I Am Forbidden (20 page)

“I’m pregnant, Josef!”

His words came out, bewildered: “I did the test, the forbidden test.…”

“And I am pregnant!” Her voice was fierce, savage.

At the foot of her bed he swayed, like Zalman by the graves,
God full of compassion
.… Then his hands joined and he fell to his knees in a fashion Mila did not recognize. Her mouth opened wide. “Josef?” she whispered.

He scrambled up.

They stood silent; pale and silent.

He stepped away from her, not toward her.

He closed the door to the bathroom. He leaned over the sink. He wept.

*

A
NOTHER
had brushed her cheek, cupped her breast? In Paris, of course. An old acquaintance from the lycée, the synagogue? The night she came home without wig or shoes? On what street, what riverbank? The foreign ammah had parted her flesh, parting her from him.

Stoning if she is betrothed
.

Strangling if she is married
.

Fire if she is a priest’s daughter
.

Did the Lord punish him because he delighted in her? Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught that pleasure in marriage was adultery against the Lord; the pious one feels
pain
during intercourse. Where her name had paced his lips, Josef strained to set His name; instead of
MilaHeller: Kanah, Tsevaot, Shaddaï.…

By day, Josef steered clear of Mila; by night, he cinched the gartel around his loins, the tasseled black sash worn during prayer to separate higher from lower realms, which Josef now wore to bed. What could Josef tender to appease the Lord, except his desire for MilaHeller?

Mila’s white sheet, undulating as she turned in her sleep, undid it all. He pulled the sash tighter. He thrust into his dream of her, instead of her.

In the morning, his sore testicles pulled him back into the flesh even as he fastened the first phylactery, winding the black leather strap around his forearm, seven times, even as he fastened the Lord’s word to his forehead:
Take care lest the anger of the Lord be lit against you
.

• • •

Josef sat on the edge of the couch, head between his hands. Mila entered and sat down at the other end of the couch.

“Don’t,” Josef said without looking up. “Assur.”
(Forbidden.)

“What, assur?”

“You. To me.”

She rose from the couch. “How long? How long assur?”

He did not reply. A boy brought up in Williamsburg only would already have gone to the rabbis.

“Forever assur?” she asked. He was silent. “What you are saying is cruel,” she said.

“What
I
am saying? What the
Law
is saying.”

“What Law?”

“The Law by which we married!
Lo thou art consecrated to me in accordance with the Law of Moses and Israel
.”

“I have always been faithful. Think of it, Josef: Tamar, Ruth … the messiah himself will rise from their bloodline. Look at me”—she stared straight into his eyes—“I was faithful to you and to our Law. I went to Enayim.
Nem mir
, I said. Josef, I’m pregnant. We’ve waited for this so long.
Pregnant
, Josef!”

His ashen voice. “I … I have to divorce.”

“The only thing missing was a child!”

“A child, this child.…”

“This child?”

“If it is born.…”

“
If it
is born!” her voice boomed out of her chest.

He stepped back.

She stepped forward. “
If
it is born!”

He bolted to the front door, stumbled down the five flights.

*

S
WISH
. Mila opened her eyes. Swish swish. Was Zalman sharpening the ritual knives in the kitchen in the middle of the night? Swish. She sat up. She was not in Paris. She rose. She opened the door to the bathroom. Josef’s back was streaked. His hand clenched a belt.

He turned and saw her in the doorway, openmouthed. “Maimonides instructed rabbinic courts to flog priests not married to virgins—”

“You’re not a priest. You did marry a virgin.”

“Are we not believers, Mila? The child.…”

As he had labored for words to tell Mila that he was infertile, Josef now labored for words to tell her that her child might be
forever forbidden to enter the Congregation of the Lord
. He did not find the words. He grabbed his coat; once more he ran down the stairs.

But the Lord had found the words and the Lord watched. At home, the Lord watched whether Josef went near his forbidden wife; in the House of Study, the Lord kept count of Josef’s delay, of the hours and days Josef waited before speaking to the rabbis.

The fear that had knotted Josef’s belly, back there, returned. In the penumbra of the House of Study, Josef had
come to trust that the word
Jew
need not be a threat; now the House of Study was the threat, the cross’s hooked arms that used to whirl on the militiamen’s armbands now tore from within.

Josef did not return home for several nights.

*

M
ILA
retched over the sink, rinsed her mouth. Her breasts tingled and she smiled to the unborn child. If it was a girl, she would name her Rachel, in memory of her mother, Rachel Landau; if it was a boy, she would name him Gershon after her father, Gershon Heller—

Josef appeared as out of nowhere. “Maybe he wasn’t Jewish? If he wasn’t Jewish then the child—only the child of a Jew—of a Jew and”—beads on his forehead—“a Jew and a Jewish woman married to another.…”

“You don’t understand, Josef. There are precedents—”

“Such a child … the child’s status—”

Mila stood up very straight. “My baby a
status
? Yes, the seed turned out to be Jewish but that was not—”

“Jewish!”

Her eyes widened. “Is that worse too?”

He fled.

That night, chest-beating, kerchiefed women replaced Mila’s long dream of a child, women howling: “We carried a pure and modest Jewish blood across the generations and Mila Lichtenstein spoiled the blood!” Zalman stood at the pulpit, mouth open but mute. Zalman pursued her with a belt; she ran, missed a step, her cry for help stifled in her throat while streams of prayers that once oriented her rushed past and bounced like spray on rocks.

In the morning, her breasts tingled again. This new life within her, this answer to her pleas, how could it be anything but good?

Her neighbors congratulated her. One brought a potato kugel. “Spare yourself, Milenka, God has answered your prayers.” Another brought gefilte fish. “You are carrying a special child, a tzadik.” Zalman added a few words to Hannah’s letter,
The Lord has listened to our pleas. Joy with no equal at the news.…

Josef left early and came home late. They did not take their meals together, except on the Sabbath. Thursday nights, he still peeled carrots, parsnips, and potatoes for the Sabbath chicken soup, but he did so after Mila went to bed. He placed the vegetables in a bowl of water in the refrigerator. Mila’s hands trembled when she opened the refrigerator and
retrieved the bowl. Her hands trembled as she set down each course on the Sabbath table.

M
ILA
was seven months pregnant when, clearing the Sabbath dishes, she tripped on the rug. Josef lunged and caught her in his arms. He let go of her after she regained her balance, but his hands on her swollen belly felt there was something holy about Mila with child.

After Sabbath was over, Josef rolled up the rug.

From then on, every time Josef came near the Rebbe’s house, the curve of Mila’s belly blocked the stoop, and Josef retreated.

*

H
ANNAH
came from Paris for Mila’s lying in. “Lord in Heaven, what’s wrong?” she said when Josef picked her up at the airport.

Later, Hannah asked Mila, “Is Josef sick? You must tell me. A mother will do anything for her children.”

Mila’s hands came to her belly. “Josef, too, will do anything to save the child.”

“The child needs saving? The Lord have mercy, what do the doctors say?”

“The doctors? No, no, the baby is strong, feel, feel it kicking, tell Josef how you felt it kicking … Josef will be home soon, let’s set the table.”

Josef did not try to sort through his feelings and obligations during Mila’s labor. Sixteen hours, he prayed; sixteen hours he paced the hospital’s corridors reciting psalms, uncontrollably, for Mila to be unharmed, until the nurse tapped his shoulder, mother and baby daughter were doing well.

He stood in front of Mila’s room in the maternity ward. A nurse carried in the crying infant, and the wails of the forbidden child filled Josef’s heart.

“Our treasure is hungry!” Josef heard Hannah say. Then: “Josef? Is that you at the door? Are you not saying mazel tov to your wife?”

He stepped in.

Mila’s shift was unbuttoned. She was pressing a swollen nipple to the tiny mouth. Suckling sounds filled the room.
Josef stared at the newborn curled against Mila’s bosom, stared at the bared breast, its roundness, its fullness. The new scents of baby oil and mother’s milk dizzied him.

“Look at these little fingers!” Hannah cooed. “Perfect perfection keneinehoreh
(no evil eye)
.” Then: “When you come to Paris for Passover, you must stay through the summer—why not? Mila will rest. You, Josef, will study with Zalman—what’s wrong?”

“A napkin, quick!” Mila cried out as the baby’s mouth filled with froth.

Hannah held up the baby to her shoulder and patted the baby’s back.

In the empty apartment, Josef watched the overpass as dawn grayed the living-room window. He watched the silhouettes rushing to the first service. The black coats and black hats, the long sidecurls that tamed these men as individuals and had made him feel safe in the streets of Williamsburg, now made them threatening as a group; an army in uniform following one command.

He thought of Mila holding the child to her breast, her face serene at last. He tightened the phylactery’s leather strap around his forearm until his fingers tingled.
Forgive me, Lord, let the child drink one year of sweet mother’s milk; I will go to the rabbis when she turns one
.

Hannah did not stay the planned three weeks; the couple’s deportment unnerved her. She feared her presence might
exacerbate that which tore them apart while cleaving them to each other.

In April, the Sterns received a telegram.
We cannot travel to Paris this Passover
. Hannah stared at the empty crib, at the pink blanket she had just finished crocheting.
They must come
.

They did not come. Not this Passover, nor any other.

*

A
S IF
watching over her might cure the infant’s status, Josef attended to her faintest cry. It was Josef who caught Rachel’s first smile. He was standing by the cradle, calling, “Rucheleh Rucheleh.…”

Four-week-old Rachel cooed and smiled back.

It was Mila who caught her first laugh. Eight-week-old Rachel was staring at her own moving hands, staring and giggling.

The nights went by, Mila and Josef in their parallel beds.

Mila sang to the child as her heart sank back and forth with the cradle between the beds:
“Hie lee lu lee la.…”

Josef harkened after Rachel’s breath as if it were an answer to whether God wanted this child to live.

As Rachel’s cheeks filled and rounded, Josef thinned. As she stammered her first words, Josef grew more silent, and his silence was a sin: he was concealing the child’s status, he was staying with his wife—but since the night of their return from Paris, Mila and Josef lay in their separate beds every night of the month.

Rachel’s first birthday drew near and Josef decided he was too much in his body. Rabbis advised fasting; the less the flesh was gratified, the more one could hope to master it. Josef started to fast Mondays and Thursdays, the days of mourning for the Temples destroyed. But hunger only sharpened his desire, as did the flush of food when he broke his fast
after sundown. The sigh of Mila’s night shift as it settled on her shoulders, her voice as she lulled the child,
“Hie lee lu lee la.…”
Josef tightened the sash around his waist.

Every night, Mila heard the slump of Talmud tomes on the dining table; every night, Josef lost another battle. There was no clause, no exemption. One night, she heard him cry out: “Israel cuckolds You and returns but my Mila cannot return to me?”

Now R
ACHEL
crawled to the front door as soon as she heard Josef’s key scratch the lock. She gripped his pant leg until Josef lifted her in his arms; she seized the brim of his black hat, threw the hat to the floor, burst into bubbly laughter. Josef picked up the hat, placed it back on his head. Again Rachel clasped the black brim and threw it to the floor. Josef pressed to his bosom the little girl with the bow in her hair.

Forgive me Lord, when she turns two I will speak to the Rebbe
.

F
IFTEEN-MONTH-OLD
Rachel was weaned, but Mila did not move the crib from the bedroom; she feared Josef might go back to the living-room couch if the child no longer slept between their two beds.

• • •

Mila’s blood returned and she resumed her intimate inspections and monthly visits to the ritual bath. Abstaining from the bathhouse was not an option even if Josef never touched her again: little Rachel’s marriage prospects would be nil if her mother were suspected of not keeping the laws of family purity. And these laws that had so startled Mila when she first heard them, as an adolescent in Paris, were now the repository of the treasured time when she simply belonged to Josef and Josef belonged to her. Every month, emerging from the small pool of purifying waters, Mila could not help but prepare herself for Josef. Upon her return from the bathhouse, she draped her shoulders in the stole that had let Josef know she was permitted. She stood in front of the three-sided mirror and whispered her name with Josef’s intonations,
“Mila MilaHeller.…”
She brought Josef’s pillow to her nose and remembered the smell of hay and coarse linen, the smell of the farm boy, back there, but Josef’s pillow now smelled of the yellowing Talmud pages his fingers turned, and underneath, the scent of wanting her.