The Ruined House Page 4
He still felt warm all over late that night, long after she had fallen asleep, nestled in the crook of his neck, her heavy childlike breathing tickling him. He could feel her kisses everywhere, on his neck, on the folds of his stomach, on places whose existence had long been forgotten: the kisses of a young woman for whom sex was not yet a routine, who put all her desire, infatuation, and curiosity into each embrace. He lay awake, his arm around her thin body, full of wonder at the speed and intensity with which it had all happened. Only months later, again late at night, in the gentle fog of presleep, did he mention having seen her alone at a table that morning, studying a score.
“Yeah,” she said. “You were so cute.”
Andrew turned to her in sudden, wakeful surprise. “I used to go there all the time.”
Ann Lee laid a tender hand on his cheek, stroking his earlobe and neck. “I know you did. I was there to run into you.”
Propped on his elbows, he looked at her. “Is that true?”
“Of course it is,” she said with a loving smile. “What did you think? It’s not like they have such amazing coffee.”
13
October 9, 2000
The 10th of Tishrei, 5761
Nine a.m. The Yom Kippur service was on the Lower East Side, and Andrew wanted to be on time, especially since he would have to leave early. Rachel’s announcement that she would join him had touched and gladdened him even more than he was willing to admit. He wasn’t sure he understood her reasons, especially since it meant coming into the city from Princeton, but questioning her would only have put her on the defensive and forced her to rationalize.
Broadway was less crowded than usual. Yom Kippur made itself felt all over the city, most of all on the Upper West Side. On his way to the subway he glanced, as he did every morning, at his homeless man on the corner, as though to make sure he was still there. He was one of the neighborhood’s iconic lunatics. His obese, grotesque figure complemented that of the skinny, half-mad black preacher who liked to stand on the same corner, always wearing the same hat and suit, holding an unidentified book—the New Testament, no doubt, or else some ancient apocalyptic text—while rocking back and forth and shouting rhythmic ’allelujahs in his Creole accent. His homeless man never shouted or lost his composure. On the contrary, he seemed perfectly pleased with his station in life. He sat expansively on his bench in a broad-brimmed hat, wrapped in woolen blankets that formed a filthy gray poncho while carefully balancing in one hand a chessboard set for a game that never took place. Like a cruel parody of the proverbial swallow, he appeared annually on the first day of spring and vanished on the first day of autumn, borne away by his grime-encrusted blankets as though on the gray wings of a huge, slow-moving migratory bird.
The skinny preacher was in his regular place, bobbing up and down as always while straining with his hornlike voice to be heard. Andrew’s homeless man, on the other hand, did not display his usual calm. Eyes wide with apprehension behind smeared glasses that were held together by Scotch tape, he was mumbling something unclear, his immense frame shifting restlessly on his bench, throwing off the heap of blankets covering him like a mass of molten magma. His agitation could be felt. Its frantic contortions got under Andrew’s skin, forcing him to slow down and stare, mesmerized, at the heavy, pitiable figure. The flaps of the blankets lifted, revealing a pair of unexpectedly spread massive thighs, between which Andrew saw a huge, bloated member suggestive of a strange, beached sea creature. Quickly, he looked away from the repulsive sight, his heart beating faster; what should have been compassion had turned into an inexplicable anxiety. The penises of drowned men, he imagined, must look that way, sickly hunks of pale, swollen meat. Who by fire, who by water: wasn’t that a Leonard Cohen song?
Andrew hurried down the subway stairs. Only when he had descended a few steps and put himself at a safe distance did the standard New York fantasy occur to him: Why not bring the man home, wash the filth from him, cover his nakedness, give him a roof over his head, and restore him to the human race? Yet no less a part of this ritual, these thoughts were followed by the cold voice of reason: No, that was out of the question, not even remotely possible. As if smelling something bad or spoiled, Andrew involuntarily bit his lips and quickened his pace, trying not to think of the obscene sight he had witnessed, letting it dissipate in the sea of impressions in which his mind swam. How does one get to the Lower East Side? It was at the other end of the world. He would have to take the 1 or 9 train to 14th Street, follow the underground passage that led to the orange lines of the F, B, or D train, and continue to Lower Manhattan, making sure to get off at the right stop. A year ago, immersed in a book, he had missed it and found himself in Brooklyn.
14
What was left of the old Lower East Side Jewish ghetto? Not much. The neighborhood had been abandoned to low-income housing projects and depressingly ugly high-rises standing in seemingly random lots. Miraculously, the clock of the old Forward Building still showed the right time. On its edifice, the paper’s Yiddish name survived, carved in block gilt letters like those of an ancient prayer book. The large synagogue on the corner of Forsyth and Delancey, a grand structure that once had been the pride of the Jewish community, was now an Adventist church. A huge white cross adorned the facade, centered on the rose window with its former Star of David. And there were still a few Jewish eateries: Yonah Schimmel’s knishes, Kossar’s Bialys, Nathan’s kosher hot dogs, which had never really been kosher. Old-time New Yorkers still recalled Bernstein’s kosher Chinese restaurant on Essex Street with its Chinese waiters and their greasy black yarmulkes, its customers offered gift packages of salami for their sons in the armed forces with the motto “The gift you’ll love to give.” Mysteriously burned down a few years ago, it had been replaced by a nameless, nondescript office building. As for the renowned Essex Street pickle sellers, they became a tourist trap and branded themselves a “New York institution,” as advertised by a sign above the entrance. Now delivered all over the United States, the pickles were sold from hermetically sealed red plastic containers, which are far more economical than the old wooden barrels.
And yet the restless ghosts of the poverty-stricken immigrants who worked themselves to the bone in sweatshops or at miserable outdoor stands still haunt the streets where they had led their slavish lives, seeking their redemption in the old buildings, the basements that once had housed workshops and the lofts of the shut-down synagogues, amid rotting piles of old parchment, torn scraps of sacred books, and Yiddish ads for the Second Avenue Theatre.
15
Andrew did not go to synagogue on Yom Kippur for nostalgic reasons, or at least so he had told himself. Nor did he do so out of guilt. Ethel Cohen was the complete opposite of any stereotype—comic or tragic—of the Jewish mother. Guilt was not her thing. She deeply disliked sentimental Judaism, of the hora-dancing “Hava Nagila” variety, along with the Jewish mothers who behaved as though the medical degrees of their sons and the nice Jewish girls they were married to were their own achievement. When Andy chose to go to the progressive, even radical University of California in far-off Berkeley, Ethel’s protests were strictly for the record; deep down she was pleased to see her youngest son continue the westward trek of his ancestors, break the last chains of the East Coast ghetto, and leave behind the world of doctors, lawyers, Harvard graduates, and Mama’s boys for a new, more “American” path in life. Perhaps, too, the fact that her older son Matthew had gone to law school and joined a prestigious firm made it easier for her to cast off her generation’s prejudices and take pleasure in the non-Harvard education of her nondoctor son pursuing a non-lucrative field. So tolerantly accepting was her outlook that Andrew was ready to swear—it was his and Linda’s private joke—that she was even a bit shocked (“Disappointed,” Linda corrected him once the humor of it had begun to wear off) that her Andy had brought home a Jewish girl. It was from his mother that Andrew had gotten his aversion to the narrow-mindedness of the Jewish middle class and to what
he called in an interview with the American Review “the empty matrimonial obsession of contemporary Judaism . . . a materialistic, visceral reaction that is fully focused on the nuptial bed, the fetishization of which has stranded it in a symbolic vacuum like a hot air balloon floating in space after the basket holding its passengers has detached itself and crashed.”*
Why, nevertheless, did he go to synagogue one Yom Kippur after another? Not knowing the answer to this question, Andrew declined to ask it too often. It was neither a rational decision nor the outcome of lengthy debate, but an unthinking, almost absentminded choice. Congregation Anshei Shalom, the synagogue he attended, was particularly progressive, even avant-garde. Except for a few Hebrew verses retained for their poetic value by the editors of The New Holiday Prayer Book, nearly the entire service was in English. (“We see no spiritual advantage,” proclaimed the congregation’s founding declaration of principles, “in the rote repetition of an ancient liturgy that fails to resonate with the speech of our daily lives.”) Constantly adapting, it was at the cutting edge of the egalitarian, multicultural, humanistic, left-liberal politics of the day.
Anshei Shalom occupied the premises of an old synagogue, dating to the early twentieth century, which shut down in the 1970s when the last congregants died or left the neighborhood. Due to budgetary difficulties, the church to which it was converted shut its doors after a while. Thereafter, the building sat empty for several years and served as a hangout for drug dealers and the homeless; eventually, it was taken over by a group of young Jewish artists and intellectuals who had moved into the neighborhood, the gentrification of which had begun to attract bohemian types. The group’s religious leader, Abby Rosenthal, was an energetic and charismatic young rabbi, a fellow at the Koenig Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies. One of the founders of the small but dynamic Fringe Theater Troupe, she had also recently published a book of poetry to critical acclaim. In addition to being intellectually gifted and creative, she had a talent for administration and politics that had enabled her to obtain not only permission to use the old building but a municipal grant for its renovation. For reasons aesthetic (and financial), this restructuring had only been partial. Some of the decaying stained-glass windows and gilded molding had survived, lending the space a brooding theatrical charm that suited its sophisticated congregants.
The decision to retain Anshei Shalom’s old name was more a matter of whimsy than of any heavy, humorless argument on behalf of cultural continuity. While far from traditional, the congregation’s services had none of the group singing, guitar playing, colorful prayer shawls, and embroidered yarmulkes that had replaced the organ and priestly rabbinical garb in most Reform temples. Abby’s wit, passion, and powerful presence were enough to keep attendees in a permanent state of spiritual alertness. She liked to refer to her style of leading a service as “eclectic,” a blend of mysticism, meditation, and the latest scientific theories that left open the question of God’s existence. (Many of the congregation’s members were atheists or agnostics.)
“Dad, Dad, over here!” Rachel was waving with a smile while pointing to an empty seat beside her. A warm feeling welled in Andrew’s chest, as it did whenever he caught sight of her, his baby daughter who had grown to be such an attractive and impressive young woman. It was strange, though, to see her here. As a rule, she shrank from anything Jewish, and he himself was hardly a regular. He was puzzled even more by the open interest she took in the proceedings. Yet curious though he was, this was not the time to ask her about it. He let the hypnotic rhythm of the singing and chanting carry him along, half-concentrating on the motes of dust swirling in the colored shafts of light that pierced the stained-glass windows.
One thirty. The service was taking longer than usual—longer than he remembered, at any rate—and Abby Rosenthal hadn’t yet begun her sermon, the high point of the day for most congregants. Restlessly, Andrew glanced at his watch; he didn’t know how much longer he could stay. He had to meet Ann Lee at five if they were going to make it to the opera on time, which was a shame, because he liked to hear Abby speak. Should he stay a while longer and catch the sermon’s beginning? No, it would be rude to walk out in the middle. “I have to go,” he whispered to Rachel, leaning slightly toward her. “Do you want to come with me?” Surprising him again, she chose to stay. “I’ve heard all kinds of interesting things about this rabbi of yours,” she whispered back. Yes, Abby was interesting. Maybe he would read her sermon later, on her website. He rose, kissed Rachel on the cheek, and headed for the exit. Strange, how her eyes had lit up when talking about Abby Rosenthal. He stepped into the corridor, returned his yarmulke to its basket, picked up his coat from the coat check girl, tipped her a dollar, and left. He could grab a quick espresso and get home in time to rest and change before meeting Ann Lee.
16
Abby Rosenthal mounted the podium holding an intriguing, old prayer book with gilded pages. “I want to share something with you this year,” she began after a long moment of silence. “It’s an unusual reading experience: a description, in great technical detail, of a remarkable theatrical performance staged every year on this very day, the day of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. An audience of thousands watched it with baited breath, itself a participant, everyone’s energy converging on a single figure—a single actor, if you will, the star of our pageant. It’s set in the Temple in Jerusalem. The time is the Roman period. The chief protagonist bears the title of High Priest. It’s a suspenseful, passionate, exacting drama. The climax comes at a highly charged moment, a symbolically explosive one, when the High Priest enters an inner room, the most mysterious and secluded of all the rooms in the Temple, which no one would dare enter on any other day of the year. Its enchanting name: The Holy of Holies.”
Abby let her last words echo, then continued in a less dramatic, more personal tone: “I know that some of you cringed when you heard me say ‘the Temple in Jerusalem.’ I know that for most of you, myself, too, those words are instinctively off-putting. I can remember one year, when I was eleven; my father was a visiting professor at a university in Boston and the nearest synagogue was Conservative, not Reform. Everything was different there—it was a whole other world. Every week they prayed for the Temple, the Temple . . . Build the Temple again, God! It went in one ear and out the other. It was all a lot of white noise, meaningless words, an incomprehensible mantra that had lost its suggestive power—or perhaps nothing but its suggestive or auto-suggestive power remained. Maybe I had to journey a long way and feel sufficiently grounded in the here and now before I could take the time to listen to this ancient voice that tells me about a house destroyed two thousand years ago. Our text for today was deleted from the prayer books that you and I grew up with by the nineteenth century. This year I rediscovered it. Its aesthetics, structure, texture are as fascinating as are its contents. It’s old, strange, fascinating, inspiring. It moves me greatly to share it with you. It’s called”—she pronounced the words in Hebrew, in a deep, musical, guttural voice—“Seder ha-Avodah, Order of the Ritual.”
The sermon lasted over half an hour. Rachel was surprised to find that she didn’t lose interest once. There was something about Abby Rosenthal that she liked, something that made her decide to stay until the end of the service, or at least until the afternoon break. Should she approach her afterward and introduce herself? She couldn’t remember whether she had her cards in her bag. She searched for one, taking advantage of the opportunity to peek at a mirror and refresh her lipstick. It was odd to think of getting to know this unusual rabbi. But it was also, for some reason, exciting.
17
October 9, 2000
The 11th of Tishrei, 5761
A conductor once told me I was a reincarnation of Maria Callas,” Ann Lee said, continuing out loud a conversation she had been having with herself all evening. Her bare, cool, smooth thigh lay on Andrew’s. “I didn’t believe him. He just wanted to get me into bed.” She giggled. “And he almost did. But not because of
Maria.” Her small hand hovered over Andrew’s body. The wind instruments played a new phrase, their bronzed, golden notes giving her goose pimples. “I don’t think I’m her reincarnation. I think I’m a reincarnation of a Chinese opera singer, a docile little virtuoso whose voice and soul were bound just like her tiny feet, forced into a closed circuit that recycled her energy inward rather than outward.” She paused. “I know, I know.” Ann Lee gave a little squeeze. “There’s nothing Chinese about me. I’m the exact opposite and always was. No one could be less Chinese than I am. But that’s why I feel that that’s who I was in a previous life. I’m the other side of her, all she had to suppress. I was born to make up for her life, to go to the other extreme, so that together we’re one harmonious, redeemed soul. It’s as if my story isn’t complete without hers, or hers without mine.”
Andrew smiled and nodded, half-listening. “What were you in your former life? You don’t believe in any of that, do you? Neither do I.” Miles Davis’s golden trumpet reached new heights, scaling the walls and raising the ceiling. “I don’t believe in astrology, either, absolutely not. And not in feng shui or crystals or numerology. It’s just a pose. I can get away with it because I’m young and beautiful, mostly beautiful.” She gave him a mischievous, teasing smile and kissed him full on the lips. The wind instruments joined the trumpet like a polyphonic echo. Andrew shut his eyes and allowed himself to be immersed in her kiss.
18
October 14, 2000
The 15th of Tishrei, 5761
Crimson, boiling blood coursed through the streets: the besieged city had fallen. The screams of raped women mingled with the shrieks of their pregnant sisters, whose bellies were slit open by the soldiers competing to see who could most skillfully slice a baby in half with a single stroke. The possessions were plundered and divided up within the very walls. Looters ambushed each plundered house like a pack of wolves bringing down a gazelle and tearing it to pieces. The giant warrior loomed on the horizon in full battle dress, his enormous legs astride the high mountain to the city’s east, uprooted olive trees were strewn over its slopes like stacks of cheap Christmas decorations. A tremendous, ear-splitting explosion rent the air, splitting the mountain in two. A great valley appeared between its halves, thrusting them north and south. The fleeing populace headed for it, seeking the protection of the warrior. The day was black, its light frozen, but the night would be lit by a precious radiance. Living water, erupting cold and pure from the depths of the earth, would wash the blood from the streets and the rocks’ jagged edges and flow on, half to the outmost sea and half to the Ancient Ocean. A flow without end, by day and by night, in winter and in summer, pure, clean, and forever.