If you’d like to read Part 1, click here.
Dovid’s home had one mirror to cover, a full-length oxidized monstrosity his great-grandfather had managed to smuggle in from Bukovina when the family escaped right before the War. The Kohn’s had forgotten about it, that is until Shani—the youngest daughter—reminded Dovid of its existence. The mourners were arriving, she hissed at him, so Dovid crept upstairs, careful not to step too hard on the floorboards that rose up like whac-a-moles (a reference he couldn’t possibly understand). He found himself in the room that had, until three days ago, belonged to his grandmother.
The mirror was the only noteworthy piece in an otherwise monastic room. Dovid stood in front of it. His beard was uneven, with patches of red at the base of his chin. He was of average height and weight, and he had a sense—one which would never be confirmed in his community—that there was nothing physically remarkable about his face. His teeth were normal-ish, slightly yellow and slightly crooked. His eyes were a dull brown, even less distinguishable under bushy, unkempt brows. Only his nose, which curved to the right, had an edge. But it wouldn’t be enough, he thought. It didn’t matter. Desire, or being desirable, amounted to nothing in his world.
Looking at himself was a private rebellion though. His grandmother had just been buried, and Dovid knew if anyone were to walk in he would be accused of vanity. As he stood he thought, who cares, we just do things for no reason. But he didn’t fully believe himself, and guilt—reinforced through years of unshakeable faith—quickly took over. So Dovid turned away from himself, took hold of the yellowed bedsheet from his grandmother’s bed, and hurled it over the mirror. He was about to walk out, but he suddenly felt a need to give his attention to the rest of the room, to the bare chamber that had belonged to a woman who refused herself joy or light or closeness. It was an uncannily humid space, and despite his discomfort, Dovid lingered. An unseen force had kept him there, and Dovid soon found himself lying on the bare mattress, his eyes closed.
He hated his grandmother, and he knew she hated him too. She was never exactly a warmhearted woman, but she was especially hard on Dovid. He felt, as early as he was able to feel, that she didn’t trust him, and he never knew why. He may have been more inert than his siblings, but he wasn’t bad. But she was a bitter and superstitious woman, and lying in her bed Dovid summoned in his memory a defining incident from his childhood.
It was after school and he had just finished his homework, which he always did at the dining table. But that day, for no particular reason, he left his frayed English textbook open on the table as he went upstairs. It was only minutes after he had gotten up that his grandmother entered the room and called for him. And when Dovid came down, she cursed at him and slammed the book shut in his face. She then grabbed him by his wrist, and with a maniac’s gaze she told him that there was something sinister in him, that he would bring bad luck upon the family. Her Yiddish was harsh and full of spit. And after she stopped, she continued to dig her nails into him. He cried trying to break free, and only when his mother, his ally, appeared from the kitchen, was he able to reclaim his hand. He quickly backed away, towards the stairs, and watched as his grandmother redirected her venom at his mother. She called her soft, undisciplined, and a breeder of hopeless, ugly children.
The incident was fresh in Dovid’s mind, but what happened later that night was more significant, more formative. He was in bed, still crying from the ordeal. And as he considered all that had happened, his head—like many young heads—fixated on her final declaration. He internalized it as some sort of absolute truth. He was as ugly as she had said. And for the next few nights, whenever he thought about himself in relation to others, in relation to his purportedly ugly siblings who he had convinced himself were still less ugly than him, he would attempt to distract himself with less intrusive thoughts.
He thought of killing his grandmother. Of pushing her in front of the school bus the mornings she reluctantly walked him to the stop. Of suffocating her with a pillow. Of gagging her with his tzitzit. Of dunking her head in bubbling oil. Dovid enjoyed the fantasy, but every once in a while, when he caught himself in these new thought loops, he realized all he had been doing was affirming his grandmother’s belief. He was ugly.
Dovid stood from her bed. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, if he had dozed off, but he felt refreshed. He was ready to greet the mourners.
The Levinsons want to arrange a meeting,” Dovid’s father Ephraim told him a few weeks after shiva.
Dovid sat silently on the living room sofa, and kept his eyes on his mother, who sat across him, next to his father, in a brown loveseat. Her hands were on her lap, and Dovid noticed the tremor in her left hand. He had observed it for some time now, but when he spoke up—the rare time he spoke up—she gave him a soft smile and said she had been sleeping poorly. She blamed the heat, and his father confirmed this narrative. Her restlessness had been keeping him awake too. That, Dovid believed, for his father had grown irritable.
“What do you have to say to that,” Ephraim said, his voice stern.
Dovid sat and shook his head. He had nothing to say. He knew it didn’t matter.
“She’s a nice girl, Dov.” His mother said. “I get the challah from her mother, and sometimes she’s there working at the store. She has kind eyes. I know you’d like her.”
“Then I guess you must arrange the meeting,” Dovid replied flatly and in English.
Ephraim’s face turned sour. And Dovid admonished himself for giving such a thorny reply. His father’s anger wasn’t like his grandmother’s, but he still possessed a fraction of that generational rage. Most of all, Dovid feared his monologues.
“You know, it has been a terrible time for our neighbors. These deaths, I—I’ve never seen the Reb suffer like this before. He calls for me in the mornings, and I try to be of use. I try to comfort him. And with his deep wisdom, he repeats the same thing. ‘Focus on your family. On your children. Even in these times, that must be your priority.’”
He paused and smiled for a moment, before continuing.
“You’re 28, Dovid. You are smart and good with the business, but you have been alone for too long. We worry, and your brothers, they look at you with fear. They see the way you isolate yourself. We all feel it, and it causes us all great pain.”
Dovid now looked directly at his father. He was anxious, and hated knowing that he was being observed, talked about. Their suspicion unnerved him, and a voice in his head told him they knew. They knew like his grandmother knew. He was wrong and grotesque and—
“Dovid, please say something to your father,” his mother pleaded.
Dovid’s face softened and his posture relaxed. He knew he couldn’t keep any guard up.
“I would be happy to meet the Levinsons.”
His father nodded, perhaps not totally convinced, but content with his son’s submission.
They sat in silence, and Dovid found his eyes moving to the dining table in the other room. His father has been studying earlier, and there were holy books—all closed—neatly arranged in a corner. He tried not to smile. It was all absurd, after all. His father, a community adviser. His father the real-estate magnate. His father, a descendent of the great Satmar rabbis. His father, who he now wished dead. Would he be left alone then?
Sarah Levinson was found dead three days later. It was in her family’s store, a decrepit bakery in South Williamsburg, that her mother found her behind the counter. She was faced down, and when the police turned her over they saw several stab wounds around her abdomen. She had bled out, they presumed, and whoever killed her was swift and sloppy.
The police wanted to speak to Sarah’s mother, but her father didn’t let them. They even brought over a Jewish cop, a Long Island shmo, who absurdly announced himself as kin,. But this only angered Sarah’s father.
He said, “Why would I speak to any of you. Why would I speak to an off the derech?”
He grew hysterical, and a group of neighbors huddled around him as he wept outside the store. It was an almost beautiful scene, these men in their coats and hats coming in close, and the intensity of it all left the Jewish cop—who had just been mocked for his secularism—stunned.
But as the men crowded around the grieving father, it became clear that they were also building an impenetrable blockade. There would be no proper investigation. Once again, no one would speak up. No one would share anything about Sarah, her life, and the man her parents had hoped she would soon marry. They would sit with their grief and move on.