A Love and Beyond

by Dan Sofer

  “This isn’t a pair of socks, Mum. It’s marriage. ‘Til death do us part. You want me to be happy, don’t you?”

  “Happy?” His mother tittered. Subtext: what a quaint idea. “I didn’t say happy, David, darling. I said married.”

  “Mother,” Dave interrupted. Cracks appeared along the dam walls of his patience. “I really have to run.”

  “Your father wants to speak to you.”

  A short commotion on the other end produced a familiar gruff voice.

  “Hello, boy. Everything all right?”

  “All good. You?”

  “Fine. Fine. Need anything?”

  “Nope. All under control.”

  A muffled conversation. “Your mother says you should try to settle down soon.”

  “Will do.”

  The telephone changed hands again.

  “David,” his mom said, “what ever happened to that lovely girl from London you dated years ago? What was her name?”

  Blood fled Dave’s cheeks. Once, he had made the mistake of sharing his dating life with his mother. That’s how certain he had been. He would not repeat the mistake. He could only hope and pray his mother would not remember her name. Dave himself tried never to think of it, never mind utter it out loud.

  “Have to go, Mum. Sorry.”

  “You should take this seriously, David. You’re not getting any younger.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  Dave replaced the receiver in the charger pad.

  Little wonder he was still single, given the marital model of his parents. How had his parents ever gotten together? How had they endured thirty-five years?

  The phone rang again. Deep inside Dave’s brain stem, something snapped.

  “What now?”

  “That’s a strange way to answer the phone,” said a much younger female voice.

  Dave slumped on the couch. “Sorry, Nat. I thought you were my mother.”

  “Ouch,” said Nat, who had met Dave’s mother. Dave had known Nat since Hasmonean Primary and she was his last remaining single friend from London.

  “I’ll keep it short, then,” she said. “I’m hosting Friday night and you’re invited.”

  “Great,” Dave said. “Thanks.”

  One meal down; one to go.

  “Wait a minute. Is it going to be one of those Katamon meals?”

  “Well, we do live in Katamon.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Dave heard Nat inhale. She knew exactly what he meant. Friday night was the time for family, Shabbos songs, and insights into the weekly Bible reading. It did not involve ten random singles drooling at each other and peacocking over infantile conversation.

  “You know I only keep the most mature and intellectual of company. They can’t help it if they’re single. What do you have against single people anyway?”

  “Nothing,” Dave said: the single person.

  “It’s a small meal. Promise. One flatmate. Two select friends.”

  Dave hesitated. Two days before Friday night, alternatives to a miserable candlelit dinner for one were fading fast. And Nat knew her way around a kitchen.

  “What can I bring to the meal?”

  No stranger to bachelor culinary ineptitude, Natalie suggested he buy two large challah loaves.

  “Oh, and we’re meeting at Ohel Nechama.”

  Dave opened his mouth to protest. Ohel Nechama, also known as The Meat Market, topped Dave’s synagogue avoidance list but he struggled to phrase his disapproval without sounding petty.

  “Coming to Rav Levi’s tonight?” Nat asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  ***

  The Ramban Synagogue on King Amaziah Street reminded Dave of a small, rectangular theater. Rows of pine wood pews formed a large U around the central platform, offering congregants clear views of the Torah altar, the Holy Ark, the congregants in the facing pews, and the women’s gallery upstairs. Dave often wondered what Rabbi Moses Nachmanides, the thirteenth-century commentator and cabbalist, would think of the house of prayer that bore his name.

  He pushed through the large pine door at the foot of the synagogue and onto center stage.

  During public lectures, the women sat on one arm of the U, and Dave, as he dashed toward the other arm, felt the press of their eyeballs until he found an aisle seat.

  Rabbi Levi’s podium stood empty on the platform. The women fell into three categories: retirees in prim hats like inverted baskets, teenagers in long skirts and sleeves, and, the largest group by far, bareheaded single women primped and primed for display.

  Dave tried to imagine the view from across the gender divide. What betrayed the single men? The well-scrubbed desperation? The furtive glances?

  He scanned the murmuring crowd for the waterfall blond.

  The three dark girls in the front row showed promise. Not marriage material—if Dave brought home an Israeli, his parents would disown him—but fair game for Dave’s phone number mission.

  The lectures, at least, maintained a semblance of normalcy. For forty-five minutes a week, Dave could pretend his life didn’t revolve entirely around dating. And, if he failed to discover a fresh face, he would still have gained insights into the weekly Torah reading. This was Dave’s hishtadlut, the token human effort required for God’s unfathomable Intervention to kick in.

  Natalie entered and shuffled along a central pew. A year ago, she had cropped her hair short, opting for low maintenance and practicality over pandering to male sensibilities. She sat down. Her eyes met Dave’s and she waved her hand discreetly. He returned an equivocal nod. He already had Nat’s number and Ben knew that. But he now had a contact beyond enemy lines. If all else failed, Dave could ask her about the blond.

  A cloud of cologne settled onto the seat beside him.

  “Hey, Dave,” Mike said.

  Although tall, confident, and handsome, the amiable Midwesterner posed no threat. He was five years older than Dave and had a thing for thin Yemenite twenty-year-olds.

  Mike placed a Pentateuch on the bookrack along the back of the next pew and scanned the talent.

  He ran a hand through his blow-dried blond hair. “Who’s the new girl?” he said. “She’s quite cute.”

  Dave followed his line of sight. “Natalie?”

  “The English girl? No. Behind her. Eleven o’clock.”

  The new girl had a mane of auburn curls, soft facial features, and, Dave had to admit, a certain charm. The leather jacket implied ba’alat teshuva, the starry-eyed newly religious types Dave avoided. Frum-From-Recent or Frum-From-Birth, either way she probably owned a phone.

  “Not my type,” Mike said, “but cute.”

  The girl touched Nat on the shoulder and they exchanged a few words.

  Bingo.

  “Made any plans for Shabbat?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing special.”

  “Great. Jeff found a deal at the Queen of Sheba. He’s driving.”

  “Eilat?”

  “The one and only. Yitz is in too. We could do with a fourth.”

  Dave’s idea of a weekend getaway involved exotic locations and his future wife. In no way did it involve a bungalow shared with three single men. But Eilat offered a refreshing break from Katamon unreality and Dave was still one meal short.

  “I’d like to, but I already accepted a dinner invitation.”

  Mike jiggled an eyebrow. “What happens in Eilat stays in Eilat. Katamon will still be here when you get back.”

  Dave juggled guilt and cowardice. Katamon, on the one hand, with its contrived Shabbat meals and continual reminders of his bachelorhood failure; Eilat, on the other, promised sumptuous buffet meals, single malt whiskey, poker, Perudo, Settlers, water volleyball, girls at the pool, and the spectacle of Mike hitting on the pretty hotel staff.

  Dave glanced at Nat in the women’s section and bit his lip.

  “OK,” he said. “I’m in.”

  “Great, I’ll call you
tomorrow with details.”

  Dave didn’t have to cancel Natalie straight after the shiur, he decided. He’d call her tomorrow morning.

  Rabbi Levi strode into the synagogue and the chatter subsided. The young, clean-shaven rabbi placed his notes on the lectern and faced his audience.

  “Vayeh’tzeh Yaakov mi Be’er Sheva,” he read. And Jacob left Beer Sheba.

  Every head in the women’s section trained on the rabbi, including Nat, who now partially blocked Dave’s view of New Girl.

  The rabbi spoke a clear and precise Hebrew. Dave understood most of it; Jacob had fled the murderous wrath of his brother Esau to his uncle Laban in Haran, on the pretext of finding a wife.

  If he was going to call Nat to cancel anyway, he could ask for New Girl’s number at the same time and avoid the awkward face-to-face. He would need a pretext.

  Jacob camped on a hilltop. In his dream, a ladder rose from the earth to the heavens. Angels shot up and down the spiritual highway. When Jacob awoke, he erected a pillar and called it Bet El, the House of God.

  He remembered the story from the previous year. He had attended the shiur for over a year now. Each week he hoped to find The One. Each week he returned home empty-handed. Was this hard luck? Or had Dave misplayed his cards, folding out early, waiting for that miraculous perfect hand? Once upon a time, dating had meant excitement and anticipation. The thrill of the hunt. Where had that old Dave gone?

  Jacob stopped at a well outside the city. Shepherds waited with their flocks. Then Rachel appeared on the horizon. In a single-handed show of gallantry, Jacob pushed the boulder from the mouth of the well. He ran to Rachel and introduced himself. Then he kissed her and broke down in tears. He worked seven years for her hand in marriage and they flitted by like days, so deep was his love.

  Had Dave already met his soul mate? Had he failed to recognize her? In his gap year, he’d studied in an Israeli yeshiva. He’d met Ayelet at the till of her father’s mini-market. The quirky American-Israeli loved all things British. She knew Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch by heart. She printed her number on Dave’s receipt and they spoke every night for weeks. Without warning, he stopped calling her. What was the point? They were nineteen and Dave had registered at London City University.

  Then there was Sarah, one of three frum souls in Psychology 101. Slender and graceful as a gazelle in her long dark skirts, Sarah would have made a gentle if not terribly intelligent wife. But Dave dreamed of aliya—of rising up, relocating to the Holy Land, the land of his forefathers, as the Bible commanded—while Sarah clung to her family in Golders Green.

  Had karma punished Dave for dropping Ayelet? Should he have been more flexible with Sarah? He didn’t think so. A third flame loomed in Dave’s mind. Dave divided his life into the years before and the years after their meeting like a cataclysmic geological event. By her burning light, Dave’s myriad blind dates, even the Ayelets and Sarahs, fell into shadow. His mother may have forgotten the girl’s name but memories of her had been branded into Dave’s heart and soul. Two years since their brief encounter, he still refused to utter her name.

  Rabbi Levi turned a page in his notes. Jacob’s dramatic courtship of Rachel formed a stark contrast to that of his parents, Isaac and Rebecca. Isaac didn’t lift a finger. Father Abraham dispatched his servant to Haran and arranged the marriage by proxy. Only after Isaac took Rebecca as his wife do we read of their love.

  Nat shifted forward, clearing Dave’s line of sight. For an instant, New Girl’s eyes locked with his.

  Dave’s head snapped back toward the rabbi. He felt the color drain from his face.

  Crap, crap, crap! Caught staring. Perfect. Dave, the leering weirdo. Before he even had the chance to make a fool of himself. Crap!

  He focused on Rabbi Levi as though his life depended on the rabbi’s every word.

  “Two dating models exist,” the rabbi said, no stranger to the demographics of his audience. “One is full of fireworks, adventure, and drama; the passion of Jacob and Rachel. The second model is quiet and calm; practical and rational. The pairing of Isaac and Rebecca. Both models are equally valid.”

  Dave hazarded a glance at the women’s section. New Girl trained her eyes on the rabbi, with no indication that anything untoward had occurred.

  “In recent times,” Rabbi Levi continued, “books and films have idealized romance. Fireworks and adventure are no longer an option but a necessity. Young men and women discard relationships when there is no spark, no immediate passion.”

  Elderly heads nodded in agreement. Embarrassed smiles spread on many of the younger listeners. The façade of normalcy shattered on the tiles of the synagogue floor. More than ever, Dave wanted to be alone in his bachelor pad, away from probing eyes and good Samaritans.

  Rabbi Levi hammered the point home. “Young men and women need to realize that another courtship model exists, slow and steady but just as likely to foster long-term marital content. Getting along, enjoying each other’s company, can be the basis for a life-long, satisfying relationship, even without the thunder and lightning, heroic acts, or superhuman feats.”

  The rabbi wished them Shabbat Shalom and collected his notes. Before long, a chattering human sea filled the floor and blocked Dave’s escape route. Mike had already engaged a young, dark Israeli in conversation, while Dave drifted, buffeted toward the great wooden door.

  Nat and New Girl bobbed toward the exit. Their trajectory would converge with his at the door. Nat raised a hand and signaled at Dave.

  Too late to duck out now.

  New Girl whispered in Nat’s ear. They smirked. Dave’s beating heart rose up his throat. Crap, crap, crap!

  “Hi, Dave,” Nat said.

  “Hi, Nat.” Dave kept his eyes on Nat. The stream of bodies bumped against him. The expectant lull in conversation sucked on his mind. He searched for something witty to say. A pivotal moment welled up. Ask her number. Ask her name. Make your move.

  He opened his mouth. “Got to run,” he said and slipped out the door and into the night.

  ***

  Deep within the Talpiot industrial zone, two men entered a dark alley and prepared to face their destiny. Their shadows stretched along the wet tarmac strip that squeezed between dormant warehouses. Passing traffic on Pierre Koenig threw Doppler echoes against the hoods of their anoraks. The deserted street smelled of trash and cat piss. Raised loading platforms watched them pass in the gloom.

  Beyond a single, flickering fluorescent lurked a large white transit van. The van had seen better days.

  “Stone the crows,” Jay said. Clouds of mist formed at his mouth and evaporated. He had copied the directions onto a Falafel King napkin in an Internet café off Ben Yehuda Street. This was the right address, but he had expected something… well, different. Scratched and dented, the vehicle did not look like the ride of the prophet, whom Jay knew only as “the Teacher.” Then again, God favored the humble and the meek. And the meek would inherit it all.

  “What a bomb,” said his companion, who was shorter and stockier than Jay, his coffee-toned skin foreign to this continent. “I don’t like the looks of this, Jay.”

  Time for another pep talk.

  “O ye of little faith,” Jay began.

  He had memorized a handful of quotes from the Scriptures, and this one had come in particularly useful.

  “All right, all right,” said his friend. “Let’s have a gink and be done with it. This place gives me the willies.”

  The driver’s compartment was empty. Jay reached for the Falafel King napkin in his pocket to recheck the directions when he heard the clunk of a heavy door unlocking at the back of the van.

  The two men circled the vehicle. The doors swung easily.

  “Get in,” said a deep voice in the darkness. “And shut the door.”

  They climbed inside and sat opposite one another on metal benches built into the interior of the van.

  As the doors closed, there was a click and white light flooded the inte
rior.

  Jay squinted. At the back of the van, beneath the ceiling light, a cloak of gray sackcloth faced them. A black void filled the cowl where a face should be.

  That’s more like it.

  “You didn’t mention your friend.” The voice spoke with a slight British accent.

  “This is John, my cuzzy bro,” Jay said. “He’s no trouble.”

  The dark cowl considered this for a few breaths, then said, “Do you have it?”

  Jay slid the knapsack off his shoulder.

  “Here you go. Right where you said it would be.”

  Jay handed over the bag. The object he had pinched was too plain and simple to be of any real value. Jay’s mission had been a rite of passage, nothing more, or so he had thought, but the long gloved fingers in the sleeves of the cloak trembled as they snatched the bag.

  Time to collect.

  “Now then,” Jay said, “about this Hidden Treasure—”

  “I believe,” the cloak interrupted, “there was an incident.”

  Jay blinked.

  “The security bloke? I wouldn’t worry about him.” Jay winked at John, who studied the corrugated floor of the van. “He won’t remember a thing.” Jay had floored the baldy in the official City of David polo shirt with a single blow.

  The cloak was not impressed.

  “Assault was not part of the plan. We don’t want to… attract attention.”

  Jay gritted his teeth. He had expected praise. A coronation. Anointment with Sacred Oil. But this first meeting had to go well if Jay was to move to the next level.

  “I understand,” Jay said.

  “Very well. But you must keep a low profile. People will not understand your… unique gifts. Not until the End.”

  “The End?”

  “The End of Days. You will learn more in due time, my son.”

  My son.

  Jay hadn’t heard those words in what seemed a lifetime.

  “And the treasure?”

  “The treasure, yes. We are very close and this”—the Teacher raised the knapsack—”brings us one step closer. More steps remain. You must learn The Way and then you will change the world forever. We have waited centuries. We must wait a little longer. Patience, my son.”