From a Sealed Room

by Rachel Kadish

  The picture switches to the agricultural report and I turn from the television.

  And I say to Lilka, No. I will not allow you to utter such things. America cannot be on fire. America is the future, how can it be burnt by past? Americans know how to press cigarettes and chocolate into trembling hands, how to turn blowing of flames into the sound of pouring water. In America, ice cream comes from a machine when you press a lever, boys drive cars without roofs in America, and no one weeps. It is the promising land, America. Our future has been promised.

  Above, a wind rustles the American’s apartment. Night and day I have waited for Her, I will not allow doubt to enter my heart now. Americans will bend the sky and come down, I chant as Lilka leaves me. Touch the mountains and they will smoke. O Americans, You will not ignore us forever. You will not hide Your faces always. Restore the luster to our eyes, lest we sleep the sleep of death; lest our enemies say, We have overcome them.

  But I trust in Your faithfulness, my heart will exult in Your deliverance.

  I will sing to my American, for She will be good to me.

  Uttering my devotions with all my strength, I leave my apartment and climb the stairs.

  It takes Gil several days to notice the missing cloth, but when he does he knows immediately that I am responsible. “How am I supposed to get work done in this apartment?” His eyes are dark with fatigue, his throat is corded with tension. When he rocks forward in the entryway and seizes my wrist, a stranger might think he was merely reaching out for balance. “How am I supposed to get work done, Maya, if my supplies disappear?”

  I do not hear the footsteps, exactly. But I feel them, coming closer as I stumble from Gil’s blow. With every throb in my veins, every rush of air between Gil’s quick-turning frame and mine, they near.

  The door is not locked, not even properly shut; Gil was upon me the instant I entered the apartment. So it is easy for the woman from downstairs to open the door. Easy for her to stand in the entry while Gil goads me to produce the cloth. Only I, my cheek against the cool plaster of the wall, see her. Her features are as plain as I remember, she wears the same faded brown skirt and her kerchief is askew, revealing a spongy tangle of gray and blond. She looks at me and I at her. The apartment is dark and bright, sunlight sweeps Gil’s tired face and leaves her figure in shadow.

  Something about her stillness makes me hold myself motionless as well, as though Gil’s swinging arm could not hurt me. Her eyes, glittering like sapphires, are trained on me. The hunger on her face is so intense I hardly notice when her lips begin moving. Like a person swept up in prayer, she sways.

  It is the sound of her chanting that makes Gil pause, arm raised halfway above his head. He stares at me as though, for just an instant, he believes I am the source of this odd speech weaving between the two of us; as though, frozen mid-blow, he’s glimpsed some life in me he cannot reach with his restless hands.

  Then his gaze falters. “What the hell?”

  I lay his voice gently aside. I strain, instead, to hear her words.

  Her speech is a papery croon that begins in a Slavic-sounding language and shifts to Yiddish, then blends into Hebrew. And now, out of nowhere, come English phrases, nonsense mixed with the ancient Hebrew of psalms. I am transfixed. I lift mine eyes whence will come my help I lift mine eyes. For lo my sight has grown dim but my help will come. New new all-new flavor, Cadillac convertible the wind in your hair my help will come feel like one hundred dollars. Drink Coca-Cola and smile. New shirt new shoes new fresh lemon scent whence cometh my help from the skies and smile.

  Gil lowers his arm.

  She stops. She has not taken her eyes from me since she appeared; now she bends her neck and backs away stiffly, a petitioner departing a formal audience.

  She is gone.

  “What the hell,” Gil breathes. His arms hang helpless at his sides; his hands, forgotten, remain curled in two fists that seem to belong to someone else.

  I slip past him into the kitchen and take a tray of ice from the freezer.

  “What’s a black woman doing walking in on us in our own apartment?” Gil is still facing the door.

  “She’s not one of them.”

  “What?” He blinks, distracted.

  “She’s not one of the religious.”

  Gil turns at my words but there is only bewilderment in his voice. The danger of the afternoon has disappeared, for now. “She was chanting psalms and who knows what other babble,” he corrects me.

  “Still.” In my single whispered word is an unexpected defiance.

  He glances at me suspiciously. “Since when are you on such close terms with our downstairs neighbor?”

  Just a bit more water for the blooming cactus, then. A twist to rotate it in the sun, a finger to test the dampness of the soil. “I’m not, it’s only a guess.”

  “If she’s not religious then why does she wear that kerchief?”

  “Maybe just to cover her head.”

  “And why does she live in this neighborhood?”

  “Why do we live in this neighborhood?” I’m breathless at my own boldness, but I don’t back down; I act as if our neighbor is still standing in the doorway, protecting me with her strange performance.

  The pale angles of Gil’s face seem naked, vulnerable. “We live in this neighborhood,” he tells me, “on a lark. I doubt that spook from downstairs would give the same explanation.” He rubs his arm. “I’m inclined to go downstairs and tell her it’s pretty damn rude to come bursting in on people.” He doesn’t move.

  Later that afternoon, he will sigh. “Just too fucking weird,” he’ll say. “The black-hat men interest me but their women are just too fucking weird.”

  Dear Maya,

  Did you ever wonder how . . .

  Dear Mom,

  I think it’s because of the situation here that so many people . . .

  Dear Maya,

  I never appreciated before how much you’re . . .

  Dear Mom,

  This week I went to the ruins of . . .

  Dear Maya,

  I’d like to tell you why I decided to . . .

  Dear Mom,

  Yes I know . . .

  Fanya wafts into the entryway with a faint smell of lilacs. So few women wear perfume in this country the scent makes me light-headed. I have cleared Gil’s drawings to one side for her visit; she looks at them curiously, but comments only on the prettiness of the lace curtain, the arrangement of furniture in the apartment. Her compliments fluster me but warm me as well.

  At last Fanya perches on Gil’s wooden stool. “Now tell me,” she says. “Why don’t you get out more often? You’re a pretty girl, you’re dazzling when you smile, and that mysterious boyfriend of yours should know you need to get out and be seen. Why don’t you come to a concert with me tonight? And you’ll join me for a walk first, won’t you? It is simply a crime to stay inside on such a mild day. Who knows whether we’ll get hamsin again tomorrow, and then no one will want to leave the house.” So many people Fanya must introduce me to, the Grinbaums and the Hellermans and that Yosef Cohen, of course they’re all elderly and I’ll be bored, still it would do me good to see some culture, heaven knows culture is in rare enough supply. The concert will be piano duets, any skirt I have will be fine, I’ll need a sweater of course for the evening chill. Her enthusiasm propels me to the bedroom. As I change my shorts for a skirt and search the dresser top for a hair clip, Fanya keeps up the conversation from her seat in the living room.

  “When I was a girl in Amsterdam,” she is saying, “my aunt Rivka had a shop that sold brassieres and ladies’ undergarments. My girlfriend Klara and I used to pick out the finest finery and Rivka would make a gift of it, we only had to promise not to let our parents see. We’d wear that silk and lace under our regular clothing, we’d promenade all over Amsterdam and no one would know. But we knew. And it made us act bold as princesses. Sneaking into parties, milling with the crowd at the opera house simply because we felt we were the mo
st elegant young ladies in the city. And everywhere we went, people believed we belonged, and made way for us without question. You are who you decide you are, and we were the toast of Amsterdam those nights. Now, that was a life. That was a city. Of course the boys never stopped following us, sometimes we’d make a game of eluding them. We’d step into a building and then from a window we’d watch the schoolmate who had been trailing us and make bets on how long he’d loiter on the street trying to run into us ‘by accident.’” Fanya smiles softly. “Oh, but we were terrible.”

  My hair pinned in an approximation of a French twist, a white blouse tucked into my longest skirt, I step before Fanya and am relieved when she smiles her approval. I’m ready to leave now, yet Fanya makes no move to stand. “I never had trouble finding boyfriends,” she reflects. “But Klara, she was always the prettiest of all.” Fanya looks down at her folded hands, the mother-of-pearl-polished fingernails. When, after a moment, she looks back up, there is no wistfulness in her expression—only a cheer so vivid it puts me to shame.

  I hear the key turn in the door and wish I’d hurried Fanya through her story. As Gil’s footsteps sound in the entryway, I am aware of a small, dense pocketful of anger; I want him to leave us be.

  “So finally I’ll meet this mysterious fellow,” Fanya says.

  We hear Gil drop his satchel to the floor.

  “Fanya Gutman,” I explain, as he appears in the living room.

  Fanya smiles and offers her hand.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you.” With a slight bow of his head, Gil takes her hand. Then he smiles at her, and I’m possessed by an absurd jealousy.

  “And I you,” Fanya says. “Maya speaks about you often, but she never said how charming you were.”

  “Maya speaks about me?” Gil asks. I could swear he’s blushing. “Well, I’m sure not as often as I do about her.”

  And as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, Gil rests a warm hand on my shoulder. He plants a kiss, then, on my forehead, a gentle kiss that cannot be anything but sincere. I accept it without moving. Confused, I allow Gil and Fanya’s conversation to pass me by. Through a single gesture, my anger with Gil has been undercut. I think I must be crazy.

  “Now tell me, Gil,” Fanya is saying, “who is that woman peering like a criminal from behind her door? She nearly frightened the wits out of me on my way up the stairs.”

  “She’s one of the black-hats,” Gil says with a sour face, eliciting a titter from Fanya. I wonder if he is going to dare more. And he does. “We even caught her spying on us up here once. It was while we were having an argument.” Gil makes the confession with an amused, apologetic expression; even the best of couples, after all, have arguments. “She was so curious about what goes on between a modern secular couple, she couldn’t stay away.”

  After he’s finished speaking, there is a short silence. As Gil’s eyes linger on Fanya’s, I am able to let go of my envy long enough to realize that he’s not flirting with her. He is searching for absolution. If she allows his account of our argument to pass, there can be nothing wrong.

  “What do you expect from the blacks?” A hint of bitterness tinges Fanya’s laughter. “They can’t get over their own solemn selves, of course they want to see a secular couple having a difficult day. Otherwise, can you imagine their resentment?”

  “I don’t think that woman is religious,” I say, but my words are lost as Gil takes up the subject enthusiastically.

  “But Fanya, don’t you think there’s more to them than that? Don’t you think there’s something remarkable about the black-hats? Who knows, maybe they’re happier than the rest of us, because they’re not worried about anything—they’re just trying to stick to traditions, and be worthy of their deliverance.”

  “Remarkable?” And Fanya does something I have never seen her do while speaking to a man: she takes a step backward. “My dear boy,” she says, and there is no trace of charm in her voice. “Anyone who can’t let go of his dolorous history and enjoy a sunny day is as big a fool as ever lived. Good heavens.” She laughs without mirth. “They could at least learn to dress for the weather.”

  Gil insists. “Still, don’t you think they have something the rest of us lack, something maybe we need?”

  Fanya’s shoulders press back; her stance is almost militant. Although Gil towers over her, her posture is uncompromising; it invites no intimacy. Without her coquettish manner her features are suddenly dull and heavy; I see in them weariness, and a terrible fear of age. And something else—a blunt and frozen rage. “I don’t need anything the blacks have,” Fanya enunciates.

  I couldn’t say where it is that I walk in the hours after attending the concert with Fanya. The smell of simmering onions floats along the street, together with the sound of soft conversation and laughter from kitchen windows as families gather for a late dinner. Lamplight brims over sills, dresses the walls of buildings in gold and shadow. The uneven planes of stone look soft—individual as familiar faces, and susceptible to interpretation. Darkness, deepening, grants and snatches away: three whispering schoolgirls in shorts cross quickly through a park, loose sandals slapping the stone-paved path; then they are gone. I pass down the sidewalk, my own footsteps an apologetic murmur.

  At Ticho House, it seemed everyone knew Fanya. Even the pianists, a father and son come from Russia only this year. After the concert they greeted Fanya with obvious pleasure, the father bowing ponderously at the waist, his bald head red from effort. They had played duets, two pairs of hands in unison, two minds in perfect and wordless agreement. I’d sat in the audience and imagined geese circling and skimming, landing together on a dark surface. Or, I’d asked myself, was it supposed to be swans? Geese weren’t graceful enough for this picture, were they? I imagined geese braking wildly as they landed, their outstretched feet shooting jets of water at delicately indignant swans.

  Listening to music in this safe and orderly gallery with its domed ceilings and rows of folding chairs, I realized how long it had been since I’d joked in the privacy of my mind. This recital was gentle, slow-tempoed; the notes spilled forward and then came the diminuendo, Europe nestled beneath pale-blue arches. I sat in an audience of men and women, few younger than forty and most wearing glasses. Fanya marked rhythm with her stockinged foot; she nudged her discarded shoes beneath her chair and ignored the woman fanning herself noisily with a program in the row behind us. The hardness I’d glimpsed in her earlier had been erased. Fanya’s demeanor as she listened was of the most rapt delight.

  During the reception, a gentleman Fanya introduced as Shmuel Roseman took my hand in both of his and shook it for a long while. He addressed Fanya in a lilting banter that could not mask the hope shining in his eyes. “Fanya, you’re here in Jerusalem again and you haven’t come to visit me? Not even one little outing to the jeweler’s shop to say hello?”

  “I scarcely arrived from Tel Aviv this minute,” Fanya told him, and Shmuel blushed before asking if she would be so charitable as to accompany a poor doddering gentleman on a picnic the next day. I watched Fanya drift between No and Weather Permitting and finally alight on Perhaps, promising to call him the next day at noon. At which Shmuel retreated, turning on me a beatific smile.

  Afterward, Fanya and I walked together as far as Herzog Street. “Men,” she sighed when we’d been walking for some time. “They won’t take no for an answer. I’m sure you feel that way sometimes about Gil.” On the quiet street, her laughter was a call to sisterhood—an invitation to join her in observing with pleased exasperation the follies and weaknesses of men.

  An invitation, I thought, to be normal.

  I could have spoken at that moment, I could have told Fanya just one small thing about Gil. The way he sat over his work for hours at a stretch and did not hear me, even when I called his name. The way his shoulders tightened when he came home frustrated from the gallery. Fanya would have dismissed Gil in an instant, flicked his temper away with one toss of her head. Out of the ques
tion, such behavior.

  I stood on the edge of Fanya’s charmed circle, and its warmth made me shiver with envy. Then rebellion. She wouldn’t understand. Whatever she guessed of the truth, she would be wrong. She would think Gil didn’t love me, would think I was a fool to believe he did. But she couldn’t see what I saw. Gil did love me. It was a different kind of love, only. A kind I hadn’t seen before: stronger, harder to bear.

  So I said nothing. I walked on, my hands clenched in obstinate loyalty.

  Fanya’s silence announced her disappointment as clearly as if she’d spoken it. My loyalty to a man, my refusal to share minor frustrations, hobbled me in her eyes. Bitterly, I wondered what she would think if she knew the truth.

  At the intersection where our paths would diverge, Fanya faced me. “Something you should know,” she said. “About your cousin Dov. He’s behaving”—Fanya searched for the proper word—“regrettably. But it might help to know something, a thing that happened two years ago, in the summer. His best friend died. Dov has handled it terribly.”

  Standing opposite Fanya on the street corner, I tried to absorb what she was telling me. I tried to add it all up in my mind—Dov plus friend plus tragedy. But the sum was not forthcoming. Gradually the spectacle of my selfishness reared inside me. How small and bounded I had become. Tears started in my eyes, but they were tears for myself. In vain I tried to stamp down my self-pity and feel something for my hostile, bewildering cousin. To drown out my confusion, I spoke. “What happened?”