DISOWNED (20 page)

   "That's not what I said."

   "It's what you mean."

"Not exactly."

   "Well, maybe it's time for a new solution between us," Matthew says sharply then.

   Rivkah feels her mouth go dry. Is he thinking of leaving? She couldn't take it.

   "Maybe it's time for you and me to have a baby?" Matthew says instead.

   Rivkah is startled. "What?"

   "A baby. What's wrong with that? We've been together long enough. We have enough money."

   Rivkah's heart starts beating fast. She never imagined having a baby with Matthew.

"You seem so restless these days. Something like a new baby will be good for you. It will ground you in reality."

   Rivkah bites her teeth hard together.

   "It will involve you in the real life of the community."

   "And what about you?"

  "I wouldn't mind having a child. It will good for me too. Why not?"

"I'll think about it, Matthew," Rivkah answers then, short of breath. "You've got to give me time."

CHAPTER 18

After that Rivkah and Matthew spend less and less time together. The idea of having a child with Matthew terrifies her completely. How in the world would they raise the baby? What kind of answers could she provide? Everything she was has been taken from her. Except, of course, her little book
On Zen.

   Rivkah works harder at school and spends more time with Janice. One day as they are walking in the park, Janice tells Rivkah she just saw a small, interesting article in a magazine on someone called Taisan the monk.

   "On who?" Rivkah is taken aback.

  "A Zen monk from Japan."

   Rivkah's heart stops beating.

  "What?"

   "In fact he has a Zen Center near here."

   Rivkah stops cold and gazes at Janice. "I'm not ready yet," she tries to say. But the words don't come out.

   "What's that you said?" Janice almost hears her.

"Nothing. Not yet."

   "Well, I thought it was interesting."

   Rivkah feels upset. Taisan the monk. The name sounds familiar. All these years of reading the little book, she thinks. She wants to go see him, but inside is turmoil. Not yet, her mind says. Not yet.

    Still, she delves deeper into her book
On Zen
. Many nights she stays awake until almost morning, reading it over and over again.

A few months later, as she is leaving school, she runs into an art history professor on the lawn, Simon Tarentall, moving at top speed.

"Hey, Rivkah, hold up."

She stops and waits for him.

"Good to see you. You've been on my mind. Excuse the running, I'm in a big rush. The doors open in half an hour."

Rivkah smiles brightly. She's always liked him.

   "I wish you could drop everything and come with me now. I know you'd love it."

   "Where are you going?"

  "I'm going to sit with Taisan the monk."

   The sunny afternoon stops in its tracks. Rivkah is motionless. "What did you say?"

   "Taisan the monk. There's this absolutely terrific experience I'm having. We do zazen. The practice of Zen meditation. It cleans out your body, your mind and your heart."

   "Not yet."

   "What did you say?"

   Waves of fear surround Rivkah. "I can't do it now."

   "Why not?"

   "I'm afraid, Simon."

   He stops and stares. "Of what? It's entirely beautiful."

"Beautiful or not. It's not my time yet."

   Simon looks sorry. "Okay, see you later. I can't be late."

   That night, filled with amazement, Rivkah writes in her journal,

Rabbis, who is this Taisan? I have the feeling he's come for me. What does it mean to be ready to meet him? Is there ever really a time? And, for a Jew, is this ever allowed?

Now Rivkah's sleep starts to grow fitful, filled with long and vivid dreams. She dreams of her family.
One by one they come looking for her, her parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Sometimes they come silently, looking her over. Other times they come, trying to speak.

"Rivkah? Where are you?"

   "Go away," she murmurs to them.

   "Have we lost you forever, Rivkah?"

  Rivkah is startled. Have you lost
me
?

"Rivkah, stop for a minute. Where are you wandering? Remember, a Jew is always a Jew." Rage overcomes Rivkah. "And what exactly is a Jew?" she yells to the filmy dream figures and tries harder to push them away. But they are dream figures who can't be dictated to. She awakes exhausted, startled, and bathed in sweat.

One dream especially keeps returning. In it she is saying prayers for the dead for her mother's sister, Neilah.  I haven't seen her for years, Rivkah thinks in her sleep. She's not my aunt anymore. A voice within replies, "Years don't matter, an aunt is always an aunt."

"I keep dreaming the same dream over and over," she says to Matthew one night before retiring. "That an aunt of mine is dying."

"So, call her up and find out."

   The idea of calling her family startles Rivkah tremendously. But, after having the dream for two more nights and waking up wet and nauseous, she decides to do just that.

   Tentatively, very tentatively, Rivkah telephones the aunt's home first thing the next morning. But she hangs up before they pick up the phone. The next morning she tries once again. This time she dials completely.

   The phone rings through and a strange person answers. After speaking to a nurse for a few moments, Rivkah learns her aunt Neilah is about to be hospitalized with terminal cancer. In a sweat, Rivkah asks the nurse to say that Rivkah is calling. Almost immediately a message comes back.

"Your aunt begs you to come to her bedside. Early in the afternoon when no one else from the family will be around."

"Is she sure?" Rivkah makes the nurse double check it.

"Yes," the nurse returns quickly to the phone. "She is very, very sure."

The hospital Neilah is in is close to Rivkah's apartment. Without thinking much more about it, Rivkah goes to see her the very next day.

   Neilah looks up from under her bedsheets when Rivkah walks into the room. Her face is sunken, almost unrecognizable now. All the years they haven't seen each other disappear.  Rivkah shudders a little and reaches out her hand.

"Neilah."

   "Little Rivkah."

   "I came to say hello."

   "Stay with me Rivkah."

   For a moment Rivkah thinks of her vigil with her grandmother and grandfather. But when did it happen? It seems like a thousand years ago.

   "Everyone is gone," her aunt breathes softly.

   "Who?"

  "Everyone who matters."

   "My parents?" Rivkah is suddenly chilled.

   "They're alive and well. But they can't help me."

   Rivkah breathes more easily now. "And my brother David?"

   "An unusual boy. Beautiful, special. You'd love him so much."

   "Really?"

"Stay here with me, Rivkah. You can help me. Like my mother, you were always strong. We knew it too. She told me, "one day when I'm gone, you'll call Rivkah. And she'll come."

   A fierce chill runs through Rivkah's body.

   "Do you hear me, Rivkah?"

   "I'll come as much as I can manage, Neilah."

   "Manage, manage," Neilah barely mouths, going in and out of a semi-delirium. "I feel better with you at my side. I'm going fast, but it's okay. This life is a dream. A second only."

   Tears well up inside of Rivkah and she moves closer to her aunt. The room is warm. There is warm air on her face and her aunt's old perfume mixed with alcohol and pungent medicine goes in through Rivkah's nose and makes her head spin.

Rivkah comes often. Maybe too often, she thinks. A nurse down the hall has grown fond of Rivkah and brings a glass of tea with lemon to her side, whenever Rivkah comes and sits down.

   "Thank you so much."

   "You're a special young lady," the nurse says one day to Rivkah as she is passing her in the hall on her way to see her aunt.

   "Not so special."

   The nurse stops walking and comes over. "After this is all over, maybe you and I can have some time together?"

   "Why?"

"There's something I think would be meaningful to you."

   "What?" Rivkah feels terrified for no particular reason.

   "I'd like to introduce you to someone."

   Without asking who, Rivkah almost feels it.

   "His name is Taisan the monk."

Rivkah can't bear it. "I know him already!" she says, garbled and loud.

   "You do?"

   "For thousands of years."

   "What?"

   Now Rivkah feels dizzy. "Please, I can't talk about it right now."

   "I'm sorry. Very sorry. I hope I didn't upset you." The nurse's face looks flushed.

   "You didn't. Let me go to my aunt."

   "Of course. I'm sorry. I just thought it would be a wonderful gift."

   Rivkah runs away down the hall to her Aunt Neilah's bedside.  As soon as she gets there, Neilah opens her eyes, smiles and reaches up her hand. "It's good to see you, so good, Rivkah."

   "It's good to see you too, Neilah." Rivkah is breathing quickly.

   "Really? Even like this?"

   "Even like this. After all, you're the only one I see. There's no one else in the family." It's hard for Rivkah to talk clearly.

   Neilah feels it. "What's the matter? Settle down. What are you thinking? You're thinking I hate you like the rest of the family? Well, I don't."

   "I never said you hated me, Neilah."

"Rivkah, after I die remember me kindly."

   "I will," Rivkah promises.

"And don't forget your grandpa's Shofar."

   "I never forget it. Not for a minute. How could I forget it? He left it for me!"

   For three and a half more weeks Rivkah goes to the hospital in the early afternoons and sits beside her aunt who does not struggle with her death. Rivkah watches her relax into it day by day. 

"This life is only a steppingstone," Neilah says often.

   Rivkah rubs her arms with the apricot lotion she brings along.

   "And one more thing," Neilah says very late one afternoon, "the rest of your family, Rivkah, remember them also with love. They need it from you. Believe me."

   "Remember them with love? How can I?" The room feels small, close and stuffy. Rivkah longs to walk over to the hospital windows, fling them open, and breathe out all the sickness into the cool air.

   But Neilah's eyes open wide for a moment. "How can you remember your family with love? If you don't know how, you'd better learn fast."

   That evening, after Rivkah leaves the hospital, a very light snow begins to fall. It falls softly, washing her, clearing her mind and bringing a strange sense of happiness with it. Happiness for no reason at all. Rivkah's step quickens and she feels the fresh snowflakes on her face.

  Then, suddenly, Rivkah feels Neilah besides her. She stops walking, turns and looks over her shoulder.

  "I'm free, free, free," Rivkah feels Neilah saying. She feels Neilah laughing, smiling, dancing for joy.

"What's going on?" Rivkah calls out to the snowflakes, which just wash her face more.

Silence is her only reply.

   "Aunt Neilah!" she calls out adamantly now, much louder than before. From within herself then, she hears the answer. "All is well, Rivkah. Good-night."

All is well?

Several hours later Rivkah discovers that just at that moment Neilah passed on.

CHAPTER 19

Now it is time to do Zen meditation, and Rivkah knows it. She must find where Taisan and his Zen Center are.

The Zen Center is located in a beautiful town house in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. It has been completely converted into a Japanese Zen Center and is called The New York Zendo. Public meetings for new students are held on Thursday nights. When Rivkah calls she is told to be there at six thirty p.m. exactly. The doors close at seven and do not open again until the meeting is finished.

At exactly six thirty Rivkah lines up with about fifteen other assorted people, at the big front wooden door. They're all types and ages, and Rivkah is excited.

A tall young man with very short hair, dressed in a brown robe, comes to the front door opens it up. Then he stands to the side, and one by one the people waiting file in, and look around.

First they come to a front, stone vestibule, where they stop and take off their shoes. Then, barefooted, they step over the doorway, and put their shoes carefully in a wooden shoe rack at the door. On top of the shoe rack is a wooden statue of a fat, smiling Buddha, greeting them.

One more step and they are further into the zendo. It is cool and still with the strong smell of incense.

"Keep your eyes down," says the student and motions for them to go up the staircase which is in front of them. "Beginners go upstairs for instruction." He speaks in a hushed tone.

In single file they walk up the carpeted staircase. At the top a beautiful young woman with soft wavy hair, also in a light brown robe, is waiting to greet them. She smiles softly. "This way," she says as they pass by.

   The beginners are ushered into a carpeted room with round, black cushions lined up on the floor, along both sides. Other than that, the incense, and a spray of fresh flowers, the room is bare. After they have all come in, the young woman follows. "Just sit down at a cushion and face the wall. A little later you'll have instruction."

Rivkah sits down and faces the wall. She faces herself, her hopes and torments. She feels enormous support from all the others sitting and breathing with her. Who are these people? Her mind starts talking.

   "Pay no attention to your thoughts," the young woman is speaking to them all. "Keep your spine straight and just concentrate on one breath at a time."

In what seems like no time at all a bell rings out. A loud, clear, beautiful sound. "Okay. Stand up and turn around."