Mila 18 - Leon Uris [13]
“Paul, you’re leaving in the morning. Let’s not have an argument tonight?” Deborah pleaded.
“Why, dear? Don’t you want me to remember home as it always is?”
“I am a man of my word,” Andrei said. “But I also remember my home as it always was. Friday night and I sit at my sister’s table and there are no candles or benediction.”
“Is that what has been bothering you, brother-in-law?”
“Yes, it is the Sabbath.”
“We stopped facing east a year ago, Andrei.”
“Oh, I knew it was coming. I didn’t know you could break her down so quickly. I remember when we lived in the slums on Stawki Street. God, we were poor. But we were Jews. And when we moved to, that fancy neighborhood on Sliska Street and Momma died, I had a sister then who was the head of a Jewish house.”
“Andrei, let’s stop this here and now,” Deborah said.
Chris and Gabriela were suddenly trapped in the midst of the flying words of a family feud. They looked helplessly at each other as Andrei sprang to his feet and slammed his napkin down.
“Dr. Bronski started this. Not I. Deborah, I sat with Stephan and talked to him. He does not even know he is a Jew. What happens when he becomes thirteen? Your only son not given a bar mitzvah. I’m glad Momma and Poppa are not alive to see this day.”
Paul Bronski seemed to be delighted in having opened Andrei up. “Deborah and I have been married sixteen years. Isn’t it about time you got onto the idea we wish to live our own lives without consultation from you?”
“Paul, I am Andrei Androfski, the only Jewish officer in my Ulany regiment. But every man knows who I am and what I am.”
“I am Dr. Paul Bronski and they know who I am too. Just a minute, Andrei. I explored your galloping Zionism. It isn’t my way to salvation. It didn’t appeal to me either.”
“And your name didn’t appeal to you either, did it, Paul? Samuel Goldfarb. Son of a Parysowski Place peddler.”
“You are so right, Andrei. Nothing about Parysowski Place appeals to me. Not its poverty or its smells or the weeping and wailing, waiting for the Messiah to come. The Jews are the ones who have caused their own troubles in Poland, and I want to live in my country as an equal, not as an enemy or a stranger.”
“And does that justify your sitting on the council of the Students Union, those dirty little fascists who throw stones through the windows of Jewish booksellers?”
“I didn’t back those actions.”
“Nor did you try to stop them. You know why? Well, I’ll tell you. You follow a coward’s path.”
“How dare you?” Deborah said.
“It is you who is the coward and not I, Andrei, because I have enough courage to say that Judaism means nothing to me and I want no part of it. And you go to your holy-roller Zionist meetings not believing what you hear, looking for false salvation.”
The words rained down on Andrei like blows. Paul had struck a nerve and his foe turned white and trembled and the room grew breathlessly quiet, waiting for that short fuse to sizzle to the bomb. But Andrei spoke in a deliberate, trembling rattle. “You are a fool, Paul Bronski. Being a Jew is not a matter of choice. And one sweet day soon, I fear, it will crash down on you and destroy all your logic and smart talk. God, you’re in for a rude awakening, because you are a Jew, whether you want to be or choose to be—or not.”
“Stop it!” Deborah screamed. “This is my home. You will never do this again if you want to set foot in here, nor will you ever see Stephan or Rachael. Paul is my husband. You will respect him.”
Andrei hung his head. “I—should do something about my temper,” he said softly. “I have caused a scene in front of guests. Why should I care, really, so long as you are happy?”
“I am happy,” Deborah said.
“It is only ... Your words—and your eyes do not march to the same tune.”
Andrei walked from the table quickly.
“Andrei!” Deborah called. “Where are you going?”
“To drink. To drink and drink and drink to Dr. Paul Bronski, the king of the converts!”
Deborah started after him. Gabriela quickly stepped from the table and blocked her way. “Let him go, Deborah,” she said. “He is all