The Book of Trees (11 page)

I finally fell asleep, dreaming of his wrists and the way he held his guitar, his narrow hips, his sweet, sweet smell.

The next morning I joined Chani and her friends Sarah and Rifka on the couch in the B’nos Sarah lounge before class.

Chani sat on the armrest, radiating enthusiasm. “He’s really cute and he’s from the same part of New Jersey as me, and next year he’ll be at Columbia.” The other girls listened attentively. I pretended to be excited for her too.

One of the girls turned to Chani and sang out, “
Kol
chatan v’ kol kallah
.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“It’s the song she’s hoping to hear after her next date with Yosef!” Sarah said.

“What?”

Chani spoke over the singing girls. “They’re just being silly. It’s the song you sing when someone gets engaged or married.” I nodded and tried to smile.

Why the hell would anyone want to get married so young? Okay, Chani was older than me, but she was still only twenty. There were so many things I wanted to do first, like scuba dive, see Paris and go to university. I hadn’t been to Nashville yet or learned to speak Italian. Maybe I’d had enough sex in high school to get some of the boy-craziness out of my system. I shook my head. Maybe everyone here was just really eager to get laid. That had to be it.

I’d learned about Orthodox marriages when I first started going to Aviva’s parents’ house for dinner. I’d go to the Blumes’ early and help Aviva chop vegetables or set the table. One night as were setting the table I got up the courage to ask Aviva if she knew any boys.

Aviva cocked her head to the side. “My brothers and cousins and nephews. Sometimes I talk to my neighbor’s son, Jacob. I’ve known him all my life.”

“But you don’t date or anything, right?”

“No. Have you dated anyone?” Aviva looked curious.

A vision of having sex with Matt flashed through my head. We’d never really dated; no one I knew did. At school people hooked up at parties. “Neh, not really.”

Aviva lowered her voice. “Have you ever kissed a boy?”

I cracked a toe on the linoleum floor. “Yeah.”

Aviva giggled. “Have you ever—”

“So, I was wondering about how you get married,” I said quickly. “I don’t understand why you can’t even hold hands with a guy.”

Aviva handed me wineglasses from the dining room buffet. “If you start to feel, you know, romantic about someone, it’s hard to make an objective decision about whether they’re the best person for you. You know, if you have the same life goals and plans.”

“Wow.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. Aviva giggled and started laying out cutlery. I thought about Matt. Did we have any similar life goals? Only to get high, make music and have sex. I tried imagining my parents on a date in the early seventies, discussing life plans. Sheila would have said she wanted to have kids, and Don would have run the other way. I laid a fork on top of a blue folded napkin. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, getting to know someone first. “What if you don’t know what your plans or goals are?”

“Your teachers or parents wouldn’t try and set you up if they thought you weren’t ready.”

I nodded again. “But what about being in love?”

“My sister Malka says she fell in love with her husband, Tsvi, on their very first date. Isn’t that sweet?”

I nodded. “Sounds great.”

I wasn’t totally convinced, but I could see the logic. I’d slept with Matt because I thought he really liked me, and then I’d been disappointed when he ditched me. If you were Orthodox and you got set up with someone who had the same goals as you, then you wouldn’t be let down. Aviva made the Orthodox way of getting married sound almost sexy. I guess you’d be really hot for some action if you had to wait until you married. I thought, Hell, if I could be a reborn Jew, maybe I could be a reborn virgin too.

When I got to my Torah class, Michelle wasn’t there. Her notebook with the cats on the cover lay on the table where we usually studied. On the inside cover, Michelle had taped a photograph of a thin, blond woman with waist-length feathery hair, wearing a plaid work shirt. I wondered if it was her mom. In the top corner was Michelle’s Jerusalem address and phone number.

I tried to study alone but I found myself doodling in my notebook. I designed a blouse with a mandarin collar and long narrow sleeves. I shaded side panels in a slightly darker color, so you’d look slimmer. What about a calf-length skirt with an angled hemline? Would that work? I added a scandalously tall pair of boots. I sighed and put down the pen. I had bought several boring skirts and tops from one of the stores the girls here all talked about. Every morning I shuddered a little as I put on my beige skirt and pastel T-shirt.

My fingers kept returning to my pocket, and the dog-eared handbill for Andrew’s concert. He was playing tonight. I looked around the room at the other girls, all engaged in discussions. They searched through the texts, took notes and consulted the Torah teacher. They all seemed so content with their learning, dancing and volunteer work. It was like they’d all drunk a magic happiness potion. The newly religious girls almost glowed.

After my first class I gave up trying to study and went back to the empty dorm, taking Michelle’s notebook with me. I couldn’t face a whole morning trying to read Hebrew alone. I lay on the couch in the common room and watched reruns of
Beverly Hills 90210
. When I got bored, I dialed Michelle’s number. I got no answer, so I went for a run.

I’d become bored with my relentlessly steep route up Mount Scopus, so I decided to run out another way, past the edge of the city. I headed out on a steadily inclined path, and soon I was past the city streets. One side of the road was mountainside, the other a drop-off to the desert. The heat was oppressive—too hot for running. Still, I ran a little faster, excited by the landscape, my pulse escalating. I tried to ignore the road, keeping my vision on the view of the hills, until I was just a body moving through space. My breathing settled into a steady rhythm. Blood pulsed in my ears. I was breathing hard as I surged uphill. The way home would be easy. I could feel sweat behind my knees and trickling down my chest.

The road curved and became narrower. I could only see the immediate asphalt in front of me, the panorama of sand and hills on my right. Maybe I’d end up in an Arab community. A little thrill of nerves and anticipation made me run faster. Then, around the curve, I saw familiar four-story Jerusalem stone apartment blocks, the same kind of park, bank and grocery store as my own neighborhood. I was half relieved, half disappointed.

I ran up the main street. Two small girls stared at me as I went by in my jogging pants and baggy T-shirt. They wore long dresses and heavy tights. Farther ahead a group of boys with curly sidelocks twirled into ringlets stared at me. My head swiveled to gawk at small boys with curlers attached to the sides of their heads. Up by the market I passed women in wigs wearing long-sleeved dresses, and men in dark suits and fur hats. They stared at my running clothes. I turned abruptly and ran back the way I’d come. I’d entered a
haredi
, an ultra-Orthodox community.

On the way out a teenage boy hissed something in Hebrew at me. I guessed it meant “whore.” I started running faster. Fuck you, I felt like yelling back. I ended up here by mistake. Who was he to say what was modest and what wasn’t? He made me feel cheap, ugly.

That was it. I had to get out of Jerusalem. Tel Aviv was less than an hour away by bus. It would be just the thing: a little salt air, a little secular culture, an afternoon adventure. Perhaps with Michelle. The date of Andrew’s gig was embossed in my thoughts.

Back at the dorm I stood in the communal shower stall with its peeling walls and let the cool water wash away the sweat and tired ache of heat in my bones. Then I dressed and packed a change of clothes along with my water bottle, guidebook and Michelle’s notebook. Before I left I wrote a quick note for Aviva.
Staying late
at volunteering and then meeting friends for dinner.

Michelle rented a room in an apartment block near the yeshiva. Children’s voices ricocheted up and down the shabby hallways of her building.

A woman in a head covering with two little children holding on to her skirt let me into a crowded apartment. “Her room is down the hall.” She pointed and I skirted past a baby bathtub and stacks of plastic storage tubs.

Michelle sat at a small table reading a book, her head in her hands. The room was barren except for a bed with a faded cover and a dresser with a toiletries case on it. A hook on the wall held clothes on hangers. Michelle’s shoes were neatly lined up in the corner of the room.

“Oh, hi.” She looked surprised to see me. We’d never talked about where she lived.

“You left your book. I thought I’d bring it by.”

“Thanks.” She rubbed her face sleepily.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Just a little anxious.” She chewed on her thumbnail. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Your address was on the inside cover of your book.”

“Oh, right.”

“So, this is where you live.” I hovered by the door.

“Yup.”

“It’s very…bare.”

“I don’t spend much time here.”

“I missed you today.”

Michelle nodded. “My conversion exam is really soon.”

I nodded. “Oh. I’m thinking it’s really, really hot in here and I’m going to Tel Aviv. I think you should come with me.”

“I have to study.”

“You need an afternoon off.”

“That’s what Shabbos is for.”

“Right. And sometimes you need to rock out. We’re going to the beach.”

“My exam is in less than two weeks.”

“You can study later. Or I’ll quiz you on the bus. I need to get out of this city. Jerusalem’s feeling really claustrophobic right now, and I need some sinners to make me look good. I hear Tel Aviv’s just the thing.”

Michelle hesitated.

“There’ll be fresh sea breezes.”

“Let me get my sunglasses.”

When Michelle reached for her notebook to add to her backpack, I took it from her and chucked it on the bed. “Enough. Just bring a towel.”

We took a city bus to the main bus terminal and then another bus to Tel Aviv. As the bus descended the steep, rocky hills of Jerusalem, we drove through more planted JNF trees. I shuddered and tried not to think about them. Then the road entered a lush plain. I squinted out the window as the sun shone through sprinklers irrigating crops. When I pointed them out to Michelle, she said, “Oranges. You should have been here in the spring. When I got off the plane, all I could smell was orange blossoms. It was amazing.”

Less than an hour later we entered the sprawling outskirts of Tel Aviv. It looked like any other big city: traffic, shops, people walking with children.

From the Tel Aviv bus station we took a local bus down to the beach. The streets were wider than in Jerusalem, and the buildings seemed haphazard, almost slapdash, compared to Jerusalem’s stone buildings.

Michelle flapped her shirt. “It’s very humid.”

“Isn’t it great? My skin is absolutely drinking in the moisture.”

We made our way down to the water and joined the parade of people strolling along the boardwalk. Gentle waves rolled over families splashing on the beach.

“Look how happy people are here. It’s like a champagne cork got released.”

“I haven’t seen so much flesh in ages.” Michelle stared at the swimmers.

“Don’t you feel it? People are relaxed.” We strolled along the promenade, passing couples arm in arm, families with children running about. Hair blew in the breeze over exposed shoulders. There were women with bare midriffs, shirtless men, young girls clad only in bikinis.

“You don’t like Jerusalem?” Michelle’s face had lost its hard lines, its furrowed brow. She looked pretty, wisps of blond hair blowing around her face.

“Of course I do. It’s just good to get out. See the sea, feel the breeze, have a change in scenery. Sometimes I feel Jerusalem has too much emotion, too much religious expectation.”

We pulled off our sandals and walked down to the water. Waves swirled around our ankles. My feet sank into the sand, my toes making shallow impressions.