The Sabbathday River (58 page)

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Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz

BOOK: The Sabbathday River
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“No.” She nodded. “I see that.”
“But I wanted to. I woke up in the night sometimes, and I
wanted.
Even though I knew we would always wind up struggling against each other. There are just some lives that won't blend. I said that, and I still think so. But I always thought of you with great …” He trailed off, unsure of what the next word ought to be.
“Yes. I know that.” Naomi sat up next to him, her breasts pendulous. He never took his eyes off her face. She thought, quite suddenly, of Mickey Schwerner and the mob, and how he really
had
understood just how they felt. “Nelson,” she said, “whatever it is, I know that very well.”
The Chosen People
“NO WAIT,” JUDITH SAID. “WAIT, YOU'VE GOT TO hear this next bit.”
“Okay,” Naomi said, twisting her neck to pin the phone to her ear. She was trying to dress and watch Polly at the same time. Polly had, of late, developed an interest in steaming liquids.
“All right, so then it goes, ‘Ironically, it is those movements and communities that view themselves as morally sanctioned who fail most strikingly to be moral. During the Crusades, for example, Christian soldiers paved a bloody road to Jerusalem, slaughtering men, women, and children as they traveled, all in defense of Christian values. And somewhat closer to home, in Salem, a society modeled on godliness behaved with savage paganism toward its weakest members: servant women, the old, and the friendless. The most distressing element of the Goddard Babies case is not that police authority was outrageously abused, or that a fiasco of Keystone Kops proportions was brought about, or even that an innocent woman has been wrongly accused of horrendous crimes, but that her neighbors have failed to register any complaint whatsoever about her
treatment. Supporters from all over the Northeast have been flocking to Peytonville, where the trial is about to enter its second week, and thousands more have sent Pratt white roses, symbolizing resistance, but from her own acquaintances there has not been the smallest gesture of outreach. By distancing themselves from her, the upstanding citizens of Goddard, New Hampshire, apparently think they are showing us how much better than she they are. In fact, they are showing us precisely the opposite.'” Judith finished with a flourish of glee. “Isn't that—”
“Yes,” said Naomi. “Of course it is. I hope Ann Chase read that.”
“Joel was at Tom and Whit's yesterday. He said they were sold out of the
Globe
by nine o'clock. Same at Stop & Shop. I'm so glad, Naomi. I mean, they don't care what we say, or those butch girls from Dartmouth. But you can bet they care that the
Globe
thinks they're savages.”
“I would think so.” Naomi sighed. She reached for her coffee, narrowly edging out Polly, and took the mug into the kitchen. The low heels of her shoes made an unaccustomed clack on the floorboards as she walked.
“I'm dressing up,” she said. “I'm supposed to, right?”
“Well, a little. I want to make it special for Joel.”
“Okay.” She poured some Rice Krispies for Polly, pausing briefly to wonder if it was all right for an atheistic Jew to give leaven to a non-Jewish child before attending a Seder. Naomi sighed and added milk to the bowl.
“And my sister's here. Did I say?”
“No!” she said eagerly. Judith's sister, from the far, secret side of her life. “That's great. And her children?”
“Her daughter. Hannah is here. Her husband and Simon are in Providence.”
“Oh,” Naomi said awkwardly. “Well, good.”
“And a friend from the city. Which is why I called you, actually. I mean, he reminded me. I forgot the horseradish, and I was wondering …”
“Oh sure. I think I have some, but I'll stop on the way if I don't.”
“Thanks.” Judith sounded distracted. “Now I have to go. I have a potentially serious gefilte-fish issue.”
“Oh, that sounds bad.” Naomi laughed. She said they would be there soon, hung up the phone, and went to the fridge. There, a dark back corner yielded one slender jar of horseradish, crusted at the rim but
smelling reassuringly of horseradish inside. She gave Polly a few minutes longer to eat her cereal, wrapped her up in her coat, then ferried the baby and the fruit salad (her own contribution to the meal) up the driveway to her car.
It was a dark spring day, threatening rain. Polly, whom Naomi had buttoned into her best dress, sat in her car seat shaking a bottle of apple juice, sending the odd drop flying through the nipple. “Sweetie-pod,” she said brightly, “do you know where we're going?”
Polly stuck the bottle in her mouth.
“We're going to a Passover Seder. At the Seder we celebrate the exodus of the Jews.”
Polly stopped. She deliberately stopped sucking. “Juice?” she inquired.
Naomi burst out laughing. She drove into Judith's driveway, parking beside a blue van with Rhode Island plates. Judith's sister. The kitchen door opened as she was unsnapping the car seat.
“Hey,” said Judith, leaning out. “You won't believe who just called.”
Naomi straightened. “Charter. He's dropping the charges.”
“No. But it's almost as good. Sarah Copley. She was so pissed about the editorial, she'll be there on Wednesday. With a squadron, she told me.”
“A squadron of what?” Naomi said darkly.
“‘Heather's neighbors,' she said. Oh, this is great.”
But Naomi wasn't sure whether she meant the squadron or the fruit salad, which Naomi handed her.
“What are these?” Judith peered, intrigued.
“Pomegranate seeds. In keeping with the Middle Eastern theme.”
“Oh, fabulous. So isn't it great?”
Naomi tried to look happy for Judith's sake. “Good for Sarah. Of course, she might have done it last week. She might have done it six months ago.”
“Better now than never,” Judith said, leading Naomi up the stairs to the kitchen door. “Oh, this is David. Our guest.”
David, standing in the doorway, was bearded and dark, a tall and thick man with hair that was bushy except, oddly, on the top of his head. He reached eagerly for Naomi's hand and shook it. The absence of something made her look down, and this was when she noted that the tip of his thumb was missing. “The famous Naomi Roth, I guess.”
“The very famous,” she confirmed, smiling. “So famous I didn't even know I was famous.”
“Ah, but you are. Judith has been keeping me up to speed on the Goddard Babies case since last fall.”
She looked at Judith, who was moving things around in the refrigerator to find room for the fruit salad.
“David's our expert,” said Judith, offhand. “He's going to testify about superfecundation on Wednesday.”
“And this is the little girl? The one whose mother is on trial?” David said.
“Yes. Polly. She's been with me for about five months.”
“Wow. Hard on her. And you.”
“No. I've enjoyed it.”
“Well, it should be over soon,” said David, looking rather longingly at the wine.
“I hope so.”
“No, it's absurd. Superfecundation is far too fantastical to hang a case like this on. I told my colleagues at the lab and they all wanted to testify. They think I'm not going to be able to keep a straight face on the stand.”
“You'd better,” Judith said, from the stove. She was lifting a hard-boiled egg onto the Seder plate: one egg, one bunch of parsley, one roasted lamb shank, one small bowl of salt water, one little mound of something that looked like wet granola: haroseth.
The kitchen was bright and full, and she seemed elated in it, lifting the lids of pots and sheeting something in the oven with foil. Her husband, passing behind her to the sink, trailed an affectionate hand across her shoulders, and Naomi thought, without warning, of the morning on the park bench, those shoulders shaking with mysterious tears. “I think we're nearly there,” Judith said, picking up the Seder plate. “David, would you put this on the table?”
He took it in his incomplete hand and carried it through Ashley Deacon's French doors, into the dining room beyond. “Hannah, sweetie.” Naomi heard a woman's voice. “Hannah? Turn it off, it's time now.”
“My niece,” Judith said. And then, as a woman walked into the kitchen, she stated the obvious. “And my sister. This is Rachel.”
“Naomi,” Rachel said. She looked so like Judith, the tiniest variation on one genetic theme, and here again was that jolt of recognition, like
in the supermarket that day when she had first seen Judith glowering at the iceberg lettuce and waxed orange tomatoes. Though her hair was cut to the nape of her neck and she seemed slighter, with narrower shoulders and hips, they were otherwise nearly interchangeable.
“You look exactly alike,” Naomi said wonderingly, as if there might be something surprising in that.
“I know,” Rachel said, her voice warm. “Tell me about it.”
“I am
one inch taller,”
said Judith with mock ferocity. “And she has an extra toe.”
“Judith!” Her sister reached across the table to punch her. “Don't be disgusting.”
“They say it's good luck,” said Judith slyly.
Rachel turned to Naomi. “Don't pay any attention to her. And I'm perfectly willing to show you my feet.”
“Not necessary.” Naomi laughed. “That woman couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it.” She smiled at Rachel. “I'm really glad to meet you. I've heard so much about you.”
But when she said that, she felt right away that it was wrong. Because she had heard so little, really, and what she had heard she did not, somehow, feel free to talk about. She hoped Rachel would not ask what Naomi had heard, but Rachel did not. Instead, she merely returned the conventional response.
“Me too. About you. I'm really happy Judith's found somebody up here who'll put up with her.”
“Oh, I'm happy to put up with her,” Naomi said. “She's the only one who gets my jokes.”
“Let's start,” Joel called from the dining room. “Are we ready?”
Judith said they were. She took off her apron. She was wearing a dress so modest and plain it seemed nearly prim, and her strand of white pearls. She looked beautiful. And serene. A matriarch in waiting. “Judith,” Naomi said, “you look …”
“Thank you,” said Judith. “Here.” It was a plate of matzos, thin and irregularly shaped, covered by a linen napkin. “David brought them from the city.”
“You have to go to Hester Street,” he said amiably. “There's one little guy left. Every year, all the assimilated Jews troop down there to try to pay off their guilt.”
“Is that what you are?” Naomi said, smiling. She took the plate in one hand and Polly's forearm in the other.
“No. I've unassimilated myself. But even so, I'm still guilty.”
Joel, passing with his empty bottle of wine, laid an emphatic hand on David's shoulder. “David,” he said, “please chill.”
But he was grinning. They both were. She looked from one face to the other, bewildered. Then they went into the dining room, and as they stepped before her Naomi saw for the first time why she had imagined his hair to be so discordantly rough and smooth. He was actually wearing a black yarmulke.
She put the plate of matzos on the table and busied herself settling Polly in her high chair beside her. On Polly's other side, a little girl, Rachel's daughter, sat in her own seat, looking on with interest. The same black hair and rounded nose, but here the eyes were eerily green. She was not a pretty girl, but Naomi saw that she would be—like her mother and aunt—a striking woman. “Can I play with her?” Hannah said. “I like babies.”
“Of course,” said Naomi. “You must be Hannah.”
“I'm Hannah. How old is she?”
About a year and a half, Naomi told her. The little girl's eyes widened. “Really?”
“Sweetie,” Rachel said from across the table. The word was light, but there was within its tone an unmistakable note of warning. Involuntarily, Naomi looked at her.
“You have another child?” she heard herself say. That she had said what she was thinking, without censoring herself, surprised her. “I mean, I think Judith once mentioned a nephew.”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Simon is just a bit older than Polly. He's home in Providence with my husband.”

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