Chapter 33
A Wedding by the Book – Not Exactly
A few weeks before the wedding, Lily found herself, in her words, forced to deal with such “nonsense” as a white dress, the ritual bath, and so on.
“I’ll do what I want. No ritual bath, no white dress, nothing of the sort,” she said. Her greatest fear was that someone – intentionally or not – might report to the rabbinate that we had already married according to Jewish law, and that in order to marry again, we would have to get divorced. That was too much, something she would never agree to do – an absolute red line.
“Lily, that won’t happen. And as far as I’m concerned, you can wear any dress you want, in any color,” I tried to reassure her.
“I just hope your parents won’t object.”
“I promise you, my mother only wanted a wedding according to Jewish law. I don’t think she cares about themikvehor the color of your dress.”
“As far as I know, a white dress symbolizes a first wedding. Someone might ask…”
“Ask what? Why you’re not wearing white?” I wondered.
“Yes.”
“So you mean the color of the dress you chose is meant as a protest?”
“Yes. It’s my personal protest against the fact that we weren’t recognized as husband and wife – not just by your parents, but by the establishment.”
“You’re crazy – the establishment doesn’t know. Besides, what do you have against my parents? They accept you just as you are!”
“My man, I’m not against your parents at all. This is my protestagainst a conservative society and its rigid laws, which refuse to accept any improvisation – even one born of true love.”
“Lily, let’s be realistic. In the end, these so-called ‘laws’ are set by the society, the culture, and the state we live in.”
“But I, my man, don’t feel like we gave in. Believe me.”
“Our love still won. We won,” I concluded the discussion.
The big hug came just in time, along with tears of emotion.
“Rain is good luck,” my mother said as we sat in the car on the way to the wedding. Outside, it was wet and cold. Both of us – Lily and I – needed luck. A lot of it. My mother had no idea how much. She could never have imagined.
As time had passed since my dramatic announcement, “I got married,” it seemed my parents had managed to recover from the insult. My father for sure. My mother was harder to read. She could be sentimental, emotional, tearful – but it was impossible to break through the barrier between her outward expression and her inner turmoil. I was convinced that the religious values she absorbed from her own mother had fixed her thinking.
During the Holocaust, at the very worst time, in the pit where she hid with her family, starving – she would not touch non-kosher food. She was willing to die sanctifying God’s name rather than eat food that was even suspected of being forbidden. And so she reacted to my announcement of our marriage, which was far from kosher. I had wounded her very core. God is my witness, I never meant to. But words, once spoken, can’t be taken back.
“Mom, Lily won’t be wearing white at the wedding,” I told her nervously, close to the date.
My mother smiled in acceptance. “Finally. Lily is already a woman, she’s not … not a girl anymore. And you already live together.”
Our family was known for punctuality, so no one was surprised that we arrived early. Lily’s family, who lived practically acrossthe street from the wedding hall, arrived late, leaving almost no time for group photos. To tell the truth, I worried – had something happened? Was she hospitalized from nerves? Maybe she’d cracked under the pressure. I paced the hall anxiously, on edge. On top of that, I was stressed knowing that my parents and brothers still knew nothing of her illness.
After nearly forty minutes of nerve-wracking waiting, they finally arrived.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” her brother said. “The rain knocked out the traffic lights. We were stuck in a jam for over half an hour.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
Lily walked into the hall ahead of her parents. My breath caught – she was stunning. The faintly patterned blue dress suited her perfectly, and the makeup, which she usually avoided, added an aura to her natural beauty. She was so beautiful on her official wedding day – just as she had been at the unofficial one.
“Please, on Mom’s behalf, don’t you dare say anything to the rabbi. Sometimes you go overboard and…” said my father, surprising me.
“Dad, do you really think I’d tell him about the first wedding?”
“Michael, you’re a cynic. Sometimes you say things that shouldn’t be said.” My father knew me well.
