Closed Doors

Yup-a-ra-ra-ra-ra, yup-a-ra-ra-lei-lum. The baritone voice seeping through the latched door is rather loud. I wouldn’t mind soft elevator music that pairs well with a work environment. She is one of those people out there who can concentrate with this kind of boom. It’s her wedding album, actually. A Chasidic singer. She hasn’t watched him perform—not from her side of the mechitza, but the boys did. He was besieged by them. Boys in white shirts and dippity-do’d payess gawking in awe. Some guys too. Guys from within the trade. Those who possess a talent, who can play out a note or two.

She stays on late to catch-up on her workload. As do I. I like it better after-hours. No phones. No interruptions. No girly chatter wafting in from the big office room. It’s just me and my double-screened computer. I feel more productive.

It’s five-thirty. The last of the girls and their little handbags have sidled out already. She wheels back her chair, swivels, gets up in a half kneel, pulls down her puckered skirt, and clinks over to the end of the room. There she faces the bathroom that’s in the direction of Jerusalem, fixing to pray Mincha. Her whole demeanor chasidically feminine; gentle, devout, and hopelessly ignorant. She sways, bending down and straightening up in a slow rhythm, palms underneath a siddur. Not a full-body rock, but a light swinging that engages head, neck, and torso only. A woman’s shuckle.

On the way back to her cubicle, she remembers to shut the door between my alcove and the main room. She wasn’t that scrupulous about the laws of yichud before. The whole thing mattered to her simply as a school subject. Projects, slogans, and grades. Something detached from everyday life. But not anymore. The kallah lessons changed her perspective; it broadened her horizons. Not that she was shocked; she had more than an inkling of where babies came from. Yet, still. There is a difference between imagining and hearing it outright from a kallah coach. It made her appreciate the barriers set-up between men and women. She now felt a natural urge to barricade herself from the guy in the back room who is going drop his pants if the door is left unlocked.

She has changed, Mindy. She is a grown-up woman by now. Nothing that I should know; never much of a camaraderie going on between the two rooms here. We seldom talk. We only talk over the phone, and even then it’s only to test IVR routing.

—Hello?
—What’s the extension?
—Can ya hear me alright? Hello?

Communication is achieved through email, mostly, or we manage without it altogether. I learned that she got engaged by the congratulating posters her workmates taped up to her cubicle wall. Mazel Tov! EngageMINDY! Balloons. Clowns. Rings. Ice-cream ‘kohns’.

Kohn, that was the name of her beau. Shia Yitchok Kohn. I discerned that from the girls’ post-engagement clatter. He was a cute chosson; adorable, by some accounts. When he smiled he even looked like Mindy. The lips. The cheeks. Yoi, you had to watch him. Cousins with the brunette. They called her up one night the week before asking for information, but she thought it was for their nephew. Hilarious! Well, the families match alright. They’re of that same type. By all accounts, the perfect shidduch.

The next day there were cake leftovers in the office and chocolates on her desk. A few months later she took leave from work and returned after two weeks. Black wig trimmed above the eye covered with a maroon wool hat. Cheeks mellow with red streaks of makeup. A lady. Missus Kohn. On my desk there was a memo to change her email to mkohn@hatzluchabrokerage.com.

Thank goodness I still get to see a memo from Boss. Most of the time it’s just me and his empty chair serving a more noble task by shelving my papers than seating his butt. We need a larger space than this musty nook. I said that a thousand times already. Oh, and while you are at it, we need to insulate it with acoustic tiles to cancel out this wedding blare.

A music CD: a wedding memento, like rings, family photos, and spouses. Something about it makes her feel good, proud. As if it’s her own music. As if she wrote it, played it, or even chose the wedding songs. As if it isn’t generic, Chasidic hora she couldn’t tell apart form the next.

At six-forty-five her husband will drop-by on his way from kollel to pick her up. He will stay for a few minutes, look around, whisper something, joke, and then they will walk home together. They don’t own a car. Shia Yithchok doesn’t even drive—not in his first year. I would’ve offered them a ride, gladly. Not to chummy up to them. No, not that at all. Why, just to be polite, nice. A gesture to the honeymooning couple. But how will they accept it? They might think of me as a pervert. Thanks, but no thanks. Let them walk; no harm. Their apartment is not too far off. Just up the hill and past the shortcut. There, behind the clapboard multi-family, in the basement. Besides, exercise is good for them.

****

The door squeaks open in the front room. I feel the breeze, the chill. Footsteps. The Doppler Effect in intensifying frequencies. I tiptoe to the peephole, just to glance at him. No, of course not. I’m not being a peeping Tom; they should know there is a hole in there. It’s not their private place.

A face, underneath a hat, rimmed by a scraggly beard, atop a body shrouded in heavy 100% wool, footed by black-leather size-tens, shoe-collars white with snow. So that’s him. The one with the syringe, flagella, gametes, and zygotes. Ha! Nobody can tell yet. Give them some breathing time, will ya? Soon enough rumor will have it. I shall put out a help-wanted in time for training. This is how things spin around here. From school, to office, to marriage, to motherhood, to where the cycle starts over again. They call it turnover.

He lopes across in her direction, grinning. She pushes back her chair and smiles. He drapes his arms over the cubicle wall, head stooped. She cocks her head towards him. Murmurs. Chuckles. Giggles. That old Negro spiritual, Swing low, sweet chariot. Coming for to carry me home.

He goes to fetch her jacket, short, black, velvet. She gets off her chair. Stretches, yawns, logs off, papers on the rack, tissues in bin, mints in purse along with her cell. Her desktop is tidy, clean, and lovely. Think he deserved her, Shia Yitchok? They head to the door, careful not to touch. She gestures him out first. He smiles. Opens the door and steps out into the dark. She follows him. The door closes behind them.

I return to my desk. Quiet now; music is off. I like it when it’s quiet. And I like it when Mindy is here.

Tags: yichud