The Angel of Losses Page 23

  Eli’s eyes fluttered open and closed. I put my hand lightly on his chest, and he sighed, his whole body relaxing under my palm.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  “He must have told you something. When you left I was afraid you would kill him. Now you’re telling me to forgive him.”

  “No, I’m not. I just think you should give Holly a chance to forgive him,” I said.

  My mother laid down her spoon. “I don’t even know why I’m doing this. No one wants to eat.”

  “Yeah, but we need to eat.”

  “What are they doing up there?” she asked.

  “Talking. You can take it up to them.”

  She paused and then filled a bowl with tuna salad. “I know this sounds crazy, but it’s nice to have the house to ourselves for a little while.” She paused. “Do you want to invite Simon for dinner?”

  “I could,” I said. I had promised I would call, and I missed him. “But I thought you wanted the house to ourselves.”

  She shrugged.

  “Okay,” I said. “Go take them lunch.”

  Eli kicked again, the light-blue cuffs of his pajamas riding up his little calves, pale and traced with blurry capillaries.

  “Oh,” my mom called from the stairs. “When you call him, use your cell. They’re supposed to call today with the new test results.” She disappeared onto the second floor, and Eli and I were alone.

  I held the baby’s leg in my hand, and he kicked the other one, annoyed. I pulled off one of his socks. His toes, smaller than peas, stretched away from one another, and he made a fussing sound. “Shh,” I soothed, laying my hand on his chest again. I looked at the bottom of his foot, the tiny rosy palette.

  Nathan’s protection ritual—the one I had interrupted the night before the circumcision—had been carefully structured. Adorning the living room with amulets, rising at midnight, the hour that the holy penitents wander and the Messiah rises to worship beyond the River of Stones.

  I had no mystical program, no code, no language for this.

  I rolled my shoulders, the stiff patch of skin on my shoulder blade straining but not breaking. I stared at the lines tracing Eli’s skin. The lights flickered—but no, it was barely noon, and the lights were off, the room awash in sunlight. It was a flashing, a flaw in my peripheral vision, or a flaw in the skin of the world itself.

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes.

  I imagined the White Rebbe as he was in Grandpa’s first story, young and desperate, standing in a vortex of tide and wind, stars above him and ghosts all around, following the light of his father’s staff. I imagined Grandpa running through those frozen woods, away from his old family and toward us, his new family, though he didn’t know it yet. Neither of them had known what lay ahead of them, or the power of their words, but they both continued on, and now I was here standing in their place.

  The lost letter was hovering in the darkness.

  I rubbed my thumb across the baby’s skin and slowly began to trace the secret letter, infinitely complex yet infinitely clear in my mind. The loops and spikes folded in on themselves, like it was built for this purpose, to unwind as big as the sun or curl in between the walls of a cell.

  I opened my eyes again. I had barely brushed my skin against Eli’s, but it had turned dark. I fixed my gaze until my eyes began to ache and my vision to flicker, and just as the pain began to seep back into my temples I saw a movement under his skin. His pulse reorganizing itself. His capillaries, strokes of the most delicate pen, unwinding and weaving together again. His life rewritten in an unearthly language.

  “EVERYTHING OKAY?”

  I jumped, releasing Eli’s foot, and he kicked happily, finally free of my grip. My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “He’s perfect.”

  “How about you?”

  I sighed. Where to start? “Tired.”

  “Me too.” He sat down at the table, tapped Eli’s hand with one finger until the baby grabbed hold. He knew now that Grandpa was Jewish—though I hadn’t told him about Josef—and we had spoken very little about it. I don’t know what it changed for him. I still wasn’t sure if it changed how I thought of myself.

  “I dreamt,” he began, frowning. “I dreamt that your grandfather was here. I was here at the house, and I knew he was at the door—he didn’t knock or ring, I just knew he was there. So I opened it . . .” He cleared his throat and the baby looked at him.

  “That’s funny,” I said. “I dreamt he was here too.”

  He laughed but didn’t look at me, trying to hide his red eyes. “I guess we’re all thinking about the same things these days.”

  “You know,” I continued, “I dream about Grandpa. A lot.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah. I think he’s out there, keeping an eye on us. I mean. For real.”

  Now he glanced up. He forced a smile. “Maybe you’re right.” He didn’t mean it though. He didn’t believe it. But that was okay. He wasn’t meant to. He, at least, was free.

  THE DAY AFTER ELI’S TEST RESULTS CAME BACK NEGATIVE, HOLLY and I went grocery shopping. It was Thanksgiving eve, and we were scrambling to produce some kind of holiday dinner, visiting three different stores in search of an unsold kosher turkey. Nathan was at home sleeping; Holly was sure he was coming down with the flu, and forbade everyone but immediate family from coming over to the house. I thought she just didn’t want to answer any questions—or feel forced to pose any—about his disappearance, but I didn’t say anything. It was nice to be just our family again, though I knew I would have to get used to Nathan’s family too.

  We stopped at a red light by the strip mall where we had spent so many Saturday mornings with Grandpa. “Are you hungry?” I asked her.

  “A little,” she said.

  “Nice,” I said. “Twenty-four-hour breakfast.” I turned into the diner parking lot.

  “What? No. Come on. You know I can’t eat there.”

  I turned the ignition off and looked at Holly. “This whole neighborhood has changed, except for the bookstore and the diner.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’re the one who believes in . . . you know, a higher power, fate. A celestial order.”

  She laughed. “ ‘Celestial order’?”

  “That’s right,” I insisted. “And if you have to drink hot chocolate out of a nonkosher mug in order to honor it, then that’s what you have to do.”

  She thought for a moment. “Do not tell Mom and Dad.”

  We left the bird defrosting in the trunk and got a booth in the back. We were silent, me reading the menu and then reading it again, Holly leaning over the table, her head in one hand, watching the lone waitress move up and down the length of the restaurant. We had been getting along fine, checking things off the grocery list. Maybe I shouldn’t have pressed our luck by extending our time together.

  Holly ordered a hot chocolate, and I ordered two eggs over easy and wheat toast with butter and jelly.

  “So can I tell you something without you using it against me later?” Holly asked once the waitress was gone.

  “Of course,” I said.

  “The smell of bacon is killing me.”

  “Ha!” I clapped my hands. “You miss bacon!”

  “Shut up,” she said, but she was smiling. “I’m such a cliché. I never even liked bacon. ”

  “You act like you don’t miss anything.”

  “I miss everything,” she said.

  I crossed my arms on the table. “Then why—”

  “Don’t,” she interrupted. “I wish I knew what to say so that my life made sense to you, but I don’t. You just have to take my word for it.”

  I sat back. “Okay.” I knew what that felt like—that failure of words.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m thinking about going to Florida.”

  “For how long?”

/>   She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t have to make any decisions about that.”

  Which meant that’s exactly what she was trying to do. Right now, Nathan was back at the house, holding his son in his damaged arms, treasuring every one of the child’s breaths.

  “I know he’s not well,” she said. “I know he loves Eli.”

  “He loves you,” I said.

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “He’s so wrapped up in . . . whatever he’s wrapped up in. Himself.”

  “He loves you,” I said again. “He wasn’t wrapped up in himself. He was trying to help, in his own way.”

  Holly looked at me, her eyes filled with tears, and let out a bitter laugh. “Are you crazy, or am I crazy? One of us has lost her mind. Because I swear you just defended Nathan.”

  The waitress arrived with our order. Holly circled her hands around the mug, while I jellied my toast and then carefully slid my eggs in between the two slices.

  “That’s how Grandpa used to eat it,” she said.

  I sliced the sandwich and yolk spread across the plate. “Is it okay if we don’t talk about him today?”

  “Okay,” Holly said. “Can we talk about your boyfriend?”

  “We had a fight,” I said. “I don’t think I’m cut out for that kind of thing.”

  “Don’t say that. He’s a million times better than the last guy.”

  “I know. The truth is . . .” I exhaled and tapped my fork on the plate. “I really like Simon. Really. But I’m afraid he thinks I’m . . .” I almost said nuts, crazy, psycho. Before I could think of a more delicate explanation, her phone rang.

  “It’s Mom,” she said, checking the screen. “Hello?”

  I gestured for her to take the call outside and finished my eggs. Holly was just hanging up the phone when I came outside. “Eli woke up but he’s okay.” She paused. “How is your thesis writing going?”

  I sighed. “I’m way behind. Way behind.” It hadn’t been that long ago that the prospect of a semester of work made me giddy. Now I couldn’t imagine another year spent on the Wandering Jew. Not even another month.

  “If I go to Florida, you could stay at the house,” she offered. “That was the plan, wasn’t it? To hole up there and finish your work?”

  “Are you really leaving him?”

  “What did he say to make you so sure that he loves me?” Holly asked.

  “It’s not what he said,” I answered. “And I’m not defending him. I’m just telling you the truth. I don’t think you should stay if your heart’s telling you to leave.”

  “My heart,” she repeated, shook her head. “You’ve changed. You’re like a different person.” I was too startled to respond to her accusation—the irony that Holly should think I was the one who had changed, and that she would be right, though not in the way she imagined.

  And then she smiled, pointed a finger at me. “You’re in love.”

  I groaned and covered my burning face, and Holly burst out laughing. “Marjorie’s in love!” she sang, and then stopped short when she saw my face. “It can’t be as bad as you think,” she said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  “We’re meeting up this weekend,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’ll think of something,” she assured me. “We’ll think of something.”

  I looked at my sister, with her ankle-length skirt and her straight-cut hair, her bruised eyes and bone-white skin, her battered heart and her improbable smile. We had not grown up to be the adults we expected each other—expected ourselves—to be. It felt like a loss, and it was; but it was the kind of loss that meant we were living our lives, the kind of loss I had to learn not to carry with me.

  I felt hopeful again. “Maybe you’re right. There’s still time to fix things.”

  “I know I’m right,” Holly answered.

  I took her arm and we turned into the wind.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go home.”

  The Death of the White Rebbe

  FINALLY, THE WHITE REBBE’S DAYS CAME TO AN END. He walked down an empty road, smooth and black and glittering. Along either side, the people of the town slept in their homes, invisible behind shuttered windows. The trees stood in careful rows, and none reached to the stars.

  His feet were heavy. So was his head. So were his eyelids.

  But his heart—his heart was light.

  He walked on. How he longed for his staff, something to lean on. He felt his body weighing toward the earth. He wanted to see the stars one last time, but they were so few, so dim in the strange sky, never black, but purple as shadow, and his head dropped back, and the stars wheeled around him, and he fell, and the night reached inside of him.

  My friend, a voice said. I have come to take you home.

  The White Rebbe’s vision flickered as he strained to open his eyes. He stretched his hand up and felt another encircle it, strong and warm as life itself. The rebbe felt himself lifted, and all around him was the softness of down, the whispering wind, and a firm back beneath his cheek.

  Yode’a, the Angel of Losses, beat his wings once, twice, three times; they landed on earth that once puckered with rain, a village of mud in a lettered wood. Now the village was concrete and electric, the sky vast over rooftops instead of trees. The White Rebbe did not see the changes that had come to the place he once ruled. His soul had already departed.

  Yode’a sat with his friend’s body for twenty-four hours and then buried it among the Berukhim Rebbes of generations past. He said the prayers of mourning, which centuries of midnight laments had made as familiar to him as breath is to man, and placed a stone on the grave. One set of eyes saw the Rebbe’s tomb, and the other set saw his soul winding through the stones of the Sambatyon, moving quickly as the strength of youth returned to him, his feet running above the desert floor. Yode’a saw the years fall away from the rebbe’s face and an old fire kindle in his eyes as the boulders grew sparse and the distant country became visible—a brilliant sun, a bejeweled city, and there on the bank, a woman with arms outstretched and dark eyes shining with tears, the rebbe’s wife, his beloved, welcoming him home.

  The angel felt the rote words of his prayers grow prickly and his old longing grow keen. Through all the years of the White Rebbe’s wandering, Yode’a’s attention had turned to waiting and waiting only, for he knew his old friend, his old enemy, was deaf to the angel’s pleas. But now he remembered the vastness of his despair; how, watching the River of Stones from his perch in the firmament, the roiling of the earth was the same as his hunger for return.

  The Angel of Losses looked into the distance. One set of eyes saw day reign above the lands of the Sambatyon; the other saw a wisp of the same brilliance in the metropolis where the White Rebbe spent his last years.

  Yode’a followed the light west.

  He followed it through the hilly avenues, through the iron gates of the university, through the marble and gilt halls of the library, where despite the late hour—just past midnight—a scattering of young scholars sat, eyes falling shut. He followed it through a nondescript door, down narrow stairs, low-ceilinged alleys of metal shelves packed with books. Fluorescent bulbs snapped off and on overhead as he followed the glow to the end of the hall. There, at a scuffed table piled with books, sat a young woman wearing an oversized green sweater, her hands hidden in the sleeves. Her face was unlined, but a few strands of silver ran through her long hair.

  She was sitting back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest. She was different from the young mystic, but her soul was not invisible to him. There were people she loved—people in this world who needed care, and one in the next whose voice she longed to hear again. She had a weakness for stories, and she had heard none so lovely as the angel’s—nor had she seen anything so awesome as his eyes, heard anything so powerful as his voice. But before he could speak, she did.

  It’s you, she said. There was no fear in her voice.

  I’ve been waiting for you.

&n
bsp; Acknowledgments

  This story draws heavily on Jewish folklore and mysticism, and is especially indebted to the scholarship of Nathan Ausubel, Raphael Patai, and Yosef Yerushalmi. I returned to Ausubel’s depictions of Joseph della Reina and the Sabbath River again and again, and “The Berukhim Rebbe and the Angel of Death” is inspired by della Reina’s retelling of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi’s attempt to abolish death. Hillel Halkin’s Across the Sabbath River: In Search of a Lost Tribe and Eli Wiesel’s Sages and Dreamers were also invaluable resources.

  I found Yode’a, the Angel of Losses, in Howard Schwartz’s Tree of Souls. Schwartz says Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav may have invented him. In Jewish Poland: Legends of Origin, Hayah Bar-Yitshak recounts the story of a White Rebbe who followed a goat through an underground passage to the Holy Land and never returned. Jewish legend anticipates a letter of the Hebrew alphabet that will return with the Messiah, and describes the Sabbath Light that illuminates the land beyond the Sabbath River. The Angel of Losses, the White Rebbe, and the Sabbath Light, as they appear in this book, are otherwise invented by me. Abraham Berukhim is a historical figure, but Nathan’s Berukhim Fellowship is fictional.

  I relied on Herman Kruk’s diaries of the Vilna Ghetto, as collected in The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, translated by Barbara Harshav, while writing Eli’s story. The poem recited by the ghetto actor is “In the City of Slaughter,” Hayyim Nahman Bialik’s response to the Kishniev Pogrom of 1903. I also referred to The Ghetto of Venice: A History by Riccardo Calimani, translated by Katherine Silberblatt Wolfhal. Any divergences from history are either poetic license or error on my part.

  Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown is quoted on page 73. I found the Deseret News article on page 188 in Wandering Jew: Essays in the Interpretation of a Christian Legend edited by Galit Hasan-Rokem and Alan Dundes. The Israel Cohen and Manassah ben Israel quotes on page 162 are excerpted from the texts cited.

  I’m grateful every day to have Seth Fishman on my side. Thank you for rescuing me from the slush pile, and for your good judgment and good humor along the way. Libby Edelson’s insight and skill enabled me to tell the story I wanted to tell. Every writer should be so fortunate to find such a committed and talented editor. I’m grateful to Suet Chong, Janet M. Evans, Rachel Meyers, and Michael Siebert for designing and creating this book, and to Hope Breeman and Margaret Wimberger for their careful attention to the text. Thank you to Ryan Willard for carrying me through to publication, and to Amanda Ainsworth, Heather Drucker, Michael McKenzie, Ben Tomek, Craig Young, and all of Ecco and HarperCollins for your enthusiasm and support.