The Jerusalem Inception Read Online Free PDF Page B

attire of their fathers. The men stepped outside, squinting at the bright sun, and strolled down the alleys in groups, discussing Talmudic conundrums.
    Waiting in the synagogue courtyard, Lemmy unbuttoned his black coat and raised his face to the sun, enjoying its warmth. Benjamin nudged him, and he saw his father and Cantor Toiterlich emerge through the double-doors.
    “Good Sabbath,” he said and shook their hands. Cantor Toiterlich lived with his wife and nine children in a two-room apartment three doors down from the rabbi. The eldest, a daughter named Sorkeh, stood behind her father.
    Rabbi Gerster said, “Why don’t you and Sorkeh talk a bit while we walk home?”
    “Yes, Father.” Lemmy’s face flushed. The separation between the genders in Neturay Karta allowed for no youthful socializing. But Talmud prescribed: At eighteen to the chuppah. So when a boy of eighteen was told to chat with a girl after prayers, it meant that the matchmaker had already proposed to both sets of parents, the fathers had negotiated terms for providing the basic needs for the couple, and the mothers had found each other agreeable to share in helping the young mother with soon-to-arrive babies, while the groom continued to study Talmud. Marriage in Neturay Karta was a serious business, handled by the parents, who knew their sons and daughters better than the youths knew themselves.
    Rabbi Gerster walked with Cantor Toiterlich and Benjamin down the alley. “We’re facing a crisis,” he said, “with the abortion law proposal in the Zionist Knesset.”
    “A desecration of God,” the Cantor agreed, and they launched into a discussion.
    Lemmy and Sorkeh followed a short distance behind.
    “Nice weather today,” he said.
    “Warm! I like it!” She was a head shorter than he. Her flowery dress reached down to her shoes, fitting loosely on her plump, feminine figure. She must have just turned sixteen, the age at which Neturay Karta girls were added to the matchmaker’s list. Unlike married women, the girls didn’t cover their heads. Sorkeh’s hair was her prettiest asset—a dark, reddish mass of curls that framed her round face.
    “How are your studies going?” She smiled and touched her hair.
    “Very well. Thank you.” Lemmy thought how, moments after she would become a married woman, her head would be shaved smooth and covered with a kerchief—one of several fine, cotton headdresses she would receive as wedding gifts. The image of Sorkeh with a bald head made him grin.
    She looked at him with an uncertain smile.
    “I’m sorry,” Lemmy said, “I just remembered something funny.”
    She nodded eagerly. “It happens to me too.”
    He felt the need to explain, but thought better of it.
    “Sometimes,” Sorkeh said, “I think of a funny occurrence, like when my mother was making the keegel for Sabbath, and the noodles overcooked and stuck together and she couldn’t mix in the sugar!”
    Lemmy chuckled politely.
    Encouraged, she continued, “So we tried to mix the noodles with oil to separate them, and I was holding the pot—”
    Tuning her out, Lemmy thought of yesterday’s dramatic events. He recalled the Jordanian shooting, his father’s arm on his shoulders, and the petite woman who touched his father’s beard, her arm exposed, her skin smooth. He shuddered as the sun disappeared behind a gray cloud. The narrow alley had been neatly swept before the Sabbath, and the air was sweetened by the aroma of cooking pots that had been simmering since Friday. His mouth watered. Talmud forbade eating until after morning prayers, and he was famished.
    “—and it took us an hour to clean up the mess!” Sorkeh burst out laughing.
    Realizing she had reached the punch line, Lemmy smiled. “That’s funny. Do you like to cook?”
    “Oh, yes!” She launched into a long monologue about food preparations for Sabbath and various holidays.
    With occasional head nodding, Lemmy paced along the connected row of apartment buildings,