In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruchama King Feuerman Read Free Book Online

bringing down a rainstorm of ficus leaves. She walked toward him serenely, looking angelic in the creamy lights of the hotel lobby. She had changed from the pageboy wig she usually wore to something a little longer, fuller, and feathered at the side. Rather daring for the proper widow. The thought that Mrs. Edelman (he couldn’t even think of using her first name) might have chosen her fancy Shabbos wig for this
shidduch
, this very blind date, made him blush.
    He emerged from behind the ficus tree. “Shall we have something to eat?” He gestured toward the café, while not quite looking at her. Suddenly, he felt naked without the courtyard.
    “How about just sitting in the lobby,” she offered, smoothing back a feathery brown strand of wig. “I’m not particularly hungry.”
    He coughed his assent, though he pondered her meaning. Maybe she, too, didn’t have high hopes for this evening and didn’t want to wait around for their order if things went poorly. Or perhaps, he thought morecharitably, she was similar to many holy Jerusalem women who took compassion on a Jewish man’s wallet.
    She sat in a beige-and-burgundy-striped easy chair next to a lamp, and he stood, undecided. Should he sit facing her three feet away on the sofa? Too formal, he thought, too much like an interview. But to sit in the easy chair kitty-corner to her seat struck him as unbearably intimate. He found himself backing his way toward the sofa—after all, weren’t these blind dates interviews in a sense, packed as they were with questions designed to ferret out who was marriage-worthy and who should be set aside?—and he sat down heavily, bumping his knee against the glass coffee table.
    Mrs. Edelman, in her simple navy skirt and matching jacket, crisp white collar, and matching navy pumps, looked like a perfectly wrapped box, all neat corners and angles. Nice-looking and a fine lady, he thought. Most likely in her upper-thirties. In short, appropriate for him. He frowned at a loose thread dangling from his charcoal suit sleeve. “So how long have you been coming to the courtyard?” he began, discreetly snapping off the black string. Better if he took charge with the questions. In this way, he could avoid the unwanted ones.
    “Oh, for ages,” she said. “Rebbe Yehudah has been just wonderful to my family, especially since … you know, my husband passed away,” she murmured. “So helpful.”
    Helpful
. He didn’t know why, but the word irked him, as if the rebbe were no more than a social worker. “Do you have any unusual story that you can tell me?” he asked her. “Something special about the rebbe?” He fingered the dark hairs above his lip. The rest of his beard was an undecided mix of gray and brown, but this last dark bit tended to remind him he still had some youth left. Forty-one wasn’t so old.
    “Unusual?” She frowned. “A story? How exactly do you mean?”
    “I don’t know, anything out of the ordinary he said or did.” Any tidbit about the rebbe was dear to him.
    “Hmm.” She crossed her legs tightly at the ankles. “All I can think of is, once I had a terrible cold. I could barely breathe, but I didn’t want to break my appointment with Rebbe Yehudah. The strange thing is, after I spoke to the rebbe, my nose”—she touched it with a light hand—“well, I could breathe again. Not that I believe in that voodoo stuff,” she said witha deep roll of her eyes and dismissive shake of her fluffy wig.
    “And neither do I,” he said, though he found her vehemence a little off-putting. “Some tea?” he inquired as a waiter walked by carrying mugs and a small porcelain teapot.
    “Tea would be nice.” She nodded her thanks as the waiter poured her a cup. “I must tell you, I never thought I’d seek advice from a man who looks as though he’s wearing an old sheet, but he really is the most sensible person I’ve ever met.”
    Isaac nodded. “True, true.” Though again he winced—at the word
sensible
.