For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories Read online

  “No,” Tzippy screams, hands to her mouth. She tucks her legs under her and hangs over the arm of her chair. “You didn’t.”

  “I didn’t want to, but I did.”

  “Shlomi!” Tzippy says. “A gentile, Ruchama. And half your age. You didn’t. Your children. The man has a ring in his lip.”

  “Ice cold,” Ruchama says. “Ice cold and red hot.”

  “It must stop, Ruchama.”

  “That is what I keep telling him.”

  “But he won’t listen,” Tzippy says. “He is so full of lust. He knows it can’t be but won’t listen. He wants you to meet him once more. To tell him you can’t do it while looking deep into his eyes.”

  The admission changes everything. Tzippy works twice as hard as she ever did. Ruchama need only stay alert enough during the days to retell the lie again and again. She makes up tiny details that she adds to each version. Tzippy’s hands fly as she listens, wide eyed, stopping only to gasp. She advises Ruchama against it again and again, then she plots out their future if they should decide to run away. “Would he convert, do you think? Would he look nice in a beard?” Tzippy passes things into Ruchama’s hands, lingering now, offering a moment of warmth and support. She passes everything except for the phone. She hangs up on the deliveryman, who calls again and again. Sometimes she rushes out hushed advice before cutting the line. “Let it go,” she says. “I know it hurts,” she tells him, “but it cannot be.”

  Ruchama feels less guilt than she’d imagined. It’s Tzippy’s own fault for buying into such nonsense. And it’s not without purpose. A few more weeks. One month to Passover. The wig is almost ready.

  It’s 8:30 in the morning when Ruchama finishes the wig. Passover is ten days away. The wig is heavier than any she’s ever made, an intense and copious thing. Ruchama doesn’t usually shave her head, but the vanity of such hair calls for compensation. Ruchama plugs in the electric clippers, nicks herself on the first pass.

  She fits her hands into the cap and stretches it round her scalp. It holds tight. She drops her head between her knees and, using her fingertips to keep the wig in place, flips her head and feels the whole weight of the hair swinging up and over, curl after curl hitting against her back.

  She forgives every flaw in the mirror. Her eyes are bloodshot and swollen, but she doesn’t see it. She is amazed at how utterly striking, how truly gorgeous, is this mane of perfect hair. The weight alone, that comforting weight, the safety of the curls framing her face. It is majestic. She can’t wait to sit down in front of Nava, to shake out her hair and have it pour into Nava’s lap over the back of her seat. The commotion. Ruchama will get her whispering. The men will hiss for silence, and no one will talk about how she’s let herself go ever again. Nava will see Ruchama’s face framed like a maiden’s. She will remember who is most beautiful.

  Ten days is a long time. A person can die in an instant. A fire can burn up a house and a basement and a storage closet with a hidden wig. Maybe she will wear it on Shabbos. Ruchama picks up a hand mirror, turns slowly on a stool, leaning back, admiring. She will go to the city now. She will try it out.

  The train is filled with late-morning commuters. Ruchama can sense them peering over their papers, can feel the men staring as they blow on their coffee, steadying briefcases between their legs.

  Ruchama has Jamal’s twenty-dollar bill ready, crushed in her palm. She tries to remain nonchalant, to keep the excitement from flushing her cheeks.

  Before he gets to make conversation, Ruchama drops the money, grabs the magazines, and turns her back on Jamal.

  “Well all right,” Jamal says. “Looking fine.”

  “Sorry, what?” Ruchama says, turning up her nose, her first flirtation in years. She hurries to the side, unsuccessful at keeping the blush down. She can feel him leaning over the counter.

  “A beauty,” he says. “Come on back so I can have a real look.”

  Shlomi should say such a thing. Let them all call her back to see what they’ve been missing. She opens a magazine. She is searching for the new shampoo advertisement, somehow expecting to find herself on the page. The woman is there, playing in Central Park, hanging upside down from the monkey bars. There are many fathers in the park that day. Ruchama winks at the picture, as if they are compatriots. She and Ruchama, both cursed with gorgeous hair and the ceaseless attention it draws.

  Ruchama faces up Sixth Avenue as she reads, a stray curl, then two, blown back by the wind. And then she is off, walking down King Street in her mind. All eyes are upon her, admiring. A young woman strikes her husband for turning his head. The baker comes out to the sidewalk and hands her a layer cake with a chocolate shell. The traffic on King Street slows. And then she processes it in the distance, not on King Street but on Sixth. Traffic has slowed. A thicket of young shrubbery has sprouted up in the middle of the street. Cars honk; a bus swerves, dodging. The bushes are on a dolly. Abandoned. She draws focus, looks closer. On Twenty-fourth, at Billy’s Topless, his big bald head sticking up like a lightbulb, a bright idea moving over the crowd.

  She calms herself with a breath. He only wants to see, to see up close. That is what she tells herself. He is walking over to admire her craftsmanship, and that will be that. Tzippy is right; they always must wonder what has become of their hair. They sell it to feed children. To pay gambling debts. Because they are sick of the flower shop and hold cash in their hands. Jamal will protect her. He calls around to her right then, another flirtation.

  The deliveryman gets closer and crosses his arms in the air. “Money,” he calls, without picking up speed. He is half a block away, and his steady pace terrifies her, the walking so much more definite than if he were to run. “I need more money,” he yells. Ruchama has worked this out a thousand times, picked this corner for just such a reason. Far enough away. If she spots a familiar face …

  She drops the magazines into the trash basket, looks up at the walk signal, and is already moving into the flow of foot traffic. People are turning round, stepping aside to let her through.

  Ruchama picks up her pace when she hits the opposite curb. She chances a quick glance. He is almost upon her.

  “You stole my hair,” he screams. “She stole my hair.”

  Ruchama puts a hand to her head and pulls off the wig. She stuffs it into her bag and clutches the bag to her chest. A mess of curls snakes out over the sides. Ruchama can feel people looking, the whole of the city watching.

  Worth every penny and every shame, she thinks, for one slow spin, hair on her head and mirror in her hand, leaning back, beautiful.

  The Gilgul of Park Avenue

  The Jewish day begins in the calm of evening, when it won’t shock the system with its arrival. It was then, three stars visible in the Manhattan sky and a new day fallen, that Charles Morton Luger understood he was the bearer of a Jewish soul.

  Ping! Like that it came. Like a knife against a glass.

  Charles Luger knew, as he knew anything at all, that there was a Yiddishe neshama functioning inside.

  He was not one to engage taxicab drivers in conversation, but such a thing as this he felt obligated to share. A New York story of the first order, like a woman giving birth in an elevator, or a hot-dog vendor performing open-heart surgery with pocketknife and Bic pen. Was not this a rebirth in itself? It was something, he was sure. So he leaned forward in his seat, raised a fist, and knocked on the Plexiglas divider.

  The driver looked into his rearview mirror.

  “Jewish,” Charles said. “Jewish, here in the back.”

  The driver reached up and slid the partition over so that it hit its groove loudly.

  “Oddly, it seems that I’m Jewish. Jewish in your cab.”

  “No problem here. Meter ticks the same for all creeds.” He pointed at the digital display.

  Charles thought about it. A positive experience or, at least, benign. Yes, benign. What had he expected?

  He looked out the window at Park Avenue, a Jew looking out at the world.
Colors no brighter or darker, though he was, he admitted, already searching for someone with a beanie, a landsman who might look his way, wink, confirm what he already knew.

  The cab slowed to a halt outside his building, and Petey the doorman was already on his way to the curb. Charles removed his money clip and peeled off a fifty. He reached over the seat, holding on to the bill.

  “Jewish,” Charles said, pressing the fifty into the driver’s hand. “Jewish right here in your cab.”

  Charles hung his coat and placed his briefcase next to the stand filled with ornate canes and umbrellas that Sue—carefully scouting them out around the city—did not let him touch. Sue had redone the foyer and the living room and dining room all in chintz fabric, an overwhelming amount of flora and fauna patterns, a vast slippery-looking expanse. Charles rushed through it to the kitchen, where Sue was removing dinner from the refrigerator.

  She was reading the note the maid had left, and lit burners and turned dials accordingly. Charles came up behind her. He inhaled the scent of perfume and the faint odor of cigarettes laced underneath. Sue turned and they kissed, more passionate than friendly, which was neither an everyday occurrence nor altogether rare. She was still wearing her contacts; her eyes were a radiant blue.

  “You won’t believe it,” Charles said—surprised to find himself elated. He was a levelheaded man, not often victim to extremes of mood.

  “What won’t I believe?” Sue said. She separated herself from him and slipped a tray into the oven.

  Sue was art director at a glossy magazine, her professional life comparatively glamorous. The daily doings of a financial analyst, Charles felt, did not even merit polite attention. He never told her anything she wouldn’t believe.

  “Well, what is it, Charles?” She held a glass against the recessed ice machine in the refrigerator. “Damn,” she said. Charles, at breakfast, had left it set on CRUSHED.

  “You wouldn’t believe my taxi ride,” he said, suddenly aware that a person disappointed by ice chips wouldn’t take well to such a change.

  “Your face,” she said.

  “Nothing, just remembering. A heck of a ride. A maniac. Taxi driver running lights. Up on the sidewalk. Took Third before the bridge traffic cleared.”

  The maid had prepared creamed chicken. When they sat down to dinner Charles stared at his plate. Half an hour Jewish and already he felt obliged. He knew there were dietary laws, milk and meat forbidden to touch, but he didn’t know if chicken was considered meat and didn’t dare ask Sue and chance a confrontation, not until he’d formulated a plan. He’d call Dr. Birnbaum, his psychologist, in the morning. Or maybe he’d find a rabbi. Who better to guide him in such matters?

  And so, a Marrano in modern times, Charles ate his chicken like a gentile—all the while a Jew in his heart.

  At work the next morning, Charles got right on it.

  He pulled out the yellow pages, referenced and cross-referenced, following the “see” list throughout the phone book. More than one listing with “Zion” put him in touch with a home for the aged. “Redemption” led him farther off course. Going back to the phone book, he came upon an organization that seemed frighteningly appropriate. For one, it was a Royal Hills number, a neighborhood thick with Jews.

  The listing was for the Royal Hills Mystical Jewish Reclamation Center, or, as the recorded voice said, the R-HMJRC—just like that, with a pause after the R. It was a sort of clearinghouse for the Judeo-supernatural: press 1 for messianic time clock, press 2 for dream interpretation and counseling, 3 for numerology, and 4 for a retreat schedule. The “and 4” took the wind out of his sails. A bad sign. Recordings never said “and 4” and then “and 5.” But the message went on. A small miracle. “For all gilgulim, cases of possible reincarnation or recovered memory, please call Rabbi Zalman Meintz at the following number.”

  Charles took it down, elated. This is exactly why he’d moved to New York from Idaho so many years before. Exactly the reason. Because you could find anything in the Manhattan yellow pages. Anything. A book as thick as a cinder block.

  The R-HMJRC was a beautifully renovated brownstone in the heart of Royal Hills. It was Gothic looking. The front steps had been widened to the width of the building, and the whole facade of the first two floors had been torn out and replaced with a stone arch, a glass wall behind it. The entry hall was marble, and Charles was impressed. There is money in the God business, he told himself, making a mental note.

  Like this it went: standing in the middle of the marble floor, feeling the cold space, the only thing familiar being his unfamiliar self. And then it was back. Ping! Once again, understanding.

  Only yesterday his whole life was his life, familiar, totally his own. Something he lived in like an old wool sweater. Today: Brooklyn, an archway, white marble.

  “Over here, over here. Follow my voice. Come to the light.”

  Charles had taken the stairs until they ended, and entered what appeared to be an attic, slanted ceilings and dust, overflowing with attic-like stuff, chairs and a rocking horse, a croquet set and boxes, everywhere boxes—as if all the remnants of the brownstone’s former life had been driven upward.

  “There is a path on your right. Make your way, it’s possible. I got here.” The speech was punctuated with something like laughter. It was vocalized joy, a happy stutter.

  The path led to the front of the building and a clearing demarcated by an Oriental screen. The rabbi sat in a leather armchair across from a battered couch—both clearly salvaged from the spoils that cluttered the room.

  “Zalman,” the man said, jumping up, shaking Charles’s hand. “Rabbi Zalman Meintz.”

  “Charles Luger,” Charles said, taking off his coat.

  The couch, though it had seen brighter days, was clean. Charles had expected dust to rise when he sat. As soon as he touched the fabric, he got depressed. More chintz. The sun-dulled flowers crawling all over it.

  “Just moved in,” Zalman said. “New space. Much bigger. But haven’t, as you see”—he pointed at specific things, a mirror, a china hutch—“please excuse—or forgive—please excuse our appearance. More important matters come first. Very busy lately, very busy.” As if to illustrate, a phone perched on a doll-house set to ringing. “You see,” Zalman said. He reached over, turned off the ringer. “Like that all day—at night too. Busier even at night.”

  The surroundings didn’t inspire confidence, but Zalman did. He couldn’t have been much more than thirty but looked, to Charles, like a real Jew: long black beard, black suit, black hat at his side, and a nice big caricaturish nose, like Fagin’s but friendlier.

  “Well then, Mr. Luger. What brings you to my lair?”

  Charles was still unready to talk. He turned his attention to a painted seascape on the wall. “That the Galilee?”

  “Oh, no.” Rabbi Meintz laughed and, sitting back, crossed his legs. For the first time Charles noticed that the man was sporting a pair of heavy wool socks and suede sandals. “That’s Bolinas. My old stomping grounds.”

  “Bolinas?” Charles said. “California?”

  “I see what’s happening here. Very obvious.” Zalman uncrossed his legs, reached out, and put a hand on Charles’s knee. “Don’t be shy,” he said. “You’ve made it this far. Searched me out in a bright corner of a Brooklyn attic. If such a meeting has been ordained, which, by its very nature, it has been, then let’s make the most of it.”

  “I’m Jewish,” Charles said. He said it with all the force, excitement, and relief of any of life’s great admissions. There was silence. Zalman was smiling, listening intently, and, apparently, waiting.

  “Yes,” he said, maintaining the smile, barely jarring it to speak. “And?”

  “Since yesterday,” Charles said. “In a cab.”

  “Oh,” Zalman said. And, “Oh! Now I get it.”

  “It just came over me.”

  “Wild,” Zalman said. He clapped his hands, looked up at the ceiling, laughed. “Miraculous.”


  “Unbelievable,” Charles added.

  “No!” Zalman said, his smile gone, a single finger held up in Charles’s face. “No, it’s not unbelievable. That it is not. I believe you. Knew before you said—exactly why I didn’t respond. A Jew sits in front of me and tells me he’s Jewish. This is no surprise. To see a man, so Jewish, a person who could be my brother, who is my brother, tell me he has only now discovered he’s Jewish—that, my friend, that is truly miraculous.” During his speech he had slowly moved his finger back, and then thrust it into Charles’s face anew. “But not unbelievable. I see cases of this all the time.”

  “Then it’s possible? That it’s true?”

  “Already so Jewish”—Zalman laughed—“asking questions you’ve already answered. You know the truth better than I do. You’re the one who came to the discovery. How do you feel?”

  “Fine,” Charles said. “Different but fine.”

  “Well don’t you think you’d be upset if it was wrong what you knew? Don’t you think you’d be less than fine if this were a nightmare? Somehow suffering if you’d gone crazy?”

  “Who said anything about crazy?” Charles asked. Crazy, he was not.

  “Did I?” Zalman said. He grabbed at his chest. “An accident, purely. Slip of the tongue. So many who come have trouble with the news at home. Their families doubt.”

  Charles shifted. “I haven’t told her.”

  Zalman raised an eyebrow, turned his head to favor the accusing eye.

  “There is a wife who doesn’t know?”

  “That’s why I’m here. For guidance.” Charles put his feet up on the couch, lay down like at Dr. Birnbaum’s. “I need to tell her, to figure out how. I need, also, to know what to do. I ate milk and meat last night.”