An Excerpt from the Novel Who by Fire, Who by Blood

       “Tempting though, isn’t it?” Stone said.

      “Very,” Gabby laughed, as she strolled along the wooden boards towards the water’s edge.

       “That would make your uncle happy,” Stone said.

      “Shh . . . it’s our secret,” she said, laughing again. Gabby leaned against the low metal barrier on which the lines of a Walt Whitman poem were cut out along the entire length of the fence. “And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations than you might suppose.” She gripped tightly with her hands and leaned out as far as she could, “Look.” She slid aside and Stone leaned out, looking past the hulking mass of a dormant warehouse, towards the southwest and the setting sun. The brackish smell of the East River assaulted Stone’s nose as he leaned out, his thighs pressed against the hard, cold steel.

       “See her?” Gabby asked. And now Stone could see in the distance, crowned with the pink and orange nimbus of the setting sun, the Statue of Liberty, arm raised proudly in the air.

       “Still there,” Stone said.

      “She’s beautiful,” Gabby said. “Look at how strong she is standing sentry at the mouth of the harbor.”

      “I think I’m in love,” Stone said.

      “Can you be serious?!” Gabby said brightly. “This is my favorite spot in the city. It’s so tied up in poetry, literally. Emma Lazarus, Whitman, Hart Crane and his bridge,” she said, gesturing to her right where the Brooklyn Bridge stood, its massive stone base rising out of the East River, not a hundred yards away.

       “You read Hart Crane?” Stone said with surprise.

      “Do you think I only read Torah?”

       “No,” he said, “but nobody reads Crane anymore.”

      A dipping cormorant wheeled across the sky, giving the illusion of strumming across the bridge’s mighty cables. Stone felt a soft breeze on his face.

       “So, I’m nobody,” Gabby said, turning to face Stone, her brow furrowed slightly. She crossed her arms on her chest and leaned closer. Stone felt as if she were trying to read something in his eyes, to divine some mystery, some truth that Stone was withholding.

       “You’re not alone,” Stone said at last, “I love Crane as well.” The sun was sinking quickly in the distance over New Jersey, then the bursting palette of colors faded in an instant leaving the city across the river cold, hard and steely, its towers flat and monolithic against the graying sky. Manhattan seemed close enough to touch, the Twin Towers rising above the jumbled chaos of Lower Manhattan looking like the tablets of the original Law – austere, forbidding and awesome – especially in close proximity; the many lights in their narrow casements burned against the coming darkness.

       Gabby turned away as she dug into her canvas bag on the ground beside her. Stone saw the buttons of her spine pressed against the light material of her shirt, her firm calves straining as she reached. A moment later she produced a large zip-lock bag that seemed to be full of old scraps of bread. “Matty,” she said. And now, for the first time her smile was shy, hesitant – absolutely adorable. “I hope you don’t think this is stupid but—”

      A tug boat passing by blew its horn. Stone was suddenly aware of the sound of waves lapping beneath them. “After lunch the other day, I thought maybe you’d come back later—” She paused. “It’s my favorite Jewish custom, and after meeting you on Rosh HaShana, I know this sounds girlish or silly, but I wanted to share this with you. You’ve heard of Tashlich? It’s fun, really and it’s supposed to be done after services on Rosh HaShana, but I waited. I thought it would be fun to do it with you.”

      “Remind me again, what’s Tashlich?” Stone asked.

      “Time to cast away your sins,” she said, laughing lightly as she opened the bag. “Throw them all away. Let the river carry your guilt and vices of the past year away.” 

     “In there?” Stone pinched his nose. “Were your sins so bad that you have to drown them in that?”

      “Be serious,” Gabby said, her voice cracking.

      “I am being serious. I can’t picture you doing anything wrong. You’re perfect.”

      “I’m trouble and you’re a liar.”

      “What?” Stone said.

      “You know I’m not perfect.” They were both quiet for a moment and Stone could see Gabby’s chest rise and fall, her broad square shoulders lift and then drop with her exhale.       “If you want to know the whole truth,” Gabby started at the same moment that Stone said, “So, do I throw myself in first?”

       “No, of course not,” she laughed. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a heel of hardened challah. “For ordinary sins,” she said, holding the challah out to Stone.       “I think I’ll need something stronger than that.”

       “Take a piece,” she said.

       He tore off a corner of the glazed loaf. “What is a regular sin?”

      “Small stuff, like letting a door slam in someone’s face, cutting off a car in traffic, not phoning someone back.”

       “Leaving the toilet seat up?” Stone asked.

       “That’s two pieces, at least,” she said, laughing. Stone noticed that she had moved closer to him but there was nothing forward in her actions; they were simply occupying the same space, moving in sync as if their very heartbeats beat together.

      “Now hold the challah in the air.” 

      “Do we have to say a prayer?” Stone wondered.       “You can, but I just fire away.” With that, she drew back her arm and threw the challah out into the river. Stone did the same.

       “You’re strong,” he said.

       “I am woman, hear me roar!” Gabby sang, and tossed another piece of challah out into the darkened waters. After a few minutes of tossing increasingly smaller pieces of challah, Stone said, “You’re going to blow out your arm. Haven’t you covered everything?”

      “No,” and she continued tossing the bread. She had such a look of concentration on her face that Stone could not help but conclude that Gabby actually was dredging up every transgression that she could recall and tossing them ceremoniously into the East River. Stone’s mind had emptied as he tossed the bread into the rippling water. He had thought only of Gabby and the swift motion of her arm, followed by a slight breathy gasp, and he wondered what sins she was drowning in the murky waters. Stone was aware of the lights running along the taut cables of the Brooklyn Bridge; they hung in the sky like a low-lying constellation.

      “Done,” Gabby said at last, smiling. A thin film of perspiration shone on her forehead; she wiped it away casually with the back of her hand.

      “What’s next?” Stone asked.

       “Rye bread,” Gabby said, reaching into her bag and producing two fossilized pieces of bread.

       “I suppose I’m expected to say something wry,” Stone said.

       “You could do that, but bad puns are the worst sin of all and can’t ever be cast away. It’s a personality flaw.”

      “Got it,” Stone said. She reached for Stone’s hand, pried back his fingers and placed the bread into his palm. It was the first time he had felt her skin and it was like an affirmation of Stone’s entire life. She held the bread in the air; Stone did the same.

      “This is for the sin of lashon harah – the sin of gossip, slander, speaking badly of others.”

      Stone had no doubt in his mind that he had committed lashon harah against his father in every way imaginable. Stone had not gossiped about the Judge, but he had entertained Zohar’s suppositions without defending his father, who for once was unable to defend himself. He had allowed his mother to tar him with the same brush as Julius, suggesting violence and coercion. It did not matter in the end what his father had done wrong in his life, it was Stone’s job now to uphold his name, respect his name, carry his flame. Stone tore off a piece of bread and threw it into the river. He had slandered his father both through words and deeds – his very way of life was slanderous to his father’s name. He threw another piece of bread into the river. And he had slandered his father through omission before his community, by refusing to say Kaddish, to honor his name the way sons had done for their fathers for thousands of years. It was a sin of stubbornness, arrogance, and youthful determination, that he was somehow bigger than history, family, wrenched from the continuum of blood ties that reached back through the years to the original flame of life. But Stone was facing up to his sins now and with every piece of bread that sunk under the diamond-black water, a small piece of the old Stone drowned as well; and he felt the dualistic joy of both killing himself and going on. He threw the last scrap of bread far out into the water and felt a pop in his shoulder that sent a tremor down the length of his arm and into his fingertips.

       Gabby stared at him, her eyes wide. Stone noticed that a few couples had gathered not far beyond them; they too had a look of fear, concern, confusion on their faces. Stone ig-nored them and looked into Gabby’s face. Her expression had altered her face to the degree that her freckles seemed to have shifted place and settled on a different part of her cheeks.

       “You were shouting,” Gabby said, “and I tried to stop you and you just looked through me like I wasn’t there.”

      “No,” Stone said, feeling a sudden chill.

      “Do you want to leave?”

      “No, no,” Stone said, “what’s next? Worshipping false idols?”

      “I think we should leave,” Gabby said, “and get something to eat.”

      “No,” Stone pleaded. “I want to stay.”

      She smiled and put her hand on his for a moment. “You sure you’re all right?”

      “Sure I’m sure.”

       “Then, that’s good enough for me,” Gabby said, digging into her bag. “Are you ready for sins of the heart?”

      “Oh no!” Stone said, grabbing his chest and mock collapsing.

      “Get up, this is fun,” she said, and handed him a thick slice of whole wheat bread.

      “What’s this?”

       “It’s good for the heart,” Gabby said, laughing. “Really, this is when you make up for all the hearts you’ve broken in the past year.”

       “Hearts?” Stone said.

      “I’m a heartbreaker,” Gabby said. “Didn’t you know I’m supposed to have three children by now, halfway to a first set of twins?”

       “You’re a rebel.”

       “You make it sound so sinister.”

      “Isn’t it?”

      “No,” Gabby said, stamping her foot on the ground. “I love my culture, my traditions, I love Israel; the trees, the flowers, the way the land dips in a dried-out wadi, the sound of a shepherd’s bell, how the moon seems so close enough to touch. I love the silence of the desert, and I love the sonic boom of an F-18 bursting in the sky. And I love the road up to Jerusalem, how the Heavenly and the earthly seem to merge as one. I love everything so much that sometimes I ache inside. I don’t know what to do with it all.”       Stone thought of Fairuza, whose heart he knew he had broken and how once on a walk along the Old City ramparts she had broken down in tears at the sight of a border guard down below checking an Arab man’s ID card.

       “They’re as bad as those fucking Orthodox at Gilo, with their checkpoints outside my village. I hate them, I hate this world, I hate this country, I hate this time. But I love this city. I love it. I feel like hugging the city and kissing its stones beneath my feet.”

      Stone held her.

      After a moment she said, “Sometimes, I wish I were a giant who could carry Jerusalem away.”

      “Where to,” Stone said.

      “Maybe the moon.”

       Gabby continued and Stone was stunned by the contrast between her and Fairuza. “But I love this world as well; shopping in SoHo, the galleries and museums. I love the opportunities for education. I couldn’t get an Ivy League education in Israel. I love both worlds and I don’t think I should have to choose one over the other. I’m a citizen of Israel, and a citizen of the United States. What could be better?”

      “And the broken hearts,” Stone prodded, “here or there?”

      She tossed a piece of bread into the water, and he saw Fairuza’s image briefly flicker on the waves.

      “What about the hospital? I saw how Yossi’s friend looked at you.”

       “It doesn’t matter.”

       “Does that mean yes?”

      “It doesn’t mean anything.”

       “Are you sure?”

      Gabby paused and they listened to each other’s silence and the sounds of the evening for a moment. “I’ve known him since I was four or five,” Gabby said at last. “We were kids together.”

      “Dov?” Stone asked, remembering Gabby leaning close and whispering to him with an intimacy that belied simple friendship.

       “Yes. Dov.” 

     “You hurt him?” Stone asked.

      “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.” Again they were silent. The sound of the lapping water reminded Stone that he was thirsty and that his mouth was dry.

       Gabby faced Stone and smiled. “Well it’s Elul, the month of penitence. What about you, heartbreaker?”

      “No,” Stone said, “nobody. It’s been a hard year.”

       “Oh, I’m sorry,” Gabby said, her face softening. “I forgot.”

      “It’s all right.” They cast the bread piece by piece, alternately throwing and punting dry scraps into the dark water. Gabby kicked with a natural athleticism, sending the bread in high arcs into the air. Her silver rings flashed on her fingers as she threw. “Goodbye, heartache,” Gabby said with a final toss, “good riddance.” They worked their way through the rest of their sins as a chill came up from the river. A smudge of moon appeared like a thumbprint on the screen of the sky and disappeared just as quickly behind a bank of drifting clouds. Gabby held a piece of honey cake in her hands, her fingers dusted with a spray of confectioner’s sugar. “And finally,” she said, holding the cake in the air, “Gluttony.”      “That sounds Christian to me,” Stone said.

      “Well obviously you’ve never seen me eat,” Gabby said, laughing. She tore off a piece.

      “If you were such a glutton, would you throw away a piece of cake?”

                 “Good point,” Gabby said

.       “Are you hungry?”

      “Always.”

      “Then let’s eat.”

      “What about this?” she said, the honey cake in her palm.

      “Leave it for the birds,” Stone said.

      They found a restaurant up in Brooklyn Heights around the corner from Beecher Academy. Stone told Gabby that he had graduated from Beecher, and she laughed as if she thought Stone were making a joke. They sat by a high plate-glass window with a view of the street. There were two small candles on the table. Gabby ordered a plate of pasta with tomato sauce and no meat, and a glass of red wine.

       “No meat?” Stone questioned. “Vegetarian?” Everyone he knew at Wesleyan was a vegetarian, or a vegan, or worse. 

     “Are you kidding?” Gabby said, gnashing her teeth with carnivorous furiosity. “Kosher.” And she shrugged her shoulders.

      “But you’ll eat in a non-kosher restaurant.”

      “I’m kosher,” Gabby said. “Not crazy.”

      The wine arrived and they clicked glasses and drank. Stone felt warm inside.

      “Ata medaber Ivrit?” Gabby leaned forward and asked in a perfect Hebrew accent. “Do you speak Hebrew?”

      “K’tzat,” Stone said.

      “Yofi,” and she began to speak with the quick confident cadence of a native Sabra.

      Stone knew any response would be babbled nonsense, so he raised his hands palms-out, a gesture of capitulation and said, “I guess I missed that class.” He placed a candle in the palm of his hand.

      Gabby said something else in Hebrew that Stone did not understand and then said, “It can be hard if you’re not around it all the time.”      “What’s it like?” Stone said. “Living there, and here?”

      Her face brightened. “Israel’s my home. I grew up there. I was educated there, but I was born here. I have family here, we are back and forth all the time; it sometimes seems like Israel is just across the country, in another time zone, not across the world. But I still get excited when an American wins a medal in the Olympics, and I still refer to the president as our president.”

      “Sounds dizzying,” Stone said. He dipped his fingers into the hot wax.

      “It’s not bad, really. To have two places in the world where you can kick up your feet and feel comfortable.”

      “What’s it like there?” Stone said, flattening a ball of wax between his fingers. He pressed it to the table and worked it with his fingernail.

      “You’ve been to Israel.”

      “No,” Stone said. “To live in a settlement.”

      “I hate that word,” Gabby said. “I can’t help but picture Conestoga wagons and Indians and Little House on the Prairie. It’s a town, Matty, just like any other town. We have shops and restaurants and a movie theater.” 

     The waitress brought their food, and Gabby spun a bale of spaghetti onto her fork. “Okay, not good restaurants. I’ll give you that.” And she filled her mouth with the steaming pasta. “Now this is good.”

      Stone felt an impulse to ask her about the Arabs, the violence, but he did not want to bring down the mood. Gabby continued, “What do you do you in Brooklyn? See friends, go out, eat, sleep. That’s life. We do the same back home – go for walks in the hills, have campfires, sing. It’s not different than living here in Brooklyn, except more pure, I guess. There are olive trees and sheep and a big blue sky that sits so low, you’d swear you could touch it.”

      “Sounds nice,” Stone said.

      “It is.”

      “Look,” Stone said, sliding the wax disk towards Gabby. “A happy face.”

      “I saw your father on his last trip to Israel.” 

     “You did?” He took a sip of wine, and another. Gabby bit her lower lip softly, as if she had thought about mentioning his father for a long time and now wished that she hadn’t.

      “On Tu B’Shvat. Before he got sick.” 

     “You knew him?” Stone said, failing to hide his surprise.

      “Of course,” Gabby said. “He was good friends with my uncle, his memory be blessed, and my father and of course Zalman. I’d see him two or three times a year.” Stone went pale. His father had kept so much from him; she may as well have been speaking about someone else’s father. 

     “Are you all right?” Gabby asked.

      “Yes,” Stone said absently. “He never mentioned you.” 

     “Oh,” Gabby laughed. “I’m just a kid to him, his best friend’s niece. I would still be a kid in his eyes no matter what. But, he was always polite, unflappable, confident. He was doing such important things for Israel. He was amazing, his tireless energy, his commitment, but he always took the time to sit and talk with me.”      “That doesn’t sound like my father.”

       Gabby waved a finger at him , saying, “Remember lashon harah.”

      “I’m serious,” Stone said.

      “So am I. We talked for long time about graduate school and how I wanted to study international relations. I had been thinking about going to Hebrew University, and he suggested Columbia. And I guess he convinced me.”

      “He can be very convincing,” Stone said.

      “That,” Gabby said, “does not sound very convincing.”

      “We had a difficult relationship.”

       “Yeah, I guess parents can be difficult,” she said. “But he spoke about you a lot.”

      “He did?”

      “Yeah,” she said. “Of course. ‘My son Matthew won a medal for his swim team; my son Matthew wrote a poem and was sent a glowing rejection letter from the Paris Review; my son Matthew is studying Aramaic; my son Matthew won a scholarship to Columbia.’ He spoke about you all the time. And even as a teenager, I knew that one day we would be friends.”

      “Friends?” Stone said, swallowing hard.

      “Okay, more than friends.” And she winked at him.

       Stone felt a confluence of joy and hatred at this revelation. But what harm was done, really? His father had lied to Gabby, speaking of his own accomplishments as his son’s. The Judge had won a medal for his swim team at Brooklyn Tech, when he had a hairline fracture in his tibia. The Judge had received a two-page rejection letter from George Plimpton himself asking to send more poems. The Judge had studied Aramaic and mastered it in two years. And Stone hadn’t even been accepted by Columbia as a freshman. Stone’s budding relationship with Gabby was predicated on a lie. She had fallen for his father and his accomplishments. Or, perhaps unwittingly or not, the Judge had planted the seeds for this relationship long before he died. Was this a gift from the other world? Stone wondered. At that moment, beneath the dim light of the restaurant, with Gabby flushed from drink, her breath quickened from the telling of tales, Stone didn’t care. He wanted Gabby and he would tell her so.

      “I want to kiss you,” Stone said.

      “In time,” Gabby said, leaning forward. “When it is right.”

      “Okay,” Stone said, slipping back in his chair. “I’m not so great.”

      “Shh,” Gabby said, holding a finger up to her lips. “You should look happy. I like you a lot. This doesn’t happen very often.”

            Stone smiled. This was the greatest gift his father had ever given him.

Who by Fire, Who By Blood is published by Exile Editions. The book may be purchased directly from their website and shipping is free of charge.

Jon Papernick is the author of The Ascent of Eli Israel and the novel Who by Fire, Who by Blood. He recently completed his second collection of short stories and is at work adapting Who by Fire, into a graphic novel with artist Sandy Jimenez.