DISOWNED (2 page)

  "Don't push me away, don't push me away," he croons, almost as if he were praying.

Watching them now Rivkah is unable to think.

  "Rivkah, come in," the deep hoarse voice of her grandmother calls more loudly. "I'm waiting for you."

  Rivkah can't.

  "What are you doing out there?"

 Rivkah has no answer. She knows it is her place to stay with her grandmother, but she has to get away. All at once turns on her heel and flies down the block, around the corner to her precious Uncle Reb Bershky. She cannot help it.  There is no other place her heart is at ease. Of all the men praying, his prayers are the longest and softest of all.

"Thank God you are here, Uncle Reb Bershky, Rivkah thinks to herself as she runs down the block to him now.  Rivkah knows it's not modest to run in public. People could see her from their windows and talk. They'll know she's running to Uncle Reb Bershky again. Most of the time she isn't even allowed in.

Tonight she gets there panting for breath and knocks on his thin, wooden door. Reb Bershky's huge wife Miriam comes quickly and Rivkah tries to brush in past her, but can't.

"What's the matter Rivkah?"

"Everything." Rivkah's heart is beating fast.

   "God help you, Rivkah."

   "He is helping, I know."

   "It's not fitting for you to come every night to Reb Bershky."

   "God sends me, Miriam."

   "God doesn't send you."

   "How do you know?" Then Rivkah raises her voice and calls louder, "Uncle Reb Bershky, thank God you're praying! Or else how could the Jewish people survive?"

   "Stop it. This minute." Miriam blocks Rivkah. "You were here yesterday. What do you want from your Uncle now?"

"A shyla. I have a question for him," Rivkah whispers.

   "What kind of question?"

   "Personal."

   "You know people are talking about you all over. You pray too long. You have too many questions you bring to the Rabbis! It's no big honor for girls to have questions. What good does it do?"

   "It's important!"

   "God gives girls the answers they need in different ways. He gives them husbands, he gives them babies. He gives the questions to their husbands. The husbands care for everyone. Girls must learn only how to obey."

  Just then the little side door opens and Uncle Reb Bershky is standing there.

   "Let her come in," he speaks so softly they can barely hear him.  "If you need to come here and sit with me, Rivakh, just open the door and come in."

   Tears begin to fall.

He puts his hand on her head to bless her.

  "What's the occasion to sit with Rivkah?" Miriam demands.

  "I don't know what I'd do without you here, Uncle Reb Bershky, praying and saving the entire world."

  "It's not up to me only, Rivkah. We are all perfect," he barely whispers. Beyond that, he keeps still.

   His words pierce her heart in a way they have no right to. She wants to say, Uncle Bershky, wherever I look, there's big danger. Only circles going around and around.

   Instead she just holds up her hands. He understands.

   "In everything we can see God, every moment," he whispers, "if we learn how to open our eyes.”

   "My eyes are open."

   "Not far enough."

   He waves to Miriam to let Rivkah come in and she follows inside to his room. A little piece of the sun from the late afternoon shines through his tiny window. Rivkah sees the little lace curtains over the window blowing gently, playing with the sun. 

She pulls out a wobbly, wooden chair and sits at his side. A glass of tea stands on the corner of the table, with a slice of lemon in it. But most of the time he doesn't drink it. The tea stands there until it gets cold.

   Uncle Reb Bershky, Rivkah cries out inside to him, aren't you thirsty? Why don't you drink it?

   But he doesn't need tea. He doesn't get hungry or thirsty. Not like Rivkah. Rivkah, she gets hungry and thirsty. She gets crazy, lively, restless, curious. Sometimes, even the world around her, it calls her, pulls her. Sometimes she wants to run far away.

 Reb Bershky turns to her sharply just as she's thinking that.  "Where do you think you can ever run to, Rivkah?" 

   "I don't want to run," she answers, startled.

   But he knows better. Uncle Bershky can hear everything everyone is thinking, even the thoughts they have not had yet. Looking deep into those ancient pages of Talmud, the whole world is spread out before him clearly. Both the world within and the world outside.

  "Never lie to me, Rivkah."

   "I'm not lying, but. . ."

   "Yes?"

"Forgive me, please forgive me, Uncle Bershky, but sometimes I want to go away."

"Go away?" He looks up sharply. It cannot be imagined.

   "Like the birds outside. I want to fly."

   "Fly?"

A sharp pain grips Rivkah. "The whole world over. If we're alive, aren't we meant to fly?"

He sits up tall now, like a huge tree unfolding.

   "When we sit in one place, quietly learning, God holds us tightly in his arms. There isn't any place then we aren't flying."

  Hot tears sting Rivkah's eyes.

"Rivkah," he goes on kindly, "Sit quietly, learn with your whole heart. God will come. You will be shown everything. No one is forgotten. Soon you will understand."

CHAPTER 2

 Rivkah’s father Henry is nobody's fool. He's an extremely handsome, smart lawyer, with black wavy hair, and green eyes like nobody ever saw before. Henry gives top advice and sees a situation through to the end. Very soon after he opened his own law office more and more people started coming to him. Not religious people though. Henry didn't care. He just put a gold plaque up on his door, Snitomar and Snitomar. Counselor at Law.

   "Who's the other Snitomar?" Zvi Lichte taunted him.

   Henry only smiled back. "You think, Zvi, that I'm all alone?"

 Zvi is a short fat man with a huge belly and a tight black suit stretched over it. He is never without his prayer book tucked on him somewhere and makes his living selling second hand furniture.

"Smart, too smart, that Henry," Zvi Lichte likes to say. Zvi Lichte especially likes to talk about it to Yusse Sharf, the dentist at the corner. Particularly when he hears that Henry won another case. "So, he won another case! So what? What kind of law is he practicing anyway? It's not Jewish law." 

Yusse shakes his head. "He's becoming like them."

Zvi looks down to the floor. "We shouldn't know from it."

Yusse is persistent. "Go tell him he's melting in the melting pot."

   Zvi Lichte takes Yusse's advice. The next time he sees Henry he calls out loud. "You're melting, Henry."

   Henry laughs in his face.

   "They melted in Germany and look what happened to them!"

   Henry stiffens up at that. "They took plenty Rabbis with them too," he answers harshly.

"So you won't forgive God for it?"

   "It's not a matter of forgiving or not forgiving! I'm grateful for plenty."

   Now Zvi comes in too close. "You don't act grateful."

   Henry growls back. "I have my own views about being grateful."

   "Forget your own views. Just put on a yarmulke like you're supposed to." Zvi almost spits at him. "Who are you? You're better than Moses? It's too easy to forget everything!"

   "Who said I forget?" Henry spreads his legs apart and stands on them strongly.

"And your sins," Zvi goes on, "where will they fall? Not on you, maybe, but on your children and your children's children. With you, that's all right?"

   "What are you following me down the block for? Get out of my way." Henry yells.

But Zvi loves to follow Henry down the block. He takes a special pleasure out of taunting him and noticing exactly what Henry wears to work each day.

Usually Henry wears a pin striped suit with a bright tie and The New York Times folded under his arm.

Zvi runs behind him very fast.

"You think God wants you to run after me like this?" Henry calls back to Zvi over his shoulder.

   "Maybe he does." 

   "I doubt it," Henry yells at him loud.

   "Doubt all you want. You don't have the answers." Zvi Lichte wipes a little spittle from the corner of his mouth.

Then Henry gets to where he is going and runs up the steps of the subway station which takes him straight downtown.

   "It's pride that's got him. The Etza Hura," people murmur. "The evil spirit has stolen his mind."

   No matter what they say about him Henry continues in his own ways. "Wake up fellas," he yells when they try to talk to him about it directly, "every day I get news from Europe. We're living in a new generation now." 

But here there is no such thing as a new generation. And news from Europe means nothing either. Only the words of God matter. Only they last forever.

When the weather is nice and he is not at the office, most of the time Henry doesn't go downstairs. He goes out onto his front porch and sits under the wide branches of the old cherry tree. Then he stares at what's left of the daylight, and thinks everything over silently.

Rivkah often runs out and sits beside him. "What are you thinking of papa?" 

   "I won't be here forever, Rivkah," he tells her every time. "One day you'll wake up and I'll be gone."

Rivkah's heart clenches.

  "I belong somewhere else. Other places are calling me." And he curls his full red lips.

   "What places?"

"If only you knew," he smiles strangely and smacks his lips a few times. "There are plenty of places I could go. Plenty of women would be happy to have me. Beautiful women from different neighborhoods. I could have married anyone."

   Rivkah shrinks away. She doesn't want to hear about his beautiful women.

  "But what could I do? I fell in love with your mother."

Most people in Borough Park don't fall in love though. Here marriages are arranged very carefully. For a much larger purpose than temporary love. But in the case of Molly the whole family was relieved when Henry came along.

   "At least it's someone," Molly's father, Moshe, said. 

   "Someone, maybe. But the question is who?" Devorah never liked

Henry. Not for a minute.

But Moshe quickly had his way. Within six weeks there was a big wedding. The whole neighborhood came, and Molly looked beautiful.

   "So, I married your mother and we had you." Henry enjoys remembering everything. "But you know what I realized, the minute I saw you?"

   "What?"

   "God has his ways. He's playing a trick on them. He's giving them someone just like me!"

   "Not exactly."

   "Yes you are. My daughter exactly! You don't belong here either."

   "Daddy, you're wrong."

   But Henry seems quite sure of himself. "It takes a certain kind of person to belong here. It's not you. And it's not me."

   Rivkah's head starts to spin. She longs to see her father happy, exactly where he belongs. She knows he is scorned by everyone and only allowed to live here at all because he is Devorah's son in law.

   "There's a place here for everyone,” Rivkah answers, “even me, even you.”

  Henry starts to laugh.

  "What are you two laughing at out there?" Molly's voice comes from inside when the laughing goes on for too long. Sometimes she comes out on the porch to join them, stands behind Henry, puts her hands on his shoulders, and strokes. "Come on now, tell me. What are you two laughing about? What's so funny out here?"

   "Lots of things, Molly."

   "What?"

   "Stroke a little harder."

   "First answer my question."

   "I'm teaching Rivkah about the real world."

   Molly presses down hard on his shoulders. "And where is that, exactly?"

   Henry laughs harder.

   "The real world is here, Henry. Right under your nose!"

"That's what you think, but you'll know different when you come with me downtown."

   "You know I can't do that."

   "Alright, I was just asking."

Molly stops stroking. "You ask me over and over to punish me, Henry."

"How am I punishing you?"

   "You just love punishing me."

"Molly, open your eyes. I work hard. I provide for my family. I'm a good man."

   "Maybe."

   "Damn you."

  “Damn me?" That is more than she can swallow.  She puts her hand to her forehead and starts to rock back and forth slowly then, like a little girl lost at a parade. Then she leans down to him and whispers, "you're hurting me, Henry."

   "I don't mean to Molly." He pulls her down to him hard and she nestles her head deep into his shoulder as if there were nowhere else on earth she could turn. 

   "Molly, please. Tell me you love me."

   But Molly refuses to reply.

"I'm begging you. Tell me I'm a good husband."

   "How can I tell you, Henry? You make it so hard for me."

   "Alright then, I'm getting out of here. This isn't good for my health. For my constitution."

She wraps her arms around his neck. "Stay near me Henry. You have to. You promised." 

Henry looks up at her filled with desire. "Molly, Molly," his voice is husky, "love me. I am who I am." 

   I am who I am, the words enter Rivkah and etch their mark upon her heart. But their meaning eludes her, just out of her grasp.

   Now for a moment Molly and Henry are mesmerized, locked together inside of themselves. An odd silence rises up between them, a silence that has no place for Rivkah in it at all. She stands there outside it looking in at them, a stranger from another land.

   After their long embrace, Henry pulls back a little. "Molly, you still haven't told me you love me."

   She speaks falteringly, "I can't."

   "Why not?"

   "Not this minute. Later, maybe."

"Then I'm leaving!"

   "Where?"

  "God will guide me. There are places to go, believe me. Fabulous places, daring people. People who look you right in the eye. Who tell you what you're waiting to hear from them."