Nursery Crimes

by Ayelet Waldman

  The Hasidic community is about as different from your basic, garden-variety assimilated Jew as the Amish are from the members of your local Episcopalian church.

  Because my neighborhood is relatively inexpensive, and because the duplex apartments are large and comfortable, it has become home to much of Los Angeles’s Hasidic community. The neighborhood boasts a number of yeshivas and synagogues, and it’s always possible to find “a piece herring,” as my grandfather would say—except on a Saturday. That’s when the myriad little kosher grocery stores and markets close up tight until Sunday morning. Because this is Los Angeles, the land of weird contradictions, there’s also a huge Honeybaked Ham store right in the middle of the Hasidic enclave. Go figure.

  I didn’t have a lot of contact with the Hasidim. They keep pretty much to themselves. The mothers rarely take their kids to the park, although the older children do seem to have free run of the streets—unlike the other neighborhood kids, most of whom are chauffeured by their ex-lawyer or stockbroker moms from carefully organized play dates to music lessons to ballet to soccer practice.

  “Sorry, guys,” I said, and pushed the stroller up a driveway so they could whiz past.

  “Why do those boys dress so funny?” Ruby asked.

  “They don’t dress funny, sweetie. They’re just wearing yarmulkes and tzitzit.”

  “They do so dress funny. What’s a yummyka and tis tis?”

  “Okay, maybe it is a little funny. A yarmulke is a little hat and tzitzit are those long strings hanging out of their pants. Those are special things Jews wear.”

  “We’re Jews and we don’t wear those.”

  “True.” What to say? That’s because we’re bad Jews? I settled for something that one of the teachers at Ruby’s Reform Jewish preschool would have said. “Everybody celebrates religion in a different way.”

  “Our way has Christmas.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly how we celebrate being Jewish. That’s more like how we celebrate being Christian. Sort of. Hey, look at that doggy!” It’s nice that three-year-olds can’t usually sense when their mothers are desperately trying to change the subject. Ruby and Isaac’s status as children of a mixed marriage, while certainly run-of-the-mill, does bring up the occasional unanswerable question. My husband, Peter, is vaguely Protestant and decidedly non-practicing. The closest he comes to religion is Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. My approach to Judaism is similarly low-key, expressing itself primarily in a deep-seated identification with Woody Allen and a guilt-ridden love of bacon.

  Up ahead of us the boys were gathered around a frisky golden retriever puppy on a leash. Its owner, a much-pierced, artfully bored, post-adolescent of indeterminate gender, was leaning against a tree.

  One of the boys reached out his fingers and said, “Nice girl” as the dog sniffed his hand.

  Another immediately piped up, “What for you tink she’s a goil?” Here was this eight-year-old on Rollerblades with a thick Yiddish accent that made him sound like a pint-sized version of my great-uncle Moe.

  I maneuvered the stroller around the Hasidic boys and continued up the street. On the corner of La Brea we passed a little kosher market.

  “Hey, Ruby, want some gelt?” Ruby and I share a soft spot for the chocolate coins in gold foil that used to be available only around Hanukkah. You can get them year round in my neighborhood.

  “Yes! Mmm!”

  We walked up to the entrance of the store and I leaned forward over the stroller, trying to reach the door handle. No luck. I walked around to pull it open and then had to leap for the stroller, which was starting to roll down the sidewalk. The door slammed shut. This is the twenty-first century. By now weren’t all doors supposed to glide soundlessly open, activated by heat-sensing devices? For that matter, weren’t we all supposed to have personal anti-gravity packs that would make awkward double-strollers a fond memory?

  For some reason, and totally out of the blue, this disappointment of the futuristic fantasies created in my generation by The Jetsons made me cry. I leaned against the handles of my stroller and sobbed, inelegantly and furiously. I just felt so overwhelmed and hopeless, and most of all, tired. Deeply and completely tired down to my very bones. I stood there weeping while my two children stared.

  “Please Mama. Don’t cry,” Ruby whispered. Isaac whimpered. The terrified looks on their faces sent a wave of guilt washing over me and made me cry even harder. Suddenly, the door swung open, propped by a small, sneakered foot. I wiped the back of my hand across my streaming eyes and nose and quickly wheeled the stroller through the door and into the small, dimly lit market. The store was packed with shelves overflowing with merchandise unknown to my usual grocery store: kosher canned vegetables, Israeli candies, products made by companies called Feingold and Essem and Schwartz’s. I turned to thank the owner of the foot, a breathtakingly lovely teenage girl in a calf-length skirt, dark tights, a man’s white Oxford shirt buttoned up to the neck and a pair of decidedly spiffy Air Jordans. She had long, dark hair plaited into a single braid down her back and the loveliest eyes I’d ever seen. They were a very dark blue, almost purple, and were fringed with thick dark lashes. A Jewish Elizabeth Taylor.

  “Thanks so much,” I said, gulping a little.

  “You’re welcome,” the girl answered, in a soft voice. She looked away from my blotchy tear-streaked face and knelt in front of the stroller. “Hello there. What’s your name?” she asked my three-year-old.

  “Ruby,” my daughter answered.

  “Ruby! What a coincidence! I have a ruby ring.” She showed Ruby the small gold band with a tiny sliver of a ruby she wore on her right hand.

  “Bootiful,” Ruby said, reaching out a finger to touch it. “My mama only has a stinky old plain ring.” My daughter, Paloma Picasso Wyeth.

  “That’s my wedding ring, Rubes. It’s supposed to be plain,” I said.

  “Her wedding ring has sparkling gems,” Ruby answered, derisively.

  “Oh, that’s not my wedding ring,” the girl said with a smile. “I’m not married. My daddy gave me this for my sixteenth birthday.”

  “It’s lovely,” I said.

  “Is this your little brother?” she asked Ruby.

  “His name is Isaac,” Ruby said. “He’s a very bad baby. He cries all night long.”

  “Oh no. How can you sleep? Do you have to cover your ears?”

  “No. He sleeps in Mama’s room so he doesn’t wake me up.”

  Suddenly, we were interrupted by a loud voice.

  “Darling, what’s wrong?”

  I turned around to see the shop owner leaning over her counter. She was a middle-aged baleboosteh with round cheeks, deep-set eyes that were about half an inch too close together, and a bright blond wig perched on the top of her head. She motioned me over.

  “Come here, darling. Wipe your eyes.” She held out a box of tissues. I walked over to the counter, took one, and blew my nose loudly.

  “I’m so sorry. This is so ridiculous. Bursting into tears like this.”

  “Don’t be silly. Why do you think I keep a box of Kleenex on the counter? What’s wrong, darling? Did something happen to you?”

  “No, nothing happened. I have no idea why I’m so emotional. It’s just that I’m so tired. Isaac, that’s the baby, he never sleeps. He’s up all night and all day. I haven’t slept more than an hour straight in four months.”

  “Exactly like my brother Baruch! My brother Baruch didn’t sleep until he was three years old,” she said, with a snort.

  “Oh, my G—Oh no,” I said. “Please tell me this won’t last three years.”

  “Darling, it was awful, I can tell you. And my mother, aleha ha-shalom, wasn’t like you, she didn’t have just one other little one. She had four older. And then she had two more before Baruch shut his eyes.”

  “Did she survive?”

  “I’m telling you, none of us thought she would. I remember she said to my father, alav ha-shalom, ‘One more day of this and Baruch and I,
we go over a bridge together. Over a bridge.’ She wasn’t kidding, I’m telling you.”

  I felt my voice begin to quiver again. “I don’t think I can stand three years.”

  Things had been a lot easier at home when Ruby was a baby. There were two of us to deal with her back then. When I’d gone back to work, Peter had even been Ruby’s primary caretaker. This time, it was different. When Ruby was a baby, Peter had been writing movie scripts and had at least some control over his schedule. A few weeks after Isaac was born, Peter sold an idea for a television series to one of the networks and was currently involved in shooting the pilot. As soon as that happened, it was as though he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. He showed up just in time to go to sleep and then slept like one of the corpses in his series (better, actually), until the next morning when he woke up and rushed off. I knew I should be supportive—after all, he was supporting us, financially at least—but it was hard not to be ticked off. I had, for all intents and purposes, become a single mother, and I resented every second of it. I’d been happier when he was working hand to mouth.

  “Darling, it sounds to me like you need some help around the house,” the shopkeeper said, handing me another tissue. “Does your mother live nearby?”

  “No. In New Jersey.”

  “Ach. So far. What about your mother-in-law?”

  “Up near San Francisco.”

  “Sisters? Sisters-in-law?”

  “No. Nobody lives here. We’re all alone.” That set me off again and I buried my face in the tissue.

  “Okay, okay, mamaleh. Enough with the crying. You need to hire a babysitter.”

  “I can’t do that. I don’t work. This is all I do all day. I shouldn’t need any help.” When I’d left work to be with Ruby, I’d fired the nanny who’d been coming in the morning to watch Ruby until Peter woke up. I was determined to do it all myself. After all, the world was full of women raising their children without professional help. Why should I be any different? But that was before I gave birth to the child who never slept.

  The shopkeeper rolled her eyes at me. “Look, darling, you’re clearly exhausted. All you need is a nice young girl to come spend a few hours with the baby every day so you can run some errands, maybe even take a nap. When’s the last time you had a nap?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nu?”

  I couldn’t pretend the idea didn’t appeal to me. I imagined myself handing Isaac to a baby sitter, just for an hour or so. Just so that I could sleep. “You know, you’re right. It’s not like I’m hiring a nanny. I just need someone to come in for a couple of hours so I can take a nap.”

  “Listen, Fraydle.” The shopkeeper turned to the teenager, who had, meanwhile, taken off Isaac’s sock and was tickling his toes. “You help this nice lady out. It slows down here around ten in the morning. You go over to this lady’s house and help her out a couple hours.”

  Fraydle looked up. “But Tante Nettie, my father said I could work for you here in the store. He didn’t say I could baby-sit for . . . for . . .”

  Tante Nettie put up a hand. “My brother won’t mind if his girl helps out a neighbor.” She turned to me. “You are Jewish?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  “You see?” she said to Fraydle. “You’ll help out a nice Jewish neighbor lady and maybe you’ll show her how to light the Shabbos candles while you’re at it. Your father will love the idea. He’ll make you do it, I’m telling you.”

  “And I’ll pay you!” I said. “Just tell me how much.”

  “Of course you’ll pay her,” Tante Nettie said. “You’ll pay her six—no, seven dollars an hour. For two hours. From ten to noon. Every day but Friday. Friday I need her here. For the Shabbos rush, I need her. By the way, I’m Nettie Tannenbaum, and this is my niece, Fraydle Finkelstein.”

  “I’m Juliet Applebaum and I am so incredibly pleased to meet you both.” I turned to Fraydle. “You’ll do it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the girl almost whispered.

  I scrawled my name and address on a piece of paper.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow,” she replied, looking worried.

  “Okay, enough,” Nettie said. “Fraydle, run to your mama’s garage and get us another case of Kleenex. This nice young lady used them all up.” She cackled and poked me in the side. I laughed.

  “You need anything else from the storage area, Tante Nettie?” Fraydle asked.

  “Yeah, maybe another case of chocolate. I have a feeling some little girl might want some.”

  Ruby’s eyes lit up. On our way home Isaac fell asleep, and Ruby and I felt happier than either of us had in weeks. She, because she had piles of chocolate coins in her lap, and I, because I had a nap in my future.

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