THE YOM KIPPUR PEDICURE
Daphne Merkin

“How can it be, you might ask, that such a travesty came to pass? How it is, I mean, that a woman like me, born and bred of preening Orthodox German-Jewish stock, came one evening last fall to usher in Yom Kippur, the Holiest of Holy Days, in the most faithless way imaginable: by having a manicure and pedicure at Iris Nails on the Upper East Side?

You might ask, that is, if this were the beginning of an old-fashioned story by S.Y. Agnon, say, or Sholom Aleichem, one that had never been exposed to those newfangled and profane literary influences that do away with all meaning, much less a divine purpose. The kind of story that always includes a busybody or two—professional meddlers in the detritus of other people’s lives, whose ordained narrative purpose is to stand around the town square, alive with the sound of peddlers hawking their wares and chickens squawking, the better to discuss the latest shanda, a piece of news that would set your mother’s ears on fire. Such sorrows shouldn’t happen to a dog – they would undoubtedly cluck among themselves, if they happened to get wind of the tale I am about to recount – much less to a family of noble standing such as hers. To fall from such heights to such depths, all in a moment’s undoing! Better you should excuse yourself than read on.

My own sordid little history, however, is set in a traffic-ridden twenty-first century city where anonymity is assured, rather than in a tiny, horse-drawn nineteenth century shtetl where village gossips hold sway. No one would chance to know of my brazen flouting of basic religious etiquette except for the fact that I feel compelled to reveal it now. Think of it as a form of belated atonement, disguised as a shameless confessional performance. S’lach loh-nu, m’chal loh-nu, kahper loh-nu. Forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement…”

Daphne Merkin is the author of Enchantment (Harcourt, 1986), which won the Edward Lewis Wallant award in 1986 for the best new work of fiction based on a Jewish theme, and Dreaming of Hitler: Passions & Provocations (Crown, 1997), a collection of essays that includes the wide-ranging writing she has done for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and various other publications. Ms. Merkin lives in New York with her daughter Zoë.