"Come on, Esther, I know you can learn this. you just need to apply yourself."
"Yes, Father."
"Now again, from the beginning."
"Thus said God: When I have gathered-"
"Thus said God the Lord."
"Thus said God the Lord: When I have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom-"
"Peoples. Peoples!"
"From the peoples among whom they are scattered, and when-"
"No, no, no!" Esther's father threw his hands down in exasperation. "Esther, you're just not trying."
"It's hard, Father."
"It isn't hard. It's two little Bible verses. Your sister, Anna, can say it in Hebrew."
"It's her bat mitzvah."
"It's our bat mitzvah, Esther, the whole family's, hers and yours and mine. And I'll thank you not to give me any more of your negative attitude." He paused, sighing heavily, peering down at her with a stern expression. "Obviously, you will not be chosen tonight."
"I don't see why I have to know this at all. Anna is the one who has to say it at the party."
"So that you can help her, Esther." He was a lean, almost emaciated man, with a thin smile that sometimes seemed not to be a smile at all. "The bat mitzvah is an important day-far more than just a birthday. According to the Zohar, the joy the celebrant receives on this day should be as great as the day of her wedding. You want Anna to experience that joy, don't you?"
Esther didn't answer immediately.
"Esther," her father intoned, his brow creased. "Why are you here? Why were you born?"
"I am my sister's handmaiden."
"That's correct. And when your sister needs help…you must be ready to provide it. Do you understand that?"
She bowed her head. "Yes, Father."
"Everyone we know will be at the party. You want her to do well, don't you?"
"Will I get a present?"
The blow came so swiftly she was reeling before she knew what had hit her. She tumbled onto the floor, the red imprint of his hand still visible on her chubby eight-year-old cheek.
"That's the kind of selfish thinking that God doesn't like, Esther." He turned his back on her, then added, "We'll try this again in an hour. At that time you will know it perfectly. Or…there will be a punishment." He stretched his arm out to his other daughter, the taller, thinner, almost-twelve-year-old brunette. "Come along, Anna. I think you've earned some ice cream." SHE STRUCK A MATCH, lit the candle at her bedside, then stared at the reflection in the window and the way it seemed to illuminate the stars, to light a pathway from herself to whoever was out there, whoever might be listening. She loved fire, loved to watch it flicker and dance, a modern dancer atop a candlewick. She could stare at it for hours.
Tefilah: "Heavenly Father, I'm sorry that I don't pray enough, and I'm sorry that I can't pray to you in Hebrew because I know you like it better that way, but I hope that you'll listen to me anyway. I don't have the Kavanah and I haven't done the Berakhot one hundred times a day. I haven't even done it once and I'm not really sure how but my earthly father keeps talking about it so I know you like that. Even though I haven't done everything I should, could you please help me? I'm scared. I'm scared every day. I don't know what happened to my mother and my father doesn't like me. He almost never chooses me. He likes Anna much more and I think he only had me for her. Maybe it's because I still wet the bed, I don't know. Sometimes he gets so angry he can barely stand up and he shakes all over and I'm afraid he's going to seriously hurt me. I wish I had a mother but I don't so maybe you could bring me a mother. That would be the best thing in the whole world if I could just have a good mother. Everyone should have a good mother, isn't that what you said in the Torah? Even Cain had a good mother." "Daddy! Daddy! Noah is dead!"
Esther raced downstairs as soon as she heard her sister screaming. Her father emerged from his study, wobbly. He knelt beside his oldest daughter and took her by the shoulders. "Calm down, darling. Tell your father what happened."
"Noah is dead. Barry Feldman killed him. He twisted Noah's neck till it broke!"
Esther's father's face seemed to awaken. "Barry? That little boy across the street? What is he, ten?"
"Eleven." Her narrow eyes turned slightly. "He goes to school with Esther."
"An eleven-year-old boy killed your cat? That's just-" He shook his head. "Are you sure about this, honey? Are you sure you saw him do it?"
"I didn't have to see him do it." She threw her hands back dramatically, flipping back her fake curls. "He told me he did it."
"But why?"
Esther watched as her sister slowly approached. "Because Esther made him."
"Oh, honey, don't be ridiculous."
"She did. Barry told me."
Esther took a step back. "You're being silly, Anna. How could I make him do anything?"
"He said you let him-do stuff to you. Let him touch you. Like-like daddy does."
Her father straightened. He braced himself against the landing. "What did you tell him about us, Anna? I've told you-"
"I didn't tell him anything. He said-"
"Esther, what have you been telling this boy?"
"Nothing, Father," she said quietly, staring at the floor.
"What have you been doing with this boy?"
"Nothing. But-didn't you say there was nothing wrong with it?"
"I-that's when-I mean, when I-Listen to me, Esther. This is a horrible thing, losing a pet. Do you understand that?"
"I've never had a pet."
"That doesn't matter. It's a horrible thing. You came into this world to give life, not to take it away. Did you put this boy up to this?"
She spread her hands and smiled beatifically. "How could I?"
Her father stared at her for a long moment, then returned his attention to Anna. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, dear. We'll get you a new kitty. And I'm going to have a talk with the parents of that Feldman boy." He drew in his breath. "But you shouldn't blame poor Esther. She would never do anything to harm you. She's here to save you."
Her father pulled Anna close and held her tight for a long time. But over his shoulder, one sister peered intently at the other.
She was thirteen years old when her father woke her in the middle of the night. At first, she was elated. Did this mean that tonight she had been chosen? It had been so long since she had felt his warmth, his love. He almost always chose her sister. But tonight, there he was, in the blackness, hovering over her bed. In only a few short moments, though, she realized that he had not come for her. He had come for her kidney.
"It's time, Esther. We knew this day would come. We've talked about it. It's why you were brought into this world. Your sister needs you. Get dressed. Quickly. Anna is already at the hospital."
She fumbled in the darkness, trying to find her clothes, wondering why they couldn't turn on the light, wondering if it would hurt very much. She was scared. But she should not be scared, she told herself. She should feel lucky. After all, Cain slew Abel; all her big sister wanted was her kidney. They would be compatible so it would be all right. She wanted to help Anna because maybe if she helped Anna then her father would like her better. Maybe then her mother would come back from the fairy kingdom and they would be reunited. There was a buzzing in her head and she wished it would go away because it was making her nervous and unhappy and scared. She remembered what her teacher had taught her-when she was feeling scared, she should try counting to herself, counting sheep to relax herself, just running through numbers until she wasn't scared anymore, and she could do that because you never ran out of numbers. But just counting was so boring. She would count in multiples of three, she thought, as she slid out of her pajamas, her father watching, urging her to hurry. 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, she thought, as she slid into her best dress. Or perhaps she would see how high she could count in prime numbers. That would be more challenging. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19… She had never seen her father like this before. She had seen him mean, violent, bitter, but never like this. Now he was silent, heavy; it was almost as if she didn't exist. When they walked through the front door, just the two of them, he didn't say a word. She wished he would hit her or kick her or something. Instead, he stumbled into the living room and pulled out that bottle, the one that smelled like the wine at the temple that she hated so much, and he collapsed in his recliner and he began to drink. She didn't know what to do. She was hungry and sad and tired and she didn't know what to do.
Esther decided to go upstairs and try to sleep. Or maybe she wouldn't sleep. Maybe she couldn't sleep. Maybe she would just wait for him. Surely now, now that it was just the two of them, she would be the chosen one.
When he arrived, he was staggering, smelly, he talked weird and he wandered about as if he couldn't tell where she was. It wasn't that dark.
"Whererya," he slurred, weaving around the end of the bed. "Where?"
"Are we going to play the kissing game?" Esther asked, her eyes bright and hopeful. "Am I going to be the mother? I'll be a good mother for you, Father. I promise I will."
Apparently her voice helped him locate her face. He swerved, zeroed in, and his hand barreled down on the target. Her head slammed against the headboard.
"Ya kilter," he said. He tore off his shirt, then knotted it like a noose between his hands. "Jus' like your mother. She dint likea screamin'. Yer gonna liket."
Esther panicked. After all the nights she spent wishing that he would come, here he was, at long last-and it was horrifying. It had been different when Anna was alive. Then it was like a competition between them. Now she didn't want him, didn't want to be chosen. He was scaring her. She tried to scramble out of the bed, but he grabbed her by the leg. She fell face-first down onto the covers.
"Jus' lie still," he said, as he crawled up onto the bed. "Ya killt my Anna. Pay fer killin' my Anna."
From where she lay, Esther could just barely reach the drawer of the end table. While he climbed on top of her, she managed to open the drawer, get out her matches, light one. She threw it at his face. He screamed, then reared up. That was all the opening she needed to scramble out from under him. The flame fell onto the bedspread and began to burn. He beat at it, barely able to hit the spot, snuffing it out. That gave her the time she needed to get downstairs and out the door.
She ran across the street till she reached the Feldmans' house and rang the bell. They would be surprised to find her standing on the doorstep in her nightgown at this hour of the night. But they would take her in. They hated her father, had always distrusted him, and she knew it. They would take care of her, at least for a little while. It would be all right.
She would be living with Barry Feldman. And she could get Barry to do anything she wanted. HER FATHER LEFT the next morning. He emptied out the bank account, stopped making the mortgage payments, and disappeared. The authorities had no choice but to believe everything Esther told them, horrible though it was. She stayed with the Feldmans for six months, and that was good. They took care of her, gave her the things she needed, encouraged her interest in mathematics. Mr. Feldman introduced her to the Kabbalah, a Hebrew text her father had never mentioned. He said it was very old and very difficult but that she might like it because it had so much math in it.
He was right. She loved it. She loved the way every letter had a number, so every word had a meaning beyond the one you could find in the dictionary. She found and understood the numerical correspondences in the Sefirot, could calculate the sacred numbers in the Torah and the apocalyptic number from the Revelation of St. John. Some of it was too difficult for her, but even when she didn't understand it entirely, she loved the sound of the words, their meanings. We must realize that this life is a prison. Yes, she could understand that. But what she liked was that this was not the end point of the philosophy, but the start. Life might be a prison, but we all had a chance to open a crack in the cell door. We are all destined to become like God, but the darkness tricks us into believing otherwise, believing that we are trapped and there is nothing we can do to help ourselves. She liked that part a lot.
Eventually Esther was placed in a foster home. She was fourteen. The man of the house was abusive, but she tolerated it, because she thought she had no choice. And then one night, when she was tired and far too sleepy to resist, he raped her. Even then she kept quiet, did nothing. After the third time, she fled.
She lived on the streets for a long time, until at last she was picked up by the police. When she refused to return to her foster home, they delivered her to the human services department. They didn't believe her, but they eventually agreed to relocate her to a new home. This one was even worse. The mother came into her room the very first night, touching her in ways she knew she should not be touched. She left the next day, even though it was the dead of winter. She lived on the streets-giving blow jobs for small change, drinking cheap wine, eating table scraps, smoking other people's cigarettes. Sleeping in the park, in the snow. One night, she got frostbite. Esther found a free clinic that would treat her, eventually, but she still lost the small toe on her left foot. She had nothing to support her, nothing she could depend upon. Except math. Late at night, she would count, work imaginary equations in her head. No matter how bad things got, no matter how cold or sore or disgusted she was, the numbers were always the same. They were always there for her.
She lived like this for more than a year.
"Young Lady," the judge intoned, sitting high in the oaken security of his bench, "I have reviewed your record and I must say-I am revolted. Have you no sense of decency? Have you no sense of morality? Do you not know that God is watching everything you do?"
Esther peered up at him through cold, slitted eyes. He was just like all the others, the dozens of judges she had been dragged before. He cared nothing for her. Eventually, he would put her in a juvenile facility or send her off to another home where she would be raped or beaten or abused and he would consider it a job well done. This judge might go through twenty, thirty children a day, treating them with the same contempt, the same cruel indifference. In many ways, he was the worst parent of them all.
"If God is watching me, why doesn't He do something to help?"
"It's not our position to question the ways of our maker, young lady. Our job is to follow His commandments, and in that regard, I regret to say you have fallen woefully short." He shuffled through his papers. "I'm very tempted to have you incarcerated. A little time in juvenile hall might do you well. But the counselors tell me you are highly intelligent and I hate to see that kind of potential go to waste. Even if you haven't done much with it so far." He frowned disapprovingly, an expression in which Esther took decided pleasure. "I'm going to give you one more chance, little girl. One chance only. I'm going to place you in a foster home-"
"Please, don't. I'd rather go to prison."
The judge drew himself up angrily. "I'm going to put you in a foster home. I am personally acquainted with these people and know them to be good, honest, Christian folk. I'll let them see if they can turn you around, teach you to make the most of your talents. And if they can't-" He shook his head. "Well, then may God have mercy on your soul."
This home was not so bad, at least not in the physical way. Here she had to endure lectures, constant berating about how she was a sinner, how her body was a temple and she had defiled it. He called her awful names, but at least he left her alone at night. And she was able to finish high school. She made poor grades in many of her classes; she couldn't have cared less about literature or art. But she excelled in math. She finished two years of trigonometry in one semester, then completed calculus and advanced calculus almost as quickly. They said she was a prodigy. And despite the ugly lectures she had to endure, being a prodigy was better than sleeping in the snow.
Her foster father offered to send her to college, assuming she got a math scholarship, which she did, and assuming she agreed to go to a Christian college, which she did. She was a wild thing, he said, and she needed Jesus Christ to enter her life and tame her, to teach her how to be a good person. The fact that she was Jewish seemed to have altogether escaped him. Didn't matter to her-just so she got out of the house. That was all she wanted. Out of the house. On her own. Free to do math-the one thing she loved in life.
And free to become a mother. She desperately wanted to be a parent. Because she would be a good parent, not like all the others she had been forced to endure, one after the other, over and over again. She would be a good mother.
"You may be asking yourself-what does God have to do with mathematics? Well, let me answer that question for you. God has everything to do with mathematics. The world, indeed, the universe, has everything to do with mathematics. We are surrounded by it. Math is in the air, in the plants, in us, in nature, throughout the cosmos. God is not silent; He never has been. To the contrary, mathematics is how we know that God exists."
Esther watched the salt-and-pepper bearded professor cross the stage of the small seminar room, always staring at the floor, never at the students, as if lost in thought. She had only taken this intersession class, Mathematics and Theology, because it sounded like an easy "A." During the past three years of college life, she had learned to ignore the fundamentalist claptrap that infected all her classes, even math. Did they not understand that this was what made math special? Its purity, the fact that it could not be corrupted by politics or science or theology. Math was unchanging, no matter where you went or what people believed, math was always the same. But as the two-week course progressed, she found herself more and more intrigued by his lectures. Not the nonsense about how God gave the Greeks math just in time to pave the way for Christ, so the Romans could build roads and improve trade and other such activities that would aid the spread of the Good News-that was obvious nonsense. But she was impressed by the impact numbers had made on the world.
She was fascinated to learn about Pythagoras, his enormous contribution to mathematics, and the society he founded to keep secrets out of the hands and minds of the public. She was amazed to learn that St. Augustine, perhaps the greatest of the early Christian writers, believed that numbers were the pathway to God. "Everywhere you find measures, numbers, and order, look for the craftsman. You will find none other than the One in whom there is supreme measure, supreme numericity, and supreme order. That is God, of whom it is most truly said that He arranged everything according to measure, and number, and weight." She was intrigued by the numerous efforts to devise a mathematical formula to prove that God exists, not only comic exercises like Euler's but serious attempts like those of William Hatcher. She learned to play Rithomachia, the ancient math/chess hybrid favored by ancient European mathematicians. But something was missing.
"I admit," the professor continued, "the message is insubstantial and incomplete, and in the end, perhaps it answers nothing more than simply to say, 'Yes, I am here. You are not alone.' But that itself is a potent message. If math can do that for us, if it can give us the language of God, perhaps it is left to us to interpret the message."
Not good enough for Esther, but perhaps she had the solution. The Kabbalah. The ancient text Feldman had introduced to her. What did it say? Life doesn't have to be a prison. We are all in the process of becoming God. She raced back to her dorm room, trying to find her copy, pulling it from the shelves. The world is a war between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. Yes, that was true enough. The forces of light are what we call God. The forces of darkness are discomfort, pain, unhappiness. But this was the good thing: Concealed in every moment of pain is an opportunity to become God.
That was the path, the key, the missing element that these bigoted fundamentalists would never tumble across. We could know God, we could communicate with God.
We could challenge God.
Esther was a good teacher and a gifted mathematician. Her dissertation on Isaac Newton broke new ground, exploring the alchemical and biblical work that consumed more of his time than science or mathematics. Her first published paper won a major prize, guaranteeing her a tenured position with an excellent university. Rumor had it she was working on Reimann's hypothesis, the Holy Grail of mathematical proofs. A long shot-but if anyone could do it, she could. In her leisure moments, she studied the Kabbalah, became almost as knowledgeable about it as she was about math, linking the two, following Newton in his blending of math and theology, his progress from casual study to obsession. And once her professional life was stable, she began trying to become pregnant.
Given her background, sex did not come easy. She found it impossible to establish any kind of long-term relationship; every time she looked at a man, she saw her father's face, his or one of the abusive surrogate fathers she had endured throughout her childhood. She found it much easier to get through one-night stands, no commitment, no long-term involvement-and she never had to look them in the face. She became adept at picking men up, determining what would attract them, what they wanted, then using that to get what she wanted.
Or tried. In fact, she never got what she wanted. For years and years she tried without success to become pregnant. She sought out fertility specialists, unapproved drug therapies, even so-called specialists who she knew in her scientific heart were little better than witch doctors. It was so unfair! There were so many bad parents around-but she would be a good mother! She would be the best mother who ever lived. But never any luck. Nothing ever changed. Until that fateful day in October of last year. When everything changed.
She knew something was wrong the moment she saw the expression on Dr. Lorenz's face. "What's wrong with me? You said it was possible. You said I was capable of conceiving a child. Why isn't it happening?"
"Esther…please sit down."
"I'm not going to sit down. I'm not a child anymore. Tell me what you have to say."
He sighed wearily. "It would be better if you weren't standing."
"Stop treating me this way! Just tell me why I'm not pregnant!"
Slowly, he closed her clipboard. "You are pregnant."
"I-I am. I am! Then-what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?" She clutched the doctor's arms. "Oh my God. Is there something wrong with the baby? Is there something wrong with my baby?"
"No, no. The baby appears to be fine."
"Then what?"
Dr. Lorenz looked at her with the saddest eyes she had ever seen. "Esther…you've got cancer. Cancer of the throat."
Her lips parted, but only a choking sound came out where there should have been words. "How-How long do I have?"
"It's impossible to say. Some people live for years with your condition…"
"But I won't."
The doctor lowered his head. "I don't think so, no."
"Will it affect the baby?"
"No."
"Will I live long enough to deliver the baby?"
"I can't say. But even if you do…"
The doctor didn't have to complete the sentence. Esther knew what he was trying to say. Even if she did deliver the baby-she wouldn't live long enough to raise her child. She would never have a chance to be her baby's mother.
Esther sped home and collapsed on her bed, consumed with rage and tears. What kind of a God would allow this? She would have been a good mother, the best mother who ever lived. But now she would never have a chance. And with no father, her child would end up in one of those dreadful foster homes, full of rape and incest and perversion and sick minds inflicting their warped damaged psyches on the next generation. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair! How could God permit this? Why would He give all those wretched people children but deny them to her? He obviously didn't love children-look what He let happen to his own so-called son, what He let happen to his chosen people for centuries, how He allows those supposedly created in his image to lead hellish lonely lives. What was He thinking?
She had no answers. She could not fathom the inscrutable mind of God. But somewhere, just as something in one part of her brain was snapping, another part was stitching something together, something new and…workable. A way to ask her questions, to force God to answer. To let Him know what she thought of Him and His strange and mysterious ways. Math and magic, that was the answer. Calculus and the Kabbalah.
She would need a plan, a way to get His divine attention, to turn His own Holy Word against Him. And she would need a pawn, but by now, turning the minds of little men was child's play to her. Esther would take His bloody image apart piece by piece, destroy the Sefirot limb by limb, find her way from darkness to light by exposing the darkness in the light, the pathetic fallibility of God Himself. She would begin her work at once-calculate her plans and set them in motion.
And then, when she did, may God have mercy on His own goddamn soul.