The Saturday Wife

by Ragen, Naomi

  Solange grabbed it out of her hands in a tight-lipped silence that left Delilah breathless, wondering what rule of the very rich she’d broken now.

  “I didn’t remember I’d put it in here,” Solange murmured. “As a matter of fact, my son-in-law took it. They’re my granddaughters. And they live in Jerusalem.”

  There was a big period at the end of that sentence. Chaim and Delilah heard it clearly and asked no more.

  “This is our best guest bedroom.” Solange nodded, making them wonder what had transpired to get them an upgrade so soon. “I thought twin beds would be more comfortable,” she added, as if reading their thoughts.

  “It’s very kind of you to take so much trouble,” Chaim said.

  “Not at all! We are very excited about having you both here. Our community has suffered a great deal with this whole, scandalous Metzenbaum business. We are hoping for some new leadership. Not fanatics out to brainwash people and alienate them from their children”—she picked up the photograph and stared at it in silence—”or busybodies out to condemn our customs and practices. We need team players who are warm and responsive, who will join actively in our community and our way of life.” She turned her head, looking at Delilah carefully. “Some rabbi’s wives these days refuse even to join the sisterhood. They think it’s beneath them because they have high-powered jobs, law or medical practices, or they’re VPs of some computer company. Career women,” she said with a sniff, as if the air had suddenly been fouled. “That’s not who we’re looking for here.”

  Chaim shifted uncomfortably.

  “Oh, I know what you mean. It’s terrible.” Delilah jumped in eagerly. “I know quite a few rabbi’s wives who are always thinking about themselves. But I have always believed that being the wife of a rabbi is the highest calling any Jewish woman could possibly have. It’s an opportunity and a privilege to serve a community.”

  “Well.” Solange’s nose unwrinkled, the air suddenly fragrant again. “I’m so glad you think so. Perhaps if you have some time before dinner, you’ll allow me to show you around?”

  “That would be wonderful,” Delilah assured her, thrilled. She couldn’t wait.

  “I’d better go now. If you need anything, I’ll just be downstairs. Otherwise, I’ll see you in time for candlelighting.” She nodded, forcing a smile on her lips and taking the photo with her.

  Two wonderful Tibetan wooden lion carvings stood on either side of a low carved ebony wood table. Chaim tried hard to tiptoe around them, terrified he might bump into one and knock it over. It was like being given a bed in the Metropolitan Museum, he thought uncomfortably.

  The furniture was beautiful, even if the decorations were a bit weird. But this bedroom had no Jacuzzi, Delilah noted with disappointment. What it did have, she discovered to her joy, was a magnificent porch with two rocking chairs overlooking the lake and a bookcase full of magazines. Big, fluffy robes were hanging in the bathroom, along with the softest, thickest towels she’d ever seen. Delilah took a long soak, using the French bubble bath and the Italian shampoo, then curled up in a white wicker rocker. She could see the turquoise blue of the swimming pool sparkling down below and hear the gentle whack of tennis balls bouncing off the red clay courts visible over the hill.

  She was supremely happy, all her angst suddenly melting, all her worries, anxieties, bravado, defenses, and heartbreak over things she’d never be able to solve magically evaporating.

  She couldn’t understand Solange Malin, who was obviously nursing some heartbreak, despite her palace. All the conventional wisdom about how money isn’t everything, how a house is just a shell was just baloney, Delilah thought. There was no human need that owning this house and land couldn’t fill, as far as she was concerned. Anyone who couldn’t be deliriously happy here might as well join Osama bin Laden’s merry men in their caves.

  “Chaim”—she caressed his face, looking deeply into his eyes—”I’ve finally found all the answers.”

  “What were the questions?” He laughed, caressing her back.

  They sat next to each other quietly, each thinking their own thoughts. This was the way their relationship should be, Delilah thought, like two potted plants, next to each other but not in each other’s space, each of them growing and blooming at their own pace, enjoying each other’s foliage without insisting on sending out spores that would colonize and take over. They were both so different, but in a good way, she told herself.

  Both of them had been taught that a person’s goal in life should be to serve God. But the older she got, the more complicated that became. It seemed that at every given moment, there was some other extremely complicated and usually inconvenient and difficult thing that needed to be performed in exactly the precise right way or it—and you—were worthless.

  For example, Grace After Meals. There was an entire little book of things you had to say to thank God for your food after every meal. But on holidays, you had to add a special paragraph. On Chanukah and Purim, another one. And on the new moon, still another. And even if you said the whole book, if you forgot to add precisely the appropriate paragraph, then your prayer was worthless and you needed to say the entire thing all over again.

  She sighed.

  Someone once said that if the Jews celebrated Christmas, there would have been at least three, four-hundred-page volumes of Jewish law—with commentaries—describing exactly how tall the tree had to be, what color, how long it needed to be in the house, and when and how you were allowed to throw it out. There would be a long list of commandments and prohibitions concerning the decorations and the exact angle that they had to be hung, with commentaries on the different rabbinical schools of thought—both stringent and lenient—concerning candy canes.

  She glanced at her husband. Chaim never seemed to have any doubts or hang-ups. Often, Delilah admitted to herself, she envied him this. She took his hand and kissed it. “Chaim, please get this job. It would be so good for both of us. And I promise you, this time I’ll do better. I’ll make you proud of me.”

  Chaim put his arm around her, squeezing her shoulders. “I’ll do my best, my love.”

  That evening, just after lighting the Sabbath candles, Chaim and Delilah were given the grand tour of the house and grounds. There were many impressive works of art and many beautiful pieces of furniture. Solange, acting as docent, pointed out the big expressionist canvases by Gregory Armenoff, a Roger Shinomura woodblock, a fantastic Romare Bearden collage, as well as wonderful Israeli works by Lea Nikel, Dorit Feldman, and Menashe Kadishman. One entire room had been given over to dream-like glass masterpieces by Dale Chihuly.

  But when the tour was over, Chaim admitted to himself that the thing he envied most were the views from the back porch over Swallow Lake just as the sun was setting. Good thing the Tenth Commandment talked about coveting one’s neighbor’s house, not his scenery, he thought with a smile. As far as he knew, that wasn’t a sin. As for Delilah, she felt her entire being awash in an almost hypnotic sense of longing. Oh, to acquire and own and use and take for granted such riches! Even to live nearby. It would be everything she ever dreamed of.

  They waited in the entrance hall for Arthur Malin, who was chairman of the synagogue board, who was going to walk with them to the synagogue. Chaim realized his hands were sweating. He felt as if he were about to meet Donald Trump, not sure he wouldn’t point a finger and yell, You’re fired!

  What kind of man owned this palace, he wondered? A person who was not only rich, but cultured and intelligent, with amazing good taste. And what kind of rabbi was he looking for?

  They waited and waited, until, suddenly, a voice called out, “Shaindel, where’s the apple cider?”

  Solange blanched. “He likes to call me that. It’s my Hebrew name. He’s the only one,” she explained, flustered. Chaim and Delilah kept their faces passive, but reached out to pinch each other when she wasn’t looking.

  Arthur Malin walked into the hallway, glass in hand. “A refrigerator the size of Milwauke
e and no juice.” He shrugged. He seemed amused. When he saw them he stopped, his face lighting up with a kind smile.

  “Hello, hello. Welcome. Good Shabbes.” He greeted them warmly, in a heavy Brooklyn accent.

  Delilah gulped. He looked like one of her favorite high school chu-mash teachers. “We were just admiring your collections, Mr. Malin.”

  A maid they hadn’t seen before came over hurriedly, pouring him some apple juice. He took it from her gratefully, his eyes lighting up. “Gracias, kid,” he said, gulping it down and giving her the glass since she seemed to be waiting for it. Then he turned to Delilah. “You like? Good. I don’t know much about it. We have a guy that helps us pick things out. He goes for the bright colors, and all the little pieces of material and wood glued on with the shvartzas—by what’s-his-face—Reardumb?”

  “Avrom!” Solange said sharply, her British accent suddenly gone with the wind. Then she seemed to remember herself, glancing at them nervously. “I mean, Arthur,” she corrected herself, the Queen’s English suddenly making a reappearance. “Please! You know that you and I are the ones who make the final decisions.” She turned, smiling. “We just love Bearden.”

  “Yeah, we decide everything, especially what color ink to use on the checks!” He laughed uproariously, slapping his knee. “Oy, that was good. What do you want, Shaindel? They should think we’re big art mavens? I embarrassed her, right? I always embarrass her, my darling wife. He put his arm around Chaim’s shoulder. “So, Rabbi, vus macht du?”

  “We are both doing great. Such a beautiful place. I’m ready to pitch a tent and squat,” Chaim said jovially, liking Arthur more with every word he said.

  “Rabbi, you don’t have to pitch a tent. We already have one, a big one.” “Arthur . . .” Solange raised her brows in warning.

  “It’s our synagogue!” He roared.

  Delilah blanched. “You don’t mean the rabbi and his family live in the synagogue?”

  “Well, what do the two of you live in now?”

  “We have a very nice apartment,” Delilah began, wondering if they were already in negotiations.

  “All six hundred square feet of it.” Chaim laughed.

  “Do they come that small? I’d forgotten.” He smiled, shaking his head. “I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. My parents’ apartment was bigger than that, but not much. Here, even the cars get more room to themselves.”

  “My husband has a very special sense of humor,” Solange broke in. “Of course, the rabbi’s house is very nice. A two-story Colonial, about two thousand square feet, with a full finished basement. It’s very comfortable.”

  “They’ll see it, Shaindel. I promise.”

  Delilah exhaled. Two thousand fricking feet, she thought, exulting. And a finished basement!

  The plan was to walk to the synagogue, where Chaim would give his first speech, and afterward join the board members at the home of the Rol-lands for Friday-night dinner, where they could all get to know one another.

  The walk took them past the Swallow Lake Country Club. It had a 13,000-square-foot fitness center, sandy beaches, eight tennis courts, and an Olympic-sized pool and marina, Arthur Malin informed them. He was a founding member, he said. He believed in physical fitness. All those days sitting in yeshiva on his tuchas had convinced him that body and soul needed to be nurtured simultaneously. He seemed in excellent shape, despite creeping baldness and a challah-eating paunch.

  All the way there, he regaled them with stories about his yeshiva days in Brooklyn and how the rabbis told his parents he’d wind up in jail. “The rabbis were always trying to convince us not to go to college but instead to sit and learn Talmud the rest of our lives and have the community and our rich fathers-in-law support us. Once, Rabbi Pupik gets up and says, ‘You know what happens to boys who go to college? They wind up becoming organic chemists. And do you know what organic chemists do? All day they spend with their hands in what comes out of behinds. People behinds, animal behinds.’ Then he’d roll up his sleeves and pantomime it, holding it up to his nose, licking it with his tongue. We were all adolescents, we were rolling around on the floor going, Uch, uch, uch!” He laughed. “I’ll tell you what. Maybe we didn’t become Talmud scholars, but not one of us became an organic chemist!”

  Instead, he’d gotten into real estate, learning the business from his mother’s uncle. And then, just on a fluke, he’d started purchasing radio stations one at a time when nobody wanted them. Delilah found the whole story a little hard to follow but understood he now headed a media conglomerate that supplied news and entertainment to a vast number of people in the United States and elsewhere.

  And while he didn’t say so, Chaim already knew that he was also one of the most giving and generous men in the world, involved with a vast number of charities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, with a particular interest in the handicapped. He was one of those people who earn your respect and overcome your prejudices, Chaim thought. As much as those with no money would hope to at least be able to boast of a superior moral edge over their very wealthy counterparts, the truth was that it is equally possible, and far more likely, he believed, for a rich man to be a good person than a poor one—tightfisted grasping hands, let’s face it, being more of a problem among those who have grabbed little than those who have grabbed much.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Delilah gasped, when she saw Ohel Aaron.

  Huge vertical columns of concrete, interspersed with thin ribbons of stained glass, rose into the air, meeting at a point in the center that looked as if it had been tied with some kind of gigantic leather belt.

  Arthur Malin shrugged. “I know, I know. It’s supposed to be an Indian tepee. The first Jews in Swallow Lake wanted to do something that fit into the environment and would be respectful of local traditions. Ich vast?”

  It looked, Chaim thought, like a huge ice-cream cone that had been turned upside down and smashed into the pavement by a vengeful three-year-old. “Well, it’s the inside that’s important,” Chaim said.

  “That’s even worse,” Arthur Malin admitted, opening the doors.

  He was right. It was vast and rather gloomy, lit by massive wooden chandeliers straight out of the Ahawaneechee Lodge. All that was missing were the antlers and other dead hunting trophies. The bimah, which stood at the center, seemed to be made out of bark-covered log cabin blocks. The Ark of the Torah, hewn out of a massive redwood trunk, seemed to be covered—could that actually be?—in leather. On either side, huge electrical fixtures in the shape of flickering torches finished the effect of a Comanche tribunal gathered to do a war dance.

  It took every ounce of self-discipline Chaim could muster not to ask, Are you sure this is Tent of Aaron, and not Pocahontas?

  “Let me guess. The mechitzah is made of feathers?” Chaim whispered to Delilah.

  “He’ll hear you!” she hissed.

  As it turned out, feathers would have been more traditionally acceptable according to Jewish law than what he found: solid panels of beaten bronze, each one in the shape of a different wild bird, placed at widely spaced intervals that allowed men and women to see each other clearly. He gulped in panic. According to Jewish tradition, the birds were for the birds. There was no question in his mind that any Orthodox rabbi worth his salt must absolutely refuse to officiate over a synagogue service in such a place. He glanced at Delilah, who sat in the front row looking at him hopefully, her face beaming in excitement and expectation. He walked in heavily. This wasn’t his pulpit—yet. There would be time to make changes, if and when he got the job, he told himself.

  Delilah looked around her, delighted. There were many women of all ages, and at a Friday-night service, which was traditionally almost entirely male. Usually, this meant either that the congregation was young and sassy and used the synagogue as a social watering hole or that the women were in love with their rabbi. In this case, she had no doubt they’d come to gather early impressions by inspecting them both. She smiled until her mouth ached, her entire body tensed
and ready.

  There is always a little break in the Friday-evening service, when afternoon prayers are over and evening prayers cannot yet begin. In most synagogues, this time slot is filled by the rabbi giving a short learned discussion on some obscure point in Jewish law, saving, as rabbis do, the major heart banger for the larger gathering on Saturday morning.

  Chaim stood up and walked to the podium. The place was packed, he realized with pleasure. Quite an achievement in a relatively small place like Swallow Lake, when, all over the country, synagogues—and churches—were empty 363 days a year; and Bar and Bat Mitzva kids disappeared faster than free champagne the minute they’d unwrapped their presents and recovered from their hangovers.

  Delilah sat tensely at the edge of her seat. Chaim hadn’t discussed his sermon with her. Please, please, she thought, her heart clenching, don’t blow this! Just get this job and I’ll be the best wife, the best rebbitizin, I promise.

  “The rabbi and his wife were cleaning house,” Chaim began, with no introduction, “when the rabbi came across a box. ‘What’s in it?’ he asked the rebbitzin. She said, ‘Leave it alone. It’s private.’ Well, what can you do? A rabbi is also a person; he was curious. So one day, when she was out shopping, he ran to find it and opened it.

  “Inside were three eggs and two thousand dollars. He waited patiently for her to come home, and then he demanded to know what it meant. ‘Every time you give a bad sermon, I put an egg in the box.’ ”

  “ ‘Twenty years, and only three eggs! Not bad! But what about the money?’

  “ ‘Every time I get a dozen eggs, I sell them to the poor for a dollar.’ ”

  He waited for the laughter to die down before raising his hand. “I hope I don’t get an egg for this one. But before I start, I’d like to tell you another story.