The Butcher's Theater

by Jonathan Kellerman

  A stepchild at thirty-seven. Now that would be something.

  “After lunch, then, Abba. We have guests from America, interesting people. Laura and the children would love to see you.”

  “And I, them. What do you think of the pin I gave Shoshana?”

  “I’m sorry, Abba. I haven’t seen it.”

  His father showed no surprise.

  “A butterfly,” he said. “Silver, with malachite eyes. I conceived it in a dream I had two nights ago—springtime in the Galilee, flocks of silver butterflies covering the sky, alighting on a stand of cypress. Such a powerful image, I began work yesterday at sunrise and finished by the afternoon, just before Laura came by with the children.”

  “They were here yesterday?”

  “Yes, after school. Laura said they were shopping at Hamashbir and decided to drop in. It must have been destiny”—the old man smiled—“because I’d just gone out to shop myself and had a brand-new chocolate bar in my pocket, Swiss, with raspberry jelly in the middle. Michael and Benjamin pounced on it like little lions. I offered some to Shoshana, too, but she said candy was for babies, she was too old for it. So I gave her the butterfly. The green of the malachite went perfectly with those wonderful eyes. Such a beautiful little girl.”

  “I got home after she was asleep,” said Daniel, thinking How cut off have I been? “I’m sure she’ll show it to me tonight.”

  His father sensed his shame, came over, stroked his cheek, and kissed it. The tickle of whisker evoked a flood of memories in Daniel, made him feel like a small boy—weak, but safe.

  “I’ve been consumed with work,” he said.

  His father’s hand rested on his shoulder, butterfly-light. Yehesqel Sharavi said nothing.

  “I feel,” said Daniel, “as if I’m being drawn into something . . . unclean. Something beyond my control.”

  “You’re the best there is, Daniel. No man could do more.”

  “I don’t know, Abba. I really don’t know.”

  They sat together in silence.

  “All one can do is work and pray,” said his father, finally. “The rest is up to God.”

  Spoken by anyone else, it would have sounded pat—a cliché employed to kill discussion. But Daniel understood his father, knew he really meant it. He envied the old man’s faith and wondered if he’d ever reach that level, where reliance upon the Almighty could dissolve all doubt. Could he hope to attain the kind of religious serenity that obliterated nightmares, steadied a heart beating out of control?

  Never, he decided. Serenity was out of reach. He’d seen too much.

  He nodded in agreement, said, “Amen, God be blessed,” playing the dutiful son, the unquestioning believer. His father must have known it was an act; he looked at Daniel quizzically and stood, began circulating among the jewelry, tidying, fussing with velvet, and adjusting displays. Daniel thought he looked sad.

  “You’ve been helpful, Abba. As always.”

  His father shook his head. “I bend wire, Daniel. I don’t know about much anything else.”

  “That’s not true, Abba—”

  “Son,” said his father, firmly. He swiveled and stared, and Daniel felt the little boy take over again. “Go home. Shabbat is approaching. Time to rest and renew. Everyone rests, even God.”

  “Yes, Abba,” said Daniel, but he thought: Does Evil have respect for God’s calendar? Does Evil ever rest?

  He got home at eleven-thirty, saw the look on Laura’s face, and knew they’d either work things out or have a terrible fight. He stayed with her in the kitchen, plying her with smiles and unswerving attention, ignoring the lack of response, the seemingly frantic preoccupation with simmering pots and meat thermometers. Finally she softened, allowed him to rub her neck, and laughed when he got underfoot, the two of them knocking shins in the small, hot room.

  She wiped her hands with a towel, poured iced coffee for both of them, and gave him a heartfelt kiss with cold lips and tongue. But when he tried for a repeat, she backed away and asked him to sit down.

  “Listen,” she said, settling opposite him, “I understand what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it. But we have to talk.”

  “I thought we were.”

  “You know what I mean, Daniel.”

  “I’ve been overinvolved. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s more than that. For the last few weeks you’ve been in another world, I feel as if you’ve locked me—all of us—out of your life.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Laura shook her head. “I’m not trying to wring an apology out of you. What we need to do is talk. Sit right here and tell each other what’s on our minds. What we’re feeling.” She placed her hand on his, white linen over mahogany. “I can only imagine what you’ve been going through. I want to know.”

  “It’s very ugly, nothing you’d want to hear.”

  “But I do! That’s the point! How can we be intimate if we skate on the surface?”

  “Share with me what you’ve been doing,” said Daniel. “How’s the Bethlehem painting going?”

  “Dammit, Daniel!” She pulled her hand away. “Why are you being so withholding!”

  “Sharing is mutual,” he said quietly. “You have things of beauty to share—your art, the home, the children. I have nothing to offer in return.”

  “Your work—”

  “My work is cruelty and blood.”

  “I fell in love with a policeman. I married a policeman. Did it ever occur to you that I think what you do is beautiful? You’re a guardian, a protector of the Jewish state, of all the artists and the mothers and the children. There’s nothing ugly about that.”

  “Some protector.” He looked away from her and took a sip of coffee.

  “Come on, Daniel. Stop punishing yourself for the horrors of the world.”

  He wanted to satisfy her, thought of how to begin, the right way to phrase things. But the words spun around in his head like clothes in a dryer, random sounds, nothing seemed to make sense.

  He must have sat that way for a long time, because Laura was patient by nature, and finally she got up, looking defeated. The same look he’d just seen on his father’s face.

  You’re a real harbinger of cheer, Pakad Sharavi.

  “If you can’t deal with it right now, fine. I can accept that, Daniel. But eventually you’re going to have to.”

  “I can,” said Daniel, taking hold of her wrist. “I want to.”

  “Then do it. There’s no other way.”

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to begin.

  At twelve-fifteen, feeling freer than he had in a long time, he drove to Lieberman’s and picked up the groceries, dancing a verbal ballet with the garrulous shopkeeper in order to avoid discussing the case. His next stop was a florist on Rehov Gershon Agron, where he bought a bouquet of daisies and had them arranged against a bed of leather fern along with a card on which he wrote I Love You.

  Battling the traffic, he managed to get to the Dugma school by twelve twenty-eight, just in time to pick up the boys. He idled the car by the curb, searched for Sender Malkovsky’s bulk among the group of parents waiting for their children.

  The child molester was nowhere to be seen, which was hardly surprising—no way would he be that obvious. Looking for him had been an irrational bit of desperation, but compulsive, like checking under the bed for ghosts.

  Two minutes passed slowly and Daniel filled them with speculation, wondering what Malkovsky was up to. If Avi was on him, right now, or back in the Old City pounding the pavement with the Chinaman. Then he realized he was back on work-thoughts and forced them out of his mind. Replaced them with butterflies.

  Mikey and Benny came out of the gate, saw him, and whooped. They tumbled into the car like dervishes, keeping up a steady stream of insults and kid jokes as he headed for Shoshi’s school. When he got there, she was just leaving, walking with a group of other girls, all of them swinging the oversized plastic purses that had come into fashion, skipp
ing and laughing, chirping like birds.

  She was definitely the prettiest, he decided. None of the others came close.

  She passed right by him, engrossed in conversation. He honked and she looked up—disappointed. Usually she walked home; he’d picked her up as a nice surprise, but could see that she was embarrassed at being treated like a little kid. She said something to the other girls and ran to the car. The butterfly brooch was pinned to her blouse.

  “Hello, Abba. What’s the occasion?”

  “Does there have to be an occasion?”

  “You always say walking is good for me.”

  “I got home early, thought we’d all do something together.”

  “What are we doing?” asked Mikey.

  “The zoo,” said Benny. “Let’s go to the zoo.”

  “Are we going to the zoo, Abba?” asked Mikey. “Okay, okay!”

  Shoshi glared at them. “Will you both please shut up? The zoo is dumb, and besides, it closes early on Erev Shabbat.”

  “The zoo is smart,” said Mikey. “You’re dumb.”

  “Quiet, all of you,” said Daniel. “Eema will need us to help out in about an hour. In the meantime, we could go down to the park, throw the ball around or something.”

  Shoshi’s friends began walking. She noticed the movement, turned and shouted, “One second!” but they kept on going. Facing Daniel, she said, “Abba, I’m in the middle of something. Can I go?”

  “Sure. Have fun.”

  “You’re not mad?”

  “Not one bit. Be home by two.”

  “Thanks.” She blew him a kiss and ran to catch up, the purse knocking against one narrow hip.

  “Now can we go to the zoo?” asked Benny as Daniel put the car into gear.

  “What do I need a zoo for? I’ve got wild animals right here.”

  “Rahhr,” said Mikey, screwing up his little face and attempting to snarl. “Rahhr.”

  “Rahhr, me too,” said Benny. He curled his hands into claws and raked the air.

  Daniel looked at them in the rearview mirror. Little lions, his father had called them. More like kittens.

  “Rahhrr!”

  “Very fierce, boys. Let’s hear it again.”

  CHAPTER

  39

  Shabbat felt like Shabbat. A rosy, springtime glow seemed to settle around Daniel from the moment he woke up on Saturday.

  He was in synagogue for the beginning of the shaharit services, stayed after services, wrapped in his tallit, listening to a visiting rabbi expound on the weekly Torah portion. He came home at noon, meeting Gene and Luanne as they got off the elevator. They’d brought flowers, a dozen red roses from the shop at the Laromme Hotel. Laura put them in water, next to the daisies. Daniel made Kiddush over a bottle of Hagefen Riesling and everyone helped bring out the food.

  They ate themselves drowsy for an hour, cleared the dishes, then returned to the table for dessert and conversation, coffee and arak. Shoshi pulled Gene away for raisin poker, winning four games out of seven before the black man dozed off on the couch.

  “Oh, Gene,” said Luanne, and continued talking about their tour of the Negev.

  At two-thirty Daniel’s father came over, wearing his heavy black Sabbath suit, a snowy-white shirt, and a large black kipah embroidered with gold. The children jumped on him shouting “Saba! Saba!,” covered his beard with kisses, and the old man pressed pieces of hard candy into their palms. The boys ran off, unwrapping their treasures. Shoshi pocketed hers.

  “Abba Yehesqel,” said Laura, hugging her father-in-law.

  “Leora, beautiful as always!” he said, using her Hebrew name.

  Daniel introduced his father to Luanne, cleared a place for him at the head of the table, and brought him the bottle and a glass. When he sat down, Shoshi climbed onto his lap.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sharavi,” said Luanne. “That butterfly is lovely.”

  “Saba made Eema’s earrings too,” said Shoshi, pointing. Laura pushed her hair aside and revealed a lacy silver pendant shaped like a spice box. From the bottom of the earring hung tiny gold flags.

  “Lovely.”

  “My Saba is the best.”

  Yehesqel smiled, shrugged, and drank arak. Laura left and came back with a box full of jewelry, spread the pieces out on the tablecloth.

  “These are all my father-in-law’s creations.”

  “Such delicacy,” said Luanne, examining the pieces. She picked up a filigree bracelet set with turquoise and held it up to the light.

  “I learned to bend wire as a child,” said the old man in heavily accented English. “What a man learns as a child, he remembers.”

  “My father is being modest,” said Daniel. “He’s a master of his art.”

  “Bezalel was an artist,” said his father. “He carved the Temple vessels with God’s hand guiding his. I am a craftsman. I learn by making mistakes.” He turned to Luanne. “We Jews became craftsmen because we were forced to. In Yemen we lived under the Muslims, and the Muslims hated the crafts and gave them over to the Jews.”

  “How strange,” said Luanne.

  “It was their belief. They called us usta—masters—but put us under them, on the bottom. Seventy crafts we did: weaving, leather, pottery, baskets, making swords. A craftsman is a good job for a Jew, because it doesn’t stop the learning of the Torah. A man makes a pot—when it cooks in the oven, he opens a book and studies. The Muslim understands that—he loves his Quran.”

  “I’ve been told,” said Luanne, “that the Jews living in Arab lands were treated with respect.”

  Yehesqel smiled. When he spoke again, his speech took on a singsong rhythm.

  “In the beginning, Muhammid thought the Jews would all become Muslim. So he said nice things about us, made Moses a big prophet in Islam. He even put parts of the Torah into the Quran—the Israilyat. It’s still there. But when we said no, we want to stay Jews, Muhammid got very angry, told everyone that the Jews were cofrim . . . what’s the word in English, Daniel?”

  “Infidels.”

  “Infidels. The Christians, too, were infidels. Sometimes infidels were killed; sometimes they were kicked outside. In Yemen we were kept and protected—like children. We lived in small villages in the mountains. Even San’a, the capital, was just a big village. We lived very poorly. Many of the Arabs were poor also, but we were the poorest because we couldn’t own land, couldn’t be merchants. They kept us as craftsmen, because they wanted the Jewish crafts. Each village had a tekes . . .”

  “Ceremony,” said Daniel.

  “The strongest imam in the village would kill a goat and make a Muslim prayer, tell Allah the Jews belonged to him. We paid a big tax to the imam—the geziyah—did the craft he needed. If our imam lost a war to another, we belonged to the winner.”

  Yehesqel mouthed a blessing, chewed on a piece of honey cake, and washed it down with arak.

  “Not respect, Mrs. Brooker, but better than dying. We lived that way for hundreds of years, under the Sunni. Then the Zaydi Shiia conquered the Sunni and wanted to make a very strong Islam. All the Jewish boy babies were taken away and given to Muslim families. A very bad time, like the slavery of Egypt. We tried to hide our sons—those who got caught were killed. In 1646 the Judge Muhammid al Sahuli made the gezerah ha Meqamsim—the scraping rule. The honor of scraping all the batei shimush—the toilets—in Yemen was given to the Jews. In 1679, al-Mahdi, the imam of Yemen, kicked us out of San’a. We had to walk across the desert to a place called Mauza, a very sick place, a bitza . . .”

  “Swamp.”

  “A swamp full of sickness. Many of us died on the way, many more when we reached Mauza.”

  “You say us and we,” said Luanne. “As if you were there. It’s a part of you.”

  Yehesqel smiled. “I was there, Mrs. Brooker. The rabbis tell us that every soul was created at one time. The soul lives forever—there is no yesterday or today. That means my soul was in Egypt, at Mount Sinai, in San’a, at Auschwitz. Now it has
come to rest in Eretz Yisrael, free to live as a Jew. If God is kind, it will stay free until Messiah.” He broke off another piece of cake and began raising it to his lips.

  “Saba,” said Shoshi, “tell about Mori Yikhya.”

  The cake stopped mid-air. “Ah, Mori Yikhya.”

  “Let Saba eat,” said Laura.

  “It’s okay,” said the old man. He put the cake down, chucked Shoshi under the chin. “Who was Mori Yikhya, motek?”

  “A great khakham of San’a.”

  “And?”

  “A great tzadik.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Khakham means wise man,” explained Daniel. “Tzadik means righteous man.”

  “What was Mori Yikhya’s full name, Shoshana?”

  “Mori Yikhya Al Abyad. Please, Saba, tell about the disappearing Torahs and the magic spring. Please.”

  Yehesqel nodded, resuming the singsong. “Mori Yikhya Al Abyad, the great tzadik, was one of those who died during the march to Mauza. He lived in San’a and worked as a sofer—he wrote mezuzot and tefillin and sifrei Torah. The Halakhah—the Jewish law—tells us that when a sofer writes a Torah, he must have a clean mind, no sin inside. This is most important when the sofer writes God’s name. Many sofrim go to the mikvah—the special bath—before they write God’s name. Mori Yikhya did it another way. What was that way, Shoshana?”

  “He jumped into an oven!”

  “Yes! Before he wrote God’s name, he threw himself into a big oven fire and was cleaned. His tzidkut—his righteous—protected him, and his Torahs became special. How were they special, Shoshana?”

  “If a bad man reads them, the words disappear.”

  “Excellent. If a man with sin in his heart reads one of them, Mori Yikhya’s Torah turns yellow and the letters fade.”

  “There are scrolls, here in Jerusalem,” Daniel told Luanne, “that people attribute to Mori Yikhya. No one dares to use them.” He smiled. “They wouldn’t last long.”