Faye Kellerman - Sacred and Profane

“I’m not going,” he said loudly. “Just get me a knife.”

“By not going you’re committing an avayrah. Halachically, you have to go.”

“Rina, I don’t give a damn about halacha right now. I just need some relief.”

“Wait here,” she said. A few minutes later she reentered with a knife and a bowl full of steaming towels. “Come to the table, Peter. I’ll take care of it.”

“Rina, just give me the knife and get out of here.”

“You can’t excise the wound yet. It hasn’t formed enough of a head.”

He looked at her.

“Since when do you know about lancing pus pockets?”

“Come to the table,” she repeated firmly.

He followed her and slumped down in the armchair, grateful for the help.

“Stick out your arm.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to apply heat to bring up the head.” She dipped a towel into the steaming water, then wrung out the excess. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Can’t hurt any worse than it hurts now.”

But it did. It seared his flesh.

“How’d it happen?” she asked wrapping the arm.

“I was repairing the floorboard in the barn and an old plank of jagged wood cut into my arm.”

“I saw bitemarks,” she said.

He paused.

“Okay, I was bitten by a dog.”

“What happened, Peter?”

“I was chomped on by a whore in the line of duty. Are you happy now?”

Her eyes met his, but she said nothing. She unwrapped the first cloth, palpated the swelling, and wrapped it again in a newly heated towel.

“Where did you learn to do this?” he asked.

Rina noticed his face was drenched with sweat and mopped it with a dry towel. “Yitzchak and I moved to Israel a year after we married. To Kiryat Arba-a settlement in Hebron.” She stroked his hand. “We were in hostile territory and there were no Jewish doctors handy. You learn to do things.”

“You never told me you lived in Israel.”

“For three years. It was a phase of my life that I’ve tried to forget. Except for the year of Yitzchak’s death, I don’t think I was ever more miserable. I was stuck behind barbed wire fencing with two small infants of my own, and in charge of the group’s nursery which-baruch Hashem-had forty-four kids.” She paused a moment. “All the men carried guns with them. It was open warfare out there.”

“Including Yitzchak?”

“Yes.” She took off the old towel, wrung out another, and wrapped the wound a third time.

“But you didn’t?”

“The women never left the compound. We were guarded twenty-four hours a day. What would have been the purpose of learning how to shoot? Though now I wish I had.”

“Why’d you live there?” he asked.

“Idealism.” She shook her head. “When Yitzchak announced that we were going back to the States, I cried tears of joy, then immediately felt guilty about it. I was leaving the Holy Land and ecstatic about it.”

She laughed softly.

“Then I read in the Talmud that a Jew who passes up a permissible pleasure is a fool. I was very foolish in those years.”

“Why didn’t you put your foot down and tell him you wanted to leave?”

“I didn’t make myself clear,” she said, taking off the towel. “He would have left a long time ago. I was the one who insisted we stay-always the martyr, Peter. I thought we should be religious chalutzniks-pioneers. Finally, he put his foot down. He said he couldn’t live in that kind of atmosphere. When Rav Schulman invited him to join the kollel, he quickly accepted without consulting me. I couldn’t even get mad at him. The poor guy was so miserable, and I was so oblivious to his needs because I believed in some higher purpose.

“But it all worked out in the end. Yitzchak had wanted to live and study in Jerusalem -a more beautiful and inspiring city never existed. Had we settled there, I would have never left Israel. And then I would have never met you.”

She touched his skin; it was burning and taut. She told him to hold still.

His body was soaked with perspiration. Squeezing his eyes shut, he bit his lip hard, tasting the blood as it trickled into his mouth. He could feel the knife blade slicing into the swelling. A stab of pain, then skin bursting open, exploding pus that soured the room with its fetid stench.

“Good,” he heard her say.

He felt faint, but male pride kept him conscious.

She began to bathe the arm in antiseptic. The pain was overwhelming and caused him to shiver. Tenderly, she dabbed his face while cleansing the open sore. Finally, she patted the wound dry.

“It looks clean, Peter. Keep the towel firmly pressed on the cut while I take a look in the medicine cabinet.”

She came back with two half-empty bottles of pills and a roll of gauze.

“These are penicillin tablets from when I had strep. Take two every six hours. Take a couple of aspirin, also. They’ll make you feel better and reduce the swelling and fever.”

She unfurled the gauze and began to wrap the wound.

“I love you,” Decker said.

“I love you, too, Peter. Promise me you’ll go to a doctor after Shabbos is over.”

“No argument.”

“Do you want to rest here?”

“No. It would look bad.”

“I don’t care-”

“I do. Finish wrapping this and go on to your class. They’re probably wondering what happened to you.”

She nodded and worked quickly. When she was done, she helped him on with his coat.

“You go first,” she said. “I want to clean up.”

He looked at the pus and blood splashed over the starched white Shabbos linens on her table and frowned. The odor of decay was still powerful.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said calmly. “I really wish you’d go to the hospital.”

“I’m all right.” He hugged her as tight as he could. “I feel better already. Thanks.”

“Peter, how did it happen?”

“I don’t want to get into it, honey.”

“Okay,” she said. “I won’t meddle.”

“You’re not meddling. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

She kissed his cheek. “You’d better get going.”

He kissed her back and left without another word, sucking in mouthfuls of air. Although his balance was unsteady, his pace was good. He had no intention of sitting through a lesson he didn’t understand, so he entered the main yeshiva building and headed for a small classroom in the basement. It was his favorite learning spot, and he’d hidden all the English translations of the holy books there. Taking out his chumash, he began to learn, trying to concentrate on the text instead of his pain.

Soon he became absorbed in the material, looking up references, checking sources, attempting to translate and understand the Hebrew which still eluded him.

It seemed he’d only been at it for minutes when he found himself squinting. The daylight had turned to dusk and it wouldn’t be long before the unlit room turned pitch black. He leaned back in his chair and inhaled deeply, enjoying the solitude, feeling very calm. His arm felt much better; Rina had done an excellent job. She never ceased to surprise him-so utterly feminine yet so competent. He saw firsthand how she handled crises, and her strength and willpower were scary. Maybe it was the religion; the women in the Bible were not known for their passivity-Judith lopping off the head of Holofernes, Yael driving a tent peg through Sisera’s temples. He could picture Rina doing that. After all, didn’t she buy a gun?

He heard footsteps and saw Rabbi Schulman dressed in his formal Shabbos silks. Decker started to rise, but the old man motioned him to remain seated.

“How’s your arm?” the old man asked.

“She told you?”