Mila 18 - Leon Uris [154]
“Quit it, Rachael! I can’t wrestle with you any more.”
She bared her claws. “And why not?”
“Because you’re a girl and I may grab something by mistake.”
“Well! Stephan Bronski! You are becoming a man!”
In a moment she went back to the andante movement Stephan slipped beside her on the bench and rested his head on her shoulder. Rachael put her arm about her brother and kissed his forehead.
“It won’t be much of a bar mitzvah for you, will it?”
“Just taking the oath to live as a Jew is important,” he answered.
“You are a little man.”
“Don’t be afraid, Rachael. Wolf will be back. I heard you cry last night. Don’t be afraid. Rachael, I think I understand everything about you and Wolf and I want you to know I’m very glad because next to Uncle Andrei he’s the finest man who ever lived. He has explained lots of things to me ... about being a man ... like things Poppa should have explained ...”
Rachael blanched, then smiled. “I wish he would come back. I wish he would come back. ...”
“He said he’d get back for my bar mitzvah. He will, Rachael.”
Alexander Brandel's office was converted into a makeshift synagogue, just as a million other places had been converted for illicit worship for two thousand years. Rabbi Solomon donned the ancient vestments of the rabbinate and opened the Torah scroll and chanted to the room where Ervin Rosenblum and Andrei and Alex and three Bathyrans stood near what represented an altar. Beyond Alex’s desk, Rachael and Susan and Deborah and many of Stephan’s friends jammed together. The shell of the man who was once Dr. Paul Bronski was alone by the door.
Stephan Bronski fidgeted slightly as his mother brushed her hand over the tallis which had belonged to her own father. Since no new shawls had been made since the occupation, the rabbi ruled it fitting for the boy to wear this symbol of one generation passing a tradition to another. Stephan’s months of study were coming to a culmination.
He looked about toward the door, hoping that Wolf Brandel would come through it in the last moment, but all he saw was his father. He smiled slightly at Rachael.
Rabbi Solomon faced the assemblage. Another boy was ready to accept his duties as a son of the commandment, a guardian of the Laws, and take upon himself the terrible burden of Jewish life. Only a week earlier there had been another bar mitzvah. The son of Max Kleperman had reached the age of thirteen. He was given the symbols of manhood in a large hall at the Big Seven headquarters amid gluttonous revelry. The old man wanted to turn his back on Kleperman’s mockery and walk away, but he didn’t, for he was merely the administrator of God’s will and not its judge.
His thinning high voice asked the candidate to step forward.
Stephan took a last sigh and felt his mother’s hand squeeze his shoulder. He walked forward to receive his new social status. The boy was slight and small like his father.
“Bless the Lord Who is to be praised.”
“Praised be the Lord Who is blessed for all eternity,” the men in the room answered.
“Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who didst choose us from among all the peoples by giving us Thy Torah. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, Giver of the Laws,” Stephan chanted.
The boy and the old man turned to the Torah scrolls which lay on Alexander Brandel’s desk. With the tassels of the shawl, Stephan touched the Torah, kissed the shawl, and read from the Laws of Moses. From the benediction he went to the climax of his studies, the chanting of the Maftir Aliya from the Book of Prophets, one of the most difficult of all Hebrew readings.
Stephan faced the room and chanted from memory. His voice was small and high, but it carried with it that cry of anguish born of the oppressions of many Pharaohs in many ages. The room was awed as the lad displayed the full mastery of