I Am Forbidden (24 page)

“How much time do I have with her? When is her wed—” The stairs creaked. “She’s here,” Atara whispered and rushed to open the door.

Atara expected a Hasidic girl from Williamsburg to stand timidly in the entrance, but Judith burst past her into the room, arms crossed, face flushed.

“What is it my grandmother wants you to tell me?”

She seemed far too young to be engaged. So late at night, she ought to be tucked into bed and told a fairy tale.

Judith strode across the loft and stopped in front of the
window. Her back was stiff. She was afraid Atara’s walls, chairs, afraid the books piled high on every surface, the film canisters, might contaminate her.

“You must be Judith,” Atara said. “I’m glad you came. You walked all the way, of course. Let me take your coat.”

Judith whirled around. Wrists crossed on her chest, she hugged the lapels of the dark jacket she wore over a straight skirt that ended, as prescribed, four inches below the knees. She was taller than Mila, but she had Mila’s plum-blue eyes and dark hair. She was as beautiful as Mila was back then.

“What did you do to my grandmother?”

Atara’s hand came to rest on Mila’s notebook. “If only I
had
done something.”

Judith turned her gaze away. “I don’t need you to tell me that out here everything is permitted.”

“I’m hardly one to speak of what is forbidden or permitted. I think your grandmother would like you to … understand what happened.”

“I know what I am. What my children will be. And their children.”

The girl’s tone was defiant but Atara could detect recent tears. She pointed to a chair across the table, she poured water in the paper cups. “Sit, Judith, sit.”

When Judith at last sat down, Atara saw that she had not hung up the phone. She said, to what she realized might be an audience of two, “If, when this story is over … if you return to your grandmother, Mila … please tell her that I … tell
her—ah, let us begin, let us begin with Zalman Stern when he was your age, seventeen.…”

Atara told the story of Zalman in Transylvania, of Josef and his sister Pearela, of Florina and her son Anghel; she told of pious Mila at the seminary, and the wedding of Josef and Mila; she told what she could about the ten barren years of marriage.

*

J
UDITH’S HEAD
was inclined, her nape exposed. For hours, she had listened without stirring. Atara had encouraged her to talk, to react, to share what she knew, but the girl had been silent. Atara pulled back the curtain that screened the sleeping alcove.

“It’s almost dawn. You need rest. We’ll start again when you wake.”

The girl curled up on top of the coverlet and fell asleep within seconds. Her eyelids quivered, her breath softened, her mouth half parted.

Atara felt a hint of the want that had seized Mila all those years ago, the want for a child that Atara herself had not heeded.

A truck barreled down Canal Street.

Judith moaned. Her arm lifted, came to rest above her head, then she was still again.

Atara lay down on the couch.

While none of Atara’s films had been about the Hasidic world, she had often imagined that in the front row of her audience sat an adolescent on the threshold, choosing between staying in and setting out.…

It was clear that Judith had never imagined herself outside, dead to her parents as Atara was dead to Zalman and Hannah.

It had been hard enough for Atara who had
wanted
to leave, who had felt exhilaration in risking everything.

When she had learned that Zalman hired a detective to bring her home, Atara spent the money she had saved on a
ticket to the United States where she would be considered an adult at eighteen. Atara thought of the nights in Manhattan train stations. The club slapped against the policeman’s hands as he commanded slumped men to “Move, move on!” A mumbling woman emerged from a sea of shopping bags. Eighteen-year-old Atara lifted her backpack; she, too, circled the station.

Atara could spare Judith the struggle for food and shelter, she could even put her through college, but she could not spare her the losses, could not spare her the anguish of shaping a new self.

She would need time with the girl, much more time than this one night, and the girl would need time for solitude. She would take Judith to the country, Mila would find a way to arrange it, to explain the girl’s absence. Perhaps she would show Judith her first film, about a girl standing on escalators, in front of ticket counters.… She would call a psychiatrist the next day, ask for advice, she would request an appointment for Judith, she would try to be there for the girl in all the ways that no one had been there for her … and if one day Judith wanted to become a presence in Atara’s life … how lovely it might be, for each, to have another who understood where she came from and the distance traveled. Pulling up the chenille throw to her chin, Atara let herself imagine an ending in which she rocked the girl in her arms and whispered in her ear, “It’s over, you’re here, in Manhattan, the sun is rising, let’s fill the kettle with water.…”

• • •

When Atara opened her eyes, Judith was praying, turned to the morning sun.

Atara rose quietly.

After Judith had finished her prayers, Atara rinsed some grapes and placed them on a paper plate.

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” Judith said.

“Look, a
paper
plate and the grapes haven’t come in contact with any of my utensils. You can eat. You must eat.”

Judith tore a grape, held it between index finger and thumb, hesitated as if she wondered whether she must now say a different blessing. At last, her lips moved and then she brought the grape to her mouth, swallowed, and urged Atara to continue with the story.

“But it is
you
who were there, Judith. You tell me what happened. It will be good for you to speak.”

“Nothing forbidden will be good for me.”

“You came back from the country, you arrived at your grandparents’. What happened?”

Judith was silent.

“It is terrible to feel one has no one to talk to,” Atara said.

Judith had expected Atara’s place to be loud and decadent, but the high-ceilinged loft was quiet, contemplative, and made her think of her father’s study except that the light here was softer, islands of light, not the bare ceiling bulbs of her parents’ home. She had expected a fallen Atara Stern, unbefitting
makeup, tawdry clothes … Atara’s dress would be considered immodest in Williamsburg, but it was not unseemly and the silver-white hair Atara Stern should be ashamed to expose framed a lined face that smiled … smiled at Judith even though Atara knew how Judith’s mother was conceived, smiled as if it did not matter, not at all … and Judith wanted to curl up in Atara’s arms, curl up and cry, it was not what she had imagined about one who left, May Her Name—

“I tried to be good, I would have deserved to marry Yoel Stern,” Judith whispered.

Atara nodded.

Judith continued: “It’s true I have no one to talk to … and who am I if Grandpa Josef is not my grandfather? There’s nothing to figure out because nothing can change what is spelled out in the Torah … nothing … I feel lost, lost—When I was a little girl, our kindergarten teacher asked what everyone wanted to be when we grew up. One girl cried out, ‘A fireman! With a red truck!’ The teacher scowled, the right answer was
not
, definitely
not
‘fireman.’ She turned to me. ‘Judith, what do
you
want to be?’ I didn’t know the right answer … ‘A mother?’ I asked. The teacher kissed me, she smiled, other little girls yelled, ‘A mother, I want to be a mother!’ So I did know … then … but now …”

Judith’s smooth, white throat pulsed as she swallowed.

“What happened when you came back from the country?” Atara asked.

Judith put a hand over her mouth as if to keep from speaking.

Atara waited.

Judith started haltingly. “I ran into my Yoel in front of Heimishe Bakery, on Lee. We didn’t stop to speak—es past nicht
(it is not proper)
—but he … I … we smiled, we couldn’t help it, our paths crossed, I clutched my shopping bag as if Yoel could see the tiara and wedding veil inside. I waited at the corner until I stopped blushing, and turned onto Clymer, but Grandma Mila was not waving at the bow window even though Mummy had discussed everything, which bus line, which stop, at a quarter to five—I rang the doorbell. No one answered. The curtain was drawn in Grandpa Josef’s study—a meheireh refiheh sheleimeh far mein
(a speedy and complete recovery for my)
Zeidi Josef, Amen—the curtain was drawn but Grandpa likes the feel of light even if he doesn’t see it anymore. ‘Baabi? Zeidi?’ Everything so still. I went around the corner, down the alley, to the back of the house. ‘Baabi? Zeidi?’ There, too, everything was still.
Is Zeidi dead, God forbid?
I hurried to the front of the house, up the stoop, I turned the knob. The door opened. Grandma Mila’s prayer book lay open on top of the secretary—something was wrong. I kissed the page, closed the book, kissed the cover. The dining room was tidy and empty. I followed the smell of medicine to the door of the study—something stirred in the kitchen, Gottenyu
(dear God)
, Grandma Mila was slumped on the tiles in the middle of broken dishes and a spilled carton of milk. I dashed to help her up but Baabi drew her knees to her chest, her wig was askew, it was like I needed to remind her, ‘It’s
me
, Judith!’ Her skirt, HaShem yerachem
(the Lord have mercy)
,
it wasn’t modest on her thighs. ‘Baabi, do you hear me?’ She clasped my forearm, with her other hand she pushed against the floor and lifted herself up. A notebook fell from her lap into the spilled milk. I leaned to pick it up but Baabi shook my arm until I dropped it. The notebook fell back into the spilled milk. ‘Is it Rachel?’ Grandpa Josef’s voice so faint behind the closed door of the study. Grandma Mila’s finger came to her lips. ‘Shh, let’s not tell him you’re here, he needs rest,’ and she hurried down the corridor. A drop of milk widened on the page, blurring a word, the word below—I couldn’t help it, I picked up the notebook, placed it on the counter, dabbed the wet pages with a paper towel, placed the salt and pepper shakers on the notebook’s corners so it would stay open and dry faster. I put down the shopping bag with my tiara and veil, I picked up the broken china, mopped the milk. The house was so quiet. It was the first time I was at Zeidi and Baabi’s without a younger brother or sister. A page of the notebook puckered up, I pulled it flat. In Grandma’s handwriting:
Next month, dear Lord, let it be me. Give me a child or I will die—

“Grandma Mila slapped the notebook shut. I was ashamed, I ran upstairs. Grandma Mila soon came after me, she hugged me, she said a kaleh meidel must not be sad, it was not good for the complexion, I had done nothing wrong, how could it be wrong to pick up a notebook and dry its pages? She rocked me, I laughed, I asked if she and Zeidi wanted to see how the veil and tiara fit. ‘It’s late, my heart,’ she said, ‘Zeidi is resting. You’ll show him tomorrow, when you try on the dress, the seamstress is coming at nine.’ We went down to the kitchen to
prepare dinner. The notebook was no longer on the counter. I asked, ‘Is the notebook about how Zeidi Josef and you survived?’ Sometimes people from back there don’t want to talk about it but Grandma said, ‘Yes, how we survived and decided to live.’ I knew about Grandma Mila and her parents rising in the middle of the night in the synagogue where they were locked up, how the others who stayed behind recited the prayer for those who leave, I knew that Grandma Mila, as a little girl, had crossed the Nadăş River on her father’s shoulders—

“ ‘Are they teaching it to you in school,’ Grandma asked, ‘are they teaching you about the Rebbe’s escape?’

“ ‘Of course, in kindergarten. How God sent a dream to a man who could save Jews:
You must rescue the Rabbi of Szatmár or your venture will not succeed.’

“Grandma Mila stared up at the ceiling. ‘Ah, the dream.…’ Then her head snapped forward and she said, ‘You do understand that the Rebbe himself, may his merit protect us, wanted to get on that train. You understand that he abandoned his community and his Hasidim,’ and she said apikorsus
(heresy)
about how the Rebbe escaped from Transylvania with the help of a Zionist—God forbid, no one but HaShem saved our Rebbe!

“Grandma Mila explained that sometimes the only way to bring more holiness into the world is to shroud an act in sin, so that Satan will not notice its goodness and interfere, and I knew this from school but it is never something we decide to do, only God and his angels.”

There was a silence. Judith started again.

“Then Grandma Mila said, ‘My Josef is preparing himself for the next world, he fears for his soul.’ We both started to cry because Grandpa Josef—if the messiah doesn’t come before the Lord calls back his soul—Grandpa Josef has nothing to fear, he will go straight to the Garden of Eden and I said Mummy wants to be here, she wants to come back right away if Grandpa Josef’s health, God forbid—

“ ‘In her state? Your mother must not come back, must not. She would busy herself with wedding preparations, in the eighth month it isn’t safe. Your mother will come back from the country for your wedding, after Simchath Torah. Don’t worry, mein kint, your Zeidi will live to a hundred and twenty years. You’re not eating? My own grandchild goes hungry in my house? Eat, child, eat. You finished? Say your blessing and go to sleep, a young body needs lots of sleep.’

“I woke in the middle of the night. I saw a ray of light under the door. I rose. The lamp on Grandma’s night table was lit but Grandma’s bed was empty. The house was so quiet. I tiptoed down the stairs. Grandma Mila was sitting at the kitchen table, in front of the notebook. She was crying. ‘Is Zeidi Josef very sick?’ I asked. She looked up, closed the notebook, stared at the dried flower under the cellophane dust jacket.
‘Anémone des bois,’
she said and she said Grandpa Josef loved the fragrance of this flower, it reminded him of spring, back there, it reminded him of Maramureş and did I know that in Maramureş, where Grandpa Josef was born, where Florina used to keep an eye on little Josef, in his first mother’s
orchard … did I know that in spring, in Maramureş, the meadows were yellow and white with daisies … then, as if just noticing I was standing in the doorway: ‘You’re up? You want dark circles under your eyes on your wedding day? Go to bed.’