The Jerusalem Inception (16 page)
“And tell Tanya I want to see her again.”
“You’re the leader of Neturay Karta.” Elie tapped the steering wheel. “Wasn’t her first visit risky enough?”
“We’ll meet in secret, just like you and I meet.”
“You can’t revive the past, you know?”
“That’s not your business!”
“You are my agent, and therefore you are my business.” Elie pulled a cigarette from a pack. “That son of yours won’t be ready to lead Neturay Karta for another ten, fifteen years, if ever. There’s no retirement from your job. You knew it from day one.”
“I gave twenty years!” Abraham put a finger in Elie’s face. “Find Tanya and tell her that I’ll be free in one or two years. Do it!”
Elie lit the cigarette, keeping the match burning so that he could watch Abraham’s reaction. “It’s not so simple. She has feelings for others.”
“What are you saying?”
Elie drew long on the cigarette. “Could I speak any clearer? Tanya has a reputation in the spy world. She’s a very passionate woman. Highly sensual. Surely you remember?”
Abraham leaned closer, his wide shoulders filling the tight space in the car. The flame of the match danced in his eyes, and his bushy beard trembled as his lips pressed together. His left hand rose and rested on Elie’s neck, almost encircling it. The hand tightened, four fingers at the nape, a large thumb pressing the windpipe.
Elie dropped the match, and the cigarette fell from his lips. He tried to undo Abraham’s grip, realizing he had underestimated the intensity of Abraham’s love for the woman he had thought dead for two decades. Reaching down, Elie’s hand fumbled with the beggar’s cloak, trying to reach the long shoykhet blade that was strapped to his lower leg.
The world fogged up.
His hand found the handle of the knife and tried to pull it from its sheath, but the folds of the cloak entangled it.
“One day,” Abraham said, releasing his grip, “you’ll push it too far.”
His breath shrieking through his constricted airways, Elie watched through the windshield as Abraham walked away, his black coat and hat melting into the dark of the night.
L
ater that night, when Lemmy returned from the synagogue, the door to his father’s study was still open, the lights off. His mother was working in the kitchen. She asked, “Where’s your father?”
“He wasn’t in the synagogue.”
She wiped her hands on her stained apron. “He likes to be alone when he’s upset. Next time you should ask him whatever you want, but do it in private.”
Lemmy thought of his father’s expression. “He’s angry because I questioned the authority of rabbis. It’s like I told them not to obey him.”
“Your father cares nothing for personal glory.” Temimah smiled sadly. “Sometime I wish he did. But he carries too much guilt for having survived while everyone else died.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel the same way. But your father can’t afford to indulge in weakness. As a leader he must project strength. It has taken me years to understand, to accept some of his decisions. I must serve him without a question. It’s my duty as a Jewish wife. And you must fulfill your duty, as well.”
“To get married?”
Temimah sighed. “You think it’s easy for me? But he is my husband. He is a
tzadik
, more righteous than all of Neturay Karta put together. We must trust his judgment.” She fixed the collar of his shirt. Smell of dish soap came from her hands. “Good night, Jerusalem.”
“Good night, Mother.”
L
ocked in his room, Lemmy read Jerzy Kosinski’s
The Painted Bird
, the story of a young boy with black hair and dark skin, who wandered around Europe during World War II, chased by primitive villagers and German soldiers. The boy told his own story, and Lemmy imagined he was hearing the boy’s voice as he chronicled his torments.
Long past midnight, the pages became hazy. Lemmy closed his eyes.
Had the rabbis in Europe caused their faithful followers’ deaths?
His father’s blue eyes stared at him from the dais, dark with fury, or with terrible pain.
He turned off the reading light and gazed into the darkness. He wondered where his father had gone after they had argued. It wasn’t safe in Jerusalem at night, especially near the border, where occasional Arab infiltrators from Jordan murdered Jews and slipped back across the border before getting caught. He had no desire to venture out from under the blanket, but he knew the pressure in his bladder would interfere with his sleep.
Walking down the dark hallway, his bare feet absorbed the coldness of the tiled floor, and he thought how long it would take to warm up again. He reached the foyer and found the door to his father’s study open. Light from a street lamp outside came through the window onto his father’s empty cot. Something must have happened to him!
Lemmy hurried to wake his mother up. Together they would go to a neighbor who owned the grocery store, which had the only telephone in Meah Shearim, and call the police. The thought of his father injured—or worse!—terrified Lemmy.
The sound of a sigh made him pause outside his mother’s bedroom. Through the closed door, he heard it again. Was she crying? Had he upset her with his questions and doubts? He turned the knob and nudged the door.
A section of the wall came into view, then the headboard of his mother’s bed, illuminated through the window by the same street lamp that shed light into his father’s study.
Another sigh.
The door opened further. Lemmy saw his mother.
Temimah was on her back, her head slightly up, her shaved scalp shining with sweat. She sighed again, her face almost happy. Her hands reached back over her head, pressed to the headboard. Her left knee was bent to the side, the white kneecap pointing at Lemmy. Her nightgown was pulled up to her waist.
The bed shook.
The door opened all the way, revealing his father, who crouched over her, holding her thighs apart, thrusting into her again and again—a slow slide backward, another thrust, a slide backward, a thrust. His mother’s sighs were hushed yet throaty. Her face twisted with each thrust in pained pleasure, her eyes locked on her husband’s face. The thrusts came faster, his father staring at the wall over the headboard, his beard trembling. Suddenly, he paused and pulled backward, detaching from her, and sat on his ankles. His right hand reached into his groin and started shaking rapidly.
Startled, she looked up at her husband and groaned.
The light drew the lines of her full breasts, heaving under the nightgown, the valley between her thighs suddenly vacant. She sat up and grabbed onto his shoulders, trying to bring him down onto her, trying to embrace his hips with her thighs. She moved up and down, grinding against him. She attempted to force away his shaking hand, to pin herself onto him, to direct his seed into her body. He used his free hand to shove her away, down on the bed. His right hand shook faster and faster until he froze, and his whole body seemed to tense up in a hard, arched way, and he looked up at the ceiling and grunted.
His right hand still capped his groin as he stepped down from the bed. He stood with his back to the door, unaware of Lemmy’s presence, and looked down at Temimah. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
She was lying on her back, her lower body naked, her legs open. She turned to the window and whimpered.
His back slightly hunched, the rabbi turned, took a step toward the door, and froze.
Lemmy stood in the doorway.
His mother was sobbing now, facing the other way.
His father did not move. They looked at each other for a long moment.
Lemmy turned, entered the bathroom, and closed the door. He did not turn on the light, but lowered the hinged toilet seat and sat down. The wooden seat was cold, and he shuddered. He rested his elbows on his knees, his chin between his palms. He stared into the dark, absorbing what he had seen, comprehending his father’s refusal to seed his mother. There was only one explanation. God had nothing to do with her infertility, and Lemmy realized that he had grown up without siblings because his father didn’t want more children.
And then a terrible thought occurred to him: Had his father ever wanted
any
children?
Lemmy’s lips trembled. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
F
riday was a day of study, but Lemmy could not concentrate on the page of Talmud before him. He tried not to gawk at his father, who sat at the front of the synagogue, where men came up to him with questions. Trying in vain to convince himself it had been a nightmare, Lemmy knew the truth: The great rabbi was a liar.
The evening meal was a big affair, as the whole Toiterlich family was invited for dinner to celebrate the impending engagement. Cantor Toiterlich sat at the opposite end from Rabbi Gerster. His children shared two to a chair, except for Sorkeh, who was placed across from Lemmy. While Mrs. Toiterlich helped Temimah with the food, the cantor filled the room with his rich tenor, chanting the traditional blessing for a new couple: “
Delight and enthuse, the beloved and betrothed, as you took joy in your creation, at Eden, in the beginning.
”
Lemmy saw the joy on his mother’s face as she filled the kids’ plates and caressed their heads. He thought of her face the other night, the film of sweat, the pleasure, and the agony. He could not drive the image from his mind, could not forget that her utmost desire—to bear children—was denied by his father, who made everyone believe it was God who was keeping Temimah barren.
The meal lasted a long time, with singing and several toasts in honor of the young couple. Lemmy chatted with Sorkeh, doing his best to be cordial. But whenever his father spoke, he looked away, afraid that his eyes would betray his feelings.
That night he again read
The Painted Bird
, falling into a fitful sleep that left him tired and confused.
D
uring Sabbath morning prayers, at the conclusion of his sermon, Rabbi Gerster said, “I understand that some of you wish to hold a protest later against the faithless Zionists. Remember, however, the words of the Torah:
You shall not raise your hand against your brother!
Your behavior must exemplify the righteousness of this community.”
Sabbath lunch felt as if it would never end. Lemmy couldn’t wait to go to Tanya’s house. But after the blessing, Rabbi Gerster told Lemmy to join the other young members of Neturay Karta, who were leaving soon for the demonstration.
A
s soon as the group reached the intersection of Jaffa and King George streets, Lemmy noticed several police vans parked up the street.
Redhead Dan stepped into the road and waved his fists at passing cars. “Sabbath! Sabbath!”
The cars swerved into the opposite lane to avoid the blackgarbed man. The drivers cursed through open windows. Some raised their middle finger.
Surrounded by other Neturay Karta men, his flaming beard and payos flapping in the wind, Redhead Dan shouted, “Sabbath! Sabbath!” He chased slow-moving cars and pounded on them with his fists. “
He who violated the Sabbath is destined to die! Stone him with rocks until his soul leaves his body!
”
The quote was correct, Lemmy knew, but Talmud disfavored capital punishment, saying that a Sanhedrin, a rabbinical court, which issued one death sentence in seventy years, was a deadly Sanhedrin.
The parked police vans turned on their flashing lights, their doors opened, and policemen jumped out. They put on their helmets and held up their shields and truncheons.
Redhead Dan grabbed Lemmy’s arm, pulled him up front, and yelled, “Our rabbi sent his son! God will punish you if you touch the rabbi’s son!”
Lemmy tried to free his arm. “Are you crazy? We can’t fight them!”
“God will fight for us!”
“They knew we were coming!”
“Don’t worry, the whole Zionist army couldn’t silence God’s voice!”