The Cookbook Collector

“How can you say that?”

“He wants me to be happy,” Barbara declared, knowing full well that she spooked her children when she used the present tense. Did she care if she scared people? Not at all. “He would want to do the thing that makes me happiest.”

“You always say that,” Annie said. “How do you know?”

“I know,” Barbara said simply, “because when he was alive, I did a lot for him.”

The center was for everybody, not just Bialystoker Jews. There were plans for a preschool and a little summer camp on the grounds. All the children of Canaan were invited to the dedication, and Barbara herself had organized the entertainment: jugglers, clowns, a trampoline surrounded by a protective net. Even pony rides. She had arranged for face painting, finger painting, sticker art, spin art, a make-your-own-sundae table, and a decorate-your-own-cupcake station. Water tables with plastic boats, and most popular of all, trays of sudsy water for giant-bubble blowing. Dip a bent coat hanger in liquid, then wave gently through the air to look out at the world through the bending, bobbling sheen.

“Dear friends, thank you for coming today,” Rabbi Zylberfenig announced from his position on the back deck, overlooking the lawn. “Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Barbara. Above all, thanks to God for this world and its spirits. Our rabbis teach that a divine spark resides in every one of us, and joy as well, even when you least expect it. At our lowest point and in the darkest hour, we may find within ourselves a source of light….”

“No back flips on the trampoline,” Chaya scolded her boys on the other side of the garden. “You heard the rules.”

A soft breeze blew, and few listened to the rabbi speak of joy and time, because the weather was so lovely. The children were busy. The mayor told Barbara that, although he had not known her husband personally, he was very moved.

Others embraced Barbara. Neighbors, old friends, teachers from Canaan High School. A gaunt and gray-eyed man stood somewhat apart, a stranger and a loner in the crowd. When he shook Barbara’s hand, the two town policemen kept an eye on him. “Bobby,” he introduced himself. “Mel’s Alexander teacher.”

“You did come!” she exclaimed. “Thank you! You did so much for Mel—realigning him.”

Bobby looked grim. “I’m sorry.”

Barbara pressed his hand in hers. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

She was turning away when Bobby blurted out, “I told him to go to L.A. He came to my office in a panic for realignment. He was all out of kilter and he said, I don’t want to go. I said, Don’t worry about the flight. Your only fear is fear itself. Your back can take it.”

Tears started in Barbara’s eyes, but she saw she had an opportunity. She realized she had a chance to do a mitzvah. As the Third Bialystoker Rabbi, the Dreamer, said, How often in this life do we have the opportunity to do something good?

“Don’t blame yourself,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I feel it is,” insisted Mel’s Alexander teacher. “He got so upset. I always told him, Mind over matter, Mel, mind over matter. But in the end it wasn’t mind over matter at all.”

Barbara sighed. It was such a lot of work to comfort everyone. “Please believe me. Mel’s death is not your fault. Your job is backs. Not realigning history.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Barbara’s party planner interrupted. “The ponies are on a break. Do you want the mime now, or do you want to wait? It’s your call.”

“It is a very interesting fact,” Rabbi Zylberfenig was saying, “that few things happen by chance. Look carefully and also look with some distance, and you will see connections and designs in everything.”

He knew he was right. Even Chaya admitted he had a point. She saw sad designs in the world as well, terrible coincidences, not just joyous ones, but she told him, “In some ways, maybe you are right.” Certainly on that day, at the dedication, she saw Shimon’s point of view. Even apart from their own good fortune, at that very hour, their niece Jessamine was marrying George Friedman, a Jewish man dedicated to learning, a scholar and a person of great means, a collector, she was told, of ancient books. Chaya’s own brother-in-law was performing the ceremony at the famous Rose Garden of Berkeley, California.

The roses bloomed, thousands of them in a floral amphitheater, blossoms shading from gold and coral at the top of the garden to scarlet and deep pink on tiers below. At the bottom, in the center of the rosy congregation, the palest apricots and ivories perfumed the air.

The wedding was small, just forty friends and family standing in the garden. The roses were all the ornament Jess and George needed, under the blue sky, but Rabbi Helfgott brought a canopy as well, four tall poles and voluminous white cloth. He tied the corners of the cloth to the poles. “This is your huppah,” he had explained to George and Jess when he met with them some weeks before the ceremony. “You can guess what it stands for.”

“Marriage,” Jess said.

“Even more specifically than that. What do they say? Think locally.”

“Our house?”

The rabbi corrected cheerfully. “Your bed.”

Now Nick held one pole, Raj another, Mrs. Gibbs the third, and Freyda held the fourth. The musicians began to play guitar and flute, and George took his place under the huppah on one of the garden’s upper tiers. Did he look pale in his dark suit? Could his friends hear his pounding heart? Nick reached over and clapped him on the shoulder, and George was grateful for the contact; he needed to know that this was not a dream—that, in fact, Jess was walking toward him. Her father and her sister were giving her away, escorting her up the tiered steps.

Oh, look at the three of them, whispered Jess’s New Jersey aunts. Look at them together.

Look at Emily, such a beautiful girl, thought Aunt Freyda. We have to find someone for her.

George saw only Jess. Her silk dress was sleeveless, delicate, sea green. Her long hair flowed down her back. She carried a bouquet of leaves and trailing jasmine, and when she reached the huppah she gave the flowers to Emily, and whispered, “Keep them.”

As Jess walked toward him, George wanted the moment to last, and at the same time, he couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over.

“Are you ready?”

Rabbi Helfgott’s question startled George. He had not expected anything unscripted. He’d prepared for the traditional ceremony, the seven blessings, the marriage contract, and the ring. Jess felt him tense at her side, and she slipped her fingers into his. Her eyes were green, her expression sweet and just slightly satirical. He couldn’t help kissing her hand.

“All right, so I see you’re more than ready,” Rabbi Helfgott said, and those nearest George and Jess laughed, while other relatives farther back turned to each other: What did he say? I can’t hear a thing.

When Rabbi Helfgott began the welcoming blessing, chanting in Hebrew, Jess tried to recall the translations she had studied, but she could not remember the words. She stood with George and took one sip from the wine the rabbi offered. How strange she felt, standing with him there, all their guests arrayed below, her little sisters dressed as flower girls, her stepmother holding them still, one hand on each.

Jess wanted to remember everything. The cloudless sky, her exuberant uncle’s bearded face, her father on his best behavior withstanding the religious onslaught, Mrs. Gibbs in a navy suit and a straw boater. Emily, at Jess’s elbow, Emily the true philosopher, braver than anyone Jess knew.

At her side, George looked alert and nervous, unusually shy, knowing no Hebrew, not even a few words. Don’t worry, Jess told him silently. Don’t think of these as ancient blessings; imagine that they’re roses, think of them as scents. She was standing with him on a precipice. She felt fluttery, breathless, but she was not afraid of these heights. She had a high threshold for happiness, a straightforward, trusting nature when it came to joy.

This gladness was what Rabbi Helfgott had recognized in Jess so long ago. He had seen the joy in her then, and that was why he had decided to invest in her, writing the check for eighteen hundred dollars, that mystic multiple of chai, the number symbolizing life. The day the rabbi had met George and Jess to discuss their wedding, the bride, his lovely niece, had slipped him a check for eighteen thousand as a donation to