The Orchard by David Hopen

Author:David Hopen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2020-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

December

Do the gods light this fire in our hearts

Or does each man’s mad desire become his god?

—Virgil, Aeneid

The SAT came back on a Saturday, which meant I had to endure an entire Shabbat of anxious waiting. I passed time reading and, later, walking the streets, hoping to chance upon Sophia. I considered stopping by her house, so close was I to jumping out of my skin, though came quickly to my senses and decided instead to try Noah.

“Sup, bud?” Noah said, clapping my back as he answered the front door. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

“I feel like I’m waiting to see a ghost,” I said, following him down the hall.

“Then you might not like what’s going on in the living room,” Noah said.

“What do you mean?”

We stopped in his kitchen so that Noah could grab me a Heineken, and then he steered me into the living room, toward the others. “We’re checking scores.”

“Look who it is,” Oliver said, iPhone in hand. Evan, beside him, snorted to himself when he saw me. “We were just revealing Noah’s score to the kehillah.”

I sat on the couch, put the Heineken on the floor. Amir examined my face, as if probing for evidence of guilt. “You haven’t looked, right?” he asked me.

I blinked awkwardly. I was still unaccustomed to having people around me violate Shabbat with such impunity. Watching Amir await my answer, I thought of how, in the fifth grade, Mordechai admitted he had turned his Walkman on and off one Friday night. It was electrifying, he insisted, urging me to try it. “Even if you don’t like it, even if you never want to do it again,” he reasoned, “you’ll always know you rebelled once.” I requested a week of deliberation, but when Friday night arrived I refrained, suddenly picturing Mordechai as the snake presenting fruit to Eve. Why he’d entrusted me with his secret was evident in my reaction: I’d been shocked but not horrified. Unlike Shimon and the others, I was capable of entertaining sin. For weeks afterward, I imagined myself as Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, flirting too closely with betraying God. “It’s Shabbat,” I said.

“I assume that’s a no, to be clear,” Amir said.

“It’s a no.”

“Well, if it makes any difference to a Beis Din,” Noah said, throwing himself down beside me, “it wasn’t technically my sin. Oliver went online for me.”

I sipped tensely from my beer. “Yeah, not sure it works like that.”

Noah laughed with some degree of guilt. “You don’t think our sins are transferable? Like currency?”

“By the way, in my defense,” Oliver said, opening a Budweiser, “I didn’t check my own score. So, I’m pretty sure that means the sin remains Noah’s. Eden, need me to check yours? I won’t charge for the service.”

“Nah, I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Amir inched forward on the couch. “Oliver, you seriously didn’t check your score?”

Oliver raised his drink. “Heard that right.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Does it matter what it says?”

“Uh, yeah. It matters a ton.”

“For you,” Oliver said, taking a swig.

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