The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom

by Beth Miller

  How is Mum?

  Has Dov been told not to contact me?

  Is Nathan OK?

  Love, Crazy Kid, aka Married-Out-But-Still-Loves-You xxx

  PS I got red roses yesterday, and a Valentine’s card.

  Thirteen

  March 2016

  As instructed, I wake Leah at seven so she can get ready for ‘proper shul’, as she is now calling it. Dov knows I’m bringing her over, but it is unspoken between Dov and me that I will be driving. It is unspoken between Leah and me that I will park in the next street and walk her to his house, so Dov’s family aren’t tainted by my secularity. It is unspoken between Alex and me that I am letting Leah go to the same synagogue I attended, before I burned my bridges in my own spectacular youthful mutiny. Not only letting her go, but facilitating her being there. There is so much unspokenness going on that I feel like yelling out words, any words.

  Being the early bird, Alex is the one who always wakes Leah for school, but I can’t ask him to get her up today as he doesn’t approve of her going to shul. Mind you, nor do I. And it is his fault she’s insisting on going the whole hog. Not an entirely appropriate phrase, all things considered. If he hadn’t teased her about the synagogue-lite that Macy’s family go to, she wouldn’t have decided she needed to go to the ‘proper’ one my family attend. However, I appreciate that under the circumstances it’s my job to get her up, and to be fair, no one understands as well as I do the lure of the untried option. So I force myself out of bed on a Saturday morning and try to get her moving.

  Leah is more bleary-eyed than I am. When she was little she would be up and about in the mornings with Alex, and on weekends they’d often go somewhere for breakfast together, leaving me to have a lie-in. How I loved those lazy mornings, the happy feeling of drifting back off to sleep knowing that my two most favourite people were safe and happy together. By the time they got back, I’d be up and ready with a plan: a park or museum to visit, a toy store or bookshop to browse in, a picnic lunch… But teenage Leah, like me, finds it difficult to get up.

  She pulls violently away from my kisses and puts the pillow over her head.

  ‘Leah,’ I say plaintively, ‘you told me to wake you.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ she says.

  So I do.

  Alex is surprised to see me downstairs; he counts on having at least an hour on a Saturday morning to himself. He politely offers me a coffee.

  ‘A large one please,’ I say, opening the Saturday magazine. ‘If she really wanted to go, she’d get up.’

  ‘Fair enough, you tried.’

  Forty minutes later, Leah bursts in. ‘We’re going to be late!’

  I look at the clock. ‘We can still make it if you get dressed quickly.’

  ‘What do I wear, what do I wear?’

  ‘Ah.’ I haven’t thought this through. ‘Have you got a long skirt?’

  ‘Mum, for god’s sake, you know I haven’t!’ Leah regularly gets demerits at school for the shortness of her skirt. If I intervene on her way out, she hitches them up still higher. She has even taught herself to sew so she can turn up any new skirts that are longer than a couple of inches. I’m torn between being cross, and impressed by her determination to show her pants to the world. She isn’t even the worst offender. You should see some of her friends. In fact, you can see almost all of some of her friends, if you get what I mean.

  ‘You can borrow one of mine.’

  We run upstairs and I rummage around till I find one of my old skirts, from my pre-Alex burqa wardrobe. I haven’t worn it for years, because it reminds me of a certain rather dark period from the first year of our marriage, but I’ve always kept it, in case. In case, what? I don’t know. Leah snatches the skirt and puts it on. She’s not quite as tall as me yet, so it reaches her ankles, but that’s not the arresting thing, which is that she is wearing it with a vest top.

  ‘Leah! Arms!’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They have to be covered! Anyway, it’s March. It’s cold. Put on a jumper.’

  ‘I’ll look hideous.’

  ‘Jumper, or I’m not taking you.’

  Leah freaks when she realises that even though we’re late I’m still not going to park right outside Dov’s house. She yells at me, ‘It doesn’t matter who sees us drive up, why do you even care?’ I try to explain my sporadic adherence to the concept of not driving on the Sabbath while trying to find a parking space in one of the most densely populated parts of the entire universe. It’s possible I shout a bit more than explain, and anyway, my explanation doesn’t make sense even to me. Eventually I dump the car on a double yellow and we run three streets to Dov’s. He and his family are congregating on the pavement.

  ‘Ah, here they are!’ he says, and hugs us both. ‘You look very smart, Leah.’

  He means he can’t see her legs for the first time ever. I take him aside. ‘Dov, no indoctrination now, OK?’ He might be a father of four, and a grown man, but to me he’s still my darling little brother, meaning I am in charge.

  He gives me a goofy grin. ‘This is your daughter’s idea, not mine.’

  ‘I’m hoping she will get it out of her system quickly,’ I say.

  Dov never rises to my bait. ‘There are worse things she could be into, Aliza,’ he says mildly.

  His oldest son, Gidon, a year younger than Leah but half a foot taller and darkly handsome, sidles up to her. ‘Thought you weren’t going to make it,’ he says.

  ‘Said I’d come, didn’t I?’ she says, giving him the full feline eyes, and just like that, I realise one of the key things that has attracted Leah to the idea of shul. I smile at Ilana, Dov’s wife, who smiles back in the cautious way she always has, all the years we have known each other. To her, I will always be the crazy meshuggener who married out and shamed my family.

  Dov and Ilana lead the children, crocodile style, down the road. It is like watching a cine-film of my childhood. Our family home is only a few streets away from here, where my mum still lives with my youngest sister Gila and her family. We seven kids would file after our parents every week in the same way, in the same direction.

  I watch until they have turned the corner, my eyes a little misted, then I remember my illegally parked car and run like the clappers. As I turn into the road I realise with a start that I am in Preston Street, where long ago, Alex and I met illicitly in a café. I slow down, and look at the shops to see if it is still there, and it is! It used to be called Artello’s, I remember, and now it’s called Armando’s, but I peep in through the window and it is recognisably the same place. Ah, those heady, romantic days, before we even kissed, when I was so scared that I’d be caught, when just the sight of Alex walking into the café made my heart melt.

  I go over to my car, and shove the inevitable parking ticket in my coat pocket. It’s another thing I won’t be telling Alex.

  He’s out when I get home, the gym again presumably, for he is in the full throes of a mid-life get-fit crisis. I decide it’s time to tackle the chucking out I failed to do fifteen years ago. The box of secrets is back up on the top shelf of the wardrobe, underneath the jumpers, where it had stayed hidden for so long, until I carelessly left it in a bottom drawer the other week. Anyway, Leah is tall enough to reach up there now. And anyway again, she’s already rummaged through the box; this is bolting the stable door way too late.

  I tip the box out on to the bed. There isn’t much. I only have a few secrets. The first thing I pick up is my copy of the tna’im, the document detailing the engagement between Nathan and me. Why I’ve kept it, I don’t know. I don’t imagine Nathan kept his. Folded up inside it is a red paper napkin. Poor Nathan. I shake my head, it doesn’t do to dwell too long on the massive mess I made of his life. Not once, but twice.

  And here’s the main item of interest, to me anyway. The Re-education book, which Alex filled in for me when we first married – lists of things he liked and wanted to share, things he wanted to do with me, or – blush – to me. Thin
gs he loved about me. I expect Leah didn’t even look at this when she was feverishly searching for proof of my hidden past; ironically she would have found out a lot more about me from this than anything else in the box.

  Finally, I turn my attention to the fake wedding photo. A couple in their finery, standing under a cherry tree. A couple who never, in reality, stood together like that, under any kind of tree. If Leah had looked at the photo properly, she would have seen that the bride who has my face does not have my body. She is bigger in the bosom than I am, and considerably shorter. In real life Nathan and I were – still are, I suppose, unless one of us has shrunk – exactly the same height. In the photo I am a good three inches shorter than him. The person who Photoshopped the picture wasn’t concerned about accuracy. I hesitate, then tear the photo up into tiny pieces. It was made for good reasons, and it served its purpose, but I shouldn’t have kept it. Then I rip up the tna’im, and the red napkin from the kosher restaurant Nathan took me to. Stupid, sentimental fool to keep a serviette.

  I lie on the bed, worn out by guilt. I wonder how Leah is coping with shul. If you haven’t grown up with it, it might come as a shock. Leah won’t like being ushered upstairs with the women. She will think it sexist. She won’t be able to follow the service as she doesn’t understand Hebrew. Anyway, up in the gallery you can barely hear what’s going on downstairs; not only are the acoustics terrible, but the women tend to chatter through the entire thing. I try and put myself in her head, but I can’t imagine what she’s thinking. She is unknown to me, as unknown as a stranger.

  Did my mother feel the same about me?

  When Leah was younger, say about ten, when she was at her absolute peak of delightfulness, I’d say that I knew 99 per cent of her. She was open, talkative, confiding. She didn’t have a phone then, to have furtive conversations on, nor email, Instagram, Snapchat or any of the many ways she maintains a private life. Now I probably know less than 50 per cent of what goes on with her. No, who am I kidding? I probably know less than 5 per cent. I’d blame the phone, but I managed to be just as secretive when I was young, without one. I was a bit older than her, sure, but by the time I was in my late teens there was very little my parents knew about what went on in my head. And by the time I ran away with Alex, at twenty-three, they were as surprised as if it turned out that I was an alien.

  The front door slams and Alex calls my name.

  ‘Up here!’

  He bounds into the room, full of post-gym vigour, and jumps on to the bed next to me. ‘She made it in time, did she?’

  ‘Just about. It was so weird, watching her walk down the road with them.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  I nod. I’m not sure that I am OK, actually. I don’t know.

  ‘I ripped up the fake photo,’ I tell him.

  He looks at his watch. ‘Well done, you’re only, let me see, oh yes, fifteen years too late.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Alex.’

  He rolls on to his side and puts his arms around me. ‘I know. And I know that you really don’t want her to do this. You’re right, though. It’s the only way to make it blow over quickly.’

  ‘I think she fancies Gidon.’

  ‘Isn’t he a bit young? Anyway, I thought she fancied Ethan. Does she only like boys whose names end in an “n”?’

  ‘She watched a film with Ethan last weekend, but as soon as it was finished she sent him packing.’

  ‘Poor Ethan. Girls were just as cruel to me at that age.’

  ‘I can’t believe that. I seem to remember a certain chap boasting about his many conquests.’

  ‘Oh yeah? I seem to remember a certain woman insisting on an actual written list of my former girlfriends.’

  ‘I think I was a bit insecure.’ I grin, and say, ‘Ay-ay-ay-ay!’ This, the sound my mother made when we ran away together, used to mean, ‘I left my whole family for you.’ But over the years, it has morphed into something more: a checking-in of how far we’ve come. It reminds us of the difficulties we dealt with in the early years of our marriage, and of the ties that bind me to my past, as well as the ties that bind me to Alex and Leah.

  He strokes my cheek, which stirs me; it is often the prelude to love-making. But before I can make my move (stroke his cheek), he says, ‘It’s me who is insecure these days.’

  ‘Are you? Why?’ I stroke his cheek now, and he makes his next move – stroking the back of my neck with his fingertips, which used to send me almost crazy.

  ‘I don’t know. This stuff that Leah is raking up, I thought it was dead and buried.’

  I run my hand down his arm. ‘It is. I never think of it any more.’

  ‘But you kept the photo.’ He smooths my hair off my face. ‘You must have had some reason for that.’

  I jump ahead three moves and put my hand on his crotch. ‘I wish I hadn’t kept it. You’re reading way more into it than there is.’

  He puts his hand on my breast, the point of no return, and I think at last, now I can relax. I untie the lace of his jogging trousers and slip my hand inside, down into the sweaty depths. He whispers, ‘What did happen when you went back? Between you and Nathan?’

  ‘Nothing. You know that.’ I close my hand round his penis. Unusually, it is still soft and small, warm as a mouse. I gently coax it, but it doesn’t stir. He takes his hand off my breast.

  ‘Actually, shouldn’t you be thinking about collecting Leah soon?’

  ‘There’s no rush, she can go back with the cousins and have lunch there.’

  Alex sits up. ‘I need a shower,’ he says. ‘Do you want lunch before you get Leah?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I say, but the truth is, I don’t know how I feel.

  When I get to Dov’s, Leah opens the door and hisses under her breath, ‘Where have you been? I want to go now, OK?’

  Dov comes into the hall. ‘Hey, Aliza, want lunch? We’ve got platzels and chopped liver…’

  Everyone is offering me food. Leah makes a face at me that says, don’t you dare think about staying. I take her subtle hint. ‘Ah that’s sweet, Dov, but we’ve got to get back. Have you got your coat, Leah? Say thanks to Uncle Dov for taking you.’

  ‘Thank you, Uncle Dov,’ Leah says in a robot’s voice.

  Gidon comes out into the hall and barges up to us. ‘You coming again next week, Leah?’

  She looks at the floor and says, ‘Maybe.’ She seems to edge away from him. Has Gidon overstepped the mark with her? He might have; I’ve never met a more sexually confident kid. He’s punching above his weight with Leah and he doesn’t even realise.

  Leah strides ahead of me up the street. ‘Where’s the fucking car?’

  Luckily I’ve managed to park a bit nearer this time. She slams into the passenger seat and folds her arms.

  ‘Didn’t go too well, huh, sweetie?’ I start the car and edge into traffic. I must try not to show how thrilled I am.

  ‘It was good.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘I liked it. I’m going to go again.’

  ‘You didn’t mind being upstairs with the women?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could you understand what was going on?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Well, great.’ Damn. ‘But you seem a bit out of sorts. Is everything OK?’

  She doesn’t answer, turns her head away from me and looks out of the window. We drive in silence for a bit, while I get up the nerve to ask her about Gidon. Then I’ll have to talk to Dov. Am I going to have to kill Gidon?

  ‘Were you hanging out with all of the cousins, or just Chanah?’

  ‘All.’

  ‘I suppose Gidon is the closest to you in age.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘He’s a twat.’

  There, I knew it! I knew he’d done something. ‘Why do you say that?’

  She starts tapping on her phone. ‘Can you drop me at Macy’s?’

  ‘Sure, if it’s OK with her parents. So, er, did Gidon do so
mething?’

  ‘No.’ Tap tap tap.

  ‘Did he say something, then?’

  ‘Mum, I am trying to send a fucking message, OK?’

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘You’re going on and on.’

  I pull into Macy’s street, and Leah almost jumps out before I stop the car. I screech to a halt. ‘For god’s sake, Leah!’

  ‘Mum, just drop me, OK?’

  ‘I’m going to see you to the door, I need to check what time Macy’s mum wants me to collect you.’

  ‘I’m not five! I can walk home or get the bus.’

  ‘Not if it’s getting late…’ but she has already gone. Muttering dark words, I double-park – this has been the Day of Lousy Parking – and follow her up the path. Macy has opened the front door and is laughing at Leah’s clothes.

  ‘Nice look, Leah, didn’t know hemlines were long again.’

  ‘Hi, Macy,’ I say. ‘Can you get your mum for me?’

  Both girls roll their eyes but Macy slopes off upstairs, calling lazily for her mother. I grab Leah’s arm. ‘Leah, please, I’m worried about what Gidon said. Did he say something, er, rude?’

  ‘Get off! You are the most embarrassing person I have ever met. In. My. Life.’ She shakes her arm but she is a complete wimp, and I cling on.

  ‘I just want you to tell me if he said anything inappropriate.’

  She stops wriggling and looks me straight in the eye, a familiar coolness on her face. ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘he did say something inappropriate.’

  ‘I knew it! Are you OK, darling?’

  Macy’s mother Adina is coming down the stairs, Macy trailing behind her. Leah twists out of my grip with unexpected force, and says under her breath, ‘He said Dad isn’t my dad.’

  ‘He said what?’

  Leah grabs Macy’s hand and pulls her upstairs.

  ‘Leah, come back here!’ I yell, uselessly.

  Adina smiles at me. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes, fine. She just said something…’ I must get a grip. ‘Please can you send her back by five?’