Light Fell (15 page)

Joseph has not yet decided about attending services this weekend with his sons. He is nurturing a hope they will ask him to accompany them to the synagogue even though he cannot imagine himself singing the old Sabbath tunes or rocking back and forth in an ecstasy of prayer. Those are part of his buried life. Instead, he thinks he may just sit alone in the Sabbath Eve quiet, enjoying the purr of the kitchen and the thought of the pleasant weekend ahead of him, waiting for his sons to return.

He moves on to the heavier foods and before long the kitchen fills with the smell of cooking meat. The soup is boiling, the chicken is in the oven, and the beef is roasting slowly over an open grill. These slippery slabs of flesh, these pieces of anatomy from dumb and dirty animals, nearly caused Joseph to retch as he cleaned and seasoned them. Now they prick his nostrils and tease his tongue and he knows he will have to sample them until he’s had his fill.

Unlike the slovenly beef and chicken, the fish puts up a fight. Its innards are nearly impossible to remove and Joseph wages war with a knife. The fish was a gamble from the beginning and now he is not certain if it is worth it. He has substituted several ingredients and is not even sure his sons will eat fish, especially one cooked with peanuts and coconut. Maybe this Brazilian recipe—a tangible connection to Pepe— is a mistake. Perhaps Joseph should have shut him out completely. At the very moment Joseph gives up on the fish its inner organs come free and in a second they are washed away down the drain.

It is past midday, and Joseph’s morning aches are joined by a stiff neck and sore legs. He picks up the phone and punches in a low number on the speed dial.

Philippe answers on the first ring.

“I’m in pain. Can you come over?”

Joseph resents the slight pause. Philippe is never forth-coming over the phone. “It is essential?”

“
Absolument
,” says Joseph, hopeful.

Philippe sighs. “
J’arrive
,” he says, and hangs up.

Joseph takes a bar of scouring soap from under the kitchen sink and steps into the glass-doored shower next to his bedroom. He acknowledges the difficult morning he has had by the odors and tints he scrubs from his sore limbs. He wraps himself in a thick cotton robe and steps through to the small adjacent exercise room. After spreading a sheet across the massage table and rolling a small table next to it he dims the lights, then heads for the pantry to fetch Philippe a bottle of sparkling water.

Joseph knows Philippe’s reluctance is due more to ego than time and that it will still be a while before he arrives. So he decides to indulge himself: he squats before the glass-topped table of photographs in the living room but does not study any particular snapshot, reaching instead into a tiny secret drawer underneath. He removes an envelope, rises with difficulty, and lets himself fall backward gently onto an overstuffed divan.

With great care and a touch of reverence he slides the brittle sheets of onionskin paper from the envelope. One page has separated into two along a crease. He greets the familiar handwriting—crimped, strained, private, so unlike the hugeness of Yoel’s body and personality—with the relief of finding a loved one restored in good health after a long journey and nods in recognition to twenty years of spots and stains. He does not lift the pages to his face. He knows they possess no scent of their owner. They smell only of time.

Dearest Love,

I am saturated with the love of our last meeting, as though
the bones and blood and tissue have been removed from my
body and replaced with pure light, a holy radiance suffused
with the breath of angels.

Joseph gazes up, away from the letter, at nothing. He sinks into the moist lushness, ready as always to abandon all sense and logic for the passion he only dimly recalls, a bright green jungle visited too many years ago. He recites out loud, from memory, what he has just read and imagines a flight— his own—from the mortal to the immortal, from the corporeal to the ethereal, a straight shot skyward from earth to the airy light of a rainbow.

I feel it swirling inside me, frothing; it makes me light and
buoyant, I am a bubble on a wave, a butterfly on a breeze. I
see only stars and moonlight, hear only symphonies. I cannot
work, I have no need for sleep, no desire for food, but when I
do read or taste or dream it is always you that my ears or
tongue or heart wishes to recapture. I have sought out G-d
my whole life

The buzzer sounds. Joseph stops reading but remains motionless for a moment. He feels flattened and small, folded into the deep couch. When the buzzer sounds again he remembers to breathe and rises slowly, carefully sliding the pages into the envelope and that into his robe pocket.

Philippe does not stop in greeting at the front door, but proceeds straight to the exercise room, calling out a reminder to Joseph to bring his water in a tall, fluted glass. It is Philippe’s cologne that brings Joseph back to his senses. So this is what the young men are wearing today, he thinks as he follows Philippe and the scent. He knows this is how they sniff each other out, these sculpted men in thin, tight clothes and stylish haircuts. He knows they have their signs and codes, every gesture and trinket and label signaling to like-minded boys who they are and want they want. To Joseph the code is like trying to read hieroglyphics: the intricacy of their symbols fascinates him but ultimately leaves him on the outside, bewildered.

Philippe is already unpacking his bag when Joseph catches up with him. As he removes ten or twelve tiny vials from a leather case he tells Joseph, in his typical mixture of French and English, that aromatherapy is what he needs today.

Joseph waits to be told to remove his bathrobe, part of the routine. “
Vasy, mon cher
,” says Philippe impatiently. “I haven’t got all day.”

He considers telling Philippe to leave. The stiffness in his neck has subsided and he wishes to check the young masseur’s impertinence. Instead he turns his back to Philippe and tosses the robe onto an exercise bike. He does not dare look at himself naked. He knows his flat stomach has given way to a small pout of a belly, a middle thickened by age and good living. His sole and paltry consolation is that Philippe, too, will one day face the same fate. Without turning toward the young man he climbs onto the table and lies on his stomach.

“Tell Philippe where it hurts,
cheri
.” Joseph is glad that his tone has softened and he relaxes as Philippe covers his lower half with a white sheet.

“Shoulders. Neck. Lower back. Behind the knees. Feet.” Joseph pictures himself on all fours, polishing the dining-room floor. “I’ve been working hard around here. My sons and my daughter-in-law are coming to visit for the Sabbath.”

Philippe is applying oils to Joseph’s shoulders and neck. The warmth spreads downward as Philippe’s fingers prod and pull. “A full house. So why you don’t have more help? Certainly Monsieur Pepe can pay for it!”

Joseph shrugs off the question. Philippe invariably mentions Pepe’s money and Joseph knows he cannot make the young Frenchman understand how important it is for him to perform these tasks himself, that his reunion will not be earned if not by sweat and suffering.

Philippe launches into a story about a client of his, a lawyer he services in his office. The gentle massage and warm oils lull Joseph and set him adrift from the masseur’s tale. His sore muscles are softening, his resistance thawing. He thinks of Yoel, who knew less than Philippe about giving a massage but whose touch held love, and Joseph could always feel this. His hands first caught Joseph’s attention that day in the Yeshurun Synagogue of Jerusalem more than twenty years ago. Huge hands they were, swollen and strong, but supple and soft to the touch. Those hands told Joseph, all the way from up on the stage, before he ever touched them, that there was something about Rabbi Yoel that did not add up. What use had a Torah scholar for the hands of a craftsman?

Joseph’s pelvis tilts in to the table as Philippe presses hard on his lower back. “So I tell him a low leather couch will never do and you know what he does? He pushes all his important papers onto the floor as if they are old newspapers and lies down right on his desk with his legs hanging off the end and his feet on top of a shelf of books. So I know this man has a great need for me.” Philippe’s stories always contain an element of his contribution to humanity, but while Joseph grimaces into the pillow, his interest has been kindled and he waits for more.

“I think when I see him he is
moche
, you know, really ugly. But I turn him over and I get a big, wonderful surprise. He is North African; I think this has something to do with it. A rich, successful lawyer and
énorme, quelle joie
! Since then I go every week, sometimes twice.” Philippe has pulled back the sheet, his fingers prodding and poking too urgently. Joseph is about to remind Philippe not to touch him there when Philippe turns him over and grabs hold of his stiffening penis. “So lovely,” says Philippe, but Joseph suspects he is thinking about his dark and homely lawyer.

Joseph tries to abandon himself to the pleasure of Philippe’s hand but instead he worries. Was it really sore shoulders that forced him to call for help, or this, the paid services of a French goy in Israel on forged papers provided by an Arab lover? Pepe would want to hear the details, but there would be nothing to tell. A dirty story, flesh rubbing flesh. The same everywhere, forever.

It did not begin this way, Joseph reminds himself. Back then it was entirely different, that rich passion he had known once, the absolute ecstasy of loving one human being who loved him in return with the same measure of excitement and pleasure and desire and respect. From the time they met, Joseph knew Yoel Rosenzweig was the one, the love against whom all others would be compared.

“It is said that since completing the creation of the universe, God has occupied himself with matchmaking.” Yoel told Joseph this once as they lay sprawled on a blanket in a quiet corner of the botanical gardens early on in their relationship, as their friendship blossomed and their romance waxed.

Joseph had misunderstood. “So that explains how we found one another,” he said with a broad grin.

“Ah, but no, my love, I was referring to this flower.
Ophrys apifera
. A member of the orchid family. Look, a whole patch of them growing here.” His massive hands cupped and separated one flower from the rest with a tenderness that aroused Joseph. “What does its shape remind you of?”

“A bee, I suppose,” Joseph said with indifference.

“Exactly! That is precisely what the male bee thinks, too, as he tries to mate with it. To him this flower even
smells
and
feels
like a female bee and that’s why he pollinates it.”

“Silly fool!”

“Listen to what it says here: ‘The flower emits a sub-stance that behaves like the bees’ sex hormone. Each type of
Ophrys apifera
attracts only one type of male bee, each of which pollinates in a manner unique to this species, called pseudocopulation.’”

“Sounds awful!”

“Quiet, please. ‘The male bee first locates the flower by smell, then as he approaches he identifies it by sight, and finally by feel. After landing on the flower the bee rubs itself over the surface in a back-and-forth motion that simulates copulation and the pollen sticks to his head before he realizes he has been misled and flies to another flower . . .’”

“Not having learned his lesson, the stupid bee . . .”

“ . . . where of course he completes the act of pollination.”

“Bravo. But what does all that have to do with divine matchmaking?” Joseph’s interest was at last fully engaged.

“Only God could bring these two creatures together in such perfect symbiotic harmony.”

Joseph raised himself onto one elbow. “Do you really believe that? I mean, what about millions,
billions
of years of evolution? You’re simply too intelligent to hide behind biblical ignorance in the face of what we know of the universe today.”

Yoel left the flower and turned to Joseph. “I do believe you’re changing on me. You seem less and less inclined to look to the Torah for answers and more likely to trust Western science and literature alone.”

“Well . . .”

“Let me tell you something, Joseph,” Yoel said as he shifted to a sitting position. “Whatever you do, wherever your mind takes you, don’t forsake your heritage. It has more riches to offer than you could ever imagine. And you’ll see, if you look long and hard enough, and with a loving eye, you can reconcile virtually everything.”

“Everything?” Joseph asked suspiciously.

“I believe so. I’ve personally tackled some of the toughest issues—slaughter and annihilation in the Torah and the racism that stems from being the Chosen People, to name two—and resolved or rationalized or explained them for myself. I’ve written articles to share my ideas with others. It’s an ongoing process, and it gives me faith and courage.”

Joseph sat up and faced Yoel. “And what about us?” he asked.

“Us?”

“Yes, us. How do you explain and rationalize our relationship?”

Yoel looked up into the trees at a raven cawing shrilly. He met Joseph’s gaze but did not smile. “It seems to me that Moses provided us with the shape, the essence of Judaism. He showed us that there are two paths, that of Jewish law, which provides us with order and continuity and meaning.”

“And?”

Yoel snapped a thick branch in half. “And the path of hedonism and self-interest, a life without constraints.”

Joseph shook his head slowly in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that you think our relationship is hedonistic? That all we’re out for is pleasure?” His voice contained no small measure of hurt. “What about the genuine love and camaraderie we feel for one another?”

“Joseph, nobody but us gains anything at all from our . . . friendship, and many, including us, stand to be hurt by it. If that isn’t self-interest and hedonism then I don’t know what is.”

Joseph had never before felt anything but contentment and love in Yoel’s company, but now his anger was flaring. “To quote from your precious Talmud, the ideal student-teacher relationship is one in which the pupil ‘eats with him, drinks with him, and sleeps with him, to reveal all his secrets.’ Isn’t that the two of us? The sages would have blessed us!”