“Your father met with Mr. Gorelnik on Tuesday and they discussed certain possibilities.”
“What about the daughter’s feelings?”
“Things haven’t progressed that far yet.”
Miriam lowered her voice. “What Saul does with the Russian girls isn’t right – not for Jew or gentile. Some of those girls are here without work permits or proper visas. If someone abuses them, they have no place to turn.”
“Once your brother is engaged to the Gorelnik girl,” her mother replied nervously, “all that ugliness will all be in the past.”
Miriam laughed abruptly making an unfeminine snorting sound through her nose. “The past has consequences that can come back to haunt you.”
*****
Since graduating high school, Miriam noted a creeping malaise among her friends. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen. But waiting for what? For the moshiach, the messiah, to come the first time? The ‘other one’, according Mr. Applebaum was a well-intentioned, if somewhat misguided, false prophet.
Her best friend, Mitzi, was waiting – waiting to find a husband and begin raising a family. Mitzi’s brother, Yossi, attended Brandeis. He returned from the prestigious college with a bachelor’s degree in nothing-in-particular. After loafing about the house for the better part of a year, the boy went to work in his uncle’s delicatessen cooking brisket, corned beef and tongue. And waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting to figure out what to do with the rest of his miserable, well-educated existence on planet earth.
Of course, Miriam’s brother, Saul, didn’t suffer from any such existential ennui. On Saturday evening, she spied him prancing about the house in a freshly ironed shirt, his frizzy hair blow dried, and cheeks reeking of St. Johns Bay Rum cologne. He favored the fragrance with West Indian lime that left a cloying trail of pungent citrus odors in every room he passed through. “Where’re you going all dolled up?”
Saul was preening in front of the bathroom mirror. With a pair of pointed scissors, he snipped a few errant hairs– his beard was still a work in progress - from the side of his chin. “No place special.” Pulling a billfold from his back pocket, her brother took silent inventory of his finances.
“Must be a heavy date,” Miriam said in a goading tone.
Flashing her a dirty look, he bolted for the front door.
Did he have to call ahead, Miriam wondered, to let the Russian whores know that the rabbinical student, Saul Applebaum, was on his way? Slathered in St. Johns Bay Rum with a hint of lime and horny as hell, God’s anointed messenger would be arriving shortly.
Later that night as she lay under the covers, Miriam felt like a dry leaf in late October. Waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. For what? To fall. To fall and, perhaps, be caught in a frigid updraft of autumnal air. No more malaise. A new life. A new beginning. Which was not to say that Miriam would ever turn her back on her faith. Once a Jew, a Jew for life. But a Jew with a myriad of options. Just as the Sephardic Jews in Medieval Spain learned from the Moslem invaders to cross-pollinate their Cabalist theology with Sufi metaphysics, so too would Miriam Applebaum, the carpenter’s helper, find a way to pass cleanly through the eye of the needle.
*****
On Saturday afternoon, Miriam walked over to Mark’s house, where she found him in the driveway hosing down the truck. “I want my own circular saw.” Over the past few months she had been borrowing a reconditioned Ryobi model that the crew used for odds and ends.
Mark ran a soapy sponge over the tires and muddy hubcaps. “They got a real nice seven-and-a-quarter inch Rigid over at Home Depot for a little over a hundred with discount if we put it on the company account.” He rinsed the wheels off and carried the bucket of soapy water around to the opposite side of the truck. “That’s worm drive, not traditional.”
“Worm drive?” Miriam repeated.
“The motor housing runs parallel with the saw blade and uses gears to increase torque,” Mark explained, “so it’s better suited for the type of heavy-duty construction we do.”
“How soon could I get it?”
He came out from behind the truck, tossing what remained of the soap out across the lawn. “Let me clean up and we’ll take a drive over there right now.”
At Home Depot they went directly to the tool department. “The handle feels a bit strange.” With the fingers of her right hand wrapped around the grip, Miriam hoisted the tool up in the air and made several passes over an imaginary sheet of half-inch plywood.
“Once you get use to it, you won’t feel comfortable with anything else.” He grabbed a carbide-tipped, Freud blade off the display rack. “You’ll want a decent blade to compliment the new saw. My treat.”
After paying for the tools, they went to Friendlies for coffee and dessert. “My father’s unhappy with my choice of careers.”
“Can’t imagine he would be.”
“He called me a modern-day Isaac Babel.” Mark stared at her blankly. “A turn-of-the-century, Russian Jew,” she explained the obscure reference, “who ran off and joined the Red cavalry.” “Babel was on familiar terms with rabbis, thieves, Cossacks, religious mystics, anti-Semites and murderers. Being a traditional, goody-two-shoes Jew was never enough.”
“So, what happened him?”
“Under Stalin’s reign of terror, Babel was arrested by the Soviet secret police, tortured and executed.”
Mark shook his head in disbelief. “Just what I like - a story with a happy ending.”
“Yesterday in the late afternoon,” Miriam’s mind scurried off in another direction, “Tom was hanging sheet rock in the vestibule.”
Tom McSweeney, an immigrant Irishman, was painfully shy. He arrived fifteen minutes early to work every morning with a metal lunch box, thermos of hot chocolate and piece of fruit. Not much of a talker, he was always kind and respectful. The previous week, when the fire-coded wall board that lined the stairwell leading to the second floor arrived, Tom warned Miriam, “Don’t try lifting that alone.” Interrupting his own work, he helped her lugged the absurdly heavy sheets to the where a metal staging had been erected in the stairwell.
No one on the crew could hang drywall as fast or accurately as Tom. At six-foot-four, the gangly Irishman with the scraggily red beard was constantly in motion, measuring cutting and screwing the gypsum boards in place. Like a whirling dervish, he snapped a line of blue chalk every sixteen inches, hoisted the board in place against the studs, then ran a vertical row of black screws from ceiling to floor leaving a dimpled impression in the gypsum board.
Tom started the vestibule a little after four and by five-fifteen had the entire room covered with the gypsum board from sub-floor to the scruffy furring strips that crisscrossed the ceiling joists. Letting the electrical cord slither through his fingers, the tall man gently lowered his screw gun to the floor. Removing his dark-frame glasses, he wiped the lenses clean. “Here, let me give you a hand with that.” He grabbed a push broom and began sweeping up the white powder and scattering of blue-black sheet rock screws that littered the perimeter of the room.
As they were leaving work that day, one of the other carpenters offered Tom a pair of tickets to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. “Thanks but I got choir practice all week.”
In response to her questioning look, Tom explained, “I sing liturgical music in a community choir. We’re getting ready for a big concert with full orchestra. Carmina Burana.”
“Carmina what?”
“It’s a collection of religious songs dating back to the Middle Ages,” Tom noted. “Pretty intense stuff.”
Miriam leaned across the table. “If I hadn’t come to work at Fournier Construction, I’d never have met someone like Tom.”
“He’s married and the wife’s pregnant with their third kid, so don’t get any ideas.”
Miriam made a face. “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
Mark sipped at his coffee. “There’s Tom and then there’s foul-mouthed Ralphy, who whacks his wife
around, goes on a bender and drinks up all the grocery money.” Mark shook his head from side to side. “You’re glamorizing a mundane task; it’s just Tom, a journeyman carpenter, working at his chosen trade.” He gulped down the last of the coffee. “I got to get home and make some calls.”
On Friday afternoon as work was winding down, Mark took Miriam aside. “I’m having a barbecue Sunday afternoon for the crew and their families, if you’d like to join us.”
“I’d love to, but my cousin Sophie had a baby and I got to attend the bris.” In response to his quizzical expression she added, “On the eighth day after male babies are born, there’s a ritual circumcision.”
Miriam’s cousin already had two daughters so the bris was a big deal. All the relatives crowded into the cramped house, while the mohel laid out the various tools of his trade – the hemostat, scalpel and surgical gloves. When the bris was finished along with the prayers and blessings, the family retreated to the living room for coffee and dessert.
“Our living room is so cramped,” Sophie groused. “I feel like I got to apologize when company comes to visit.”
Miriam pointed at the partition separating the living room from the kitchen area. “Why don’t you just knock that wall down and make the two rooms one.”
“Do that,” Sophie’s husband, Jacob, noted, “and the roof might cave in.” Jacob, who taught philosophy at the state college, ran a thumb and forefinger through his goatee.
“That wall,” Miriam clarified, “runs parallel to the roof rafters. It’s not load-bearing and serves no structural purpose.”
“Look at all the light you’re losing.” Miriam rose and stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass slider that opened out onto the rear deck. “The light bounces off that partition,” she pointed at the wall in question. “Get rid of it and not only do you open up the space, but all that glorious sunlight streams straight through to the kitchen area.
“It’s not a load-bearing wall?” Jacob repeated what she said just a moment earlier.
“Absolutely not,” Miriam replied. “That’s the supporting wall over there - the one that runs side to side. This is just a partition. Nothing more.”
“Well, it makes no difference,” Jacob added with a constipated expression, “The wall is a minor inconvenience. Otherwise, we’re perfectly happy with the house.”
Later that night, Miriam’s mother came to her room. “Cousin Sophie’s on the telephone.”
Miriam went to the kitchen. “Yes, Sophie.”
“Can you tear down the wall?”
“Yes, I suppose. But I thought - ”
“I’m the one who slaves away in that claustrophobic kitchen seven days a week—a kitchen that resembles a gloomy dungeon.” There was a brief pause. “About the cost …”
“Just buy the materials. You don’t need to pay me.”
Suddenly an argument erupted on the other end of the line and Jacob was talking on the extension. “What about the ceiling? You’re going to ruin a perfectly good ceiling.”
“When the partition comes down,” Miriam explained, “it leaves a one-and-a-half inch gap that’s patched over with drywall.”
“And the floor?” He sounded borderline hysterical. “There’s fancy Italian tile in the kitchen and carpeting on the other side.”
“I can lay a solid oak threshold over the damaged area. Or you and Sophie can go to the lumberyard and pick out whatever you want.”
“What I want,” Sophie interjected, “is a new kitchen. And we won’t let you work without being paid. How soon can you start?”
So the renovation wouldn’t interfere with her regular job, it was agreed that Miriam would do her cousin’s work on weekends. The first Saturday she brought a DeWalt reciprocating saw to cut down the wall. Sophie had sent her girls to stay with the grandmother for the day. Jacob was pacing the den like a lunatic, fumbling with his beard and muttering to himself.
“It’s going to get a bit messy,” Miriam cautioned. After smashing a few holes in the sheetrock with her framing hammer, she ran the reciprocating saw through the top row of vertical studs, then cut away the section altogether from the bottom. Easing what was left of the dismembered wall out the patio slider, Miriam dragged the refuse into the back yard.
The two-by-four sole plate was pried free with a foot-long gooseneck wrecking bar. A nail claw made short work of the handful of bent and disfigured nails. Next, Miriam brought down the top piece in sections, hurling it out into the back yard in a heap with all the other debris..
“Baruch ha Shaim! Baruch ha Shaim! – Praise God! Praise God!” Sophie danced about the open space. “So much light. My new kitchen - it’s like miracle.”
“A dusty miracle,” Miriam qualified. She went out to the car and brought back her screw gun and utility knife. “Now the fun starts.”
Earlier in the week, the supply company had dropped off several sheets of drywall, which Jacob lugged into the living room. She cut a length of sheetrock to fill the cavity left in the wall, and then screwed the board firmly in place.
“You and Jacob can hold this board up against the ceiling, while I secure it to the joists,” she said, indicating a thin strip eight feet long. Climbing up on a step ladder, Miriam fished a handful of sheetrock screws out of her leather pouch. Whirr. Whirr. Whirr. Five minutes later, the ugly gash in the ceiling was repaired with drywall.
“That’s enough for one day,” she said.
Jacob was wandering about the room with a glazed expression. “What a difference.” He pointed at the late afternoon light flooding in through the patio slider. “All that glorious light.”
Later that night while she was preparing supper Miriam’s mother said, “You’re becoming quite the celebrity.” She was grating potatoes into a bowl for latkes. She diced some onion then added a raw egg, salt and a fistful of flour. “Even hoity-toity Jacob was telling everyone how great the new kitchen looks.”
“There is no new kitchen.” Miriam grabbed a gooey wad of potato batter, shaped it into a pancake and placed it in a pan of hot vegetable oil. After a moment, the edges of the batter began to bubble and turn light brown. “It’s just the old kitchen minus one wall.”
Five minutes later, Miriam removed several latkes, placing them to drain on a paper towel. “It’s a wonder they didn’t laugh me out of the house, I looked so silly.”
Mr. Applebaum said that it wouldn’t be proper for Miriam to wear her work clothes during the renovations, so the girl chose the overly long, moss green skirt and a demure, checkered blouse that buttoned at the wrists - no makeup whatsoever, hair tied back in a dark kerchief. To this drab outfit she added her steel-toed work boots. No matter how absurd, the boots were a matter of safety and non-negotiable. “I can be a good Jew and a carpenter.”
“Yes, Miri.” Her mother brought a braided challah from the breadbox. “It is becoming quite evident that you have knack for doing both equally well.”
*****
In the morning, Miriam arrived back at Sophie’s house with a five-gallon bucket of joint compound and a bag of taping tools. First, she ran a length of mesh tape over the section of ceiling that needed repair. With the blade of a putty knife she kneaded the spongy joint compound deep into the crevice, burying the seam.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Sophie asked.
Miriam held a twelve-inch sheet of aluminum centered on a plastic grip in her left hand. With a flat putty knife she was working a thick glob of joint compound into position. “You got to get it just right on the edge of the knife,” Miriam explained, “or the trailing edge will run rough and leave a jagged mess.” She flicked the white gooey mix onto the taped sheetrock, pulling a moist line the length of the wall. “Now, we feather the edges away from the joint so the surface stays nice and flat.” She lifted the blade at a sharp angle and made a second, lighter pass over the fresh work.
At noon Sophie called and ordered pizza. When it arrived, she set the food out on the deck. N
o sooner had they begun eating, the baby woke and began whimpering. The mother brought the new edition out to join them, and, cradling the infant in her lap, began breast feeding.
The late June sun was high in a cloudless sky. Near the rock garden, a goldfinch flitted from a Scotch pine to the telephone line. “My husband doesn’t agree with your choice of professions,” Sophie spoke with a self-deprecating smile as she shifted the baby to a more comfortable position. “Actually, it’s not the work so much as the fact that you’re employed outside the Jewish community.”
“Jacob works at a secular university, where half the student body is either Latino or black.” Miriam reached for another slice of pizza. “I think your husband ought to get his priorities in order.”
“The man is an intellectual snot, but he’s got a heart of gold.” With her free hand, Sophie poured herself some black cherry soda. “I think the prevailing sentiment is that Miriam Applebaum is such an attractive and resourceful woman. It would be a shame if she became emotionally involved with a shegitz, one of those knuckle-dragging Neanderthals from the construction site.” Sophie spoke with a droll, deadpan expression that belied her underlying sense of the absurd.
“Another limb ripped from the tree of Judaism.” Finishing with the pizza, Miriam collected the plates and silverware.
The baby, having finished with his own liquid diet, was sleeping soundly in the mother’s arms. “Truth be told,” Sophie added, “most of the Hassidic men folk would be jealous of any woman who could tear down walls and flood my gloomy kitchen with heavenly sunshine.”
*****
The following Saturday afternoon when Miriam returned home from work, she found a police cruiser pulled up in front of the house. She could hear her father bellowing like an ox from fifty feet away. Inside the house a uniformed officer, hands on hips, was glowering at the older man. “Don’t shoot the messenger, Mr. Applebaum.” The officer was clearly in a rotten mood. “I drove over here as a courtesy to you and your family.” Without waiting for a reply, the officer spun around on his heels, went back to his cruiser and drove off.