KING OF
SHARDS
BOOK ONE OF THE WORLDMENDER TRILOGY
MATTHEW KRESSEL
Arche Press
For Christine, Pillar of my World
The Legend of the Thirty-Six
There are thirty-six just people who sustain the world, thirty-six hidden saints who quietly perform small acts of kindness and righteousness. So concealed are these saints that you or I could be one and not know it. Each of their small acts serves to uphold the world, and it is said that if not for their merit the world would be destroyed. Because in Hebrew the letter lamed is 30 and the letter vav is 6, we call these righteous ones the Lamed Vav.
"O Lord, did you not pour him forth like milk? Did you not make him firm like cheese? Hear me, you covered him with flesh and skin, you wove him of bone and nerves, and now you have destroyed him.”
—André Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just
CHAPTER ONE
Daniel was getting married today, but all he could think about was work. In the musty Hebrew school classroom of Temple Beth Tiferet he pulled the black suit jacket over his shoulders and remembered the storm, how he had laid warm blankets over weary shoulders. He tightened the knot of his wine-dark tie and remembered wrapping gauze around swollen legs. Those folks didn’t have homes—hadn’t for years, and yet here he was, about to venture off to an island for two weeks of luxury and indulgence. And what about Gram, who would remain home, alone, with no one to call if she needed help? He wanted to keep Rebekah happy, but the truth was he longed to stay in New York and continue working for the Shulman Fund, where he fought for the city’s homeless. He wanted to stay close to Gram, the one who had raised him. But Rebekah, as sympathetic and understanding as she could be, had said their honeymoon was non-negotiable. They would be leaving first thing in the morning.
Fully dressed now in his itchy black wedding suit, Daniel gazed out the window. Last week’s hurricane—unusual for New York—had swept out the late-summer warmth, and outside the afternoon air was crisp and biting. The sun descended over a copse of tall Westchester oaks, and the light pierced the blinds, sending ladders of orange across Christopher’s smiling face. Christopher managed the Rising Path shelter that Daniel had helped build, and as he turned, the sun illuminated the tattoo on the dark skin of his neck: a crucified Jesus, blood spilling down his face from his crown of thorns, gazing up at God, awaiting redemption.
“I’ve never been to a Jewish wedding,” Christopher said. “You told me about some of your customs, but I’m excited to see them for myself.”
Christopher turned, and the shadow of his neck darkened the sky above Jesus, as if storm clouds were rolling in. “The rituals are beautiful,” Daniel said, “but sometimes I feel as if it’s more about the performance than the meaning behind them.”
“All rituals are performances,” Christopher said. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
Above the chalkboard a paper Hebrew alphabet had been stapled to a long cork strip. In the orange sunlight, the letters seemed to burn. The letter Ayin was missing. Ayin, the divine nothing. Ayin, the good or evil eye, depending. At least, that’s what Gram had said. Daniel shook his head. Now wasn’t the time for her silly superstitions. Outside, the branches of dead trees shivered in the wind.
“What do you see?” Christopher said, as if he were a philosopher-rebbe from one of Gram’s Hasidic tales.
“Randomness,” Daniel said. The forest outside looked as if it had been blasted in a nuclear attack. Most trees were bent, broken. But not all. “Why do you think the storm knocked down some trees and not others? The fallen ones seem no different from any other.”
“Luck,” Christopher said. “It’s like people. Some are blessed with good fortune. Others, not so much.”
Ainems mazel iz an anderens shlemazel, Daniel heard Gram say in Yiddish. One’s good luck is another’s misfortune.
He remembered the night of the hurricane. The wind had been blowing in ten different directions, and Manhattan’s streets were empty, gray, and rain-choked. Like a mouse in a giant cemetery, Daniel had weaved under dark skyscrapers toward Rising Path homeless shelter. Open only six weeks, they’d received several summons for overcrowding. Another, and they’d be shut down for good.
But when Daniel saw the homeless people waiting outside in the storm, the diabetic with his swollen ankles and bloody socks, the schizophrenic who couldn’t light her cigarette, the drunkard who had collapsed on the curb, the mother trying to soothe her colicky baby, he’d convinced Christopher, the manager, to let them all inside.
It hadn’t been enough. Dozens of homeless throughout the city had gone missing after the storm. Washed away to be forgotten, their deaths remained untallied in the storm’s official toll. Daniel sagged with the weight of the memory.
Outside the classroom, the sun dipped behind a broken tree trunk, and the light splintered into a fan of orange rays. “The storm hurt a lot of people,” Daniel said.
“I know,” said Christopher. “But this is a day of happiness, Danny. You work very hard. You deserve this. Make sure you pause to enjoy it.”
But do I deserve this? he thought.
Five years ago, right out of college, he’d taken the job with the Shulman Fund. Through their nonprofit wing he’d worked on many humanitarian projects. But Rising Path was his from start to finish, and he felt a responsibility for it, like a father to his child. He had made arrangements for his absence, of course. Christopher was more than capable of managing the shelter. But the storm had shown him that there was no such thing as being fully prepared.
Christopher pivoted open one of the small windows and lit a cigarette. Cool air raced around Daniel’s ankles. “You never told me how you got home that night,” Christopher said, exhaling corkscrews of smoke. “The buses and subways had shut down by the time you left.”
“I walked.”
“All the way to Brooklyn? In the wind and the rain?”
Daniel nodded.
“You didn’t have to check up on us, you know. You could’ve called.”
“I did. Several times. No one answered.” He had actually called more than thirty times. He could still hear the hollow space at the end of each long ring.
“That must have been some walk,” Christopher said.
“It wasn’t fun. But at least I had a home to get back to.”
Christopher took a long, slow drag. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah.”
Pelted by the cold rain, Daniel had walked over the Williamsburg Bridge. Cars honked, and seagulls cawed as the bridge swayed fitfully. He had tried to call Gram many times, but she didn’t answer. It tore him up. He should have been there, with her. When he was a boy, she had leapt through a wall of flames into his burning bedroom, wrapped him a blanket, and carried him through hell to safety. And for this selfless act she had been burned so severely that she resembled a hideous monster to everyone but him. His parents had died that night, and Gram had raised him as her own.
But he had just fled the nest. Three months ago he had moved out of Gram’s Babylon home and into Rebekah’s small Bushwick apartment.
Gram had survived the storm, thank God. Her house had only minor damage. But like the trees in the forest outside, from sheer luck. Floods destroyed more than half the houses in Babylon. For Gram, it could have been much, much worse.
An usher stuck his head into the classroom and said, “Daniel, it’s time. You ready?”
He took a deep breath as Christopher tamped out his cigarette. Daniel nodded, and out they went.
The wedding party stirred when he arrived in the lobby of Temple Beth Tiferet. The antechamber to the sanctuary was large and opulent, with murals of Moses, the zodiac, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel frescoed on the walls
. A glimmering chandelier hung over ornate couches. Daniel shook hands and kissed cheeks. Almost all of these people were from Rebekah’s extended family, people he’d met only last night at the rehearsal dinner.
At that same dinner Christopher had asked Daniel why he’d chosen him to be his best man, why not one of his school buddies? And the truth was that Daniel hadn’t made many long-term friends. They had moved to other cities, to bigger jobs. And after a while, Daniel had lost touch with them. Perhaps the fault lay with him. Secretly he enjoyed the freedom of anonymity, because it felt, in a strange way, safer.
Rebekah was readying in a classroom down another hallway. She had requested to forego the bridal veiling, but thought it bad luck to see Daniel on the day of marriage. The ketubah had been signed in the presence of the rabbi the night before, so all that was left to do was to declare their vows before the public and God.
He remembered the first time he saw her. It was at a prep meeting for a City Meals event. Her striking eyes, brown whorls flecked with green, reminded him of an autumn forest blowing in the wind. Rebekah worked for another nonprofit, and as they spoke, he found her sharp and witty. She giggled whenever he made a joke. And several times after, they met for coffee, ostensibly to discuss the event, but it became obvious that their rendezvous had nothing to do with City Meals. He felt guilty about that, at first, but his feelings quickly shifted to excitement.
When he spoke about work, she listened with compassion and understanding, beyond what he thought possible in a partner. Her shoulder-length hair was so black it seemed blue, and he loved to run his fingers through it when they kissed. The freckles on her porcelain skin covered her body like a sky full of stars, and when he closed his eyes he could count them all. Her husky and feminine voice, inflected with occasional Slavic intonations, made him feel warm and at home. But it was her selflessness that he had fallen most in love with, the person who spent eighteen hours a day making sure others had enough to eat, or got the medicine they needed, or had a warm place to sleep. She was, as Gram might say, a gute neshome. A good soul.
His heart warmed as he thought of her.
“Take your places, please,” the usher said as he dispensed wine-dark yarmulkes to the men. “We’ll be starting in a minute.”
Daniel wiped sweat from his brow as live music started in the sanctuary, Bach’s “Largo” from the Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. He wore no fringed tallis, and there would be no chupa swaying over the wedding couple. Rebekah’s requests, two of many particulars, like the bridesmaids’ dresses of emerald satin, brocade trim, and sparkling belts fit for twenty-first-century cowgirls.
He’d left all the wedding details up to her, like the groomsmen’s traditional black suits and their ties, handkerchiefs, and cummerbunds—all the color of spilled wine. She had chosen this shade for the flowers too, the color of the sky twenty minutes after an autumn sunset. The same color, Daniel saw as he looked out the glass doors of the synagogue, as the sky was just now.
The wind gusted, and a spray of leaves tumbled past the entrance. And following the leaves stepped a white-haired man dressed in a long cloak. The man peered inside the synagogue as he walked quickly past the doors, his eyes white as moons, and a wave of sudden dread washed over Daniel. The night of the storm rushed back to him.
He had been just a few blocks from Rebekah’s apartment on the night of the hurricane, soaked and miserable, looking forward to a hot shower, when a tall, white-haired man in a long cloak—the same man, Daniel was certain—leaped out from behind the scaffolding of a construction site. Daniel remembered him from Rising Path. Earlier that night he had been staring at Daniel from a stairwell. His Roman nose and a sharp jaw were distinguishing enough, but it was those white eyes, as bright as twin moons, that he recalled most vividly.
With schizophrenics he often felt as if they could peer deep into his soul, beyond the boundaries of his ego, to glimpse disapprovingly at his fragile self, because that was the hellish place where they lived. But this man’s gaze delved fathoms deeper, down into his reptilian brain, plucking at his primal fears, like a fever dream concocting nightmares from his id.
The man said, “Don’t marry that beast. The cosmos will collapse, and all the universes will shatter in a cataclysm to dwarf all cataclysms. And it will all be your fault, Daniel.”
He likely had overheard Daniel on the phone back at the shelter and concocted this delusional fantasy. Daniel took a deep breath and slowed his racing heart. And as politely as he could in the sixty-mile-an-hour gusts and heavy rain, excused himself from the stranger and headed home. He didn’t tell Rebekah about the encounter. There was no reason to scare her. Things like this happened sometimes. And in the chaos that followed the storm, he had forgotten all about the encounter until now.
The white-haired man vanished behind the synagogue wall just as Christopher tapped him on the shoulder. “You all right, Danny? You look a little pale.”
Daniel forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just a little anxious, that’s all.”
My fear is playing tricks, he thought. That was a different man. No other explanation made sense.
The usher gave his cue, and Rebekah’s first cousins entered the sanctuary through the heavy mahogany doors. The next couple followed, then the third, and the fourth, their steps in sync with the music. With each couple, his heart rate intensified.
Rebekah’s relatives had flawless skin, professional haircuts, upper-class jawlines, and model’s noses. Only a few cousins had shown up from his side. He wouldn’t have called them good-looking. Besides Christopher and his cousins, there was only Gram.
He had asked her if she would walk him down the aisle, but Gram had refused. He had begged her to come, and she agreed only if she could sit, veiled and anonymous, in the pews. She wanted no part in this ceremony. This was not about her disfigurement, or embarrassment. Gram hated Rebekah because she had stolen Daniel from her. And so Christopher had happily agreed to walk Daniel down the aisle.
He closed his eyes and imagined his parents’ faces. What would they have worn? What would they have said? Would Dad have imparted some inane marriage wisdom? Would Mom have asked veiled questions about grandchildren? If only they had been here to witness this.
As if reading his mind, Christopher put his hand on Daniel’s arm. “Remember, this is a day of joy, Danny. God wants you to be happy.”
Daniel nodded and thanked Christopher just as the usher signaled it was their turn to enter. To the beat of the music he and Christopher stepped into the sanctuary beyond the mahogany doors. Towering stained glass windows spilled multicolored light over all the guests as they all turned to look at him.
His cheeks grew hot. He disliked being the spectacle. Rebekah’s family, on the left side of the sanctuary, beamed with celebrity teeth, photogenic in their tailored suits and glittering dresses. Their expensive jewelry winked brightly in the light.
His relatives sparsely occupied the right side. A few stocky, balding men—distant cousins of his mother—and their middle-aged wives. Two kids argued over a pocket video game. The girl picked her nose and stuck it into her brother’s face.
Gram sat in the fifth row, hooded and veiled. As he passed her, she made a gesture to ward off the evil eye. She kissed her hamsa pendant and whispered, “Kinayn’ore!”
He smiled and hoped that under her veil she smiled back. He stepped onto to the bimah and took his place beside the groomsmen. Christopher positioned himself beside a row of tall, good-looking men from Rebekah’s family. He was a head shorter than the shortest and the only African-American among them. The rabbi, his beard as orange as dried apricots, raised his well-thumbed prayer book as the orchestra changed tune to an intense, aggressive waltz. Daniel couldn’t place the song. Was this Rebekah’s choice?
His relatives grimaced, but her side smiled and swayed and turned their heads toward the mahogany doors in unison, as if Rebekah had entered, but the doors remained closed. Yet an instant later—had they known she was coming?
—the doors opened, and in she strode.
Daniel held his breath as her parents led her in. They were as pale, dark-haired, and as graceful as she was. Rebekah wore a black, tight-fitting dress affixed with hundreds of small mirrors that sent a planetarium of reflections over the audience. She had wrapped her waist many times with a thin, patent leather belt, and its oversized buckle, a shard of a broken mirror, reflected spots of light in front of her as she walked.
He had seen her wedding dress many times, a lacy white gown that had taken up half their shared closet. What the hell was she wearing now?
Her relatives smiled. They sighed and got teary-eyed and held palms over their breasts. His relatives turned bemused gazes toward him, and he shrugged. He had no idea why she had chosen this attire. He couldn’t see Gram’s face under her veil, but he knew he wouldn’t like her expression. Rebekah had always been unusual when it came to fashion. But this was bizarre.
Her parents kissed her and took their positions on the bimah. Rebekah flashed her white teeth, then looped around him, once, twice, as her mirrors dazzled him with a thousand reflections. Each loop represented a day of Creation, and she would end on the seventh day, the Sabbath, their marriage becoming an echo of God’s work. And though he was blinded and confused, he was certain he counted five and only five loops before she paused.
Her eyes were whorls of green and brown. Her pupils dilated as she met his gaze. He was transfixed. Her expression was joyous, yes, but underneath lurked something feral, wild. Was she drunk? It took immense effort to move his lips. He whispered, “What’s going on, Bek?”
She smiled. “I gird myself with the fragments of the Cosmos, just as you, Danny, have girded this world.”
He stared at her. “What?”
The music halted. She nodded to the rabbi, and he began officiating. Daniel felt the eyes of his relatives upon him. His cheeks were aflame. They couldn’t stop now. He’d get answers later, at the reception, as soon as he and Rebekah had a moment alone.
King of Shards Page 1
