Air in the Shape of a Girl

As we do every year on the day before Rosh Hashanah, we gather in the conference room for a toast, with wine and cookies and apples dipped in honey. Everyone stands around holding up disposable cups with a bit of red wine, except for us – we hold up disposable cups with a bit of juice, and Guy stands in the middle and wishes us good health, to us and our families, and a successful year for the company. Everyone calls out “L’chaim!” and waves their glass into the air before taking a drink. Then Tali hands out gift certificates and towels monogrammed with the company logo, and everyone returns to their offices contentedly. When I pass through the hallway I hear Galia saying to Tali, “So exciting, three days of vacation,” and Sivan walks around the office all day singing, “Wait and see, wait and see, just how good it will be, in the new, in the new, the new yeeeear.”

But she can’t really know that things are going to be so good in the new year. Each year during the month of Elul I search my soul and take stock of what happened the year before, and I resolve to improve certain things about myself in the coming year. And each time anew I am convinced that this year it will surely happen, it can’t possibly be that another year will pass and everything will stay exactly the same.

What went wrong? What did I miss along the way? Maybe it’s because I don’t pray hard enough? Or because I gossip every once in a while? If only someone would tell me what I’m doing wrong, what I need to do differently.

Racheli says that she can’t wait for the holiday. She loves Elul, the new beginnings, the kids starting a new school year, the holidays, and then the arrival of fall. Most of all she loves Rosh Hashanah, especially since her husband became the shofar blower in their synagogue. Miri says she hopes that this year she’ll manage to pray at least one full service in synagogue, she’s really looking forward to the special melodies and prayers. She and her sister take turns watching the kids during services.

I don’t say a word.

Just before lunchtime people begin filing out, and for some reason everyone feels the need to walk past all the office doors on their way out and wish everyone a happy new year, as if that’s what’s going to make the new year a happy one. I sit in my seat when everyone files by and goes off on their way. For some, a simple “Happy new year” is not enough. Miri looks at me long and hard before she leaves my office and wishes me, “Happy new year, and may all your prayers be accepted,” and Racheli says, “May it be God’s will that this year all your heart’s wishes will be fulfilled for goodness.” She nearly shouts the words “this year,” as if she only needs to say it loud enough in order for God to be persuaded to inscribe in His book, “this year—for Hedva—a wedding.”

Michal, too, passes by my office before she leaves, and asks which synagogue I’ll be praying in and wishes me a sweet new year. At five o’clock, only Noam and I are still in the office. Everyone else has left. The atmosphere of gift-giving, well wishes, and air kisses has dissipated, replaced by a gray fog. Tomorrow our fate will be sealed. Tomorrow it will all be decided. Which projects I’ll get, which men I’ll be set up with, what anguish I’ll endure. Who will live and who will die, who at his or her predestined time, and who before his or her time. Maybe I don’t even deserve a new lease on life this year.

On the way to the bus stop, I pass the Logix building with its impressive façade. I always wanted to work for that company. I even wanted to send them my resumé through my friend Leah, who works there. She said that she understands why I’d want to work there, because they really do take the cream of the hi-tech crop, but she doesn’t think it’s an appropriate work environment for a single woman; she’s married, so it’s a different story. Their building is magnificent, and almost every employee receives a car with the company logo, and every so often on a Monday or Thursday they have a fun day or a jeep tour or a weekend getaway in Turkey. Not to mention the salaries and the bonuses. But two weeks ago they laid off half their employees. They stood around there, several dozens of them, in the parking lot in front of the building, huddled in small groups, some of them smoking, some talking. They said there had been talk of cutbacks and austerity measures, but no one thought that fifty percent of the staff would be let go. Some of them must have families to support, some may have even had a new baby born this past year, some may be new immigrants who thought they had finally made it in this country. At the Rosh Hashanah holiday toast last year I’m sure they never imagined that in another year they’d be out of a job.

Everyone on the bus is busy sending text messages on their phones. The beeps travel up and down the aisle, all announcing: I have a message! Someone’s wishing me a happy new year! Sivan said that she really doesn’t understand those people who send out happy new year messages to all their contacts; it’s really not nice to get a text message and know that another hundred people received the exact same one. Miri said yes, it’s better to call, but it’s impossible to call everyone, so maybe it’s better to send a group text. Sivan said fine, then people can send them, but I don’t respond to messages like that. Maybe so. But I would certainly respond if anyone were to send one to me.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

*

I never thought my life would look like this at age twenty-four. Twenty-four and a half, to be precise. That on Rosh Hashanah I would start another year after seminary, my fifth year out, still unmarried and not even engaged.

When we were in seminary the future seemed so clear. After the first year, some of the girls got engaged, after the second, the majority got engaged, and whoever was left got engaged in the first half of the year following the conclusion of the program, certainly by the end of that year. After their weddings, everyone found jobs, then had their first child, then their second, and so on. There were exceptions, of course. Malki had a baby in the middle of our second year, since she was one of the first to get engaged. And Shulamit’s older sister got married a full two years after completing seminary. But who would have thought that in our class, I’d be the exception?

I remember what Rivka’leh said during one of the last days of our second year, that anyone who finishes seminary and doesn’t have a job and isn’t married or engaged has no reason to bother getting out of bed in the morning. I wonder what she would say about someone who finished seminary four years ago and still isn’t married. At least I have a job. A good job, even by seminary standards. Because by seminary standards, a good job is one in which there are other Haredi girls, even if it doesn’t pay as well. But there are still some people who are completely against this kind of work. When we were in twelfth grade and had to choose a track for the coming year, Mrs. Friedman marched into the classroom one day and said that she really didn’t understand how they could teach us the kind of profession where we’d go on to work in secular settings. And there were a whole bunch of rumors flying around, like the one about the very promising young woman who had even served as a counselor in seminary, but went on to work at some computer company and after a few years, when she had three or four kids, ran off with her boss, even though he was much older—and not observant.

So if you work in a place where there are other Haredi girls, it’s better. When other people check you out for potential matches, they always ask, Where does she work, oh, in a computer company, and are there other Haredi girls there? In our company there are lots of Haredi girls, most of them are even from our seminary. I sit in a room with only women, with Racheli and Miri, as per the instructions in the booklet they handed out to us before the end of seminary, Guidelines for Working in Accordance with Jewish Law. Though it also said in that booklet that it is forbidden to address a man using his first name; you have to use his last name, preferably preceded by Mr. But I can’t bring myself to address Noam as Mr. Yarom, it sounds ridiculous. So I simply stand at the door of his office without saying a word until he registers my presence.

When he comes to our office, on the other hand, he always says, “Hedva, good morning, how are you?” Even though he’s been my boss for nearly three years, I still find it strange that a man asks me how I am. Uncle Meir and Uncle Moishie never ask me that. Once Noam asked me, “Hedva, what’s going on, is everything good with you?” I looked at him in total surprise. I’m used to answering, “Thank God” when he asks how I am, but he was asking me about everything. Is everything good? Obviously everything’s not good, can’t he see that for himself?

*

I imagine that one day the phone will ring and someone—Efrat or Yaeli or Racheli—will say, “Hedva, I have a great guy for you.” He will be two or three years older than me, from the Hebron or Mir yeshivas and he’ll have a very nice last name—Rosenfeld or Goldman or Goldstein—as well as an interesting first name like Michael or Yedidya. And she’ll tell me that she already spoke with him and he’s definitely interested. He’ll be tall and thin, with brown eyes, and from the moment he approaches me and asks, “Hedva?” I will know that this is it. He’ll smile shyly when he asks where I’d like to sit, and I’ll know that he’s also pleased. Our first date will end a little after eleven at night, even though the first date is supposed to conclude after an hour and a half, because we’ll have so much to talk about. And we’ll laugh a lot. He won’t ask me how many grandmothers and grandfathers I have and whether I work with other Haredi girls. And I’ll lie awake half the night remembering everything that happened, what I said and what he said, when he laughed and when I did, and I won’t be able to fall asleep. The next morning Yaeli (or Efrat or Racheli) will call to ask what I think, because he’s very interested and wants to have a second date, maybe even tomorrow if I can make it. Of course I can make it. And the second and third dates, too, go very well. He’ll be interested in what I do at work and he’ll tell me about what he is learning. Then we’ll meet in the afternoons and go to all sorts of nice places like Ein Kerem or the botanical gardens or the Armon Hanatziv promenade. And one day I, too, will show up at work all aglow, and everyone will greet me with shouts of “Mazel Tov!” and gather around and ask who the lucky guy is and how many times we went out, and if we already have a wedding date.

*

When I get home my mother says that Orlonsky called and said that Volk said they didn’t think it would work out. They didn’t think it would work out, that’s all; they didn’t even bother to give a reason. Fine, he’s the top student in his class at Voice of Torah Academy, as everyone said. Surely he  has offers from here to high heaven. May this year with all its curses come to an end. If only I don’t have disappointments like this in the new year. But what are the chances of that?

I place the towels I received today on the top shelf of my closet, where I keep all the holiday gifts they give us at work, since I have nothing to do with them at this point. They’re actually really nice towels, but they’ll have to wait, like the wok we got on Passover, the tray we got last Rosh Hashanah, and the pitcher with matching glasses from the Passover before that.