Invisible City

by Julia Dahl

  Malka pauses, then continues.

  “Did you know that in Borough Park and Williamsburg and Crown Heights, Orthodox shopkeepers allow many of their customers to shop on credit?” asks Malka. “They fill their baskets with what they need and their purchases are simply logged in an account. It is called aufschraben. No Jew goes hungry in Brooklyn. No child goes without clothing or formula, because families like the Mendelssohns pay the grocery bills of those who are less financially fortunate. If the community were more integrated with those outside, such a system would not be possible.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I say. “That’s really interesting.” Maybe, I think, I could write about that, once this is all done.

  “It is important to me that you understand all this,” says Malka. “I do not wish to invite scrutiny by people who do not respect our way of life, but the secrets have to stop. The community can heal, but individual people, boys and girls, they cannot. They need protection. Someone murdered Rivka Mendelssohn and her daughter. That person did more damage to the strength of the community than a thousand newspaper articles.”

  *

  It’s after one in the morning when I get back, but Iris is up watching TV.

  “I hadn’t heard from you,” she says. “I was worried.”

  As she makes tea, I tell her about Coney Island and Albert Morgan and Saul’s arrest and meeting Sara and Malka. We spread the contents of the two manila envelopes on the kitchen table. I start reading Malka’s notes, and Iris pulls out the photographs.

  “Jesus, Rebekah,” she says. “Have you seen these?”

  I lean over. The first picture is of the baby, taken maybe six inches from her face: Her eyes are slightly open. Her pudgy cheeks are red with webs of broken capillaries. There is a bloodless cut on her bottom lip. The next is the child’s head from the back. It looks like someone hit her with a bat. A bruise extends across her skull. When I was standing above this little girl’s mother’s body on Saturday, I was too shocked to empathize. I knew I needed to remain standing, so I didn’t look at the black skin surrounding each wound and think about the pain. But Shoshanna’s bruise, glossy in a picture, looks like it hurt. How do you do that to a baby?

  “According to Malka’s notes, there were two points of impact on the baby’s head,” I say.

  “Two? Fuck. Who are these people?”

  “I only see this one,” I say, pointing to the dark center of the wound. “But I guess I don’t really know what I’m looking for.”

  Iris gets up. “Yeah, I can’t look at that.” She goes to the couch but doesn’t sit down. “And the police don’t have any of this?”

  “I don’t think so. But I have to figure that out for sure tomorrow.”

  “Do you think the husband killed them both?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I can see him maybe killing Rivka. But bashing a fucking baby’s head in is different. And children are really important in the community, too. It doesn’t make sense that he’d kill his own child. Unless he was fucking evil.”

  “Maybe it’s like in China, where they kill the girls because they want a boy.”

  “I don’t think it’s like that,” I say, but who the fuck knows?

  That night, I sleep—or rather don’t sleep—like I’m drunk. When I close my eyes, I feel dizzy. I dream of lying in bed and feeling dizzy. And I dream of Shoshanna. I’m sitting at Starbucks and she’s in a high chair beside me. Her nose is bleeding.

  TUESDAY

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  My alarm rings at seven thirty, and though I’ve barely slept, I have little trouble getting out of bed. I log on to the Trib’s Web site and find my article about Rivka Mendelssohn—including her photo. Larry’s item about Saul’s arrest is listed below it. No picture illustrates his story.

  I call Larry’s cell to tell him about my meeting last night.

  “I’ve got today’s story,” I say. “Last night I met with the woman who prepared Rivka Mendelssohn’s body for burial. The same woman also prepared her daughter’s body.”

  “Her daughter?”

  “She had a daughter, an infant, who died last year. My source is a woman whose family owns the funeral home. She prepares Jewish women for burial. She says they both had massive head trauma. She says both were homicides.”

  “You’ve got her name?”

  “Yes,” I say. “And her notes.”

  “Autopsy?”

  “No. She said it’s against Jewish law to cut open the body. But she made notes from what she saw. And there are pictures.”

  “Great work,” says Larry. “Give me the name, I’ll run her background.”

  I do, and we agree to meet at the office to look at the reports. When I get in, Larry is sitting at the same computer that I wrote my story on last night. I pull up a chair and show him the reports. I also fill him in on what Malka and Sara told me about Leiby Bronner and the rabbi. Mike comes over to get an update. We tell him what we have.

  “Okay,” he says, “I’m going to the meeting with exclusive postmortem reports on crane lady and her infant daughter. We need official comment on all this. Where are police on crane lady’s killer? Do they think she was killed at the yard or just dumped there? What did they know about the baby? Did they know? Do they think the two are connected?”

  “I can work that,” says Larry. “I’m gonna try to get someone at the M.E.’s office to look at these, too.”

  “Great. So, Rebekah, you’re back in Borough Park. We really need a picture of the baby.” I flash to the dead girl’s face. Alive. He means we need a picture of her alive. “You’ve spoken to the sister-in-law? Maybe you can get one from her.”

  I tell him I’ll try. Larry and I leave together; we both get on the N headed downtown.

  “Saul Katz is at the courthouse in Brooklyn,” Larry tells me after we sit down. The Caribbean island of St. Lucia has purchased advertising throughout the entire subway car. All around me are color photos of pristine beaches: white sand and blue water. “He’s got a bail hearing this afternoon. My guess is that the judge will let him out.”

  “What about Leiby Bronner? Do they have an explanation for why he was never charged for that?”

  “I’m waiting on that. They know I know. I need to get the Bronner family’s number from the library.”

  Larry transfers to the R at Union Square, and I continue on, into Brooklyn, aboveground and back below. I get off at New Utrecht, just a block from the building that I first saw Aron Mendelssohn come out of. I walk over, and as I lean in to peek into the ground-floor window, the door in the building beside 5510 opens and a haggard, dumpy-looking woman dressed in black pulls open the door with her foot, struggling to squeeze a double-wide stroller outside. Three other small children run in front of her; boys with sidecurls, girls in matching skirts. I hold open the door to try to help her and glance up the narrow stairs where she came from. There are six different buzzers in the doorway. How do they all fit in what must be a tiny apartment? My mother was not from a wealthy family like the Mendelssohns; my grandfather managed a livery cab company. My father told me that he mostly employed Jewish immigrants, many of them from Russia, and that the Kagans assisted the families in their transition to American life. Little Aviva showed the Russian girls how to ride the bus to school; she read with them, gave them her old skirts and sweaters and winter coats. My father said that Aviva first got the idea that not every Jew in the world followed the same strict laws of living as her family did from the immigrant girls. He said they were confused about the rules governing stocking thickness, and about not being able to sing in public. Once my mother got it in her mind that maybe God wasn’t the one making the rules, as Suri had said, it all turned into bullshit. And the fact that her life was built on bullshit—and that nobody else saw the truth—made her angry.

  But here on the main drag in Borough Park, and in houses and apartments as far as I can see, there are thousands of men and women for whom, ostensibly, none of it is bullshit. It is Go
d’s will, as natural as breathing, as common as writing a rent check. It is the foundation of life. The meaning, the reason, the tools. It is how sorrow and disappointment and frustration are overcome. Do these things and you will know God. Do these things and he will reward your devotion. The ridicule of the outside world is meaningless. But inside the fold, in the family, in the home, doubt is a cancer. A blooming menace; poison.

  I’m standing on the corner of Fifty-ninth Street when I see Miriam. She emerges from a corner deli with her head down. She lights a cigarette and then starts walking quickly down New Utrecht toward the Mendelssohn home. I have to jog to catch up with her.

  “Miriam,” I say, when I am two paces behind. “Excuse me, Miriam?”

  She turns sharply, her eyes wide.

  “We cannot talk here,” says Miriam. “Come.” She resumes her pace. I follow, two blocks and then a left, and another block and a right. She stays ahead of me, sucking on her cigarette. Across the street from the house, she stops.

  “They do not know I have gone,” she says. “We are sitting shiva and we cannot leave the house. Aron and the children are in the living room on their chairs and I went to lie down in my room. But it is too much in that house. There are too many children. Do you understand? I had to get out. My brother. He expects me to be their mother. But I am not their mother. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” I say. “Do you have a minute for me to ask you some questions? We could do it inside.”

  Miriam shakes her head. “No.” A woman and her children come up the block. Miriam turns her back to them. They pass us by without a glance.

  “Come,” says Miriam. She drops her cigarette on the sidewalk and crosses the street. When we get to the edge of the Mendelssohn lot, she stops and peers around a leafless shrub. “Go to the side. See if the window shades are open.”

  “What?”

  “Go!” she says. “They cannot see me outside. Go! Through the gate. See if they are looking.”

  I go. I walk up to the gate and slowly lift the latch, running through the words I’ll say if I encounter Aron Mendelssohn. Hello, sir. Trespassing? Oh no, your sister asked me to stop by. If I could even get the words out before I just turn and run. The backyard is empty and quiet. Snow is frozen in dunes beside the shoveled brick walk between the house and the garage. The window in the back door, the door I went through last time, is covered with a curtain. I take two more steps and see a row of windows; the kitchen, perhaps. They are not covered with curtains, but inside the room seems dark.

  “See?” Miriam is suddenly behind me. “There are many windows. Come. I need one more cigarette.” She crouches down and scurries behind the house, underneath the row of windows. She turns and motions for me to follow, then darts across the yard and disappears inside the garage. I look around. It’s an overcast morning. Cold, but less windy than the past few days. A man in a black hat walks by the house. Does Miriam really have to hide in the garage to smoke? My heart is starting to flutter unpleasantly. There are so many fucking secrets in this world. I can feel my armpits slick and the skin on my neck burn. Should I not be following Miriam? My body is screaming at me. But it screams so often that it’s easy to ignore. And I have a story to get, so fuck you, body. I’m going to get it.

  The door at the side of the garage is open and I let myself in. Miriam is pacing, smoking. There is a minivan in one space, but the rest of the garage seems to be used for storage. There are half a dozen card table chairs folded up and leaning against one wall. Along the wall by the door are a couple of deep plastic bins full of discarded objects—old cookware, broken desktop filing systems, dirt-caked garden tools, a table lamp without a shade. And more bins full of empty water and juice bottles, presumably ready to recycle. Beside the bins is a wobbly plastic shelving unit holding canned food.

  “In here it is safe,” says Miriam, closing the door behind me. “You see? My brother, he does not want anyone to know about Rivka. But I will tell you. What would you like to know?”

  “I actually wanted to ask you about … Shoshanna,” I say.

  This surprises her. Her face doesn’t change—it’s still pinched and pale, her eyes half hidden beneath the thick bangs of her wig—but her body does. She jumps slightly.

  “I thought you wanted to talk about Rivka?”

  “I do,” I say. “I was hoping you could tell me how she handled the death. I spoke with some people who said she was very … affected. That it was very difficult for her.”

  Miriam scratches at her wig.

  “Could you tell me when she died?” Miriam shakes her head. She seems to have forgotten her cigarette, which is burning down slowly, ash dropping onto the concrete floor. “Were you here? Do you remember what happened? It must have been horrible.”

  Miriam says nothing. I take my notebook out of my bag and ask again, “Do you remember anything about that …?”

  “I do not want to talk about Shoshanna.”

  “Okay …”

  “Shoshanna was just a baby. Babies die. Sometimes we don’t know how. Sometimes they die inside their mothers. It is the will of Hashem. We must accept it.”

  “But she was a bit older, right?”

  Miriam glares at me. “She was a little momzer. Her mother was a zona.”

  “Her mother … you mean, Rivka?”

  “You want to know about Rivka. Rivka was weak. She turned her back on Hashem and on her family. My family. My family that took her in. Rivka had everything, but she always wanted more. She thought she deserved more.” Miriam’s face is flushed. “What do you think of this?” she asks. “What do you think of what I am telling you?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you….”

  “You said you wanted to write a story about Rivka,” she says. “I am telling you about Rivka.”

  “I know,” I say, “but maybe we could go into the house?”

  Miriam shakes her head slowly. Before I saw her on the street this morning, I hadn’t spent more than five minutes interacting with Miriam. I’d never encountered her alone and I hadn’t spent much time thinking about her personality, just her situation. Dead sister-in-law; frightened, seemingly, of her domineering brother, yet willing to talk to me in her grief. Which, come to think of it, was unlike most of the grief I’ve encountered getting quotes from the relatives of homicide victims over the past few months. Usually, they beg me to leave them alone. They hold their hands out and squint, like they’re trying to find shade from a hot, horrible sun. Please, we can’t, they say. Not now. Some sizable minority get angry; they call me a sicko, a vulture, a parasite; they slam doors. In October, I was chased off a tiny Staten Island front lawn by the aunt of a girl who was found buried in a shallow grave in New Jersey.

  But Miriam, it occurs to me, was not at all emotional. Not until now. And now it’s the wrong emotion. Miriam is not sad—she is seething.

  “What do you think of this?” she asks, breathing heavily. She comes closer to me. “What do you think of a mother who betrays her family? For sex.”

  “Sex? …”

  “When she told me, she was happy. Happy to be shaming her family and her husband. Her children.”

  Her face changes again, now to an expression of extreme distaste, like she’s just eaten a mouthful of shit.

  “‘Miriam,’ she said”—her voice is thick with sarcasm—“‘Miriam, I wish you could find this love. You would understand that it must be Hashem speaking to me. It must.’”

  “You were close, then …,” I stammer. “She trusted you?”

  “Why are you not writing this down?” She flicks her cigarette at my face. It’s just a butt now, but it hits below my right eye and stings. “Rivka betrayed her family. She was greedy and she was a zona and she deserved to die.”

  I am afraid that if I turn away, I will provoke her. This is a woman with a mental illness, I remind myself. A woman who has been mistreated. Like the men and women who mutter and pace and shout in th
e subway late at night, she is unpredictable. One wrong look, and suddenly I become a demon to be slain. I need to say the right thing, I need to remain calm, and I need to leave the garage.

  “Miriam,” I say, stepping backward toward the door, “I think maybe …”

  Miriam grabs a card table chair and swings it at me. I turn toward the door, but before I can take two steps the sharp end of one of the chair’s aluminum legs connects with the side of my skull. I stumble sideways and land on my hands and knees.

  “What do you think, Rivka?” hisses Miriam, standing over me as I try to get up, her voice an echo in my ears. My head is sparkling with pain. “Don’t you think that is a good story?”

  I look up and see she is holding something else. The table lamp from the plastic bin. I lift my hand to her, and just as the base end comes down on my head, I think, this is gonna hurt.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When I come to, I am sitting, and the first sensation I recognize is great thirst. Something is stuffed in my mouth, holding it wide open. I try to swallow and I start to choke. It feels like my tongue might fall back down my throat. My jaw is sore, the corners of my mouth pulled taut. There is something cold and wet itching in my left ear. I try to lift my hand to wipe it away, but my hand—both my hands—are tied behind my back with something coarse that is digging into my skin. Twine, maybe. My feet are tied, too, each to one leg of the chair I’m sitting in. Miriam is sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor. She has the contents of my purse laid out in front of her and she is browsing through my wallet, sliding my debit card, my Visa, my Florida driver’s license, out of their little pockets. I have no idea how long I’ve been in this garage. There are no windows.

  I watch Miriam for what seems like at least a few minutes before she looks up.

  “Rebekah,” she says, turning my license toward me. “Rebekah is Rivka. Rivka is a pretty name. Prettier than Miriam.”