Persuaded – Chapter XXXIII

Chani

Recap: Chani visits an old friend, Leah Stein, in her basement apartment in Westgate. Leah was once wealthy but is now poor, widowed, and infirm.

Chani left Leah with a promise to return again in a few days’ time. It felt good to have renewed their friendship, as Chani had been keenly feeling the lack of friends in the past couple of years. So many of her old friends had married and dropped off the radar. She especially missed her old friend Rachel, who’d moved to Houston after her marriage and became too busy to speak often. At work, she was close to Tammy, but Tammy was almost 20 years older than her, and Mrs. Rosner, 30 years older, was more like a mother. Both were at such different stages despite the many interests they shared with Chani.

A few days later, as she was gathering her things to spend an evening with Leah, her father looked up and said sharply, “Where are you going? The Rebbetzin is expecting us, and Mrs. Rosner is coming too!”

“You never told me!” Chani protested. “I already made other plans.”

“What?” Zahava said, eyes narrowed. “What could be more pressing than visiting Rebbetzin Dinnerstein?”

“I promised to visit my old friend Leah Stein,” Chani said. “We were very close when I was in high school, and lately we got back in touch. But she’s not well—she’s been through a lot—so now she’s been living by herself in Westgate.”

“Westgate?” Velvel said incredulously. “Westgate is so…so greasy-yeshivish! So cut-rate with those ticky-tacky houses stacked one on top of the other! What kind of a friend is this? Some old widow with no means or social standing?”

“Leah’s not old. She’s 29,” Chani said, her cheeks reddening. “It’s not her fault her husband died and didn’t leave her with money.” She noticed Rikki slinking discreetly back towards the kitchen. Rikki had apparently chosen that moment to avoid any comparisons with present company, as Rikki was likewise thirtyish, unmarried, and unmoneyed beyond her alimony payments.

“Mrs. Rosner approves of this?” Velvel asked. “She was also invited tonight.”

“She does, actually,” Chani said. “She applauded me for doing bikur cholim with a woman who has nobody.”

Refusing to be swayed, Chani grabbed her car keys and purse and left the house. “Sometimes I feel like I have nobody,” she ranted to herself. “My father and sister don’t care about anything except their own standing in the community. Why should I always have to justify myself to them when I try to help other people?”

The family members went their separate ways, with Chani’s absence being excused to the Rebbetzin as having to do with a pressing need to do the mitzvah of bikur cholim. Yerucham, who had also been invited to join the gathering, expressed to Mrs. Rosner that he truly admired Chani’s kindness and consideration for an old friend. “You don’t find so many girls of her type who would worry about a destitute old friend,” he said. “Such a ba’alas chesed!”

Shulamis looked at him sharply. Was he trying to express an interest in Chani? “Chani has wonderful middos,” she said. “And she’s smart as a whip.”

“Yes, yes, that’s obvious,” Yerucham said, wagging his head in agreement. “She’s one of those cases in which yichus really means something, it’s not just a name!” He gave a humble-brag smile. “I think she certainly beats me out when it comes to honoring our mutual lineage!” He straightened his Hermes tie and glanced at Velvel with a conspiratorial smile.

“I hope you also do justice to your yichus,” the Rebbetzin said, giving him a critical glance. Yerucham sat up straighter and nodded like an obedient puppy dog, resolving to stop glancing at his phone every few seconds (at least in the Rebbetzin’s presence).

Chani had a lovely visit with Leah, reminiscing and trading information about their old friends, and arrived home before her family. She had barely finished a chapter of an assigned summer reading on false memories when she heard the front door open. Her family was back, and Mrs. Rosner, who’d left her daughter’s car in front of the house, came in for a cup of tea before returning to Simmy’s place.

“It’s a shame you weren’t there,” Shulamis told Chani. “It was a nice evening. The Bergers put out a whole fruit and nut board, and the Rebbetzin told us all about her shoe gemach and kugel distribution. We didn’t realize she was such a dynamo!”

“She’s a tremendous ba’alas chesed,” Yerucham said. “Kind of like you, Chani, always ready to go visit a sick friend!”

Rikki grinned. “Chani’s a social worker, Yerucham! Her whole life is chesed! Not like me and Zahava, the material girls!”

Yerucham chuckled indulgently. “I don’t believe for a minute you two are only about gashmius,” he said flatteringly. He took a final sip of tea and then stood up, stretching a little. “At any rate, I should really get back to the Wallis house. They’re early-to-bedders, and I don’t want to disturb them.” He made a show of putting on his hat, making a little bow toward the assembled party, and swept out the door.

Velvel, starting to yawn, also rose. Zahava began clearing teacups, and Rikki left the table to leaf through a magazine. Shulamis also got up to leave, and purposefully asked Chani to walk her out to her car. “Chani,” she said as they crunched across the gravel driveway, “I am getting the distinct impression that Yerucham Elman would be very open to dating you. He didn’t stop raving about you tonight, and I felt like he was hinting that maybe we should check into him. I’m no shadchan—I am quite aware how complicated humans are and what an art it is to put them together. Splitting the sea and all that! But it might be a very good match for you! He’s well off, attractive, and presents very well!”

“He was married before,” Chani objected.

“But that’s in his favor!” Mrs. Rosner said. “I think at your age you should be open to that, and anyway, a man who has already been married has some experience with relationships. On top of that, he went through a tragedy, losing his wife, and that can only deepen a person, right?”

“It’s not all that long since his wife died,” Chani said. “He’s already open to a new relationship? Might that not be a poor reflection on the constancy of his affections?

“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Rosner said. “Many men can’t bear being alone. Poor things, they’re helpless without a woman to take care of them. I know tons of cases where widowed men remarry just months after their wives die.”

That idea was very distasteful to Chani, whose attachment to Effi—which had never had the chance to attain the depth of a marital relationship—endured even after eight years of separation. Mrs. Rosner persisted, “Your father’s business was left to Yerucham! It would be so fitting if you married him and the business stayed in your family! You know, I always maintained that you take after you dear mother, alehah ha’shalom, more than the other girls, and wouldn’t it do her credit if you married a man who stood to inherit the Elman fortune and became the mistress of a beautiful home in your own right!”

For a fleeting moment Chani was swept up in the fantasy: a good-looking husband with a career and money, keeping it all in the family, not even having to change her name. Then she shook her head. “I don’t think it’s for me,” she said. “And what about Zahava? She’d be devastated!”

For too many years she’d heard nothing but trash talk about Yerucham Elman, regardless of his apparent about-face and new friendliness with her father. He had married a low-class woman the first time around, just for access to her family’s money; he had hung out with unsavory friends; he had no sense of family duty. Had the loss of his wife truly brought on a deep character transformation? There was something about him she couldn’t put her finger on, something she just didn’t trust. Yes, he seemed presentable—almost too presentable. Slick, maybe. He carried on conversations and asked people about themselves while revealing very little of himself. She had no idea what he was really doing in Toms River, who these friends the Wallises were, and why he was suddenly so interested in her. Why couldn’t he have fixed his roving eye on Zahava?

To be continued.