Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [130]
The second tragedy befell when beloved Uncle Hyman, their lifelong benefactor, passed away. He was in the prime of his life, a young man in his sixties, a godly man who gave to everyone: money ... credit ... love.
Hyman’s only son, Gilbert, inherited the business. Would Gilbert be as generous and loving as his father? Maybe yes, probably no.
Fortunately, Hyman’s last will and testament remembered them all, particularly his promise to set Lazar up in a drugstore of his own when he returned from France. If only some shyster lawyer didn’t steal everything. The mourning for Hyman was one hundred percent genuine. His photograph went up on the mantel alongside Saul’s and Lazar’s.
Not so doleful was the news out of Havre de Grace. Moses, so he claimed, had lost everything to a couple of smooth-talking con men in a fraudulent get-rich-quick, phony-war-bonds scheme. When Moses learned what had happened to his money, he had a stroke, on the spot. He was forced to liquidate lock, stock, and barrel to cover his debts. Partly paralyzed and unable to work, he implored Hannah to take him in, after his brothers in Savannah had refused.
Scarcely able to turn away a stray cat, Hannah took pity. The rules she invoked were rigid. Moses could stay in a small alcove off her bedroom in a separate bed. He would have no power of decision over family matters and no sex, whatsoever, positively. Should he regain enough health to resume work, the whole matter would then be renegotiated.
Moses’ stroke and the passage of time had aged him considerably. Moreover, his self-imposed loneliness as a miserly hermit had taken a toll. Moses was now on his best behavior every day, which made him almost palatable.
Perhaps, Hannah thought, coming so close to death might have given Moses a revelation about how despicable he had been. Whatever his reasons, he was no longer a force in their lives. He could read the Talmud until he went blind, so long as he didn’t bother them.
Then Hannah’s worst fears came to pass. Shortly after Moses was installed in his alcove, the dreaded telegram came from the War Department. Lazar had been wounded. He was hit, apparently by shrapnel, in the battle for Belleau Wood. For two weeks, Hannah could scarcely breathe until a letter came from a hospital in France. Lazar had not personally written it, because he had been hit in the arms and chest. He assured them all that he would fully recover, and as his letters came more regularly, and in his own writing, some of the pain and horror eased for Hannah.
After several months, during which Lazar appeared to be getting well, a shocker of a letter arrived. Lazar had married a Frenchwoman! A shiksa yet! And what was more, she was a widow with a small son. The trauma of this news was somewhat tempered when Lazar assured Hannah that his new wife, Simone, was not a serious Protestant and would be happy to take instructions on how to keep kosher and run a Jewish home.
“Look, it’s not the end of the world. Lazar is nobody’s dummy. I’ll come to love Simone and her son, Pierre. God will provide me with wisdom.”
Fanny and Leah left their babies at home when they went to work at the Ginzburg Brothers factory. It was an ultimate pleasure from heaven for Hannah. Little Edith and Leah’s Molly were only a pair of matched dolls, that’s all. Such naches from the little girls. Only a grandmother would know.
However, still another premonition disturbed Hannah greatly. Leah stayed out quite often and sometimes the entire night. Her “with a girlfriend” excuse somehow didn’t quite add up. Hannah tried to perish the thought, but she could not help but feel that her daughter was screwing around on Joe Kramer. Hannah didn’t ask. Leah didn’t volunteer. But Leah sang to herself a lot these days and looked in the mirror even more than usual and spent far too much time in the bathroom primping up, just to be going out with a girlfriend. Joe Kramer had apparently given her a good time in bed, maybe too good for Leah’s diluted sense of fidelity.
So, what else could happen? It did.
Pearl