Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(30)

Word travels fast around here.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I think the police are questioning lots of people.…”

She shakes her head fiercely. “Imagine. She trusted him, from outside the community.… Oh, her poor children. That poor family. As if they haven’t been through enough.”

“I know,” I say, though I don’t know anything.

“And you spoke with Miriam?”

“Yes. Will she be here?”

The woman raises her eyebrows. “I suppose so. If you spoke with her.”

“Have there been other … tragedies? For the family.”

“Nothing like this,” she says. “But like all families, they have illness. There are disappointments.” Illness and disappointments. Not too specific. Then she lowers her voice. “She lost a child last year. A baby.”

“That’s terrible,” I say, trying not to look too excited.

“It really was. But Rivka! She was a good woman.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Oh, not for several months. She had her family. But my youngest daughter, Chaya, Rivka has been a real friend to her. Such a blessing.”

I’ve managed to back us into the vestibule of an apartment building.

“Is your daughter here?”

“Chaya? No, no this is much too much for her. She is at home. I will go to the Mendelssohn home later today, to take this.” She points at the bag I’m carrying. “You are Jewish,” she says, certain the answer is yes. I nod. “Then you know.” But again, I don’t know.

“I would love to speak with your daughter, maybe have her share some memories of Rivka.…” It’s a long shot, but why not? I’m not doing anything illegal. Just gathering information. And then it occurs to me that I don’t have my notebook out. Shit.

“Oh, that would be nice.…,” she says. “Did you know her well? What is your name, dear?”

“Rivka,” I say. It just slips out. “My name is Rivka. From the newspaper.”

“Rivka! Yes, yes, you said, from the newspaper. Well, if it’s all right with the family, I suppose it’s all right with me. You said you spoke with Miriam?”

I nod.

“Chaya lives just around the corner there,” she says, twisting back and pointing at a series of row houses. I really need an address, but inserting numbers into the conversation, making it a more concrete thing—like, ring buzzer B at 560 Fifty-sixth—might freak this lady out. I know I’d be freaked out. Can I have your address so I can talk to your child about her dead friend? “I should be going,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say. I help her put her bag back over her bent shoulder. “And you never told me your name.”

“Mrs. Shoenstein,” she says.

And she’s off, slowing the ladies in her wake.

I wait a few moments and then step into the stream. As we approach the funeral home, the crowd gets thicker, and separates into males and females. I hear a male voice over a loudspeaker, broadcasting his prayers—I assume they are prayers—onto the street. I stand on my toes and all I see is black hats for what seems like blocks. It’s like a parade, but instead of cheering, people are weeping. Did all these people know Rivka? Do none of them want to know how she died? A year or two ago I read a novel that took place in an alternate universe where instead of going to Israel after the Holocaust, European Jews established a country in Alaska. In the novel, the author referred to the Jews as “black hats.” I liked the description, but when I told my dad, he said he thought that was a slur, and that my affinity for it evinced my adolescent anger at my mother—which I should have by now outgrown. But standing here among about a thousand black hats, it seems apt. Solemn and formal. A pretty good description of these people, or those I’ve met so far.

It’s been half my life since I attended a Jewish event. I had a friend in junior high school named Anya who was Jewish. We met in the “gifted” social studies class. There are several thousand Jews in Orlando, but since my father worked for the church, all his friends were Christian. He often said he lamented the lack of Jews in our life and wanted me to learn more about “that side” of my family. He bought me The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, when I was eight or nine years old, and for years afterward I devoured a series of young adult novels about the Holocaust. I was, as most people are when they learn about the Holocaust, appalled. I remember I had a vague idea that I might find clues about my mother in the books. Maybe the horror of what the Jews had endured—the betrayal and savagery—was such a burden, culturally, psychologically, that it drove even those fifty years away from it to sacrifice everything in … deference? Remembrance? Honor? When Anya and I met, she had been preparing for her bat mitzvah for more than a year. She kept her “Torah portion” in a binder with her school papers. It was phonetic, so I could read it, too, sort of. She was always practicing, so when we would eat lunch together, or occasionally visit each others’ houses, I would test her. Once, I slept over on a Saturday night, and the next morning she took me with her to Hebrew School, which was much like Sunday School at my dad’s church, but more focused on preparing the student for either a bar or bat mitzvah or a confirmation, which was different, but I wasn’t sure how.