by Allen Zadoff
Maybe it’s true, and maybe it’s the problem. God has so much territory to cover that he can’t focus on any particular thing.
I look to the saint in the garden for guidance, but he’s got nothing for me. He’s staring straight ahead, lost in thought. A bird lands on his head, flapping its wings twice before taking off again.
Mom’s Volvo pulls into the parking lot. I motion for her to pull into an empty space.
“What are we doing in a church?” Mom says when she gets out.
“We’re not going to church. We’re going to someone’s house down the street.”
“What are you up to, Sanskrit?”
“It’s a surprise,” I say.
“I told you, Mom,” Sweet Caroline says.
Sweet Caroline gets out of the wagon. She smiles, excited about it all.
“Down the street,” I say. “Follow me, everyone.”
Mom holds Sweet Caroline’s hand, then reaches over to take mine, but I pull it away. The new, happy Mom does crazy things like trying to hold her kids’ hands in public.
“It’s the little green house over here,” I say.
“Whose house is this?” Mom says.
“Mom, just let us surprise you,” Sweet Caroline says.
We walk down the driveway. I’m thinking we could ring the front door and see what happens, but I’ve already checked and I know the gate to the backyard is open.
“We have to go around to the patio,” I say.
“Does my hair look okay?” Mom says.
I give her a look. “Just in case,” she says.
I open the gate silently, make Mom walk in ahead of me. Then I step in front of Sweet Caroline.
“Let me go first,” I whisper.
“I want to see,” she says.
“Please,” I say. I’m trying to protect her, but she’s not making it easy.
She slumps her shoulders and lets me go in front of her.
I guide Mom up the three steps onto the back patio behind the house.
“It’s in there,” I say, pointing to the big picture window and the screen door leading into the house.
The sound of laughter spills out from inside the house.
Mom’s face goes pale.
I glance through the window.
The guru is in there. So is Sally. This is her house.
She’s sitting on his lap, kissing him.
Mom doesn’t move. She stares into the house, not saying a word.
She turns back to me.
“You did this,” she says.
“What happening?” Sweet Caroline says. She’s trying to come up on the patio, but I’m blocking the steps.
“You set me up,” Mom says.
“No,” I say. “I just wanted you to see the truth.”
“What’s going on, Mom?” Sweet Caroline says.
“Stay there!” Mom says, holding up a hand to stop Sweet Caroline from coming onto the porch. Mom’s face is bright red.
“What did you do?!” Sweet Caroline says to me. “You made things worse!”
Mom points her finger at me.
“You did this,” Mom says. “I don’t know why, but you did it and I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’m sorry!” I say.
But why am I apologizing? I’m not the one cheating on Mom.
Mom pauses for a moment, caught between opening the door to the house and something else. What else?
She jumps from the porch, grabs Sweet Caroline, and rushes away, pulling Sweet Caroline the whole way.
I stand on the patio not knowing what to do. I look inside again. The guru is kissing Sally. Suddenly, he turns and looks at me. He rubs his eyes for a moment like he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
“Sanskrit?” His lips form the words.
He shifts Sally off his lap. He gets up and walks towards me.
I take off.
I hear the door open behind me.
“Stop, Sanskrit!” the guru shouts after me.
But I don’t stop. I run.
“Mom is upside down, and it’s all your fault.”
Sweet Caroline confronts me on the front stoop to the house. She must have been watching through the front window, waiting for me to come home.
“Did you hear me? It’s your fault,” she says.
“Leave me alone,” I say.
After I saw the guru, I ran until I couldn’t breathe, until my sides were splitting, until I didn’t recognize the neighborhood anymore.
Then I drifted through Santa Monica for a few hours, thinking about things. I considered going to Dad’s, but how could he help?
“What was in that house?” Sweet Caroline says. “Mom wouldn’t tell me.”
“You’re too young,” I say.
“I’m not too young!”
“Fine,” I say. “It was the guru. With another woman.”
“Oh.”
That’s all she says.
“Now you know why Mom didn’t tell you.”
“Why would you bring Mom there?”
“I’m trying to save our family,” I say. “So you lied to me?”
“I didn’t lie. I told you we’d get Mom back.”
“We didn’t,” she says. “What do you mean?”
“You have to get dressed. We’re going to the Center.”
“I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are. It’s Mom’s good-bye party.”
“Why would I go? Why would she go after what she’s seen?”
“She’s going, Sanskrit. That’s all I know. She hasn’t said a word since we came home except that I should get ready to go. And if I’m going, you’re going.”
Sweet Caroline is right. How can I let her go there alone with Mom, not knowing what Mom is going to do?
I walk into the living room, and sure enough, Mom is upside down. She’s wearing her best skirt, a wide, loose, flowered fabric that is flopped down to cover her face and body while her bare legs stick up in the air. She looks like a wilted flower.
She doesn’t speak to me.
I go to my room and change into my best pants and a button-down. I only have two button-downs, so it’s not like there’s a lot to choose from.
A couple minutes later, Sweet Caroline knocks on my door, and I follow her down the hall. Neither of us says a word.
We go to the garage, and Mom is already in the car waiting.
I usually sit in the front, but I decide it’s better to sit in the back today. I open the door and slide in next to Sweet Caroline.
Mom starts the car.
The garage door isn’t open yet, and for a second, I think Mom might have gone crazy like she talked about the other day. She’s going to keep the car running in a closed garage until we all die from carbon monoxide poisoning. I wonder how the Jewish Journal will massage that headline.
Mom revs the engine, glances in the rearview, realizes her mistake, and clicks the garage door opener.
The door creaks and rises in short jerks, a few inches at a time.
I’m thinking that Mom hates me right now, but she’ll get over it. She’s not really angry at me. She’s angry at the guru. She’s angry at the truth. She needs some time and then she’ll understand.
It’s better to have her in Los Angeles hating me than gone forever with the guru.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
“Celebrate love!”
That’s what Crystal shouts as we walk in, and a whoop goes through the crowd. There are nearly a hundred guests in the big yoga studio, spilling into the hallways, scattered throughout the Center. I recognize various yoga students, teachers, even the owners of the studio, who wear strange tunics everywhere they go. They’re the ones who gave Mom the job in the first place.
A murmur goes through the crowd as people recognize Mom. They surround her and congratulate her. Mom is silent the whole time.
Mom scans the crowd, ignoring the people who are greeting her. She keeps moving until she finds the guru.
&nb
sp; They stare at each other.
The crowd senses this and quiets down. People smile and step out of the way so they can get to one another.
The guru comes forward.
Mom does not.
She stays where she is, her eyes locked on him. The guru glances at me, then back at Mom.
“You broke my heart,” Mom says.
There’s a gasp in the room.
“I saw you,” Mom says. “At Sally’s house.”
Sally stands there shocked. People look at her.
The guru clears his throat. “I was there. Yes.”
“It wasn’t the first time, was it?” Mom says.
“No,” he says.
Mom starts to cry.
People in the room look at the ground.
“But you told me you loved me,” Mom says through sniffles.
“I do,” the guru says.
“You have an interesting way of showing it.”
“Do we need to do this now?” the guru says. He motions to the people in the room.
“What better time?” Mom says. “Let’s get it out in the open.”
In a strange way, I’m proud of her. She’s confronting him in front of everyone. Maybe I was wrong about Mom. Maybe she knows what she’s doing more than I think she does.
“Very well,” the guru says with a sigh. “You’re asking if I love you, and I do. We are bonded together through time. You are my special flower.”
“But you want a bouquet,” Mom says.
“It’s one of the ways we communicate love in our community. I share my physical self with my followers. I’m sorry if I misled you.”
“What if I want to share myself with other men?”
“I would understand that.”
“Oh my God,” Mom says. She squeezes her head between her hands. “This is not—this is not the kind of relationship I want.”
The guru comes closer to my mother.
“This doesn’t change what you and I have,” he says.
He reaches for her, but she twists away.
“No,” Mom says.
“Please, Rebekah—”
“I won’t do it. Not like this. I’ve had too many terrible relationships like this,” Mom says, and she starts crying again.
I’m suddenly hopeful. Mom is breaking up with the guru. She’s going to finish this once and for all, then she’ll grab Sweet Caroline and me and bring us home.
She’ll be heartbroken. But we’ll be a family again. At least the assemblance of one.
“I can share you in many ways,” Mom says to the guru. “But not like this.”
“I see,” the guru says. “You have—different customs here. This can be discussed.”
“It can?” Mom says, softening.
“No, Mom!” I shout.
“Stay out of this, Sanskrit,” she says.
Sweet Caroline grabs my arm.
“You should have told me,” Mom says to the guru. “I shouldn’t have had to find out from my son.”
He bows his head in front of Mom.
She takes a step towards him.
He says something to her, so quietly that I can’t hear it.
She’s inches from him now, her face by his face, the two of them whispering to each other.
I want to scream again, run to Mom, and shake her until she wakes up.
But I can’t move. I can only watch them drift towards each other slowly, so slowly, speaking the whole time, until at last their bodies are touching.
Then they reach out and wrap their arms around each other.
It reminds me of the moment they met, a fierce embrace that all but absorbs my mother into the guru’s robes.
“A moment.”
That’s what the guru says on the staircase of the Center. I’m on my way out of the building when he appears at the top of the stairs.
“Sanskrit,” he says. “Son.”
“I’m not your son,” I say.
“We’re all God’s children.”
“You’re not God.”
He smiles.
“It is said that after the Buddha achieved enlightenment, he walked out into the world and nobody knew it had happened because he looked the same. They only knew later, from his actions and words.”
“So you might be God? That’s what you’re saying?”
“No, I’m not God. No more so than any of us. But I was touched by God. That’s how I became a guru.”
The sound of a flute drifts down from the party.
“If you were touched by God, then tell me what he looks like.”
“I didn’t see him. I experienced him,” the guru says. “Just like you did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have not felt the presence of God?”
“Never,” I say.
“Yet I can feel his presence in you.”
“I don’t want anything to do with God. Or gurus. Or religions. Or any of it.”
“It’s not too late for you to come with us,” the guru says.
I push open the front door.
The guru says, “I know why you did what you did at Sally’s house.”
I stop halfway out the door.
“Maybe I would have done the same thing if I were in your place,” he says.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I forgive you.”
“I don’t need your forgiveness,” I say.
“But I need to give it to you. For myself. Without forgiveness, how can we move forward?”
“I don’t believe in you.”
That’s what I tell HaShem as I walk through Brentwood.
“I never really believed in you, but I was trying to give you a chance. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. I gave you a chance, but that’s over.”
I walk past the shops and restaurants on San Vicente. They’re starting to fill up with the dinner crowd. I see people through the windows, laughing over plates of food.
I stop at a place where two streets merge together in a V shape. It’s a mini park of trees and grass.
“I prayed to you when my parents were fighting and you didn’t keep them together. I prayed for The Initials and you brought her back to me, only to give her a boyfriend. You stole my best friend from me in Israel. And now you’re taking my mother.”
I step into the park. I run my hand down the rough bark of a tree.
I imagine what I must look like. A crazy boy on San Vicente, shouting like a homeless man. Maybe this is what makes people homeless. They’re not crazy on their own, but life has driven them crazy. A terrible God has stolen their lives, and they’ve snapped. Now they stand on street corners, in parks, in alleyways, on the beach in Santa Monica—and they shout at heaven.
Just like me.
It’s almost funny, this idea. Because I realize I’ve found my group.
It’s not the Jews or the Sikhs or the yoga devotees. It’s not the good Jewish kids at my school or the followers of the guru.
I belong to the abandoned. We shout at the sky and the sky does not answer.
I haven’t been touched by God. The guru was wrong about that. If there’s a God at all, I’ve been stepped on by him. Zadie was stepped on, along with most of our family, in the Holocaust.
I sit at the base of the tree in the dark. My legs grow cold under me.
Eventually, the streetlights pop on along San Vicente Boulevard as twilight turns to evening.
A night bird calls from somewhere in the tree above me.
People laugh and clink glasses at the Italian restaurant across the street.
Life goes on, and God doesn’t care. So why should I?
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
I stand up and take it out. It’s a text message from Judi:
At school. Where r u!!!???
“How could you forget about it?”
The Initials meets me at the front door of school. She’s frantic but beautiful in a long silky dress.
I say, “
I’ve got a lot going on right now.”
She backs off a bit.
“Of course you have. I’m sorry to yell at you, Sanskrit. Let’s just get you in there.”
She starts walking, and I hurry along next to her.
“I have to tell you something,” I say.
“Could you tell me on the way?”
“Would you just stop for a second?”
She pauses, confused.
“What is it? Are you nervous about the event?”
“I’m in love with you,” I say.
It pops out of me. Sometimes when you have nothing to lose, you do things you wouldn’t imagine doing any other time.
“What did you just say?”
“I’ve always loved you. Ever since that spelling bee in second grade.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“I know you have a boyfriend and you’re, like—on a whole different social strata than me.”
“That’s not true,” she says. “I don’t have any friends.”
“What about The Rabbi?”
“Herschel? He used to be my friend. Not really now.”
A cheer echoes from the gymnasium and bounces down the hall.
“They’re all cheering for you,” The Initials says. “What do you call that?”
“They’re cheering because my mother got hit by a car.”
“Good point,” she says.
“Just forget it. Forget I said anything. I needed to get it off my chest. I’ll bury it again, and we can go back to being acquaintances tomorrow.”
“But I want to talk to you about it, Sanskrit.”
“You do?”
“I want to ask you about second grade. Just not now.”
Suddenly, I feel happy. More than happy. Hopeful. Maybe I’ve lost everything but gained back The Initials.
Wait. Not The Initials.
“Judi,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Maybe we can go out after the fund-raiser and talk about everything?”
“After,” she says. “Definitely.”
“Why does God bring suffering upon us? What purpose does it serve?”
Rabbi Silberstein pauses, looking out at the audience in the gymnasium.
“We do not have an answer. We cannot know the mind of God. We only know that suffering is visited on some more than others. In this matter, the Zuckerman family has had more than their fair share. Theirs is a story of suffering … and survival.”
