“Rose, Rose…” Pearl shook her awake. “I’m sorry, Rose, I’m so sorry … please, Rose…”
Pearl was standing at the foot of her bed, her long blond hair disheveled, sticking to her wet cheeks as she sobbed. She looked abject and miserable, which only made Rose angrier. What did she have to be miserable about, the little snitch?
“Leave me alone! I never want to speak to you again, you little moisar! This is all your fault!”
Astonished at this vicious response from her kind sister, Pearl stopped crying, wiping her eyes. “But if I’m truly sorry, Rose, and ask you three times, you have to forgive me; otherwise, it’s your sin.”
“That’s only before Yom Kippur! Right now, I don’t have to talk to you at all!”
“Please, Rose!”
Their mother swept through the door like an angry wind. “What are you two speaking about? Rose? Pearl?”
Rose said nothing, pulling the covers back over her head. So, this was how it was going to be, then, from now on? Her mother standing outside her bedroom door like a spy, listening for secret transgressions.
Pearl burst into fresh sobs. “Rose won’t forgive me!”
“What is there to forgive? You did nothing wrong, Pearl. Now go get dressed for school. And don’t speak to your sister again until I tell you it’s all right. And you, Rose, get up and say your prayers with special kavanna so the Holy One, blessed be He, might forgive your sins!” Later that morning, sitting between her parents in a chair that made her feel like Goldilocks usurping the Papa Bear’s seat, she faced the distinguished and powerful religious authority she had before only glimpsed from afar through the thick curtains of the women’s section in the synagogue. His eyes were dark and piercing under his gray, bushy brows; she could not meet them for shame. She lowered her gaze, focusing on the way his fingers clasped and unclasped, the gnarled knuckles like the branches of an old olive tree she had once seen in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
It was like facing God, she thought, who could see directly into your heart and soul. All her thoughts and transgressions were laid bare before him. There was no escape.
Suddenly, he leaned across the table, his face stern, but not unkind. “Do you believe, dear child, that our God is a merciful God who forgives transgressions and welcomes back those who stray from the righteous path?”
She nodded sincerely.
“And do you believe that though your sins be as scarlet God shall bleach them as white as snow if you repent?” he continued.
“Yes, Kavod HaRav.”
He nodded, satisfied, his hands enfolding each other gently. “A good girl does not suddenly wake up one morning and look at forbidden pictures. Tell me, child, whose idea was it to look at that book?”
“Mine! Only mine! I took it off the bookshelf at the Goldbands’ house.”
“And when you saw the pictures, did you not immediately put it back?”
She hesitated. “No.”
Her parents inhaled deeply.
“And why not, child?”
“Because some of them were beautiful!” she burst out, shocked by her own defiance. “They were pictures of children, of the streets of Paris.”
“Beautiful! And the others? The immodest ones? Did they also seem beautiful to you?”
What could she say? That they were no worse than the photos in Life and Look magazines she’d been looking at for years? That she even kept magazines with photos like that under her bed? That, yes, she did think they were beautiful?
“I am interested in photography. I was given a camera in school.”
The Rav looked up at her parents in surprise and disapproval.
“It was a gift, from the Dime Savings Bank, years ago, Honored Rav,” her mother said hurriedly, mortified.
“She doesn’t even have it anymore. It was a toy. She took pictures of the family,” added her father.
“M’ken nisht aroifstzen a freshen kop.”
A clap of silence, as loud and frightening as thunder, struck them all dumb.
I can’t give her a new head.
The Rav turned to her. “Go, wait outside until we are finished.”
Her legs shaking, she left the room.
The Rav waited for her to close the door, then turned to her parents, shaking his head sorrowfully. “The corruption started long ago, under your noses.”
All the words they had practiced to defend her, to foist the blame on the Goldbands, felt like dust on their tongues. There was nothing left for them to say.
“But what can we do now, Honored Rav?” Rabbi Weiss asked humbly.
“You must send her to a different school, where she will be sheltered from bad influences. How old is she?”
“Almost sixteen, Honored Rav.”
“In another year, you’ll find a good shidduch for her, and she will become a kosher wife and mother in Israel, and leave all this narishkeit behind her.”
“What school, Honored Rav? She is already in Bais Yaakov.”
He smoothed down his white beard. “For someone like your daughter, that is too frei. Send her to Bais Ruchel.”
“Bais Ruchel?” Her parents looked at each other in alarm. “That is Satmar. We are not Satmar.”
“But as the Rambam teaches, sometimes to reach the middle path, a sinner must go in the extreme opposite direction. Bais Ruchel teaches al pi taharas hakodesh, a pure holy education. It’s what your daughter needs now. Do you have any other children?”
“Baruch Hashem, another five, Honored Rav. Four boys, three at kollel and one in yeshiva, and a younger girl.”
“They share a room, the two girls?”
They nodded.
“Ah, this cannot continue! Rose must be sent away, at least for the coming year, until the school works its influence of purification. They must have no contact, lest the older corrupt the younger.”
Rabbi Weiss said nothing, the sharp exhale of a single, hard breath the only sign of the depth of his heartbreak at this ruling. He found it necessary to clear his throat harshly before he could utter a single word. “But surely, the Honored Rav does not mean that Rose should have no contact at all with her family?”
“Like Joseph the tzadik, she must undergo this total separation for a short time in order to grow into the pious, good wife and mother she is meant to be. Of course, this is up to you. But if you are strong and are able to resist your natural feelings, my advice will bring blessing to her and your whole family.”
“Yes, Honored Rav. Thank you, Honored Rav,” Rabbi Weiss said meekly, getting up to go.
His wife followed, her face frozen. Once outside the door, he turned to her in agony.
“How can we send our Rose away?”
Bracha Weiss looked at her husband in surprise. “We have asked the Honored Rav for his advice. And now we must follow it to the letter. As it is written: ‘Do not turn from their words either to the right or to the left.’”
“And Rashi says: ‘Even if they tell you right is left or left is right…’” Asher Weiss grimaced.
The session was over, Rose thought, looking at her parents’ miserable faces as they exited. And so is my life.
*
The next day, her father handed over the borrowed book, wrapped in a plain brown paper bag, to the principal of Bais Yaakov, informing him that his daughter Rose would not be returning. After examining the book thoroughly, the principal agreed. He called in the Goldbands, returning the book and expelling Michelle.
Later that evening, Rose was called into the living room.
“You are going to live with your bubbee.”
She was stunned. Her grandmother lived in faraway Borough Park, where she knew no one. It was exile.
“But Mameh, Tateh, please, please don’t send me away from the family! I’ll never do it again!”
“We have no choice,” her father said sadly, looking down at the floor, before putting on his hat. “I’m going to daven Mincha.”
She ran after him into the street, begging, “Tateh, please, please!”
But he was gone.
“Stop making a tzimmis! You want the whole neighborhood should hear?” her mother said harshly, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her back up the stairs.
“But Mameh, I … you … can’t. Please!”
“Your tateh told you. It’s not up to us.”
She was astonished. “But you are my parents!”
Her mother held up her hand. “There’s nothing to discuss. The Honored Rav said. If you behave, you will be allowed to come back in a year’s time,” her mother continued, her eyes hard, her lips pinched into a thin line of determination. “There’s nothing to talk about. The tighter you hold on to the Honored Rav’s gartel, the more it will help you.”
“He doesn’t even wear a gartel! We’re not even Hassidim!”
“Chutzpah yet! You talk back, yet? Gartel or no gartel, his Torah knowledge and piety put him in direct communication with the Holy One, blessed be He. He has Daas Torah, a special connection to the will of the Holy One. Who are we to argue? Besides, you can help your bubbee with her housework and keep her company. It will be a great chesed, a way to make teshuva for all your sins. Here, I’ve packed you a suitcase.”
“What, you mean now? I’m going now?” She sobbed uncontrollably.
“Stop! Enough already! It will be easier for you if you just behave and listen. Here, I bought you some new things for your new school.”
“What? I’m not going back to Bais Yaakov?”
Her mother said nothing, handing her two pairs of stockings and a pair of shoes. The stockings were dense with thick, ugly seams, and the shoes the kind her bubbee wore.
“These are Satmar clothes.”
“They are called Palm stockings. The Satmar rebbe himself invented them. They brought him samples of stockings, and he would pull them over his own arm, testing them. If he could see his hairs, he said no. Finally, he found this material. Now, every woman and girl in Satmar wears them. STOP CRYING. The Honored Rav said Bais Yaakov is too free for someone like you. Only because he helped us, Bais Ruchel agreed to take you. Say thank you; otherwise, you’d be home and finished with school.”
She would not be finishing her sophomore year at Bais Yaakov. She would not be saying good-bye to her friends, or to Michelle. The idea was like a large avalanche that buried her in darkness. It was unimaginable, a plunge and hurtle down a deep pit that seemed bottomless. She wiped her tears. “Do I have to wear them outside of school, too?”
Her mother hesitated. No one in their family wore such stockings, but Rose—by her own choosing—was now a special case.
“You would not want to be thrown out of Bais Ruchel, too. You know what that would mean for your shidduch, when the time comes? The matchmakers will never be able to find anyone for a girl who had to leave Bais Yaakov and then was thrown also out of Bais Ruchel…”
Matchmakers? She was just a few years older than Pearl, she thought, shocked. “I don’t want a shidduch!”
“Then think of Mordechai, Shlomie Yosef, your older brothers, their shidduchim! Think of Pearl and Duvid! Who will want to marry into a family with such a stain on its reputation? And think of your father! Do you think he will be able to continue working in yeshiva with such a daughter? Stop being so selfish!”
She went to her room, rolling down her beige panty hose and pulling on the new stockings. They were dark, flesh-colored tights with awful seams going up her calves and thighs. She felt like a freak. Then, she slipped on ugly laced-up Oxfords that completely covered her lower foot. They were a perfect match with the stockings, she thought with dark humor. She sat down heavily on her bed. What strange and evil alchemy had transformed looking at beautiful pictures into this ugliness? she wondered, appalled.
On that first night away from home, she sobbed quietly into her bed pillow on the hard bed in the strange bedroom with its ugly drapes, a room that smelled of mothballs and the paraphernalia of the old. Her shelf of books was gone, her toys and games and stuffed animals, and her pretty Shabbos dresses. All of her hair bands and barrettes, except for the plainest ones, had also been left behind. She’d been allowed to take her school bag and some long blue pleated skirts and long-sleeved blouses. She was stranded, like Robinson Crusoe, on a bare desert island with no inkling when the rescue ship would be coming for her.
Without knocking, her bubbee opened the door, sitting down beside her.
“Nisht fun kein nacha lebt men, un nisht fun tzores shtarbt men.” One doesn’t live for pleasure or die from aggravation!
“A yung beimelech beigt zich; a alts brecht zich.” A young tree bends; an old tree breaks.
“Sha … sha. It’s time to stop crying. Tomorrow is also a day.”
She handed her granddaughter a worn, clean handkerchief, and a rugelach, hot from the oven.
Rose sat up in bed, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose with one hand as the cookie melted in the other, filling the room with the tantalizing scent of warm cinnamon and chocolate.
“Come into the kitchen, maideleh. I’ll make you a glass of tea.”
She followed her bubbee into the old kitchen with its ancient stove and icebox, sitting down on a chipped wooden chair by the rickety wooden table covered with an old oilcloth. She cupped her hands around the hot glass of amber liquid, dropping in cubes of sugar.
“In Russia, ve put a cube in our mout, den sipped de tea trouh it. Dat vay, you don’t need so many.”
She popped a cube into her mouth also, filtering the tea through it. It was very, very sweet. She chewed silently on the warm cookie.
“So, you vant to talk about it, maideleh?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong, Bubbee!” Rose burst out. “I just wanted to look at some pictures in a book!”
“I heard vat kind of pictures.”
“But I didn’t know … I only saw the first pages when I took it home … besides, I don’t think they were so bad.”
Her grandmother sighed, handing her another rugelach. “A lie stays put, but da trut has feet, sometimes it runs avay.… De rugelach, dey’re good?”
“Delicious, Bubbee.”
The old woman suddenly winked. “Gut tings come vidout varning. Now go to bed.”
“Thank you, Bubbee.”
The old woman followed her into the bedroom, pulling the covers over her, then closing the door softly behind her.
With the sweet taste of sugar in her mouth, she closed her eyes and slept, dreaming of escape.