Feldman - Exodus: a memoir

forgiveness

There she is, just across the street, sulking on the stoop. Seven years old, skin pale almost to the point of translucence, lips pursed into a sullen pout. She stares gloomily at the silver Mary Janes on her feet, the tips of which catch the last rays of sunlight quickly fading behind the three-story brownstone.

She has been scrubbed and primped in preparation for Passover, soon to arrive. Her hair hurts where its been pulled too tight into a bun at the top of her head. She feels each strand stretching from its inflamed follicle, especially at the nape of her neck, where an early-spring breeze raises goose bumps on the exposed skin. Her hands are folded into the lap of her brand-new purple dress, with peonies and violets splashed wildly on the fabric, smocking at the chest, and a sash tied around the waist. There are new white tights stretched over her thin legs.

This little side street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, usually bustling with black-clad men carrying prayer books, is momentarily silent and empty, its residents indoors making preparations for the evening. The little girl has managed to sneak away in the rush, to sit alone across from the young pear tree the neighbors planted a few years ago after carving out a square of beige dirt in the stretch of lifeless asphalt. Now it flowers gently, bulbous white blossoms dangling precariously from its boughs.

I cross the street toward her. No cars come. The silence is magnificent, enormous. She doesnt seem to notice me approaching, nor does she look up when I sit down next to her on the stoop. I look at her face and know instantly, with the pain of a punch to the gut, exactly how long its been since there was a smile on it.

I put my arm around her shoulder, ever so gently, as if she might break from the weight, and I whisper into her ear, Everything is going to be fine.

She turns and looks at me for the first time, her face a mask of distrust.

Its going to be just fine. I promise.

Snap. The hypnotherapist wakes me by clicking her fingers together in a classic stage move.

You did good, she says. Go home and try to have sex tonight. Let me know what happens. I have a feeling weve fixed the problem. Not completely, but enough for now.

I get out of the chair, feeling dizzy and disoriented. The little girl in the purple dress recedes rapidly from my memory, even as I grasp for her in my wakeful state. What did we talk about? I cant remember. Did she tell us anything? Does the doctor know something about my past now, something that I dont?

Never mind. The important thing is, did it really work?

Its been a year since my husband and I crossed the threshold into our new home and our new life, only to discover that our most important purpose as a couple could not be fulfilled: procreation. Repeated attempts and numerous medical opinions have only served to confuse us further; its as if a wall has been erected inside me. Could this be the miracle cure Ive been waiting for? Will I really be able to go home tonight and finally consummate my marriage?

I often wonder why I went back to that day, when the hypnotherapist instructed me to find some version of my childhood self to reassure. Its always the child lurking within us that rebels, that sulks, that angrily demands our attention. On that day, however, I was quiet and internal. Everyone around me was caught up in their work, and I was allowed to move about, feeling temporarily forgotten. It was not a moment of great injury.

But someone had photographed me earlier. I remember posing in the garden, being coaxed and prodded into a portrait of pleasantness. I saw the photo some years later, and in it I was cringing as if afraid. My brow was furrowed and my shoulders were raised in a guarded posture. It seemed as if there was a person on the other side of the camera making a threat.

The hypnotherapist had asked me to go back as far as I could, and thats where I went, to the moment the flash went off and I was temporarily blinded, unable to see the person behind the camera, unable to recall that person later. But I could not approach her there, in the garden, while she was being watched, so I waited for that quiet, private moment that I knew would follow, so that I could pass on the information as instructed.

The exercise was supposed to heal the wound that had been inflicted so long ago, the one that had eaten so deep into my subconscious that it had managed to seep into my muscles themselves, sealing them shut. Which particular injury had caused the damage I did not know, but the therapist had assured me that all I needed to do was find my wounded self and console her, and the rest would take care of itself.