by Roger Herst
"What does that mean?" Gabby asked as she merged into traffic on Connecticut Avenue.
"I'm not sure, but I'm going to have to appear before a committee of elders and explain myself. They'll be angry that I came here today and could recommend that I be dismissed from Sh'erit ha-Pletah."
"How will that affect your wedding plans?"
Carey didn't reply until Gabby repeated the question in a softer voice.
"Baruch won't accept a wife in disfavor with the elders."
Gabby looked across at Carey to see that tears had returned to her eyes. She felt it was impolite to probe further into the private relationship with Baruch. "Why did you come this morning, Carey?"
"Because I have shamed no one. They can't tell me what to do with my free time, or that I can't come to the synagogue where I was raised. And they certainly can't discourage me from visiting my mother and father. Not Baruch and not Rabbi Olam v'Ed. I'm prepared to become a thoroughly observant woman and work for the benefit of Sh'erit ha-Pletah, but coming to Ohav Shalom doesn't break any Jewish laws that I know of. Do you, Rabbi Gabby?"
Gabby shook her head. None.
Outside Carey's home on Fairfield Drive, Gabby pulled into the driveway because snow was piled on the curbs, making parking impossible. "Did you let your parents know you were coming?" Gabby asked.
"There wasn't time. I wasn't sure I would until the last moment. Something inside me wanted to stay in Brooklyn, but something else compelled me to come. I'm sure my parents will be happy."
"You're sure they're home?"
"No. But I have a key. It will be a big surprise. Will you come in? It's cold out here. My parents would love to see you."
"No, Carey. My husband just returned from California and I want to spend some time with him. It's better for you and your parents to be alone anyway. If you want, I'll drive you to the airport tomorrow morning. I have a favor I'd like to ask of you."
"Of course. Whatever I can do."
"I'll tell you tomorrow while going to the airport."
Driving home to Kye, Gabby wanted to call Norma by cell phone and tell her what Carey had said about visiting with her parents, and about her home." But she thought better of intruding upon their private space. It was better just to let them work things out themselves.
Traveling to the airport the next morning, Carey appeared happier than Gabby had seen her since they resumed their friendship in Crown Heights. She said that she had spent a quiet evening with her mother and father, talking about the past, particularly about her matriarchal grandmother who had died two years before, and about summer plans for travel in Italy.
"Olam v'Ed is a strange name for a rabbi," Gabby changed the subject as they drove south along the George Washington Parkway, watching the speedometer because the Park Police who patrol that stretch of road had issued her an expensive speeding ticket a month before. "That can't be your leader's real name. Any idea what it is?"
"Everybody always refers to him as Rabbi Olam v'Ed, but I once read his real name, believe or not, on a license to operate the elevator at Beth Sh'erit ha-Pletah I can't remember it off-hand but I guess I could go and read the license on the cab of the elevator."
"Do that for me, will you?" Gabby asked. "Send it to me by email as soon as you can."
"Why are you interested?"
"Just a hunch. Can we expect you to teach the class next Sunday?"
Carey wrapped herself tighter into her winter coat before answering. "That depends upon what the elders decide. I must think hard about how far I'm willing to go."
"I'm interested to learn what happens," Gabby said as she navigated her car through traffic nearing the Delta Shuttle drop-off zone.
Monday afternoon, Gabby noticed a short email from Carey.
The name on the elevator permit is Israel Jeremiah Lieb Knishbacher.
Baruch is furious with me. Word has spread about me in Shereet Shereet. Rabbi Olam v'Ed still refuses to see me.
Carey
Dr. Shenna Benjamin answered Gabby's call within thirty minutes.
"I asked you about the genealogists at the Museum," Gabby reminded her of a previous conversation over lunch. "I have a pre-Holocaust family to trace. Do you think I could prevail upon the services of the Museum?"
"I know just the right person, someone who worked on our exhibition of Holocaust Scrolls. What's the family's name?"
"Knishbacher."
"Any special location?"
"No. Not for the present. I want a general search. If your researcher comes up with anything, I'll want to be more specific."
"We have access to the best computer databases in the world. You'll hear either from me or Joseph Halabacher in a few days," Shenna Benjamin sounded optimistic. "Can you tell me what's on your mind?"
"Benaynu, vbenaynu etzmanu, between us and us only," Gabby replied in Hebrew and English, "If I can understand why Ohav Shalom's Holocaust scroll was stolen, I'll figure out who stole it. There's something special about ours and the scrolls stolen in Buffalo and Greensboro."
Before Gabby married Kye Naah, the Ganedens treated her as a member of their family, inviting her to Thanksgiving feasts and family gatherings and encouraging her to drop by uninvited whenever she had a free moment, which wasn't, as matters turned out, very often. Still, she enjoyed the informality of an occasionally dropping by without warning, a custom that was prevalent while growing up in Los Angeles. The proliferation of phones, email and faxes undermined the practice. Since Melanie and Gideon usually ate dinner at 7:30, Gabby decided to catch Gideon at home and deliver Senator Zuckerman's message before rendezvousing with Kye at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant.
Melanie answered the door in her bathrobe, her hair wet from an after work shower. Without the benefit of facial makeup, wrinkles around her lips and eyes appeared pronounced. Gabby smelled a tinge of alcohol on her breath as they merged into a sisterly hug. Melanie appeared genuinely happy to see her.
Once through the threshold of the Genaden's colonial home, Gabby said, "I hope Gideon is home because I've come to deliver a message."
"Sorry," Melanie said. "He's rarely home these days. New Frontiers is operating three shifts a day to fill a tidal wave of new orders. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency has been sitting on a dozen applications to expand his plants. The irony is that, while the NRC holds the licenses, the Department of Defense has placed mammoth orders with New Frontiers because the military wants its entire field rations irradiated to increase the shelf life. It's an open secret in Washington that the DOD is supplying food for a half-dozen UN peacekeeping missions abroad. It's a common phenomenon; one branch of the government has no idea what the other is doing. Gideon's working the Gaithersburg plant beyond capacity. I'm worried because when you're pushing men and equipment to their maximum, accidents happen. There have been innumerable studies about this. New Frontiers is a catastrophe ready to happen."
Gabby asked herself if Gideon circulated a myth about New Frontiers's business to spend time with Claire Davenport. She saw no purpose in raising a painful subject with Melanie.
The pair strolled toward the kitchen where Melanie offered something to eat or drink. "No, thanks. I'm meeting Kye in a few minutes for dinner and if you like Chinese, we'd love to have you join us."
Melanie wrapped herself tighter into her bathrobe, saying, "It's a great invitation, but I'm exhausted this evening. We've taken on a slew of new patients who demand more of our time. I often think I'll just throw in the towel and join an HMO, work my eight hours, close down the operation at 5 sharp and forget about medicine until the next morning. No night calls and no battles with the insurance companies."
"I can't see you practicing in a large organization, Melanie," Gabby said, "Is Gideon likely to be at the plant this evening? Perhaps I can stop by after dinner."
"Yes, all night. He called at noon to say that the electron beam accelerator broke down this morning. I'm not surprised. They've been pushing it 24-hours a day and no machinery can take that
kind of punishment. There's no danger to anyone, but perishable food continues to arrive by the truckload and nothing is moving through the plant. If it spoils while waiting to be irradiated, New Frontiers is liable. Everybody's up tight, blaming everybody else. Gideon's got a battalion of very expensive technicians working night and day."
"Normally, I wouldn't want to bother him at a time like this, but it's important I talk for a few minutes."
Kye, who ate almost all his food with wooden Korean chopsticks until he was eight, grew up to detest plastic chopsticks served in Chinese restaurants. In his early teens, when he wanted to de-emphasize his Asian culture, he made a vow never to use chopsticks. But that required immediate revision as an undergraduate at the University of Maryland, where he took renewed pride in his Korean ancestry. When it came to Asian food, he preferred spicy Korean cuisine to salty Chinese cooking and learned that Chinese chefs could usually make a palatable dish by adding ground peppers to their woks.
Because silverware was rare in the homes of Gabby's Asian friends, she learned to use chopsticks early in childhood and could almost match Kye for dexterity. They were waiting for three entrees in a favorite restaurant when Gabby put in a cell phone call to Gideon Ganeden at New Frontiers. After business hours, she didn't expect to speak with a receptionist and dialed Gideon's private number. The phone rang until finally interrupted by an answering message.
"Gideon, it's Gabby at 7:18 p.m. Melanie said you were working late, so I'm taking the liberty of coming by this evening to deliver an important message from your buddy, Senator Arthur Zuckerman. I think it's important so I want to deliver it in person. If you get this message, call me back on my mobile. I'm eating Chinese with Kye in Bethesda."
A waiter, totting a large serving tray, brought three platters of stir-fried vegetables, chicken, and Manchurian style stuffed dumplings. Gabby served large portions onto Kye's plate while he poured Chinese Tzingtow beer for her.
"Tomorrow's the day," she declared with an air of excitement. "It's the sixteenth day of my cycle and if I don't bleed by then, it's a good sign I may not. I've always been regular and can't remember going so long. And no premenstrual symptoms either."
He put down the beer bottle and stroked her hand, weaving his fingers into hers. They had to free their hands in order to manipulate chopsticks. Both remained silent until Kye set his sticks on his plate. "Have you given any more thought to living in Carmel?" he asked.
"Of course. I've looked at our baby's conception pictures many times to remind myself how beautiful it is. It doesn't get any better, Kye. If we live there, the next residence in our lives will be assisted living or the old people's home."
"Are you thoughts still with Ohav Shalom?"
"It's been my only rabbinic home. Many of my colleagues have served several different synagogues. Only a few have stayed at one for as long as I have."
Kye picked at the chicken lo mein with the tips of his chopsticks, waiting for Gabby to reveal more. But she withheld, working a slippery dumpling between the two sticks, but losing it onto the plate, causing soy sauce to spatter onto her suit jacket. She cursed, dropped her chopsticks, and dunked the tip of her napkin into a teacup, preparing to daub the spots with green tea, a solvent she had used on multiple occasions with good results.
The meal ended on an inconclusive note. The siren song of California with all its enchantment and promise could not drown out tones from Ohav Shalom and the home she had made there. "Let's wait for a day or two, Kye," she recommended. "My mind is on the baby. You'll give me some time, won't you?"
He was demonstratively impatient, but said, "If it's not more than a couple of days, I'm sure the offer will still be open."
Kye accompanied Gabby to her car. They kissed goodbye as she opened the driver's door. Every instinct in her body told her not to lose the opportunity of a lifetime and return to her native California, live in a palace, and bring up her child beside the Pacific surf, listening to gulls squawking overhead and smelling the sand-salt sea. But something was also wrong with this picture. The titles of a novel and a stage play deflated her optimism. Thomas Wolfe wrote "You Can't Go Home Again," warning that a return to childhood fantasies was unrealistic and dangerous. And Cheryl Teabrook had written about having it all in a dreamy wonderland and in the end harvesting nothing but sorrow.
Though Gabby had often heard Gideon speak about New Frontiers and had imagined a complex of industrial warehouses surrounded by barbed wire fences, she had never actually visited the Gaithersburg plant. By the time she arrived, the sun had long since set. A thick mat of snow lingered on the pavement from the previous blizzard. The fence she imagined was there, along with a guardhouse at the gate, but the gate was open and there was no guard. She parked among two-dozen cars belonging to night workers. Several repair vans were lined up outside the main gate, one with a flashing light on the roof. A series of high warehouses where the food sterilization occurred towered over a single-story office building. No one was in the reception area, so she proceeded cautiously down a corridor of engineering offices and stepped into the first one that was occupied by an extremely young man bundled into a parka and munching McDonald's ketchup saturated French fries scattered on an oil-stained newspaper.
"I'm looking for Dr. Ganeden," she said. "Do you know where I can find him?"
The young man looked at his watch for confirmation, then studied Gabby skeptically before picking up a phone and dialing the plant's intercom. "Gideon, there's a woman in the front offices who wants to see you. Her name is…" he raised his eyebrow to prompt Gabby and inserted 'Gabby Lewyn' into his announcement.
Gideon, in a gray factory apron, presented himself ten minutes later in the reception area. Gabby noted his unshaven beard and exhausted eyes, but told herself that the whiskers and exhaustion augmented the raw sexual attraction she had long had for him. His presence fortified an earlier judgment about Gideon: in the jungle, he would be the dominant male most females wanted to mate with.
"You must wear a radiation badge," he said after giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. "It's a federal rule, though don't worry about receiving any radiation in this place. We've never had an incident because we take every precaution and the way our beams are trained, there's absolutely no residual energy. But more importantly, our e-beam accelerator is on the fritz and we're completely closed down. Technicians are working in the vault on it as we speak."
She followed him into a visitor's room where he extracted a flat two-inch rectangular badge from a sealed box and wrote her name on the front with a felt pen, adding the date below. On the backside, there was a clip for attaching to a breast pocket or lapel.
"I'd love to take a quick look around the plant, if that's possible," Gabby said while securing the badge to her jacket pocket soiled by soy sauce.
"Sure," he worked an unenthusiastic smile to his lips. "This is going to be a long, long night. I want to roll up my sleeves and help the technicians, but that isn't practical. You can't fix the problem until you find out what's wrong and they're testing now to figure it out."
Gideon led down the corridor toward a personnel door, flanked on two sides with large warning signs that the area was secured. A list of precautionary rules were listed, along with the names of authorized personnel. Gideon punched a code into an electronic pad and waited for a buzzer to unlock the door. Once inside a cavernous building, Gabby tugged at his arm to stop their progress. Ambient noise forced her to raise her voice. "Gideon, Arthur Zuckerman came to services at Ohav Shalom and asked me to deliver a message to you."
That caught Gideon's attention. "That pompous, self-righteous ass has been harassing New Frontiers for years. Since his heart attack, he's come back stronger than ever. What's on his mind this time?"
Gabby didn't want Gideon to underestimate the seriousness of her message and paused for effect. "The senator is irritated and on the warpath. I'm not sure why he asked me to deliver this, but perhaps because both of you are members of Ohav Shalom. He told me t
o tell you to cancel whatever program you're running in Cincinnati."
"That's it?" Gideon sounded incredulous.
"Yes. I know it's pretty skinny. But remember, Jonah traveled all the way to Nineveh to deliver a message from God with no more than seven words. I don't know about your Cincinnati project or why it's of interest to Zuckerman. All I know is that he sounded very angry. Can you tell me what's going on?"
Gideon grunted, taking an extra moment to think about his answer. "We have a pilot program with Procter and Gamble. The NRC just won't let us alone. They're telling private industry what it can do and what it can't. And the irony is that government bureaucrats wouldn't have a clue about how to run a real business. All they can do is look over your shoulder and criticize."
"Do you know what he has in mind?" Gabby pursued.
"Why the hell couldn't he get on the phone himself and confront me? He'd get an earful. Instead, he uses your good offices to come all the way out here. I may just give him a call in the morning, though I'm certain he won't return it. He'd rather use a go-between."
"Well, since I'm here, I'd like to see the plant."
Gideon led past uniformed employees moving through a double passageway into a high ceiling warehouse. Packaged foods of every variety were stacked on pallets and neatly stored on top of each other until they almost touched the 33-foot ceiling. Mirrors hanging for the rafters helped a squadron of fork-lift operators from crashing into each other on the blind turns.
"The process starts on the storage lot outside," Gideon pointed to a battery of overhead doors on both sides of the cross-docked warehouse. Producers send food directly from their processing plants. The consignments enter doors on your left where they are sorted, then drawn on conveyer belts into a chamber lined with depleted uranium. Absolutely no radiation in the chamber leaks to the outside and since it consists of nothing but high-energy electrons, once passed through the food, nothing remains behind. The cells of noxious microorganisms can't absorb so much raw energy. When energy is compounded, DNA chains in the microorganisms are upset and reproduction ceases. If you can stop bacteria from multiplying, you add months to the shelf-life of the food."
