Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(32)

With the crowd dispersing, I decide to go find Mrs. Shoenstein’s daughter, Chaya. The corner she pointed to has three row houses on it. I climb the short staircase to the first one, which has two buzzers, but neither are marked with names. I hear something above me and I look up. There is a woman in the second-floor window. She slides the glass up a few inches.

“Hello,” I say, trying not to shout.

“What is it?” She’s young. A teenager, maybe. And her voice is soft.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I say, speaking toward the second floor. This is an awkward conversation to have at a distance. “I’m from…” I pause a moment and consider: which do I say first, that it’s about Rivka Mendelssohn, or that I’m from the newspaper? For lots of people, saying you’re from the Trib works—they love the idea of being in the paper. But that is clearly not the case in this community. I decide to lead with her mom.

“I’m looking for Chaya,” I say, hopeful.

“I am Chaya,” she says.

“Hi,” I say, probably too cheery. “I just, I just spoke with your mother.…” I point toward the funeral home. “I wonder if I could come up.”

“My mother?”

“She said you were … a friend of Rivka Mendelssohn?”

“My husband is away,” she says.

“Right … I was hoping we might talk? My name is Rivka. I’m from the newspaper.…”

The window opens wider and the girl comes closer to the sill. “Your name is Rivka?”

“Yes,” I say, the lie feeling less uncomfortable than it probably should. “I work for the newspaper. We’re writing an article about Mrs. Mendelssohn.”

Chaya closes the window and disappears. A moment later, she’s at the front door. She is very tiny and very pregnant, wearing a long black skirt and enormous sweater. Her head is wrapped in a cloth hat a little like Miriam’s. She looks at me, looks both ways up and down the street, and then gestures sharply for me to step inside.

I follow her up a steep set of carpeted steps and into a kitchen with appliances that look older than either of us. There is a faint smell of meat and mildew. Garbage is piled in the corner. Poor Chaya is not much of a housekeeper.

“My husband will be home soon,” she says.

“I won’t take up too much time,” I say. “I just, um … were you close with Rivka?”

The girl begins to sob. It’s a guttural, inelegant noise, not the quiet weeping of the women at the funeral. She’s so tiny and front-heavy, I worry she might fall over. I look around for a chair.

“Here,” I say, gesturing toward the kitchen card table and folding chairs. “Sit. Please. Can I get you anything?” The girl shakes her head and wipes her nose on her sleeve. She looks barely fifteen.

“Rivka helped me…,” she says between sniffs and sobs. “She … she was my babysitter. She and my sister, Esther … And then … when I got married … she said, she told me about … you know.” She puts her hand on her belly and looks at me through soggy, frightened eyes. “I was so scared that day … she…” The girl’s breathing starts to speed up; she’s sucking in air like she’s drowning.

I put my hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry,” I say again.

“What happened to her? No one will tell me.”

“The police don’t really know yet,” I say. I’m not going to tell her her friend was found naked and dumped in a pile of sharp, cold trash.

“I don’t understand,” she cries. “Was it a car accident? Rivka walked a lot. She wore those ear … tubes?” she says. “To listen to music. When she was walking outside. Did she get hit? I worried she’d walk in front of a bus.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t think so.

Chaya looks puzzled and exhausted. She puts her hand over her nose and mouth and looks up, like she’s trying to see backward through her tears.

“I asked her boy, Yakov. I said, ‘Yakov, where is Mommy?’ He said, ‘Mommy is sick.’ I asked Miriam, Mr. Mendelssohn’s sister?” I nod. “And Miriam…” She pauses. “Miriam is an akarah.” I try not to look puzzled at the Yiddish word. If my name is Rivka, I shouldn’t have to ask her to translate. So I write the word down phonetically and circle it. I’ll ask Saul.

Chaya continues: “I said, ‘Miriam, where is Rivka? Is she ill?’ Miriam said ‘puh-puh.’” The girl makes a spitting sound with her thin lips. “She said,” lowering her voice, “‘Rivka is a zona.’” Shit, I think. Another word I don’t know. The girl begins to cry again. I look around the room for a box of Kleenex. There is a roll of paper towels on the counter near the sink. I get up and tear one off, hand it to her. She blows her nose and wipes her wet face.

“Rivka was … questioning.” She says it so quietly, I can barely hear her above the hum of the refrigerator. “But she would never, never break her vow.”

“Questioning?”

Something about my question stops her.

“How do you know Rivka?”

“Oh,” I say, stumbling. “I’m … I don’t … I didn’t know her. I’m from the newspaper. We’re writing an article.”