by Barry Rachin
"My toy airplane - it landed on your deck."
Releasing the chain, the woman threw the door wide open. Harry could hear a baby fretting in another room. The congested child coughed - once, twice then let out a mournful, sputtering wail. The apartment smelled of exotic vegetables - spices and seasonings that were both comforting and disconcerting all at the same time. From another room a man's voice barked in a gravelly voice, "Who the hell's that? What they want?"
"Wait here." The woman disappeared and returned a moment later with Harry's airplane perched between a nubby thumb and forefinger. Then she smiled the most beautiful fat-black-woman-trapped-in-an-awful-life smile that the boy had ever seen. "Here, kid. Have a swell day." She slammed the door shut.
Harry stood there foolishly holding the glider cupped in his palms. He wanted to thank the morbidly obese woman, give her a kiss and a hug, nurse her tubercular child back to health and make her psychotic husband speak to her in soothing tones. Instead he went three blocks down to an open field where he could fly his plane without fear of a similar mishap.
* * * * *
Dora was sitting on the bench with her long-fingered hands splayed across her lap. Except for pearl earrings, she wore no jewelry or makeup. The Hayden poem had surely triggered the bizarre flashback. Harry thought he might like to tell Dora about the kind-hearted black lady but certainly not today. "You’re not married?"
"My husband suffered a stroke… passed away a year ago this October," she replied in a flat tone.
"Was it a happy marriage?"
"No, not particularly. And you?"
Harry told Dora about his ex-wife. "About a year ago," he added almost as an afterthought, "on a whim, I started learning the various plants and trees here in the park." Pivoting a half turn, he pointed at a flaming mass of foliage closer to the entrance. "That black tupelo is one of the more flamboyant offerings. In the fall you can find shadings of yellow, orange, bright red and purple all on the same branch." Rising to his feet, he led her over to take a closer look. Reaching out, Harry placed his hand against the trunk. "The distinctive bark resembles alligator hide."
“How interesting!” Extending her hand, Dora stroked the textured wood. "And you learned all this from the plaques?"
He took several steps back and pointed into the upper branches of the slender, fifty-foot tree. "Notice anything?"
"Lots of noisy birds."
"Those fruity clumps scattered among the leaves are berries. The tree is an important food source for migratory birds." Harry rubbed his chin and, lowering his eyes, stared absently at his fuddy-duddy, wing-tipped shoes. "Would you like to get together some time?"
"A date?" Her features brightened. "That would be nice."
"Are you doing anything later tonight?"
When Dora was gone, Harry followed his weekly ritual, making a walking tour of the grounds, while carrying on an interior monologue with his leafy acquaintances. Yes, over there by the trash barrel was a scattering of quaking aspens with their twenty-five foot spread of noisy greenery. Sometimes he confused them with American beech. The late-blooming Magnolia directly behind with its greenish-yellow flowers was a bit easier to spot.
Dora lingered another half hour after Harry screwed up the courage to ask her out. The woman confided that she played second-chair flute in the Wheaton College wind ensemble. A Fourth of July concert was scheduled. They were doing Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain as well as excerpts from a Tchaikovsky symphony. Harry, for his part, told her several funny stories about a senior-league, slow-pitch softball team he recently joined, where the ballplayers were forty and up. Most of his teammates had non-life-threatening disabilities of one sort or another – a torn rotator cuff, inguinal hernia, pulled hamstring, asthma, emphysema, knee replacement - which made for some interesting athletic buffoonery.
The Eastern Redbud off to the right was a no-brainer. The riot of plum-colored leaves was a dead giveaway. And the mountain ash close by an outcropping of granite ledge had already lost its showy, spring flowers in favor of a thick crop of orangey-red fruit clusters. Harry remembered how the previous November the leaves looked like they had been dipped in yellow ink. Further down the twisty path, a tulip poplar was nestled between an eastern hemlock and diminutive chokeberry.
Over by the linden tree… Harry wasn't so deluded as to imagine that he was in love with a woman he had only recently met. What were the prospects of sex on the first date? Probably nil to non-existent. Harry didn't doubt for one second that Dora would prove a passionate lover; the woman was far too clever and kind-hearted not to be. But physical intimacy proved a minor concern. Deeper emotions eventually might set down roots, like old-growth timber, over a broad expanse of time. In the end, God or whatever animist power governed the universe ultimately got it right.
Now Harry had to go home and decide on a nice restaurant and what to wear.
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A Guide for the Perplexed
Ernie, the owner’s son, lingered in the rear of the Levinson’s Wholefood Market where Shifrah Fienberg was preparing a sesame chicken casserole. The dish was one of the market’s most popular items, especially during the summer months, since it could be served chilled directly from the refrigerator. “I’ve fallen in love,” he spoke morosely, “and want you for my wife.”
The Israeli woman never even bothered to lift her eyes from the chicken breast she was dicing with a Mercer eight-inch, chef’s special. Shifrah brought the knife to work each day in a leather carrying case. Forged from high-carbon, German steel, the paper-thin blade was razor-sharp. If she inadvertently left it out on the cutting surface during coffee break, no one among the help would go near the lethal weapon. “A date or a dozen long-stemmed roses might be a bit more appropriate.”
“Okay, I’ll take you out to dinner this weekend… a swanky Italian restaurant on Federal Hill.” He gazed at the small, olive-complected woman with the short-cropped, black hair and pinched features. She wasn’t pretty. Worse yet, Shifrah had an insular, tetchy disposition that held coworkers at arm’s length. She seldom initiated conversations, was brief and crabby when spoken to. Her saving grace – the woman was wizard with herbs, spices, exotic oils and condiments.
Reaching for a plate full of steamed cabbage, she tossed the shredded vegetable in with the chicken. “That doesn’t work for me.”
“Why not?”
“Your reputation precedes you, Ernie.” The woman drizzled a handful of chopped almonds over the concoction then reached for a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil. “How many woman have you slept with in the past month?”
“A few… not many,” he blustered, tripping over the words. Eight girls – Ernie had slept with eight different girls over the past four weeks. More to the point, the number of nights he slept alone could be counted on the fingers of one hand with several digits to spare. “All that’s changed,” he croaked. “I’ll take a vow of celibacy.”
Shifrah raised her eyes from the food and glanced vaguely in his direction. “You think that because you’re the owner’s son, you can intimidate me?”
“A date… that’s all I’m asking.”
She sampled the food, added a teaspoon of sugar and tasted again. “Pitgum… how do you say?” She was fumbling for the proper term in English. “Pitgum, pitgum… a story that teaches a lesson.”
“I don’t know.” Ernie was becoming emotionally unhinged. “A fable or parable.”
“Two little boys decide to play hide and seek. One says, ‘Go hide somewhere and I’ll count to a hundred and come look for you.’ The youth starts counting, but long before he reaches a hundred he hears the other boy crying. He goes to him and asks, ‘What’s the matter?’ and his friend replies, ‘I hid and no one came looking for me.’”
For the first time since Ernie accosted the woman, Shifrah looked him full in the face. “The other boy says, ‘Now you know how God feels.’”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
*****
Later that night at home, Ernie confided to his father, “I love Shifrah Fienberg.”
Saul Levinson rubbed his jaw with a stubby hand. He was a short man, squat but powerfully built. A petulant, gruff outward manner masked an emotional softness. “No, you don’t want her for a soul mate. Find another bride.” Mr. Levinson slumped down on the sofa in preparation for the evening news. Each night he gorged on thirty minutes of war, pestilence, and political mayhem before taking a shower and getting ready for bed. “Damaged goods... a woman with a broken spirit, that’s what she is. You want to start life with a freakin’ albatross like that weighing you down?”
“Why is she damaged goods?” Ernie demanded.
“It’s complicated.” Mr. Levinson flicked off the news midway through the third story and retreated to the bathroom where he washed his face, patting the skin dry with a towel before smearing a layer of shaving cream over his plump cheeks.
Trailing on his father’s heels, Ernie lowered the toilet seat and sat down. “The Fienberg woman... what’s the big mystery?”
Mr. Levinson reached for his twin razor. “She lived on a kibbutz, a communal farm in the upper Galilee where they tended orchards... mostly oranges, grapefruit, apples and pears.”
“She told you this?”
“No. She don’t never say nothing about her past. The Fienberg woman’s a closed book… an emotional cadaver. I gleaned the information second hand from one of her coworkers so the facts may not be a hundred percent reliable.”
He ran the blade tentatively down the right side of his face away from the sideburn. “Moslem terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz... stole down from the Golan Heights on the Syrian border, attacking the defenseless farmers in the middle of the night. When the dust settled, eight kibbutzniks along with her mother and father lay dead. A twin sister had her throat slashed.” The short man cleaned the stubble from under his chin. “Shifrah Fienberg lost faith... in God, humanity, the universe. She’s an empty vessel – a regular luftmensch if ever there was one.”
Saul Levinson pivoted on his bare feet and shook the soggy razor at his son soberly. “Weltschmertz… you know what that is?”
When there was no reply the older man continued. “Welt - world, schmertz – pain. The pain and suffering of the universe… Shifrah Fienberg’s got a terminal case of weltschmertz.” Mr. Levinson finished shaving and splashed Old Spice aftershave on the smooth skin. “You don’t want nothin’ to do with a tragic character like her.”
*****
“What’s this?” The first week in September, Ernie showed up at Shifrah Fienberg’s apartment with a dozen roses.
“I’m still in love with you. Nothing’s changed.”
“Yes, well nothing’s changed on my part either,” she replied with a guttural inflection. Tossing the flowers on the coffee table, several rolled off onto the shag carpet. The woman was wearing flannel pajamas, her freshly washed hair wrapped like a turban in a white, terrycloth towel. “Thank you for the lovely flowers. Chalamoat paz.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Golden dreams.”
“I dream in shades of gray since you rejected me.” When there was no response, he added, “You don’t care for me… even a little?”
“I never said any such thing! Shifrah was becoming angrier by the minute. “Now you put false words in my mouth… make me out for a liar.” “All I ever said was that I wouldn’t marry you. Nothing more!” The Israeli woman had rubbed a moisturizer into her skin, which glistened with an oily sheen. “Don’t foist your dirty laundry on me.”
Several more flowers dangling precariously on the lip of the coffee table slid off onto the floor. “Since when did unrequited love become dirty laundry?” Ernie replied.
“Unrewhat?”
“I haven’t slept with a woman in three months.”
“That’s your loss. Go away or I’ll call the police,” Shifrah growled, slamming the door shut.
*****
The week of Thanksgiving Ernie cornered Ruthie Adleman in the bakery wing of the market. “You’re on decent terms with Shifrah?”
Ruthie, a skinny, florid woman who suffered from chronic roseola, was pulling a tray of cinnamon raisin bagels from the oven. “That poor woman... she’s been to hell and back.”
“I heard about the terrorists,” Ernie confirmed.
Ruthie gawked at him. “What terrorists?” Ernie recounted what he learned from his father, but the woman with the blotchy complexion shook her head vehemently. “No, that never happened. You got it all wrong.”
Ruthie went and got a tub of cream cheese shot through with chive. Tearing a steamy bagel in half, she handed a piece to Ernie. “Before moving to the States, Shifrah lived in a Jewish enclave near the Arab sector of Hebron. One of the Jewish militants, a messianic crackpot, took an Uzi machine gun and went on a rampage... slaughtered an Arab woman and three children on their way to market.” Ruthie slathered the warm crust with cream cheese and took a bite.
“That’s nothing like the story I heard,” Ernie noted.
“There’s a ton of imaginations run amuck where Shifrah Fienberg is concerned.” Ruthie rubbed at a patch of inflamed skin running down the side of her nose. “She sure is one hell of a cook, though!”
*****
Because the bulk of their employees were non-Jewish, The Levinsons held an annual Christmas party, a small, catered affair at the Marriot Hotel. “You lived on a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee?” Ernie inquired.
“Wherever did you hear such a ridiculous thing,” Shifrah Fienberg exclaimed. She wore a simple, strapless back dress with a Star of David on a gold chain and no makeup whatsoever.
“From a coworker,” he hedged.
“Well it’s not true.”
“I also heard that you spent time on a settlement in the occupied, Arab territories.”
“More lies,” she confirmed with a note of finality. “I was born in Nazareth... the new city, not the Biblical town further down the valley.”
Ernie lowered his voice so that none of the other guests would hear. “I want to marry you.”
“Of, God!” she groaned. “Will you ever leave me in peace?” In the far corner of the room a piano trio was playing a medley of Christmas carols at a brisk tempo. “Go study Maimonides,” she muttered in a dismissive tone.
“Why Maimonides?”
“He wrote a book, Darach ha’Nivoochim… a Guide for the Perplexed. You’re behaving very odd lately. Maybe the book will help you sort things out.”
*****
A week later Ernie approached the Israeli woman as she was leaving work for the day. “The Maimonides... I found a copy of the book at the Jewish community center but couldn’t make any sense of it.”
“It was written in the tenth century based on Talmudic law.” She unlocked the key to her car and slid the black leather bag containing her knife onto the passenger seat.
“Yes, but what’s the underlying message?”
“In order to become free in this world one must become a slave to the laws of God.” She turned the engine over and rolled down the window.
“And how does that work for you?”
Flicking on the windshield wipers, an inch of powdery snow flew off the vehicle. “I’m not a believer,” she eased the car into reverse, “so The Guide for the Perplexed holds absolutely no relevance.”
*****
The week after New Years, Mr. Levinson went into the back of the kitchen. “Am I a good boss?”
Shifrah smiled indulgently. “Yes, of course!”
The market was trying to appeal to Hispanic clientele with a new offering - Mexican Delight. The casserole cont
ained sautéed ground beef, basmati rice, scallions – both the diced tops and pearlescent bulbs – along with mild chili peppers and salsa. “Sure, you’re a peach!”
“In eight and a half years, I never took liberties or treated you unfairly?”
“No, never.”
“Then marry my goddamn son.”
Shifrah scooped the scallions she was chopping with her Mercer eight-inch chef’s special and sprinkled them over the orangey rice. “I layered a bed of tortilla chips on the bottom for flavor and crunch,” she noted as an afterthought. “It also improves the presentation.”
“Levinsons is a family supermarket.” He ignored the remark. “Marry Ernie and become family in the literal sense.”
Shifrah Fienberg breathed out heavily. “A while back, your son offered to take me to some fancy-schmancy restaurant on Federal Hill.”
“A restaurant… it’s not enough.” Mr. Levinson’s voice was beginning to crack. He stepped closer and put his paw of a hand over her wrist. “Even marriage won't suffice. He wants you for eternity, in this world and the next.”
Shifrah took a slender wooden spatula and lifted a small amount of the Mexican Delight from the bowl. “Taste.” The older man tasted the rice dish. “Does it need anything?”
“No, it’s fine. Maybe a little sea salt… I dunno.”
“B’tabaat zu, art mikoodashat lee,” Shifrah spoke the ancient Hebrew verse in a singsong cadence. “With this ring, I thee wed.” She kept her eyes lowered and continued in a hushed monotone. “With this ring art mikoodashat lee… You are beloved… sacred unto me.”
“From the Aramaic Hebrew… that’s the original meaning?” He tightened his grip on the woman’s hand. “My son cherishes you; he worships you from afar.”
“Yes, then I’ll marry him,” Shifrah relented. “I’ll be his wife and your daughter-in-law.”
In the far corner of Levinson’s Whole Food Market, Ernie was stacking vine-ripened tomatoes on a bin alongside the Italian plum variety. The tastier, native-grown vegetables that through the summer months sold for a dollar less a pound had disappeared from the market by the middle of October. The older man pressed her close and kissed his future daughter-in-law on the cheek. “Why don’t we go break the good news to the future groom?”
