A Half Jew on Jew Street Read online

wife and I are checking out tomorrow at noon. But now, before we return to our hotel, there was something that seems to be common knowledge here.” Benny cleared his throat.

  “Yes? And what was that?” Cohen sipped tea again. He could barely contain the grin that threatened to spoil his sleek histrionics. Rachel was giggling, and Itzhak feigned pneumonia.

  “A unique attribute, or lack of one. Can we call it that, Mr. Cohen?”

  “Call what, Mr. Holman?” Cohen drank again, smoothed the cloth on the table, replaced his cup and adjusted the cloth covering his lap.

  Benny watched them enjoy his verbal squirm. He looked to Hannah for help, but she only bit her lip and shrugged.

  “Fine,” said Benny as he straightened up, “no more side shows. You’re only half. What’s the trick?” He watched Cohen lower his head, then Rachel and Itzhak bowed, and soon Itzhak was choking again. Rachel covered her mouth with her sari, and Cohen twisted in his chair, hiding his face inside his elbow.

  Benny squeezed his eyes shut. His chest burned. His ears burned. Cohen and his cohorts were absurd, contemptible. Ask a simple question, get a song and dance. Jews.

  He rushed back to Pete’s rickshaw. Hannah, gasping behind him, called out to him. She held his hand, but they said nothing as they drove back to the hotel, nothing as she undressed and he sat in the armchair and brooded.

  Hours later, as Hannah slept, Benny left their hotel. A few rickshaw drivers dozed in their cabs. Benny walked along the waterfront, deferred to a trio of strolling, slobbering cows which, he supposed, were also enjoying the breezy, fragrant night, and turned back toward the hotel. But his anger and Cohen’s evasions had enervated him; the closed room was suffocating. He continued in the opposite direction until he saw a dim light; several men were talking inside a small mosque. He turned back. A man on a bicycle passed him, and as Benny approached the hotel from the next street, he saw the man before a small shrine, no more than a wooden box lit by candles, containing an ornately dressed female figure. The man laid a garland of small yellow flowers around her neck, placed his palms together and bowed his head. Benny wanted to go home; he was sick and tired of gods.

  Stars were beginning to fade into the gray of early dawn. Not far from the hotel, a renovated shack served as home and business to a family of several adults and children. Two little ones slept on a table while two men steamed rice cakes and another prepared sweet coffee. Several drivers, stripped to their waists, washed from buckets and then raised them over their heads to douse themselves with the soapy water. Smoking, chatting, drinking, they ignored Benny until he approached the kitchen—a large pot on a single-burner stove—and requested coffee.

  “How much?”

  “Four rupees. You like Indian coffee?” asked the cook, pouring.

  “Yes, very sweet, delicious.”

  “Sir, you like India?” asked a driver. “I show you today, palace, beach, fort. Kochi is my home, I know every place.”

  Benny sipped and decided. He paid the cook and nodded to the driver.

  “Take me to Jew Street.”

  “Early now. Synagogue is closed now, sir.”

  “Yes I know. How much?”

  “One hundred, but synagogue is closed.”

  “Fifty. Wait for me, and fifty to return. Let’s go.”

  Benny faced Cohen’s old wooden doors. He could climb the steps, knock both lions’ heads until Cohen appeared or, he assured himself, the doors splintered or swung open. But the gaunt silence of Jew Street inspired him: he, too, had a powerful voice.

  “Cohen! David Cohen! You win! I’m here damn you!” His resentment rang in his cry, and Benny was pleased. “You old bastard. I’m waiting.” He paused, grinning. “Now, Cohen! David Cohen!”

  The lions clattered against the doors, the doors smacked open against the stone façade and in a virtuoso display of showmanship David Cohen whorled from the inside blackness into the cool morning, floated to his accustomed place at his gate and bowed to Benny. “Good morning, Mr. Holman. I hope you slept well.”

  “I didn’t come for good wishes. But you know that.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And no more idiotic giggling.”

  “They mean no harm. But what can one do? They find your skepticism exceptionally amusing. They are believers.”

  “So is my wife. But without the giggles.”

  “And like them, without the questions. Now as to yours, where shall we begin?” Cohen leaned over his fence. “Would you sit? This may take a few minutes.”

  “Just start talking and let me worry about my feet.”

  “Ah, there is your first mistake. The feet, the toes that is, are first to fade. Then the ankles, calves, knees and so on.”

  “How does it work?” Benny climbed up the steps to inspect the lower half. Still nothing. He waved his hand below Cohen’s shirt. Cohen laughed, but there was nothing. Benny leaned on the fence. He sniffed: cumin.

  “I never sought this position. May I call you Benjamin?”

  “Sure. Benny’s fine with me, Dave.”

  “It was bestowed upon me, Benny. I’m here to speak for my people each day, for as long as I can. And there are some rewards. One should believe in something, and I believe in this community.”

  “There’s no money for you. I can see that.”

  “You see much more than most, which is why you are here this morning to visit and chat. How many tourists, even Jews, notice my condition? And too few honor me, honor us, with the gnawing curiosity that has driven you here this morning.”

  “I was driven in a rickshaw.”

  Dave smiled. “Yes, you foreigners have your peculiar humor, but we have ours.”

  “I got a taste last night.”

  “Along with the chutney?”

  Benny laughed. “You win again, Dave. So what happened to your bottom?”

  “Do forgive my past overweening spirituality, but I came to India as a very young man, reeking with potential soul, vibrating with holy impulses. Remember those days?”

  “No.”

  “And I, with others, followed teachers and gurus from temples to ashrams. But I found myself on beaches more than in sanctuaries, and in a twist that belies even…”

  “Some Jew on the beach told you about Jew Town,” Benny interrupted.

  “Exactly. How did you know?”

  “I’ll explain next time.” He crossed his arms on his stomach. “Well, go on.”

  “The place, its heritage, our heritage, astonished me. As if paralyzed, I had to stay. They welcomed me, they were generous, and because of my language and education made me their envoy. I traveled all over India, to Europe and the Americas.”

  “What were you selling? Gods?”

  “Benny, let me answer you this way: before she died, Itzhak’s grandmother made the best pickled lime in Kerala, and when she was asked, ‘How do you make pickled lime?’ she always answered, ‘With limes.’”

  “I should know better than to ask you. But if you ever find the recipe I might use it at my restaurant. Well, you saw the world. Next?”

  “I brought in money, and I worked for this community. And I’m still here. A man like you knows that spirituality is business, and it can be intriguing. A whirlpool, and I was caught. Well then. Quite a number of years ago, I noticed that my toes were missing their tips. I could see through the toenails to the leather of my sandals. Rachel’s husband, our mohel and doctor, was still alive. He examined me, and told me that I was meant to stay to be their voice. I accepted, and here I remain. Leave them? Certainly not.”

  Benny’s fragile calm was cracking. His frustration demanded more than fables, but he suspected that his new confidante simply refused, like the lime lady, to reveal professional secrets. He was determined to give him one more chance.

  “So,” said Benny, “you expect me to believe that you fade and float, shall we say, on faith? And you’ve given yourself, no, pardon me, as of now about half of yourself, to your community?”

&nbs
p; “I assure you, Benny,” said Dave, his palms together as he tapped Benny’s chest, “even the worst cynic is vulnerable. Even the worst, like you, may become addicted, may be enticed by a life he didn’t know he wanted. Yes, you must simply believe me. Only look at me as proof.”

  “Dave, my friend,” he whispered as he straightened his back and lifted his chin, “I came here this morning as a curious fellow Jew, and I admit that I admired your attitude yesterday, and what I’ll call your performance, but I must tell you that your explanation,” and Benny pressed his spread fingers into his friend’s chest, “your explanation,” he shouted and pushed, “ is the worst damn crap I’ve ever heard! Bullshit.”

  Cohen grabbed the fence. “I’ve told you the truth.”

  “You want me to believe you’re nothing but half a Jew, a devoted, faithful, half Jew?”

  “Half a man, perhaps, is what you see, but not half a Jew. Why do you insult me? I still have my full voice, my community’s voice. You heard me yesterday, and even now. Who is the half Jew?”

  “You mean me? But that’s what they called you last night.”

  “Said with affection and sincerity. They accept my situation, but your approach is different.” He paused. “I suppose you consider yourself a Jew.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “A full Jew?”

  Benny had to stop. This clever salesman, pious public relations no doubt, had wangled him into coming here, and arguing. He felt they were equals, at least from the neck up, despite the nonsensical hoax.

  “Dave, I never bother about these questions at home, but as long as this is the last hour of my spiritual