Faye Kellerman - Sacred and Profane

“At that instant…” Schulman held up his index finger. “At that instant I knew you were drunk, for it’s no shame to see a sick person, is it? In fact, it’s a good deed to care for the sick, and she of all people wouldn’t deny me any opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah.”

The rabbi crushed his cigarette with his bare hand and threw it in the ashtray.

“Rina erred by getting involved with you in the first place. No matter how nice and understanding you were during that horrible time, the bottom line is you were a gentile. That’s it! Until you became a Torah Jew, she should have refused to see you. But she chose differently, and now she pays for her decision. I hear and see things, Peter. She puts up with daily ridicule, constant pressure from her parents and friends. She does it because she loves you and because she believed you when you told her you wanted to convert. Last night you placed her in a compromising situation. Her ethics were bound to be scrutinized by prying eyes. She chose your honor over hers. She’s an eishes chayil-a woman of valor. She’s too good for you.”

Decker swallowed back a dry lump in his throat.

“I never said she wasn’t.”

His answer didn’t seem to please the rabbi. He asked to be taken back. Decker turned the car around and headed toward the yeshiva in silence. He pulled the Plymouth into the parking area and shut the motor. They sat in the dark for a moment, listening to the nighttime sounds. The sky was clear, moonbeams peeking through the branches of oak and eucalyptus.

The rabbi turned to face him.

“You can either wallow in self-pity or you can do better.” His voice had softened. He placed a firm hand on Decker’s shoulder and said, “The choice is yours, my friend.”

“You’re not working today?” Rina asked as she opened the door.

“I took the day off.” Decker stepped inside.

He looked angry, she thought. His jaw was clenched and his pulse throbbed in the veins at his temples. She tried to make eye contact, but he was averting his gaze.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Why did you tell Rabbi Schulman I was here the other night?”

“I had to.”

“You had to?” he mocked. “Some little gremlin picked up your finger and forced you to dial his number?”

“Peter, I’m a single woman living on the grounds of a yeshiva. I have a responsibility to uphold a certain standard of conduct.”

“What happened two nights ago was strictly between you and me, Rina. It wasn’t anybody else’s damn business.”

“It is if I’m living under a certain set of rules-”

“Funny you should mention that. I seem to remember a certain scramble on the floor where rules didn’t count too much.”

She blushed a deep rose.

“That was a rotten thing to say.”

“Did I go and report you to the rabbi? Little Rina Lazarus was a very naughty little girl today-”

“Stop it!”

“How the hell do you think I feel, Rina?”

“I didn’t say anything-”

“Is this what I have to look forward to if we marry, Rina? Every little transgression or imperfection on my part gets related to the holy man so he can impart his divine judgment on my character?”

She stared at him coldly.

“I won’t even dignify that with an answer.”

“Humor me. Dignify it.”

She spoke through tight lips.

“What we do after we’re married as husband and wife in our own place is no one’s business but our own. But this wasn’t the same situation-”

“All you had to do was wake me up in a couple of hours and tell me to leave. Nothing happened. No one would have been the wiser.”

“We’re not children sneaking behind the backs of our parents, Peter. I had nothing to hide by letting you stay here. I just wanted Rav Schulman to know that.”

“What other things do you tell the great rabbi about me?”

She became furious.

“Nothing.”

“After all, he must have a hotline to God-”

“Every single Jew has a hotline to Hashem, anytime they want. All they have to do is open up a siddur and say tehillim. Rabbi Schulman is respected because he is a tzaddik and a talmid hacham-a pious and learned man-and not because he’s of divine descent. We don’t have popes, remember?”

“Well, some Jews obviously believe they’re more worthy-”

He was interrupted by the phone.

“Don’t answer it!” he ordered.

“This is still my house,” Rina retorted angrily. “I can answer my phone, thank you.” She jerked up the receiver, said hello, then wordlessly held out the receiver to him. He took it, and as he listened, his face became etched in pain. He said that he’d be right down and hung up.

“Bad news?” she asked anxiously.

“Do I ever get good news?” he answered caustically.

Something had deepened his horrible mood, hurting him. “What’s happened?” Rina asked.

“One of my informants, a sixteen-year-old girl who looks like my daughter, is in the hospital, beaten to a bloody pulp. Indirectly it was my fault. She was feeding me information, and when the case began to get complicated, I told her to back off. She didn’t listen, and I think someone got to her. Now she’s hanging on by a thread and I’m pissed off.”

“Peter, you can’t be responsible-”

“Don’t give me your pep rally routine. Life is not sugar and spice. Life sucks. This place sucks. I hate it. I hate the holier-than-thou attitude around here. I hate the self-righteousness! I hate the our-way-is-right-and-your-way-is-wrong pigheadedness. The goddam absolutes. You can believe in your little rules and rituals, but let me tell you something, in the real world there’s no blacks and white-only goddam muddy grays!”

He picked up a cup from her kitchen table and flung it across the room. He’d always had a good arm and a crackerjack aim. The brass had given up trying to lull him over to SWAT. It hit her wedding picture smack in the center, shattered the glass, knocked it to the floor.

She stared at the blank spot on the wall, then looked at Decker, holding back tears.

“How long have you wanted to do that?”

“A long time.”

“I know you’ve been under terrible stress, Peter, and I’m trying to be understanding-”

“Rina the angel. Or is it Rina the martyr taking abuse from her friends who don’t at all approve of her big, dumb goy-”

“Stop it, Peter!”

“You want to tell them something interesting, Rina? The next time they razz you about me being a shaigetz, you tell them I’m Jewish. That’ll shut them up.”

She stared at him blankly.

“It’s true, you know,” he said. “I’m Jewish, Rina. Just like you.”

“I don’t understand-”

“I’m adopted. My biological parents were Jewish. Understand now?”

She couldn’t answer him.

“I’ve known about it since I was eighteen,” he went on. “I knew I was technically Jewish the first time I stepped foot on the grounds here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had my reasons.”

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“How could you keep that from me? Didn’t you trust me?”

“It wasn’t a matter of trust. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to find out what being your kind of Jew is like, so I could either accept it or reject it. You know what, Rina? I reject it! I reject all your phony baloney customs and laws because they were made by rabbis who dwelt in ivory towers and never had to deal with the day-by-day crap of living. Like Schulman. Give him a month on the streets, seeing the garbage I see, putting up with scum and mud and shit that fills you up until your eyes turn brown. Give him one month of it and I guarantee you, the man’s ironclad faith will be cleaved as wide as the Red Sea.”