and pies, chocolate mousse, rainbows of sherbets and ice cream—all nondairy, of course.

Deborah felt like a prisoner on parole.

While Channah’s parents did not ask why their son-in-law had invited this attractive stranger, Channah knew. As the two young women stood marveling at the dessert table, she whispered, “I feel as if I should thank you, Deborah.”

“What for?”

“Not marrying Asher. I don’t know why you turned him down, but I’m glad you did.”

They had coffee on the hotel terrace. The banquet had been long, and it was nearly four o’clock.

“Why don’t you stay till sundown?” Channah suggested. “Then we could take you home in a taxi.”

“Thanks,” Deborah answered, “I’d like that very much.”

In fact, she had an ulterior motive. Directly across the street from the King David Hotel was the large, pastel stone YMCA building. Deborah saw it as a chance—perhaps her only one—to discover if Timothy had written.

The moment three stars shone in the Jerusalem sky, she telephoned to explain her absence and received grudging approval from Leah.

“Just don’t be too late,” she cautioned. “We have a lot of dishes to wash.”

As she hung up, Deborah could already note the post-Sabbath activity, store lights being switched on, a louder hum of conversation in the lobby, and the noise of traffic in the street which twenty minutes earlier had been silent and deserted.

“Well,” Deborah said to the newlyweds. “This was really nice, but I think I’d better grab a bus and go home.”

“You can’t,” Asher retorted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, first of all, I know you’re not carrying any money on
Shabbes.
And besides, we promised the Schiffmans we’d take you in a cab. If you girls wait here, I’ll get my wallet.”

Now there was just one obstacle standing between Deborah and a possible message from Timothy.

“Channah, do you mind if I dash over to the Y? I want to leave a note for some friends of mine who are coming next week.”

“I’ll go with you,” she insisted amiably.

“No … thanks. You wait for Asher and I’ll be back in a sec.”

She sprinted across King David Street, down the corridor of high, thin cypress trees that led to the steps, and finally into the large hall of the YMCA.

She pushed through crowds of polyglot students to the reception desk and asked, breathless, “Is this the place where I could get a letter—I mean, if someone wrote to me?”

“What’s the name?” the pasty-faced clerk responded blandly.

“Luria,” she replied, “Deborah Luria.”

He turned to an overflowing stack of mail in a tray marked “Hold For Arrival,” and began desultorily to sort the multicolored pieces of correspondence.

“I’m in a big rush,” Deborah said nervously.

“I know,” the clerk replied. “Everybody is.”

He went back to searching in what seemed like slow motion and at last said phlegmatically, “I have just one for ‘Deborah Luria.’ Do you have any identification?”

She was stymied. “I’m really sorry,” she stuttered, “I forgot.”

“Then come back tomorrow with your passport.”

“I can’t. I, uh … work tomorrow.”

“We’re open in the evening.”

Less than three feet away was perhaps the most important message of her life, and she could not get her hands on it.

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “
Please
believe I’m Deborah Luria. Who else could want to be me?”

“All right,” he capitulated. “I shouldn’t do this, but I’ll take your word for it.”

He handed her the letter.

She tore it open as she rushed outside. There was just enough time to see it was indeed from Tim before the Kaplans arrived.

“Take care of everything?” Asher inquired.

Stuffing the letter into her pocket and trying to disguise her great excitement, Deborah answered, “Yes, it’s all fine. I mean—everything’s okay.”

“Good. Now, let’s get you home before the Schiffmans think we’ve kidnapped you.”

“How was it?” Leah inquired.

“What?” Deborah asked, as the two women struggled through the huge accumulation of Sabbath dishes.

“The meal, Deborah,” Leah persisted. “My husband sometimes meets philanthropists from overseas in the King David. He comes back raving about the food.”

“Well, there was certainly a lot, and it was nice,” Deborah allowed. “But I think you’re a better cook.”

Paradoxically, this outrageous bit of flattery won Leah’s heart. Suddenly she almost liked her American servant, and she burst into a torrent of girlish chatter. Deborah could not wait to escape into the refuge of her bedroom.

As usual, the electricity was off, not merely for economy’s sake, but because there was always at least one child sleeping. Groping in the darkened room, she pulled her valise out from under her bed and withdrew what had become her most treasured possession—the tiny flashlight
she used to read herself to sleep. Hands shaking, she trained its slender beam on the letter.

To Deborah it mattered little how tentatively he had said it. There was no longer any doubt. They … loved each other.

And there was nothing on earth that they could do about it.

T
he day at St. Athanasius’ Seminary began before dawn. At five-forty-five a bell rang, and a student caller would walk along the rows of beds in the vast dormitory, rousing the young seminarians with the exhortation,
“Benedicamus Domino”
—Let us bless the Lord. To which they would each reply,
“Deo gratias”
—Thanks be to God.

They had twenty minutes to shower, tidy their beds, and get down to the chapel. They performed these tasks without speaking to one another. In fact, the entire time span between lights-out at nine-thirty and breakfast was known as the Great Silence.

Then, wearing their black cassocks, they descended to the chapel for meditation. It was, as the Fathers always reminded them, the time for looking inward. To reflect on how to live better for the coming day. And how better to establish a personal relationship with Christ.

After morning meditation, the seminarians would line up in the refectory, each holding a tray, waiting to pass a long, narrow hatch where they could help themselves to a bland but filling breakfast.

The opening was just wide enough for gloved hands to place the food out on the counter. For the only females allowed on the seminary grounds were those who worked
in the kitchen, and a strict rule forbade hiring women under the age of forty-five, lest the young men be in any way exposed to what the Fathers referred to as “the temptations of the other sex.”

But then almost everything reminded him of Deborah.

Although the Fathers did so frequently, there was little need to expound upon the evil influence of women, since the only females within the boundaries of the seminary existed as disembodied limbs behind the refectory hatch or in the boys’ nocturnal fantasies.

Still, these were adolescents, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one, and even a churchman’s word could not dam the surging tide of hormones. For the pious youths who fell victim to erotic urges, the most urgent order of the day was “hitting the box”—confessing and obtaining absolution.

Sex was everywhere, intensified precisely in proportion to the power of its prohibition.

In the winter, the classrooms were ill-heated—for a purpose, so they said. To teach them how to cope with hardships that would inculcate humility.

Yet however harsh the weather, after lunch they had to go outside for half an hour. A few indulged in sports, making use of a metal rim without a net for basketball, a set of rusty dumbbells, and some wooded paths for walking.

Here they could chat freely—although they were required to remain in threes, and were subject to the closest scrutiny. The priests continually emphasized the regimen of “custody of the eyes” and inveighed against what they called “particular” friendships. Loving thy neighbor was one thing—thy classmate another. The watchword was
numquam duo
: never in couples.