Shooting Eros - The Emuna Chronicles: Complete Boxset: Books 1 - 3

by Benjamin Laskin

  “It’s a blessing and a curse,” he rejoined with a helpless shrug.

  “What’s your batting average?”

  “Distressingly high.”

  “Okay, Slugger, I’m listening.”

  “Nah,” Gideon said. “Come on, it’s your birthday. Let’s talk happy talk.”

  Malkah frowned. “If I want happy talk I have Beverly for that.”

  Gideon held up his beer bottle to make a toast. “To Malkah. May the coming year bring you all you require to obtain all you cherish.”

  Malkah clinked bottles, took a sip, noticed that Gideon had whispered one of his little blessings, and set her bottle back down.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not interested in being treated with kid gloves, buster. I want to know who you are and what you think now, not weeks or months from now. Please don’t waste my time.”

  Gideon looked into Malkah’s sincere, sapphire-blue eyes. To his relief, she didn’t appear angry. A little frustrated maybe, but not mad.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “The future,” she answered. “Yours, ours, the world’s. Is that asking too much?”

  Gideon chuckled. “I’m not a prophet, Malkah.”

  “I know. I just want to hear what you think.”

  He looked at Malkah and smiled warmly. “Now I know why blue was always my favorite color.”

  “Hello?”

  “It was meant to be worn by you. Your blue sweater. Your pretty blue eyes set against the backdrop of that luscious, black hair. I always liked blue because somehow I knew it was a part of you.”

  Malkah blushed. “Don’t change the subject,” she said sternly. The budding dimples in her cheeks, however, belied her feigned loss of patience.

  “I’m sure,” he continued, “that if in Heaven there were something like celestials—womanly angels that, you know, kept the place operating smoothly or something—they’d look like you. Or wish they did.”

  “You are one weird dude,” Malkah said.

  “I’m answering your question,” he protested good-humoredly.

  “No, you’re embarrassing me. You think it’s going to get me into bed with you.”

  “Now you’re flattering yourself,” he said with a grin. “No, I’m answering your question. The future. Mine and ours. I’m hoping that you’re my celestial, and that I can be your angel, and that together we can create our own little Heaven here on Earth.”

  Malkah was stunned. Despite Gideon’s corny attempt at poesy, did he just say what she thought he had said? She swallowed hard, and her eyes misted, turning them into glistening jewels.

  “Are you…? Did you…?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make me say it,” she said, a crack in her voice.

  “Propose?” He smiled warmly. “That is the future I see, and the one I am going to pursue. Blue is my favorite color, and unless you deem otherwise, you are my favorite girl.”

  Malkah cleared her throat. “I don’t have a favorite color.”

  “Really? You don’t like brown?” He amusingly batted his big, walnut-colored eyes.

  “Who has brown as a favorite color?” she said, scrunching her nose. “People say red or green or blue, or even black or white. But nobody says brown.”

  Gideon frowned and put hand to chin. “Hmm, you know, come to think of it, you might be right. Well, so much for that future.”

  “Guess so,” Malkah said. “But nice try. Got any other predictions you’d like to throw my way?”

  “That was the only happy one,” he grumbled. “The rest are all pretty depressing.”

  Beverly returned with their meals, two blue plate specials: meatloaf with mashed potatoes on the side, a garden salad, a bagel, and the indispensable kosher pickle.

  “Can I do you guys anything else?” Beverly asked.

  “Nope, we’re good,” Malkah said. “Thanks, Bev.”

  “Wait,” Gideon said. “Beverly, what’s your favorite color?”

  “Oh, I got lots of favorite colors. But if I had to pick just one, I’d have to say pink.”

  “Pink,” Gideon repeated. “How about brown? Brown is nice and earthy. Isn’t that anywhere in your top five?”

  “Brown?” Beverly thought about it for a second. “No, can’t say that it is. Brown…that’s the color of dirt and poop.”

  “Thank you, Beverly,” Gideon said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Anytime. Malkah, just shout if you guys need anything.”

  Beverly strolled off, and now it was Malkah’s turn to toss the I-told-you-so look.

  “Poop?” Gideon said, shaking his head. “I have poopy eyes?”

  Malkah patted his hand. “You have beautiful eyes,” she consoled. “Nutty eyes. They just happen to be first cousins to poop. Don’t give it another thought.”

  “Nutty and poopy. Wonderful.” Gideon picked up his fork, murmured a blessing, and cut into his meatloaf.

  Malkah had waited to observe him. “Will you teach me those?” she asked.

  “Blessings? Sure, if you like.” He repeated the short one he had just made, Malkah reciting after him. Despite the blessing being in Hebrew, she had little trouble replicating the words.

  “We have a blessing for about everything, you know,” Gideon said. “Upon seeing lightning or hearing thunder, the sight of a rainbow, seeing a comet or a magnificent mountain range or river. We got one for hearing good news and one for bad news. A blessing for seeing outstanding Torah scholars, and another for outstanding secular scholars. There is a blessing upon seeing exceptionally strange-looking people or animals, and one for seeing exceptionally beautiful people or things. When I first saw you, I whispered that blessing.”

  “Liar.”

  “I did. Oh, and we even have one for after going to the bathroom. Very important that one.”

  “Sounds like God is always in your head.”

  “According to my Grandpa Shimon, perhaps that’s the point of such blessings—to be a constant reminder of God’s presence.”

  “I didn’t get any such thing growing up,” Malkah said, a little wistful.

  “Today? Here? How would you?” Gideon said. “I was lucky. I had Grandpa Shimon who saw to it that I had a divine compass, even should I decide never to use it. For a number of years, in fact, I was MIA, so to speak. I had got caught up in the currents of the times and was swept out to sea. But, my grandfather, God bless him, had provided me with the means to navigate back to something resembling sanity.”

  “There must have been some incident that made you reach for that compass,” Malkah said.

  “Nothing specific,” Gideon replied reflectively. “I think it was a combination of things over a long period of time.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Big, fat lies, mostly. Too much of what I knew to be so didn’t gibe with what I was being told by politicians and their agenda-driven hacks and suck-ups in the media and academia. I finally realized that they don’t give a damn about facts, truth, or common sense. And the more that these bunko artists applauded their own honesty and integrity, the deeper became my revulsion. I don’t know about you, but for me, nothing is more infuriating than someone looking me straight in the eyes, or more typically, into some camera, and blatantly, deliberately, unashamedly lying to my face.”

  “I suppose we’ve become use to it,” Malkah offered half-heartedly.

  “Agreed. But if you ask me, that says more about us than it does the mendacious frauds who feel so confident that they can get away with their whoppers. What self-respecting person wouldn’t find that offensive?”

  Gideon shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe that people were so stubbornly gullible and docile.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “long story short, I concluded that I knew only two things at my core—that I was alive, and that there was a Creator of the universe. The two could not possibly be unrelated. And so I dusted off the compass and began to study it once more, only this
time not with the doe-eyed innocence of my youth, but with the squinting, hawk-eyed experience of manhood.”

  “You know that such reasoning isn’t going to earn you many converts,” Malkah said. “Not when we’re assured everyday that there is no God. Or, that even if there were, we could not possibly be of any concern to Him, and that we puny, insignificant humans are just a regrettable freak of nature.”

  Gideon nodded, as if well aware of the argument. “The great Rabbi Akiva said, ‘As a house implies a builder, a dress a weaver, a door a carpenter, so the world proclaims God, its Creator.’ Our intellectual aristocracy preach their drivel because they know that a belief in God undermines their utopian vision of a world under their direction, their more ‘enlightened’ command.”

  “But it seems that people don’t mind being deceived,” Malkah said. “In fact, sometimes I have to wonder that we don’t prefer it.”

  “We don’t mind being deceived,” Gideon said, “because upon the least reflection, we understand that if there is an honest to goodness God, then everything we do is under His observation and scrutinizing eye. It’s a realization that makes people very uncomfortable. We want to live guilt-free lives. If it feels good, do it. Everything is relative. Right, wrong, good, bad—who’s to say? I can’t blame them, but actions do have consequences, personal and social.” Gideon took another bite of his meatloaf. “Good job on the ordering, by the way. This is delicious.”

  “Saul’s secret recipe,” Malkah said. “He claims he got it from his bubby. I wonder, but true or not it does make for good advertising.”

  “How’s your bubby?” Gideon asked.

  “Fine. I told her about you.”

  Gideon grinned. “I know.”

  “Am I that predictable?”

  “No, but bubbies are. At least the old school bubbies. Today everyone thinks they need to appear young and hip, and too often parents and grandparents want to play the role of best friend instead of disciplinarian and mentor. We have become a nation of adolescents.”

  “Do you enjoy being so cynical?” Malkah asked bluntly.

  “No, and I scold myself for it too, believe me. But after I scold myself, I’m still left asking—what is my alternative? Do I pretend to deny my own eyes and ears, and the lessons of history and experience?”

  He shook his head as if doing so weren’t even an option.

  “I’m haunted by the words of Edmund Burke who said that ‘the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’ Besides, I’ve known some hardcore cynics in my day, and my brand is pretty innocuous.” Gideon smiled and offered a pacifying shrug. “I may even be the merriest grouch you know.”

  Malkah thought about it. She had to admit that despite his cynicism, his mocking of society, and his Old Testament attitudes, he always seemed genuinely sunny: a happy warrior. His joviality wasn’t affected either; it was big, white-toothed, and bushy-tailed.

  One of the first things she noticed about him was that he was polite to every stranger he met, whether it was at the cafe, the firing range, the movie theater, the museum they visited together, or even earlier at the dojo, where he came to watch and pick her up for dinner. He was always considerate and patient. Much more so than I, she thought.

  At first Malkah considered it just a show. She had seen it numerous times before. Her dates liked to impress her with how noble and generous and smart they could be. They held doors open for old ladies and left ridiculously large tips for waiters or waitresses, making sure Malkah noticed. She suppressed her laughter as she listened to them spout the latest political commentary that they had picked up in the media, professing their mindless dreck with the unearned moral superiority meant to go along with it. They smiled big, greeted her with enthusiastic hugs, and feigned interest in her day.

  But their affectations never lasted long. When she didn’t give them what they wanted, such pretenses quickly vanished. After that, her dates would begin with pouting, then move to indignation, and finally, in some cases, to rage.

  Malkah had expected the same pattern with Gideon, but it had yet to emerge. He was at ease in his own skin. His handsome smiles came freely and quickly. Gideon seemed to effortlessly work in a dozen tiny favors and deeds throughout his day, but unlike other guys, he never checked for her reaction to anything he did. Nor did Gideon Baer parrot what others said or thought, and no public official or celebrity earned his praises, or even his attention, it seemed.

  And, Gideon was certainly not politically correct. His thoughts and opinions were of the take-them-or-leave-them kind. It wasn’t that he didn’t care what she thought, or didn’t want to hear her opinions. He was very interested. He preferred to probe her and try to get at the essence of her thoughts. Instead of raining judgment down upon her, he had an uncanny ability to cause her to judge herself.

  Other guys would nod along with her hoping to please her, play devil’s advocate and argue for arguing’s sake, or mock and yell at her. It usually depended upon how many dates they had had, and the strain the men were under from her having withheld a first kiss. Most guys’ facades broke down by the fourth date, if she cared to even stick around that long.

  This was Malkah and Gideon’s fifth date, if one counted their initial meeting and cup of coffee, which she did. And, he had yet to lay a lip on her. He didn’t even try, and he never brought it up. He was, to use his own words, she thought, completely MIA. This was not a little disconcerting to Malkah. Gideon Baer wasn’t playing the game right. Did he not know the rules? Was he that daft?

  She looked at the man across from her in the brown sport coat and black polo shirt, his holstered gun just visible. She noted his athletically-trim build; his broad shoulders, powerful arms, and the pectorals that filled out his shirt.

  No, he was way too good looking and experienced in the world to have never played this game. Did he just play it better than she? Five dates and nothing. Nothing, except for the little matter of his marriage proposal. Or was it? But he said he’s leaving soon. Malkah stabbed at her mashed potatoes. She was confused.

  27

  A Second Chance

  “How was everything?” Beverly asked, clearing their plates.

  “Delicious,” Gideon said. “My compliments to the chef.”

  “You can tell him yourself,” Beverly replied in jest. “He’s right over there behind the cash register.” She gave a toss of her head towards a squat, balding and bearded man with a knitted kippa on his head.

  “Good idea,” Gideon said, standing. “I’ll do that.”

  “What about dessert?”

  “Cherry pie and a cup of coffee, please.” He turned to Malkah. “Be right back,” he said, and strolled off to speak to the proprietor.

  “He’s peculiar,” Beverly said.

  Malkah chuckled. She always got a kick out of Beverly’s uncharacteristic choice of words. “Yep, he’s peculiar all right.”

  “In a good way,” Beverly quickly added. “Very amiable. Where did you find such a hunk, and does he have a friend?”

  Malkah observed Gideon. She wondered what kind of reaction he’d get from her taciturn boss. Saul was reserved and retiring, and not one for small talk, or at least not the gossip and yackety-yak of his nattering waitresses. He wasn’t callous, mean, or anti-social; just quiet and soft-spoken.

  In fact, Malkah thought her boss kind and generous to a fault. He kept as many people on the payroll as he could afford, was active in the community and at his small synagogue, and he regularly allowed a range of charities to use his restaurant for their different functions.

  Every evening Saul slipped out the back door and fed leftovers from the kitchen to dogs, cats, and the homeless. Scraps went to the animals, and for the hungry, of which there was an ever-increasing number, he prepared simple but tasty sandwiches. He did this without fuss and all on his own. The staff were unaware of his actions. Malkah didn’t know about it until one evening when she had forgotten her umbrella. She returned to get it and she sp
ied him in the back alley passing out big, cellophane-wrapped deli sandwiches to more than a dozen homeless people.

  Malkah expected to see Saul offer Gideon a pleased smile and a handshake, and then Gideon’s prompt return. Instead, she saw Saul put his arm around Gideon and lead him disappearing into the kitchen.

  Beverly, who had been working at the deli longer than Malkah, was equally surprised to see the two men yucking it up and vanishing into the kitchen together. The two waitresses exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Peculiar,” Beverly repeated. “Saul doesn’t even like us in his kitchen.”

  “No,” Malkah agreed. “It’s get in, get out, and please stay out!”

  They laughed.

  “Well, well, it looks like a party,” Beverly said, glancing towards the door.

  Malkah looked to see what Beverly was talking about. She squinted in disbelief, and almost lost her meatloaf. Strolling in hand-in-hand was her cousin Ellen and Professor Chauncey Matterson.

  Wearing a puffy red sweater and white slacks, Ellen looked pretty as always. To Malkah’s surprise, however, Ellen had cut her hair since the last time she saw her. Ellen’s wavy, shoulder-length, black hair had been permed strait, and lopped off to just below the ears. On her head sat a stylish black beret, tilted just so. To Malkah’s imagination, her cousin looked like a 1940s Parisian partisan. She admitted to herself that she looked cute.

  The professor’s transformation was even more curious. Instead of the usual tweed coat with patched elbows and button-down shirt, he was dressed in jeans and a black, woolen turtleneck sweater. He had let his silky brown hair grow out, and was sporting a two-day stubble. He looked like a cross between a 1950s beat poet and a Marxist revolutionary.

  Malkah observed them with a mix of dismay and curiosity. She wondered if Ellen knew that she was there. Indeed, by the way Ellen began to survey the restaurant, it did seem like she was looking for someone.

  Beverly put up her hand and called, “Ellen, over here!” She turned to Malkah. “I haven’t seen your cousin here in like a year. I almost didn’t recognize her!”