by Ragen, Naomi
When she got home, Chaim was already there.
“So, quite a day, no? You must be exhausted.”
She stared at him.
“Your double shift at the clinic? All those patients?” he repeated, puzzled.
She didn’t hear him. It was as if he were one of her patients, his mouth stuffed with dental cotton and instruments, trying to make himself understood.
He came to the bedroom. His forehead was wrinkled. He was moving his lips.
“I’m not feeling very well, Chaim. I think I’m—” She barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up her entire dinner.
He was immediately concerned. “Do you want me to call a doctor? Do you have fever?”
She wished he would just shut up; his solicitations and good-natured concern were making her feel even sicker. She put on the shower, blocking him out, waiting for the inevitable and terrible ringing of the phone, which would usher in the apocalypse.
I have to think, think, she told herself. It’s not so bad. What does he know, the old man? Then she remembered that look he had given her and Benjamin at lunch and his abrupt leave-taking. In slow motion, her brain did a retake of the slow turn of his head toward the stairs.
She was lost. This was the end. He was old but nobody’s fool. And if he had heard the rumors from Mrs. Schreiberman, he would feel it his religious obligation to tell his grandson of his suspicions, because a man was not allowed to live with a woman suspected of committing adultery. The fact that nothing had happened wouldn’t matter.
Once Chaim threw her out, who would take her? Damaged goods. A divorced woman. A rabbi’s wife thrown out of the community. They wouldn’t even allow her to pray in an Orthodox synagogue. They’d whisper behind her back for the rest of her life. And all those girls from high school who had considered her a bleached blonde from a poor family, a girl who would never be their social equal, would gleefully tell one another, ‘Did you hear what happened to Delilah? Didn’t we all know it?”
She heard the phone ring. She heard Chaim gasp. And then she heard him pound on the bathroom door.
“Delilah!”
She took a deep breath and wrapped herself in a towel as attractively as possible, giving herself a quick once-over in the mirror before opening the door.
His eyes were wild. Her heart sank.
“It’s my grandfather. They’ve taken him to the hospital! He’s had a stroke!”
Delilah stood absolutely still, her brain computing all the possibilities. Finally, she moved toward her heartbroken husband, laying a hand on his shoulder and looking deeply into his anguished eyes.
“Major or minor?” she asked him.
THIRTEEN
Reb Abraham hung on for several days. The family held vigil next to his bedside. Attached to an intubation tube that went down his throat, he looked at them silently with open eyes that seemed to yearn for a method of communication. Everyone tried to talk to him, but he gave no response until Delilah, very reluctantly, entered the room. The transformation was remarkable. Color rushed into his white cheeks.
“Look, he’s so happy to see you!” Chaim exulted. “He looks better already!”
Mrs. Levi pursed her lips sourly, amazed and chagrined.
Then the old man tried to sit up, his hand shaking uncontrollably. He snatched at the intubation tube, trying to pull it out of his mouth. Delilah froze. The family, alarmed, rang for the nurse, who injected some kind of sedative into his intravenous tube, and he sank back into oblivion. And then, on the morning of the fourth day, Chaim’s phone rang. It was his father, telling him it was all over.
Chaim was distraught. He blamed himself. If only he had taken the time to accompany the old man on his weekly appointments, to help him climb the stairs. If only he had checked more thoroughly the treatments the old chiropractor was foisting off on him as therapy. Obviously, that quack had to be responsible; after all, his grandfather had collapsed right outside his door.
His grandfather’s sudden, precipitous demise was horrifying. Despite his extensive grief-counseling experiences, there was a fundamental and inescapable horror tinged with guilt in seeing someone he loved lose his grip on life. Age didn’t matter. Seeing the upright body—always so dignified and tall—suddenly reduced to pale flabby flesh, bloated from excess fluids, expanding and contracting with the mechanical whir and sob of the intubation machine, was traumatic. The hospital visits, in which the doctors assured the family that all manner of medical tortures were absolutely necessary and unavoidable and might possibly result in a cure, were brutal. He felt intuitively that his grandfather was in pain and that all the medical establishment was really doing was making it impossible for him to leave this world with some peace and dignity. So that when, finally, the struggle ended, it came almost as a blessing.
But loss is loss, a tearing apart that is wretchedly wounding. Chaim mourned the loss of the old rabbi with all his heart. He leaned on Delilah, who behaved with such exemplary consideration that even her mother-in-law, who had spent the entire week sending guilt-inducing waves of hostility in her direction, finally relented. And when, soon after, Delilah made the announcement that she was expecting, even Chaim’s mother smiled and hugged her, putting aside her suspicions and holding her tongue, realizing she had been upstaged. Besides, there had been enough grief in the family. A baby was exactly what everybody needed.
Chaim behaved as if his wife had been touched by a miracle. New life, just when he was in the depths of despair over death. Delilah’s pregnancy blessed him, filling his mind and soul with new hope. He prayed it would be a boy, someone who could be named after his grandfather, a man he had loved and admired his entire life, as it was considered a special merit to the deceased if he had a namesake within the first anniversary of his death.
And then, before he had caught his breath, the congregation began to fall apart. In rapid succession, the membership began to scatter, moving to nursing homes and retirement communities. He just couldn’t understand how it had all happened so quickly.
The first inkling that something was amiss had come during shiva. He had tried to talk to the congregants who came to pay their respects, but they were silent, stiff and uncomfortable, anxious to leave. All except for Mrs. Schreiberman. She showed up every day, full of venom, spouting incoherently cryptic sentences like “You can fool an earthly judge but not the heavenly court!” and “Poor man! Poor man! He died of a broken heart!”—looking straight at Delilah. And then one day she tried to attack the rabbi’s young wife, charging at her with a rolled-up newspaper. “You little bitch. You know what you did. You killed him, you floozy!”
Delilah had had to run to her bedroom, barricading herself inside, while Chaim called the medics. The old woman had been ushered out, taken home, and heavily sedated until her daughter showed up, and, not knowing what else to do, placed her in the mentally challenged wing of an excellent nursing home. Chaim had chalked it up to grief, but rumors and interpretations of the incident ran through the congregation like wildfire. Within six months, the congregation was down to thirteen members, and the board voted to sell the synagogue building, the proceeds of which were donated to Israeli terror victims.
Chaim was shell-shocked. Confused, bereft, and financially vulnerable, just at a time when a baby was on the way, he clung to Delilah. Finally succumbing to her tearful entreaties to apply for the job in Swallow Lake, he very reluctantly, and despite his better judgment, decided to try his luck.
To his surprise, they put him on a waiting list. Despite the ban, the search committee had, apparently, still found plenty of candidates. But when they finally invited him and Delilah down for the weekend, things went amazingly fast.
FOURTEEN
Swallow Lake in May: the mirrored, calm surface. The large oaks leafing out. The dogwoods and crab apples in full bloom. The yellow flowering buttercups. The forests of oak and hickory. The smell of lilacs so thick and heady every breath makes you feel as if you are swallowing large glasses of per
fumed alcohol. Intoxicating.
“Delilah, isn’t this unbelievably beautiful?” Chaim gasped, thinking that, whatever happened, it was a joy simply to visit such a place.
It was like a picture postcard from the most WASP-y dream imaginable, Delilah thought. In fact, it made Woodmere and Cedarhurst look like middle-class Jewish suburbs.
The scenery was great, she agreed. But it was the houses that really interested her. Those homes, those fabulous homes, Delilah thought in wonder. The Colonials, the farmhouses, the Arts and Crafts cottages, the Tudors, the brick Georgians. They were straight out of some E Hollywood Houses of the Stars program. Houses so large, on plots of land so enormous, it didn’t seem quite possible for anything smaller than a municipality to actually own and inhabit them. And the maintenance. Talk about attention to detail: the perfectly painted shutters, the newly painted clapboard siding. The bluestone walkways, the gleaming monolithic glass windows overlooking infinity pools, lakes, sunsets. And the landscaping: shrubbery, flowers, and trees in perfect harmony and design.
“Wow, wow, wow!” Delilah repeated, overcome. This, she thought, is heaven.
She felt a tinge of sudden irrational anger. Why, she asked herself, couldn’t she have been born into one of these houses? Better yet, why couldn’t she have married a man who inherited one, or had a sibling who was a dot-com genius who’d bought one for her, or won the lottery herself and built one? Why had she been condemned to live out her days in little 600-square-foot boxes? But then the anger passed and she was filled with joy.
“I can’t wait to see the inside of one of them.” She squeezed Chaim’s hand. He looked at her. Her face was shining like a child’s presented with a large gift-wrapped box. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her looking like that. It was that moment, just before they’d walked down the aisle, when he couldn’t bear to pull the veil over her face. And now she was carrying his child, he thought. This woman he loved so much and had been trying, with no success, to make happy.
Until this moment, he hadn’t been nervous about this job interview, because he really didn’t want this job, so fraught with complications and controversy. But now, looking at Delilah’s happy face, he exhaled, returning her squeeze, touched by a new determination to do everything in his power to get her what she wanted.
“We’re here.”
They pulled up to the entrance of a lakefront estate. The gates were ornate grillwork edged in gold leaf. And they were firmly shut. Not a living soul was visible anywhere.
“Now what?” Delilah asked Chaim, who shrugged, as mystified as she at the ways of the extremely rich. “Maybe there is a button to push somewhere? Go out and look, Chaim.”
There was, indeed. Chaim found it and pushed. A disembodied and suspicious voice asked them who they were and what they wanted. Soon the gates magically slid to one side, allowing them to drive through.
The house was fronted by a circular driveway, at whose center was an island of exotic plants.
“Please don’t say wow every five minutes,” Chaim begged her.
Delilah, who was about to say wow, closed her mouth.
The front door was answered by the lady of the house, a tall, blond-haired stick of a woman who could not possibly have been any thinner without an IV attached to her arm and round-the-clock medical supervision. Her face was a battleground in which formal hospitality, suspicion, and sincere dismay struggled for prominence.
“I’m Solange Malin,” she said, with faint traces of a British accent, a mask of politeness finally winning out, which was fine with Deliliah, who preferred phony good cheer over frank nastiness any day. Their hostess extended her hand in welcome. Chaim stared at it uncomfortably, wondering if he should overcome his pious scruples about touching a woman or risk offending the wife of the president of the synagogue’s board from the word go. Delilah saw him hesitate. She hurriedly reached over him, pumping the bony fingers while secretly kicking him in the ankle. He shook the woman’s hand.
“An honor to meet you, Mrs. Malin. I’ve heard so much about you and your husband. Your charitableness and good deeds are well known to everyone in the Jewish world.”
Delilah’s heart swelled like a mother watching her child get the lines right in a school play.
Solange’s eyes crinkled in pleasure at the compliment. She smiled. “Not at all! Everyone on the board is dying to meet you. And please accept our condolences on the loss of your grandfather. I understand he was a very important rabbi, leader of a well-known New York synagogue? We read all about him in the New York Times obituary. They called him ‘One of the last great European scholars,’ and they called the synagogue a landmark. And you, I understand, are his successor?”
Chaim, to whom this was news, nodded, surprised. “He was a wonderful man. And yes, I’m his only grandson.”
“Such a privilege! Please, let me get someone to help you with your luggage. Anna-Maria?” she called over her shoulder.
“No, please. It’s not necessary. All we have are these overnight bags,” Chaim protested.
“Oh, well. That’s fine then. Please, let me show you to your room.”
The entrance hall was truly breathtaking, with a winding staircase leading to a square upstairs gallery on which large, magnificent canvases of bold modern art caught your eye from every corner. Off the entrance hall was a huge dining room, which seemed to be undergoing a massive upheaval.
“Excuse the mess. I’m redecorating. Please—” she gestured up the stairs, as if anxious to have them settled and out of the way.
When she showed them to their room, Delilah tried very, very hard, not to say wow! It was twice the size of their Bronx apartment, with a huge double bed, French doors leading to an open balcony, a huge dressing room, and an enormous private bathroom with a Jacuzzi, sauna, and heaven knows what else. Only one thing seemed odd: There were about ten heavy dining-room chairs scattered around the place. But the room was so large, Delilah hardly noticed them.
“Oh, my!” Solange Malin gasped. “No, this is not right! I’m so dreadfully sorry!” She pressed an intercom and said, very firmly, “Anna-Maria, would you come up here, please?” They all stood around uncomfortably, shifting from leg to leg, waiting to see the reason for this sudden fall in the friendliness barometer.
“What, in heaven’s name, are the chairs doing here?” she asked the squat, brown woman who walked in, her brows already lowered in bull-like defiance.
“You tol’ me, get dining room ready. I take out chairs,” the maid said sullenly.
“But I didn’t tell you to put them in here!”
“We put in here, always,” she said stubbornly.
“Well, take them out immediately. Don’t you see we have guests?”
The maid didn’t budge.
“Anna-Maria?” Solange Malin demanded, an octave higher.
“They heavy.”
It was a standoff. After a moment of silence, the mistress of the house got on the intercom again. “Jose, can you come up here, please, and help Anna-Maria.”
Soon the chairs were marching out of the room under the straining torsos of two huffing servants, who were exchanging choice phrases in Spanish under their breath, glancing at Chaim and Delilah and their employer with barely contained malevolence.
“Well, I hope you’ll both be comfortable here now.” She smiled.
“Oh, this is more than comfortable. We can’t thank you enough,” Chaim said sincerely, feeling a sense of vague discomfort as he looked at the straining backs of the two employees.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to dive into that Jacuzzi. Wheee!” Delilah said with glee as soon as Solange Malin took her leave. She began unbuttoning her blouse.
“Delilah!”
“What? We’ve got plenty of time. Why don’t you take off your clothes and join me. It looked awfully roomy.” She giggled, only to turn around and find the two servants gaping at her.
“Mis. Us. Shee. U. kam. U. moo,” Anna-Maria said urg
ently.
She clutched her blouse together, raising her eyebrows at Chaim, who stared back helplessly. They went through this about four times until Delilah finally realized the woman was here to usher them out of paradise into yet another bedroom. Delilah could see the hatred just behind the woman’s eyes as she helped them gather their things together. She wondered why Solange Malin put up with this kind of live-in enmity. If she ever got enough money to hire servants, she thought, she’d fire them faster than they could say Adios!
The new bedroom was more magnificent still. And it had twin beds.
“I thought you’d be more comfortable in here,” Solange said, suddenly reappearing. The two Mexicans stared impassively at the floor, no doubt wondering—as were Chaim and Delilah—why she hadn’t just moved them here in the first place, since they were mobile and the chairs were not.
The new room was black and white and red. On the walls were framed photographs, everything rather blurry in shades of red.
“Chaim used to take pictures like that until he went digital. They come out perfect now,” Delilah said.
“They’re Desmond McClintocks,” Solange said stiffly.
Delilah looked at her blankly.
“The abstract photographer? The one who just had a retrospective at MoMA? Do you like them, Rabbi?” she said, pointedly ignoring Delilah.
“Oh, they’re wonderful,” Chaim said hesitantly. “So . . . so . . .”
Red, Delilah thought, her face burning with embarrassment.
“. . . evocative,” he finally said.
“Oh, what a charming photo,” Delilah said, trying to recoup, suddenly picking up a small framed photograph on the nightstand. It was of two little girls in plain dresses that seemed way too big for them, covering them up from neck to ankle. Their hair fell over their shoulders in long tight braids. “They look just like those little Hasidic girls in Jerusalem! Don’t they, Chaim? Is this also by the same famous photographer?”
