Rachel was sobbing, and at first Suzanne could not make out what she was saying. It had to do with her marriage, she could tell that much. Patiently she waited for coherence.
“We started it a month ago. That was when your ketubah finally arrived and the letters from our rabbis. So we got our court date.”
“Court date? Who’s your lawyer?”
“A rabbinical court, Mother, the Beit Hadin. We were supposed to be proving we’re Jewish and single. There’s an enormous amount of paperwork, but we had everything, we thought. We had two witnesses from school to testify we each were Jewish and single. One of them was my friend Zipporah, and they wouldn’t accept her because she was female. I didn’t even bother telling you about that. So we got another court date. Another three weeks.”
“Women aren’t witnesses?”
“Apparently it’s a matter of luck. Remember, this is an Orthodox court. Things are so weird here, they assume everybody who practices the religion is Orthodox. Like there’s only one flavor and it’s walnut. It’s pure luck which rabbis you get. How much fuss they decide to make. But this time was worse. When they got to me and I explained I was studying to be a rabbi, Mother, it was as if I said I was a prostitute. They were furious. It was awful, Mother, awful! They were so nasty you wouldn’t believe it, what they said to me. So I walked out.”
“You can get married at home, sweetheart. Really, it’d be better for all of us.”
“Well, we’re not getting married at all, so you don’t have to worry about it!” Rachel began to sob all over again.
“But, Rachel, you can get married here. So it was a nice gesture to marry in Israel, but you’ll be just as married if you do it in Brookline or Philadelphia. And you’ll have your choice of a dozen rabbis.”
“Michael was furious at me for walking out. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and put up with it. Well, he’s a man, and Orthodoxy is made for him. I just got furious that he couldn’t understand how insulted I was and how ashamed. So we had a huge fight. It started in Koresh Street, and went on all the way home on the bus, although we shut up then because other people started to butt in. We went at it when we got back, and we broke up and that’s all there is to it!”
“Rachel, it was a devastating experience for you. But you love each other. You’ll come back from this.”
“Never! I saw a side of Michael I’d never seen. A side that thinks that a woman is less of a Jew than a man, no matter what he says, no matter what he pretends. I cannot be married to that. I can’t!”
“Rachel, don’t make up your mind about him yet. Give yourself a little cooling off time. Give him some space and take some yourself.”
“Not likely,” Rachel said, far more soberly. “I don’t think I can forget that he didn’t back me up and he just wanted me to shut up and let those old men pour shame on my head.”
“Then don’t forget. But maybe you can forgive. Or maybe at least you can begin communicating again.” Why am I arguing so hard on his behalf? Suzanne wondered. I scarcely know him and I wasn’t crazy about him in the first place. But Rachel really seemed to love him and to want to be with him.
Rachel sighed heavily, and for a moment the lines between them were silent, both of them hearing only each other’s breathing and the echoey metallic sound of the connection. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Mother.”
“Rachel? If you could call before two A.M. our time? It would really help, sweetheart. And try not to be so upset. I’m sure everything is going to turn out all right, somehow.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think about the time, Mama.”
“Don’t worry, dear. And try to call Aunt Karla too. She will want to know what’s happening. I know she was planning to go over for your wedding. She already bought tickets.”
Suzanne found the task of helping Beverly shower and dress uncomfortable. She had a deep feeling she should not see her mother’s naked body, more a sense of impropriety than squeamishness, for the actual sight of Beverly’s withered flesh produced mostly compassion. Beverly had always been vain and careful about who saw her in various states. Suzanne knew she had seen her mother naked when she had been a little girl, but she doubted she had seen her that way since she was twelve—and Beverly, around thirty-five and stunning. It was humiliating to Beverly, who kept her head averted and would not meet her gaze. She was almost pouting. “Water…not…hot.” It actually sounded like wa-ah naw haw, but in the context was clear.
“I’ll make it hotter. The last time, it was too hot for you. Maybe I should get one of those bath thermometers?”
“Silly.”
“I want to get the shower right for you. You enjoy it if I get it right.” Suzanne knew there wasn’t much Beverly did enjoy these days.
Beverly nodded. She pointed at the shower gel that smelled of a combination of rose and lavender. “Nice.”
Suzanne was glad she had done something right. Elena and she had to make up for the lack of help—for the bills simply mounted higher and higher. Suzanne did not think that Beverly complained as much with Elena, but she was hard put to please her mother—as it always had been and apparently always would be. “Mother, I want to do everything right for you, but it seems I never please you.”
Beverly actually smiled. “Wash back. Gently.”
Carefully, slowly, Suzanne ran the washcloth over Beverly’s back. Every knob of her spine stood out like wooden beads on a child’s necklace. She had owned such a necklace herself, of orange wooden beads. Beverly had brought it back from Copenhagen, when she had gone to a conference with European union officials. She had been angry with her mother for not taking her. They were so often angry with each other. What a waste of time and energy.
Rachel called next in the morning. She was calmer, more elegiac. “I was so in love with Jerusalem. Now I want to run home. Now this isn’t home any longer, but a foreign country.”
“Ah, dearest, as with most infatuations and disillusionment, the truth is somewhere in between.”
“I know, Mother. I’m not about to run away. I just have to digest all this…. I’ve been so good. When I go into Mea Shearim or the Old City, no matter how warm it is, I wear long skirts and blouses with sleeves. I go bundled up the way I used to in New York when I was going to visit Grandma or Aunt Karla, the way you put on layers in spite of the heat because of men in the street. Here it’s because they throw things at you.” Rachel sniffled, but her voice was clear and resonant. “I was so respectful of their weird ideas. So meek and obedient to rules I not only don’t believe in, but intensely despise.”
“But Michael didn’t make the culture of the Orthodox.”
“Michael can go fuck himself!”
Suzanne shook her head. It was extraordinary for Rachel to use profane language. “You’re still angry with him,” she said mildly.
“I’ve never in my life been so conscious of being a feminist. I feel like a one-woman parade through Jerusalem. It’s schizophrenic here. I meet such strong wonderful capable women, and in the eyes of their religion, they don’t count. I don’t count.”
“I support you whatever you decide,” Suzanne intoned, realizing how often in the more recent years of her daughters’ lives, she had used that phrase. “You have to sit down with Michael and try to reach an understanding, even if it’s that you aren’t suited to each other.”
Rachel blew out her breath, sounding for a moment like Elena. “You can say that again.”
When Suzanne did grab a moment to call Karla from her office while she ate a yogurt and thumbed through a speech Jaime had updated for her, Karla already knew. “It’s so sad for her, it’s heartbreaking. She’s such a good girl, and never deserved such shame and trouble. If I could fly over there, I would.”
“Can you get your money back on the tickets?”
“The travel agent says they’re refundable, minus a service fee. So what can I do?”
Over long-distance, they sighed and commiserated.
; Rachel was back to E-mail, which signaled to Suzanne that her daughter was slowly recovering. Rachel told her more details of the battle in rabbinical court. She reported comments of her fellow students and teachers.
I had coffee with Michael in a café this afternoon, but we could not agree. I think I never understood how strong a grip traditional Judaism has on him, as opposed to newer ways. I think he only got into Reconstructionist rabbinical school because he was turned down by the Conservatives in New York and his parents didn’t want him to go to LA. I don’t hate him any longer, but I know he is not my bashert. Both Elena and I seem to have mistaken something small for something grand. I feel diminished, if you know what I mean. I am calmer, but I feel I am less. I think, Mother, you saw that tightness and rigidity in Michael even the few times you were with him, but I was blinded. I wanted too much for him to be the way I wished he was, and so I did not let myself know Michael as he is. That was an injustice to him too. I cry a lot still, but I am getting clearer. Today I managed to thank the Eternal One for showing me the real Michael before it was too late.
The cast was finally off, but Beverly had regained little mobility. Without Sylvia or anyone filling in as primary caretaker, it was up to Elena and Suzanne to do most of what needed to be done for Beverly. One or another of the agency employees came in three mornings a week, but otherwise they were on their own with her. Elena took the whole day shift on Monday and Tuesday, when the restaurant was closed. Otherwise she took over at one and stayed with Beverly until four, when she had to leave for work. Suzanne got home as quickly as she could, but there were days when Beverly had to remain alone from four until seven. None of them liked that, but there was nothing Suzanne could do. Weekends she took over.
Suzanne was back to making supper or bringing home takeout Wednesday through Sunday, as Elena ate at the restaurant with the staff from four-thirty to five-fifteen. Home meals had to be something easy for Beverly to eat, as she hated needing help with her food. If Suzanne cut the fish into bite-size pieces before she brought it to the table, Beverly found that acceptable, but not if Suzanne tried to cut the food on her plate. Tonight it was a fish and potato stew she had cooked from scratch—a fast scratch. She was learning entrées that took no more than twenty minutes to cook, or she just couldn’t manage. Beverly seemed to find the soup satisfactory, although Suzanne knew it probably tasted bland to her. Then they hobbled together back into the bedroom.
“Mother, this is what I want. We’ve wasted so much of our lives arguing, disagreeing, trying to make the other more like ourselves. It’s hard to break old habits, but maybe we could begin to be gentler and more loving with each other?”
“Loving…” Beverly repeated. She lay back on the propped-up pillows, exhausted from the bath but relaxed. There was a scent of the shower gel about her, instead of the musty smell that often clung to her crippled body. “Love me?”
“Yes, I love you. In spite of how badly we’ve gotten along. In spite of never feeling I please you. You’re my origin, my source, my first family. You were the earliest image of beauty I had. Your face. Of course I love you.”
“Then…help me…die.” It took Beverly almost two minutes to get the phrase out, her face knotted with the effort.
Suzanne stared at her mother. “Help you to die?”
“Tired…Useless…Ready.”
“Mother, you’re not close to death. You could live for years. I don’t think you’re in great pain. Haven’t we made you feel welcome?”
“Can’t do…any…thing.”
“You’re bored.”
Beverly slowly nodded, her head lolling to one side. “Never…before use…less.”
“You’ve worked so hard all your life, why do you have to be working? What do you think you have to be accomplishing?”
Beverly shook her finger at Suzanne, pointing.
“You mean I’m the same way.”
Beverly nodded. “Tired.”
Suzanne looked at her mother, trying to understand. “Everything is difficult for you. Eating. Going to the toilet. Dressing. Bathing. Speaking.”
“Tired.”
“So you really wish you could die?”
“Now. Soon. Help me.”
Suzanne did not reply as she went off to her room, warm tears sliding down her cheeks. Elena stayed that night with her new boyfriend, Sean. Suzanne did not get to speak to her privately until Saturday morning, when she motioned Elena into her office and shut the door.
“Beverly said something really disturbing to me the night before last. She said she wanted to die. She was serious, Elena. She said she wanted help to die.”
Elena nodded, slinging herself sideways across a chair with arms. “She’s been saying that to me for about a month, Mom. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I don’t know what to do. But it’s mean, it’s cruel to ignore her.”
They met each other’s gaze. “You know, it would be considered murder,” Suzanne said. “Mostly people don’t get convicted, but sometimes they do. Prosecutors always try to get a conviction. I’m not convinced we need another criminal case in this family. And I’m not convinced she has a right to ask this of us. She’s not in enormous pain. She could live for years.”
“If she wants our help, we have to give it to her, Mother,” Elena said. “Can’t you see that? We’re the people who love her most in the world.”
“I keep thinking, maybe I haven’t done enough to make her feel welcome. To make her comfortable.”
“Mother, I’ve spent much more time with her than you have. She can’t be comfortable. She hasn’t got a life. I understand. Can’t you?”
“I’m trying, dear. But no, I can’t understand, really. All she has to do is stay with us and let us take care of her.”
“All she can be is a good vegetable.”
Suzanne stared at her daughter, wondering how Elena could talk so calmly about what was after all murder or being an accomplice to self-murder of someone she loved. How could Elena sit there so placidly staring back at her?
I need you out here. I know it’s a terrible time for you but things are going badly. I’ve called twice, but keep getting your answering machine. I am being tried, crudely and unfairly. My lawyer can’t believe what’s happening. I think you could help. The organization would be glad to pay your way out here, and I think we can raise your fee. But things are going to hell. It’s a hanging judge, George Epson, who represents the lumber interests. He’d like to send all of us up, but particularly me. He denies every motion by my counsel and agrees to every objection of the prosecutor.
I can’t come out right now. My mother is much worse. I don’t know what to do. I can’t get away right now. But I know some really good lawyers out there and I will get on trying to find out who can join your case. I hate to let you down, but things are very very hairy here.
She felt guilty refusing Jake, but she could not stretch herself any thinner; more than that, she felt as if she was already failing her mother and her daughters and her clients. She could not go out to California to help Jake, no matter how much she might want to. There just wasn’t enough of her. What she could do was find him a really good California lawyer to join in the case, right away.
She saw her doctor the next day, her annual checkup twice postponed. Dr. Rose frowned at her. “Your blood pressure is one sixty-five over ninety. Sky high.”
“I’ve always had low blood pressure,” she said reproachfully. “Could you take it again?”
“I’ve taken it twice. I want you to buy a little monitor and record it yourself six times a day or whenever you think of it, and keep a log for me.”
“Dr. Rose, this must be an aberration.”
“Take it seriously. Some women’s blood pressure does shoot up around menopause. Your mother has had two strokes. If you don’t want to have one yourself, you’re going to have to bring that blood pressure down. Frankly, you’re exhausted. You’re undergoing more stress than your body can handle. Something has to go.”
<
br /> Jake called. “The trial is going badly. I can tell. Come out. Please.”
“I can’t, Jake. Things with my mother are in crisis. I’ve leaned on my colleagues to cover for me so many times this school year, I can’t ask more favors, and my mother requires intensive caretaking right now. Her deterioration is increasing rapidly.”
“Suzanne, I’m facing the possibility of prison.”
“Surely they can’t give you more than a short sentence, and you can appeal immediately. You should be able to stay out while the appeal is going on.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work out that way.”
She wanted to weep with frustration. She felt like a rope in a tug-of-war. She was fraying and everybody else was falling down.
42
Elena
Elena started going out with Sean, she suspected, because she wanted to put some guy between herself and Jim, and Sean was the biggest body she could find. Six feet four and beefy, he had boxed for a time but given it up to become a cook. He went to school and worked his way up through lesser restaurants. Now he was the dessert and pastry chef at Natalie’s. He had a bit of a drinking problem, she thought, but he was neither violent nor abusive. He just got quieter. He touched her as if she were the most delicate pastry. Sex with him was occasional and low key, all she felt she could handle at the moment. He was, like her friend Cindy, someone to pass time with, someone caring and never dangerous to her.
The restaurant was a scene she understood, but it too was only passing time. She got on with most of the crowd who worked at Natalie’s. One of the cooks disliked her and never passed up a chance to call her a slut. One waitress, slumming from Bennington, was snotty, but otherwise, they were all types she was comfortable with. Her gentle romance with Sean was common knowledge and gave her a little status. Time slid forward. The weather crispened, then grew permanently chilly. One Friday night, it snowed, briefly, more a promise than an event. By the next morning, no trace remained on the streets or on the lawns of her mother’s neighborhood, that would never feel truly hers.