Even in her own home in Krimsk, Shayna Basya had heard Lamentations, but now that her husband the rebbe had withdrawn to his study, there was no possibility of Shayna Basya and her daughter listening to any services at all since there was no other room adjacent to the beis midrash.
Forced away, Shayna Basya and her daughter, Rachel Leah, sat on stools in the sparsely furnished parlor, fingering their copies of Lamentations that they would soon read at their leisure. They had nowhere to go, no one to talk to, nothing to do. Shayna Basya was musing over more innocent and enjoyable days in her family’s dynastic home in Bezin when she heard the jarring explosion of sound: the sudden, forceful simultaneous upending of every bench and table in the beis midrash. Rachel Leah looked up quizzically, but Shayna Basya, crushing the small book in her reflexive grip, leaped to her feet, for she had heard at the heart of the noise the raucous screech of snapping wood that told her something had irreparably given way.
As if a wooden rod had been splintered over her own back, she staggered out of the room and down the hallway. The study door stood open as if it had been blown that way by the explosion from the beis midrash beyond. She stood on the threshold to the empty room and saw the door to the beis midrash ajar and trembling. Crossing over to it, she peeked out to have her worst fears confirmed.
Her husband Yaakov Moshe was jumping on his own table with a fool. She could not bear the bizarre thumps of his senseless crashings onto the tabletop, and she stepped back to collapse onto the sofa. Looking up, she saw Rachel Leah watching the idiotic performance with a pleasantly curious smile on her lips. Shayna Basya had seen that the hasidim, too, reverently observed the tabletop thumping. As long as Yaakov Moshe was in the beis midrash, he sailed on waters beyond her reach, but where would it end?
Overwhelmed, she was unaware that the thumping sound had stopped until she noticed the rapt, radiant expression on Rachel Leah’s face. Shayna Basya crept behind her to hear about Rabbi Chanina’s sitting shivah with the large frog that ate him out of house and home on Pesach. Even in her distressed state, she was captivated by its simple charm and fairy-tale ending and touched by the poetic beauty of telling such a story to the poor, pitiful son of a rich, talented father. Of course the hasidim loved it, why shouldn’t they? But as impressed as Shayna Basya was, she was not entranced, for she understood that whatever Yaakov Moshe was up to, he was pursuing it with all his remarkable talents and intellect. She and her plans were in serious trouble.
All the agony and travail of Reb Muni’s Lamentations —ancient humiliations and sufferings, remembered and unending, chronicled and without number—assailed her weary, anxious heart. The Krimsker Rebbetzin cried. Even the quick, gentle touches of Rachel Leah’s handkerchief upon her cheeks could not protect the holy words beneath. They became indistinct on the dampening page. Shayna Basya saw tears on her daughter’s hands in the reflected light and sensed that for Rachel Leah the light would be extinguished before the drops would disappear.
After the reading, her silent tears still unchecked, she led Rachel Leah back to the parlor. Enervated, she fell onto a low couch and passively permitted her tears to fall. Feeling no better, she sat up only to hear a strange murmuring surrounding the house. She sent Rachel Leah to find out what was happening. Flushed and excited, her daughter returned.
“All the Jews of Krimsk are parading in the streets, celebrating their rebbe’s return. And Father is receiving hasidim in his study. Such devotion to Father—it is as if the holy Torah itself is at the center of their communal praise,” Rachel Leah announced triumphantly.
“Are you sure?” Shayna Basya asked, referring to Yaakov Moshe’s receiving supplicants.
“Of course, all these years Father has been giving his life for God and his Torah,” the daughter confidently explained.
“And how do you know that? ” her mother wondered.
“He told me,” Rachel Leah innocently answered.
Shayna Basya remained silent, although she wondered about that, too.
“Isn’t it amazing!” Rachel Leah said.
“It certainly is,” her mother agreed wearily, “and if you don’t mind, now I think I would like to rest.”
“I couldn’t possibly rest at a time like this,” Rachel Leah declared as she left the room, closing the door.
“Yes, I can see that,” Shayna Basya said quietly to herself.
Although Shayna Basya was concerned at the rebbe’s behavior, she remained calm. Tisha B’Av didn’t concern her. The day was full of lamentations, prayers, and mourning, thoroughly unique in its misery. On such a fearsome, difficult day, what rebbe’s behavior could possibly be inappropriate ? How could Yaakov Moshe’s conduct be more outrageous than the day itself? Shayna Basya felt as if she were a holiday fish in the bottom of the bowl between strokes of the chopper’s pounding blade. The next blow would not fall at least until tomorrow after sunset.
She was mistaken. Within half an hour, Rachel Leah returned with Reb Yechezkal, who informed Shayna Basya that the rebbe had commanded him to summon Yechiel Katzman, the brilliant young talmudist, to the study. Shayna Basya realized that Tisha B’Av was not only a distant, exotic repository for ancient tragedies but also a living calamitous magnet drawing forth new sorrows, momentous and overwhelming.
“I shall speak to the rebbe,” she said. After Reb Yechezkal left, she turned to her daughter. “Darling, I am going to talk to your father. Please see to it that we are not disturbed.”
Shayna Basya stood up and started toward the study. She felt at a loss in her cloth Tisha B’Av slippers, which flopped about on her feet. She yearned for her good, sturdy high button shoes, with which she could pace the study floor and stamp in fury.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHAYNA BASYA KNOCKED ON THE STUDY DOOR AND received no answer. Her fist rapping on the door produced a hollow rumbling echo in her ears that sounded like the first clumps of earth falling onto the top of a coffin. From dust to dust, she thought, although she didn’t quite know what she meant. She supposed she meant that the charade was about to end—and that a more permanent reality existed before the game had begun and would be there when it ended. She knocked again and still received no answer.
“Yaakov Moshe?” She called her husband’s name quietly and, receiving no answer, gently opened the door and entered.
Her husband, sitting on the floor, his back against the couch, was dozing. Or at least he seemed to be. Shayna Basya knew that before he had gone into self-imposed exile, he often avoided hasidim by feigning sleep. This was one of the few pieces of her family’s advice that Yaakov Moshe had taken. Her father and later her brother had used the technique sparingly in order to maintain some minimal amount of privacy and to keep themselves from becoming totally exhausted. Yaakov Moshe, however, had seized it early in his career and had expanded upon it until he withdrew for years on end from his hasidim and from his family.
Her scrupulously honest brother had quoted Genesis—“a heavy sleep came upon Adam”—and explained to Yaakov Moshe that when Adam awoke, he found a “helpmate,” meaning of course that a rebbe, only human, would be more effective if he had some rest. Yaakov Moshe had laughed and asked, “Who has such creative energy that every time he closes his eyes, he can create a helpmate?” Even her brother, who worshiped Yaakov Moshe’s talents, was shocked at such a blasphemous joke and quickly changed the subject.
Shayna Basya closed the door behind her and shuffled across the room to her husband. She stood above him for a moment and called, “Yaakov Moshe,” so gently that even she was aware that she didn’t want him to wake up. She bent over to tap him, but as a respectful wife how could she loom over her husband like a gross, vulgar creature? Perplexed, she found herself sitting on the edge of the couch. Yes, sitting on a couch on Tisha B’Av! Something she had never done before. Let it be, she thought, that’s the least of it. She leaned over and gently tapped him on the shoulder. He turned toward her, and his eyes were open. It wasn’t clear whether he had opened them i
n response to her touch or not. “Yaakov Moshe, are you awake?”
He blinked, and she knew from experience that he was listening.
“Yaakov Moshe,” she began meekly. Slumped on the couch, her scarf covering the side of her face, she dared not look at him. “Yaakov Moshe, I wanted to discuss Rachel Leah with you. She’s all we have. Our only daughter. Her future is our future.” Here she paused, hoping that her husband would say something, but he remained silent. “She is old enough to stand under the wedding canopy, and if a mother’s heart is not concerned ...”
“It is being taken care of,” he said.
“Yes,” Shayna Basya said, “that’s what I want to talk to you about.”
She could feel his eyes on her: the wonder of his wide open eyes, full of amazement at how a woman could prattle on. She flushed, and under his unequal gaze she felt the warmth springing to her face.
“Yaakov Moshe, I have already taken care of it.” She waited for a reply but received none. “I couldn’t consult with you. It wasn’t my fault—and a match had to be made. I used Reb Yechezkal. She is promised to Yitzhak Weinbach, the successful young match manufacturer.”
Expecting an outburst, she turned to face her husband. He didn’t seem concerned; he seemed to be falling asleep. His eyes, still open, no longer focused on her.
Frustrated, Shayna Basya sat up straight. “I said that Rachel Leah is already engaged. She will marry Yitzhak Weinbach, God willing, after Succos.”
Her voice was strong, and she spoke with aggressive determination. Her voice seemed to capture her husband’s attention. He was looking directly at her. She returned his look.
“I shall make Rachel Leah’s match,” he said wearily.
“I have made it,” she answered.
“Yitzhak Weinbach is a boor. Rachel Leah’s soul will suffocate,” he said matter-of-factly. He spoke clearly but as if he were addressing a trivial representative of hers. This secondhand conversation frightened her, because this was how he had spoken to her in the “best” years of their marriage, when he directed everything.
“Yitzhak Weinbach is not a scholar, that’s true, but she will never starve—and neither will we.”
Yaakov Moshe flicked his hand as he had in the beis midrash. There was nothing to discuss; her words were not worth listening to.
“Reb Yechezkal told me that you sent him for Yechiel Katzman, and I couldn’t order him not to go, but he is on a fool’s errand. Rachel Leah is engaged to Yitzhak Weinbach, and she will marry him,” Shayna Basya said calmly.
“You had neither the authority nor my permission. Whatever you did was of no account. It is not your concern. You may return to your room.” He remained perfectly passive.
“Yaakov Moshe, I want the child to be happy,” she whispered. “Do you hear, happy?”
She leaned over to plead before him, looked searchingly into his hazel eyes, and saw a soft response. He was perplexed. A happy child was a foreign concept; as foreign as the streets of America. Shayna Basya saw that she was getting nowhere. She sat back.
“Let her have a normal marriage; she’s an only child,” she said.
“We’re all only children and there are no normal marriages. Otherwise there would be no Tisha B’Av,” he said.
Shayna Basya was shaken at how he had returned to the world. It was such answers that had once enchanted her, but he had been gone too long.
“Let Tisha B’Av be one day a year for the child. That’s enough,” she answered.
He looked quizzically at her. “I have commanded Yechiel Katzman to come here, and I shall make the match.”
“No,” she said.
“Yes, these matters are for fathers to decide.”
“Once every five years?” Shayna Basya asked, and as she did so, she regretted it. She didn’t want to taunt and to nag. Such tactics had never influenced Yaakov Moshe; they only demeaned her.
“Yaakov Moshe, my husband,” she said respectfully, carefully controlling her voice. “As your wife I mean no disrespect, but our married life has not been normal. Even if there is no such creature as a ‘normal marriage,’ how many can be as abnormal as ours?”
“You married a rebbe.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t prepared for my husband to disappear into his room for five years,” she said. The petulant, hurt tone broke through again.
“Do you think I was?” he asked innocently.
“I don’t know, but it has been no life.”
Yaakov Moshe did not react. He seemed to accept, perhaps even to agree, with her assessment.
“Things change,” he said.
She looked at him to see if he were joking. Shayna Basya knew how raindrops falling on granite must feel. The drop might flatten out as thin as a reflection or it might splatter into a hundred particles, but either way the water slid off the rock, leaving no trace of the encounter.
“How?” she asked with an increasing sense of futility.
Her husband shrugged casually. So casually, in fact, that one not familiar with his gestures would not have noticed any reaction at all, but Shayna Basya was familiar with the pattern of their encounters—really her interviews with the rebbe. A few sentences, then a few words, then a few gestures, then nothing, and after several moments of silence, Shayna Basya would walk out the door. His silence could be very effective. Shayna Basya had the contradictory feelings that she was alone in the room and at the same time intruding on his privacy, a visitor in a hibernating bear’s cave. No, better, a fish in a sleeping frog’s pool. Yes, Shayna Basya knew what the children thought of her husband’s appearance.
“Yaakov Moshe, you can jump on tables until the Messiah comes, but Rachel Leah marries Yitzhak Weinbach. Do you hear?” Even Shayna Basya could detect no response. She began tapping her foot in frustration. She had been determined to do battle, but he seemed to have won once again by a strategic retreat. His eyelids were lowering like the setting moon, slowly and in response to the earth’s irrevocable pull.
She reached over and poked him on his shoulder. She quickly repeated the act and his eyes reopened. To still her trembling hands, she held them tightly together.
“Yaakov Moshe, I have something to tell you,” she said. She looked directly into his eyes as if eye contact were some kind of grip that could keep him from slipping away. “Yaakov Moshe, things are not what they seem.”
His eyes closed. Her hands released one another and darted across to grasp his lapels. They still trembled as she pulled him toward her. His eyes casually opened.
“Yaakov Moshe,” she whispered in selfless fury, “I am Lilith.”
Yaakov Moshe made no response to her confession. He nodded faintly. She tightened her grip.
“The Lilith of your dreams!” she added with hot passion, shame, and confession.
“Not tonight, Lilith,” her husband said.
“You don’t understand. I am Lilith,” Shayna Basya rasped.
“Yes, Lilith, of course,” the rebbe said, but he did not register surprise.
“Yaakov Moshe, there is no other Lilith. I visited you in the night. I came here to your study.”
She saw that her husband was very definitely listening. His hazel eyes stared at her.
“Go now, Lilith. We shall meet another time,” he said, but not in boredom.
“No, Yaakov Moshe, it is not Lilith. It is Shayna Basya, and I’m staying to discuss Rachel Leah’s match.”
He looked slightly confused. “Were you discussing Lilith just now?”
“Yes, Yaakov Moshe, I was discussing Lilith because I have misled you. I let you believe that Lilith was visiting you here in your study at night. I ask your forgiveness for deceiving you, but you must understand that the world is not the way you think it is. Rachel Leah must marry Yitzhak Weinbach.”
Shayna Basya turned away in shame. When she was visiting him in the middle of the night, she had enjoyed a sense of triumph at outwitting him. He needed madness, guilt, and passion. She had shared his need for the last
and indulged him in the first two as well. All those nights when she returned to her own room, she had flushed with the keen thrill of triumph that comes with outwitting a strange lifelong foe.
Now, however, she had no sense of triumph, just shame. What she had done seemed mean and low. Her head told her that the world had forced her to do it, but her heart told her that it was wrong. She had deceived her husband by taking advantage of—of what? At worst his madness—and at best, his saintliness. Her heart felt like crying, but her head told her that if she did not succeed in rescuing Rachel Leah, she and Rachel Leah both would have the remainder of their days to cry. She turned to face her husband.
He was shaking his head in thought, a slight rocking motion that suggested he was literally weighing something in his mind. His ridiculous obtuse eyes registered a look of surprise that it could possibly have been his curious fate to have been seduced by his own wife. Yaakov Moshe stopped rocking. He did not believe it. The thought that his uninspired, pedestrian wife—so lacking in spirituality, even lacking that small amount that was a woman’s portion—should prove to be Lilith struck him as nothing less than ludicrous.
Small Worlds Page 7
