by Rhoda Lerman
What do you want from me, Lillywhite? My left ball or my right one? I didn’t kill Jesus. I didn’t kill your father. You didn’t kill your father. Things happen. Take your tzuros and leave me alone. His speech to Lillywhite completed, Yussel gave a short formal welcome, told Reverend Bismark’s class that it must have been intended their children were fighting because God wanted them all to get together and try to understand each other as long as they had to live in the same town, which induced nods and benign smiles. Then Yussel told them a little history of the Jews, paused now and then as he’d rehearsed, stared at them from under his eyebrows, gazed at the ceiling as if for inspiration, sprang his side curls boing boing against his ears, saw the Flower Child with Chaim, saw her hiding in the attic, heard her screaming, saw Chaim running around trying to go back into the house. All personnel accounted for? Mendl running around, counting. Mendl hadn’t known either. All personnel accounted for. They were fascinated by the side curls. He pulled them out to their full twelve inches, right side, then left side, rolled them up in little anchovies, tucked them back in. Except for the three cheery ladies whose heads were bent over their needlepoint, the adult education class took diligent notes. When Yussel asked for questions, Bismark stood, cleared his throat, pulled at his collar, took a little notebook out of his pocket. Yussel watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “We made up these questions, Reverend, before we came.” He looked around, got approving nods. Yussel thought he might have seen him at the fire. He might have been one of the firemen. Chaim would go to jail for murder, for hiding the woman, for not telling anyone she was there.
“Question one.” He was nervous and sincere. “We understand you all don’t believe in the Messiah. Is that true?”
“Believe in him? My great-great-great-grandfather saw him.”
“Saw Him?” It was Lillywhite. “What do you mean saw Him?”
“Yeah, saw him. I see you. He saw him.”
Lillywhite pursed her lips, looked down, away. Shoshanna stood by the coffeepot, scowling. Knowing Yussel wouldn’t stop her in public, Natalie was elbowing Rosebud. Bismark stood. “Your folks tell you what He looked like?”
Yussel shrugged. “What should an old Jew look like? A white beard? In a bad mood? A big nose? Overcharging? He said to my great-great-great-grandfather he wasn’t coming because his generation wasn’t ready for him.”
Some chuckled, some sat silently offended. Yussel wanted blood. He wished Shoshanna would leave, which was maybe why she was staying. “You have some more questions on your list there?”
“Question two.” The Reverend Bismark’s voice was shaky, his Adam’s apple was now a yo-yo. “Why did God make evil?”
He saw their heads bent over their notes, pencils ready for his truths. He wanted to enlighten and illuminate. He forgot Lillywhite. He forgot Shoshanna. He forgot Dina. He forgot Schmulke. He was in Yeshiva again, soaring like an eagle, the answers rolling out, his father’s words, his father’s father’s words, commentaries, commandments, stories, meanings. “Let me tell you about evil. Once the Jews prayed to God to get rid of the evil inclination. So God answered their prayers and got rid of evil. The next morning when the Jews went down to the marketplace, they couldn’t find a single egg.” Everyone laughed. Yussel was elated. “So they went back and begged God to bring the evil inclination back, they’d learn to live with it. That’s the difference between Christianity and Judaism.”
The Reverend stood again, smoothed his hair, calmer, as if he’d won something. “Have the Jews learned to live with the Holocaust?” Bismark was the mechanic after all.
Yussel stood, snapped out one side curl, then the other. “Well, it goes like this. You heard we were the chosen. Let me tell you what we were chosen for—in case some of you thought it was for something terrific. A Jew is someone whose disobedience or obedience of the Torah’s commandments determines the history of the world.” Lilly-white raised her hand. He ignored her. To his routine of looking up at the ceiling for inspiration, examining them from under bushy eyebrows, and springing his side curls, he added a patriarchal stroking of the beard. “So if we disobey our commandments, the whole world is in trouble. If you were to think about what it really means to be chosen, you’d know it wasn’t so terrific. A Jew is responsible for everything that happens. Therefore, to answer your question, we’re responsible for whatever happens to us. And to you. Maybe even the Holocaust. My father says we live in a universe where everything’s intended.” Lillywhite’s head jerked up. Their eyes met. “No act, no event happens unless God wants it to happen. My father says everything is intended.” It was the closest he had come to telling her he loved her. Someone else noticed, turned around to see who he was speaking to. Yussel forced himself to look away from her.
They wrote, underlined. Yussel soared. Maybe he was illuminating, enlightening. Maybe. In the rear a woman closed her notebook, dropped it into a shopping bag at her feet, took out a red-and-white checkerboard sweater, started knitting, moved her lips to count stitches. Suddenly Yussel realized how many thousands of other fools had tried to teach them, tried to explain, begged them for pity, pleaded for a child’s life. How few Jews had ever succeeded in changing their minds, in winning a little pity, a little mercy, a place to live, a little land, a little sympathy, a shred of understanding. How many stand-up-comic saints had stood before them, hoping for a spark, a breakthrough behind the cataracts of distaste, begging for their lives. They nod, say Je-ew in two syllables, and murder you in your bed. Go home, ladies. Play duplicate bridge, make tomato aspic, hang curtains in your garage windows. “How many of you here think the Jews killed Jesus? Raise your hands.”
Faces froze.
“So.” Yussel glanced at Shoshanna. Her little mouth was opened in a silent scream like the jackrabbit on the electric fence. But he couldn’t stop himself. “And how many of you here think the Romans killed Jesus?”
Hands shot into the air. Everyone was relieved. You want to see power, Lillywhite? I’ll show you power. Watch. Shoshanna was now watching Lillywhite as if no one else were in the room. Lillywhite watched Yussel with the same intensity. You think, Yussel thought, a wife catches you kissing someone, looking at her body, whispering into a telephone. No. A wife catches a husband in love—she sees the deep pain on the other woman’s face. It seemed, at that moment, less important a secret than that of Chaim and the Flower Child.
“Well, you’re wrong. The Jews killed Jesus. You want to hear how?” Needles and pencils hung in midair.
“You ever meet a Jewish kid who’s a wise guy? Like maybe my son? Well, two thousand years ago a very famous Rabbi in Jerusalem had a disciple who was a wise guy who always gave his teacher a hard time. He was a brilliant kid, no question. The Rabbi’s sister was the queen and he said something to her she didn’t like so she threw him out of the country and of course his disciple, this kid, Jesus …” Yussel heard some gasps. “… we call him Yoshke … went with his teacher. They went into Egypt and this kid for years gave his teacher a hard time. A million times his teacher tried to get rid of him, but he didn’t because Jesus had all this potential.”
“I never heard such a thing,” the Reverend Bismark protested.
“Don’t forget, we were there. You were in a cave in Europe chewing on your neighbor’s cheekbone.” Oh, Lillywhite, did you pick the wrong rabbi. And you too, Shoshanna. And you too, Totte. You got the wrong horse.
“So finally after many years the queen dies and the Rabbi starts out to return to Jerusalem. He and Jesus stop at an inn and the Rabbi says to Jesus. ‘Look, isn’t the wife of the innkeeper beautiful?’ And Jesus answers, ‘No, she has crooked eyes.’ Well, that’s the last straw. The Rabbi says, ‘Leave me. You are no longer my pupil. I am talking about her soul. All you see is the outside of her, that her eyes are crooked. I do not want you for a pupil any longer.’” Yussel watched his audience cringe. Shoshanna hadn’t taken her eyes off Lilly-white, maybe didn’t hear, maybe would have stopped him if she’d been listenin
g.
“So he kicked Jesus out. Now he couldn’t be a rabbi. Maybe the Rabbi couldn’t take a joke. Maybe Jesus wasn’t joking. Who knows. Anyway he kicked him out. Well, your Jesus, he was furious. It was like being kicked out of medical school because you argued with your professor. And he’s going to show them. So on Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year for us, he goes to the temple in Jerusalem and he takes with him a pin. On Yom Kippur in those days, the holiest moment was when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and spoke the secret Name of God. All the people heard the Name and they became like angels. At sundown they passed out of the temple between two gold lions that roared and the people forgot the secret Name and were again ordinary people. But when Jesus heard the Name, he scratched it on his knee so when he went out between the lions he still had the name. So Yoshke, even though they wouldn’t let him be a rabbi, was still like an angel. And he flew around the courtyard over everyone’s head so everyone could tell he still had the Name. Then he went out and healed people and did wonders with the Name that only the high priests were supposed to do. It was like the Rosenbergs stealing the atom bomb secrets and handing them out in the supermarket. So the ruling body went after him. They gave him forty days to prove he hadn’t used the Name of the Lord in vain, but of course he couldn’t prove it, nor did he want to prove it, so they stoned him to death. That, folks, is how the Jews killed Jesus. Instead of crossing yourself, you should be hitting yourself on the head.” Yussel banged on his head with his knuckles.
The Reverend Bismark was the first to shake himself, look around, stand, put his arms around two of his flock, lead them out. The others followed. Rosebud paused, caught Yussel’s eye, smiled, left. No one said good night. In moments the room was empty except for a lot of kugel, the gurgling coffeepot of Zabar’s French Roast. Shoshanna looked at him sideways, poured a cup of coffee, handed it to Yussel, unplugged the pot, said, “Whatever Chaim started, you finished. You’ve exposed us all. I’m taking the children home.” And walked out of the room.
After they could no longer hear Shoshanna’s footsteps, Lillywhite said softly, “What else does your father say?”
“My father says there’s an angel behind every blade of grass and each angel whispers to each blade, ‘Grow, darling, grow.’ I have never believed that. My father says …” Yussel couldn’t stop. Tears burned his cheeks. “My father says everything’s intended. My wife’s leaving. That’s intended. I’m in love with you. That’s intended. I kicked the Flower Child out and sent her to her death. How can such things be intended?”
From her child’s chair, Lillywhite said, “Your father’s dead. Why do you say ‘my father says’?”
“Because we talk. Because he tells me everything. I don’t listen. I can’t hear. He tried to tell me about the Flower Child of blessed memory. I didn’t listen.” They sat facing each other, Lillywhite and Yussel. “He told me to pay attention. I didn’t see what I should have seen. I stepped on the angels. I didn’t look.”
“You and your father talk to each other?” There was something ferocious in the way she asked the question. “And he’s dead.”
Yussel remembered Chaim howling, remembered him yelling that blood would be on his hands, remembered his father slapping him across the face. Lillywhite stood above him. “I want to talk to my father. I don’t want to tell anyone about people dying in fires. So be on the train.”
Once Yussel was selling single-life premiums to his cousin Asher. Asher’s kids were watching the Atlanta 500 on a six-foot TV screen. The cars and the drivers were larger than life. Yussel and Asher shouted fixed rates and variable rates over the scream of engines. Finally Asher’s wife came in and told the kids to turn the TV off. They turned the sound off. In the moment Yussel watched the silent race, a red car pulled into the pit, four mechanics surrounded it, one spilled gas on the fender, the fender ignited, the mechanic jumped back into the track and another car killed him. All without losing a beat. There could not have been a vengeance more precise, a heavenly intention more perfectly delivered. Yussel put the Flower Child in Chaim’s head. Chaim fell for her. Yussel threw her out, put her into Chaim’s house, didn’t sell him homeowner’s, couldn’t convince the firemen to put out the fire, ruled Chaim shouldn’t go inside. And now the woman his father said was intended was holding the evidence that Chaim murdered the Flower Child, certainly allowed her to die. It was the same chain of events. He had no way out. This he’d brought on himself not because he’d lusted for the Flower Child or fallen in love with Lilly-white, but because he’d ignored them. He’d made Yoshke’s error, just as Lillywhite said. He couldn’t see their souls for their tits. “Sunday,” he said to Lillywhite, “I’ll be on the train. Sunday.”
Yussel closed the door after her, rammed his hand through the wood, heard the popping of bones and cartilage, felt the pain sweep into his heart, saw the hole he’d made, knew he’d broken his bones, wanted them broken. He was broken. He looked up to the ceiling. “You win. You hear me, HaShem? You win.”
28
THE NEXT DAY RUIZ TOOK HIM TO A LARGE ANIMAL CLINIC THAT had the only X ray for hundreds of miles. Yussel lay in a room next to a black-and-white calf with a broken leg and a nozzle over its face while the vet X-rayed Yussel’s hand and arm. Ruiz made a cast for his hand. Dinela drew pictures of cats and dogs and square leaves from Paradise all over it in blue Magic Marker. Shoshanna wasn’t speaking to him. He told Shoshanna’s back he was taking them all home. First he told her he was going back East to talk to his uncles, get money, set up a business, maybe buy into a Weight Watchers franchise, talk to Ruchel, see if he could help. He’d be gone a week, no more, then he’d come back, get them, and they’d go home. He called his Uncle Nachman at Yale, told him he’d be there at the end of the week, told Shoshanna he was taking the train because he needed time to think, time to himself. She seemed to understand, said she’d drive him to Denver because she’d decided not to wait any longer to take Dina to a doctor. They didn’t speak to each other. They just said the things they had to say. The car needs gas. Do you have enough cash? I put food in your briefcase. Yussel didn’t even try to talk her out of driving him to the train, decided if it were intended she should see Lillywhite, she’d see Lillywhite. It was that simple. She never mentioned his cast.
When he told Babe he was leaving for a week and she had to take Grisha to live with her on the bus, she said, “You’re crazier than your father,” stormed around the bus, slammed doors. “Where will I get undressed?”
Yussel let her storm, then said, “He’s got to be watched. You’ll figure out where to get undressed.”
“You think he’ll want to?” Babe asked softly.
Yussel shrugged. “He has to.”
“So if he has to, he has to.” Babe gathered courage. “I’ll tell him. I’ll make him!” Babe called after him from her bus door so everyone could hear, “I want you to know, I never heard of such a thing!”
Then he went to Chaim’s, yelled at Mendl loud enough so Chaim could hear, “I came to say good-bye. I insist on seeing Reb Chaim. I insist. I need his blessing for my trip.”
Mendl and Yussel stood at the bottom of the stairwell, watched the doorknob turn slowly on Chaim’s door, watched the door open a half-inch, an inch. Yussel climbed the stairs, let himself in, nearly fainted. Chaim had lost twenty or thirty pounds. Under his eyes the skin was black like cannonballs. Yussel hugged him so he didn’t have to look at him, said over Chaim’s shoulder. “I understand. I know and I understand.” Chaim wept in torrents. Yussel felt Chaim’s tears on the back of his shoulder, sinking in. “I’m doing everything I can no one should know. When I get back, we’ll talk. We have to talk, Chaim. You understand? You’re not alone.”
“No.”
“We’ll talk. Give me your blessing.”
Chaim mumbled something, drifted off.
Yussel said, “Amen,” anyway, squeezed Chaim hard. Mendl led him out. They couldn’t look at each other.
Babe
made them take her Lincoln to Denver. Yussel wrapped Dina in a quilt, tucked her into the front seat of the Lincoln, pulled his hat down over his face, sank into leathery depression in the backseat. Shoshanna drove. Dina curled up, put her head in Shoshanna’s lap. Shoshanna sang to her. When they stopped at the Texaco for gas, Shoshanna held her head high, spoke crisply and politely to Reverend Bismark. Yussel made believe he was sleeping. By ten that night they’d get to Pueblo, sleep over, drive to the train station first thing in the morning. Yussel’s father sat next to him in the backseat, pushed his hat off his forehead. In flashes of light from oncoming traffic, Yussel saw two aluminum jalousie doors. His father clicked the slats of his doors open and closed. Yussel shook his head in the dark. “Am I doing this because I’m supposed to or because I want to?”
“Maybe both.” His father put his hand on Yussel’s knee. Yussel remembered his mother’s touch on his forehead when he had a fever. “Listen, I knew other guys on earth … an extra wife in Utica; another family in Hempstead. They didn’t get struck down. They led long and productive lives. A little busy.” His father patted Yussel’s knee, spoke intensely. “It’s only a day and a half on the train, Yussele. Big deal, a day and a half. I’m looking at eternity.” He leaned over the front seat, over Dinela, sang along with Shoshanna, soft lullabies, prayers. Yussel slept, prayed, slept. His father shook him awake once. “Yussele, wake up. I have to tell you something. No matter what happens, on the train, I’ll always be near you. Your world, my world, any world you’re in, we’re side by side, like envelopes in a dark drawer. Not even, not that separate, but I don’t know how else to explain it. I can move round from envelope to envelope in the drawer. I even went to Horodenka!”
