DISOWNED (13 page)

   With her mother stretched out behind on the sofa, Rivkah runs down to the corner, through the streets, straight to the D subway line which takes her directly back to the shore.

***

When Rivkah gets home much later that night, both Molly and Henry, pale-faced, are waiting for her in the living room. It is clear that Molly has been crying for hours. Rivkah does not care.

   As she comes in the front door, they both stand up together, blocking her from going any further.

"We forbid you to see that boy Marty again."

"Why?"

"He's not the right kind for you," Henry is talking emphatically. "He's too old for you. Too flashy. He's not the kind who will ever settle down."

   "You don't even know him. You never said a word."

   "We didn't have to," Henry goes on.  "You're not ready for this, Bekkie."

"I like him."

"You more than like him!" Now Henry's face flashes beet red. "Much more than like him!"

 Rivkah moves a step closer to Henry.

   "Filthy," her father spits in her face.

   Rivkah slaps him hard then, across his red, trembling face. She has been made strong by Marty's love.

   Henry grabs her wrist hard.

"You let go of my wrist."

"Little bitch." Henry grunts.

   From the doorway, Molly joins in now. "You created this, Henry. You pushed her to be like the other girls. Look what's happening now."

"What's happening now? I've found someone to love. Is that so terrible?"

   "To her love is like water," Molly wails. "She's lost all her values."

   "And what about your natural women?" Rivkah takes him on straight. "What about the women you like so much downtown?"

   But Henry is on the alert. "We're gonna watch your every move. If you even so much as dare as see this Marty again, we'll lock you up in your room. You'll never come out. We'll teach you some values," he is breathing hard. "This friendship with this boy. It's all over now."

   So? I'll go and live with Marty and his family until I leave for college in the fall. Only a few more months and I'll be gone.

   "Go to your room now," Henry is through with her.

  But Rivkah's feet will not move. She can neither stay nor go.  She can neither answer nor be silent to him. For a moment she longs for her enormous grandmother to be standing beside her, helping her push Henry away, with just the flick of her hand. 

   Then for a fleeting moment she remembers herself, years ago, sitting in her father's favorite overstuffed chair. What's happening now, daddy? she thinks to herself. Why can't you love me again?

   Three days later, Marty tells Rivkah that his mother says that Rivkah definitely cannot come and live with them. Even for a little while.

Marty tells Rivkah as they sit together in the small coffee shop near the boardwalk that they have gone to so many times. It smells of salt air, french fries, and sun tan lotion.

Rivkah listens, amazed.

"Your mother has been calling my mother and telling her lots of things about you." Now he looks very sad. "She told my mother that you were forbidden to see me. My mother is scared. She agrees, it's not a good idea."

   Marty is talking very fast now. He keeps biting his lower lip as he speaks. "It's just for a little while, Rivkah. I have no choice about it. I'll always keep loving you."

   Rivkah is stunned.

   "We have to do what's right," he goes on. "Your mother threatened to kill herself."

   "She won't kill herself," Rivkah replies.

   "Who knows? These things happen. Just for a few months, we won't see each other."

A few months? Rivkah feels what is left of her world start to dissolve. 

   "I promised my mother, I can't help it. She has no husband. My father is dead. She counts on me. What can I do?"

  Rivkah watches Marty's eyes grow damp.

   "When the time comes," he goes on quickly, "we'll meet here again. We'll be happy together. We'll laugh all the time."

   But Rivkah knows that they will never meet again.

   She gets up quickly.

   "Rivkah," he cries out suddenly behind her.

   "What?"

   "What will I do when you go away?"

Rivkah rushes out of the coffee shop down the block, around the corner, her hair blowing mindlessly in the salt breeze.

Rivkah runs and turns in all directions until there is nowhere left to turn. She runs and runs until day becomes night and morning becomes evening.

   Three days later she stops running and finds herself back home again, in front of the porch steps, facing a grave, ashen mother who has been sick with worry and fear.

"I thought you were dead," Molly says breathlessly.

"No."

"Where did you go? We called the police all last night."

Rivkah has no need to answer her though.

"You'll have to leave the house," Molly announces quietly then, almost to herself. "I can't have you living here like this anymore. You're a wild creature now, not a Jewish girl."

"In the fall I'm leaving for college," Rivkah finally replies.

"Your father won't send you."

"I'm getting a scholarship. They told me in school. I'm first in my class."

    "We wrote to your grandfather about taking you to live with him in California. Maybe then you'll come to your senses."

 They look at each other then, two lonely women, distant, strangers to the truth in one another's heart.

   Molly starts to sob very softly then. "Are we strangers, Rivkah?"

   "Yes, we are."

   "Did I hurt you so much?"

   Rivkah turns away and without answering walks up the stairs to her room, to gather her things together.

"Will you always hate me?" Molly calls up after her.

   Rivkah wants to say no, not always mamma, but she can't say anything.  When she gets to her room, she closes the door and locks it behind her tight.

   Before very long Molly follows her upstairs, comes to Rivkah's door and leans against it heavily.  Her low, formless whimpering starts once again. "You don't love me, Rivkah. You never did. Why not? My own daughter? Somewhere, I don't know why, but all of us, we went wrong."

CHAPTER 12

But no matter what does or does not happen these days, Rivkah holds her little book
On Zen,
closer and closer to her heart.  The stories in it are helping her in many unexpected ways. As she reads them, she notices that she does not miss Marty so much. Her mother also seems less frightening. She lets days and nights pass as they want to, with a rhythm of their own. 

Another story. A student arrives and asks the teacher, what is the great principle of life and death? This teacher blows out a candle in the dark. After years of searching, the student finally understands.

   Rivkah doesn't understand, but this is still one of her favorites. She thinks of her grandmother dying in her arms. She thinks of the light her grandmother carried, and knows it can never be blown out.

   Like a finely woven bridge, these teachings now take Rivkah through her days. They support her travels between the world she has left and the one she lives in now. 

   Then, one day, a strange letter arrives along with the mail that usually comes. The envelope is addressed in a scraggly, unfamiliar hand. It is from California. On the top it says, "Helen".

Molly sees it first in the mailbox, grabs it and immediately tears it open.  "Rivkah, come here. It's from California."

   Rivkah comes running.

   "What can it be?" Molly starts to read fast and becomes very silent. Then, like the crazy little birds in her own poems, her body starts quivering. "It's from your grandfather."

"I know."

"He's dying."

"Impossible."

   Rivkah pulls the paper from her mother's hand. The letter has been written on very thin paper with small Hebrew letters on top in the corner.

We are sorry to write to you about this, but for a while now, Moshe has not been well. The doctors don't give us a good report either.

   "Are you all right, mamma?" Rivkah reels around.

   "My father's not well," Molly breathes, tears filling her eyes and her voice becoming vague and small, like a little girl.

   "I'm sorry."

   "Is it my fault, Rivkah?" Molly looks up.

   "Why would it be your fault?"

"Because I moved away? Because I don't keep Sabbath anymore? Is God punishing all of us now?" Then she looks at Rivkah with the primitive terror of a small animal lost in the woods.

   "How do I know, mamma?"

"You used to know. You must know something. You read that little book, don't you? All the time."

"So?"

"So, what does it teach you?"

"Nothing special. Only how to be kind."

"Rivkah, I don't understand you! You've changed." Molly seems alarmed. "But only one thing, I'm begging.  Don't hate me now. Don't hate me because I wasn't a good mother to you."

But this little book has had its effect. So much old hate inside Rivkah has melted. Now she is even able to lean over and stroke her mother's arm."I don't hate you, mamma, believe me."

   "Why don't you?" Molly looks up at her with big eyes. "Rivkah, hate me. I deserve it. What's happening to you?"

   A little later that morning, Molly picks up the letter again to read the rest of it.  First she calls Rivkah into the kitchen.  "I don't want to read this alone."

   "You're not alone."

"I am. All alone."

"None of us, mamma."

"How can you say that?"

   "Read the letter," Rivkah says.

"He's coming back East," Molly starts reading. "He's very sick. It doesn't look good." Then she looks up, and wipes her face quickly. "All right."

   "All right, what?"

   "We'll put him in a nursing home."

   "Oh no we won't. Grandpa will come here."

"How can we?" Molly is astonished. "There's no Sabbath here, anymore."

   "So, we'll make it again."

But it's not so easy, and Rivkah knows it. Once you've let the Sabbath go, it's almost impossible to take it back again. And sometimes also, Rivkah thinks, it doesn't even want you.

   "Keep Sabbath? How can I? I have a new little baby. Your father is happy, finally. Is it right for me to disrupt everything now, to take care of a very sick old man?"

  Rivkah is stricken to the bone. "He's your father, mamma. And he's sick, so sick."

   "But how can I take him in here? Our world will be turned upside down."

   Moshe returns from California by plane four days later, a vestige of himself. A shadow only. His cheeks are sunken and pale. His hands are thin and barely move at his sides. He looks

up at Rivkah who greets him at the plane, with eyes that have receded back into the universe they came from, and are receding back more and more each day.

   Helen, his wife, has remained in California and has sent him home alone on the plane. For a second wife to care for a husband so sick, she writes in a little note to Rivkah, is asking too much. Isn't it?

Rivkah greets Moshe at the airport at the end of June, with a small ambulance waiting outside. She's the only one who has come to meet him. Her mother and father are in the office at the nursing home taking care of practical matters.

Moshe looks up from his stretcher in the airport when he sees her, slightly uncomprehending at first.

   "Grandpa, it's me. Rivkah."

"Rivkah, little Rivkah," he says finally. His lips are dry and it is hard to speak.

Where is my shining, dancing grandpa? Rivkah thinks fiercely. What happened? What happened? Where is he now?  She puts her hand on his forehead lightly. "Everything will

be all right, grandpa," she whispers to him.

   "If God wants it to be," he barely says. "What are we, Rivkah? Dust in God's hands."

Before we move forwards, we must go backwards, Rivkah's little book says. But, which way is forward and which is backward? Rivkah wonders to herself, as she cares for Moshe day

after day and has a taste of her old life back again.

School is over now for Rivkah and she is scheduled to go to Vermont to college in the fall. But for now she goes to the nursing home early every morning and stays there until late at night.

   "My little Rivkah," Moshe says in a voice barely audible as she walks in the door of his small, white room. There are tubes all over and his prayer books and Tefillin are on the table besides him.

   "Talk to me, Rivkah."

"Did you get my letters, grandpa?"

Once in a while his eyes peer into the present moment and he is right there besides her. Often he is not. Often he speaks to her only from out of the vast chasm he is lying in.

"Did I get your letters?" he barely mouths the words.

"I wrote you letters."

   "Of course I got them," he answers finally, an odd burst of energy speaking through him. "Beautiful letters promising me that you would always remember who I was and who you are."

Rivkah swallows slowly.

"I read your letters every day."  He is gazing now and smiling into the distance.

Rivkah wonders where he is exactly, and who he is talking to. For a moment she cannot even discern if he is dead or alive, so far away he seems. 

   "How could I forget letters like that?"

Grandpa! she wants to shake him.  Wake up. Come back to the world. But it is too late for that. Far too late, she can see.

"The letter I liked most," more energy comes like a gift to him, "was when you wrote, 'Grandpa. Every day I pray, I talk in your name to God, and say Hashem, in my grandfather's merit, please listen to me. In my grandfather's merit, please help all the Jews.'"

   She wrote that to him in the very beginning. Now Rivkah sits beside him silenced. Frozen. Terrified for a moment. Thoughts like that have flown so far away from her now.

   "You know, I have a present for you Rivkah. I even wrote it in my will."

"Tell me."

"My Shofar. It's for you."

Rivkah's heart clenches. "What?"