• ••

“I realized then that a lot of families were interested in this shidduch,” she tells Nechami now. “And I know it sounds ridiculous to go into a shidduch because of social pressure, but still… wouldn’t it be even more ridiculous to let it slip out of my hands without giving it a try?”

“An apartment in Yerushalayim?” Nechami is stalled at that impasse.

“Yes,” says Chaya, all confidence. She’s working as she speaks, just like Nechami, and she keeps pulling new frames into her slideshow, one after the other. The final product will be shown at a siddur party for six parallel classes: 200 girls, each one proudly holding her siddur, telling the world what she’s going to pray for.

“That we should have lots of money,” one little cutie shouts hopefully.

A teacher corrects her: “Ask that you should be able to give lots of tzedakah.”

“I should be able to give lots of tzedakah,” the little girl chirps.

“How are you planning to get an apartment in Yerushalayim?” Nechami asks.

“Well, there’s Ima’s trust fund. That’s about 200,000 shekels. And I’ve got about 20,000 saved up from my earnings, and I hope to have another twenty by the wedding date. There’ll be a bit more from Bubbe Silver… and the Shpinders are giving another hundred, including the wedding and furniture.”

“Hmm. If you’re lucky, that might be enough for a down payment on a tiny apartment.”

“Right,” Chaya said. “We’ll need a mortgage, of course.”

A mortgage has to be paid, Nechami refrains from saying.

“And there’s also the money he earned.”

“Who? What money?” Nechami sounded surprised.

“The boy. Moishe.”

“He’s supposed to be such a masmid — how does he earn money?”

“Oh, he’s a go-getter,” says Chaya. From her basement office, Nechami can see the stars in her sister’s eyes. “During bein hazmanim he stays with sick old men in the hospital. Plus he does these programs where bochurim take tests and get rewards. And he has other ideas, too, to bring in more income….”

“But isn’t he a masmid?”

“Of course he’s a masmid! When he’s sitting by someone’s bedside in the hospital, he learns the whole time. One time they even asked him to be shomer for someone who died, and he learned Mishnayos all night!”

Nechami gulped. “That sounds a little scary.”

“No, it’s just like being next to someone who’s sleeping.” Chaya, who was never even willing to walk past the Sanhedria cemetery at night, is all of a sudden happily sharing her newfound knowledge of guarding niftarim. “And he saved up 30,000 shekels.”

“Thirty!” The word gets caught in Nechami’s throat. That’s a huge sum, any way you look at it. For a bochur. A masmid. How was it possible?

“We’ll find a small apartment.” Chaya is floating somewhere among the stars. “Later on, we’ll extend it.”

She’s talking as if the shidduch were already finalized. Which brings Nechami back to the start of the conversation.

“So that’s it? Because of some peer pressure, you changed your mind?”

“No, Nechami.” Chaya was suddenly firm, no more clouds or stars.  “Do you think I’m that silly?”

“What made you change your mind, then?”

“I thought it over.”

“Thought what over?” Nechami insisted.

“What Rav Glikovsky and the Rebbetzin said. And most of all, I thought of you — and of Dudi and Yaffa’le. I want a home like yours, Nechami.”

A little tendril of happiness sprouts in Nechami’s heart, and it slowly spreads to her eyes as Chaya goes on. “I’ve talked with Yaffa’le and her friends. More than Abba and Ima would have liked. That lifestyle — it’s nice to drop in as a tourist, but it’s not the life I want. I saw some of her older friends, the ones in their forties, and I saw what their kids looked like. All very nice… but it’s not for me. I want a spiritual anchor in my life.”

“There’s a middle way,” Nechami says. The list of boring files she needs to complete, the 40 rooms she has to render, are forgotten.

“I go for the very best, just so you know,” Chaya says crisply. “No middle ways for me, thank you. I’ve been visiting you a lot lately, right? Well, that wasn’t just to entertain you or to help you renovate your office. I was watching closely. I was looking at your kids. Taking in the atmosphere. I want that, too.”

She doesn’t know how to explain it, but Nechami knows what she means.

“And you know about… the price of what you want?” Nechami says gently.

“Yes. If you can do it, so can I. And besides…” Chaya stops there. Besides, I don’t plan to suffer through those first years like you did. I’m going to learn from your mistakes.

• ••

The big crash happened that night — the schnitzel hammer night. She’d held on for five minutes, and another five minutes. I can get through another five minutes, she’d told herself.

But she couldn’t.

And when her body collapsed on the floor, her soul stood, rocking, at that borderline known to physicists as an event horizon — beyond which a black hole beckons. And from the gravitational force of a black hole, there is no escape, no coming back.

To be swallowed up in that black hole is to die a slow death. First the feet are pulled in, like long, thin noodles. Time freezes. The mass of a black hole is infinite, taking in whatever touches it, bending the space around it.

She had three children. And a thousand shekels to spare. She spoke with Shua. He agreed immediately. She went to a friend who knew about these things, and asked for a plane ticket to Europe for three days, for herself and the baby. It didn’t matter where. A city in Europe. Not a big city, but not too small either.

To this day, she can’t remember the name of the place. It was in Slovenia. A quaint city with a quaint name. Her friend assured her it was a safe place. Ima volunteered to take Bentzi and Chanochi.

“I took Beri, a carry-on, and a knapsack,” she says to Chaya. She’s never told her this before. “I brought a whole supply of insect repellent and antihistamine gel for Beri — the bugs loved him and I needed him to be calm, not all bitten up and kvetchy. I got to the airport, and I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do, how to check in or anything.”

“Wow.”

“You’re supposed to start scolding me now,” Nechami said, clicking her mouse aimlessly. “Normal, functional human beings don’t do things like that. But I wasn’t feeling normal or functional at all. I was barely holding on. I knew something was the matter with me, but I didn’t know what. I think now that… I think it was postpartum depression.

“At the airport I looked at the signs, and tried to compare the numbers and letters to the ones on my ticket, to figure out where I should go. Finally I gave up and asked for help. They showed me where to stand, where to wait, and at every stop along the way I had to ask where to go next. I felt so dumb, but I managed to get through all the checkpoints, and finally found the right gate.”

She went to the airport on her own, with just the baby. With the wisdom of hindsight, she realizes that this might have been a bit risky. But she wasn’t wise at the time. She wasn’t foolish either. She simply wasn’t there. Abba and Ima thought she was traveling with an organized group. Well, every planeload of passengers is an organized group, she told herself.

“Just before boarding time, I suddenly remembered I had no phone plan for international calls, so I called Cellcom right away and set up a plan with them. Then I got settled on the plane with Beri, and we were in the air, flying and flying, and he was crying and eating and crying, until finally he fell asleep.

“We landed, and there we were in a foreign city, with signs I couldn’t read, and people who looked different. And none of them had any demands, none of them needed anything from me. I showed the taxi driver the address my friend had written down for me. He took me to a tiny, clean apartment. I tapped in the code she’d given me, opened the door, and Beri and I both went straight to sleep for five hours.”

“And then what?” Chaya wants to hear it all. She’s already created slides for 50 girls, typed in their names, designed the graphics.

“Then we got up and went out.”

“And you didn’t even know where you were? You’re insane, Nechami.”

“Actually, that was my first step back to sanity,” Nechami corrected her gently. “I put Beri in the stroller and just started walking. On the way, we bought bananas and water. They had the best bananas there…. We walked and walked through all kinds of streets, and then we came to a river. I sat down on the grass, and… I felt like me again. Nechami had come back to life.”

“I remember how you looked when you came back.” Chaya said quietly. It was true.

“In the evening I found my way back to the apartment. There was a main square that I used as my landmark. I only had to ask for directions twice. For supper I ate one of the instant noodle dishes I’d brought with me from Israel, along with some Osem crackers and tuna, and some raw veggies I bought on the way back. And chocolate.”

“Well, of course you need chocolate….” Chaya said.

“Of course. I brought three bars from Israel. And then I went to sleep early, and got up for my second day.”

“And what did you do that day?” Chaya asked.

“I took Beri out in the stroller again. This time we went in the opposite direction. We found an indoor playground, and I let Beri crawl around while I just sat blissfully doing nothing. Then I continued walking, and we came to an area that was basically a forest with some houses in it. There was an old lady in one of the front yards, and she stared at me and smiled at Beri. And then she picked some apples and gave them to me.”

“Ah, apples! Were they poisoned?”

“No — if anything, they were enchanted, infused with some elixir of life. I can’t even describe what it was like, sitting there under a tree, eating an apple that an old lady picked for me, with Beri crawling around nearby, getting dirty and looking so joyful….”

“Wow.”

“Third day, same schedule,” Nechami went on. “I walked and walked, with Beri in the stroller, and this time I came to a high place that overlooked the whole city, and all kinds of buildings and towers. I sat down there, eating bananas and doing nothing. Then I took a taxi back to the apartment. I bathed Beri and dressed him, packed, and took a taxi to the airport. And that was the trip. I never said a word to my friends about it, because it would have sounded weird to say I’d been in Europe without visiting any famous places or buying anything, and without even knowing where I was.”

“Nechami, this is huge,” Chaya said. “You’re incredible.”

“No, nothing like that at all,” Nechami corrected her. “It was just survival…. And then on the plane coming home, I sneaked into business class, which was empty, because Beri was screaming, and he felt hot and crowded. I expected them to kick me out, but I guess the flight attendants were glad I’d found a way to quiet the screaming baby. I had three roomy seats to myself, and I let him lie down on two of them, and I looked out the window. I knew that things would be different from now on. Those nashim tzidkanios could scold me all they wanted, but I wouldn’t be listening anymore.”

“What nashim tzidkanios?”

“All those tzadeikeses from the stories. Every time I’d think of asking Shua to come home early and help me out with the kids, there’d be a chorus of them in my head, standing in a row, looking at me accusingly. They gave so much for Torah, and I couldn’t give even the little bit I was giving?”

“Oy, Nechami,” Chaya says. ”You’re amazing. Larger than life. Really.” And even if you made mistakes, who would dare to throw accusations at you? Let me have a word with all those righteous rebbetzins…. I’ll stick up for you.

“So I looked out of the window into the darkness, and I imagined I saw all those tzadeikeses, but then I saw the schnitzel hammer, too, and I knew I’d reached the limit. I’d almost crossed it. And all the physics books say that once you fall into a black hole, you never come out.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 866)