“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Marissa had asked Chayne before she and Brad and Nehru and half of Geshichte Falls had headed toward what Rob called The Purim Party.
“I think I’m just going to treasure a quiet evening at home,” Chayne said.
Anigel, who had heard, said, “Chayne, do you ever want to get rid of us?”
“If I do, I’ll never tell,” Chayne said. “You all have a good time, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Chayne felt more elated about having his own house to himself for a night than he was willing to admit, and as much as he loved Rob, he was even glad for the absence of him, or not so much his absence as the expanding presence that happened when you lived alone and were used to doing so. Chayne reflected that people always acted as if being single was a flaw and finding someone willing to live with you was the proof of one’s worth, but he had loved being single, and he loved to be single still. He loved to pause long enough and feel the solitary state of his nature, to feel… alone.
Caffeine had little effect on him anymore. He had put on a pot, made a cup and was nearly all the way through it, half asleep, when there was a knock on the door.
“Fuck,” Chayne murmured, and pushed himself out of his chair before another knock would come. This first knock may have been a figment of his mind, or a branch tapping the house walls it was so gentle. And where others would be pounding, no other knock had been heard, so Chayne began to hope that he was imagining this one, but when he opened the door, he blinked and blinked and his mouth, suddenly dry, could not catch up with his mind, and his mind could not catch up with his eyes.
“Chayne. It’s good to see you. Can I come in?”
Before him, in jeans and a tech vest, looking simultaneously Jewish and outdoorsy, was Ted Weirbach.
“I thought about calling,” Ted said as he sat, grasshopper like, legs wide apart on one end of the sofa, rubbing his hands slowly while Chayne brought him a cup of coffee.
“And then I thought of writing. I even wanted to send you pictures. But I thought I’d left in such a bad way…”
“You left because you had to,” Chayne said in a voice that was so neutral there was no reading it. He took his blanket, which was in the middle of the sofa, wrapped it around himself, and burrowed back into the corner.
“But you know it wasn’t right. I should have said something earlier. I was afraid when I knew I had to go. And I had never really been in a relationship before. I just did things so badly.”
“That’s true,” Chayne said. “You did.
“So why are you here?”
“I’m here for a couple of days. I got a room. I was visiting my folks. And… You. I mean, if you wanted to see me. I told them I was coming tomorrow.”
“You came a day early? For me?”
“I can tell you’re still angry.”
“I’m not angry. I’m cautious.”
Ted nodded.
Ted was the sort of person who, not always to his benefit or the benefit of others, never stopped being gentle. Sex had been something he loved, for sure, and something he was good at, but it might be long stretches of time before it happened, and his attempts at naughty talk were a disaster where Chayne would simply put two fingers to his lips to shut him up, and he would giggle. In the midst of fucking Chayne’s mouth, he would say, “Is it alright? You like it, right? Do I taste alright? I’m going to come. Where should I come? Are you sure? Is it alright?”
Chayne loved Ted Weirbach’s gentleness, his Kindergarten teacherliness, the tenderness of his large hands and the weight of his long six foot, two hundred pound body, his broad chest, his shyly averting blue eyes and the fire that came to them. It had been hard to put him away, and now here he was.
“You’re not alone?” Ted scanned the room.
“No. A few people live here.”
“Russell?”
“He’s back with his parents. For good.”
“Uh… you’ve got someone, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Chayne said, but was aware of how long it had taken him to say it.
Mark, Gilead, Cameron and Russell had been traveling behind Anigel, Rob, Cody and Jill who had, in turn, been traveling behind Brad’s band.
It was just as Chili Comet Sundae was finishing up practice and arguing about going to “this arvit business” as Brad called it, that the back door opened and a sexy devil with horns and a red and pitchfork burst in, singing, “Mazel Tov, bitches!”
“Really?” Marissa, the only person not on stage, said.
“Baaay…..beee,” Shane murmured.
“Do I look hot?”
“Is she going to hell for this?” Cameron wondered.
“I don’t think there is a Jewish hell,” Nehru said, putting the microphone back in its holder, “but I’m going to arvit.”
“Oh, wait for me,” said Marissa. “Come’on, Brad.”
Brad grimaced, looking distinctly uninterested in religion.
As they were heading to the back door, Mark and Gilead were coming in with Russell, and Marissa hooked her arm through Russell’s and said, “We’re going next door, Turn around boys, we’re about to see a real live synagogue.”
Mark just looked at Gilead and smirked.
“When we’re traveling in Chicago, and you take the Red Line up to north Chicago on the El, there is this theatre you pass called the Aragon,” Nehru said as they walked in the space between the social hall and the synagogue.
“You see the front real quickly, but you see the sides and I’m looking at this and feeling like when we get to the front, we’re going to see the Aragon.”
“The Aragon’s beautiful,” Marissa said, “I’d love it if this place had the front of the Aragon.”
“Where are we anyway?” Anigel asked.
“About halfway between Geschichte Falls and Walter,” Brad said.
“It’s a nice little town, nice apartments across the street. Not a bad place to settle.”
But the front was not like the Aragon. Even in the faint light, they could see orange brown and red polychrome brick work. High up was a large rose window as in a church, but cut into geometric shapes and Stars of David. And it resembled a mosque a little with minarets and a dome. Two domed turrets flanked the façade and there was a row of three great red doors under keyhole arches.
Marissa murmured, This is beautiful. This is just beautiful.”
They were not the only ones entering, and to Anigel, they were not the only ones who looked a little confused. There was a little vestibule, like in a church, and a glass door leading to the sanctuary.
“Just follow Nehru’s lead,” Rob said, and the men went to the skull caps that were in a basket on a table by the sanctuary door.
Inside, Jill said, “I feel overdressed. Or underdressed. I can’t say.”
“Maybe,” Shane suggested, “you should have left your pitchfork in the hall.”
She was not the only person in a costume, though. There were several wizards and not a few Old Testament heroes. Jewish Bible heroes, Brad corrected himself. Through the glass doors, Brad could see a rich sanctuary hung with lanterns and what he thought of as the altar with a man in a shawl before it, and behind him, where the sanctuary would be was…. A sanctuary, all gold filigree with a Star of David over it and a hanging lantern before it.
“You’ll tell me everything I should know later, right?” Gilead said to Mark and Mark realized Gilead was excited.
“I don’t know why I didn’t tell you before,” Mark said. “I just thought it wasn’t important.”
“It’s important to you, right?”
“Right?” Mark said.
“Then of course it’s important to me.”
“Well, you know how that’s the altar in a church?” Mark said, taking Gilead by the hand and walking him in ahead of everyone else, “Here, it’s called a bema.”
“Which actually comes from the old word bama. Which was an altar,” Anigel said.
They both looked at her.
“I read,” she said.
At the bema, the man in the white shawl, the chazzan in his tallis, Gilead tried in his mind, was singing.
“Ya'aleh v'yavo v'yagi'a
v'yera'eh v'yeratzeh v'yishama v'yipaked
v'yizacher
zichroneinu ufikdoneinu
v'zichron avoteinu
v'zichron Mashiach ben David avdecha
v'zichron Yerushalayim ir kodshecha
v'zichron kol am'cha Beit Yisrael l'fanecha lifleita l'tova.”
The seats were like church pews, but diagonal, facing the center, and Anigel, Cameron, Gilead, Mark and the rest filed into one of the back rows, looking up to see balconies surrounding them. The whole pillared sanctuary was filled with the chazzan’s voice as, outside, the last of the sunlight went into evening, and while some, including Mark, hummed along with uncertainty, Nehru boldly sang:
“Ya'aleh v'yavo v'yagi'a
v'yera'eh v'yeratzeh v'yishama
v'yipaked
v'yizacher
zichroneinu ufikdoneinu
v'zichron avoteinu!”
Others were coming to sit down, and most were already seated when the congregation began to rise and the chazzan called out:
“Ba-r'chu et A-do-nai ha-m'vo-rach.”
And Gilead, quick to catch up, and Russell, quick to sing, to Mark’s surprise replied:
“Ba-ruch A-do-nai ha-m'vo-rach l'o-lam va'ed.”
Nehru was sharing a prayer book with Anigel, and Gilead and Mark each had their own, as did Russell. Marissa opened hers, fumbling a bit before, deftly, Nehru reached past Brad and thumbed to the page for both of them. The book went from back to front and Marissa remembered hearing this a long time ago and felt a little foolish for forgetting while the chazzan chanted, and she looked on the elegant and illegible letters before her.
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלקֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעולָם אֲשֶׁר בִּדְבָרו מַעֲרִיב עֲרָבִים. בְּחָכְמָה פּותֵחַ שְׁעָרִים, וּבִתְבוּנָה מְשַׁנֶּה עִתִּים וּמַחֲלִיף אֶת הַזְּמַנִּים, וּמְסַדֵּר אֶת הַכּוכָבִים בְּמִשְׁמְרותֵיהֶם בָּרָקִיעַ כִּרְצונו. בּורֵא יום וָלָיְלָה, גּולֵל אור מִפְּנֵי חשֶׁךְ וְחשֶׁךְ מִפְּנֵי אור. וּמַעֲבִיר יום וּמֵבִיא לָיְלָה, וּמַבְדִּיל בֵּין יום וּבֵין לָיְלָה. יי צְבָאות שְׁמו: אֵל חַי וְקַיָּם תָּמִיד יִמְלוךְ עָלֵינוּ לְעולָם וָעֶד. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי, הַמַּעֲרִיב עֲרָבִים.
“Ba-ruch a-ta A-do-nai,” the chazzan sang, as Marissa’s eyes moved to find the words,
“Ba-ruch a-ta A-do-nai, E-lo-hei-nu me-lech ha-o-lam,
a-sher bid'varo ma-a-riv a-ra-vim.
B'chawch-ma po-tei-ach sh'a-rim, u-vit'vu-na m'sha-neh i-tim,
u-ma-cha-lif et haz'ma-nim, u-m'sa-deir et ha-ko-cha-vim
b'mish-m'ro-tei-hem ba-ra-ki-a kir-tso-no.
Bo-rei yom va-lai-la, go-leil or mi-p'nei cho-shech
v'cho-shech mi-p'nei or, o u-ma-a-vir yom u-mei-vi lai-la,
u-mav-dil bein yom u-vein lai-la, A-do-nai ts'va-ot sh'mo.
o Eil chai v'ka-yam, ta-mid yim-loch a-lei-nu, l'o-lam va'ed.
Ba-ruch a-ta A-do-nai, ha-ma-a-riv a-ra-vim!”
As he sang, the strange words moving her, Cameron’s eyes moved about the ornate ceiling, the hanging glass lanterns, the glittering ark, the people around the room who were just like her except she was used to churches—if she was used to anything. But at last her eyes fell back to the English text, curious to know what the chazzan was saying.
“Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe,
who speaks the evening into being,
skillfully opens the gates,
thoughtfully alters the time and changes the seasons,
and arranges the stars in their heavenly courses according to plan.
You are Creator of day and night,
rolling light away from darkness and darkness from light,
transforming day into night and distinguishing one from the other.
Adonai Tz’vaot is Your Name.
Ever-living God, may You reign continually over us into eternity.
Blessed are You, Adonai, who brings on evening.
And it was beautiful, and she felt almost as if she didn’t need to read it, so she stopped, for the words still meant what they meant and still felt how they felt even if she couldn’t understand them. Without understanding she understood.
Her eyes caught the bright eyes of Marissa. Marissa Gregg remembered her great aunt telling her that after the Mass had gone into English, she’d stopped going to church.
“Before, then I went to Mass and felt lifted up. The words meant what they meant, but they meant even more in Latin. It was like there was space between you and the words. In English the words only meant what they meant, and maybe only half of that. They hit the floor like lead.”
But that was always how Marissa had felt in church, and right here she was lifted up by the music of the words, and her ignorance of their meaning.
But currently she was surprised because people around her were singing with the chazzan and in response. Many were as tone deaf and diffident as Catholics, and Brad, who could sing well enough, was definitely put off by the Hebrew. But Nehru was not, and that boy Mark wasn’t, and apparently Gilead and Russell were quick studies. It seemed that the people around them who would have been slow or too quiet had gathered some courage because of the boys and now, they all sang:
“A-do-nai s'fa-tai tif-tach, u-fi ya-gid t'hi-la-te-cha.
Bend knees at Baruch; bow at atah; straighten up at Adonai:
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai, E-lo-hei-nu vei-lo-hei a-vo-tei-nu, E-lo-hei Av-ra-ham, E-lo-hei Yitz-chak, Vei-lo-hei Ya-a-kov, Ha-eil Ha-Ga-dol Ha-Gi-bor v'Ha-No-rah, Eil El-yon, go-meil cha-sa-dim to-vim, ko-nei ha-kol, v'zo-cheir chas-dei a-vot, u-mei-vi go-eil liv-nei v'nei-hem l'ma-an sh'mo b'a-ha-vah.
Baruch; bow at atah; straighten up at Adonai:
Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai, ma-gein Av-raham.
A-tah gi-bor l'o-lam, A-do-nai, m'cha-yeh mei-tim a-tah, rav l'ho-shi-a.”
On impulse she turned to look at Anigel, whose face was glowing. She did not dare ask what was going through the black haired girl’s mind. Later she would, and Cameron would too. Anigel would only say, “I felt taken out of all of my bullshit, everything I know. Taken out of myself. The way you should feel in a place like this.”
Which is exactly how Marissa Gregg felt too.
