For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories

by Nathan Englander

  “I am impure.”

  “This is not true, Chava Bayla. It’s an impossibility. And I know myself the last time you went to the ritual bath. A woman does not have her thing—”

  “Her thing?” Chava said. She laughed, as if she had caught him in a lie, and turned to face the room.

  “A woman doesn’t menstruate for so long without even a single week of clean days. And a wife does not for so long ignore her husband. It is Shabbos, a double mitzvah tonight—an obligation to make love.”

  Chava Bayla turned back again to face her wall. She tightened her arms around herself as if in an embrace.

  “You are my wife!” Dov Binyamin said.

  “That was God’s choice, not mine. I might also have been put on this earth as a bar of soap or a kugel. Better,” she said, “better it should have been one of those.”

  That night Dov Binyamin slept curled up on the edge of his bed—as close as he could get to his wife.

  After Shabbos, Chava avoided coming into the bedroom for as long as possible. When she finally did enter and found Dov dozing in a chair by the balcony, she went to sleep fully clothed, her sheitel still on top of her head.

  As he nodded forward in the chair, Dov’s hat fell to the floor. He woke up, saw his wife, picked up his hat, and, brushing away the dust with his elbow, placed it on the nightstand. How beautiful she looked all curled up in her dress. Like a princess enchanted, he thought. Dov pulled the sheet off the top of his bed. He wanted to cover her, to tuck Chava in. Instead he flung the sheet into a corner. He shut off the light, untied his shoes—but did not remove them—and went to sleep on the tile floor beside his wife’s bed. Using his arm for a pillow, Dov Binyamin dreamed of a lemon ice his uncle had bought him as a child and of the sound of the airplanes flying overhead at the start of the Yom Kippur War.

  Dov Binyamin didn’t go to work on Sunday. Folding up his tallis after prayers and fingering the embroidery of the tallis bag, he recalled the day Chava had presented it to him as a wedding gift—the same gift his father had received from his mother, and his father’s father before. Dov had marveled at the workmanship, wondered how many hours she had spent with a needle in hand. Now he wondered if she would ever find him worthy of such attentions again. Zipping the prayer shawl inside, Dov Binyamin put the bag under his arm. He carried it with him out of the shul, though he had his own cubby in which to store it.

  The morning was oppressively hot; a hamsin was settling over Jerusalem. Dov Binyamin was wearing his lightest caftan, but in the heat wave it felt as if it were made of the heaviest wool.

  Passing a bank of phones, he considered calling work, making some excuse, or even telling the truth. “Shai,” he would say, “I am a ghost in my home and wonder who will mend my tallis bag when it is worn.” His phone card was in his wallet, which he had forgotten on the dresser, and what did he want to explain to Shai for, who had just come from a Shabbos with his spicy wife and a house full of children.

  Dov followed Jaffa Street down to the Old City. Roaming the alleyways always helped to calm him. There was comfort in the Jerusalem stone and the walls within walls and the permanence of everything around him. He felt a kinship with history’s Jerusalemites, in whose struggles he searched for answers to his own. Lately he felt closer to his biblical heroes than to the people with whom he spent his days. King David’s desires were far more alive to Dov than the empty problems of Shai and the other men at the furniture store.

  Weaving through the Jewish Quarter, he had intended to end up at the Wall, to say Tehillim, and, in his desperate state, to scribble a note and stuff it into a crack just like the tourists in their cardboard yarmulkes. Instead, he found himself caught up in the crush inside the Damascus Gate. An old Arab woman was crouched down behind a wooden box of cactus fruit. She peeled a sabra with a kitchen knife, allowing a small boy a sample of her product. The child ran off with his mouth open, a stray thorn stuck in his tongue.

  Dov Binyamin tightened his hold on the tallis bag and pushed his way through the crowd. He walked back to Mea Shearim along the streets of East Jerusalem. Let them throw stones, he thought. Though no one did. No one even took notice of him except to step out of his way as he rushed to his rebbe’s house for some advice.

  Meir the Beadle was in the front room, sitting on a plastic chair at a plastic table.

  “Don’t you have work today?” Meir said, without looking up from the papers that he was shifting from pile to pile.

  Dov Binyamin ignored the question. “Is the Rebbe in?”

  “He’s very busy.”

  Dov Binyamin went over to the kettle, poured himself a mug of hot water, and stirred in a spoonful of Nescafé. “How about you don’t give me a hard time today?”

  “Who’s giving a hard time?” Meir said, putting down the papers and getting up from the chair. “I’m just telling you Sunday is busy after a day and a half without work.” He knocked at the Rebbe’s door and went in. Dov Binyamin made a blessing over his coffee, took a sip, and, being careful not to spill, lowered himself into one of the plastic chairs. The coffee cut the edge off the heat that, like Dov, sat heavy in the room.

  The Rebbe leaned forward on his shtender and rocked back and forth as if he were about to topple.

  “No, this is no good. Very bad. Not good at all.” He pulled back on the lectern and held it in that position. The motion reminded Dov of his dream, of the rumbling of engines and a vase—there had been a blue glass vase—set to rocking on a shelf. “And you don’t want a divorce?”

  “I love her, Rebbe. She is my wife.”

  “And Chava Bayla?”

  “She, thank God, has not even raised the subject of separation. She asks nothing of me but to be left alone. And this is where the serpent begins to swallow its tail. The more she rejects me, the more I want to be with her. And the more I want to be with her, the more intent she becomes that I stay away.”

  “She is testing you.”

  “Yes. In some way, Rebbe, Chava Bayla is giving to me a test.”

  Pulling at his beard, the Rebbe again put his full weight on the lectern so that the wood creaked. He spoke in a Talmudic singsong:

  “Then you must find the strength to ignore Chava Bayla, until Chava Bayla should come to find you—and you must be strict with yourself. For she will not consider your virtues until she is calm in the knowledge that her choices are her own.”

  “But I don’t have the strength. She is my wife. I miss her. And I am human, too. With human habits. It will be impossible for me not to try and touch her, to try and convince her. Rebbe, forgive me, but God created the world with a certain order to it. I suffer greatly under the urges with which I have been blessed.”

  “I see,” said the Rebbe. “The urges have become great.”

  “Unbearable. And to be around someone that I feel so strongly for, to look and be unable to touch—it is like floating through heaven in a bubble of hell.”

  The Rebbe pulled a chair over to the bookcases that lined his walls. Climbing onto the chair, he steadied himself, then removed a volume from the top shelf. “We must relieve the pressure.”

  “It is a fine notion. But I fear that it’s impossible.”

  “I’m giving you a heter,” the Rebbe said. “A special dispensation.” He went over to his desk and flipped through the book. He began to scribble on a pad of onionskin paper.

  “For what?”

  “To see a prostitute.”

  “Excuse me, Rebbe?”

  “Your marriage is at stake, is it not?”

  Dov bit at his thumbnail and then rushed the hand, as if it were something shameful, into the pocket of his caftan.

  “Yes,” he said, a shake entering his voice. “My marriage is a withered limb at my side.”

  The Rebbe aimed his pencil at Dov.

  “One may go to great lengths in the name of achieving peace in the home.”

  “But a prostitute?” Dov Binyamin asked.

  “For the relief of unbear
able urges,” the Rebbe said. And he tore, like a doctor, the sheet of paper from the pad.

  Dov Binyamin drove to Tel Aviv, the city of sin. There he was convinced he would find plenty of prostitutes. He parked his Fiat on a side street off Dizengoff and walked around town.

  Though he was familiar with the city, its social aspects were foreign to him. It was the first leisurely walk he had taken in Tel Aviv and, fancying himself an anthropologist in a foreign land, he found it all quite interesting. He was usually the one under scrutiny. Busloads of American tourists scamper through Mea Shearim daily. They buy up the stores and pull tiny cameras from their hip packs, snapping pictures of real live Hasidim, like the ones from the stories their grandparents told. Next time he would say “Boo!” He laughed at the thought of it. Already he was feeling lighter. Passing a kiosk, he stopped and bought a bag of pizza-flavored Bissli. When he reached the fountain, he sat down on a bench among the aged new immigrants. They clustered together as if huddled against a biting cold wind that had followed them from their native lands. He stayed there until dark, until the crowd of new immigrants, like the bud of a flower, began to spread out, to open up, as the old folks filed down the fountain’s ramps onto the city streets. They were replaced by young couples and groups of boys and girls who talked to each other from a distance but did not mix. So much like religious children, he thought. In a way we are all the same. Dov Binyamin suddenly felt overwhelmed. He was startled to find himself in Tel Aviv, already involved in the act of searching out a harlot, instead of home in his chair by the balcony, worrying over whether to take the Rebbe’s advice at all.

  He walked back toward his car. A lone cabdriver leaned up against the front door of his Mercedes, smoking. Dov Binyamin approached him, the heat of his feet inside his shoes becoming more oppressive with every step.

  “Forgive me,” Dov Binyamin said.

  The cabdriver, his chest hair sticking out of the collar of his T-shirt in tufts, ground out the cigarette and opened the passenger door. “Need a ride, Rabbi?”

  “I’m not a rabbi.”

  “And you don’t need a ride?”

  Dov Binyamin adjusted his hat. “No. Actually no.”

  The cabdriver lit another cigarette, flourishing his Zippo impressively. Dov took notice, though he was not especially impressed.

  “I’m looking for a prostitute.”

  The cabdriver coughed and clasped a hand to his chest.

  “Do I look like a prostitute?”

  “No, you misunderstand.” Dov Binyamin wondered if he should turn and run away. “A female prostitute.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “No name. Any name. You are a taxi driver. You must know where are such women.” The taxi driver slapped the hood of his car and said, “Ha,” which Dov took to be laughter. Another cab pulled up on Dov’s other side.

  “What’s happening?” the second driver called.

  “Nothing. The rabbi here wants to know where to find a friend. Thinks it’s a cabdriver’s responsibility to direct him.”

  “Do we work for the Ministry of Tourism?” the second driver asked.

  “I just thought,” Dov Binyamin said. His voice was high and cracking. It seemed to elicit pity in the second driver.

  “There’s a cash machine back on Dizengoff.”

  “Prostitutes at the bank?” Dov Binyamin said.

  “No, not at the bank. But the service isn’t free.” Dov blushed under his beard. “Up by the train station in Ramat Gan—at the row of bus stops.”

  “All those pretty ladies aren’t waiting for the bus to Haifa.” This from the first driver, who again slapped the hood of his car and said, “Ha!”

  The first time past, he did not stop, driving by the women at high speed and taking the curves around the cement island so that his wheels screeched and he could smell the burning rubber. Dov Binyamin slowed down, trying to maintain control of himself and the car, afraid that he had already drawn too much attention his way. The steering wheel began to vibrate in Dov’s shaking hands. The Rebbe had given him permission, had instructed him. Was not the Rebbe’s heter valid? This is what Dov Binyamin told his hands, but they continued to tremble in protest.

  On his second time past, a woman approached the passenger door. She wore a matching shirt and pants. The outfit clung tightly, and Dov could see the full form of her body. Such immodesty! She tapped at the window. Dov Binyamin reached over to roll it down. Flustered, he knocked the gearshift, and the car lurched forward. Applying the parking brake, he opened the window the rest of the way.

  “Close your lights,” she instructed him. “We don’t need to be onstage out here.”

  “Sorry,” he said, shutting off the lights. He was comforted by the error, not wanting the woman to think he was the kind of man who employed prostitutes on a regular basis.

  “You interested in some action?”

  “Me?”

  “A shy one,” she said. She leaned through the window, and Dov Binyamin looked away from her large breasts. “Is this your first time? Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle. I know how to treat a black hat.”

  Dov Binyamin felt the full weight of what he was doing. He was giving a bad name to all Hasidim. It was a sin against God’s name. The urge to drive off, to race back to Jerusalem and the silence of his wife, came over Dov Binyamin. He concentrated on his dispensation.

  “What would you know from black hats?” he said.

  “Plenty,” she said. And then, leaning in farther, “Actually, you look familiar.” Dov Binyamin seized up, only to begin shaking twice as hard. He shifted into first and gave the car some gas. The prostitute barely got clear of the window.

  When it seemed as if he wouldn’t find a suitable match, a strong-looking young woman stepped out of the darkness.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  She did not answer or ask any questions or smile. She opened the passenger door and sat down.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Saving you the trouble of driving around until the sun comes up.” She was American. He could hear it. But she spoke beautiful Hebrew, sweet and strong as her step. Dov Binyamin turned on his headlights and again bumped the gearshift so that the car jumped.

  “Settle down there, Tiger,” she said. “The hard part’s over. All the rest of the work is mine.”

  The room was in an unlicensed hostel. It had its own entrance. There was no furniture other than a double bed and three singles. The only lamp stood next to the door.

  The prostitute sat on the big bed with her legs curled underneath her. She said her name was Devorah.

  “Like the prophetess,” Dov Binyamin said.

  “Exactly,” Devorah said. “But I can only see into the immediate future.”

  “Still, it is a rare gift with which to have been endowed.” Dov shifted his weight from foot to foot. He stood next to the large bed unable to bring himself to bend his knees.

  “Not really,” she said. “All my clients already know what’s in store.”

  She was fiery, this one. And their conversation served to warm up the parts of Dov the heat wave had not touched. The desire that had been building in Dov over the many months so filled his body that he was surprised his skin did not burst from the pressure. He tossed his hat onto the opposite single, hoping to appear at ease, as sure of himself as the hairy-chested cabdriver with his cigarettes. The hat landed brim side down. Dov’s muscles twitched reflexively, though he did not flip it onto its crown.

  “Wouldn’t you rather make your living as a prophetess?” he asked.

  “Of course. Prophesying’s a piece of cake. You don’t have to primp all day for it. And it’s much easier on the back, no wear and tear. Better for you, too. At least you’d leave with something in the morning.” She took out one of her earrings, then, as an afterthought, put it back in. “Doesn’t matter anyway. No money in it. They pay me to do everything except look into the future.”

  “I’ll be the first th
en,” he said, starting to feel almost comfortable. “Tell me what you see.”

  She closed her eyes and tilted her head so that her lips began to part, this in the style of those who peer into other realms. “I predict that this is the first time you’ve done such a thing.”

  “That is not a prophecy. It’s a guess.” Dov Binyamin cleared his throat and wiggled his toes against the tops of his shoes. “What else do you predict?”

  She massaged her temples and held back a naughty grin. “That you will, for once, get properly laid.”

  But this was too much for Dov Binyamin. Boiling in the heat and his shame, he motioned toward his hat.

  Devorah took his hand.

  “Forgive me,” she said, “I didn’t mean to be crude.”

  Her fingers were tan and thin, more delicate than Chava’s. How strange it was to see strange fingers against the whiteness of his own.

  “Excluding the affections of my mother, blessed be her memory, this is the first time I have been touched by a woman that is not my wife.”

  She released her grasp and, before he had time to step away, reached out for him again, this time more firmly, as if shaking on a deal. Devorah raised herself up and straightened a leg, displayed it for a moment, and then let it dangle over the side of the bed. Dov admired the leg, and the fingers resting against his palm.

  “Why are we here together?” she asked—she was not mocking him. Devorah pulled at the hand and he sat at her side.

  “To relieve my unbearable urges. So that my wife will be able to love me again.”

  Devorah raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips.

  “You come to me for your wife’s sake?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are a very dedicated husband.”

  She gave him a smile that said, You won’t go through with it. The smile lingered, and then he saw that it said something completely different, something irresistible. And he wondered, as a shiver ran from the trunk of his body out to the hand she held, if what they say about American women is true.

  Dov walked toward the door, not to leave, but to shut off the lamp.