Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(24)

I interrupt him. “Until somebody dies.”

“You’d think so.”

We ride in silence a few moments more.

“Do you think he did it?”

“Aron Mendelssohn?” Saul considers this. “I don’t know. Aron Mendelssohn is a wealthy man. His father donated most of the money to build the yeshiva on Ocean Parkway. He is a business owner, of course. The fact that his wife was found dead at his business is suspicious, but doesn’t necessarily point to him as the killer. He’s never been in trouble with the law, but most Hasidim haven’t. He needs to be questioned. And not bringing him in tells me the investigators are thinking about things other than the most efficient, effective ways to solve the case. It also tells the community that they can stay behind closed doors and pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Is that what they’ll do?”

“It’s what they do when it comes to domestic violence and mental illness and sexual abuse. All of which occurs in the community, just like in any other community. But here the shame of coming forward is compounded. Generally, Jews in this community believe that speaking to the authorities about another Jew is a sin against the community. It’s mesirah, they say.”

“Mesirah?”

“Mesirah. It’s Yiddish. It means reporting on your fellow Jew. In the past, in Europe, if a Jew was arrested and sent to prison, he would be killed there. So it was every Jew’s duty to keep other Jews out of prison, which means not talking to the police.”

“Even now?”

“Even now.”

“But, this is a murder. You can’t just not talk.”

“You can if the police don’t ask you to.”

“But, won’t someone want to talk? Like Miriam? Her sister-in-law was found in a dump.”

“You saw what happened when Aron saw Miriam talking to you,” says Saul. “I’m surprised she risked it.”

It’s a strange thing to say, given that he’s the one who took me to speak to her. He was pushing things even then. Did he know she would talk to me?

“Yeah, but I’m a reporter. I don’t have any actual power. The police have power. They can make you talk.”

“Maybe. Actual power depends on perception of power, to some extent. Many people would say that with access to the minds of a million readers, you had more power than I did there. But really, in that situation, neither of us had actual power. Aron Mendelssohn had actual power.”

“Yeah, but … what about the law? Couldn’t a judge compel people to talk? Contempt of court or something? Interfering with an investigation?”

“Yes, that could happen. But the fact that the investigators haven’t brought the husband in yet is a sign that they are not going hard at this. So is the fact that they didn’t take any evidence with them when they were in the house last night.”

“You’re not an investigator?”

Saul shakes his head. “Not on this case. Not officially. Like I said, I was called in to assist last night.”

“Do you get called in a lot?”

“Every month or two. Usually as a translator.”

“They really can’t speak English?”

“Most can, but many—the elderly and children, for example—have trouble. For boys, their general education ends at eleven or twelve. Then they begin Torah instruction, which is conducted in Yiddish.”

“And the city is okay with that?”

“The city tends to stay out of religious education.”

“And then what?”

“And then they marry. They find a job, usually within the community. As a teacher, or a clerk. Many Hasidim own property, so real estate management.”

“What about the girls?”

“It is different for the girls.”

“Obviously.”

Saul looks at me. I’m not used to being around people who are so serious. I think I’ve hurt his feelings.

“Sorry, it just seems a little weird.”

“No, no,” he says, again. Then he pauses and smiles. “You look like your mother but…”

“But what?”

“You are very different.”

“How?” He’s set my stomach off. I squirm in my seat.

“She was not, not so … I think you are smarter than she is.”

It’s not what I expected him to say. I look at him, but he keeps his gaze forward. We’ve left Gowanus and are headed south toward Borough Park. I’ve never thought about how I stacked up to my mom intellectually. I feel more proud than offended, which is what I’m sure Saul meant for me to feel, but I’m frustrated by my complete inability to add anything to a discussion I would love to have. Was my mother smart? I have no idea.

“You said ‘is.’ Is she alive?”

“Your mother?” Saul sounds surprised. “You don’t…? I’m sorry.” He feels bad, I realize immediately. Like it took him until this moment to realize that she really did disappear from our lives twenty-two years ago. “Her family moved upstate near Kiryas Joel many years ago.”

Kiryas Joel is the name of the town in the Catskills where a sect of super-Orthodox Hasids live. I’ve read about it. The articles said it was pretty bad: Rabbis having to see women’s “clean” panties to certify they were off their periods and thus safe to re-welcome into society. Average family size triple, quadruple the rest of us. Most people on food stamps. One article said it was the poorest town in America.