The Book of Trees

by Leanne Lieberman

  The bus sharply rounded a corner, and I grabbed the seat to avoid falling. Why did the guitar guy have a song for me? I was wearing a long skirt and a dorky sunhat. My life was about good works and spirituality, not appearances. Shit. I was still finding cute guys, or they were finding me. I should lock myself up in the B’nos Sarah dormitory.

  I decided not to give out any more sandwiches; it was embarrassing. The rest of Sheila’s money could go to B’nos Sarah or the craft center. Or I’d drop it into the old woman’s margarine tub.

  Back at the dorm I put on my exercise pants and a baggy T-shirt, slid my Madonna CD into my Discman and fast-forwarded to “Holiday.” I’d been a Madonna fan ever since I heard the Like a Virgin album when I was ten.

  Running in Israel was an obstacle course of steep hills and amazing views. On my route up to Mount Scopus I first waged the grueling uphill battle to Hebrew University. I could feel my glutes and hamstrings bunch and tighten. Blood pounded in my head as my labored breath filled me. I wasn’t Mia Quinn; I was a body winning a race, pushing itself up a hill. I was a conqueror of sand and Jerusalem stone, my pulse surging to new highs. My heart pumped, muscles flexed, bones strode on a swell of endorphins. The tightness from sitting on a hard wooden chair and squinting at Hebrew texts dissolved as I pumped my arms up the hill. Sweat trickled down my forehead, pooled in my bra, dampened my hair.

  At the top of the hill the magnificent vista of Jerusalem came into view as I cruised the relatively flat road around the Mormon College campus. Then I endured the knee-jarring downhill plunge past the falafel stand that doubled as a dentist’s office. I ignored the old men who leered each time I passed. The road bottomed out by the Hyatt Hotel and then rose again up to French Hill, the steepest part of the whole run. A shortcut through the Hadassah Hospital parking lot and up a vacant hill made the final surge a little shorter, yet also steeper. I could only make it if I sprinted and timed it to correspond with Madonna’s “Rescue Me.”

  I used the edge of my T-shirt to wipe the sweat out of my eyes as I turned in to the parking lot. Only a few more moments of torture. “Rescue Me” came on, the pulse of the drums, the clear vocals helping me pick up my pace.

  I started working toward my sprint, my feet pounding the cracked pavement. The sun glared off the car windows. Heat seemed to be emanating from me, yet my arms kept pummeling the air. A car full of young guys honked at me and gave a cheer. I pretended not to see them.

  Finally I passed through the metal gate to the field. Less than a minute now. My heart surged, firing my legs up the dry dusty path. The crest was only strides away. Rescue me. I went over the top and started leaping like a ballet dancer with my arms wide in a grand jeté.

  Then I saw a boy on a donkey coming up the hill toward me. My euphoric high became a surge of panic. I jumped out of the way, into the field of dry grass. Staggering, I braked hard and stared at the boy as he passed. “Shalom,” I whispered. He stared back at me as he trotted by.

  I struggled to catch my breath. What was an Arab kid on a donkey doing in the middle of French Hill? Then I saw the goats following him. I imagined him thinking, Why is some crazy girl running through the field?

  I shook my head and continued running uphill through the curving streets of tidy French Hill apartments. At the lookout, I sucked ferociously on my water bottle, wiped the sweat dripping down my face and cursed my modest exercise pants. I took off my Discman and lifted one leg onto the park bench to stretch out my taut, pinging hamstrings. Sometimes I fantasized about the slinky purple one-piece exercise suit I used to wear when I jogged at home. No one had glanced twice at me. Well, almost no one, except for some pervy old men and drooling adolescent boys. Here there’d be traffic accidents.

  When I got back to the dorm, Aviva was sitting cross-legged on her bed with a cheap Yamaha guitar.

  “Hey, where did you get that?” I asked.

  “Oh, one of the girls from my class lent it to me. You were running again?”

  “Yeah.” I took a swig of water.

  “Isn’t it crazy hot?”

  “I’m starting to get used to it.” I sat down on the floor to stretch.

  “You know, there’s a women’s gym some of the girls belong to.”

  “I’m not much of a gym person. Besides, this way I get to see more of the city. Hey, I didn’t know you played guitar.”

  Aviva looked like she might say something else about my running. Then she looked down at the guitar. “I’m trying to teach myself so I can play for havdalah.”

  “What’s havdalah?”

  “You know, the prayers you sing at the end of Shabbos.”

  “Oh, right.” I wiped my hands on my baggy T-shirt and reached for the guitar. “Let me tune it for you.”

  Aviva handed it over. “I didn’t know you could play.” She gawked as I adjusted the strings. “You can do that without one of those tuners?”

  I nodded and started strumming “Stairway to Heaven.” “How does that hava-whatever song go?”

  Aviva hummed and I started playing along.

  Aviva’s mouth dropped open. “You can just play what I sing?”

  “Sure. You put fingers like this and then—”

  “Hey, could you play for choir?”

  “Um, sure. That would be fun.” I hadn’t thought about playing Jewish music. Guitars and playing for other people were part of my old life.

  “How about this? Can you play this?” She sang another tune, and I played along. Aviva gaped at me. “How do you do that?”

  “I just hear it. My dad taught me. He’s a—I mean, he’s good at music.”

  “Wow, wait till the other girls hear.” Aviva looked ready to run down the hall and call them into our room right then.

  I handed back the guitar and then wished I hadn’t. “How long do you have the guitar for?”

  “Oh, just a few hours.” She concentrated on playing a G chord.

  I leaned over and adjusted her fingers.

  “Like that?” She played the chord.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I sat back on my bed. “Hey, have you ever been to the Dome of the Rock?”

  Aviva looked up from the guitar. “No.”

  “Do you wanna come with me? We could go Friday.”

  Aviva looked mortified. “Don’t you know? Jews shouldn’t go there.”

  “Let me guess.” I flopped back on my bed. “It’s not safe.”

  Aviva put down the guitar. “Mia, you could be walking right over the Ir Hakodesh, the holiest part of the temple, and not know it.” Her eyes stretched wide to show how serious she was.

  “Huh, I never thought of that.” I guessed the ir ha-whatever was the inner sanctum. I sat up and started stretching my calves. “So, to rebuild the temple, it would have to be where the Dome is?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wooo-eeee. You’d have to destroy the dome, huh?”

  “Yes. That’s one reason why Palestinians want control of Jerusalem.”

  “You can’t blame them.”

  “My father says they should have settled for what the UN offered in ,48.”

  “What was that?”

  “The UN wanted to make Israel into two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian. The Jews agreed, although reluctantly. The Palestinians refused and started the war.”

  “I guess they were determined to keep their homeland.”

  A flash of contempt glinted in Aviva’s eyes. “Too bad they couldn’t compromise just a little. They could have had half of Jerusalem. Lucky for us though.”

  I looked at Aviva for a moment and thought about the boy and his goats. “Yep, lucky for us.” I got up to shower.

  FOUR

  I decided to skip halacha class the next afternoon. I didn’t feel like going to the Old City or the craft center, so I wandered down Ben Yehuda again. I bought a stack of postcards and sat on a shady patio sipping coffee and trying to write to Sheila. Dear Mom, Israel is really hot. Dear Mom, School is everything I thought it would be
. I decided on Dear Mom, Israel is a very interesting and spiritual place.

  I became religious because I’d decided I needed more spirituality in my life. The day last winter when I lay in the snow during the ice storm and looked up at the trees, I’d had a sense of how awesome the world was. I felt myself soar up with those trees, and I knew I wanted more moments like that. I just didn’t know how to get them. I had trekked back to the park a few days after the storm, but the ice had melted and cracked the branches into odd, truncated shapes. The winter felt old and shabby. It made me dizzy to stare up at the sky.

  My life back then felt very gray. With Don, Flip and the band gone, depression settled on me like a weight on my chest. Everything I did felt pointless. My school friends were excited about going to university or traveling after grad, but I had no idea what I wanted to do or be. I’d always thought I’d be a musician, but now I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to be like Don, always away on tour, always wandering.

  One day I was in my favorite café when a small poster with a picture of a menorah on it caught my eye.

  Spiritually Exhausted?

  Come renew your Jewish soul through song.

  Celebrate Shabbat in our community.

  It was sponsored by a group called Jewish Outreach. I read the poster again. I liked to sing, and I felt spiritually exhausted, empty even. I knew a little bit about Judaism from my Bubbie Bess. We used to have Friday-night dinners at her house when I was younger. Bess always lit Shabbat candles and said a prayer over the wine. I stood in the café staring up at the bulletin board and thought about those dinners at Bess’s house, how peaceful they had felt. I wrote down the Jewish Outreach number and stuck it in my pocket.

  I spent the week hemming and hawing about calling. Finally I dared myself to call. I figured I didn’t have to go if it sounded too weird. When I called, I spoke to a Mr. Zev Teitelbaum.

  “Hi, I saw your poster about Shabbat, and I was thinking I might like to try it.”

  “Of course you can come for Shabbos. Every week if you like.”

  “Oh, well, maybe just once would be okay. I’m not really all that Jewish. I mean, my mom is, but I don’t really know anything and—”

  “So, you’ll come and learn. This Friday, okay?”

  “Well, okay.”

  “You should go to the Blumes’ house. They live at— do you have a pen?”

  “Um, sure. This is at someone’s house?”

  “Yes. You should have Shabbos in the community.”

  “Oh. Should I bring something?”

  “No, just come.”

  He gave me the address and told me to wear a long skirt—nothing skimpy—which made me feel both embarrassed and nervous.

  I almost didn’t go. I stood in front of the mirror at home trying to decide between a knee-length velvet circle skirt and a longer tube skirt. The circle skirt showed off my long legs and the tube skirt was fitted across the butt. Neither were appropriate. In the end I wore the circle skirt with my favorite pair of cowboy boots and an almost modest cardigan with beading across the chest. The directions were to a neighborhood where a lot of Orthodox Jews lived. When I rang the bell, a huge bearded guy in a kippah answered the door like he’d been waiting all his life for me to show up.

  “Welcome, welcome. I’m Joseph Blume. Please come in.” He took my coat. “Have you ever been for Shabbos before?”

  I shook my head. I’d been to my bubbie’s, but never to an Orthodox home. I wanted to back out the door.

  He clasped his hands together. “Such an honor to share your first Shabbos with you.” He sounded genuinely excited. “Chava,” he called down the hallway to the kitchen, “this is Mia’s first Shabbos!”

  Mrs. Blume, a little mousey thing wearing an awful gray hat, came down the hall. She looked like a small mushroom. She gave me a huge smile and grabbed my hands. “We’re so happy you could come.” I kept nodding and smiling.

  I followed the Blumes into a dining room crowded with people standing around a table laid with a white cloth and blue-edged china. Mr. Blume invited everyone to sit down, and a teenage girl with dark curly hair, the Blumes’ daughter I guessed, came in from the kitchen.

  Mrs. Blume blessed the candles. I remembered some of the words from Bubbie Bess’s house and mumbled along. A sense of nostalgia for Bess and her apartment enveloped me.

  Then Mr. Blume sang a Hebrew love song about a woman of valor. I watched in awe as this fat middle-aged man sang this loving song to his frumpy wife in front of a table of guests. I tried to picture Don singing Sheila a love song in front of our family. Even though he was a musician and had a beautiful voice, I couldn’t imagine it. I felt a lump in my throat like I was going to cry. I swallowed it away.

  After the song, Mr. Blume’s daughter, Aviva, stood before him and he put his hands on her head and whispered a blessing in her ear. I’d never seen that before and I started to tear up. I wanted to get up and excuse myself to go to the bathroom, but the table was so crowded, at least six people would have had to move to let me out. So I sniffed a little and murmured “Allergies” and let my hair fall in front of my face, just in case anyone was looking at me. They weren’t. They were all watching this dad show how much he loved his daughter. I tried to imagine Don giving me any kind of blessing, or even a song—it so wasn’t going to happen. I gritted my teeth.

  What if I made my future different? What if that was me at one end of the table with a husband who sang me love songs every Friday night even though we’d been married twenty years? What if I had a husband who loved our children to pieces and blessed them every week with a secret whisper in their ears? What if?

  Mr. Blume blessed the wine and then everyone filed into the kitchen to wash their hands in a complicated ritual I didn’t understand, pouring water over each hand with a special pitcher. All the guests filed back to the table and sat silently until Mr. Blume blessed the challah, a braided bread, and passed it around. I’d never sat in silence with a room of people before, not even for a minute.

  After the meal, the Blumes passed around little song-books. I watched as Mr. Blume closed his eyes, tipped back his head and sang “Ribbono shel Olam.” “Master of the Universe.” His family joined him, their voices floating on the wide-open notes. The other guests joined in as best they could, stumbling through the transliteration.

  I started to sing the song too, and an amazing feeling rose inside me. As I sang, I could feel our voices bringing peace into the world. I wanted to hug each person at the table because I felt happy and oddly united with these strangers. I wanted to feel this way— connected to others—all the time.

  I went home elated, humming one of the songs on the subway. At the Blumes’, all the pieces seemed to fit together. They worked all week and then they rested and celebrated the Sabbath together, sharing what they had with others. They sang songs at the end of the meal, with their eyes closed, and a feeling of godliness filled the room. It was better than playing with the band. It wasn’t just music, it was spiritual music. And the Blumes didn’t even need alcohol or a joint to have a good time. Singing at that religious dinner was like being in the frozen trees, except you didn’t have to wait for an ice storm. Every Friday you could be with friends and family and make that feeling through song, and you could even name that feeling: God. I couldn’t wait to call Zev Teitelbaum.

  “I want to come to another dinner, and I want to learn more,” I told him. “I want to learn about God.”

  “Wonderful,” he said.

  I started going back to the park at the end of the street in the evenings. It was spring by then and the trees were starting to bud. Each new shoot made me feel like the world was changing, and I was part of it. I’d lie on the slide and look up at the trees. I wasn’t exactly sure how to define God, but when I saw those trees, I felt sure God and nature were the same thing. I also felt you could create God’s presence with beautiful music. I never discussed this with Aviva or her family or at my classes. It felt too personal.


  Suddenly all my actions had a purpose: to bring more God into the world. Instead of trying to be the coolest or sexiest girl, or the best musician, I could help others by following God’s commandments: love your neighbor, honor your mother and father. This, in turn, would bring peace to myself and others. God, peace, music, nature—it all seemed to form a beautiful cloud of happiness in my head.

  Despite my religious conversion, I had some trouble with the bit about honoring my mother and father. I was still angry with Don. He hadn’t called all winter. He sent me a postcard, but all it said was Enjoying the snow and ice. How’s the band? Don.

  Not even “Love, Don.” I never wrote back.

  I finished my coffee, stuck my unfinished postcard in my backpack and headed up to the bus stop. On the way up the street I saw the guitar player sitting on a bench picking coins out of his case. I ducked my head and tried to scurry past, but he gazed right at me and called out, “Hey.”

  “Oh, hi.”

  He stood with his legs wide, one hip cocked forward, wearing an olive green Che Guevara T-shirt, his jeans resting low on his hips. His body was compact and muscular in a sinewy way. His legs were long and he was taller than me.

  “I hope I didn’t insult you the other day. I’m sure your sandwich was great. I just didn’t want you to think…”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Anyway, I wanted to play you something.” He gave me a cocky smile.

  “Oh…”

  “Just wait, okay?” He picked up his guitar and sang.

  Sandwiches are beautiful, sandwiches are fine,

  I like sandwiches, I eat them all the time.

  I eat them for my breakfast and I eat them for my lunch,

  If I had a hundred sandwiches, I’ d eat them all at once.

  I burst out laughing. I let my body hunch forward, arms dangling. The tension in my neck melted away.

  He grinned at me. “You know that song?”

  “My dad used to sing it to me.”

  He laughed and took off his sunglasses. Again I was surprised by his light, clear eyes. “I’m Andrew.” He stretched out his hand.