says not to turn away a poor man without giving him something, even a dried fig.”
Reyzl stood there, trying to decide between a white blouse and a red blouse, holding them up and examining them in the light as if trying to weigh their beauty against their usefulness over the next few days. Finally, she gave up and laid them both on the trunk.
Then she came over and sat next to me on the bed.
“Rough day, huh?” she said, patting me on the back with some of her old familiarity.
“Rough week,” I answered. Rough year. Rough life.
“I can tell. You didn’t used to give up so easily.”
I let that one ping off me.
“You’re just overtired,” she said, rubbing my shoulders.
“I could do this if I just had some help. I can’t do it all alone.”
“The problem is that you’re too tired and cranky to approach this logically.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re a good man, Benyamin. And when I first met you, you were the smartest boy on the block—”
“But it was an awfully small block.”
“Listen to me. You’re not thinking clearly. You need to rest so you can restore your energy and think clearly.”
“I don’t have time for that—”
“What do you mean? Didn’t you always tell me that whenever a man eats and sleeps to keep up his strength so that he can carry out God’s commands, those activities become holy and sacred as well?”
I closed my eyes and thought of God. After all, they say it’s better to talk to a woman and think of God then to talk to God and think of a woman.
“At least you’re trying to change things for the better. I can see that,” she said. “And I believe that if anyone can save us, you can. But you can’t do it if you’re too tired to think straight. You need to relax and rest so you can get an early start tomorrow.”
“Relax? How can I relax at a time like this? I shouldn’t even have come here—”
“No, you did the right thing by coming here,” she said, reaching behind her head.
She unpinned her long, dark hair, and shook it loose.
O, taste and see that the Lord is good.
It had been such a long time that her body was just like new to me. Her breasts were as sweet as two ripe apples, young and erect, like the very first time.
I breathed in as if I wanted to take in the moment and hold it inside me forever.
Then it hit me. I had to tell her.
“Wait. I’m not clean.”
“Neither am I,” she said, indicating that her period had ended but she hadn’t taken her ritual bath yet. But by that point, I wouldn’t have stopped for all the money in the world.
Two opposites converged, forming a divine circle, the very essence of life, and yet something beyond life, a union of souls for a brief instant. But even one hour in Paradise is good.
Her hands caressed my newly shorn head, and she couldn’t help giggling.
“Good Lord, it feels like I’m making love to a Christian.”
And her lips unfolded like a rose opening toward the sun.
Sonntag
Nedle
Sunday
Pay attention that you not ruin or destroy
My world, for if you ruin it, there will be
no one after you to repair it.
—GOD
Koheles Raboh
CHAPTER 31
A BLAST OF COLD AIR woke me, and my head felt strangely exposed. I put my hand to my cheek, felt its sandy nakedness, and wondered what world I was in. Then I remembered I had changed myself into a Christian.
Reyzl stood by the window, fully dressed, wrapping a hand mirror in a woolen shawl, and stuffing it into her trunk.
The icy draft had brought a strange man in with it, a hunched fellow clutching a bag full of papers and other scribal implements. His crabby hand stayed on the doorknob, as if he feared that he might have strayed into the wrong room.
“Come in, Reb Avreml,” said Reyzl. “You’re letting in the cold.”
“Where’s the second witness?” said Reb Avreml, pointing his long nose at me, which in the pale shadow of a tallow candle looked as shriveled as a pickle that had been steeped too long in brine.
“Isn’t Reb Leibstein with you?”
“Coming, Miss Reyzl,” said a boxy man with an unkempt beard, who at least had the decency to look uncomfortable with his assigned role in this affair. But the landlady trotted in with all the bubbly anticipation of a food vendor at a bullfight. God damn it, she was actually enjoying this.
I pulled the blankets around me