A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [168]
She traveled with a huge, neatly wrapped poster depicting her husband, which was unfurled and hung across the back of the podium. Her openended tour took her into small towns in Pennsylvania and Oregon, where the few quiet Jewish families wanted to listen.
A year passed during which Marina made over four hundred appearances, building a small but active following. She simply burned out. Her life had been one long struggle. And God only knew what news of her beloved Yuri.
A friend from the Israeli embassy convinced her to remain in America. When she had gotten her vitality back, she would be a strong resource among the Jews. For now she just wanted to be alone.
Marina resumed her maiden name of Geller and vanished into a studio apartment in an area of New York City known as the Village. She was unable to make ends meet on her dole. Her knowledge of the Russian language and Russian history made her attractive for a position when she applied at New York University.
Professor David Horowitz, head of Slavic studies at New York University, thought that Marina was an excellent find.
Safely housed and able to meet her bills, Marina allowed the wonderment of New York to seep in. A bit of anticipation arose whenever she knew she would spend a bit of time with David Horowitz. Kind…soft…his smile and concern penetrated her depression. Soon it was lunches together, right? Just lunches. A social meeting.
Lunches expanded into dinners. Marina was exposed to the gem shows that played in shoe-box off-Broadway houses that dotted The Village. Four months into their acquaintance, a new sound emerged when she broke into laughter during The Fantastiks.
David was much the scholar. No siblings, both parents gone. He had married, had a child, and divorced. His three-year-old son, Ben, was his weekends.
What reached Marina most deeply was the sense of peace that emanated from David. He was so unlike her bombastic Yuri Sokolov.
“Why am I comparing?” she cautioned herself. She had known a few men when she was on her speaking tour, but always awakened in the sludge of guilt. What was stirring her up about David was putting her into a compromising situation. She was married and promised, and promised to return to Israel.
Word reached her that all trace of Yuri had vanished. One of his fellow prisoners thought surely that Yuri was dead.
The woman was on the brink of madness when David Horowitz took her into his arms tenderly and led her into a safe place. Yuri was a fighter. David was a lover. She required love.
David’s loft in the Village was a little kingdom of laughter and music and heated scholarly discussion. Teachers knew the place. Students knew the place.
David’s great, great friend was a rogue priest, Father Mario Gallico, who taught Latin and ancient Greek at the university. Father Gallico was at their table twice a week, uninvited but always welcome.
Cardinal Watts of the Brooklyn diocese wanted desperately to mend his priest’s wayward ideas. The cardinal needed him as a strong arm in Brooklyn, a fixer. After watching Father Gallico make a nonpastoral advance at an adoring secretary, the cardinal shipped him to Manhattan and the lady was returned to her husband.
Marina had completely lost her mantle of freedom fighter. David totally filled her. Thoughts of marriage, of children, were not possible. When his son Ben came for Sunday visits, she hugged and loved him like her own…but was that enough?
How many years had gone by without a single word from or about Yuri? Over five years. The promise to go to Israel to meet her husband had lost its rationale. Must she grieve forever for a corpse?
She became pregnant, and she and David chose to have the baby.
Alexander was born to them in 1950. The bliss of being, of existing, was theirs. On the weekends and for short trips, Alexander’s half brother, Ben, was there. The four seemed