Brooklyn Love (Crimson Romance)

by Yael Levy

  “You seem smart. Is he smart like you?”

  Ilana immediately regretted telling Shayna her news. “They say opposites attract.”

  Shayna shrugged. “Whatever that means.”

  Ilana decided to change the subject. “So how is marriage treating you, Shayna?”

  “My husband is yum, but my mother-in-law makes me sick.”

  “I guess we all have to sacrifice for love,” Ilana said.

  “All of our fights are instigated by his mother. All of them. We are thinking that when it’s time to buy a home, we’re leaving.”

  “Leaving Brooklyn? Where would you go?”

  “Shim wants Monsey, I want the Five Towns. So we’re looking at houses on Long Island every Sunday.”

  “You’re planning on buying a house already?”

  “No. We don’t have the money yet — but I have to work on my parents starting right away if I ever want them to help with a down payment.”

  “That’s nice they would help you like that.”

  “Oh please!” Shayna rolled her eyes. “Our families are so annoying — I can’t stand living near any of them.”

  “At least they are there for you, right?” Ilana looked out the car window at the schoolyard across the avenue. When it wasn’t raining, she’d often see teens playing basketball there. Tonight, though, it was empty. Where on earth was Macy?

  Laughing, Shayna jabbed Ilana in the ribs. “As much as I hate my mother-in-law, I’d take her over Suri Kaufman any day!”

  Ilana checked her watch. “Thanks for stopping for me, Shayna. I think I’d better get going now.”

  Shayna’s laugh morphed into a cackle. “That Suri is one tough opponent. Good luck with nabbing Macy — I wouldn’t wish Suri Kaufman on anyone!”

  Ilana got out and slammed the door as Shayna drove off, leaving her on the street corner. She glanced again at her watch. It was nearly nine o’clock.

  Where is he?

  She paced the sidewalk. It was warm outside, but she was shivering. Is he okay? Did he change his mind?

  People hurried by and furtively glanced at her, probably wondering if she was lost — or crazy. Who else just stands on a street corner in Brooklyn? In the rain?

  A nearby car took the corner quickly, utterly drenching Ilana in an arcing muddy splash.

  Why hasn’t he come? This is supposed to be our wedding day!

  Along with the rain, tears started to pelt Ilana’s face, melding in with the rest of her cold and wet body, but still she waited.

  Did Suri find out? Did she insist he not come?

  Ilana held her head up high and waited.

  She caught a chill and sneezed. Yet still, she waited.

  And waited.

  Fool, she thought at last. He’s scared of any real responsibility. He isn’t coming for you. But it’s for the best. Because you would never, ever, fit into his family. Shayna is right. It would have been a difficult issue for the rest of your life. It would destroy you, and destroy your marriage.

  At ten o’clock, sopping wet and feeling humiliated, Ilana went home.

  Jacob was sitting at his computer when he saw her come in and asked what she had been doing outside in the rain. Ilana didn’t reply and was about to go to her room when Jacob briefly mentioned what had happened at the yeshiva.

  “It was awful, Ilana,” Jacob said. “The yeshiva had closed down due to a money-laundering sting.”

  Ilana stood on the stairs, taking in what her cousin said. “Money laundering? Did anyone get arrested?”

  Jacob nodded. “It was horrible seeing those rabbis being led away … ”

  Ilana blanched. “Rabbis got arrested? Anyone else?”

  Jacob shrugged. “Anyone suspected of being involved — Macy’s father among them … ” Jacob motioned for her to look at the screen. “It’s all here.”

  She read the article and understood why Macy hadn’t come for her, as well as a dark side of Macy’s family and community. Still, perhaps this reprieve was for the best. For she knew that despite Macy’s father’s disgrace, she didn’t fit in, and would never be accepted into his family. Ilana began to cry. With all the tomes of laws for the Jewish people, it seemed the most important law in Brooklyn was one that was unwritten: “It’s more important to conform culturally than to uphold the values of the Torah.” Her tears turned to sobs as Ilana realized that she could never be a part of this community.

  I love him so much, she thought as she sat in her kitchen holding the telephone. I love him so much that it hurts. She took off the golden necklace with the diamond heart pendant that Macy had given her and put it in an envelope. I love him with all my heart — but it’s not enough.

  Ilana took a deep breath. “I’m going back to Israel.”

  “What? Are you sure?” Jacob asked, painfully aware of the conviction in Ilana’s voice.

  “I’m sure.” Ilana sniffled, fingering the envelope she held for Macy.

  “Why Ilana? What about Macy?” Jacob nudged, coming toward her.

  Ilana laughed as she cried, backing away. “Don’t you know? Because I love Macy Kaufman with all my heart and soul, but it could never work. And I’ve had enough of Brooklyn Love.”

  • • •

  Leah sat next to her fiancé Eli on his couch; neither of them had any idea what to do.

  “What was your uncle thinking?” Eli held his head in his hands.

  Leah slowly exhaled. “Who knows. What are we going to do?”

  Eli shrugged. “I can’t believe this happened to the yeshiva.”

  Leah tried not to cry, but couldn’t help herself. “I guess you’ll have to find a different yeshiva. See where your study partners go.”

  “How could they have all done that?” Eli looked crushed.

  Leah shrugged. “People have free choice. They don’t always choose well.”

  “Should we consider California now?” Eli asked.

  Leah watched the living room fan whir round and round, giving off a modicum of relief from the heat. The turning blades reminded her of the propellers of a jet plane. She sadly shook her head. “It’s too late for that, Eli.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  On a crisp fall day, Suri and her family sat in the austere courtroom and watched as Michael Kaufman, Esquire, received his verdict: guilty.

  Implicated as a key player in a felony, he was sentenced to ten years in jail.

  “We can appeal,” Yossie told his mother. “Plus he’ll get years off for good behavior.”

  But Michael’s shoulders slumped when he heard the verdict, and he somberly glanced at his family as he was led away.

  Suri stood there, frozen.

  “They’re taking him!” she cried to her son Yossie. “Like they took my grandfather!”

  Yossie hugged his mother. “It’s going to be okay, Ma.”

  “I can’t save him!” Suri started to cry.

  “Shh, Ma,” Yossie said, trying to lead his mother out of the courtroom.

  “No!”

  Suri bolted forward to grab Michael, to hold him back.

  But a bailiff restrained her. A brown-shirted brute with the face of a bulldog.

  “No,” she whispered and collapsed to the floor, crying hysterically. “I can’t save him.” She pounded her hands on the floor, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I can’t fight anymore,” she sobbed. “I have nothing left.”

  “Ma,” Yossie bent down to help her. “Ma, come on, let’s go.”

  Suri stared at the boy, a wild look in her eyes. “Quick, we must hide! Or they’ll take us, too!”

  She began to scrape at the floor with her manicured fingernails.

  “I have to bury the gelt,” she explained, furtively clawing at the intransigent wood
, as her mother and grandmother used to do when they had valuables to bury. “They’ll be coming for us! They won’t stop until they kill us all!”

  • • •

  “We’re busting out of this apartment.” Hindy nodded toward their living room and dining room, which had seemed spacious when they had first rented it.

  Aryeh agreed and sat down at the dining room table with his Talmud. “We’ll have to find more suitable accommodations for the students,” he said.

  Hindy heard knocking on the door and opened it for Aryeh’s students. A group of young men all said hello to Hindy and took their seats next to Aryeh.

  Hindy was still amazed at how quickly Aryeh’s teaching had grown. Since the close of the Kaplinsky Yeshiva, Aryeh Kaufman, with the encouragement of his wife Hindy, had begun a series of Judaic lectures in his apartment. In just a few months, over forty young men packed into their apartment nightly to hear his views on the Torah.

  Before her husband’s lecture began, she overheard the boys talking about the demise of the Kaplinsky dynasty. “Maybe we could start again,” they said. “Maybe we won’t make the same mistakes.”

  She knew the boys admired Aryeh and that he’d become the next leader of the community, even though he wasn’t a Kaplinsky. But even Moses’s sons did not take on his mantle, and the leadership passed to Joshua, Hindy thought as she opened the door for more of Aryeh’s students. And that’s just the way it was, she decided. To be a truly effective leader, you had to earn your Torah.

  Hindy stood in her simple yet spotless kitchen preparing gedempte fleish — Aryeh’s favorite meat stew. She quickly chopped some onions and threw them into the pot. She looked through the kitchen door, listening to the sweet words of her Aryeh’s voice. He was teaching the tractate in the Talmud and the other boys were listening carefully, some arguing points in their own singsong voices. Lovely boys, she thought. Who do I know for each of the single fellows?

  Had Hindy known the boys would ask to marry girls just like Hindy Goldfarb-Kaufman — supportive, capable, warm, and cute — she would have had the last laugh to hear it. With her new wig, which hid her thin hair, and her weight loss from her active life running Aryeh’s business, Hindy actually looked attractive. She wasn’t a girl prone to deep introspection, but even Hindy realized that God had heard her prayers and answered them. She was married to a wonderful person who now learned full-time. She had a lovely apartment, and she was making a good income from their growing accounting business. And what’s more, she had something she hadn’t even prayed for, but the value of which she had grossly underestimated: love. Hindy truly loved her husband, and he loved her.

  It hadn’t happened the way she’d imagined it would, and this gift wasn’t packaged the way she’d expected it to be. Maybe God hadn’t answered her when she wanted Him to, or in the way she had envisioned. But He’d answered. She had opened herself to His blessings, and they abounded.

  She heard a light knock at the door and wiped her hands on her apron. Smiling her very pretty smile, she opened the door to yet another boy who had come to learn Torah with her husband, her Aryeh.

  • • •

  Macy tentatively looked in on his mother. Suri lay in her bed staring at the cracks in the ceiling. She turned and her eyes lit with recognition. This was a good day.

  “Where is that dark girl you were seeing, Macy?”

  “She left me. She went back to Israel.”

  Suri sighed. “That’s good. We already have that ugly girl, that Hindy, as Aryeh’s wife. We can’t have dark Jews in the family. Your father has black hair. That’s why they took him from me.”

  Macy’s heart ached. His father was, in fact, at his office, preparing his appeal with Yossie. But his mother couldn’t seem to remember any of that. He felt terrible that she was so sick.

  And his heart ached all the more over Ilana. All he had left from her was the returned necklace and a note:

  Macy,

  I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I really do. But I’ve given this a lot of thought, and we can’t just get married and expect that “everything will be okay.” It won’t. Families are intertwined and involved — always.

  I can’t marry you, my love, and be so unaccepted by your family in such a basic way. I can’t change the color of my skin, nor my background, and I wouldn’t even if I could. I am proud of who I am, where I come from. So our marriage could never work.

  Please forgive me, Macy, and forget me. Move on. Marry a nice blond who will make your mother proud. Someone you can love with a Brooklyn Love.

  Ilana

  Every time Macy read the letter, another tear slid down his cheek. He missed her constantly but doubted he’d ever see her again. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want him. She’d given Jacob strict instructions not to tell him where she was. He’d have flown to Israel ten times and back if it meant they could be together. But he knew her well: If she said it was over — then it was. What could he have done differently? Anything?

  Suri cleared her throat and shifted on her bed. “Anyway, Macy, she wasn’t good for you. Not good enough for our family, you know. Aryeh made a mistake. You can’t do the same.”

  Macy gazed steadily at his mother, who was insane, and tried to forgive her. But he realized that even if his mother were healthier, she’d say the same thing.

  “I have to go now, Ma.”

  So he went home, to his new apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He looked out his open window at the millions of lights that made up the apartments of all his neighbors. Millions of neighbors — but not one Ilana. He looked around his apartment: duffel bags of clothes and shopping bags of kitchen gear and dried food scattered all over; his guitar still lounging in his unmade bed like a lover — the bed he was supposed to have shared with Ilana. He gathered up his yarmulke, his tefillin, and his prayer books and went to the courtyard, to a plot of ground fragrant with autumn flowers.

  It was a quiet evening, and a gentle hum of cars cascaded with the melody of the mild breezy air around him. He started digging. He didn’t have a shovel, so at first he used a rock, and then his bare hands. Blood caked his fingers, but he didn’t care. Like mother, like son, he thought, recognizing the irony, but still he dug. He dug with a passion, like a demon possessed.

  The night descended over New York, and Macy knew that all the religious Jews would be in shul now, at the Yom Kippur Neilah service. They’d be dressed in white, without shoes like angels, fasting and praying.

  But Macy’s religious observance was tied to Brooklyn Jewish culture, and now his culture had abandoned him. His father was a criminal, and his true love had left because … because she was right. It couldn’t have worked. Not really. The culture had little room for their kind of love. And now he had no room left for the Brooklyn Jewish culture. There was no room in his soul for a Brooklyn Love.

  When the hole was deep enough he buried all his religious accoutrements. The earth smelled rich. It smelled full of life and death at the same time. He inhaled the sweet smell of the dust and remembered the verse, “From whence man came, and would return.” He patted and smacked and then kicked the earth with his shoe until he was sure his former life would be buried for eternity. He gazed at the spot, bumpy and uneven, gnarled as if what lay beneath was already turning over in its grave. He placed the rock he had used to dig on top for a headstone. “Rest in peace,” he whispered. And then he turned away.

  On Yom Kippur night, the time to ask God for forgiveness for all sins, Macy walked past the synagogue on 95th Street. For a split second he thought of going in to pray. But that second passed fleetingly, and instead he headed toward a bar.

  On Yom Kippur night, as all his people prayed and fasted, Macy said, “Enough is enough.” Surrounded by lights and smoke and slow, sad music, he ordered a little ham sandwich and flirted seductively with a beautiful gir
l he was sure was non-Jewish.

  Ha, he thought. Mother would love her. She’s fair-skinned — and blond!

  She invited him to spend the night at her place, and Macy Kaufman had no regrets. He’d moved to the West Side, shed his yarmulke, and proudly become a “Single.” To his Brooklyn people, he was a Living Dead. But Brooklyn didn’t realize the truth: They’d killed him long, long ago.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  When Hindy’s elderly maternal grandmother passed away, all her friends came to pay condolences at her mother’s home. The mirrors were covered over; the mourners sat on low stools, as was the custom.

  Rachel came in and scanned the room for her friends. The house was so crowded she could barely walk through the living room to visit with Mrs. Goldfarb.

  She did see one seat, though, next to a petite girl with straight blonde hair whom she hadn’t spoken to in what felt like years.

  “I haven’t seen you in ages!” Rachel whispered to Leah as they sat on folding chairs.

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “I’ve tried to call you a million times. You’ve never returned my calls.”

  “Yeah, well you know how it’s been with my uncle in jail, my aunt’s nervous breakdown and our family’s reputation totally destroyed … ”

  Rachel squeezed her friend’s hand. “I’m sorry about what happened with Eli.”

  Leah smiled, but her eyes seemed blank, her voice hollow. “Once the plans for support fell through — with my family’s illustrious position — ”

  Rachel squeezed tight. “I’m sure he loved you, Leah.”

  “Love.” Leah exhaled slowly. “Right. Like I love fish — I eat fish, I don’t love fish.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Don’t say that. I’m sure he felt for you — ”

  Leah glared at Rachel. “That’s why he broke off the engagement.”

  Rachel stared at her friend. “Your hair. It’s different.”

  “Oh this?” Leah smoothed her hair, now straight as a board — and blond. Rachel remembered how Suri had tried to get Leah to lighten her hair the previous year; she had finally succeeded.