The first time Carole saw Paul carry the Torah scroll around the Brookline synagogue, while he was still in the process of converting, she was very moved; she felt it erotically. Well. Victory is always erotic, isn’t it? It was her victory. And it had been such a long time in coming. She’d grown up in Manhattan, gone to a private school more than half Jewish, become a bat mitzvah of her own volition, something she had demanded, for God knows her secular parents couldn’t have cared less. Of course, mostly it had to do with her friends, so many of whom had those expensive bat mitzvahs in downtown hotels. And when they met, she and Paul, and when they married nine years ago, religion was a bone of contention.
“If only you were Jewish! It’s really sad, Paul. Well, we’ll see.”
“I’m not going to convert, not even for you.”
For though he had a Jewish father, his mother was vaguely Episcopalian, and he—well, he was simply uninterested. Her parents didn’t care, his parents didn’t care. But Carole cared. And he—he refused to convert. He’d shrug off the idea every time she brought it up. “Don’t bully me,” he said. Was she a bully? Carole said, “No, no.” She absolutely wanted shalom bayit, peace in the home.
But look at him now! This big galumph, black curly hair just starting to recede. A handsome man, six foot two, almost two hundred pounds of mostly gym-made muscle, and the Torah scroll, a rather small one. So sweet! Holding the Sefer Torah like a baby, offering it to friends as he carried it up the aisle. How amazing! Is he crying?—my God, he is! Crying as he carries the scroll past congregants reaching out fingertips or prayer books or the fringes of their tallises to touch the scroll in its embossed velvet wrap. It means something to Paul! This is so moving, such a victory. What might it mean for their marriage?
At first, a lot. When they...
