Peep Show (2 page)

From my perch on the top step I see the holy man lifting his arms, trying to get everyone's attention. I run to my closet and see my black suit and my blue suit. I put on the blue and walk down into the growing crowd. My sister is on the other side of the dividing wall, surrounded by snoods. I wave to her through the openings in the screen, but she doesn't see me. Some of the women remain kind to me, in a surface way, and smile even though they know I'm never becoming one of them. The men are less understanding, especially those who tried to convert me at the compound in Maine. Like Avraham Neidelman, I see him right now. He said he wanted us to become “brothers” and bought me a gold-plated prayer book, which he inscribed. I forget what it said exactly but the words
brothers, Talmud
, and
final redemption
were all there, written in calligraphy. When I told him I'd talked to my father and had decided to stop going to Maine, he sent me a postcard with the grand rabbi's face on it. He wrote, “God does not watch over those who ignore the Torah. Call me.” Now I'm standing here on the
male side of the
mechitzah
with him, a dot of blue in a sea of beards and black. When my eyes meet his and others, they look away, signaling I've betrayed them. A man I've never seen before yells, “
Shush, nu, nu!
” and the room goes quiet quickly. I see my mother atop the stairs. We stare at each other for a moment and she descends as if entering a play. The holy man begins in a Yiddish accent, facing only the men.

“No matter how far an individual has distanced himself from God by his previous behavior, it is possible, always possible, for him to return, depending on his effort, all the way to great and meaningful closeness with his Creator. Rabbi Yochanan said, ‘Great is
teshuvah
, repentance, for it causes a person's verdict to be torn up.' And Rabbi Yehudah said, ‘One who has the opportunity to do the same sin and, this time, does
not
do it—he is a
baal teshuva
, a master of repentance.'

“
Baruch Ata Adonai
,” he says, and all the men join in. “
Elohenu Melech Ha-olam
,
Shehekianu V'Kimanu V'Higianu, Lizman Hazeh
.”

Through the squares of the
mechitzah
, I watch Becca place a brown wig on my mother's head. It sits high and boxy so she tugs at it, though it keeps popping up. My mother might be crying—she's covered her eyes with both hands—but I guess it's out of happiness. The holy man says two more prayers and it's official. The two of them are now
BT
s as they're called;
baalai teshuva
in Hebrew. Converts from nonobservant Jews to Hasids in just under three and a half
years. When I get close to my mom I am unsure if I should kiss her in front of these people. She reaches to touch my shoulder but then presses her cheek against mine. I am surprised to feel her face. I put my arms around her and she pats my back.

“The happiest I've ever been,” she says, and I try not to glance at the misshapen wig.

“Then I'm happy for you.”

My sister walks up behind her. They squeeze each other and rock back and forth.

“I love you,” my mother says, and now really begins to weep. “I love you. I love you.”

I
N THE BACK
of my parents' wedding album is a picture of my father. He's sitting at a table marked 9 with an enormous bouquet of autumn flowers in the middle. There's a cigar in his hand and he's talking to my mother's brother, Don, a man who died before I was born. In my uncle's face I recognize my mother's eyes and nose and chin. It makes me sad for her. A sibling. To lose him so young. I see headlights out my window, a car pulling into the driveway. My father. I run downstairs. Debra and my mother are washing dishes.

“Guess who's here?” I say as he lets himself in through the laundry room door.

“
Mazel tov!
” he yells, and lifts a bag of wrapped gifts above his head. Debra plucks off her rubber gloves and walks to him.

“Get over here, little girl,” he says, and lifts her before kissing her eye socket a thousand times.

“Enough!” my mother says, yanking Debra's nightgown back over her legs.

“I missed you,” he says. “I missed my baby girl.”

“Martin,” my mother says.

“What?”

“You didn't call.”

“A wig?” he says. “You're wearing a wig?”

She touches it and looks at the floor.

“When did you get a—?”

“Don't.”

“Don't what, Mick?”

“Don't be unkind.”

He turns to me and blinks, working to form a smile. “Why would I do that? I'm crazy about you, aren't I?”

My mother looks at her husband, fifteen years her senior. He leans in to kiss her on the cheek.

“You should've called first.”

“I knew today was the big one. I didn't want to bother you. It was today, right?”

My mother heads for the hallway. “They have school in the morning, Martin. Please don't stay too long.”

“I don't want to drive back to the city now.”

The sound comes from her nose. She shakes her head all the way to the stairs.

“Wait, Mick. I got you something, a gift.”

“No, thank you.”

“For the occasion, wait.”

“No, thank you,” she says from the hallway. We hear her door slam.

“She's angry with me. The Hasid is angry with me.”

“Where have you been?” says Debra, and my father laughs.

“What do you mean where have I been? Where have
you
been?”

“I'm here, Daddy. I'm always here.”

“I'm here too, so don't worry about what was and what wasn't. Open up your gifts.”

Debra gets a snow globe with the Empire State Building inside and a porcelain China doll in a green shiny dress. I get a book called
Earth's Filthiest Jokes
and a brand new camera by Nikon. It's beautiful, the SL2, the newest model, and it's hard to believe he bought it and I'm holding it, so heavy in my hand.

“You're a photographer, aren't you?” he says.

“Thank you.”

My father takes his jacket off and yawns with his mouth wide. He tells us he's pooped and asks if he can sleep in Debra's room. She nods and smiles and shakes the snow globe. “So where've you been?” she says in a younger voice than her own.

He points at the doll. “Do you like it or not?”

“Of course I do.”

“Good then. I'm happy. Anybody got a toothbrush?”

D
EBRA WATCHES HIM
brush his teeth in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. She follows him into her room and pulls out the trundle bed beneath her mattress. I see them lying together on their sides but cannot hear what they're saying. When I walk in he asks if I like the joke book and if I'd read “the one about the bull balls.” I grab the filthy joke book and open it to a random page. The one I find to read aloud is about a rooster that gets syphilis in Tijuana. I watch my dad laugh with his mouth wide, as he wipes the deep creases near his eyes. He was forty when I was born in 1958. My mom is forty-two now, eighteen when she met him. They separated more than five times between Debra's birth and now and neither of us knows if their marriage is officially over or not. Only married women wear
sheitels
, so at least for today they're married.

I tell him I found boxes of old pictures in the garage and he sits up and asks to see them. From my room I get the one of him waving from the Cadillac. “A 1964 Caddy,” he says.

I kiss my sister on the cheek and reach to touch my father's arm. “I'm going to sleep,” I tell him.

He pulls me toward him for a hug and whispers in my ear. “Tomorrow. Come to work with me. Bring the camera.”

I nod, knowing I can't go, and leave the room.

My father screams, “
Mickey!
How come you won't open my gift? I got ya something nice. Just come see it. I think you'll like it.”

“Stop that!” she says from her doorway. “
Shhhhh
. They have school in the morning.”

“Okay, then just talk to me for a sec.”

“I'm tired,” she says.

“It took a long time but you . . . finally got what you wanted, huh? The whole Megilla, right, Mick?”

“My name is Miriam,” she says. She turns out the hall light and everything is dark. “They have school in the morning, Martin. Let her sleep.”

“But I got an announcement. A bedtime announcement, for my family.
David!
”

“Yes?” I call.

“Come back.”

He's on his feet when I get there, moving toward the doorway.

“I dumped my old apartment. The small one, it wasn't big enough. My new place is perfect and I'm ready to have my kids come and see me.”

“Where is it?” Debra says.

“In the city.”

“Where was the last one?” Debra says.

“It doesn't matter, it was too small. The new place is nice and you can have a bed there.”

“Can I come soon?” she says.

“Name the day.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” my mother says. “None of this was discussed. I need to speak to you alone.”

“Why alone? The message is clear and it's for everyone. I have space now, in the city, bedrooms for my kids.”

“Please. May I see you, Martin?”

“Sure, I'd be glad to,” my father says. “And I'd be glad to make a schedule that works for you.”

“Go to sleep, Dena.”

“So it's good news. Right? The kids can see the city and their father. Right, Mick?”

Her jaw stiffens as her eyes nearly close. “I told you. My name is Miriam.”

T
HERE'S A 180-FOOT-TALL
Howard Johnson's sign on the Parkway that you can see from a mile away. It stands in the parking lot of the restaurant and is surrounded by tall waving weeds and a chain-link fence. At times when my parents split, my mother took Debra and me to visit him there, a halfway point between our home and his. As I lay in bed this morning I remember how he'd light up when he saw us approach and how hard he worked at cramming as much fun into our time together as he could. But it was a diner. On the highway. So there wasn't much to do after we colored our place mats and ate lunch. The tower is where we'd go, the base of it. My father would make up stories about climbing it as a kid and ask us what we thought we could see if we climbed the ladder to the top. Debra usually said Disneyland—the castle and all the characters, a
moat with black swans. Once I said, my mother, driving on the highway, coming to get us so we didn't have to stand in a parking lot all day. This hurt my father. We went a week or more without talking and I remember fearing that I'd ruined my relationship with him, just as my mother had.

I get out of bed and look out the window to see if he's left. His car is still in the driveway but it's in a different spot. Someone knocks gently on my door, then opens it. My mother is wigless and still in her nightclothes.

“I heard something downstairs,” she says.

“Like what?”

“I don't know.”

“Maybe it's Dad.”

“Go look. Please.”

It's just after six. I walk past her down the stairs and find my father fully dressed in the garage, sitting on a lawn chair near the far wall of boxes.

“Was she gonna throw these out?” he says, lifting a pile of photos from his lap. “There are pictures of me in high school in here.”

“I don't know.”

“This guy here, see him? This guy? Dickie Brutzman. Could throw a watermelon thirty yards from his knees.”

“How long have you been out here?”

“And this is me. In the back, see?”

It's him. A teenager with dark hair but the same long straight nose. The deep-set eyes.

“Was she gonna toss these out?”

“I don't know,” I say. “You should take whatever you want.”

“Who throws out photographs? Your mother's a lunatic. I don't know how you live here.”

This is his new line. I don't know how you live here. He's said it the last two times I've seen him.

“You should live with me,” he says. “You're seventeen now, you should come live and work with me.”

“Mom says I should go to college.”

“Hasids don't go to college. They study Talmud and that's it.”

“But I'm not a Hasid.”

“College is a waste of time and money.” He stands and moves around the garage, checking all the labels on the boxes. “You should come work with me.”

“I think I want to be a photographer.”

“Then take pictures. Walk out the front door with your camera and point the thing at life. It's everywhere. Beauty and emotion, the sky, the sea. You don't need a classroom for that.”

He opens another box and flips through some records. “Dave Brubeck, Nat King Cole. Chuck Baker, Sinatra. Help me get these into the car.”