out.
“Here.” I crushed the poem and pressed it into her palm. For a second, her eyes widened like a startled animal’s, minglingfear and high spirits. Then she hurried in, pushing my paper rose under the sleeve of her blouse.
I sat through the whole service this time, eyes fixed on the higher realms. Again, I can’t really say what I saw through that screen, but I believe I found her in the diamond of a lattice. I believe that the prayer book she held before her face hid the “Ode on Melancholy.” I believe that when she looked up from the book and down into the congregation her eyes were searching for mine and that she found them, gazing up among the bowed heads, and that she looked right at me. And I believe she was crying.
The next few days felt like I had a fever. It was hotter than ever and my mind felt stuck, half melted and struggling to move. It would take me an hour to get through a page of
On the Genealogy of Morals.
Then I’d fall asleep, just for a moment, for a single breath, and have a long dream. Once I was in Turin with Nietzsche, when he was mad, walking in the town square. He put his arm around me. “
Cómo está?
” he asked, in Spanish I guess, but in my dream this was Italian. “I am God,” he said, happily. “I made this farce.”
I hadn’t seen Leah after the service. I guess the women left earlier, while the men stayed all day, and my vision of her reading the poem faded and became as unbelievable as my Nietzsche dream. I spent a lot of time out on the step with Merv, but I didn’t mention Leah, although my mind ceaselessly repeated her name. What would I say? The whole thing was better off forgotten. Still, when Wednesday came and I went to the rabbi’s house to get my pay, all my nerves were shakingand a drop of sweat fell from my forehead as I knelt to tie my sneakers on his walk.
The rabbi lived just two streets west of me, on a block parallel to my own, but I had never been down it. The house was small, with a sloped shingle roof and a porch. The garden was rich but overgrown, a nest of wildflowers and vines and weeds, twining together without pattern. The rabbi answered the door himself. His arms were white as chicken in the short-sleeved white dress shirt, and I saw the knots of his tefillin hanging out. He sat me down in his book-choked back office and insisted, vehemently, that I drink hot tea with him, that it would cool me down. He served it in a glass with a lump of sugar on the side.
The floor was crooked, I saw sand and pennies glittering between the warped boards, and the stuffing in my chair was shot. I had to lurch forward to grab my tea, and a little splash burned my arm. I rested my eyes on the books. They were stacked everywhere, the desk, the floor, the couch, all Hebrew, and those rows of unknowable letters calmed me down. It was a relief to look at something beautiful without straining to comprehend it. There was a photo of a woman tucked between the volumes on a shelf. She was standing in the garden, which looked even more overgrown than it was now. It teemed with crazy flowers, blues and reds by her feet and the yellow heads of sunflowers nodding from necks taller than hers. She wore a head scarf and a printed apron over her dress. The sun blanched her face, made it indistinct, but the shape of the forehead and the dark smudges of the eyes were Leah’s.
“Is that your wife?”
“Yes, that’s my Miriam,
alav hashalom.
”
I must have smiled blankly because he leaned forward and patted my hand.
“In Hebrew this means she should rest in peace.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, no. She’s been dead now twenty-four years.” Leah, he told me, had been a late last child, a surprise and they’d thought a blessing. But Miriam had died giving birth to Leah, who came with her twisted leg. Now the two lived alone in the house. His three other daughters, much older, were all long grown and married.
“You must miss her.”
He shrugged. “I see Miriam
“Here.” I crushed the poem and pressed it into her palm. For a second, her eyes widened like a startled animal’s, minglingfear and high spirits. Then she hurried in, pushing my paper rose under the sleeve of her blouse.
I sat through the whole service this time, eyes fixed on the higher realms. Again, I can’t really say what I saw through that screen, but I believe I found her in the diamond of a lattice. I believe that the prayer book she held before her face hid the “Ode on Melancholy.” I believe that when she looked up from the book and down into the congregation her eyes were searching for mine and that she found them, gazing up among the bowed heads, and that she looked right at me. And I believe she was crying.
The next few days felt like I had a fever. It was hotter than ever and my mind felt stuck, half melted and struggling to move. It would take me an hour to get through a page of
On the Genealogy of Morals.
Then I’d fall asleep, just for a moment, for a single breath, and have a long dream. Once I was in Turin with Nietzsche, when he was mad, walking in the town square. He put his arm around me. “
Cómo está?
” he asked, in Spanish I guess, but in my dream this was Italian. “I am God,” he said, happily. “I made this farce.”
I hadn’t seen Leah after the service. I guess the women left earlier, while the men stayed all day, and my vision of her reading the poem faded and became as unbelievable as my Nietzsche dream. I spent a lot of time out on the step with Merv, but I didn’t mention Leah, although my mind ceaselessly repeated her name. What would I say? The whole thing was better off forgotten. Still, when Wednesday came and I went to the rabbi’s house to get my pay, all my nerves were shakingand a drop of sweat fell from my forehead as I knelt to tie my sneakers on his walk.
The rabbi lived just two streets west of me, on a block parallel to my own, but I had never been down it. The house was small, with a sloped shingle roof and a porch. The garden was rich but overgrown, a nest of wildflowers and vines and weeds, twining together without pattern. The rabbi answered the door himself. His arms were white as chicken in the short-sleeved white dress shirt, and I saw the knots of his tefillin hanging out. He sat me down in his book-choked back office and insisted, vehemently, that I drink hot tea with him, that it would cool me down. He served it in a glass with a lump of sugar on the side.
The floor was crooked, I saw sand and pennies glittering between the warped boards, and the stuffing in my chair was shot. I had to lurch forward to grab my tea, and a little splash burned my arm. I rested my eyes on the books. They were stacked everywhere, the desk, the floor, the couch, all Hebrew, and those rows of unknowable letters calmed me down. It was a relief to look at something beautiful without straining to comprehend it. There was a photo of a woman tucked between the volumes on a shelf. She was standing in the garden, which looked even more overgrown than it was now. It teemed with crazy flowers, blues and reds by her feet and the yellow heads of sunflowers nodding from necks taller than hers. She wore a head scarf and a printed apron over her dress. The sun blanched her face, made it indistinct, but the shape of the forehead and the dark smudges of the eyes were Leah’s.
“Is that your wife?”
“Yes, that’s my Miriam,
alav hashalom.
”
I must have smiled blankly because he leaned forward and patted my hand.
“In Hebrew this means she should rest in peace.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, no. She’s been dead now twenty-four years.” Leah, he told me, had been a late last child, a surprise and they’d thought a blessing. But Miriam had died giving birth to Leah, who came with her twisted leg. Now the two lived alone in the house. His three other daughters, much older, were all long grown and married.
“You must miss her.”
He shrugged. “I see Miriam
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