While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “Esther?” she called. “Peter? Where are you?” She felt tired from the long day and from lugging the bundle of uniforms all the way home. She dumped them on a dining room chair so she would remember to alter them after supper and went upstairs to look for the kids. Their bedroom was empty. Penny felt a flicker of panic. She hurried down from the third floor and checked the back porch, the yard, the basement where the washing machines were, even the garage and the alley behind it, calling their names. There was no sign of them.

  They knew they weren’t supposed to leave the apartment after school until she came home. Where could they be? She went around the building to the front and looked up and down the avenue. Maybe she should go back inside and telephone somebody, but who could she call? The police? Grandma Shaffer? No, the last time Penny had asked Mrs. Shaffer for help, she had made a gigantic mess of things. Penny went in through the front door and got as far as the vestibule when the Jewish landlord’s door suddenly opened, and there he stood with his bushy black beard and little black beanie, just three feet away from her. She jumped back, scared half to death, her hand on her heart.

  “I am sorry for startling you,” he said. “But if you are looking for the children, they are in here with me.”

  Penny sagged onto the bottom step in relief. “Thanks. I know I was very late today, and I’m so sorry if they’ve been a bother – ”

  “No bother. They are a help to me since I am burdened with this.” He held up his arm to show her a white plaster cast. Eddie had asked her to check on their landlord weeks ago, telling her that he’d been hurt in the fire across the street, but she hadn’t done it.

  “We have not met,” he said. “I am Jacob Mendel. Mr. Shaffer told me you were a friend of his, coming to care for the children.”

  “Yes. Penny Goodrich. Nice to meet you.” She was relieved that he didn’t offer his hand to shake. “I didn’t know where they could be. I’m sorry I was late, but I don’t think it will happen again. Today was my first day on a brand-new job and . . . well, it isn’t really a new job, not yet. They’re teaching me how to drive a bus, but I didn’t actually drive anywhere yet, and I won’t get to drive unless I pass a bunch of tests first – ” She stopped, aware that she was babbling. She always talked too much when she was frightened, and right now her heart was pounding like an African drum. Whether it was from the scare the children had given her or from talking face-to-face with a Jewish man, she couldn’t tell. Maybe both.

  “You look shaken, Miss Goodrich. Would you like to come inside and sit down for a moment?” He opened the door wider and beckoned to her.

  Penny nearly shouted, No! Her father said that Jews were not to be trusted. They lured Christian children into their homes and performed strange, evil rituals. Had Mr. Mendel already lured Esther and Peter inside? Was this a trick to lure her, too?

  But surely Eddie would have warned her to stay away from their landlord if he were dangerous. Instead, he had asked Penny to check up on him. Then she remembered something else that Eddie had told her: Mr. Mendel’s wife and his wife had been friends. They had died in the same accident.

  “Come in, please,” he said again.

  It would be rude not to accept his offer. Besides, Penny was responsible for Esther and Peter’s safety. She needed to see what they were doing in there. Her heart pounded faster as she stepped through his door.

  The first thing she noticed were the books, shelves and shelves of them. They reminded her of encyclopedias, lined up in sets of the same size, with leather bindings and gold lettering. There were no paintings on the walls, just a few framed documents with Jewish writing on them. She saw several candlesticks of various sizes, the Jewish kind that held more than one candle at a time. And every doorway had a small rectangular box with Jewish lettering on it, hung at an odd angle. The foreignness of the apartment made her want to run upstairs and slam the door, even though nothing had happened to frighten her.

  “I hope it is all right with you, Miss Goodrich, but I have been paying the children to help me. I am not supposed to get this plaster cast wet, and that makes it very hard to wash dishes. The children are a help to me.”

  She followed him past a dining room table littered with newspaper clippings and into his spacious kitchen. Esther stood at the stove, keeping watch over two bubbling pots. Whatever she was cooking smelled wonderful. She looked happy and content. But when she turned around and saw Penny, she looked as though she wanted to point to the door and order Penny to leave. A moment later, Peter came in through the back door with an empty garbage pail in his hand. He took a step back when he saw Penny, like a dog expecting a beating. Penny couldn’t imagine why they would react this way except that their father had told them not to bother Mr. Mendel, and here they were in his kitchen.

  Mr. Mendel cleared his throat as if he had noticed the tension between the three of them. “You are all welcome to stay and eat dinner with me,” he said. “I have plenty. The women from the shul continue to bring me more than I can possibly eat.”

  Before Penny could graciously refuse, Esther spoke. “Peter and I want to stay. I helped heat everything up and it’s all ready. May we?” She was asking for Penny’s permission, but it was very clear that Esther didn’t want Penny to stay. Nor was Penny courageous enough to sit at a Jewish man’s table and eat his food.

  “Thank you for asking, Mr. Mendel. The kids may stay, but . . . but I’m not feeling very well. I had a hard day at work today.”

  “Perhaps another time.”

  “Yes . . . Well . . . don’t stay too long,” she told the kids as she backed out of the kitchen. “You have school tomorrow.”

  Mr. Mendel walked Penny to the front door. “I will send them upstairs as soon as we finish eating. I hope you feel better soon, Miss Goodrich.” “Thank you.” She looked at the kindly man and wondered if he was being sneaky and deceptive or if her father could have been wrong about Jewish people all these years. Either her father was mistaken or Eddie was a fool to live here. They couldn’t both be right.

  She trudged upstairs, too weary to think about it. What a day this had been – starting a new job, getting advice from Roy, and meeting Sheila and asking for her help with a new hairstyle and new clothes. Penny sank down at the kitchen table and kicked off her shoes. The sensible shoes that her mother had made her buy.

  Her mother. If the adoption certificate was correct, she wasn’t Penny’s real mother at all. Nor was her father really her father.

  How had this whole mixed-up chain of events ever gotten started? How had Penny changed so quickly from the quiet, dutiful daughter who sold tickets at the bus station and lived with her elderly parents into a girl who was about to cut her hair and learn to drive a bus? A girl who talked to strangers and to Jewish people. A girl who was responsible for two children and who might buy a pair of “floozy” shoes next Saturday. A girl who no longer knew who her real parents were. Was this really the only way to win Eddie Shaffer’s love?

  Tears filled Penny’s eyes when she recalled her mother’s words: “I warned you that this was a foolish idea. Why couldn’t you be happy with the way things were?”

  CHAPTER 15

  ALL OF JACOB’S INSTINCTS had warned him not to let those two children into his apartment, much less his life, but he had ignored the warnings. The girl seemed lonely and forlorn, missing her parents. The boy would no longer talk. And so Jacob had been unable to turn them away, inviting them inside just as Miriam Shoshanna had done. He soon discovered that his need for companionship was every bit as great as theirs.

  How many times could he read Avraham’s letters, trying to imagine his face, his voice, before the memories of his son faded and lost their power? How many meals could he eat alone in Miriam Shoshanna’s orderly, kosher kitchen before loneliness shrank his starved soul into a bitter kernel? “It is not good that man be alone,” Hashem had declared at Creation. Had He forgotten His own words? Is that why He had taken Jacob’s family? And the children’s family?
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br />   And so Jacob had opened his door to them. And now? Now he caught himself glancing at the clock to see if it was nearly time for them to return from school. Now he listened for the sound of music from upstairs as Esther practiced the piano. The sound brought back memories of the children’s mother and of Miriam Shoshanna. “Listen,” Miriam used to say, pointing to the ceiling. “Rachel is playing again. Isn’t it beautiful, Jacob? Doesn’t it take you to Paradise?” That was one of the reasons why he had begun to play the radio all day after the two women had died – to drown out the silence.

  His doorbell rang. It could not be the children; they would knock on the downstairs door, not ring the bell. Might it be Inspector Dalton again? Jacob shuddered at the thought. He would pretend not to be home, let it go unanswered. But when he peered cautiously through his front window and saw that it was Rebbe Grunfeld, he went out to open the door.

  “Good day, Rebbe. What can I do for you?”

  “Good day, Yaacov. My wife baked a honey cake for you, to celebrate the New Year and Yom Kippur.” He held out the plate, wrapped in waxed paper, like an offering. Of course Jacob must offer hospitality in return.

  “Would you like to come in, Rebbe?”

  The traditional honey cake meant best wishes for a sweet year, but Jacob wanted to ask how there could possibly be a sweet year? He wanted to show the rebbe the photos he had cut from the newspaper, which chronicled the warfare and destruction and starvation. But he kept silent as he ushered Rebbe Grunfeld inside.

  “My wife also insisted that I invite you to celebrate Sukkot with us this year. Will you come please, Yaacov?”

  “Kindly tell the rebbetzin thank you, but no thank you.”

  “I will tell her that you are thinking about it. Who knows? Tomorrow you may change your mind. May I sit down? There is something else I must ask you.”

  Jacob set the plate of honey cake on his desk as he gestured to the sofa. He turned his desk chair around and sat facing the rebbe, waiting.

  “I need to ask for your forgiveness.”

  “My forgiveness? For what?”

  “I fear that I have offended you in some way. I fear that we didn’t do enough for you after Miriam Shoshanna died, and that is why you are harboring resentment toward us.”

  “I am not harboring anything. I wanted to be left alone after Miriam died, and so I closed the door on everyone, not just you. I am not angry at you or anyone else.”

  “Are you certain, Yaacov? Not even the driver of the car?”

  Jacob looked at him in confusion. Why was he bringing this up now, a year and a half later? Then he remembered that it was the high holy days and he realized why the rebbe had come. On Yom Kippur, Jacob was supposed to search his soul and to ask for forgiveness – from others and from Hashem. He was supposed to confess all his sins and transgressions. And Jacob knew that he had transgressed the Torah’s commands many times over, breaking the kosher laws, breaking the Sabbath, neglecting prayer, straying from the path.

  “No. I am not angry with the man who drove the car,” he said with a sigh. “It was an accident, a matter of faulty brakes. It was not intentional.”

  “Yes, an accident. So who can you blame except Hashem, am I right, Yaacov?”

  The rebbe knew Jacob was angry with Hashem. Jacob had told him so when he had lost his temper on the night of the fire. Did the rebbe want him to admit it?

  “I have been a rabbi for a long time now,” he continued. “And many times I have seen people direct their anger at me or at our synagogue or people in the congregation when the true target of their anger is Hashem, not those of us who serve Him.”

  “Very well. I admit I am angry. I am angry with the immigration officials for not allowing Avraham’s wife and daughter to come home. And with the lawmakers who made such heartless quota laws. I am angry with the people who hate us just because we are Jewish and who want to keep more of us from coming to America where we will be safe.”

  “That’s a lot of anger to hold inside, Yaacov. And you know that during these holy days we offer selichot, the prayers for forgiveness – ”

  “But none of these people have asked me to forgive them, so how can I? Nor can they ever make restitution for their crimes if something has happened to my son and his family. President Roosevelt and the others in our government – they have not asked for our forgiveness, either. It has been nearly a year since we went to them with evidence of Hitler’s crimes, two million of our people already dead in Poland. Has our government done anything? No. We fasted and prayed – a day of mourning for the Jews of Europe. Remember that, Rebbe?”

  “Yes, of course. Rabbi Stephen Wise and the American Jewish Congress are doing their best to – ”

  “Never mind the Jewish Congress. Has Hashem answered our prayers?” Jacob stood and scooped up a handful of newspaper clippings from his desk, then dropped them on the rebbe’s lap. “Look at these. Families left with nothing but rubble, lives destroyed. There are not even enough graves for all of the dead. And why? Ask Herr Hitler why. Then tell me how anyone can forgive Hitler. How can Hashem stand by and allow it?”

  The rebbe took a moment to study each of the pictures that Jacob had thrown at him, examining them all before replying. “The prophet Habakkuk lived in a time that was much like ours. He, too, asked Hashem, ‘Why do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?’ And you know Hashem’s reply as well as I do: ‘The righteous shall live by his faith.’ We may never understand Hashem’s plans and purposes, or see the fulfillment of all that He is doing. But He asks us to live our lives in humble faith, trusting Him even when we cannot see.”

  Jacob looked away from Rebbe Grunfeld’s sorrowful eyes. “I remember a time when I could read the Scriptures and find comfort in them, too. But not now, Rebbe. Not anymore.” The weight of his unanswered prayers was too heavy, his anguish too deep for consolation.

  He heard the outside apartment door open and close, then footsteps on the stairs to the second floor. The children were home from school. He hoped that they wouldn’t knock on his door today. He hoped that Esther wouldn’t play the piano. He could not bear it if she did.

  “I read the papers, Yaacov,” the rebbe said. “I, too, have my doubts. But two days from now, on the most solemn day of the year, I will ask Hashem to forgive me for those doubts and to renew my trust. We know that Hashem is good and just and holy. All of these terrible things – ” he held the clippings aloft – “these must somehow fulfill His purposes. If only we had eyes to see it.”

  “But I cannot see it, Rebbe Grunfeld. I cannot see it at all. And my eyes have grown weary from looking.”

  CHAPTER 16

  October 1943

  Dear Mama and Abba,

  It has been so long since I’ve received a letter from you, and I know that the silence must be just as hard for you to bear in America as it is for me here in Hungary. Every time I look at my little daughter and I try to imagine being separated from her, not knowing if she is well or if she is suffering, I understand how you must feel. And so after much prayer, I have decided that I must write this letter to you and trust that Hashem will allow you to receive it in America someday.

  I have made friends with the minister of the Christian church here in our village. He is a very kind man, and I plan to give him this letter and ask him to mail it to you after the war ends. The rumors that we hear about this war and what the Nazis are doing to our people are terrifying. And if anything should happen to us – Hashem forbid – you will at least know something of our story.

  When Germany invaded Poland five years ago, many Jewish refugees fled here to Hungary and to our village to escape from the Nazis. We crowded as many as we could into the Yeshiva and into our homes. These survivors told us that the Nazis are trying to kill all of the Jewish people – not thousands of us, but millions. Hitler is a modern-day version of Haman, Queen Esther’s enemy from the Scriptures. He wants every last one of us dead.
I’m not sure if the world knows this truth yet, but if they do, it seems as though no one is doing anything about it.

  In July of 1941, the Germans began to put pressure on the Hungarian government to arrest all of their enemies, which included the Jews. To appease their ally, Hungary rounded up all the Polish Jews who had sought refuge here and deported them. In a village as small as ours, there was no place to hide and not enough time to escape. They were taken back to Poland, and we fear the worst for them.

  I have asked the rabbi why our people are experiencing this great suffering. Was it for some great sin we have committed? What have we done to bring this upon ourselves? He believes that it is not because of sin that we are persecuted but because of the Torah. The Hamans of this world want to wipe out all memory of our people and of our covenant with Hashem, as well as all memory of His Law so that evil can flourish unfettered. In the time of Queen Esther, Haman sought to destroy our people because we would bow only to Hashem, not to him. In Daniel’s time, the three faithful Jews were thrown into the fiery furnace because they would not bow to a golden statue. But like Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt, we must trust and believe that what our enemies intend for evil, Hashem will turn into good. As the prophet Habakkuk has written: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in Hashem my Savior.”

  After our Polish friends were taken away, we were left to live in peace for a time. But two weeks ago, suddenly and unexpectedly, the soldiers burst into our shul on Shabbat and took all of the able-bodied men away to work in forced labor gangs. The only reason I am able to write this is because I was at home in bed when they came, struck ill with a terrible fever and pneumonia. In fact, I nearly died. I didn’t understand at the time why Hashem had allowed me to suffer such a serious illness, but now I see that it was His way of sparing me when all the other men, including Sarah Rivkah’s father and brothers, were taken away.