All Rivers Run to the Sea_ Memoirs - Elie Wiesel [232]
When the requisite three stars appeared in the frigid, gray-white sky that Saturday night, I called Brooklyn immediately. The phone rang and rang. No answer. I tried again. No luck. I dialed the number five times in succession. At last a human voice responded, a man. “Yes?” “May I speak to Rivka?” I blurted out. He asked who I was, and I told him. He voice hesitated briefly. “Are you sure she wants to talk to you?” “Yes, I have a letter from her right here in front of me.…” Finally, the voice said, “Okay, take it easy.” I heard the man shout her name—and at last the chief rabbi’s daughter was on the line. She confirmed her wish to meet me, and I told her it was mutual. “How about this evening?” I suggested. Impossible. Tomorrow afternoon was the earliest.
She turned out to be about forty—like my Nina. She was dark, with a sad face—like my Nina. She was accompanied by a relative; a pious Jewish woman must not be alone with a man. We chatted. I tried not to show it, but my impatience got the better of me: “Tell me,” I asked, “have you seen my play?” She then gave me a lesson in humility. “Play?” Rivka asked, her eyes wide. “What play? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was stunned. “You didn’t know I wrote a play about you, a play that has been staged in Washington and is going to be on television?” Looking somewhat annoyed, she shook her head as if to reprimand me. “Last Friday you didn’t know I existed, and now you say you’ve written a play about me?” “Then why did you want to see me?” I asked. She answered without hesitation: “I read some of your works in samizdat, including the one about Russian Jews in which you mention my father. Do you remember him? Well, one day, when he was already quite old and sick, he called me in Odessa, where I worked as a dentist. He asked me to come to Moscow, said he needed me urgently. I left my husband and children and hurried to him. My poor father was very pale. He knew he was dying, and he wanted to tell me his last wish: ‘Rivka,’ he said, ‘promise me you’ll make sure your children grow up Jewish. I know you can’t do that here, so I want you to go to Israel. If that’s not possible, then go to New York, to Brooklyn.’ Naturally, I promised. He insisted I swear it. Those were his last words: ‘Swear it!’ Of course, I want to keep my promise. But it isn’t easy. My husband … you see … he’s Jewish … of course … but to be Jewish annoys him … being Jewish bothers him …”
I felt like shouting: “Just like my Alexei, like Alexei in the play.” But I didn’t. I just listened.
“… and he refused to raise our children in the Jewish tradition. It was impossible to convince him, he just wouldn’t bend. Our children would be Communists like him, he said. Nonbelievers, atheists … I argued, wept, reminded him of my oath. In vain. We grew farther and farther apart until we fought day and night. The endless disputes finally wore me down, and I decided to get a divorce and to go to Israel with my children. Only my husband wouldn’t let me take my son. My two daughters, yes. They left with me. One married in Israel, the other will soon marry a Lubavitch Hasid in Brooklyn.”
Guessing what was coming next, I felt a lump in my throat. “And your son?” She lowered her voice. “My son stayed with my husband.”
Disturbed by the resemblance between this boy’s fate and young Misha’s in Zalmen, I remembered that when I had created the character, I couldn’t decide on his future. Should I give him to his Communist father? I didn’t have the heart to take him away from our people. Give him to his grandfather, the chief rabbi? I don’t like sentimental endings. As I was uncertain, I left the conclusion vague, ambiguous. Let the audience decide Misha’s fate. But now I had heard it from his own mother’s mouth: Misha would not