Then I returned to the park to find the intriguing stranger. He was still there, but another man who was also wearing one of the long raincoat-type garments had joined him. This man approached me when he saw me looking at him and asked if I was interested in spiritual things. I said I definitely was.
His name was Thomas. He had short, curly hair, a long beard and was missing a front incisor. Although he didn’t have quite the same level of charisma as Jonathan, he spoke with an intense conviction that drew me in. He told me that he lived by faith and that he had forsaken his old life many years before to become a disciple of Jesus.
We sat down on the grass and he opened up his small pocket Bible and pointed out verses I had never seen before. It felt like he was putting a knife through my heart. Growing up, I’d had Bible stories read to me all the time and had gone to hundreds of church meetings and worship services. Now I, who thought I knew so much, was being confronted with things I had never seen or heard before.
He told me that the way I was dressed was wrong, also that it was wrong for me to be wearing jewellery, and, wrong too that my hair was so short. Suddenly I felt like everything about me was wrong. I was a sinner. Immoral, unholy and riddled with wrong. Thomas seemed uncomfortable, hardly ever making eye contact as he spoke to me. Later he suggested that I meet one of his ‘sisters’. He explained that among his people it was frowned upon for a man and a woman to sit together, talking. At that point he almost lost me. What a weirdo!
Little did I know that this strange man would soon be my husband and the father of my children. As odd as I found Thomas, I couldn’t ignore what he was saying – his words made me feel dirty and jaded. More than anything, I wanted to be clean inside. We arranged to meet the next day at the arched entrance to the park so he could introduce me to his ‘sister’.
By this time I was starving. I asked a friendly looking passer-by where I could get a good, inexpensive falafel. ‘Come with me,’ he said, with a thick accent. Solomon was a young Jewish dancer from Israel who had won, he told me, a scholarship to a famous dance school in New York. He took me to an obscure Israeli restaurant on a hidden side street and bought me supper. I treated us to dessert. We ate our ice-cream cones while window shopping in the village, finishing back at Washington Square where Solomon put on an impromptu dance show for me.
He told me how he was having such an internal struggle. The men in his family had been cantors in their local synagogue for hundreds of years. Solomon wanted to be a cantor too and walk the straight and narrow. He danced this out for me, pretending he was on a tightrope, his arms outstretched. Balancing. Careful, pointy steps. But his body just wanted to dance. And then he danced, wildly and sensuously, jumping on benches and twisting, turning and gyrating with grace and ease. It was as though he was dancing out my own heart’s dilemma.
We ended up kissing late into the night on the grass where I had, just hours before, been talking about the end of the world, the mark of the beast and false Christians.
5
Bleary-eyed, I left the publisher’s apartment the next morning and hurried to the park. The ‘sister’ arrived at the main entrance of the square at the same time as I. I knew it was her. She was with an older man. He stared at me intently, then nodded and left.
The woman walked towards me. Graceful, tall and noble, she seemed to glow as she approached with her long, golden hair streaming behind her. Holding out her hand, she said her name was Shoshanna. We spoke very briefly and then she warmly invited me to come for supper and spend the night at her ‘camp’. Picturing a fire and tents, I was intrigued.
I went back to 10th Street, packed up my rucksack, wrote Stefan and Ross a note and left. I met Shoshanna at the designated spot and together we caught a rush-hour train to Brooklyn.
The ‘camp’ turned out to be a three-storey apartment building on Evan Street. We went up the front stairs and entered an oasis of quiet calmness. I felt like I had gone through a time portal and dropped into an earlier century. The living room was full of bearded men like the two I had met the day before. They were all sitting quietly, reading what looked like little Bibles by lamp light. None of them even glanced at us, let alone greeted us. I liked this. It was a refreshing change after all the leering male advances I’d had to fend off while travelling across America.
Shoshanna took me to the kitchen where another long-haired, long-skirted woman was preparing the evening meal. ‘Welcome. Would you like some water?’ the second woman said softly. After my simple refreshment, Shoshanna took me up another flight of stairs to the sisters’ room. One would never have said that there were that many people in the house. It was so quiet. There were about seven or eight women upstairs. One by one they came over and hugged us.
‘Greetings,’ and ‘Welcome,’ they half whispered. ‘Can I wash your feet?’ a sister asked. What a strange, kind gesture, I thought. ‘Would you like this skirt?’ said another, holding up a long, handmade, maroon skirt. ‘I think it will fit you. Put it on for the evening meal.’
After having my feet washed, I took off my well-worn grey, cotton onesie and donned my new skirt for the six o’ clock supper. The sisters packed up what they’d been doing, and we all softly traipsed downstairs to the large, open-plan dining area. I was amazed at how many people filed into the room. There must have been about twenty of us, but there was none of the usual chattering one would expect among so many people – instead almost total silence prevailed. There were two long trestle tables covered with blue tablecloths. The men seated themselves on upturned buckets around the larger table. The women sat around the other, also on buckets. The silence was strange, yet pleasantly peaceful.
Then the sister I had met earlier in the kitchen started serving plate after plate of tantalising food. A veritable feast it was. I was amazed at the abundance. I watched as everyone bowed their heads, silently offered thanks and started eating. It was wonderful to have a home-cooked meal again. Still no one spoke. It was so hushed; I could hear the older woman next to me chewing her food. Then two sisters got up and started removing empty plates, replacing them with a dessert. As people finished their meal, one by one, they left the table.
The room was stark and undecorated. No pictures, knick-knacks or ornaments. Large posters with handwritten Bible verses hung on the walls. I wished I had a camera. It seemed I was in another land, another era, it was so removed from anything I had ever experienced before.
After the meal a few of the women helped clean up. There was no hot running tap water, but big pots of water were already steaming on a camping stove. ‘Would you like to wash? There is a gathering at eight?’ a sister asked me. I nodded.
I was given a bucket one-third full of hot water and shown the bathroom. ‘We take bucket baths,’ a sister said to me. She showed me the scoop to pour the water over myself. It felt good to wash off the New York grime. I put my new maroon skirt back on. Soundlessly, at eight o’ clock we filed back downstairs to the dining area. The tables had been moved to one side, the buckets lined the walls and there was neither food nor dishes in sight. The men sat on the floor in a big circle and we girls and women sat behind them in an outer circle. I peeped around. Everyone’s head was bowed. They all had a pocket-sized Bible in their laps.
At last someone spoke. It was the older man I had seen in the park earlier that morning. He’s definitely the alpha male of this pack, I mused to myself. And I was right. It was only years later that I learned his real name. In my early days with the Church I just knew him as Brother Evangelist.
‘Let us give thanks,’ he said. Everyone started clapping and some raised their hands. ‘Does anyone have a song?’ he asked. One of the men raised a hand and mentioned a Psalm number. Everyone turned to the place in their Bibles. Then the singing started. Some of the women sang in harmony. It was very beautiful and moving. Something opened in my core and I started to cry. They all seemed so pure. It was a holy experience. We sang Psalm after Psalm. In all the places where God or the Lord were mentioned they inserted Hebrew names. It seemed like