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 the Bialystok Center, returning his investment tenfold! As it was written, there was a time to plant and a time to reap, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Naturally, reaping was preferable! Dancing was more pleasurable.
“King Solomon was a very great man,” the rabbi told the assembled. “You have perhaps heard of his gardens, his palaces, above all his Temple built with the best the world had to offer—olive wood, and gold, the finest linen, cedar from Lebanon. This man loved beautiful things! He enjoyed life! However, he also asked, ‘What profit is it to own so many things, to stroll in gardens and enjoy precious jewels, to eat such food and drink such wine? In the end, what good is it to collect such riches? Every wall will crumble. The beautiful will wither and decay.’”
“True,” murmured Sandra, who stood with the other guests among the roses.
“In the end, nothing lasts. Even wisdom will not last—this is what wise Solomon said. What, then, has lasting value? Where should we turn for the eternal?”
“To the good Lord,” said Mrs. Gibbs.
The rabbi nodded, but he amended, “Where do we find Hashem when He is so great, transcending our comprehension? Where do we look for Him?”
George looked at Jess.
“We find Him in each other.”
Ah, thought Raj, very good. He himself had a soft spot for religious rhetoric. His own mother in Calcutta was a very religious woman.
A perfectly calibrated crowd-pleasing little sermon, mused Richard. The Bialystoker presents himself as a humanist in Hasidic clothing.
“We find Him in each other,” Helfgott repeated, gazing at George and Jess, the chassen and kalleh, in front of him. “And this is why love is sweeter than wine, finer than gold, rarer than the rarest spices. However, since we are human, and not entirely angels at this moment in time, we need a record and a proof of what we feel. Therefore, we write up a marriage contract, our ketubah.” He turned to Nick, who handed him the calligraphed ketubah that George and Jess had commissioned. The Hebrew words were scribed in thorny black on vellum, the border illuminated with flowering vines. “And we have a pure, unadorned ring,” said Helfgott. “The ring …,” he repeated gently to George, who hurriedly reached into his pocket.
“Place it on her forefinger and repeat after me….” Helfgott smiled as George instinctively slipped the gold band onto Jess’s ring finger. “Her other forefinger. Harei at mekudeshet li …”
George repeated the words. As in a dream, he spoke his first words in Hebrew, announcing that he took Jess to be his wife. The blessings afterward were flowing and melodious. He heard them in the distance, as gentle waves against the sand, or soft wind in the trees. Almost imperceptibly, Jess leaned toward him, and although the rabbi seemed to be telling him to wait, George’s arm twined around her waist.
“One last thing, one final act, the breaking of the glass.” The rabbi turned to Freyda, who produced a gleaming orb from her purse.
“That’s not a glass, that’s a lightbulb,” George whispered, even as Helfgott wrapped the bulb in a cloth napkin.
“It is our tradition to use a lightbulb,” the rabbi whispered back, “because in my experience, nine times out of ten, glass goblets are very hard to break.”
“Try me,” said George.
“I don’t think we have a glass,” said Helfgott who had used silver cups for the ceremonial wine.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jess murmured, but quick-thinking Emily hurried to the caterer waiting with champagne and strawberries at the bottom of the garden and returned with a champagne flute, which the rabbi wrapped, and George crushed the glass, stamping it to smithereens.
“Mazel tov!” cried Rabbi Helfgott, and all the guests. Music began again, no longer classical, but klezmer, as George and Jess laughed and kissed.
Everyone descended to the lower garden for refreshments and then repaired to the house on Wildwood for a wedding breakfast of eggs (poached to order in the kitchen), kippered herring, smoked mackerel, cured salmon, scones melting in the mouth to tender crumbs. Rabbi Helfgott beamed, although he would not partake.
Lily and Maya ran through the rooms with fistfuls of anise cookies and madeleines. They showed their mother marzipans of miniature books with gilt-edged pages, and they tried candied ginger, and they ate chocolate lace.
“We got the menu from your uncle,” George explained to Sandra.
Jess added, “But we left out the meat.”
“And the smoked fish?” Raj asked playfully. “I assume they took their own lives in the wild?”
“Fat aged carps that run into thy net,” Colm quoted Jonson. “And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat, …”
“As loath the second draught or cast to stay,” Raj continued without missing a beat. “Officiously at first themselves betray; …”
“You have a beautiful daughter,” Mrs. Gibbs told Richard.
“I have four beautiful daughters.” Richard finished his second glass of champagne. “It’s very good, isn’t it?” he told Heidi.
“It really is.” She sighed with relief. Lily and Maya were playing in the garden. As of yet, Richard had said nothing sarcastic. She had spoken to him seriously about this the night before.
“Whatever you think about the rabbi or religion in general, this is your daughter’s wedding,” Heidi had admonished him.