Uncovered

by Leah Lax

  Later, I dreamed I was a student in an old yeshiva study hall, sparring with my partner over a Talmudic text. The hall was filled with other pairs also locked in arguments and questions. A tangle of our boy voices rose up to God.

  Six

  What’s your name? Just get here?” That was the girl who met me in the entry of Rabbi Geller’s Beis Chanah Lubavitch Women’s Institute, a frayed old mansion in St. Paul, Minnesota. The entry was framed by two broad, banistered stairways, each leading in a curve to a central veranda above. I had arrived a week into the summer immersion program for their Introduction to Hasidic Life, in which students lived together—classes, study and mentoring, communal meals—under the canopy of the Law. Most of the girls would be college students on summer break. I had the brochure with me in my suitcase, wrinkled and folded.

  The girl wore the required long sleeves, skirt, and high neckline, but unlike Seema’s daughters, she was in fashionable Indian-print cotton, fringed leather belt over her tunic top, her hair hippie long and tied back at the nape. Other girls passed by, and I noted more artful dealings with the clothing restrictions—scarves, paisleys, and bright colors. I was still sixteen, but I had graduated and here I was on my first solo vacation before starting college. I had just gotten off the first plane of my life, taken my first cab, and paid for it all with money I’d earned by babysitting every night I could get work since I’d met Rabbi Geller at the Sabbath Experience. “I’m Lisa!” I told the girl, extending a hand, ready to pump hers. “Hello!”

  “Rivka,” she said.

  I picked up my suitcase.

  “You can leave that here.”

  I put the suitcase back down, ready to follow. Before us was an enormous dining room, folded tables and stacked chairs, scuffed baseboards, walls in need of fresh paint. “Oh,” the girl said. “That used to be a ballroom.” My tour of the institute had begun.

  Lubavitch House was once owned, in the gilded age, by a wealthy brewer who loved to entertain. I pictured top hats and lorgnettes. Beyond the ballroom were bay windows facing out on a wide balcony over woods and a circuitous creek. The whole place made me think of a fading socialite, some frazzled, once-beautiful woman. “What happened after the brewer?” I said.

  “To the house? It became a monastery.”

  “A what?”

  But she was already clattering down narrow stairs to the basement, and I followed, across bare cement floors, past what she said was Rabbi Geller’s office, empty now, to a long dorm room with a line of single beds that sent me into a daydream about a monastery and its medieval mystique. There was an assortment of dressers with clothes sticking out, more clothes on unmade beds, shoes scattered, open suitcases, photos and notes pinned to walls, but I saw an austere line of iron cots in an underground chamber beneath a dully glowing bulb, beds tight and identical in an otherwise-empty room. I saw monks rising before dawn, dressing and making their beds in a silent group dance, the scene resonant with holy awe and mystery-driven discipline, before proceeding to the chapel for haunting, hypnotizing morning chants.

  I followed Rivka back to the open area, exposed pipes and cinder-block walls, the air cool and dank. One part of the back wall held an empty frame of blue tiles around a scarred surface. “What is that?” I said.

  “That,” Rivka said, rolling her eyes, “used to be an altar to their ‘virgin.’ But it says in the Bible in Deuteronomy, ‘You shall destroy their altars and break down their images.’”

  “You don’t mean …”

  “Yep,” she said, in a chipper voice. “That’s a commandment you don’t get to carry out very often. So the rabbis tore out the altar themselves. With hammers.”

  “Whoa,” I said. That line to me conjured primitive people forbidden to bow to inanimate objects or conduct human sacrifices, not the Catholic church down the street. But in a shocked, secret kind of way, I was delighted. By tearing out their altar, these bearded rabbis had thumbed their noses at something sacred in American life. That was very cool. In high school, in our nice, safe lunchroom, we had vilified Nixon, called policemen pigs, and derided the “establishment,” but when the bell rang, we went to class. These people were anti-establishment for real. This was real iconoclasm. I could just see their white starched sleeves rolled up, hammers in soft hands, telling each other that this job was a Godly privilege. Did they carry the debris out in closed bags to protect themselves from the objections of a misled world? I whispered, “I bet the rabbis don’t even pay their parking tickets.”

  Rivka laughed. “Oh, no,” she said. “Not true. The Law says we have to follow the laws of the land.” I followed her back up the basement stairs. She looked back over her shoulder with a wry smile. “But don’t you think six hundred and thirteen commandments are enough?”

  “Six hundred and thirteen?” I said.

  She looked as if I didn’t know my ABCs. “The number of commandments in the Torah,” she said.

  I would have to be careful not to fly that little flag of ignorance again. “Oh,” I said. “Yes, maybe enough.” I didn’t think, Enough for what? Enough to make American law irrelevant?

  We went into the kitchen, where two older girls in white aprons—they were at least twenty-one—were chopping vegetables. They looked up and smiled, knives on the chopping block, just like the photo in the brochure. Outside of the kitchen was a chalkboard with chores and names scrawled on it. “We run this place ourselves,” Rivka said. “Everyone works.”

  “Cool,” I said. We got to be the adults in charge.

  Up the stairs to the veranda, and Rivka opened wide double doors onto the singsong of prayer in female voices. Hebrew chanting flowed over us. “It’s mincha, the afternoon service,” she said. At the Sabbath Experience, the men had sung out the prayers as fast as they could in an indecipherable cacophony while we women sat silenced. These girls were singing neatly together in holy repetition, steady, rhythmic, and calm. “There are about fifty of us here now,” Rivka whispered.

  I saw only one girl in jeans like me, another in slacks. But on the phone, Rabbi Geller had said it was fine to come in pants, that everyone came from college and brought what they had. “No pants?” I whispered back.

  “Most of us have been here a few weeks,” she said. “The newcomers have adjusted.” She closed the doors.

  AFTERNOON. My bedroom was on the main floor in an alcove off a large room with eight more beds, which meant that my room had no door, a huge closet that was for everyone, and the only access to the one bathroom. I reserved the second bed in the alcove for Ana, still delighted she had agreed to come. She said she’d combine it with a visit to her favorite uncle and cousins in St. Paul, and that way her parents would pay.

  I headed to the main front room, the ballroom. Rabbi Geller had said I’d be assigned to babysit in place of tuition. I found Frimmy waiting in the front hall.

  I was struck dumb. I had had little contact with pregnant women, but I had always noted an incomprehensible misty-eyed aura about them. They made me unaccountably nervous, as if, on some subterranean screen, images flashed when I saw one, of female bodies distorted by violence, of vulnerable children and the things people did to them, the secrets they have to bear, the terrible inevitable betrayals. I had a conscious terror of becoming pregnant. Once a pregnancy began, I would not be able to stop that child from barreling into danger. And to me, a baby was a bottomless hole I would be forever frantic to fill, until I jumped in myself. And here was Frimmy, face pale and drawn, in a thin, faded dress with an uneven hem that strained around her huge, rounded middle. She stood flat-footed, toes pointed outward, nonchalant about the unwieldy growth. I was horrified, but her manner was forthright. “Lisa?” she said.

  In the car, I stole glances as she drove, and couldn’t speak. We stopped at a small brick home with steps up a sloping yard. “I won’t be long,” she said. “I’m just going to the grocery store. My husband’s inside, but he’s leaving soon.”

  Isser, with a long, thin beard, answered
the door. Inside were four small children. The floor was covered with toys, the walls with shelves of Hebrew books. Isser settled papers into a briefcase and left without a word to the kids or to me. There was a click in the lock. Well, I thought. At least I had experience babysitting.

  But the children looked at me as if I had three eyes. I thought, Maybe they aren’t used to strangers. “Tell me your name,” I asked the oldest.

  “Zeesel.” She had cropped near-black hair. There was also three-year-old Dina, who sucked her thumb, two-year-old Yossi, with a crusty nose, and cute, fat baby Yonasan, crawling around. I lifted Yonasan, staggered backward, then headed to the backyard on that pretty day. But I found it empty and full of weeds.

  Unlike back home, I didn’t have a book to read or homework to do, and there was no television or anyone to chat with on the phone. Dina hit Zeesel and grabbed her toy, and I tried to put the baby down to settle them, but he arched his back and cried. Yossi wanted apple juice, but when I managed to pour it for him, still hoisting a fat, crying baby on my hip, he spilled the juice on the floor. By then, three were wailing and the house felt like an airless box, and everywhere was the mother’s distorted profile.

  I drew no conclusion from this first trial assuming a Hasidic woman’s life, read no warning into the brief experience. I didn’t know that Frimmy’s constant pregnancy and her claustrophobic childcare with many small children at once might indicate anything more than the state of this one family. I shoved aside my visceral reaction to pregnancy. No, I thought. I don’t want to do this babysitting now. I came for a Jewish vacation. No!

  Early evening, I took a walk with Sally, Michelle, and Ruthie, all in long skirts while I still wore my jeans. There was a nice breeze, the toss of hair, easy laughter. They were all over eighteen, so I was happy to be included. They said they were trying out their Hebrew names, so Sally, Michelle, and Ruthie became Sorah, Myah, and Rus. That’s when Leah (Lay-ah), the name my mother allowed a rabbi to give me, became my alias, another “me” to try on. I was enjoying the walk, no boys present to complicate things. Myah and Rus said they had both met Lubavitch Hasidim on their college campuses, Myah in Florida and Rus in Los Angeles. Both had attended the free Sabbath meals, services, and study groups before they had agreed to come to the institute to experience “total immersion.” Myah didn’t want it to end. “I’m dropping out of university,” she said. “Moving to Crown Heights—the Rebbe’s neighborhood—in Brooklyn!” She made a triumphant fist. “A whole world of Hasidim there!”

  “Sometimes,” Rus said, after we’d walked a bit. “I get tired of keeping kosher. I just want a cheeseburger.”

  I said little. I didn’t know much about the kosher dietary restrictions. I also liked cheeseburgers.

  Sorah took out a pack of cigarettes, a glorious statement of rebellion, freedom. She stopped to light, cupping her hand over the flame, and then waved her hand with the cigarette in a wave of dismissal. “So eat the cheeseburger,” she said.

  “Huh,” Rus said. “You’ve kept kosher all your life. You don’t even know what a cheeseburger tastes like.”

  “And I never got to try,” Sorah said. “I stayed on in my parents’ kosher home during college to save money. Then my parents fell in love with the new Lubavitcher in town and pushed me here.”

  “Don’t you listen to her,” Myah said. “Sorah’s really good about the rules.”

  And so it went, each admitting a private shred of rebellion before the others laughed and prodded her back on course. But their easy acceptance of me into the group thrilled me. Sorah shared her cigarette with me, and we walked on, breathing in that dark pleasure, as the sun’s rays got long, the air cool, as streaks of color painted a new horizon. I stayed up late with them that night. Whenever one of them moaned about her parents’ objections to her becoming more religious, or about missing her boyfriend, or about favorite activities that conflicted with the Law, someone else always responded with a “Don’t worry” and a hug. You can do this.

  I WOKE TO THE ALARM at six forty-five after three hours of sleep and realized I was missing prayers and there was a whole schedule of classes that day. I dragged my bleary self out of bed and into the bathroom. Someone was already in the shower. I turned on the sink faucet to brush my teeth. Suddenly, the girl in the shower let out a high-pitched scream. Did I do something? Was she hurt? I rushed out of the bathroom and stood trembling outside, looking this way and that. Maybe I should get help? Or go back in?

  Before I could figure it out, the girl emerged, wrapped in a towel to her knees, red-faced and snarling, stomping wet footprints on the wooden floor. “How dare you!” she said.

  I knew it. I knew I did something wrong. “What?” I said.

  “Don’t you have any modesty?”

  “What?” I said. “But we’re both girls!”

  We’d grown up with no locks on the doors. My sisters and I were casual about dressing around one another. I had thought nothing of walking into the big bathroom I was to share with nine others, or of finding someone already in the shower.

  Oh, but the girl was beautifully alive with her fury, her slim arms and calves wet and bare. Rivulets ran down her skin between wet, sparse hairs. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to look….” But I hadn’t looked and didn’t understand why I felt like I was lying.

  “My modesty,” the girl said, scathing, “isn’t about who sees. It’s not about you. It’s modesty before God.” She stomped back into the bathroom, leaving her wet trail.

  “Next time,” I called out weakly, “lock the door!” I was shaking, heavy with fatigue, heart racing with shame at my wandering eyes. Had I looked at her and not realized? I had looked. Oh, I shouldn’t have looked! Would she talk about me to the others? Would I become a pariah at the institute? But I had been accepted right away. Maybe I was even popular. And what did she mean about modesty and God?

  I couldn’t stomach the possibility of becoming an outcast. I had to figure out the rules. I decided I had to keep myself covered and always lock the bathroom door behind me. I had to watch my eyes. No stray glances. But the image of that girl and her great wild vehemence stayed with me, the way she shook her head and droplets flew.

  LATER THAT FIRST DAY, in the big upstairs room with double doors where I first saw the girls chanting the afternoon mincha service, Rabbi Geller was holding forth on Maimonides’ Book of Commandments. As he paced up and down, reading and explaining, I shot inadvertent sideways glances at the girl from the bathroom. I had promised myself I wouldn’t look. I was already failing. I have to try harder. Later, when it was time to pair off to study the daily Bible portion in Hebrew, Rivka, my tour guide, appeared at my side. “Come on,” she said, and led me out onto the balcony to claim the last two chairs. A nice breeze rustled the old shade trees beneath a clear sky. I leaned back, closed my eyes.

  “Hebrew is a language of building blocks,” Rivka began. “Every letter is a phrase, every word a stack of phrases.”

  But I was tired. “Why does everyone here make such a big deal about modesty?” I said.

  She leaned back, too, closed the book. “The great tsaddekes Hannah had seven sons,” she said. “Every one of them got to die a martyr’s death.”

  “Was that supposed to be a reward?”

  “Hannah’s children went straight to heaven. What do you think?” she said. “You know why Hannah got such an honor?”

  “No.”

  “God loved her because ‘the walls of her home never saw a hair on her head.’ That’s true modesty. Tznius. Even when Hannah bathed, she had maids hold up sheets around her.”

  “So …”

  “Who was she hiding from? No men were even around when she bathed. She was keeping covered just to please God. That’s modesty. A women who is always modest before God is like a woman in constant prayer. Hatznea leches. Hannah is our role model.”

  ANA CAME THE NEXT DAY, in white slacks. We threw our arms around each other with squealing hugs. While she unpack
ed, I sat on my bed, eagerly describing the girls and my first day of classes. “It’s really great here,” I said.

  “So why do you have those dark circles under your eyes?”

  “I’ve made so many friends!”

  The big closet was packed too tight, so Ana piled her skirts and blouses over her arm to go hang them on an aluminum rack in the big outer room. I followed. “Are you gonna wear those skirts?” I said. Then I swallowed. “Could I borrow one?”

  Since the bathroom incident, I had worked hard at imitating the other girls. God’s love and the love of the group had somehow become the same thing—wanting their acceptance took on urgent spiritual need. I watched mannerisms, listened to phrases. At prayers, I copied impassive faces, swaying bodies, lips in steady movement.

  By two weeks in, I had learned to lose all sense of time at prayers, an empty, flowing, mindless feeling. During prayers, I melted into the group, into the repetition of words, swaying bodies around me, the room full of whispering, om-like, soothing secret fears. As a group, we were each part of a single organism, a single breath. I wasn’t different after all. Here’s Rivka at my side, murmuring from her prayer book. The little book was dog-eared, pages separated from use, the corners darkened, as if years of piety had been poured into it. She held it in front of her face, rocking as if her whole body were in prayer. I wanted what Rivka had layered between those pages. I wanted to feel that spine and softened leaves. Then—page turning. Sighs. I hung suspended, calm. I closed my eyes and fell back into greater arms.

  I’d been wearing one of Ana’s skirts for days, even though wearing a skirt made me uncomfortable. I had thought I could still sit in it my way, knees apart, feet flat, but that didn’t always work. Instead, in a skirt meant to make a statement about female modesty, I felt strangely, utterly female, as if the skirt were a body-size poster wrapped around me that said GIRL IN HERE, reducing me to that, only that. But even at the institute I still dreamed I was a boy. Now the boy part of me was being pushed behind a partition.