Zeldy the Matchmaker
A short story by Jason Salas
Things had grown stagnant in the small Messianic community of Shalomville, CO. It had been two years since a wedding and the elders were starting to get worried about the young folks. When you have a group of singles and no marriages, people start to talk. And while gossip had always been frowned upon in Shalomville, few closed their ears while frowning. Something had to be done. Someone – anyone – will need to get engaged. Shalomville was overdue for a good old fashioned betrothal.
The problem was that no one knew how to get things started, romantically that is. When the community decided to create one big neighborhood and move there, families and relationships were already intact. Some folks were married, having met and gotten hitched beforehand. Others were in the engagement phase. What was left, in terms of younger single folk, were kids just having fun growing up around other kids. But kids turn into young adults. And young adults get married, or at least that’s the plan. In this small community, however, the rules were a bit hazy. Things weren’t like they were outside and there were no set ways of doing such things inside. So the young kids did nothing, all the while pining for each other as the days, months, and now years went by.
Zeldy saw the problem clearly. And while her eyesight was among the worst in the whole village, she at least had some vision of a solution. “I will become a matchmaker,” Zeldy exclaimed one day over afternoon tea with her sister Rifka, to which Rifka responded, “Meh,” which was pretty much the way Rifka responded to every new hair-brained idea her sister Zeldy had.
But this was no hair-brained idea. In fact, it was a very good idea. When Zeldy brought up her new occupation at the Wednesday Night Village Meeting, it was met with great enthusiasm. The idea of a matchmaker had been thrown around in hushed conversation among the married folks when discussing the singles. Yet no one wanted to step up to the task. This was mostly because either no one knew how to go about it or because no one wanted to get blamed for a faulty match. The fact that Zeldy knew nothing about the art of matchmaking made no difference to anyone… as long as someone was taking the initiative.
Zeldy’s enthusiasm soon began to wane due to the fact that business was completely non-existent. No one came to Zeldy’s home to get matched up. “Why?” Zeldy would think to herself, “There are so many single people! Somebody should want to get married. Aren’t they humans for crying out loud?” Zeldy started marketing her services with fliers and phone calls and whatever else she could think of (which was not much since Zeldy was no businesswoman).
Her marketing efforts did pay off with her first business call. George, the local sewage facility engineer took the bait and became Zeldy’s first paying customer. George barked at Zeldy from the other end of the phone, “Find me a wife, Zeldy. Someone who is gorgeous and will treat me like a king and cut my toenails because I have trouble bending my body to do it myself!” He then proceeded to describe the exact woman he desired. If Shalomville was a major metropolis of millions of people, Zeldy would have her work cut out for her. But Shalomville was no such metropolis, it was hardly a town, barely a village. There were only twenty-two single people in town, half of them widows and old bachelors and spinsters. That left a piddly eleven single un-attached young people of marrying age. George knew exactly who he wanted and all Zeldy had to do was go straight to the girl and convince her to marry George.
This would be easy except the girl George had in mind was Angela, the most beautiful and charming female in the whole village. Not only that, but George was thirty years her senior, not to mention an unsightly senior at that. “Love knows no age limits,” Zeldy told herself and set off to make the match.
Anyone who knows anything about matchmaking knows that it simply isn’t a matter of grabbing any girl for any guy. There has to be some thought that goes into it. The man and his family has to be examined as well as the woman and her family. There has to be a pool of people to choose from, not just one. There has to be an agreement on all sides that this match is a proper match. Zeldy wasn’t anyone who knew anything about matchmaking. In fact, as we mentioned before, she knew nothing other than what she saw in the movie “Fiddler on the Roof” which really wasn’t a good example to begin with when you think about it.
Zeldy approached Angela with the prospect of a match, though the actual identity of the match was somehow left out of the conversation. Zeldy mentioned that the match was a man of useful stature among the community, had rugged looks, and made people laugh often. Translation: he had the useful task of operating the sewage facility, he had a rough and ragged look to him, and many people chuckled when he was around because he said the stupidest things. Angela, though fine to look at and charming at dinner parties, was not the brightest of women and took Zeldy’s words at face value. She agreed to pay Zeldy’s matchmaking fee and put her faith in this myopic woman’s new endeavor.
The next day, Zeldy announced to the whole village that she had made her first match and that she would introduce the couple in a public ceremony to celebrate this momentous occasion. The village hustled and bustled and prepared a feast for this announcement. Food was made, tables were arranged, decorations were put up. In their excitement, everything was done except pray. And prayer, as we know is often the most overlooked part of the process but the most needed.
The party was a blast! A sense of novelty was in the air and the single folks were both nervous and excited about the prospect of possibly finding a mate without having to go through those “worldly” ways in which they had pulled themselves away from. After food had been eaten and more than a glass or two of wine had been consumed, Zeldy called everyone to attention: “I will now reveal my first match!” Zeldy called Angela to the front of the room amid cheers and applause. It was at this point that the young men realized that this gem that was available to them just a minute ago, would now be off limits. The realization sunk in as they watched her gracefully walk to up to Zeldy. Why did I not solicit Zeldy’s services? What was I thinking? Sure, she may be a funny old lady, but this funny old lady has taken Angela out of our reach! The young men looked about at each other, wondering which guy actually made the effort to hire Zeldy. Strangely, not one of them looked the least bit proud which meant that not one of them was the match.
Angela stood smiling, sure that a good match was chosen for her. Which young man was it? She was fond of a few of them and was itching with anticipation to see who it was. Once the shouts and claps died down, Zeldy cleared her thought and made her announcement: “The man who will marry Angela is… George!”
The room fell silent except for a few gasps, one of which was Angela’s.
George strolled proudly up to Zeldy and his new bride-to-be. Everyone looked on with bated disgust. Here was the most beautiful girl in the village being betrothed to (not my description, but the collective opinion of the villagers) the local troll. Zeldy stood proudly behind what she felt as her fist success, holding the hands of the two together. No one seemed happy about this match except Zeldy and, of course, George. Angela nearly fainted.
The next day brought a very disappointed Angela to Zeldy’s door. We don’t know exactly what was said or what went on behind that door, but needless to say, Angela reappeared with the reassurance that the match would be made null and void as well as a full refund. Upon hearing the news, George was devastated and didn’t have the mind to even ask Zeldy for the his money back, which she wouldn’t have given to him anyways. Though Zeldy was no business woman, she did make one guarantee: “I’ll find you the girl, it’s up to you to keep her.”
It’s no surprise that Zeldy’s matchmaking business was short-lived. Sure, you could point to the ill-fitted match as the major indicator of failure, but we can’t rule out other factors. Perhaps Zeldy’s choice of names had something to do with it. After all, she did put up a sign outside her door with what some call a very fitting, albeit not well thought out name printed boldly upon it. And thus was the end of Zeldy’s matchmaking business known then and now and forever as “Messi-Match.”
