The Woman who Dived into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman

Author:Sabina Berman [Berman, Sabina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857201942
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

10

The white dawn slowly poured itself out over the black night. I poured steaming hot milk into steaming hot black coffee in a jar and handed it to the rabbi, while outside the kitchen door, the sea receded, wave by wave, enveloped in a white breeze.

We’d stayed up talking all night at the blue wooden table, he asking about the details of good tuna murder practices, Me asking him about good fish murder practices in general, according to Jewish law.

It turned out that according to Jewish law, any fish can be killed just about any old way, and in general they just let them suffocate in the air, but only fish that have scales and fins can be eaten. Which meant that the butcher’s work at Consolation Tuna would be very simple. He’d come each month to ensure that the tuna weren’t mixed with other fish with no scales and no fins, and to make sure that once the tuna were chopped up and canned we weren’t adding any nonkosher oil or other forbidden substances.

It will be like a vacation for him, the rabbi said, accepting the jar of milky coffee. Just supervising the process and then signing the papers that certify everything was kosher.

Oh, I said. So then why did we go through all that on the dock? Why did I teach you to kill the tuna, and why the blessing?

Miss Isabelle requested that, said the rabbi, stroking his beard. Perhaps so people would know we’d come from Maine.

Off in the distance, dogs were waking up and barking, birds chirped, trying to outsing each other, a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooed at a ranch on a hill somewhere.

Why does Nature make such a racket at dawn? he asked.

For the same reason it does at dusk, I responded.

Which is?

An excess of energy that gets released when night turns to day and when day turns to night.

The rabbi, barefoot, bags under his eyes, in his black pants and wrinkled white shirt, took a sip of coffee and suddenly said:

Let me confide something in you, Karen. Just between you and me. Adam and Eve were vegetarians. As far as we know, according to the Bible, they ate apples. In paradise, I mean, before they fell from grace and were expelled from paradise.

I asked for more particulars. Against my aunt Isabelle’s express advice, I found myself intensely interested in religion that morning. Or perhaps, I think now as I write this, I was simply interested in the rabbi, who reminded Me—with his thick beard, long legs, higher-primate feet, and talk of angels—of Ricardo.

You really don’t know what paradise is? the rabbi asked.

No idea, I replied.

He laughed, shaking his head.

Well, I’ll send you a Bible. A real Bible, not a Bible that’s been corrupted by 2,000 years of Christian interpretation. The Bible of Jerusalem. If you promise to read it.

I promised, and then he told Me about paradise anyway.

The mountains and the hills will burst into song, he said in his deep voice, his eyes ½ closed, and it seemed he was speaking from memory.

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