Free A Town of Empty Rooms by Karen E. Bender Page A

plot of land to house (in the future) the growing population of aging Jews, at 2:00 PM a meeting with Jennifer Gold and
her fiancé, Colin McHenry, a lapsed Catholic, to talk about the road to conversion, at 3:00 PM a meeting with Josh Hofstein to practice the prayers for his Bar Mitzvah, at 4:00 PM a pause to sign birthday cards for everyone with a birthday this month. “Look at this,” he said. “Look at all of these clowns. Josh Hofstein. His parents forget to up his dose of Ritalin before he comes in. They want me to speed up his Bar Mitzvah process. Teach him everything in six months. Insta-Mitzvah. What can I say? Can I say no?” He sighed, sharply. “Sadie Straun calls me every night to remind me to pray for her hip. At 2:00 AM sometimes. You wouldn’t believe how many calls I get then.” When he was not wearing sunglasses, his eyes had deep gray shadows underneath.
    She did not tell him that some of the late night calls had been from her. She called the phone company to change the caller ID on her phone to read Out of Area . One night, pacing the living room, her breath shallow in her chest, she went to the phone, picked it up, and called the rabbi.
    She was perfectly still when he picked up.
    â€œHello? Hello?”
    She barely breathed.
    â€œMorris?” he said.
    She said nothing. The moment was full, brimming as a raindrop.
    â€œMorris?” he said. “I can talk to you later.” He slammed down the phone.
    It was Morris only once. Then it was Audrey. Sadie. Simon. There were apparently many of them bothering the rabbi in the middle of the night. It was as though they were involved in a large and secret conversation. She tried to imagine them all across the county, sitting in the darkness, sad, afraid, ear to the phone, waiting for the rabbi to say something to them.
    â€œHello,” the rabbi said, and this in itself was somehow enough.
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    SHE PRETENDED TO IGNORE HIM while he bustled around the office, but she was aware of him. He smelled of cheap aftershave, an astringent tonic that had undertones of a swamp — when he walked by,
it opened your eyes. His corporeal presence, the way he flew through the office, was startling; she thought of the dazed huskiness of his voice when he said hello in the middle of the night, as though they had woken up together; there was his invisibility, in all of its strangeness and glamour; there was the vivid ghostly presence of his arms in the dark, the way she imagined they would feel if she touched them, the curiously magnificent presence of the imagined over the physical, the living.
    Now, here he was, in the office. Her midnight calls embarrassed her in daylight. Perhaps she could ask him a question that would establish her as a person who was more normal, less desperate, than she actually felt. One day, after her son’s discussion with Ryan, she knocked on his door; she had something to ask.
    â€œCome in,” he called.
    His office gleamed with a violet light, as though all the lights were about to go out. Georgia had offered to get him new bulbs, but he refused. He seemed to prefer working in this darkness, as though he liked having others squint to see him. She sat down.
    â€œHow did the world begin?” she asked.
    He looked up and put down his pen.
    â€œMy son thinks Jesus did it,” she said. “His friend told him. He’s not a good friend, but he’s his only friend. He helps him walk into school. I want to know about another version so Zeb can say something back.”
    The rabbi laughed. It was a beautiful, mocking laugh. “Listen to these words: Let there be light.” He sat up in the dimness of his office. “What is better than that? What is light? You don’t see it. It reflects off people, things. We don’t see it but it’s there. Look!” He raised the blinds on his window — the pale sun gilded the air. “Where is it coming from?