by Julia Dahl
“Aviva,” he said, patiently, always patiently, “please, be reasonable. She is my daughter, too. You know this is important to me.”
I should have known. From the very beginning I’d pretended that your father’s support for my rejection of my religious upbringing meant that he was also moving away from his faith. But I hadn’t really been listening to him. He had supported my rejection of the suffocating, sexist daily rituals that my community insisted were the only path to God. He had not, I realized, supported rejecting God. He was not Jewish—which is part of what drew me to him—but that did not mean he did not live his life according to how he believed God wanted him to. It was just a different God and a different way. I cried and cried and he asked me to please tell him what he could do. But what could he do? He was a religious man and religious men are all the same: they turn to God for answers they cannot come up with themselves. They trust God, but the only thing I trusted was me.
He relented for a while, and one day, when we were driving back from one of your doctor’s appointments, he made a detour past a building. A shul.
“It’s Reform,” he said. “I thought maybe you could see what it was like. Maybe it’s just different enough to feel … okay?”
When we got home I went to bed and dreamt I was in the shul in Roseville, where we buried Rivka. I held you out to my mother but she did not extend her arms.
“Her name is Rebekah,” I said.
“No,” she said. She shook her head. There were other women all around her. My aunts and sisters and cousins. They all shook their heads. “No.”
“Yes, Mommy,” I said. I pushed your little body into her chest, but her hands were clasped tightly at her waist. I let go and you fell. Your screams shook the shul. I looked up and all the men were above, in the women’s balcony, reciting the mourner’s kaddish.
Yit’gadal v’yit’kadash sh’mei raba
I waved my arms and tried to cry out; I felt the scream coming up strong from my stomach, then turning to dust in my mouth. Nothing but a whistle against the howl of their prayers, growing louder and louder. The women joining in.
b’al’ma di v’ra khir’utei
“Niddah,” said my mother, her face ugly with disgust. “You have not been to the mikveh.”
It’s true, I thought. I have not been to the mikveh.
I looked down and you were no longer on the ground. I was not wearing shoes. I looked up and there was Rivka. Eleven years old forever. Puffy red hair, perpetually chapped lips, the thin scar on the underside of her chin from when she tumbled down the steps in front of our apartment building as a toddler. Her eyes swollen shut.
“Rebekah is dead,” said my mother.
I woke up sweating, the sheets around me damp. Sunlight everywhere. Always sunlight. I had to find a mikveh.
The next day was Friday and I put on a long skirt and borrowed your grandmother’s bicycle to ride to the shul. I rode a circle around the parking lot. One entire wall was glass windows. When the sun went down, I went inside. Fewer than half the seats were occupied. Men and women sat together. Some of the men’s heads were uncovered. A woman wearing coral-colored lipstick and a sleeveless dress handed me a paper program. It was all in English. It was all wrong. I sat in the back, soaked in the sadness I still could not shake. I wanted to ask about the mikveh. I wondered if the matron would allow me to bathe. The service began with music coming from somewhere I could not see. The rabbi was clean-shaven and wore a white satin kippah on his head. He was very tan, and he spoke about something that had appeared in TIME magazine. Everyone sang together. It was over in less than an hour. People walked up the plush carpeted center aisle, some wearing flip-flops, and out into the hall where there were tables set with food and wine. There were happy moments in my childhood, and many of them involved eating. But I felt nothing when I looked at the bountiful Shabbos meal that evening. I had come for one reason. I saw the woman with the lipstick and approached her.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying my best to seem pleasant. “Could you tell me where is the mikveh?”
“I’m sorry?” said the woman, smiling. She, like many of the people I met in Florida, spoke with an accent from the South.
“The mikveh,” I repeated.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. She was ten or fifteen years older than I was, with a deep tan and athletic arms. Her toenails were exposed and painted a shade similar to her lipstick. “The what?”
“Mikveh?” I did not know how else to say it.
“I’m so sorry, hon, I don’t know what that is. Just one sec…” She raised her hand and caught the attention of the rabbi, flagging him over.
“Oh no,” I said, horrified. “That’s fine…”
But it was too late, there he was.
“What’s your name, sweetie?” asked the woman.
“Aviva,” I said.
“What a beautiful name,” she said. “I’m Estelle. This is Rabbi Siegel. Rabbi, Aviva had a question I couldn’t answer.”
“Welcome to Temple Beth Israel, Aviva,” he said, and reached his hand to shake mine. I was so shocked I stepped back. He and Estelle both smiled weakly, indulging my strangeness. “What can I do for you?”
I must have looked as helpless as I felt, because Estelle spoke first.
“She asked about the mik … What was it?”
“The mikveh,” I whispered. It was everything I could do not to run.
“The…? Oh!” The rabbi rubbed the place on his jaw where a beard should have been. He wore a white robe, and at his neck I could see the knot of a tie with pink flamingos embroidered on it. Pink! Was this a joke?
“I’m sorry, we don’t one have. I actually don’t know any temples in the area that do. But let me make a few calls. Have you recently moved to Orlando?”
It was enough.
“Thank you,” I said and ran out of the building. I rode home in the dark and with each pump of my bicycle pedals I became more upset. Who were these people? They couldn’t possibly think that what they were practicing in that big airy room was Judaism. I told your father I had to go back the next day. He looked concerned. I did not sleep that night. There was so much to tell them, and it was so important. I rode there before dawn. The air was already steamy. I forgot my shoes. I waited more than an hour in the parking lot before a car pulled in. It was not the rabbi, but an older man. I ran to his car.
“Where is the rebbe?” I asked him.
“Rabbi Siegel? He’s in about nine.”
“I need to talk to the rebbe.”
“Okay,” said the man, rolling up his window, gathering a bag, taking his time getting out. “Like I said, he’ll be here…”
“It is very important that I speak with him,” I said, starting to breathe more quickly. “Please!”
“Look,” said the man, “you need to calm down. You can wait…”
“I have been waiting!”
He put his hand out to touch my shoulder.
“What are you doing!” I screamed, frightening him. He stepped back.
I froze. What was I doing? “What are you doing!” I screamed again, this time at myself. I slapped my hand to my head. Hard.
“Miss…” said the man, but I was already running. I grabbed the bicycle and tripped. The metal edge of the left pedal skidded along the skin on my right shin, tearing it open, drawing blood. But I hopped and hopped and finally got on and got away.
The next time I went to Temple Beth Israel they called your father. The time after that, they called the police.
CHAPTER FOUR
REBEKAH
Frank’s Diner is on the corner of Forty-ninth Street and the West Side Highway. It’s a 24–7 joint, with mustard-colored pleather booths lining both windowed walls and a full bar with a mirror backsplash. A man in work boots and paint-splattered jeans is sitting at the counter with a beer and the Trib in front of him. A couple, both men, one wearing dramatic eye makeup, whisper across a table along the back wall. Saul and I choose a booth by
the west-facing window looking out at the Intrepid docked in the Hudson. It was so cold this winter there were ice floes in the river. One of the Trib photogs snapped a shot of an eagle on one, and it ran with a story about the record-breaking temperatures. The ice is gone now, and with the heat cranking in the diner and the sun shining outside I can almost imagine what it might be like when the weather finally gets warmer.
I asked Saul to come with me because I figured Levi would be more comfortable talking to me with another man present. Other than Saul, all of my sources in the Haredi world have been female. I’m not sure if that’s because men are actually more reluctant to speak to outsiders, or if they’re just unpracticed in interacting with women they aren’t married to. Maybe a little of both.
I see a man in Hasidic dress coming up the block, his head bowed against the wind off the water, one hand pressed down on his tall black hat, sidecurls blown horizontal behind his head. When he comes through the door he looks around expectantly. I wave and Saul stands. They shake hands. I know enough not to extend mine for a greeting. Levi is a good-looking man. Short, with eyes so dark they almost appear black, and a full beard covering half his face. He sits down next to Saul and the waiter comes over with a menu.
“Just tea, please,” says Levi, taking a Kleenex from his pocket. He blows his nose.
“Thank you for meeting us,” I say. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
Levi nods. “Thank you,” he says. He puts his Kleenex back in his pocket and looks at me. “What do you need to know?”
“Well, Saul said you had some questions about Pessie’s death.”
“I have lots of questions. Although I seem to be the only one.”
“What do you mean?”
“My wife should not be dead,” he says. “She was twenty-two years old. She was a mother. Her family seems to think it was…” He shakes his head. “I do not understand them.”
I open my notebook. “Can you tell me how she died?”
“That is what I am trying to find out.”
I’m not making myself clear. “I mean…”
“Our son, Chaim, was scheduled to go to the doctor for a checkup. A woman from the office called me at work and said that they had missed the appointment. I called Pessie, but she did not answer her phone. I thought something had happened, perhaps with her father. He has diabetes and Pessie’s mother often calls her to help with his insulin. But when I got home…” He pauses. “I could hear Chaim crying from outside the front door. When I got inside I saw he was strapped into his car seat, just sitting there on the floor in his dirty diaper. Pessie would never have left him like that. I heard the water running in the bathroom. The door was closed. She was in the bathtub.”
Levi rubs his hand across his face. I look at Saul, who raises his eyebrows as if to say, your move. What’s my next question? To me, dying in a bathtub conjures up images of slit writs, or maybe an overdose. Should I ask if he saw blood? Or vomit? Or spilled pills? I decide to wait.
“I called 911,” he continues. “And Pessie’s mother. She called the chevra kadisha.” I must look like I don’t understand him, because he translates. “The burial society.” Ah. “The Roseville officer arrived first. He was very professional. He asked me if I had touched her, and when I said no he took some photographs. But when Pessie’s family and the chevra kadisha arrived…” Levi purses his lips, like he’s trying to press back whatever emotion is threatening to pop out. “There was an argument about who would take the body, and when Pessie’s mother learned the officer had taken photographs she became hysterical. She insisted Pessie be taken immediately to the funeral home.”
It’s a story I’ve heard before. The story that got me nearly killed in January was about a dead Hasidic woman whose body was never autopsied. Ultra-Orthodox Jews adhere, well, religiously, to a law that states the dead are to be buried within twenty-four hours of their death. Their bodies are not to be disturbed, and female bodies are definitely not to be disturbed by non-Jewish men like whoever this Roseville officer was. Women prepare the bodies of other women for burial in this world; men do the same for men. Their bodies are cleaned and prayed over and watched until their coffin is covered in dirt in a Jewish cemetery. Meaning, in some cases, no autopsy. No collection of DNA from fingernails or mouths or vaginas; no forensic examination of wounds or internal organs; no toxicology report. The last case I covered was an obvious murder: a woman found dumped in a scrap pile. The fact that her body wasn’t autopsied was completely outrageous. But her husband had enough money and power to pull strings most people couldn’t—or wouldn’t. I imagine that circumventing an autopsy is easier in a town like Roseville where the police department is probably small and poorly funded. And it occurs me that this practice is more insidious when a death like Pessie’s occurs. A body in a scrap pile is obviously a murder. No one gets like that without help. But a woman in her own bathtub? That’s when you really need someone asking questions.
“Why was her mother so insistent?” I ask.
“Fraidy is a very … conservative woman,” says Levi. It seems like he wanted to use a harsher word to describe his mother-in-law, but demurred. “They seem to believe that Pessie … well, I think they are afraid she committed suicide.”
The waiter comes and sets down Levi’s tea. He pushes it aside.
“What do you think made them think that?” I ask once the waiter is out of earshot.
“Pessie had a very hard time after Chaim was born. She felt very overwhelmed. Chaim did not take to her easily, and I believe she was ashamed, which drove her into despair. She went to the rebbe, of course, but I suggested she see a psychologist when speaking with the rebbe didn’t seem to help. I came to this country from Israel. We do not have so much of a stigma about these sorts of issues. Pessie was hesitant, but after a few weeks taking the medication, she felt much, much better. She insisted we keep the fact that she was taking antidepressants from her family. She said they would not understand.”
“But Pessie would never have taken her own life. I suppose you hear that a lot. But I have never been more certain of anything. She was very religious and she would never have sinned against Hashem in such a way. And she would not have left Chaim without his mother. I am certain.”
I look at Saul, who is looking at his coffee. His only son committed suicide last year. But Levi probably doesn’t know that.
“Truthfully, I do not believe her parents actually think Pessie … did this. But they are so afraid of the shame—the speculation and the gossip about their family, and how difficult it would make shidduch for her younger sisters and brothers—that they would rather not know what happened to her than risk the possibility of confirming it was suicide. Or related to drugs they would not want people knowing she had been taking. Now, they can say it was a tragic accident. That she fell in the shower.”
“What do you think happened?” I ask.
“I have no way of knowing that.”
“Right,” I say, “but you suspect … what?”
“I suspect someone killed her.”
“Have you been in touch with the Roseville police?”
“I gave a statement to the first officer. I told him that Pessie always folded her clothing and put on a robe before taking a shower. She did not drop her clothes in a pile on the floor. I told him nothing appeared to be stolen. I told him she would never have left Chaim in his car seat in the living room while she bathed. And I told him that the front door was unlocked when I came home.”
“What did the officer say?”
“He took notes.”
“Have you heard from him since?”
“No,” says Levi.
“Did you reach out again? Like, to follow up?”
“I called once but did not receive a call back. I assumed that if they had information, or needed information, they would contact me. It is their job, after all.” Levi sighs. “It has been a very difficult time. I did not wish to remain in the house where she died, and Chaim and I
have had to move in with Pessie’s brother.”
“Have you shared your suspicions with anyone else?”
Levi shakes his head. “I do not wish to contribute to the rumors.”
“There are rumors?”
“Of course. Everyone is always talking. Pessie was engaged to another young man, a neighbor from Brooklyn, before she and I met. Her parents would not let her tell me. They were afraid I would not marry her if I knew.”
“Would you have?”
“I am not an unreasonable man,” he says. “But it was wrong to keep Samuel a secret from me.”
“Samuel?”
“That was his name. Pessie finally told me about him after she became pregnant. She said they were engaged very young, when she was just seventeen.”
“Did she say what happened?”
“She said that he was a nice boy, but that he wanted to live a more modern life. He left the community, and talking about it seemed to embarrass her, so I did not probe further. I felt happy she trusted me enough to tell me. I thought perhaps it meant our marriage was growing stronger.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
Levi shakes his head. “We did not speak of him often.”
“Do you know his last name?”
“No,” he says. “I know it probably seems strange to you, but I did not feel I needed to know so much about him. He was not a part of her life anymore. I do not believe it is healthy to dwell on the past. Which is why I am taking Chaim home to Israel. I do not want my son to grow up around people who believe his mother did something so sinful as take her own life.” I look at Saul. We’ve never talked about his son’s suicide—I learned from someone else—but I can’t imagine it feels good to have someone else proclaim your dead child a sinner. Saul doesn’t flinch, though, and Levi continues. “But before I leave I want to make an effort to clear my wife’s name. I do not know why the Roseville police are uninterested in Pessie’s death. And I do not know why her community seems to have already forgotten her.”
I nod and scribble I do not know why r police uninterested p’s death; her comm seems already forgot her into my notebook.
