The Cookbook Collector

  “Dear friends, thank you for coming today,” Rabbi Zylberfenig announced from his position on the back deck, overlooking the lawn. “Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Barbara. Above all, thanks to God for this world and its spirits. Our rabbis teach that a divine spark resides in every one of us, and joy as well, even when you least expect it. At our lowest point and in the darkest hour, we may find within ourselves a source of light….”

  “No back flips on the trampoline,” Chaya scolded her boys on the other side of the garden. “You heard the rules.”

  A soft breeze blew, and few listened to the rabbi speak of joy and time, because the weather was so lovely. The children were busy. The mayor told Barbara that, although he had not known her husband personally, he was very moved.

  Others embraced Barbara. Neighbors, old friends, teachers from Canaan High School. A gaunt and gray-eyed man stood somewhat apart, a stranger and a loner in the crowd. When he shook Barbara’s hand, the two town policemen kept an eye on him. “Bobby,” he introduced himself. “Mel’s Alexander teacher.”

  “You did come!” she exclaimed. “Thank you! You did so much for Mel—realigning him.”

  Bobby looked grim. “I’m sorry.”

  Barbara pressed his hand in hers. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  She was turning away when Bobby blurted out, “I told him to go to L.A. He came to my office in a panic for realignment. He was all out of kilter and he said, I don’t want to go. I said, Don’t worry about the flight. Your only fear is fear itself. Your back can take it.”

  Tears started in Barbara’s eyes, but she saw she had an opportunity. She realized she had a chance to do a mitzvah. As the Third Bialystoker Rabbi, the Dreamer, said, How often in this life do we have the opportunity to do something good?

  “Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I feel it is,” insisted Mel’s Alexander teacher. “He got so upset. I always told him, Mind over matter, Mel, mind over matter. But in the end it wasn’t mind over matter at all.”

  Barbara sighed. It was such a lot of work to comfort everyone. “Please believe me. Mel’s death is not your fault. Your job is backs. Not realigning history.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Barbara’s party planner interrupted. “The ponies are on a break. Do you want the mime now, or do you want to wait? It’s your call.”

  “It is a very interesting fact,” Rabbi Zylberfenig was saying, “that few things happen by chance. Look carefully and also look with some distance, and you will see connections and designs in everything.”

  He knew he was right. Even Chaya admitted he had a point. She saw sad designs in the world as well, terrible coincidences, not just joyous ones, but she told him, “In some ways, maybe you are right.” Certainly on that day, at the dedication, she saw Shimon’s point of view. Even apart from their own good fortune, at that very hour, their niece Jessamine was marrying George Friedman, a Jewish man dedicated to learning, a scholar and a person of great means, a collector, she was told, of ancient books. Chaya’s own brother-in-law was performing the ceremony at the famous Rose Garden of Berkeley, California.

  The roses bloomed, thousands of them in a floral amphitheater, blossoms shading from gold and coral at the top of the garden to scarlet and deep pink on tiers below. At the bottom, in the center of the rosy congregation, the palest apricots and ivories perfumed the air.

  The wedding was small, just forty friends and family standing in the garden. The roses were all the ornament Jess and George needed, under the blue sky, but Rabbi Helfgott brought a canopy as well, four tall poles and voluminous white cloth. He tied the corners of the cloth to the poles. “This is your huppah,” he had explained to George and Jess when he met with them some weeks before the ceremony. “You can guess what it stands for.”

  “Marriage,” Jess said.

  “Even more specifically than that. What do they say? Think locally.”

  “Our house?”

  The rabbi corrected cheerfully. “Your bed.”

  Now Nick held one pole, Raj another, Mrs. Gibbs the third, and Freyda held the fourth. The musicians began to play guitar and flute, and George took his place under the huppah on one of the garden’s upper tiers. Did he look pale in his dark suit? Could his friends hear his pounding heart? Nick reached over and clapped him on the shoulder, and George was grateful for the contact; he needed to know that this was not a dream—that, in fact, Jess was walking toward him. Her father and her sister were giving her away, escorting her up the tiered steps.

  Oh, look at the three of them, whispered Jess’s New Jersey aunts. Look at them together.

  Look at Emily, such a beautiful girl, thought Aunt Freyda. We have to find someone for her.

  George saw only Jess. Her silk dress was sleeveless, delicate, sea green. Her long hair flowed down her back. She carried a bouquet of leaves and trailing jasmine, and when she reached the huppah she gave the flowers to Emily, and whispered, “Keep them.”

  As Jess walked toward him, George wanted the moment to last, and at the same time, he couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over.

  “Are you ready?”

  Rabbi Helfgott’s question startled George. He had not expected anything unscripted. He’d prepared for the traditional ceremony, the seven blessings, the marriage contract, and the ring. Jess felt him tense at her side, and she slipped her fingers into his. Her eyes were green, her expression sweet and just slightly satirical. He couldn’t help kissing her hand.

  “All right, so I see you’re more than ready,” Rabbi Helfgott said, and those nearest George and Jess laughed, while other relatives farther back turned to each other: What did he say? I can’t hear a thing.

  When Rabbi Helfgott began the welcoming blessing, chanting in Hebrew, Jess tried to recall the translations she had studied, but she could not remember the words. She stood with George and took one sip from the wine the rabbi offered. How strange she felt, standing with him there, all their guests arrayed below, her little sisters dressed as flower girls, her stepmother holding them still, one hand on each.

  Jess wanted to remember everything. The cloudless sky, her exuberant uncle’s bearded face, her father on his best behavior withstanding the religious onslaught, Mrs. Gibbs in a navy suit and a straw boater. Emily, at Jess’s elbow, Emily the true philosopher, braver than anyone Jess knew.

  At her side, George looked alert and nervous, unusually shy, knowing no Hebrew, not even a few words. Don’t worry, Jess told him silently. Don’t think of these as ancient blessings; imagine that they’re roses, think of them as scents. She was standing with him on a precipice. She felt fluttery, breathless, but she was not afraid of these heights. She had a high threshold for happiness, a straightforward, trusting nature when it came to joy.

  This gladness was what Rabbi Helfgott had recognized in Jess so long ago. He had seen the joy in her then, and that was why he had decided to invest in her, writing the check for eighteen hundred dollars, that mystic multiple of chai, the number symbolizing life. The day the rabbi had met George and Jess to discuss their wedding, the bride, his lovely niece, had slipped him a check for eighteen thousand as a donation to the Bialystok Center, returning his investment tenfold! As it was written, there was a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Naturally, reaping was preferable! Dancing was more pleasurable.

  “King Solomon was a very great man,” the rabbi told the assembled. “You have perhaps heard of his gardens, his palaces, above all his Temple built with the best the world had to offer—olive wood, and gold, the finest linen, cedar from Lebanon. This man loved beautiful things! He enjoyed life! However, he also asked, ‘What profit is it to own so many things, to stroll in gardens and enjoy precious jewels, to eat such food and drink such wine? In the end, what good is it to collect such riches? Every wall will crumble. The beautiful will wither and decay.’”

  “True,” murmured Sandra, who stood with the other guests among the roses.
r />   “In the end, nothing lasts. Even wisdom will not last—this is what wise Solomon said. What, then, has lasting value? Where should we turn for the eternal?”

  “To the good Lord,” said Mrs. Gibbs.

  The rabbi nodded, but he amended, “Where do we find Hashem when He is so great, transcending our comprehension? Where do we look for Him?”

  George looked at Jess.

  “We find Him in each other.”

  Ah, thought Raj, very good. He himself had a soft spot for religious rhetoric. His own mother in Calcutta was a very religious woman.

  A perfectly calibrated crowd-pleasing little sermon, mused Richard. The Bialystoker presents himself as a humanist in Hasidic clothing.

  “We find Him in each other,” Helfgott repeated, gazing at George and Jess, the chassen and kalleh, in front of him. “And this is why love is sweeter than wine, finer than gold, rarer than the rarest spices. However, since we are human, and not entirely angels at this moment in time, we need a record and a proof of what we feel. Therefore, we write up a marriage contract, our ketubah.” He turned to Nick, who handed him the calligraphed ketubah that George and Jess had commissioned. The Hebrew words were scribed in thorny black on vellum, the border illuminated with flowering vines. “And we have a pure, unadorned ring,” said Helfgott. “The ring …,” he repeated gently to George, who hurriedly reached into his pocket.

  “Place it on her forefinger and repeat after me….” Helfgott smiled as George instinctively slipped the gold band onto Jess’s ring finger. “Her other forefinger. Harei at mekudeshet li …”

  George repeated the words. As in a dream, he spoke his first words in Hebrew, announcing that he took Jess to be his wife. The blessings afterward were flowing and melodious. He heard them in the distance, as gentle waves against the sand, or soft wind in the trees. Almost imperceptibly, Jess leaned toward him, and although the rabbi seemed to be telling him to wait, George’s arm twined around her waist.

  “One last thing, one final act, the breaking of the glass.” The rabbi turned to Freyda, who produced a gleaming orb from her purse.

  “That’s not a glass, that’s a lightbulb,” George whispered, even as Helfgott wrapped the bulb in a cloth napkin.

  “It is our tradition to use a lightbulb,” the rabbi whispered back, “because in my experience, nine times out of ten, glass goblets are very hard to break.”

  “Try me,” said George.

  “I don’t think we have a glass,” said Helfgott who had used silver cups for the ceremonial wine.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jess murmured, but quick-thinking Emily hurried to the caterer waiting with champagne and strawberries at the bottom of the garden and returned with a champagne flute, which the rabbi wrapped, and George crushed the glass, stamping it to smithereens.

  “Mazel tov!” cried Rabbi Helfgott, and all the guests. Music began again, no longer classical, but klezmer, as George and Jess laughed and kissed.

  Everyone descended to the lower garden for refreshments and then repaired to the house on Wildwood for a wedding breakfast of eggs (poached to order in the kitchen), kippered herring, smoked mackerel, cured salmon, scones melting in the mouth to tender crumbs. Rabbi Helfgott beamed, although he would not partake.

  Lily and Maya ran through the rooms with fistfuls of anise cookies and madeleines. They showed their mother marzipans of miniature books with gilt-edged pages, and they tried candied ginger, and they ate chocolate lace.

  “We got the menu from your uncle,” George explained to Sandra.

  Jess added, “But we left out the meat.”

  “And the smoked fish?” Raj asked playfully. “I assume they took their own lives in the wild?”

  “Fat aged carps that run into thy net,” Colm quoted Jonson. “And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat, …”

  “As loath the second draught or cast to stay,” Raj continued without missing a beat. “Officiously at first themselves betray; …”

  “You have a beautiful daughter,” Mrs. Gibbs told Richard.

  “I have four beautiful daughters.” Richard finished his second glass of champagne. “It’s very good, isn’t it?” he told Heidi.

  “It really is.” She sighed with relief. Lily and Maya were playing in the garden. As of yet, Richard had said nothing sarcastic. She had spoken to him seriously about this the night before.

  “Whatever you think about the rabbi or religion in general, this is your daughter’s wedding,” Heidi had admonished him.

  “I know, I know,” he told her. “It’s just that George is not what I expected.”

  “Well,” said Heidi, “now you know how my parents felt when I married you.”

  Jess slipped off her green shoes and glided everywhere at once, kissing Theresa and Roland, her old roommates.

  “I told you this would happen,” Theresa reminded her. “I told you Mrs. Gibbs would convert you and you would end up …”

  “Barefoot in the kitchen,” said Jess. “Did you try the cake?”

  There were three wedding cakes, curious and historical but tasty, each labeled with a calligraphed card:

  “Plumb Cake” with currants, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, salt, citron, orange peel candied, flour, eggs, yeast, wine, cream, raisins. Adapted from Mrs. Simmons,

  American Cookery, 1796.

  “Curran-cake” with sugar, eggs, butter, flour, currans, brandy. Adapted from Mrs. McLintock,

  Receipts for Cookery and Pastry-Work, 1736.

  “Chocolate Honeycake” with oil, unsweetened cocoa and baking chocolate, honey, eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, baking powder. Adapted from Mollie Katzen,

  The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, 1982.

  “Our new company is called Geno.type,” Emily told Nick in the living room. “We’re working on developing online communities, so you can constantly contact and update everyone in your family on news, birthdays, long-lost relatives.”

  “So is this a new Web site? Or a service company?” Nick asked.

  “What we’re really trying to do is move into the social-networking space.” Her eyes were shining, alight with her new venture. As of yet, she had just four programmers, but Laura was still working for Emily as executive assistant, and together they were looking for someone in marketing, and they were interviewing Web-site designers. Geno.type filled Emily’s days, and she dreamed about her business plan at night. She was not dating, but starting the company was very much like falling in love, turning her head, entrancing her. The world opened up, and it seemed to her as it had once before, that she was living on the cusp of a new era. Internet technology was that exciting. Her entrepreneurial spirit was that strong.

  In London she had stayed in her mother’s cluttered childhood home. She had met her relatives and their little children, attended the dark synagogue where women sat removed from men in a separate room. She’d sat at long tables for Friday-night dinners and listened to long rounds of song. She’d watched the men all dressed in black as they strolled together down the street. She’d played with babies who teethed on her fingers, and talked to women in the kitchen, helping them cook their heavy meals—their lentil soup with shank bones, their cholent with beef, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, beans; watching them bake mandelbrot and poppy-seed cake, babkas, ruggelach. She had listened to her cousins speak of weddings and births and holidays and met more cousins, and cousins of cousins, until at last she had decided to come home. She had returned without great discoveries about her mother, without a newfound religious faith, without a new identity or an adopted Hebrew name. What she brought back was a business plan. She would leverage the Internet to reconnect long-lost friends and relatives.

  “You look the same,” Jess had said at Christmastime, when she met Emily at the airport. “Except for the ring.”

  They were standing at the baggage claim, waiting for Emily’s suitcases, and Jess couldn’t help staring at her sister’s bare hand.

  “I gave it away,” said Emily.

  “Where?”

>   “Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.”

  Even Jess looked a little shocked as she remembered the spectacular trio of white diamonds. “They take rings?”

  “It’s not a ring anymore,” said Emily. “It’s the Gillian Gould Bach Research Fund.”

  Now, at the reception, as Emily told Nick about her company, she nibbled a tiny lemon tart, and she was not perfectly happy. She did not have what Jess had, or what Orion and Sorel had, but she dreamed as George did once, that love was possible.

  After the last guests left, after the caterers had packed up the leftovers to give away, George walked down to the garden and sank into the new hammock, a gift from Richard and Heidi. “God, I’m exhausted.”

  “I’m not,” said Jess.

  “Come here.” George opened his arms. “Ouch!” Of course she would dive on top of him. “Careful,” he murmured, caressing her through the silk. “You’ll rip your dress.”

  “I thought McLintock’s cake was best,” she said. “What did you think?”

  “I didn’t try it,” George admitted.

  “Didn’t you eat anything?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Not even the strawberries?”

  “Not one.”

  “But you were drinking champagne. I saw you. And I can taste it. I can still taste the bubbles.”

  “Really?”

  “Well … metaphorically.”

  He kissed her. “What do metaphorical bubbles taste like?”

  She rested her head on his chest, and tried to describe the champagne bubbles she imagined on his lips, but she could not, so they lay together in the hammock and talked and laughed about the day in dappled light. The house was quiet. Their friends had gone. The scent of roses, wedding music, and laughter faded away. The hammock swayed under them, and George and Jess floated together, although nothing lasted. They held each other, although nothing stayed.