Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(56)

Both girls ignore him. Dev opens a cupboard above the sink and grabs a half-empty bag of Doritos. Suri takes a liter bottle of Coke from the fridge.

The man turns around. I’ve seen him before. He was with Aron Mendelssohn in the gas station convenience store by the scrap yard. He does not recognize me. One of his eyes is wild, or lazy. He is sweating.

Dev leads us upstairs. I put my hand on the old, white-painted banister. Every step squeaks in several places. I am here, I think again. Aviva could be brushing her hair around the corner. Napping behind the next door. Dev and Suri walk to a room at the end of the hall, where there’s a bunk bed set and a futon. Everything seems damp. The carpet is a mess of crumbs and hair. A duffel bag spilling clothes sits on the floor. I assume this is the room Dev is occupying. It doesn’t feel like much of a refuge, though I suppose it isn’t creature comforts Suri and Dev and Baruch and Rivka and Aviva came here seeking.

The two girls plop on the futon, and I sit stiff on the edge of the bottom bunk. Suri leans down and digs through a backpack, her hands emerging with a tiny metal pipe and a plastic bag of pot.

“You won’t write about this, right?”

I shake my head.

“So did Baruch actually file for divorce?” Suri asks as she packs her pipe.

Dev nods. “The week before last. I heard all about it. They were gonna do it, like, at the same time, but Rivka didn’t. She was supposed to at least ask for a get. They had a big fight about it. He was crying. She made him cry. He stormed out and Heshy, of course, was all over her.”

“Heshy?” I ask. Where have I heard that name before?

“The guy downstairs,” says Dev. “He’s obsessed with Rivka.”

“No, he’s not,” says Suri. She turns to me. Their willingness to invite me immediately into their world is surprising, given what I thought I knew about this clan. But these girls seem almost hungry, or at least eager, to share themselves, and eager to learn. Perhaps, I think, they are more open and trusting with someone like me, who they imagine won’t judge them the way their Orthodox peers will. Do they know that, technically, everything they say to me once they learn I am a reporter can be considered on the record? Everything they say I can keep in my head and type into a computer and render it public, on paper and online forever.

“Heshy is Rivka’s brother-in-law,” says Suri.

“Really?” I say. And then I remember: Sara Wyman said Miriam married someone named Heshy.

“He’s weird,” says Suri. “And slow. But she’s nice to him.”

“And he’s obsessed with her.”

“Stop it, Dev,” says Suri. She lights her pipe and takes a pull, holds it in her lungs, then exhales. It seems a little odd that they smoke pot inside but go out to smoke cigarettes. She holds the pipe to me, offering. I smile and shake my head. She hands it to Dev, who lights it and smokes. They pass it between each other one more time; then Suri taps the ash onto the windowsill. I wait for one of them to say something, mulling the ethics—and efficacy—of stoned sources.

Dev leans forward. “Promise this won’t be in the paper?” she asks me.

“Sure,” I say.

“I’ll be right back.” She slides off the futon and runs out of the room.

“Dev is in love with Baruch,” says Suri once Dev is gone. “Their families know each other from Montreal. They’re related, somehow. I think he might be married to her cousin. But clearly, that’s not working out.” She lowers her voice. “Baruch is f*cked up over what happened to Rivka. Does anybody know anything?”

I wish I had something I could tell her. “I think the police are still trying to figure it out. Has anyone been here to ask questions?”

“You mean the police? I don’t think so. Dev didn’t say anything.”

“Would you mind telling me a little about her, for my article?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, what was she like? How did you meet?”

“Rivka’s great. She was great.” Suri puts her hand over her mouth, catching a sob. “We met at Sara Wyman’s. She leads a group for people leaving the community. Rivka takes all this stuff really seriously. I mean, yes, I come here to smoke pot and like, get away, but I also come because I know I can’t live like my mother and my sisters and cousins do. I just can’t. I can’t marry some awful boy I’ve barely met. I can’t pretend I think it’s really God’s will that boys can study Torah and travel and all I’m good for is having babies.”

I nod.

“Rivka lived like that a lot longer than I could,” Suri continues. “I think she was really … conflicted. I mean, we all are. A lot of people fall off the deep end trying to get out. Once you get it in your head that everything you’ve been taught is bullshit, like, that the earth isn’t just five thousand years old, or that you can eat shrimp or wear pants or touch a man while you’re on your period and Hashem won’t strike you down, it’s a little bit of a shock. And if those rules don’t count, maybe none of them do, you know? Maybe heroin and stealing and prostitution and shit are okay, too. I know a girl—well, I heard about a girl—who started living with some black guys in Crown Heights. She started having sex, for money. And they were like, her pimps.”