Light Fell by Evan Fallenberg Read Free Book Online Page B

crossroads. He lost no time, however, in choosing a direction and began undressing Joseph—methodically, slowly, just as he might undress his own children. First the socks, then the sweater, the trousers, the shirt, folding each article of clothing and putting it on the table behind him without ever taking his eyes from Joseph. He paused briefly when he reached the tallit katan and seemed poised to kiss the fringes of this holy ritual undergarment. Joseph knew he was contemplating the daily admonition not to stray after one’s heart. He could see behind the wise, saddened eyes the centuries of rabbinical commentaries and moral tales and midrashim and aggadot about that passage that must have been rushing through the genius rabbi’s brain, and certainly many others about the evil inclination. But Yoel banished these thoughts; Joseph could feel the weight of centuries of learning and tradition being rolled heavily to the side. Yoel removed the fringed garment resolutely, but more carefully than all the others, and placed it atop the pile. All this he did without any help from Joseph, shifting him slightly from side to side, arcing and bending his limbs. Soon Joseph lay bare chested and bare legged on the sofa, one thin layer of cloth still covering the intersection of his legs and trunk.
    Yoel stood up, and to Joseph he seemed taller and more massive than ever. He believed that if Yoel were to spread his hands in the air, above Joseph’s body, Joseph would levitate to his palms like iron to a magnet. Yoel gazed down at Joseph, and as he undressed himself he said, “For all the knowledge I have amassed, I do not understand the Holy One, blessed be he. I have asked him one hundred if not one thousand times since I met you what he had in mind in bringing us together.” Yoel looked to the window, forming his arms into a gesture of supplication. “If this is a test, if bringing me together with the other half of my very soul in the form of a man is your way of making me prove my love and devotion to you, by denying my love for him, then I would say you have chosen the hardest test of them all, the one I was bound to fail from the beginning. But if”—and Yoel stopped to look at Joseph—“if you mean to show me that this is my true path, that you have brought us together to love one another, why did you make me a teacher? Why give me the ability to understand your words with such clarity and to help others know you, too? Why did you give us wives and families?”
    Joseph thought that God was there, looking at Yoel at eye level. He wanted to cover himself, but just then Yoel removed the last stitch of clothing from his own body and stood naked, towering above him. Joseph looked him over, everywhere but his face, the one part of Yoel he knew at all. He felt Yoel’s body was familiar, though, just as he had imagined, and so Joseph relaxed. Yoel bent down and lifted Joseph from the sofa then carried him to a soft rug and stood him there, kneeling in front of him. He removed the last of Joseph’s clothing and Joseph looked to the clock on the mantelpiece, as if to record this moment in his own personal history.
    Yoel sat back on his heels, gazing at Joseph, then pulled him close and began kissing him, first as he had before, then with increasing vigor. His touch was no longer light, but openly insistent, desirous. He hugged Joseph around the waist and eased him down, kissing everywhere his lips reached. He lay back and drew Joseph with him, then rolled over on top of him. They pressed themselves to one another as if to bind themselves together for security against all the dangers of the world, or perhaps as protection from an angry, jealous, and vengeful God. But mostly they delighted in their bodies freely and wholly, each surprised at the insistence of his own, each pleased with the passion of the other’s. At one point Joseph thought he felt tectonic plates clicking into place beneath him and the alignment of the stars and