by Ragen, Naomi
“I don’t know. I was feeling kind of lonely, maybe. At loose ends, with the divorce and all. I was thinking about families and rituals, and I just happened to pass your synagogue. It was dark outside and the building was all lit up. I just walked in. Your husband was so friendly. He seemed really glad to see me.”
“He is glad. The synagogue needs new blood.”
“The old people seem to love him. To love both of you,” he hurriedly corrected himself.
“Sure,” she said wearily. “But let’s not talk about the synagogue. Let’s talk about you and your relationships. What kind of woman are you looking for?”
He swallowed hard.
“Don’t be shy. This is what rabbis and their wives in Orthodox congregations often do for members of their congregations,” she assured him. That was it! A chesed project! He was obviously unhappy. Perhaps she could help him? “Tell me about your ex-wife.”
He spoke at length, in intimate whispers, making up things as he went along, editing out his penchant for short-lived affairs, creating a persona that was similar to his but deeper, more steadfast, more moral.
She listened with deep concentration, offering Dr. Phil-type clichés that made her feel both virtuous and wise and salved her conscience.
He looked at her, taking in the pious high collar, the demure covered knees, the silky blond hair beneath the charming beret. How does one seduce such a woman? He entertained the idea idly, not so much making plans as daydreaming. He pondered her, and his predicament. She was, after all, the rabbi’s wife, like Caesar’s, above reproach. But he could tell she was fed up with her husband and her life, even if she couldn’t. A woman like that could be dangerous, he knew. And he certainly wasn’t ready for anything sticky or complicated—not after having just extricated himself from a mess of lawyers and court appearances and fights over CDs and dishes.
But there is a certain unmatchable allure religious women have for a certain kind of secular man. In a world filled with licentiousness—women who wore practically nothing and wrapped their legs around the backs of chairs to sell everything from computer chips to chocolate chips in once-respectable magazines—a woman who covered her body had an infinite charm. Then, too, the constant threat of deadly sexually transmitted diseases made the virtues of sexual chastity as secretly appealing to the sex-glutted psyche of the modern man as short skirts and sexual availability were to his father and grandfather.
He knew that in her code of ethics adultery was as bad as murder, a commandment etched in Moses’ tablets by God’s own finger, brought down amid fire and brimstone. And yet, the thrill of trying! Imagine winning over such a woman! And truthfully, he admired her for all the qualities he imagined religious women have, bestowing them all upon her in his imagination, never once dealing with the fact that, if she yielded to him, she would no longer possess that which had attracted him to her in the first place.
But then, who among us can think clearly when our brains are awash in hormones?
After weeks of subway rides, the furtive stretching of hands along the back of her seat, the moving of thighs just an iota closer so that their coats touched, he decided he would declare himself. Then he decided not to. Then he gave himself ultimatums, deadlines, only to forget about them, or extend them or rethink them. He was terrified to move too quickly, afraid she would take flight.
Delilah began to dress more carefully for work, to try out different shades of lipstick, different hair clips. She’d adjust her hat at new angles, eyeing herself seriously in the mirror, turning her head first to the left and then to the right, smiling seductively at her image. Sometimes, as she lay in bed in the mornings before getting dressed, she thought of how she had asked him about his beard and how he had leaned toward her intimately and said, “I thought religious women liked men with beards.”
“Maybe they do,” she’d answered boldly, “but I don’t.”
The next day, he had shown up clean-shaven.
It had thrilled her. She began to daydream. What if Chaim should be rushing across the street, and a bus should come along! Oh, the horror of the ambulance, the blood, the hospital! But then it would eventually all be over. A coffin. A funeral. And she would mourn him. She could already see her eyes unattractively red, in great need of drops. But she’d also heard that widows lost weight because all they did was smoke and drink coffee. And then she would be allowed to stop mourning. And she would have a little condo in Manhattan, and a husband who wrote advertising copy for expensive magazines. A man who had weekends off, and had no congregants swarming around him that needed to be fed like pigeons in the park, who, the more you gave them, the more they left their droppings all over you . . .
And then, one morning, as she and Benjamin were sitting cozily on the subway, laughing, his arm draped across the back of her seat, she looked up and saw Mrs. Schreiberman, vice president of the sisterhood, who reached into her bag and took off her reading glasses, replacing them with her distance glasses. As Delilah saw it, she had two choices: one, to lean back on Benjamin’s arm and ignore the woman completely; or, two, to wave casually, like this was normal. As forest rangers will tell those traipsing through national parks who might run into an eight-hundred-pound grizzly bear, the worst thing she could do was jump up and run.
She waved. But the little smile on her lips faded as she stared into Mrs. Schreiberman’s shocked and outraged face. She had apparently decided not to play games. Delilah stiffened, giving Benjamin a quick nudge with her elbow. He looked up, realizing what was happening. If he had had the presence of mind to wave also, Delilah just might have pulled it off. But as it was, he looked as conscience-stricken as if he had been found in bed with the rabbi’s wife, instead of just sitting next to her, fully clothed, in a public subway car.
Mrs. Schreiberman pressed her lips together and nodded to them both, a quick pained nod acknowledging that people like them existed in the world, and Delilah thought: uh-oh.
She considered going over to speak to her, but since she had no doubt been inundated with phone calls from disgruntled former chesed recipients who had gotten the wrong green beans and then been abandoned altogether, she thought better of it. What were the chances the woman would spill the beans and talk to Chaim? And even if she did, what could she possibly say? That his wife had taken the same train as a synagogue member? Sat next to him? Shared a laugh? Was it her fault the old bag got her jollies from imagining wicked scenarios?
When Chaim got home that night, the warm scent of baking and the wafting hot odor of soup greeted him at the door. To his shock, the house had been tidied, and the piles of women’s magazines that usually covered the sofa and coffee table had disappeared into neat piles on well-dusted shelves. There was music coming from the stereo—some Hasidic boy’s choir from one of the few CDs that actually came from his collection. Delilah, who was usually busy watching television when he got home, or soaking in the tub, was actually dressed. She looked very pretty, her smooth blond hair sliding over her shoulders like liquid honey, her lipstick freshly applied.
“Dinner will be ready in a minute, Chaim. Why don’t you go wash? I have some rolls hot out of the oven.”
“Everything is all right, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not a birthday or anniversary or celebration, is it?” he asked her anxiously.
She stood there, busy stirring something in a pot, not looking up at him. “No, nothing like that. Why would you even say something like that? What, I never make you dinner? I never clean up the house? It’s got to be some special occasion?” Her voice trembled a little.
Now, he’d insulted her, he thought, slapping his palm against his forehead. She finally acts the way a wife is supposed to, and all he can do is be suspicious of her motives. Didn’t Jewish ethics demand that one “weight the judgment of every man toward the good”? Was it not written, “Do not cause your wife to cry, as God counts each one of her tears”?
“A pleasant home, a pleasant wife, and pleasant furnishings enlarge a man’s mind!”
Chaim blurted out joyfully.
Delilah turned to look at him. She studied his rosy cheeks, like a schoolboy’s, his wide, unfurrowed forehead, his innocent dark eyes, the sweetness of his untroubled smile of happiness. She smiled back. “Here, Chaim. Come sit down. You look hungry.”
They sat across from each other at the table, in companionable silence.
“So, how did your day go?” he asked her, slurping the good vegetable soup with gusto. The sound of it sloshing around in his mouth made her a bit nauseous. She wrinkled her nose.
“Oh, nothing special. I met Benjamin on the train to work. He was telling me some funny stories about one of the models. . . . And right across the aisle, I saw Mrs. Schreiberman. So Benjamin and I wave to her, and she looks at us as if she’s caught us making out. These old biddies live a rich fantasy life, let me tell you.”
Chaim put his spoon down and wiped his mouth with his napkin, the implications of this conversation slowly breaking on him the way an egg oozes out of a broken shell, turning everything in its path into a sticky, gooey mess.
“Delilah, is there something you aren’t telling me?”
She thought about that. What was she hiding? That she had been going to work with Benjamin every morning? That she had been leaning into his arm, which more and more found its way across the back of her seat? That she had been discussing with him the most personal aspects of his sex life? Does a woman have to share everything with her husband?
“Listen, Chaim, we go to work about the same time every morning. That’s just the way it worked out since you started taking the car. And yes, we do talk about intimate topics because . . . because I’m trying to counsel him! He’s lonely. He needs a shidduch. And so he speaks to me about his life. Isn’t that what a rebbitzin is supposed to do? Listen and try to help?”
The picture clarified in his mind. His mouth formed an O. His mind formed an Ah! And his heart formed an Oy.
What now? If Mrs. Schreiberman spread this around the synagogue, and it got back to his grandfather . . . The congregants were very loyal to their old rabbi and very fond of his grandson. But Delilah had made it clear she found them boring, a burden, even a source of jokes. She flaunted her youth in their faces. And while they would have been willing to forgive her many lapses with the tolerance that comes with the wisdom of age, he wasn’t sure she would ever be forgiven if the matter wound up public knowledge that would in any way taint or hurt his grandfather.
“Maybe I should speak to her,” Chaim murmured, “before it gets out of hand. Explain to her about the—about your . . . counseling.” He swallowed, and his voice dribbled off, melting into silence, taking with it his determination and conviction. What if he brought the subject up with her and she’d already forgotten all about it? He chewed his nails.
“Chaim, have your steak. It’s fresh from the oven.”
He looked up at Delilah, her pretty face, her eyes—blue as a mountain lake in summer—the tiny waist, and the voluptuous breasts. A pretty woman means a happy husband. The count of his days is doubled, the Talmud wrote. Then again, it also wrote, A wicked wife is like leprosy to her husband. The great rabbis in the Talmud were also clueless when it came to women, he thought. Why did he expect to be any smarter?
He picked up his knife and fork and cut into the tender juicy meat that melted like butter on his tongue. He took a large helping of creamy mashed potatoes and salad, dressed with a wonderful vinaigrette.
Whatever was going to happen tomorrow was going to happen. Tomorrow.
“Why don’t we have a nice, relaxed evening, my love? I’ll help you with the dishes, and then—” He glanced toward the bedroom. They were in their lucky two weeks out of the month. Like sailors who were gone from home six months out of the year, no matter what kind of a marriage they had, at least half the time they were happy.
TWELVE
When things that should bring one’s walls tumbling down do not, the unexpected reprieve sometimes brings about the exact opposite one would anticipate: not relief and gratitude and rehab, but the idea that one can take even greater risks and get away with it.
Delilah, having weathered the discovery of her delicious little secret without suffering any of the dire consequences, instead of being penitent and taking her undeserved opportunity to redouble her caution, learned the opposite: having escaped she became more, not less, daring.
The morning train rides stopped, Chaim deciding to give her back the car and discontinue the shopping trips. The old people were remarkably understanding—or else they knew something. Or perhaps it was the common idea that while it was perfectly fine to burden the rabbi’s wife with their errands, it was unseemly to bother the rabbi himself.
Delilah, far from viewing the car as the opportunity to safeguard her reputation, envisioned it opening the door to even more exciting possibilities. She decided to buy theater tickets. She would invite Benjamin to join her at a matinee on Broadway. It was a sudden impulse, one that came to her because she happened to hear “Cell Block Tango” from the musical Chicago playing on the radio at the dentist’s office. Something in the wording (“He had it coming all along”) struck a responsive chord. And suddenly she remembered a conversation she’d had with Chaim about the theater very soon after their wedding.
Modern Orthodox Jews, unlike their black-coated black-velvet-skullcap-and-oversized-fedora-wearing Ultra Orthodox brethren, do, for the most part, participate in the modern world. They have television sets, are sometimes Seinfeld and Star Trek fanatics, and will watch—if not admit to enjoying—Sex and the City. (Caveat: This is not to say that there are not many, many secret Sex and the City fans among Ultra Orthodox Jews, who simply hide their TVs in the closet.) However, the wearing of a religious symbol on one’s head does build in a shame factor that makes the public viewing and enjoyment of barely dressed women and raucous scenes of a sexual nature difficult and embarrassing for modern Orthodox Jews, let alone rabbis. If you add to that the glorification of murder, adultery, and the liberal use of the kind of profanity that would have made pimps blush not long ago, most Hollywood movies and Broadway plays had become off limits to the skullcap-wearing community, velvet or crocheted.
“I just don’t feel comfortable,” Chaim explained. “You never know what you are going to see. Or hear! All those disgusting four-letter words. . . . Remember that movie It’s a Wonderful Life? When beautiful little Bedford Falls turns into sleazy Pottersville? Well, the whole world has become Pottersville. The old black-and-white movies are all right. But movies and the theater these days? No rabbi can be seen in such places.”
She understood him. But the idea that her entire life was now subject to a hidden committee who would be judging the appropriateness of all her actions, including anything she chose to see or hear on her own free time, was simply infuriating. And unlike her husband, she wasn’t stuck with a big neon light on her head that flashed I’M A HOLY MORAL PERSON, AN ORTHODOX JEW. She viewed herself as free, even if Chaim wasn’t. The fear of God, still firmly planted in some little corner of her heart, making her tremble during the closing prayers on Yom Kippur (who will live, and who will die; who in his time and who before his time) did not extend to weekday entertainment choices. The God she loved and believed in was a very busy, preoccupied, and long-suffering Deity, who couldn’t possibly be checking the titles of the videos she borrowed. Her God was saving His time and energy to track all the really horrible acts being committed in the world: men who slept with their daughters; corporation heads who used up pension funds for million-dollar birthday parties; Muslims who slit the throats of their sisters; rabbis and priests who buggered small children. She figured, when He finished with all of them, He might have time to deal with her movie choices, which gave her plenty of time.
She took the train to Manhattan, took out money from the ATM, and bought orchestra seats to Chicago for a matinee the following Wednesday. Then she called up Benjamin and offered him a ticket. He said he had something at work that day, but he’
d try to get out of it.
The truth was, he was confused. This was taking it a step further. Why he wasn’t absolutely thrilled, he wasn’t sure. Could it be because she had preempted him, thus wounding his male pride? Or had he started the process of rethinking the whole situation? He was feeling restless lately, with his go-nowhere job, his cramped Bronx walk-up, his sexless affair. The idea that he was now going to have to fit into her designs, fulfilling her impulses on demand, further eroded any sense of congratulation he might have felt in this proof of the progress he was making in pursuing the untouchable woman who was the rabbi’s wife.
Nevertheless, he agreed. He wanted to see Chicago, and the tickets were very expensive.
Even though it was a matinee and she expected to be home in plenty of time, a sudden urge prompted her not only to hide her trip to the theater from Chaim but also to tell him her boss might ask her to work an extra shift at the clinic that day, so she might be home really late. She didn’t explain this to herself, having found it was better not to tell herself everything.
Wednesday morning, she got up early and prepared Chaim a big breakfast: hot cereal with cinnamon and crushed walnuts, toasted whole wheat English muffins, a tomato-and-feta-cheese frittata. He sat there, pleased, slowly chewing, talking about some shul member who wanted to donate his house to the synagogue because he was a Holocaust survivor and had no one to leave it to. He had asked Chaim’s advice.
“But I don’t know. Maybe I should tell him to leave it to Israel or to shelters for abused women. I don’t know what to tell him.”
Something about his confusion, and the sincerity of his struggle with something that would have presented no moral dilemma for most people, touched her.
“Chaim, maybe you’d like to go to the theater with me today? A friend of mine has two tickets for a matinee—”
“But I thought you said you had to work late?”
“I could call in sick. We could go together. Come on, it’ll be fun!”
