“And the city is okay with that?”
“The city tends to stay out of religious education.”
“And then what?”
“And then they marry. They find a job, usually within the community. As a teacher, or a clerk. Many Hasidim own property, so real estate management.”
“What about the girls?”
“It is different for the girls.”
“Obviously.”
Saul looks at me. I’m not used to being around people who are so serious. I think I’ve hurt his feelings.
“Sorry, it just seems a little weird.”
“No, no,” he says, again. Then he pauses and smiles. “You look like your mother but…”
“But what?”
“You are very different.”
“How?” He’s set my stomach off. I squirm in my seat.
“She was not, not so… I think you are smarter than she is.”
It’s not what I expected him to say. I look at him, but he keeps his gaze forward. We’ve left Gowanus and are headed south toward Borough Park. I’ve never thought about how I stacked up to my mom intellectually. I feel more proud than offended, which is what I’m sure Saul meant for me to feel, but I’m frustrated by my complete inability to add anything to a discussion I would love to have. Was my mother smart? I have no idea.
“You said ‘is.’ Is she alive?”
“Your mother?” Saul sounds surprised. “You don’t…? I’m sorry.” He feels bad, I realize immediately. Like it took him until this moment to realize that she really did disappear from our lives twenty-two years ago. “Her family moved upstate near Kiryas Joel many years ago.”
Kiryas Joel is the name of the town in the Catskills where a sect of super-Orthodox Hasids live. I’ve read about it. The articles said it was pretty bad: Rabbis having to see women’s “clean” panties to certify they were off their periods and thus safe to re-welcome into society. Average family size triple, quadruple the rest of us. Most people on food stamps. One article said it was the poorest town in America.
“Do you still see her?”
“No,” he says. He’s not exactly wistful, but almost. “The last time I saw your mother was more than twenty years ago, just before she moved to Israel.”
“She was in Israel?” Now that’s news.
Saul nods. “The Kagans have family there. Two great-uncles chose Jerusalem over Brooklyn after the war. I got the sense that it was to be a fresh start for her.”
“Another fresh start,” I say. “I think me and my dad were supposed to be a fresh start, for a while.”
“Do you keep in touch with your mother?”
His question surprises me, and then pisses me off.
“You’re kidding, right? For all I know, she got hit by a bus ten minutes after leaving us. I actually had myself convinced she was dead for like, a good few years. It was almost comforting. Until I realized that if she was really dead, I’d probably have heard about it. Then for a while I thought she was alive because, somehow, I’d just know if she was dead. Then, I started thinking she could be, like, dead in a ditch somewhere, and I’d never know. I totally imagined her trying to get back to me, and being murdered. But that was bullshit.”
“You are very angry with your mother.”
“I think I have a right to be.”
“Your mother-”
“Hold on,” I say. “If you’re about to tell me how fucking great Aviva Kagan was, and how she was just so tortured by her family and their ridiculous idea of God that she had to abandon her child-you can save it.” The last few words are a croak. I take a deep breath. I’ve been in therapy on and off for years and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to take a deep breath. As many as possible. “You just don’t leave your child. Unless you’re cruel. And maybe she was cruel.” I’m shaking now. My chest feels on the verge of emitting a laugh, a sob, and my breakfast all at the same time. Deep breath.
Saul signals and pulls the car over after the next light. We’re in front of a fire hydrant on a residential street. Traffic is light.
“Rebekah,” says Saul slowly. “Your mother was a weak woman. She was vibrant and creative and beautiful and willing to take risks. She changed a room when she walked in it. But she could not tolerate pain. Her spirit broke easily, and often catastrophically. The gossip was drugs, but I have no proof of that. I believe your mother was sick. A mental illness, perhaps. She just couldn’t make it work for herself. And of course no one wanted to marry her after she came back. I think that was what Israel was supposed to be. Find a groom far enough away he won’t mind a little…”
“Backstory.”
“Exactly.”
“But she came back?”
“Yes.”
“And disappeared again, right?”
Saul nods.
I puff an exasperated exhale.
“It must have been very difficult,” says Saul.
“It was, Saul,” I say, feeling like I know him all of a sudden. I look at him and he is looking at me. He’s almost smiling, and suddenly I realize how grateful I am to be looking at someone who knew her. Someone other than my father for whom the woman who is my mother is a real person. “It was very difficult. It was always there.”
Saul nods. “I know many young women like her-and men, too. It is not always a natural fit, this life, and there are harsh consequences for failing to conform. Your mother didn’t fit. And she hated herself-and the world-for it.”
I don’t know what to say. I suppose that makes sense. I wonder if Rivka Mendelssohn fit? I close my eyes a moment, then open them.
“We can go now,” I say. “I’m fine.”
Saul checks his mirrors and pulls out into the street.
“I didn’t know Orthodox Jews could be cops,” I say after a few blocks. “I mean, you can’t go by all the rules, right?”
“My religious life doesn’t affect my work as much as you might think,” he says. “But I do not live the strict lives many others in the community live.”
“You rebelled.”
Saul looks cross. “I hate that word. It sounds so adolescent. I endured a marriage that was very unhappy and which brought pain to myself and many others. Including my son. Because of all this, I was moved to alter my way of life, but not to turn my back on my heritage or my God. It was a very long process. And I know you meant nothing by it, but the word upsets me.”
“Perfectly understandable,” I say, trying to apologize without actually apologizing.
“What were we talking about?”
I laugh. “Before your outburst or mine?”
Saul chuckles, too. Neither of us can remember. We ride in silence again for a while. Finally, Saul pulls over alongside a small park.
He turns off the engine and looks at me.
“There will be a funeral for Rivka Mendelssohn later today. But before she is buried, I’d like you to see her body.”
We walk in silence for several blocks, past quiet brick homes and small apartment buildings. “I know it’s cold,” says Saul, finally. “I’m sorry. It is Shabbos. I can’t be seen driving.”
“You can’t be seen? By who?”
“By anyone,” he says. “By the community.”
“So you, like, pretend to be observant?”
“It is important that I have the trust of the people in the community,” he says. “I am observant. But not so much as some.”
I wait for him to explain further, but he does not.
After about ten minutes, we reach the funeral home, a large low building with a parking lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. There is one entrance marked for men. Another for women. We enter through the women’s door and stand in a kind of vestibule. Saul speaks in a hushed voice.
“When a Jew dies, the family receives the body almost immediately. Tradition forbids embalming or extracting part of the body, which is what the medical examiner would do. And the deceased is to be buried as soon as possible, usually within twenty-four hours. If today was not Shabbos, she would have been buried this morning. Instead, the service will be after sundown.”