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 his accomplishment. Even Solomon delved into memory to try to recall when a young man had read the Haftorah with greater authority, grace, and musical perfection.
When the closing benediction was done, the Torah scrolls were closed, to be taken and hidden from desecration by the Germans.
Stephan Bronski faced the room. Uncle Andrei winked. Stephan looked about, hoping that Wolf might have come in, but he hadn’t. He cleared his throat. “I would like to thank my mother and father,” he said in the traditional opening of the valedictory, “for bringing me up in the Jewish tradition.”
The pronouncement seldom failed to bring tears to women. Deborah and Rachael proved no exception. But in the rear of the office the words struck Paul Bronski like a stiletto. He lowered his eyes as his son continued.
“I realize that becoming a son of the commandment is just a token of manhood. A lot of people told me how sorry they were that I couldn’t have my bar mitzvah in peacetime when the Great Tlomatskie Synagogue would have been almost full and relatives would have come from all of Poland and there would have been a large celebration and presents. I thought a lot about all that, but I am really glad to have my bar mitzvah in a place like this room, because in places like this the Jewish faith has been kept alive during other times of oppression. I think, too, it is a special privilege to have your bar mitzvah in bad times. Anyone can live like a Jew when things go well, but to take an oath to be a Jew today is really important. We know that God needs real Jews to protect His laws. Well ... we have survived everyone who has tried to destroy us before because we have kept this kind of faith. Our God will not let us down. I am very proud to be a Jew and I will try hard to uphold my responsibilities.”
Rabbi Solomon held the tallis on Stephan’s head and chanted the closing priestly blessing. The room pressed forward to converge on the boy and congratulate him with hearty “Mozeltoffs.” Paul Bronski left the place quickly and quietly.
“I guess you are satisfied now,” Paul snapped at Deborah. “You’ve put on your little circus. You’ve won your battle. You’ve showed me up as a damned fool in front of the whole ghetto.”
Deborah tried to contain herself. His eyes were filled with that half-wild look again.
“Grinding salt into my wounds,” he continued. “Making me look ridiculous.”
“Stephan did not have a bar mitzvah as a vendetta against you.”
“Like hell.”
“Paul, let’s go to sleep,” she pleaded.
“Sleep?” He laughed sardonically. “Who sleeps?”
He tried to light a cigarette, but his hand trembled so violently that he was able to accomplish it only with her steadying hand. “Well, Deborah, now that our son is properly a Jew and you have won your crusade for his holy purification for my sins—”
“Stop it!”
“—now perhaps we can discuss a family matter. We are still a family, you know.”
“If you speak like a civilized person.”
His outburst was done now. He calmed himself. “You’ve got to give up working at the orphanage and Rachael has to stop giving concerts. As for Stephan, he spends entirely too much time on the streets.”
She merely narrowed her eyes at his pronouncement.
“We must reappraise all our friends. A continued association with Brandel, Rosenblum, and Susan could become dangerous. Every one is aware of their past affiliations and no one is sure they are not part of this underground.”
“Now you just stop where you are, Paul—”
“Let me finish, dammit, let me finish! I can’t guarantee your immunity because of the likes of your goddamned brother and his agitators. They’ve pulled in the entire family of one of our board members and are holding them all at Pawiak Prison as a warning for us to break up this underground.”
All that was left of a desire for honor seemed to drain out of him in that instant. His skin was a horrible gray. “We have decided—”
“What?”
“We have decided that our families have to come to work inside the Civil Authority building and never be out of our sight.”
“Oh, my God, it’s come to this.” Deborah held her hand over her eyes for only a few tears. “All through this,” she whispered, “I have waited patiently for ... Paul, at first I tried so very, very hard to make myself believe that what you were doing was really the right thing. But each day as you degrade yourself lower and lower you have ceased to be a human being.”
“How dare you!”
“Good God, Paul! Didn’t you hear your son today? Can’t the courage of a little boy touch you, move you?”