The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  The word shot through her, provoking an intense desire to run her fingers through his beard, which to her relief was short, setting off the strength of his chin, rather than disguising it. She glanced at the soft copper hairs on his wrists and pictured his strong arms enfolding her. She forbade her thoughts from straying further, as Mr 9½ inches repeated his smutty innuendo in her ear.

  ‘Well, I’d better go back inside. I hope we’ll see you here again.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Zvi returned to the men, leaving her gulping for air.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Rachel asked, alerting Susannah to her presence.

  ‘Fine. Just a little faint. Don’t you find it close in here?’

  ‘I’m quite chilly,’ Rachel said, giving her a suspicious look. ‘Shall we join the others?’

  She followed Rachel to the kitchen where Layah and her friend were stacking plates in one of two large dishwashers. To her surprise, she was starting to warm to a faith that separated milk and meat as strictly as women and men. When they turned down her offer of help, she said her goodbyes and drove Rachel back to Dartmouth Park, plying her with questions about the Lubavitch, the Kabbalah and, with studied nonchalance, Zvi. Rachel answered as best she could, although it soon became apparent that she knew more about life in eighteenth century Lithuania than the domestic affairs of her boss. The one thing of which she was certain was that there was no Mrs Zvi. Susannah could scarcely conceal her delight. The alarm bells that would normally have rung at the sight of such an eligible forty-year-old were silenced by the setting. No one trying to escape an ex-wife or criminal past, let alone sexual ambivalence, would have chosen such a group. Zvi evidently applied the same rigour to his choice of partner as he did to his beliefs.

  Reflecting on the evening’s events with increasing urgency over the following week, she was clear that something profound had touched her. What was less clear was whether that something was the Kabbalah or Zvi. Her determination to sign up for the course was tempered by the fear of becoming one of the sad women her father had counselled, whose daily attendance at church owed more to the vicar than to God. In the end she resolved the dilemma by picturing Zvi as the embodiment of the Kabbalah, the righteous student who, in the Rabbi’s phrase, would prepare the ground for the Messiah.

  Her own concerns were humbler but no less heartfelt when she attended the class on successive Wednesdays, with Rachel as companion rather than guide. On the third visit, after a talk on the Ten Utterances by which God created the world, she had a further chance to speak to Zvi. He was standing in the hall, examining a portrait of the Rebbe as though for the very first time. She was convinced that he was waiting for her and walked towards him, eager to allude to their predicament, but, even in inverted commas, ‘We must stop meeting like this,’ sounded ill-advised when they were not supposed to be meeting at all. Averting his gaze as though from Medusa, he took the lead, asking about her work, her friends and, bizarrely, if she had any pets. She tried to draw him out but he remained taciturn, leaving her unable to decide if it sprang from a reluctance to talk to a woman or to talk about himself. When after less than five minutes he returned to the living room, his old-world charm began to seem antiquated and she wondered in desperation if the Jewish calendar contained leap years.

  Never had she felt Christmas to be such an intrusion. Not only would she miss the class on the twenty-seventh of December but her absence would alert Zvi to her divided loyalties. In the event she delayed her departure until lunchtime on Christmas Eve, having little inclination to return to a world that was so remote from her current interests. On arrival, she found Clement and Mike already installed and showing signs of strain. Mike was ebullient now that, after a term in limbo, he had been officially cleared of any wrongdoing and reinstated in school. Clement, meanwhile, was so subdued that, had she not known of his depression since Roxborough, she would have feared for his general health. She reproached herself for having neglected him. Neither pressure of work nor her commitment to the Kabbalah should come before her responsibility to her brother. She was anxious to make amends but, the moment she tried to discuss anything weightier than the decorations, he turned away.

  Her father was on fine form, celebrating a festival whose pagan origins freed him from theological scruples.

  ‘Next year you might be happier going with Karen and Frank to see in the winter solstice on Iona,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t give him any ideas,’ her mother warned.

  From time to time he complained of headaches, which her mother, who had been assured by the doctor that his wounds had left no lasting damage, blamed on to too much close reading. She, meanwhile, displayed her usual relish of a holiday which had fascinated her as a girl in Poland and which marriage and children allowed her to observe with the minimum sense of betrayal.

  Much to her parents’ regret, Susannah returned to London on the morning of the twenty-seventh, claiming that, even though the office was closed, she had an important meeting. She failed to add that it was unrelated to work. Shrugging off any feelings of guilt, she realised that cutting short Christmas to attend the class was the surest proof she could give of her new priorities. In the evening she drove up to Hendon, for the first time without Rachel who, tired of being an armchair travel agent, was spending a week in the Seychelles. She prayed that Zvi was not doing the same and lingered in the car till the last minute in order to catch a glimpse of him as she walked through the room.

  She sat alone, feeling at once privileged and exposed, while the Rabbi expounded on kabbalistic concepts of the afterlife or, in his phrase, ‘the continuing life’. Against expectations, she found herself closer to Carla’s world than to Clement’s as he outlined Jewish belief in reincarnation, which was summed up by the lack of a singular form of Chaim, the Hebrew word for life. Every human being had a specific mission, a spiritual task assigned by God. Those who failed to achieve it in one lifetime might be sent back in another body. Those who succeeded would go down to Hell, which was a place not of punishment but of refinement, where souls would be cleansed of all the impurities they had accumulated during their earthly existence. Most stayed no more than twelve months, after which they ascended into the Garden of Eden, a spiritual paradise on many levels, through which the soul was constantly rising as it returned to its source in God.

  Susannah was far more attracted by this gentle process of ascent than by the vertiginous slopes of her own tradition. Having rejected Carla’s brand of reincarnation which, with its emphasis on impermanence and impersonality, offended her strong sense of self, she readily embraced the Rabbi’s, in which self and soul were the same. She longed to know more about her spiritual task: whether it was to work for the Messianic redemption, which the Rabbi had declared to be incumbent on every Jew, or something unique. Meanwhile, she was left wondering whether this was her first lifetime or the latest of many, terrified of joining the ranks of would-be Cleopatras.

  She fled from the tangle of her thoughts into the clarity of the kitchen, where Layah, who was in sole charge of the food, asked her to take a tray of sandwiches to the men. Seizing her safe-conduct, she made straight for Zvi, who greeted her with such warmth that she attributed his former reserve to the presence of Rachel.

  ‘I imagine you feel odd on your own,’ he said.

  ‘I’m just glad Rachel had a chance to get away.’

  ‘Perk of the job.’ He fell so silent that she was obliged to continue on her round, suppressing a desire to fling the tray to the floor and run crying back to the kitchen. Her despair turned to euphoria when, seizing a second sandwich, he asked: ‘Would you like to join me for a coffee? There’s a café down the road. It’s always packed. I doubt we’ll get seats.’ It was unclear if this oblique recommendation was designed to ease the pain of her refusal or assure her of his honourable intent. Either way, she was thrilled to accept.

  ‘Do we need the car?’

  ‘It really is down the road.’

  ‘I’ll grab
my coat.’

  Careful not to betray her excitement to Layah, she said a quick goodbye and returned to the hall. After a hurried glance in the mirror, she followed Zvi into the street. Once again he fell silent and she concluded that either she had misread the signals or else he didn’t know his own mind. On arrival at the café, they found a brightly crayoned notice wishing all their customers a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year and informing them that they would reopen on the third of January. Susannah laughed off her frustration out of concern for Zvi, who looked desolate. ‘It’s a lovely clear night,’ she said, struggling to stop her teeth chattering. ‘Why don’t we stroll down to the centre? We’re bound to find something open there.’

  ‘Only Starburger, and that’s out.’

  ‘Because it’s not kosher?’

  ‘Because it’s not you. You’re used to the best restaurants. I’m not taking you there. Not on our first…’ He stopped himself, but not before Susannah had completed his sentence. Brimming with happiness, she too made an avowal.

  ‘Zvi, with you, I don’t care if we go to the greasiest spoon in London. Now, please, let’s make a move before we freeze to death.’

  They hurried through the deserted streets, past darkened shops which in the past she would have found sinister but which now formed a fitting backdrop to a world that had shrunk to a population of two. They turned into the High Street, where she smiled to see her dreams of starlit romance crudely realised in the gaudy constellation strung overhead. With an apologetic shrug, Zvi opened the door to the café where they were hit by a blast of recycled air. While he waited at the counter, she perched on a stool and studied the scattering of customers. Cramped at a table in the window was a family whose sullen faces suggested that their Christmas spirit had evaporated on their pudding. At the sides sat two solitary women: the first, elegantly dressed, staring at her burger as though unable to contemplate the horror of raising it to her lips; the second, pinched and pallid, wearing a vast cast-off coat and nursing her cup for warmth. At the back, a trio of rowdy teenagers tried to mate Santa and Rudolph on a low-hanging mobile. One of them, catching her glance, returned it with an obscene gesture, which she laughed off, no longer threatened by a youth that she suddenly shared.

  Zvi came back with her coffee and his tonic water. He repeated his apologies for the café.

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘There’s no logic to anything this time of year. You can never tell what’ll be open and what closed.’

  ‘You should have jetted off to the sun like Rachel.’

  ‘The office may be shut, but I’m on call 24/7.’

  ‘Do you have no family?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

  ‘In Israel.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You grew up on a kibbutz.’ He looked surprised. ‘Rachel…’ she said by way of explanation.

  ‘I shall have to have words with Miss Gibbon. What other secrets has she been giving away?’

  ‘None. She’s discretion itself. It’s my fault. I kept pressing,’ she said, mindful that, whatever her own relationship with Zvi, he was Rachel’s boss.

  ‘I’m flattered to be a topic of conversation. So, is there anything else you want to know?’

  ‘How about everything?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can go that far.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘You already know about the kibbutz. Did you know my grandfather was one of its founders?’ She shook her head. ‘And my father was the very first baby to be born there. They held a town meeting to decide what he should be called.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Chanan.’

  ‘Chanan.’ She rolled it on her tongue. ‘And your mother?’

  ‘Etta. She emigrated from Estonia after the War. Mauthausen.’ She lowered her eyes to show that he had no need to elaborate. ‘She lived with an uncle in Haifa before moving to the kibbutz.’

  ‘Where she fell in love with your father?’ she asked coyly.

  ‘At first I think she fell in love with an idea – an ideal… at least it was to her. The kibbutz aimed to free women from having to bring up children, what it called their “biological tragedy”.’

  ‘Some of us might see it differently.’

  ‘They certainly might. My mother once told me that she nursed another baby at the same time as me because its mother had no milk. All babies the same age were supposed to be the same weight, and breast milk is more nutritious than cow’s.’

  ‘It sounds like a science-fiction fantasy. But I’m a bit confused. When we met, you told me you were a convert. Weren’t you brought up to be religious?’

  ‘I learnt more about Eskimos than religious Jews! Kibbutz life was unrepentantly secular. We were taught that the Bible was just a book of ancient myths and God was the invention of primitive people who knew nothing of science.’

  ‘In other words, your typical liberal education.’

  ‘No, I tell a lie. We did have a religion on the kibbutz; it was called Marxism. We celebrated May Day and the Russian Revolution, while our fellow Jews were starving to death in Soviet labour camps rather than dirtying themselves with the food. When some elderly parents of the chaverim held a service on Yom Kippur, we children stood outside shouting: “There is no God!” May we be forgiven!’

  ‘You were children,’ she said, harrowed by his pain.

  ‘It gets worse. Along with the Stalinist ideology came its methods. The entire purpose of our education – I should say, brainwashing – was to perpetuate the movement. They wanted to raise a “human type” – a human type, mind, not a human being… a human type (believe me, it’s not a distinction that’s lost in translation) that would work on the kibbutz of the future.’

  ‘You’re not a type, Zvi,’ she replied, confident of having never met anyone like this strong yet vulnerable, private yet passionate man.

  ‘I try my best.’

  ‘Do you ever go back? Do you still have family there?’

  ‘I had a sister.’

  ‘Really?’ Susannah wondered if they might one day be friends. ‘Younger or older? Has she joined the Lubavitch too?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Oh. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Blown up by a bomb in Gaza. Ten years ago. She was in the army. A “legitimate target”.’

  Susannah shuddered. As moved as she was by his loss, she was awed by the coincidence… the connection. Her fears that the contrast in their background would be a barrier between them vanished with the discovery of what they had in common. She longed to claim kinship but was afraid to intrude on his memories.

  ‘So very sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. But it was ten years ago.’ He began to sob. ‘Please excuse me. I don’t understand. I’ve told the story so often that I might have read it in the paper. Why should it be any different with you?’ He wiped his eyes and stared at her with an intensity which seemed to pierce her soul. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘With your sister. And, before that, in the kibbutz.’

  ‘Let’s not go back there.’

  ‘Were you also in the army?’ She weighed up how much of his attraction lay in a courage and resolve born of active service, so different from the Ban the Bombers of her parents’ generation and the Stop the Warrers of her own.

  ‘We all were. It was compulsory. And, in my case, the experience was a revelation. For the first time I came across people from varied backgrounds. People who wanted the best for themselves and not just for the community. They had ambitions as well as beliefs.’

  ‘What did your parents say?’

  ‘“Don’t!”’ He laughed. ‘“Don’t!” In different ways and over several months. When I told them I was leaving, they claimed that all I needed was a change of scene and suggested I spend some time travelling. They were so certain they’d found the meaning of life that they thought I’d go running back to the kibbutz.’ He shook his head. ‘They were wrong.’

  ‘That was when you came to settle here?’

 
‘I came, but it was a while before I settled. I got a job working in a travel bookshop. It seemed the perfect chance to mug up on other countries before moving on. But, with more and more customers asking me to recommend quiet hotels and unspoilt spots, I saw a gap in the market and set up on my own.’

  Susannah longed to know more, not least about the celebrity clientele whose names even the serially indiscreet Rachel refused to divulge, but she was distracted by the sight of the elegant woman leaving the café and the pallid one scurrying to her table where, oblivious to the teenagers’ jeers, she proceeded to cram the abandoned burger down her throat. The graphic display of want encroached on her happiness and, rather than asking about his agency, she raised a more personal subject.

  ‘I don’t mean to pry, but what led you to the Lubavitch? Did you go somewhere magical and find God?’

  ‘Yes, Brent Cross. No need to look so horrified! I was there one evening, shopping, when I came across a rabbi doing outreach. He asked if I was a Jew. I said “yes”. He asked if I could spare ten minutes for God. I told him I was in a rush. So he asked: “How about two?” And God be thanked, I listened. Those two minutes changed my life. I went to the Chabad House. I put on tefellin. I learnt about my duty to work for the coming of the Messiah. Now all that remains is to find the right woman to help me.’

  Susannah was terrified of misreading his words which, given the rigid modesty laws were tantamount to a proposal, but which, given that it was their first outing (she banished any hint of a date), might be simply a statement of fact. She had no idea how to respond. Even a sympathetic smile felt compromising. ‘Is that so important?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.

  ‘We have a proverb: “A man without a wife is without blessing, joy and goodness”.’

  ‘That’s a beautiful proverb.’

  She gazed at him through a mist of tears and uncertainty. Afraid of trusting to speech, she tentatively placed a hand in the centre of the table. Zvi clenched his cup so tightly that it split. She tapped her fingers and toyed with her spoon before retracting her arm with all the dignity she could muster.