by Rhoda Lerman
“On line for what?”
“To get favors, to help, to intercede if you need anything, if your kids, God forbid, get sick. You’ll see. Oy, Yussele. I am so happy.”
Yussel sat down at the kitchen table. “You really think that’s what happened?”
“I know it.” His father beat both fists on Yussel’s back. “Yom diddle yom diddle ai diddle dai dai.” On the kitchen table, on the refrigerator door.
“I’ll have to think about it.” He looked for the Jackalope on his screen, but his screen was gone again. He knew it would come back if he could feel enough pain. He didn’t want the pain. He didn’t want the power. He didn’t want to change the decrees of Heaven. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to go to bed and think dirty disgusting thoughts about Lillywhite Stevie. As soon as Shabbas was over, Yussel picked up the phone to apologize to Lillywhite Stevie, lost his voice when the information operator came on, called Shoshanna to tell her he was staying a little longer.
17
ANOTHER DAY AND YUSSEL DIDN’T GO HOME. HOW COULD A MAN of such filth go home? He borrowed Slotnik’s truck, drove out to the Great Sand Dunes, which stretched white, silver, silent for miles along the base of the mountain range. There was no wind. The sky was a deep blue. A jeep named Rosebud was parked under a stand of birches. Yussel thought about pouring sand into its engine. A wide swift river ran just beyond the birch trees. He’d have to cross it to get to the dunes. Two sets of footprints, one small, one large, crossed the dunes. Someone had survived the crossing. He couldn’t imagine swimming such a width, in such a current.
His father was curled up, fast asleep under a birch tree, his cheek resting on his hands. He wore silly Dr. Denton’s pajamas with horizontal lines of little blue ducks. Over them he wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe with a big blue duck on its pocket and little blue waves all around the borders. Yussel held his breath, walked around him. His father spoke as if he were speaking in his sleep, “If HaShem puts a river in front of you, He puts it there for a reason. So plunge in.”
Yussel plunged into the river, not because the river was there but because his father was there. He hit the bottom too soon because the river was maybe four inches deep. The riverbed was ridged like snake-skin and tore at his belly. Yussel flattened into the water, made believe he was swimming, dragged himself along the rough bed, scratched his skin, made big splashing strokes.
“Don’t swallow, Yussele! It’s a fast day!”
Yussel made believe he climbed up a high bank, scrambled, slipped back in, hoped his father was impressed, then collapsed on the sand. With great fake gasps he called to his father at the far bank, “You put one foot in the water, I’m in Far Rockaway!” Then he crawled, crouched, ran up the dunes. Within moments his feet were scorched. Still he ran to get out of his father’s sight. The air was thin, the sun brutal. Breathing was rough. Someday he’d stop smoking. His chest heaved for real.
Yussel picked up the tracks of Rosebud and Company. Rosebud had a girl up here. Yussel imagined her in kneepads. And couldn’t imagine how such an alien idea came into his head that a woman should wear kneepads for a perverted act. The idea made a frenzy in his head, like insects. He hoped he wouldn’t come across them riding each other. He reached one ridge, walked along it, descended into its shadow side, lay down in the arm of the dune, heard a man say, “I’m the thunder. And I’m going to make lightning between your legs.” A girl giggled.
Yussel walked along another ridge, descended into its shadow side, lay down in the arm of the dune, curled up, took a deep breath, shuddered at the pleasure, closed his eyes, thought about lightning and thunder. The curves of the sand under him, around him, felt like the curves of a woman, belly, thighs, bosom, her. When he moved, she moved with him. He stroked the sand. It was cool to the touch, like Shoshanna’s skin after a bath. He made a small mound. His blood leaped, swelled. He stuck a finger into the sand. Deeper it was warmer, fleshier. He whispered, “Gottenyu,” to no one. On his knees, Yussel dug, pressed, shaped Lillywhite out of sand. When she was complete, he stuck tumbleweed on her head for her hair, two quarters for eyes, covered her parts with his handkerchief. He looked down at her, walked away, returned, knelt by her side, stroked her cheek as she’d stroked his, said, “I’m sorry.” The wind lifted and blew tears across his face. He stretched out over her, covered her nakedness, wept at his weaknesses.
Other men knew. Other men went through this, other men have felt this rage, grief, guilt, hunger. God help them, that they weren’t married men with kids and congregations and fathers who were caught somewhere in their own private father-sins who needed their sons to get them out of whatever hell they were in.
Then Yussel heard the soft movement of cloth, the sweep and brush of robes drifting like small winds across the dunes. He heard the velvety padding of slippers, smelled linseed oil. Yussel leaped up, off her, stepped on her face, kicked her, stomped all of her out into nothingness, made believe he was dancing, forced a couple of bars of song. “Yom diddle yom diddle ai diddle dai dai.”
“I flew. I’m dry. See? I flew.”
The Rabbi’s bathrobe was now black velour—gorgeous, hooded, deep rich velour down to the ankles. It had orange bands along the front and an orange belt. The sleeves dangled by the knees, six inches too long. Underneath the robe, he wore white silk pajamas with little black diamonds and in the center of the diamonds, half-inch orange suns. A large orange sun was embroidered on the pocket of the bathrobe and in the pocket a handkerchief to match the pajamas, except the diamonds were orange and the suns were black. He wore an ascot of orange silk.
“You went all the way back to change your pajamas?”
His father snapped his fingers. “They didn’t even have time to get me matching slippers.” Like a ballerina, he pointed a toe to show Yussel a brown slipper. “Your mother never let me wear black with brown.” He cocked his head, appraised the color combination. “Because, Yussele, I was up all night doing a job which you should have done so they didn’t have time even to shorten the sleeves, never mind matching the slippers.” He rolled back the cuffs. The lining matched the orange silk ascot. “Feel the goods.”
Yussel rolled the velour between thumb and forefinger. “You care to tell me what I didn’t do you had to do?”
“When you figure out what you didn’t do, you’ll know what I did. Some goods, huh?” Then his father cocked his head at Yussel the same way he’d looked at his slippers. “Don’t fardrei me with your games, Yussele. I could see under my Hasidim’s blankets. I knew when they left their houses to come to me. I knew what they wanted before they even knocked on my door. So you’re not fooling me. Here, help me off with this.” The Rabbi slipped off his robe. Yussel helped him with a sleeve, held the sleeve. The pajamas had little pleats at the waistband. His father paused in the middle of disrobing and looked at Yussel’s watch. “Ten oh four.”
And then the bathrobe was over Yussel’s head and pulled tight around his neck, over his mouth, his nose, his eyes. His father did not intend Yussel should breathe. Yussel struggled. What is this? Some kind of joke?
Yussel kicked, grabbed, couldn’t make contact. He thrashed. His head felt ready to blow. He sucked black velour up into his nose, down into his throat, his lungs. He was going to suffocate. His father was trying to kill him.
And then his father released the robe. A minute longer, maybe seconds, Yussel would have been dead. “You mishugge son of a bitch.”
His father was humming. Now Yussel recognized the tune. “Take me along, if you love-a-me, take me along.”
His father grabbed his arm, looked at his watch. “Ten oh six.” He seemed mildly satisfied with the time. Yussel ran.
He ran, slid, fell downhill, the sand collapsed in front of him, sucked him in, pulled him along. He ran downhill until he thought his knees would crack, and then turned uphill. The sand pulled him back downhill. His heart tried to get out of his body, through his throat, through his lungs, through his ears. A great antediluvian bir
d-man shadow that was his own father drifted over him, covered him, blotted out the sun. The lead door was slower, lower than the wood door, so his father was flying at an odd angle, like a biplane with a broken wing, spinning in lopsided circles. And singing, “Yom diddle yom diddle ai diddle dai dai.” Everybody needs such a father. Yussel swung sideways and ran along another ridge. He didn’t know where he was. He zigged and zagged until, far below, he caught a glint of Rosebud’s hood in the birches along the bank.
He lumbered along the crest of the dune. He told himself not to believe this, that it probably wasn’t really happening, that he wasn’t going to die this way, this day. He couldn’t convince himself.
“Yom diddle yom diddle ai diddle dai dai.” His father sang, swung, spun over him. At least he blocked the sun from Yussel’s back. “C’mon, Yussele, c’mon. Death’s nothing.” Yussel could think only of air. He would give his life for a breath of air, to stop and take a deep breath…. Maybe it wasn’t his father. Maybe it was a demon who looked like his father. Nope, it was his father who looked like a demon. If a guy can dance without his feet touching the ground when he’s alive, certainly he can do better tricks when he’s dead. Yussel yelled, “Rosebud, help! Rosebud!”
Yussel ran along the ridge, kept his eye on the glint in the birches below. Suddenly the sand gave out in front of him and he was slipping over/into the edge of a precipice of sand, a long steep drop, hundreds of shifting feet into which he was about to fall and be swallowed. Just before Yussel went under, his father swooped down, grabbed him up, carried him to another ridge, threw him back on the sand, stood over him while an avalanche of sand thundered toward the river. Dust swept around them. When it cleared, the Rabbi looked at Yussel’s watch. “Ten twenty-seven. Terrific, Yussele, twenty-three minutes!”
Once Yussel had dropped a watermelon from the fourth floor of the Yeshiva. The way that watermelon looked on the sidewalk, Yussel’s chest now felt. Yussel’s guts tore with each breath he tried to take. He bent over his pain, gagged. “Why are you trying to kill me?”
“I see you have pain. I didn’t break your natural bones. I broke the supernatural ones. They hurt more and take longer to heal, but this way you can function as if you were whole.” His father removed his robe, smoothed out the velour, swung it around, let it float to the sand, and then folded himself on it, cross-legged. He pushed his hat back off his head, patted the robe, invited Yussel also to sit on it. Yussel crept away. “You want to talk about women, Yussele?” His father crept after him.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Good. So once a Hasid comes to his Rabbi. He’s tearing out his hair. ‘Reb, Reb, what can I do? I’m obsessed with money.’
“‘Give it away, my son.’
“‘I do. I give. That’s not the problem, Rabbi. I just can’t help thinking about money. That’s all I think about.’
“‘When you daven?’
“‘When I daven.’
“‘When you eat.’
“‘When I eat.’
“‘And when you’re with your wife?’
“‘Every minute, Rabbi.’
“So, the Rabbi throws on his coat. ‘Come with me.’ They go straight to the mikveh. They both climb into the pool. ‘You ready?’
“‘Certainly, Rabbi.’
“So the Hasid goes under and while he’s under, he feels the Rabbi’s hand on his head, heavier and heavier. So he tries to come up, to breathe, to see what’s what. He can’t come up. The Rabbi is keeping him under water. He struggles but the Rabbi is suddenly very strong. The Hasid is dying for air. Suddenly the Rabbi releases him. Up to the surface he pops and gulps for air like a fish on land. ‘You trying to drown me Rabbi? I come for help, you try to drown me?’
“‘Of course not,’ says the Rabbi. ‘But tell me, while you were down there, did you even once think about money?”’
Yussel looked at his father, looked at him good. “Son of a bitch! You couldn’t have just told me the story?”
“You spent twenty-three minutes thinking only about air. Twenty-three minutes you didn’t think about your redhead.”
Yussel flopped back, looked up at the sky. “So I suppose we’re now talking about women?”
“Women? Moi? Who would bring such a thing up? Women?” His father addressed an invisible congregation. “An eternal future is at stake, I should talk about such trivia? Women?” His father walked around in excited circles.
“Women,” Yussel sighed.
“I have it in mind, Yussele, the day of the flood that maybe you talked to HaShem, that maybe you addressed Him directly for the first time in your life? And that’s a good thing to talk to Him directly. Don’t get me wrong.” His father stopped, waited. “Nu?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Listen, Goyim talk to Yoshke, they get bliss. I talk to HaShem, I get tzuros. I mean tzuros.”
“He answered …”
“I need such answers? A flood? A woman heating my blood until it boils? Ain’t bliss, Totte.”
His father started to walk around again. “I also have it in my mind that maybe when you talked, when you asked HaShem to make sure you got water, maybe you also asked Him to get my Flower Child off your mind?” His father looked up from under his eyebrows. “With all due respect, Yussele.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe you made a little complaint He didn’t give enough to you, to the chickens, to the world?”
“Maybe.”
His father clapped his hands. “So.” Then he started with his right thumb, arguing, making points, every time digging down with the question and up with the answer, arguing, agreeing, understanding. “So. The question is, can Yussel Fetner handle His abundance? My second wife was not abundant enough. You could endure her, you could handle her, you managed to get rid of her, and, I hope soon, you’ll find her and take care of her. With all due respect, my Flower Child angel is second team compared to your Lillywhite in the shmata jeans. So HaShem finds out you can handle my Flower Child and he sends in his first team. Lillywhite is a challenge you can’t handle.” Yusse’s father clapped his hands. “So far, so good, Yussel?” He didn’t wait for an answer. Now he used his left thumb also in the argument. Both thumbs agreed with each other. Both came up at the same time. “So. Lillywhite is sent to you because she is a challenge you can’t handle.”
“I thought HaShem only sends you what you can bear.”
“The kind of person you are now, you have more than you can bear. The kind of person you might become, Yussele, maybe … maybe … you can overcome this challenge. You know what Carlyle said? ‘In order to reach your inner being you must find a great love or a great tragedy.”’
“Given a choice, I’d take the great love and forget the tragedy.”
“Carlyle forgot a great love can also be a great tragedy.” His father wrapped his arms around his legs. “Farshteist, mein kindt?” His doors caught the last light of the day. “You understand, my child?”
Yussel dug a finger into the sand to see if it was still warm underneath. It was. His blood jumped. God knows it was a better feeling than respiratory arrest on the dunes.
“He’s showing you what it is to want. I understand how you want, Yussel. Because that’s how I want HaShem. It’s the same hunger. He’s giving you a dose. The closer you get, the more you want. Sex, God. It doesn’t satisfy you. It just makes you hungrier. That’s what happens when you start climbing the rungs. I think maybe now He intends you take some steps. It’s very dangerous, such steps. That woman …” His father shook his head. "Maybe she’s a way to your inner being?”
Yussel sighed. “I’m a married man, a pious man.”
“Yeah, yeah. Me too. Twice.”
Yussel shivered. The wind picked up. The dunes shifted, changed shape. His father stared off into the great silent distances, into nothing Yussel could see. Strange shadows formed, reformed, drifted along the crests beyond the sunset lights. The river turned black. A dog/wolf/
something howled. Coyote. There would be coyote here.
His father’s voice was soft, subdued. “My whole Yeshiva class is in Gan Eden. They look around. They say, ‘Hey, look who’s missing. Would you believe Fetner, that cuchem, with his lineage? He’s down there with Pecky Storch. Hah hah.’ My whole Yeshiva class, laughing. ‘He doesn’t have a son?’ they ask. Who, Pecky?’ ‘No, Fetner.’ ‘Sure he’s got a son. But he’s no good.’ Pecky Storch was the worst kid in my Yeshiva class. I am with Pecky these days, a murderer.”
“Your sins aren’t exactly equal. A kitchen door isn’t the same as murder.”
“Doesn’t work that way. For my kind of soul, what I did to give another human being pain is as much a sin as what Pecky did for his kind of soul.” His father stood, stretched.
“He get pajamas?”
“Naah, cigars, English shoes. Pecky can’t come back because of his temper. The poor shmuck doesn’t even have a son. Thieves, murderers, men without sons, that’s what I have to while away eternity with. And every time I turn around you’ve done something. You’ve ignored this, forgotten that. There’s just no way out for me. Me and Pecky. Forever.” His father brushed sand from his bathrobe, sighed deeply, started to take long sliding steps down the hill. Yussel followed. “Right now they’re matching up the lead for the new door. Right now. One more lead door coming up. Next maybe a ball and chain.”
“Totte, first you say she’s intended. Then you accuse me of sinning? Is it intended I sin?”
“Intended, maybe for a challenge. Also we don’t know which side intends her, or for what purpose. I don’t know yet who took your screen. Maybe from the Other Side, the Sitra Ochra, maybe from the Yetzer Hara, the devil. Maybe the good guys and the bad guys are working together to break you down. Who knows? What I do know is you’re being asked to pay attention, to make important decisions. Something’s put in front of you, you better pay attention.”
