He shrugs. “How can it?”
Good point.
“Did Miriam kill Rivka?” I ask.
Aron nods, almost imperceptibly.
“And Shoshanna?”
Again. Yes.
“Why?”
“I have no idea,” he says. He pulls on the end of his black and gray beard, which crawls over most of his long face. Without his big black hat and heavy coat, he seems smaller. His voice is soft. “Shoshanna, of course, I thought that was an accident. A tragedy. I came home and Rivka and Miriam were in the living room. Rivka was shivering. She’d left the children with Miriam while she went to run errands. Miriam and Heshy had only moved upstairs a few weeks before.”
“Where had they been living?”
“In Rockland County.”
“I’ve been told Miriam was… hospitalized?”
Aron nods. “Miriam is nearly twenty years younger than I. During much of her childhood and adolescence I was in Israel. I knew there had been difficulties. My father felt that the most important thing for the family was that she be safe. He felt safe meant away from other people. He found a place, upstate, for women. For years there were no problems. I returned from Israel while she was away. Rivka and I married. And then when Yakov was perhaps three years old, Heshy, whom I had known in Israel, arrived, looking for a shidduch. There was a dinner where they were introduced, and it was a match. They married and remained in Rockland County, where Miriam’s home had been. We hoped they might have children. They did not.
“Rivka and Miriam were very close once. When my father passed away, she felt a responsibility to care for Miriam-just as my father had cared for Rivka in her childhood. After Shoshanna was born, we brought the baby upstate. Miriam looked well and Rivka asked if she and Heshy might come live at the house, in the suite upstairs. Heshy told me he did not think it was wise. He said Miriam wasn’t ready to return to Borough Park. He was surprised when he learned Miriam had asked Rivka to make arrangements. I remember he told me, ‘There are too many eyes in Brooklyn watching her. Too many hands to hold her down.’ I thought it was strange, what he said. Later I realized he was using her words.”
“She thought people were watching her?”
Aron sighs. “Of course people are always watching. At shul, at the market. You are Jewish?”
I nod.
“But you do not understand,” he says. “In your article, your write that ‘Shomrim’ is Hebrew for ‘guard.’ This is not completely accurate. The more precise translation is ‘watcher.’ There are many in this world who hate the Jews. Who would see us gone from the earth. And so we must protect each other.
“Rivka felt we could protect Miriam. And I did not believe Miriam should be hidden away because of her illness. She told me that my father had been ashamed of Miriam’s behavior, her outbursts. Rivka told me she had begun reading about mental illness and that she believed Miriam suffered from a condition that could be treated. She said that we should set an example to the community by welcoming her home. It never occurred to her, I don’t think, that Miriam’s illness-or what she had become in the years of isolation-should frighten her.
“And when she came home and found Shoshanna…” Aron’s face is soft now, and he begins to weep. “We made a terrible mistake.”
“Why did you let Miriam stay, after that?”
“We believed the baby’s death had been an accident. We mourned together.”
“What did Miriam say happened?”
“She said that Shoshanna had fallen out of her chair in the kitchen while Miriam was feeding the other children. But later she said Shoshanna took some food-a radish, I think she said-from the counter and choked on it. I should have known then. Rivka was hysterical. It was one thing or the other, she said. She fell or she choked. I felt perhaps Miriam was confused. That Shoshanna’s death had been traumatizing and she was misremembering. I did not think she might be lying.”
He pauses.
“Rivka asked me to ask Miriam and Heshy to leave.”
“Did you?”
He shakes his head. “I did not believe that Miriam could have purposely harmed my child.”
“And now?”
“And now I believe that she did. But it is much too late. I am so very, very sorry.” His face, the one that had frightened me that night outside his office door, is slack with defeat. “I believed it was the right thing to do to keep our family together. I believed Miriam needed us. She had been sent away her whole life. I believed that she deserved our care.”
He pauses. I wait. “Just before Rivka’s death, Miriam became unmanageable. It began with Rivka.” He purses his lips and looks at the table. “My wife was not in love with me. I believe she tried to love me, for some years. But after Shoshanna’s death, she became restless.” He pauses again. “We made a visit to a house in Coney Island. It was implied she may have become involved with a man outside our marriage. I also learned that Heshy had begun… following her to gatherings. Miriam learned this as well, and when Rivka came home the evening after we confronted her, Miriam became hysterical. She called Rivka names in front of the children. She screamed at me, demanding I divorce her instantly. She began throwing things. She smashed a heavy drinking glass on the edge of the countertop and sliced her arm. There was blood everywhere. But it was as if she did not see it. Something had changed behind her eyes. When she calmed down, she spoke in what almost seemed a different voice. She had become someone else, someone I did not recognize. Someone I know now I should have feared.
“Rivka told me that she was not going to spend another night in the house with Miriam. She said I could take care of her if I wanted, but that she was finished. My wife took the children and spent the last night of her life in a hotel.”
“How did you find her?”
“She did not pick Yakov up at yeshiva. The rebbe called me more than two hours after she was due to be there. She had taken our minivan, and when I got home I saw that it was parked on the street. The house was very quiet. I walked through the hall and there was Miriam. She led me to the garage.”
“I asked Miriam on Friday when she’d seen her last,” I say. “She said Rivka had been gone several days.”
Aron shakes his head. “She was confused. Rivka was still warm when I found her. Miriam had taken her clothes. She said she wanted to wash them. Heshy and I wrapped her in a blanket and carried her to the car. I could not leave Miriam alone. I instructed Heshy to… dispose of her.”
“Why Heshy?”
“It was a terrible mistake. I was not thinking clearly. I thought of my son, and my daughters. I thought that if her body was gone, I could tell them-I could tell everyone-that she was just… gone.”
SUNDAY
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saul is already at the Starbucks when we arrive. He has a bouquet of mixed flowers wrapped in clear plastic on the table, and when he sees us he stands up and holds them out to me. It’s an awkward gesture, and I appreciate it. He is not in the shapeless suit today. Instead he’s wearing a sweater and dark-washed blue jeans. My father opens his arms to hug him, and Saul reaches out a hand; they collide, and laugh.
“Brian,” says Saul. “You don’t look a day older.”
“I’ve been blessed,” says my dad. I can tell he’s not sure how to act. Neither of them are. Saul’s feeling terrible because he almost got me killed, and Dad’s feeling terrible because Saul almost got me killed. But they’re looking at each other intently. It’s almost touching. Each one seeing my mother in the other.
Maria sits down and my father starts asking Saul questions about people they knew in common from that summer he was in New York-friends of my mother’s, people from the Coney Island house. But neither ever says her name. I often wonder how Maria interacts with the ghost of Aviva Kagan.