Mila 18 - Leon Uris [109]
Deborah waited several days after she and Rachael had had their confidential talk in order to find Paul in a proper restful mood. As they prepared for bed one night, Paul had let it be known by the innuendoes married couples develop that he desired sex. Deborah, as always, prepared to comply. It was in that moment that he seemed a little relaxed as he sat in the big chair near the bed and sipped tea and watched her put up her hair as she sat before the mirror.
As he looked at her he thought it amazing how she managed to keep herself so beautiful. Deborah worked eight, ten, twelve, and often fourteen hours in the orphanage on Niska Street. She had kept up Stephan’s studies and Rachael’s piano and she had been a good and comforting wife. There was not a line in her face, no gray in her hair, no telltale sagging of her body.
Perhaps there was envy on the part of Paul. Once Deborah had been retiring and obedient and passive. Now she seemed the stronger of the two. Paul resented his growing need for her.
Deborah twisted the long black strands of hair into tight curls on her forehead and deftly darted pins into them to hold them in place. Then she picked up the hairbrush and went into her nightly stroking exercise.
“Paul, dear.”
“Yes?”
“I have been thinking that, with both of us gone a good part of the day and conditions as they are, wouldn’t it be nice if Rachael were able to get away for a change of scenery? I could take Stephan along with me to the orphanage. There are dozens of boys his own age and he enjoys it there. ...”
Bronski furrowed his brow. “It would be nice if all of us got a change of scenery. What about your plans for Rachael to debut with the symphony? Besides, this is so much nonsense. There is no place she could go but to another ghetto.”
She watched him in the mirror out of the corner of her eye. “We could send her to the Toporol farm in Wework.”
He put his cup down. “Wework? The damned place is just a front for Zionists. The whole place is staffed by former Bathyrans.”
“But it’s healthy and there are girls her age and she will have a chance to look at trees and flowers and something other than misery.”
“You know the morals of these Zionist children.”
“No, I don’t,” snapped Deborah.
“They’re very loose.”
“Has it occurred to you that Rachael is nearly as old as I was when I met you?”
Bronski paled at the verbal slap. Then his eyes narrowed. “Just a minute. Isn’t that where the Brandel boy is?”
“Yes. And before you say another word, I think he is a fine young man who would be overly aware of not violating her. Besides, it’s something that they will have to work out for themselves whether we like it or not.”
“My, listen to the voice of modern sophistication. Have you become a free-love advocate? Are you going to spend the rest of your life throwing up to me your debauching?”
“Paul, she happens to be in love with the boy. Lord only knows they have little or no chance for a normal life, and I cannot see that it is a sin for her to want to be near him.”
He stood up abruptly. “There are other considerations. The Toporol farms are open only on a technicality. We have no guarantee the Germans won’t take a notion to raid them and ship everyone off to labor. If she is caught out there, I won’t be able to help her.”
Deborah lay down the hairbrush and spun about on the vanity bench. “Is there a guarantee they won’t come in here in the next ten minutes and haul us away? Living itself is a plain and simple day-to-day risk.”
The issue was clear. Paul would continue to retrench, to play it close, cautious. Deborah was willing to let her daughter take the risk to pursue a normal, healthy impulse.
Compromise,