How had that happened?
And now her son was looking for a bride. And she would be a mother-in-law.
Awful name! One of those heavy, disapproving women with aggrieved expressions who roamed the world in search of aggravation. More often than not, they found it. The kind of older woman no one really liked, but everyone tried to be nice to in a phony, plastic way, just waiting for her to leave her gift offerings and go home.
She found the Engels’ house and looked it over. A neat, if not lovely, little garden, watered and pruned. A respectable two-family brick on a good street. She walked slowly up the steps, her heart beating from exertion and nervousness and dread. She knocked softly, hoping no one would hear and she could go home.
But already the door was opening. The woman on the other side was smiling. Her brown wig was newly set and smelled of heavy hairspray. The dining room table was also set for Sabbath dinner, awaiting the men’s return from Friday night prayers.
The girl sat on the sofa, drenched in the pale Sabbath candlelight. She is paler still, Tamar thought, and so young! Her hair was still in braids! And her simple skirt and blouse looked childishly loose and shapeless over her thin body.
The girl nodded but did not speak. Her mother, on the other hand, did not shut up; did not stop smiling and pressuring her white, trembling daughter to join in the conversation. The girl spoke only when spoken to and was brief to the point of rudeness.
“Well,” Tamar said, feeling the time pass with excruciating slowness, desperate to remove herself before the young girl fainted altogether. “Well, it was a pleasure to meet you. And of course we will be in touch. A
guten Shabbos
.”
“A
guten Shabbos, Rebbetzin
,” the girl’s mother boomed out with desperate friendliness. Tamar saw the woman’s elbow dig deep into her daughter’s stiff arm.
“A
guten Shabbos, Rebbetzin
,” the young girl finally piped
up, looking at her with the startled eyes of a doe caught in the headlights of a speeding car.
“Well?” Aaron asked with burning impatience.
“Well…” Tamar hedged. “I think she is very young. Maybe too young.”
“But all the girls who have been suggested are young!” Aaron exploded with annoyance. “Of course they are. They must be. All the ‘good’ girls are married by twenty!”
“There is something to that, my dear,” Josh agreed mildly.
“So then, whatever you decide!” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “I told you I don’t know, I can’t decide these things.”
“
Aba
. . .” Aaron implored.
“We will go see her again. This time together, Tamar. All right? Now, let’s not ruin Shabbos with any more of this…”
The next time there was no candlelight, only the clear harsh overhead glare of a good, fake crystal chandelier. But the girl still looked pale. She still had braids. She still twitched her fingers in her lap. And her eyes still looked up with the fear of a trapped little night creature.
Tamar found herself cornered in the living room with the parents, who were already beginning the negotiations. How much each would give for the wedding? What kind of furniture would be purchased? Who would give what and how much for support while the
chasan
continued his yeshiva studies? And most important of all, where would Aaron continue learning? A lively discussion ensued between Josh and Rabbi Engel on the various merits of big yeshivas versus small
kollelim
, America versus Israel…
Having nothing to contribute, Tamar sank back uncomfortably into the cushions of the plastic-covered couch, her back beginning to sweat. She kept smiling, all the while her eyes wandering to the girl, who sat in the corner. She seemed… resigned.
She had no spirit, not a word to say for herself, Tamar thought with annoyance. Already she imagined how her son would boss her around. She began to feel sorry for the little creature. She shrugged. Out of my hands, she thought. Completely, completely, out of my hands.
“A little mouse,” she whispered to Josh on the way home.
“That is
loshen hara
. She is very young and shy. But she will make a good wife, I think. A pious one.”
“She dresses like a child, not a
kallah moide
,” Tamar pointed out.
“She dresses modestly and without pretension,” Josh chided her.
“Well?” Aaron said when they got home. “When do I meet her?”
“Whenever you wish, my son,” Josh said placidly.
“Yes, whenever you wish,” Tamar repeated wearily.
Early Sunday morning mother and son walked back to the Engels. How nice Aaron looks, she thought. He’d spent all Saturday night brushing off the lint from his new black Fedora, polishing his shoes, bathing.
They went into the living room. The mother, as usual, did not close her mouth for two seconds. The girl was ushered in. Now two very red spots burned into the paleness of her cheeks. Now her fingers kept each other company, her whole body trembling, Tamar observed with alarm.
But somehow the two young people made their way to a quiet corner of the room. Aaron began to speak to her in determined low tones, doggedly going through the list of questions he had prepared beforehand: Did she understand what it meant to be a
kollel
wife? To help support a Torah scholar for years? Did she understand that they would live wherever his studies took him, even if it was very far from Orchard Park and her parents?
The girl nodded and nodded. Surprisingly, she seemed to be answering him in sentences, for Tamar could see Aaron focusing on her lips and face with the utmost interest.
“Well, my son knows his way home, so I think I’ll just be getting back,” Tamar excused herself, wanting to flee.
All the way home, she did not understand why she felt like crying.
The phone rang. It was the matchmaker. “
Nu?
”
“Well, they are talking. I’ll let you know.”
A disappointed clearing of the throat.
“Soon as possible,” she conciliated.
Aaron arrived. He seemed elated. But then moments later the phone rang again.
It was Mrs Engel. “I’m very embarrassed, but Fruma Devorah…” She hesitated. “She kept saying she didn’t want to get married. That she was not even seventeen, and what does she need it for? She sees how hard married women work… We thought it was
narishkeit
, that it would pass once she met your son. We didn’t want to pass up such a fine opportunity… But she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want. It’s nothing personal, believe me. She says she still feels too young…” The voice was abject with apology and slightly hoarse, as if her vocal chords had been strained to the breaking point.
“Well,” Tamar said with almost breathtaking relief, “that is perfectly understandable.”
Aaron was devastated. “So many weeks wasted on this, with nothing to show for it!” he fumed.
“Would you rather marry a frightened rabbit? Be grateful she called it off.”
“I knew you didn’t like her!” he accused.
“What was there to like?” Tamar admitted. “Like gefilte fish without horseradish. Bland, tasteless.”
“All of that time and effort, wasted. Well, I have no intention
of waiting around for her to grow up. I’m going back to yeshiva.”
The phone kept ringing. More prospects. More enthusiastic sales pitches.
“I need a rest from all this, Josh. I mean, it’s making me crazy!”
He looked at her curiously. “You don’t want him to get married, do you?”
“Why, that’s unfair! Haven’t I kept going, kept looking? Haven’t I done whatever I was told?”
“But you always find something wrong.”
“Is that my fault? What can I do if they are pale and rabbity and loud-mouthed and materialistic? Is that my doing? Blame the messenger,” she said, wounded.
Of course, he was absolutely right. She didn’t want to find a bride for Aaron.
She wasn’t ready yet, she thought, terrified at what lay beneath the surface of her reluctance. Everyone just assumed it was the usual selfishness of the mother who was unwilling to part with her child, unwilling to share his affection and attention with a stranger. That it was the usual fear of the empty nest. She longed for it to be true, to be able to crawl into the niche of cliché as one crawls into the restful comfort of a big old blanket that has gone soft from many washings and much use. But as much as she tried to cover herself with it, it brought no warmth or comfort.
There was something more.
Something too terrible, too terrifying, to look in the face.
“But if you’re not ready for him to get married, that is your privilege as his mother. He’ll have to respect that. He’ll just have to wait,” Josh said calmly.
The blatant unfairness of her right to sabotage her son’s life left her breathless with self-recrimination. She was ruining his chances, getting him a reputation as a difficult match. Instead of
helping him, of cooperating, she was taking away his chance for happiness, his right to join his peers as a husband and a father.
Silent tears fell down her cheeks.
“Aach,” Josh said, wiping them away. “This is…” He sighed. “We all need a vacation from this. I have had an invitation from the Yeshiva of Lonovitch in B’nai Brak for Aaron to learn there. He was so busy with
shidduchim
I didn’t even mention it to him. Let him go for a few months. Let everything cool down a bit. It would be a vacation for you, too…”
“Well, if he wants to. I wouldn’t want to force him,” she said cautiously, but then as the wonderful vision of several months off from the torture of matchmaking took hold, her enthusiasm could not be held back. “I mean, it sounds like a wonderful idea. If Aaron agrees…”
Aaron was thrilled.
“Lonovitch!” he exulted, the way a college hopeful might say: Harvard! or Stanford! or Oxford! It was the pinnacle of serious learning, producing the leaders of the
haredi
Jewish world. “I will learn so much!”
His bags were packed. He waved good-bye from the airport shuttle taxi.
Tamar exulted. No more phone calls, at least for a while. No more young women to look over and terrify. She took a long bath. And that night she slept like a baby.
Three weeks later Josh came home early, his face beaming. “I got a letter from Reb Asher Lehman, one of my old classmates who now lives in B’nai Brak. He has found the perfect
shidduch
for Aaron. Her name is Gitta Chana Kleinman. Her father is the mashgiach of Lonovitch!” His voice rose triumphantly.
“The mashgiach!” Tamar repeated with dread and awe and a sense of panic. The job of mashgiach was one of the most esteemed positions in any Talmudical academy. The person who filled it was responsible for the spiritual and physical comfort of
the boys in the yeshiva. Though not necessarily a rabbi himself, he was a friend and confidant of the rabbis who taught there. And he had the final say on many administrative and financial matters. The person who held such a position was usually the most pious and respected person the community knew, a serious
talmid chachom
. His children were considered very lofty matches. And this was the daughter of the mashgiach of Lonovitch!
“I have heard of Reb Kleinman. A real tzadik. A man who wakes up at four every morning and walks to the Kotel to pray. A man who is in the Beit Medrash learning until midnight every night… Wise, compassionate, generous!”
She had never seen Josh so excited.
“So, what happens now?” Tamar asked, trying to be helpful and upbeat, trying to ignore the thudding of her reluctant, panic-stricken heart.
“I will write my friend Rabbi Lehman back to handle the entire matter as he sees best!”
“Yes, that is a good idea,” Tamar murmured, thinking it was a terrible idea. Almost as terrible as Aaron meeting some Israeli girl and settling in Israel, far away from his parents. Almost as terrible as Aaron getting married.
A few weeks later the phone rang. It was long distance. A Reb Asher Lehman for Rabbi Finegold.
“Josh! It’s him! Rabbi Lehman!”
She watched her husband’s face as it registered excitement, satisfaction, and then a rare pride.
Josh rubbed his hands together. “Reb Asher says Aaron and the girl have met. Things are going fast. He wants one of us to come!”
“You go.” Tamar shook her head, a queasiness in the pit of her stomach. Aaron had met her! It was going well!
“No. It’s not my place to go. You have to go. This is the mother’s job, to find a wife for her son.”
“You don’t want this responsibility any more than I do,” she accused. “You’re just making up excuses! Look, why do either of us have to go? Why can’t Aaron make up his own mind? I mean, he’s got Reb Lehman there, and we could ask your cousin Velvel to take a look,” she said, beginning to feel as if some heavenly reprieve might be in the wings for her, sparing her.
“So don’t go,” Josh said levelly. “So let Aaron feel like some motherless child who has only strangers and distant relatives to help him with the most important decision of his life…”
El Al flight number 401 from Kennedy Airport gained speed rapidly. Tamar gripped the armrest, her neck stiff with tension, her body vibrating to the accelerating wheels of the lumbering machine as it propelled its giant carcass forward. And then, suddenly, the lift. A sense of lightness, of surging wildly upward. A feeling of release.
She felt an inexplicable rush of joy that made her want to laugh out loud. It was a feeling of bursting through some underground, oxygen-poor mine shaft, having been buried there for countless hours; a feeling of swimming up and breaking the surface of the sea after having lain on the bottom, drowning.
The overpowering, dangerous labyrinth of New York City, transformed into a harmless Legoland! And the higher she rose, the more the city continued to shrink beneath her, taking with it all of its dark threat, its frightening chaos, its indecipherable, sinister landmarks. After all these years, she thought. Finally, finally free! After all this time. And I never knew it, never understood it was possible. That it was possible to simply leave, to go away. To leave behind her sister’s apartment. The window. The bed. The back alley and fire escape. The dark, wretched stranger who still walked the streets, still ate his breakfast, still slept in a bed, like a real human being. Who was still out there somewhere. Close by.