Read Online If a Tree Falls by Jennifer Rosner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jennifer Rosner
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blistered hands. “You’re asking, can she be married?”
“I’m asking, yes, because Pearl and Moshe are worried. They want to know: what kind of life can she expect to live? Can she be married, have a family?”
“Why not, if a match was to be accepted?” Yitzchak the trader offers.
“Well,” inserts Shmuele, the scholar, “the Mishnah makes distinctions: there are the deaf who cannot speak, cannot
reason intellectually or morally; and the deaf who can. If she is the former, she will be forever like a child.”
“Moshe says she hasn’t spoken a word yet,” Chaim mutters, as if only to himself.
“But there is a chance, no? that she will recover,” Yitzchak puts in. “She is only two years old, and for her age, she watches intently. Besides, she needn’t become an orator, just to become a bride.”
A deaf baby girl in their midst. The scholars and sages of Tasse are unsure of what to think. To abide by the ancient texts, Pearl and Moshe’s baby might as well be a corpse. A cheresh, deaf and mute, lacks cognition, the basis of a person’s status. Luckily, some in the room, including the rabbi himself, have traveled to Budapest and witnessed deaf people conversing with their hands. If the deaf can talk with their hands, maybe they have some thoughts in their heads.
An argument can be built, no? In any case, it needn’t be so strong. Nellie is a girl, sweet and pretty. How many thoughts does she need? And if she doesn’t talk so much, well, when it comes to marrying, a man might consider himself lucky.
Pearl sits on the bench outside, shifting, then re-shifting her weight, shaking out her legs. Her belly is enormous already, and the mole on her neck is bigger, darker. Moshe paces back and forth, back and forth, brushing away a low tree branch that tangles his hair with each pass.
When the door of the rabbi’s house opens, it is declared that Nellie can honor her community with mitzvoth the same as any other girl. Pearl heaves a sigh of relief, and stands to take Moshe’s hand. But Moshe’s hand is limp; his eyes don’t meet hers. Moshe can sense the retreat of the men. As they file out of the rabbi’s front door, their downcast eyes ooze the permanent liquid of pity.
It is different with the women. In time, the women open up to Pearl with stories — a deaf cousin in London, a deaf niece in Vienna. They bring news of schools in London, Berlin, and Budapest run exclusively for the deaf. They bounce Nellie on their knees, exaggerated expressions on their faces. And the women come to crowd around Pearl in her newest labor, to stand strong as she leans and groans and squats, to wring out towels with clean water.
But when Pearl holds her second daughter in her arms, and recognizes in her new baby’s eyes the already-focused stare of eagles, she asks the women to please leave her, to go, to go.
Pearl looks into the living room. Moshe is sitting with a book. His face is disgruntled and his fingers are wound tight with the white fringes that stick out beneath his shirt. Nellie is standing at the crib, peering through the slatted rails. She is studying her baby sister, asleep with her legs bent like a frog’s, her
arms stretched straight above her head. Pearl goes to Nellie. She points to the baby, and struggles to explain that she cannot hear. Moshe grouses loudly from his reading chair — “you don’t know that” — but Pearl is certain. She knows the scanning eyes, the searching fingertips, the flattening palms against the floor. She points to Nellie’s ears, then to Bayla’s, and shakes her head “no.”
Moshe rustles himself out of the living room chair and shuts himself off in his study. Pearl counts to herself. Five months since Bayla’s birth, and Moshe still hasn’t come to her in the night. Not that she’s so eager. These nights, she does the extra baking once Nellie and Bayla finally sleep. Her hair, damp from the mikva, she wraps up into a tight knot under her marriage wig.
“I’m asking, yes, because Pearl and Moshe are worried. They want to know: what kind of life can she expect to live? Can she be married, have a family?”
“Why not, if a match was to be accepted?” Yitzchak the trader offers.
“Well,” inserts Shmuele, the scholar, “the Mishnah makes distinctions: there are the deaf who cannot speak, cannot
reason intellectually or morally; and the deaf who can. If she is the former, she will be forever like a child.”
“Moshe says she hasn’t spoken a word yet,” Chaim mutters, as if only to himself.
“But there is a chance, no? that she will recover,” Yitzchak puts in. “She is only two years old, and for her age, she watches intently. Besides, she needn’t become an orator, just to become a bride.”
A deaf baby girl in their midst. The scholars and sages of Tasse are unsure of what to think. To abide by the ancient texts, Pearl and Moshe’s baby might as well be a corpse. A cheresh, deaf and mute, lacks cognition, the basis of a person’s status. Luckily, some in the room, including the rabbi himself, have traveled to Budapest and witnessed deaf people conversing with their hands. If the deaf can talk with their hands, maybe they have some thoughts in their heads.
An argument can be built, no? In any case, it needn’t be so strong. Nellie is a girl, sweet and pretty. How many thoughts does she need? And if she doesn’t talk so much, well, when it comes to marrying, a man might consider himself lucky.
Pearl sits on the bench outside, shifting, then re-shifting her weight, shaking out her legs. Her belly is enormous already, and the mole on her neck is bigger, darker. Moshe paces back and forth, back and forth, brushing away a low tree branch that tangles his hair with each pass.
When the door of the rabbi’s house opens, it is declared that Nellie can honor her community with mitzvoth the same as any other girl. Pearl heaves a sigh of relief, and stands to take Moshe’s hand. But Moshe’s hand is limp; his eyes don’t meet hers. Moshe can sense the retreat of the men. As they file out of the rabbi’s front door, their downcast eyes ooze the permanent liquid of pity.
It is different with the women. In time, the women open up to Pearl with stories — a deaf cousin in London, a deaf niece in Vienna. They bring news of schools in London, Berlin, and Budapest run exclusively for the deaf. They bounce Nellie on their knees, exaggerated expressions on their faces. And the women come to crowd around Pearl in her newest labor, to stand strong as she leans and groans and squats, to wring out towels with clean water.
But when Pearl holds her second daughter in her arms, and recognizes in her new baby’s eyes the already-focused stare of eagles, she asks the women to please leave her, to go, to go.
Pearl looks into the living room. Moshe is sitting with a book. His face is disgruntled and his fingers are wound tight with the white fringes that stick out beneath his shirt. Nellie is standing at the crib, peering through the slatted rails. She is studying her baby sister, asleep with her legs bent like a frog’s, her
arms stretched straight above her head. Pearl goes to Nellie. She points to the baby, and struggles to explain that she cannot hear. Moshe grouses loudly from his reading chair — “you don’t know that” — but Pearl is certain. She knows the scanning eyes, the searching fingertips, the flattening palms against the floor. She points to Nellie’s ears, then to Bayla’s, and shakes her head “no.”
Moshe rustles himself out of the living room chair and shuts himself off in his study. Pearl counts to herself. Five months since Bayla’s birth, and Moshe still hasn’t come to her in the night. Not that she’s so eager. These nights, she does the extra baking once Nellie and Bayla finally sleep. Her hair, damp from the mikva, she wraps up into a tight knot under her marriage wig.
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