Light Fell (16 page)

“Oh, Joseph, what a distortion. Of course that’s not what they meant!”

The two men had reached an impasse, a conflict in a relationship each had secretly, impossibly hoped would live forever in unblemished harmony. They fell silent for a moment, and gazed at anything but one another.

Yoel addressed the breach first. “In any event,” he said slowly. “We have not transgressed the commandment ‘And you shall not lie with a man as a woman.’”

“How not? Why just an hour ago . . .”

“No.” Yoel shook his head firmly. “Jewish law is quite clear on this point. There is only one explicitly forbidden act.” He looked hopefully to Joseph for signs of comprehension.

“Only one?” Joseph asked timidly.

“Only one,” Yoel answered gravely. “On all the rest the sages are silent. So we have not transgressed God’s law.”

Joseph contemplated this news silently for several minutes while Yoel returned to the bee flowers.

“And what is the punishment if we
do
transgress?”

“Don’t ask,” Yoel said quietly without turning around.

“Voilà, c’est fini,”
says Philippe, as if to a child. Joseph understands only when the masseur has released his grip. Is this another trick of Philippe’s profession or an additional humiliation of encroaching old age? How had he not felt it coming? It is only as Philippe peels them back and tosses them into a bin that Joseph notices the soiled rubber gloves he must have surreptitiously slipped over his hands.

*

Joseph awakens in the darkened, windowless exercise room unsure where he is. His only indication is the dim boiler light on the hot tub. Usually a light sleeper, he wonders how Philippe could have covered him with a comforter from the bedroom and left the flat without waking him. Briefly he wrestles with the possibility that Philippe somehow drugged him and escaped with suitcases stuffed with silver and paintings. He remembers the food in the oven and bolts for the kitchen. There he finds the fish, chicken, and beef lined up in a row on the counter, as if poised at the start of a race. Joseph is too embarrassed by his own suspicions to call Philippe to thank him, but he makes a mental note to buy him a very good bottle of wine.

* * *

On Fridays Gideon stays for the late-morning
shiur
, the last lesson of the day before the students disperse in order to prepare for the Sabbath. But on this particular Friday it is hard for him to concentrate on the rabbi’s words, so he pinches himself every so often in an attempt to put his mind on track again. The pinches do not help, however. His father’s image appears and reappears in his mind. Sometimes Joseph is wearing a bright red dress with ruffles at the bottom and sometimes a white and frilly wedding gown and sometimes a long black fur coat. His hair is dyed white blond and his fingernails seem to be painted.

The more Gideon imagines his father, the more distraught he becomes. Joseph has promised he will prepare and serve the food on newly toiveled cookware. He says he has bought only the most kosher of foods. But Gideon cannot bear the thought of being in that house of sin, as if he condones his father’s aberrant lifestyle. And what if that other man is there—how can he and Batya possibly be part of a desecration of the holy Sabbath? To where will they escape if necessary? They know no one in Tel Aviv.

His apprehension runs deeper than that, however. Gidi was never popular with the older boys. He was critical of them and he complained a lot as a child, commanding more than his fair share of their mother’s attention. He was the best and most intense student of the five of them, and it was no secret that Rebecca and especially Manfred derived immense pleasure from his successes in school. At Sabbath meals Manfred would often quiz his grandsons on their knowledge of the Bible and it was usually only Gideon who could answer all his questions. He is in no mood to be made fun of by his brothers, and he knows that Batya is no match for their wit. He prefers to stay at home, with people just like him. The thought that his whole family is estranged from him makes him abysmally sad.

Gideon pulls his fur hat far down over his ears before he sets out toward home in the cold air. He is pleased to find that their home—two rooms that jut into the courtyard of Batya’s parents’ apartment—is warm today. He is grateful for this arrangement, which enables them to remain in their densely crowded and terribly expensive ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea She’arim. He finds Batya in their bedroom when he arrives.

She smiles and hugs herself when she sees him. “I prayed to God you would walk in right now, and you did!” Her face breaks into a wide and glowing smile.

The simplicity of her belief always rankles Gideon. “Don’t you know that’s ridiculous? Batya, don’t you know how stupid that sounds?” He watches the smile melt from her face. “You can’t say things like that at my father’s house.”

“Gideon, why not?” Her face is as innocent as a toddler’s.

“My father is a very clever man. You don’t want him to think you’re stupid, do you? Just behave yourself, with him and with my brothers, and maybe we’ll get through this.”

“Get through what?”

“This awful weekend!” He is shouting now.

“Gideon?”

“What?”

“Will you help me decide what clothes to bring along?”

Several months before Gideon’s twenty-first birthday, the head of his yeshiva assembled all the men who studied there—the married ones, the army-age group, the high school students—along with all the teachers, in order to announce that a star pupil, Gideon Licht, would marry his daughter Batya. There was ecstatic rejoicing at the yeshiva for two days. The announcement was met with somewhat less enthusiasm at home in Sde Hirsch, but within the week invitations were sent out. The wedding took place in a large hall adjacent to the yeshiva, with one thousand guests in attendance. In protest Rebecca had refused to buy a new dress for this first wedding of a son, but she did eventually purchase a hat and shoes for the occasion. Noam led the entire family to believe he would not attend, but he showed up—with a young lady none of them had met before, the straps of her cocktail dress constantly slipping off shoulders only partially hidden by a carelessly wrapped shawl—just as the ceremony was getting under way. Noam and his date left before the meal when they realized that men and women were required to eat on opposite sides of a partition, separated for the entire affair. Joseph, the father of the groom, was not invited, nor was his name mentioned on the invitation.

Gideon is a moody husband, though charming to Batya’s parents, siblings, and virtually everyone else. Still, in such close quarters it is hard to hide anything, and they know his patience is tried constantly. They do not blame him. Batya has not been right since a family holiday at an ultra-Orthodox hotel at the seashore during her eighth summer. A nameless, faceless man pulled her into a room by her braids as she walked down the hotel corridor, perhaps the only time she had ever been free of all of her seven siblings—her parents had divided the children for the day and each thought Batya was with the other—and performed unspeakable acts on her for hours and hours. He threatened her at knifepoint never to say a word to anyone and made tiny incisions in her thighs to make sure she understood. Batya did not speak a word for more than four years, her child’s mind certain her attacker had meant never to say
any
word to
any
one, until her menstrual bleeding began and her need to ask questions strangled her fears.

Gideon for the most part suppresses his physical urges under layers of heavy clothing. On occasion, more often than not on a Friday evening, he gives in and takes Batya to bed. She is pliant, if not particularly enthusiastic, but she understands she will not conceive a child if she does not lie with her husband. And a baby of her own is the thing she wants most in the world, along with making Gideon happy. They do not know why they have not conceived after more than a year of marriage, but they have done no tests to find out. Batya has asked her mother about this, but the woman tells her God will provide, so Batya is waiting patiently for him to provide, and she continues to respond to her husband’s urges with this in mind. Batya would be surprised to know she is not the only person to wonder whether that bad man from the hotel at the seashore took all the babies out of her, but this is a question she never asks.

* * *

Relieved and still relaxed from the massage and the nap, Joseph wanders drowsy and dreamy into the center of the living room, assessing it in a slow twirl. He has already banished Géricault’s nude laborer to his bedroom wall. From the coffee table he removes
DanceErotica
and
The Male Nude in
Sculpture
, but leaves
The Opera Sets of David Hockney
after flipping through to be sure. He places Pepe’s collection of teakwood primitives in a lined wicker basket and covers it with a cloth, brushing his hand lightly over the bulbous breasts and pointy phalluses now jutting upward from a bed of satin. He has always found these crude and cheap and plans to keep them hidden even after the weekend, until Pepe registers their disappearance. He suddenly notices two whole shelves of books—novels, short story collections, poetry anthologies, essays—that could cause problems. He does not want to haul them all away, and to where? He wishes he could cover them with a sheet, like the supermarkets do with the leavened food during Passover week, but then decides to leave them all.
This
is my life, he reminds himself.

Joseph jumps as the intercom buzzes. “The beverage shop has delivered your order,” says Shlomi Buzaglo, the doorman. “Is it OK if I bring it up now?”

When he arrives at the kitchen door Joseph is surprised to find Shlomi looking slightly disheveled. He is capless, and the two top buttons of his uniform are open, spilling curly black hair out of the opening. “I’m off duty now,” he tells Joseph, sensitive to his stare. “Last little chore before I go.” Shlomi wheels a luggage cart with three cartons of beer and wine and soft drinks and juices directly to the pantry. “Shall I unpack any of these straight into the fridge?” he asks in a strained voice as he bends over the heavy boxes.

“No, no. I’ll do that later.”

“Sure smells great in here.” He approaches Joseph in the middle of the kitchen. “You certainly didn’t need my mom’s recipe,” he adds amicably.

Joseph knows the pockets of his bathrobe are empty, but he slides his hands down the sides of his legs anyway, hoping an unplanned coin will materialize from nowhere.

“Oh, please, no tips today. If anything, I owe you something. I mean you and Mr. Pepe are always so nice, the friendliest people in this whole building.” He places himself very close to Joseph, who shifts his weight to his back foot in order to gain space without offending him.

“Take the actress on the sixth floor, for example. What’s the big deal, a stupid kiddie show! I mean, so what if she’s popular with the preteens? So what if my nieces are crazy about her? She and her lousy friends have no right to treat us doormen like dirt. Or how about the lady lawyer one floor down? She calls all of us ‘young man.’ She doesn’t know a single one of our names. Dr. Vardi’s kids are the worst, though. We’re always getting called up there to save them from some disaster and they never thank us, never give us one little word of appreciation. They act like it’s what we owe ’em, but even if you say it’s all part of our job—which it isn’t—but let’s say it is, well, it still wouldn’t hurt to say thank you the way you guys do. That’s what I’ll take away from this job with me when I move on—to remember the little people who make your life more comfortable and tell them, ‘Hey, man, you’re great. Keep up the good work.’ That’s all it takes.”

Joseph considers counting the bottles of beer in the cartons. He has never seen Shlomi so animated. Is it just the approaching weekend, the end of his shift, the release of two buttons on a uniform?

Shlomi runs a hand through his hair, fingers spread wide, and takes a deep breath. He takes another and then a third before Joseph feels compelled to speak. “Is something wrong, Shlomi? Is there something I can do for you?”

The doorman seems to be staring at a high point on the far wall. “I was thinking more like what it was
I
could do for
you
.” He takes another deep breath and stares at Joseph.

“Are you talking about odd jobs to earn some pocket money?”

“I was thinking of something more personal,” Shlomi answers, staring again at some faraway spot.

Joseph looks more closely at Shlomi now, noticing and appraising the young man Pepe has always found “attractive, in a primitive way.” There is nothing refined in his features, his jaw thrust forward and always shadowed dark with stubble. His nose is fleshy and his eyebrows nearly meet along a brow so prominent it gives him a look of constant brooding. But it is a reliable face, the face of a man you can trust.

For an instant Joseph imagines Shlomi’s heavy young body in bed. Hairy, sweaty, eager, and energetic. Willing to please and be pleasured. Isn’t he worried what his fellow doormen will think about his visiting the penthouse? Surely they know where he is; every minute longer is further confirmation of their suspicions. Is it money he is after, an easy life? Or has curiosity, desire, or an adventurous spirit overtaken him?

Joseph is aroused at the prospect, but just then another thought grips and shakes him. Shlomi is Noam’s age, or Ethan’s. A young man searching, innocent; someone’s son. His own sons will be here in this very flat in just a few hours.

“You’re a fine man, Shlomi. Pepe and I are both fond of you and I’m glad you recognize our respect and appreciation for all you do for us. But there’s no room for changing our relationship in any way, and it would certainly not help you in life.” Joseph is proud of the gentle rebuff.

“Please, Professor Licht, try me,” the doorman pleads in a near whimper. “You won’t be disappointed.” He slips two more buttons through their holes then reaches down to his crotch.

Joseph grabs both of Shlomi’s hands and brings them to his face. “Shlomi, don’t do this. You will find someone suitable, someone your age who understands what you want and need. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but be patient and wait for the right person, whoever that may be.” He releases Shlomi’s hands and pushes him gently away. “Now go,” he says. “Enjoy your time off. I’ll tell you all about my family reunion on Sunday.”