OEM by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new
Published: 2011-01-15T04:11:26.656000+00:00

25

A thousand guests, some from as far away as Miami Beach and Buenos Aires. Seven catering trailers and a Volvo truck stuffed with food and wine. Gifts, swag, and tributes in heaps to rival the Baranof Range. Three days of fasting and prayer. The entire Muzikant family of klezmorim, enough for half a symphony orchestra. Every last Rudashevsky, even the great-grandfather, half drunk and shooting off an ancient Nagant revolver into the air. For a week leading up to the day, a line of people in the hall, out the door, around the corner, and two blocks down Ringelblum Avenue, hoping for a blessing from the bridegroom king. All day and night a noise around the house like a mob in search of a revolution.

An hour before the wedding they were still there, waiting for him, hats and slick umbrellas in the street. He was not likely, this late, to see them or hear their pleas and sob stories. But you never knew. It was always Mendel's nature to make the unpredictable move.

She was at the window, peering through the curtains at the petitioners, when the girl came to say that Mendel was gone and that two ladies were here to see her. Mrs. Shpilman's bedroom overlooked the side yard, but she could see between the neighboring houses through to the corner: hats and umbrellas, slick with rain. Jews shouldered together, soaked in longing for a glimpse of Mendel.

Wedding day, funeral day.

"Gone," she said. She did not turn from the window.

She had the sensation of mingled futility and fulfillment one feels in dreams. There was no point in asking the question, and yet it was the only thing she was able to say. "Gone where?"

"Nobody know, missus. Nobody see him since last night."

"Last night."

"This morning."

Last night she had presided at a forshpiel for the daughter of the Shtrakenzer rebbe. A brilliant match. A bride of talent and accomplishment, beautiful, with a fiery streak that Mendel's sisters lacked but which his mother knew her son admired in her. Of course, the Shtrakenzer bride, though perfect, was not suitable; Mrs. Shpilman knew that. Long before the maid came to say that nobody could find Mendel, that he had disappeared sometime in the course of the night, Mrs. Shpilman had known that no degree of accomplishment, beauty, or fire in a girl would ever suit her son. But there was always a shortfall, wasn't there? Between the match that the Holy One, blessed be He, envisioned and the reality of the situation under the chuppah. Between commandment and observance, heaven and earth, husband and wife, Zion and Jew. They called that shortfall "the world." Only when Messiah came would the breach be closed, all separations, distinctions, and distances collapsed. Until then, thanks be unto His Name, sparks, bright sparks, might leap across the gap, as between electric poles. And we must be grateful for their momentary light.

That was how she had planned, at least, to put it to Mendel, should he ever seek her counsel on the matter of his betrothal to the daughter of the Shtrakenzer rebbe.

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