Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(69)

“So you know. A woman must prepare a woman for burial. So she can rest with dignity.”

“Tell me about the little girl,” I say.

“Shoshanna was brought in by Shomrim. I was told she was dead when they arrived at the home. It’s all in the report.”

“What about Rivka. Did you give those notes to anyone?”

“I’m giving them to you,” says Malka. She pauses, then speaks again. “This is not a decision I came to lightly. I’m sure you find our way of life strange, perhaps even repellent. But there are many things you do not know. And many people who tell lies about the way we live. Most Haredi in Brooklyn are descended from Holocaust survivors. My mother’s entire family—six brothers and sisters, her parents and grandparents—were murdered by the Nazis in Poland. We know intimately how quickly our goyish neighbors can turn on us. We know that to survive we must rely on one another, we must support and protect our fellow Jews. We do not do this because we do not believe that sin should be punished. We do this because the strength of the community is vital to our survival. You look at us and you see black hats and wigs and you think we are to be pitied. You think you know better. But you do not see more than you see. You think the prohibition against men and women touching is misogynist. You don’t see the tenderness, or passion, with which a husband touches his wife after she is niddah. You think that clothing that exposes your flesh makes you free. But in my modest clothing I am free from the leering stares of men. I am free to be judged by my intellect and my actions, not my body.”

Malka pauses, then continues.

“Did you know that in Borough Park and Williamsburg and Crown Heights, Orthodox shopkeepers allow many of their customers to shop on credit?” asks Malka. “They fill their baskets with what they need and their purchases are simply logged in an account. It is called aufschraben. No Jew goes hungry in Brooklyn. No child goes without clothing or formula, because families like the Mendelssohns pay the grocery bills of those who are less financially fortunate. If the community were more integrated with those outside, such a system would not be possible.”

“I didn’t know that,” I say. “That’s really interesting.” Maybe, I think, I could write about that, once this is all done.

“It is important to me that you understand all this,” says Malka. “I do not wish to invite scrutiny by people who do not respect our way of life, but the secrets have to stop. The community can heal, but individual people, boys and girls, they cannot. They need protection. Someone murdered Rivka Mendelssohn and her daughter. That person did more damage to the strength of the community than a thousand newspaper articles.”

*

It’s after one in the morning when I get back, but Iris is up watching TV.

“I hadn’t heard from you,” she says. “I was worried.”

As she makes tea, I tell her about Coney Island and Albert Morgan and Saul’s arrest and meeting Sara and Malka. We spread the contents of the two manila envelopes on the kitchen table. I start reading Malka’s notes, and Iris pulls out the photographs.

“Jesus, Rebekah,” she says. “Have you seen these?”

I lean over. The first picture is of the baby, taken maybe six inches from her face: Her eyes are slightly open. Her pudgy cheeks are red with webs of broken capillaries. There is a bloodless cut on her bottom lip. The next is the child’s head from the back. It looks like someone hit her with a bat. A bruise extends across her skull. When I was standing above this little girl’s mother’s body on Saturday, I was too shocked to empathize. I knew I needed to remain standing, so I didn’t look at the black skin surrounding each wound and think about the pain. But Shoshanna’s bruise, glossy in a picture, looks like it hurt. How do you do that to a baby?

“According to Malka’s notes, there were two points of impact on the baby’s head,” I say.

“Two? Fuck. Who are these people?”

“I only see this one,” I say, pointing to the dark center of the wound. “But I guess I don’t really know what I’m looking for.”

Iris gets up. “Yeah, I can’t look at that.” She goes to the couch but doesn’t sit down. “And the police don’t have any of this?”

“I don’t think so. But I have to figure that out for sure tomorrow.”

“Do you think the husband killed them both?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I can see him maybe killing Rivka. But bashing a f*cking baby’s head in is different. And children are really important in the community, too. It doesn’t make sense that he’d kill his own child. Unless he was f*cking evil.”

“Maybe it’s like in China, where they kill the girls because they want a boy.”

“I don’t think it’s like that,” I say, but who the f*ck knows?

That night, I sleep—or rather don’t sleep—like I’m drunk. When I close my eyes, I feel dizzy. I dream of lying in bed and feeling dizzy. And I dream of Shoshanna. I’m sitting at Starbucks and she’s in a high chair beside me. Her nose is bleeding.





TUESDAY





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


My alarm rings at seven thirty, and though I’ve barely slept, I have little trouble getting out of bed. I log on to the Trib’s Web site and find my article about Rivka Mendelssohn—including her photo. Larry’s item about Saul’s arrest is listed below it. No picture illustrates his story.