There I was lying on my mattress in the girls’ bedroom, and it must have been a couple of hours before anyone discovered me. Mrs. Karinsky happened to be coming up the stairs in the process of dragging her daughter Chaneleh up to her room after she had injured one of her siblings.
“Sharon, what’s wrong? You’re sick?”
“No,” I said, and I gave her the letter.
She read it quickly, then knit her brow, and read it again. “I never heard of such a thing!” she said.
“Is that good or bad?” I asked.
“You are going to answer him?”
“I don’t even know!” I said. “On the one hand, this miracle has happened. On the other hand, I don’t know.”
Meanwhile, Chaneleh was trying to escape down the stairs again, and Mrs. Karinsky had to run after her and haul her back. “So it’s all right, you don’t have to make up your mind in one day,” she shouted over the kid’s screams. “So take your time to think about it!”
“No! No! No!” shrieked Chaneleh.
“This story!” Mrs. Karinsky exclaimed. “I have to tell Mendy!”
Everyone was so impressed by Mikhail’s tale. The family, the whole neighborhood, couldn’t stop talking about it. The story of the niggun that had come to Mikhail almost overshadowed his marriage proposal. Everybody seemed to forget for a moment that I was supposed to write him back—or if they remembered they assumed that I already had, and naturally that I had already accepted. But the truth was, I had not written back. I had not accepted. There I was, alone in all the flurry, a lonely celebrity. I had no idea what to do. As a Bialystoker there was no question: I had spoken to the man, we had exchanged our deepest thoughts; I’d researched him through the Karinskys’ friends and relatives. His references were great, and he had received a miraculous sign from God. No question: the answer was yes. As myself, however, as my own woman, which I used to be—all I could think was: who did I think I was kidding? And—where did Mikhail get off writing now after all this time? Did he really believe I was going to jump to marry him after just one letter? A relationship of a week, plus a revelation on his part alone. He might be a psychopathic criminal! I didn’t want to prejudge him; I didn’t want to go by stereotypes; but by his own admission Mikhail had gone nuts at least once, when his wife left him. If the divine wedding niggun had come to me, that would be one thing—but I hummed and hummed, and all that came to me was Peter, Paul and Mary. Sometimes The Mamas and the Papas. Trust was the key—that I knew. But I didn’t even trust myself. I had no reason to trust myself. None at all.
Everybody was so eager for me. Everybody was so pleased. Estie said she would give me her wedding gown to wear. Mrs. Karinsky said we could have the wedding right there in the house, in the living room. But the happier they all were for me, the more miserable I became. What Dr. Karinsky kept emphasizing was how Mikhail and I were on the same level—how the wonderful thing was the way we matched up in our learning, and our desire for holiness. He was probably right. But was that a good thing? It sounded dangerous, marrying somebody on my level. It sounded like a recipe for disaster. Was there even room for someone else on the same little parapet I was hanging on? And there was something else too. There was something I feared even more, which was that marrying would be the ultimate commitment to Bialystok Ha-sidism! To marry: that would be to make my final vows to the community. To pray for keeps.
Mikhail began calling the house. In the evenings he would call me on the phone. Yet somehow I could not speak to him. I just could not pick up the telephone and discuss matters. I told the Karinskys I couldn’t talk to him while I was in my decision-making process. No way, I told them, could I get on the line. I was so riven. I was so torn up with doubts. Some days I was sure the answer would be yes. And other days I would hear the voice of my inmost spirit calling me inside: Sharon! Sharon! NO! Deep inside me my old self lay dormant. Deep inside, all my memories and deeds pressed against each other. All my years in Hawaii; all my time out in the ocean. The mistakes I’d made; the loves I’d had. I was still filled with the person I had been.
Late at night, scrubbing out pots piled in the kitchen sink, I began crying.
“Sharon? Sharon? What?” Mrs. Karinsky turned off the faucet. “I can’t,” I cried. “I can’t.”
She put her arms around me and held me there in the kitchen. “It’s all right. It’s okay.” She was warm, and she was damp. She was always sweating, what with her weight and the physical labor of her job—by which I mean, cleaning, cooking, and child rearing—and I thought, all of a sudden, She probably already has high blood pressure, or at least a heart condition, and I thought, What have I done coming here and adding to her burden when most likely she’s sick and never takes care of herself, and she could one day all of a sudden have a stroke because of me?
“I’m just a sham,” I sobbed. “I have no potential. I get no signs. I’ve been waiting and waiting. I don’t hear any voices. I have no path,” I said. “I have no way!” I couldn’t even go on. I just put my head on her shoulder and cried and cried. I soaked through the fabric of her housedress. And I wanted to say, Please let me go. It’s too late for me; I’m too old for even you to mother. Please just throw me back into the world again. Scared as I am to go there, it would be better to give up than to go on like this, standing on the brink of commitment, stranded on the threshold of the divine kingdom, and afraid to enter. I wanted to say, I’m taking off now—I can’t impose on you any longer. I wanted to say, I don’t have any peace of mind. My spirit is willing, but my faith is weak. Don’t you see, I’m easy? I wanted to say all that, but I was crying too hard to speak.
At last Mrs. Karinsky sat me down, and she got me tissues, and she finished the dishes, because it seemed like nothing she could say would comfort me. But as she scrubbed the pots, Mrs. Karinsky was thinking, because when she finished she dried her hands with a determined look. And she pulled down her sleeves and she said to me, “Come to the rebbe’s spiel,” which was one of these speeches the Bialystoker rebbe gave after services. “Ask him what to do.”
“He’d have an answer?”
Mrs. Karinsky whirled around. “Of course!” she exclaimed, as if to say, What kind of question is that?
A shiver went through me. In all my time now in the community I had not met the rebbe. I had seen him in the distance, surrounded by his aides and junior rabbis. I had seen him far off, dressed in black, but never met him face to face! I almost forgot my troubles just contemplating the idea of meeting him. I wanted to pick up the phone to call Mikhail and tell him what for the first time I was about to do—he would be stunned; he would be speechless that I was going to have this opportunity. I felt such an overwhelming desire to tell Mikhail that all at once I ran into the dark deserted living room and I did pick up the phone and call him.
Bring …bringgg …bringgggg. A deep old woman’s voice answered as if from at the bottom of a well, “Helloooooo?”
“Hello, this is Sharon,” I said.
“This is who?”
“Sharon,” I said.
“Pardon me, you are?”
“Sharon,” I repeated, loudly.
“Yes?” she said. “I am Lena.”
“Oh, Aunt Lena, I’ve heard about you,” I said.
“And I also.” Then she waited.
“Is Mikhail there?”
She didn’t answer at first.
“Is Mikhail there?” I asked again.
“Inside he is a good man,” Lena said, judiciously, as if she had just come up with a verdict. “To me Mikhail is like a son. I have no children of my own. My sister gave him to me for me to watch over. She said to me before she died—I give you my son. Practically he has a zero, but his heart is one hundred percent.” She paused thoughtfully. “And this is true.”
I was nervous about running up the Karinskys’ phone bill. “Could you tell him that I called?”
“You wish to speak to him?”
“Is he there?”
“Of course,” Lena said.
So then she put Mikhail on the line, and he burst out, “Sharon, so long I’ve been waiting to hear you.”
“Well, I was waiting to hear from you too,” I said, a little testily, but then I said, “Forget about that for now. I have to tell you something. I am going to see the rebbe.”
“The rebbe!”
“Yes!”
“When?”
“After his spiel!”
“Baruch Hashem!”
“I know!” The two of us were all of a sudden like a couple of teenagers swooning over some celebrity.
“What will you say?”
“I’m going to ask him about us.”
“Oh, yes! Good! Wonderful!” he cried out.
“I’m going to ask him whether I should marry you.”
“Of course! Yes, of course. Sharon, ask him for a bracha,” he said, meaning ask him for his blessing.
“I will.”
“Sharon, this is good fortune. This, too, is a sign.”
“Well, I’m going to see,” I hedged.
“Since our meeting I am overwhelmed with signs,” Mikhail said. “I see more closely patterns every day. I see now it is not we but fate moving us in the same direction.”
“The thing is,” I whispered, “sometimes I believe that too. But sometimes I have doubts. That’s why I haven’t answered your letter. That’s why I’ve been torturing myself day and night.”
“Dearest Sharon!” he exclaimed. “Don’t torture.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I have this fear I can’t tell anymore what is delusions and what is true.”
“But Hashem will tell you,” he said.
“That’s the thing—he’s not talking to me.”
“He will,” said Mikhail. He spoke with such solemnity and calm.
“I’m jealous of you,” I confessed.
“Why?”
“Because you have it, and I don’t.” “What is it I have?” he asked.
“Grace,” I said. “You’ve really really got it—and I don’t. I try, but I don’t. If I had it, I wouldn’t be jealous in the first place.”
“The rebbe will tell you what to do,” he said.
“I hope so.”
“I have read that with one word or gesture the Bialystoker can mend everything that is ripped or torn. I have read that with his eyes he can penetrate inside every people. He can lift up the wounded and raise the ones who lick the dust.”
“Im yirtzeh Hashem”—with the help of God—“it will happen to me,” I said fervently.
“How could it not happen to you?” Mikhail asked. “You are most miserable and wretched.”
“Thanks a lot!”
“Therefore you are the perfect candidate to be redeemed, and become as graceful inside as you are out.”
“I was talking about grace, not gracefulness.”
“With God’s help there is no difference between them!” he said.
“You’re right!” I whispered. “I never thought about it that way before!”
• • •
THERE were about a thousand people crammed together in the Bialy-stoker synagogue. The men down below, in this bobbing sea of black, the women up above in the balcony, all weighted down with babies. When we stood and prayed together the whole building seemed to crack, and the words poured out in torrents. When we sat down together the building seemed to sigh. The service was short, since it was a weeknight, and afterward everyone was waiting expectantly. Everyone hushed. It wasn’t a gradual hush, where people keep on shushing one another. It was as if someone had turned off the sound.
Then the rebbe rose, short and old, yet spry, in his black coat and black hat. He sat at a table down in front, and there was a microphone before him like at a press conference, and a satellite hookup from that table. Everyone hung on his every word. And I hung, too, except I didn’t understand a thing because the whole talk was in Yiddish. Yet I felt from the audience how powerful his message was. I took in the feeling of it, the way I guess deaf people sometimes feel music in the vibrations, in their feet. The rebbe never once looked down to read from notes. He just talked, and kept his eyes fixed on the audience. And they watched him, and you could see in their faces this total trust in his words. Everyone knew that they were sacred. There was a tension in the hall, like there better not be any interruptions. There better not be any babies crying. All the babies had bottles stuffed in their mouths. All the kids were sucking candy. I had this fear I was going to cough. I was going to break the spell. But I didn’t cough. Nobody did. The silence was magical. All the people there were learning at the rebbe’s black-trousered knees.
Fortunately I didn’t clap when it was over. That wasn’t done. The women were all getting up around me, murmuring to each other and filing down the stairs. I followed Mrs. Karinsky and Estie in her new married woman’s wig.
There were lines in the bottom of the sanctuary. Long lines snaked before the rebbe’s desk, and slowly, one by one, people were filing in front of him, pausing a moment, and moving on. I got on line, and Mrs. Karinsky stood with me. My stomach was tight. I tried to formulate in my mind everything I wanted to say—all I felt, all the dilemmas of my human experience! There I was, coming before this totally saintly man. The line was inching forward. It was like moving toward this ultimate weighing station of my soul. There were ten people in front of me. There were two. I bent my head down. My head was bare. Next to all the married ladies, I felt naked showing all my long straight hair.
The rebbe looked up at me. He had the most amazing blue eyes, that pale pale ice blue you only get when you are something like ninety years old. And they twinkled. That was what surprised me. His eyes were full of fun. He had the white beard and the black hat, and the wrinkled face, but his eyes looked like he was joshing you. So he twinkled at me, and I started talking, fast as I could, since people were waiting. “Rabbi, my name is Sharon—I hope you don’t mind me talking in English, but I heard you know most languages. I had to ask you. There’s this guy, and he’s a religious man, on the same level I am, and a musician, and he’s had a sign that he should marry me. He’s had a sign from God, but yet, I have doubts, since I barely know him, for one thing, which is customary in the community, I understand, but where I come from you tend to take more time getting to know people of the other sex. To me the whole relationship seems like it’s moving way too fast. I’m just not sure I’m—I mean—philosophically we seem to be very close—but I have a fear we might be too similar—I have this foreboding—but I don’t know if it’s justified. I can’t tell anymore whether my doubts are real—or if they’re just leftover prejudices from my past life….”
The rebbe lifted his hand. He nodded, like, Say no more. I was shivering. It was as if he could read me without even hearing my whole story. It was as if he could read the writing on my soul! He picked up a roll of pennies from a big pile of penny rolls on the table. He broke the penny roll in half and gave me the freshest, shiniest penny I’d ever seen. The copper shone like autumn.
“Should I marry him?” I blurted out.
In the gentlest voice he said something to me—he answered me, but in Yiddish! The line moved. Mrs. Karinsky took my arm.
“What did he say?” I asked her, as we left the building. I held the penny tight. I was supposed to pass on the coin to charity, but I couldn’t ever let that penny go. “What did he say?” I asked Mrs. Karinsky.
“Nu, freg dina eltermen,” she told me.
“What does that mean?” I pleaded.
She translated for me, “Nu, you should ask your parents.”
19
My Hand in Marriage
MY parents! The idea had never once occurred to me. Go to them? Ask them! The concept was so radical it shook me to my toes. Yet it was so wild, it was right. It was totally, cosmically right. I was in awe, because in one moment this unbelievable man had seen inside of me. In one instant the rebbe had put all these pieces of me together. Because of c
ourse! You had to go back and face down your dad. It was like in Tibetan Buddhist practice. On your journey you had to cross one final river. Or, like in Western culture, you had to venture to the underworld, whatever your personal underworld might be. You had to visit the ghosts of the suburban dead.
As soon as Shabbes ended I packed my backpack—but I left my suitcase and my guitar in Crown Heights for safekeeping. The next morning Estie’s cousins Shmuley and Itchel drove me to the bus terminal. I waved good-bye, and they waved back earnestly from the car, their faces all young under their black hats, their beards still scraggly. I hopped aboard a Greyhound bus, and sat right in front, pointing myself toward Boston.
• • •
AS the great poet Yeats once said, the trees were in their autumn beauty. They were flaming out against the sky. Maybe it was the scarlet leaves and raving gold—Brookline was prettier than I remembered it. The elms were tall and stately. They must have grown while I’d been gone. Some of the houses were stucco, and some were brick, and they were all old and solid and had lawns, and they were spaced apart with hedges. A lot of the roofs were slate, and the garages looked like carriage houses, and—this, I had remembered—everything was pretentious, built in a Style, like French Provincial, or American Colonial, or half-timbered ersatz Elizabethan. My dad’s house was mock Tudor. I stood a long time on the sidewalk taking it in. The garden was landscaped, unlike when I’d lived there. The lawn was lush and green, and there were ornamental shrubs and flower beds. There was a little sign planted on the edge of the lawn, a “This Property Is Protected by …” sign. That was new.
I felt funny, looking at the place. Actually it was a good-looking house, but then you can never tell anything from the outside. It had never been a home to me—home had been Mom’s split level, which she got from the divorce. It was when I was thirteen and Mom took off that I’d come to this fake Tudor place, because I didn’t have a home anymore. I came to live with Dad and his wife, Joanne, which had been Very Hard on Them. I’d been all squared away, back with Dad’s old wife (my mom), in the old house, with the old car, and then it turned out all of a sudden that I and my raging hormones had to move in with Dad, which impinged on his lifestyle, since, during those teen years, I tended to light little fires in the school rest rooms and occasionally hang my head upside down between my knees and make myself pass out—in addition to the regular teenage stuff like getting stoned and sneaking off places at night and having sex all the time like a little squirrel. I guess even in middle school just my presence had frayed my father’s nerves, he being a professor and all—and so into his academic dignity.