by Rona Altrows
They force me to attend Mass. Why? For how can I ever in my life reach the point that I take Holy Communion, as those who surround me do? Do they truly believe they eat Christ’s body and drink his blood? It defies reason. “That is not the point,” Sister Marie-Joseph has told me. “The Eucharist is above human reason.”
I know behind my back they call me fickle and flighty. I am not. It is one thing to enjoy eating pork. It is another to convert.
Sister says if only I would open my heart to Jesus, I could become a nun. It was in the convent that she received learning. But I wish to receive education without taking the veil. The Ursulines teach some of the girls in this colony to read and write. Perhaps I could join a class. What has the alphabet to do with the Catholic faith?
Sister also says if I become a religious, I will not need to worry about being carnally possessed. Although I love her, I do not share Sister’s anxieties about men.
I have been here for two months. Intendant Hocquart himself has come to see me weekly, to try to talk me into converting. He does not speak of religion, only practicality. He is not an unpleasant gentleman. I asked him what an intendant does and he said it is similar to being the manager of a company, except it is a whole colony he must manage. He is a large, ox-like man who moves his body as little as possible and talks slowly. I can see he would prefer to have a smoothly-running colony with no problems. “Be reasonable, Mademoiselle,” he said in one of our earlier talks. “We are not asking you to stand at the right hand of the Pope or found a religious order. It is a simple thing, conversion.” Just today, he told me it has been over fifty years since the law was made expelling Jews from French colonies in the New World. “That law was decreed by le Roi-Soleil, the Sun King himself,” he said. “It is a law that admits of no exceptions.”
“No?” I said. “Then explain Martinique, in the Caribbean. A French holding.” After all, I have spent the last few years at sea and every sailor knows there are Jews living in peace and prosperity on that island. Without converting. “I cannot explain Martinique,” the intendant said.
What do you think I should do, Madame?
As you can see I do not wish to convert, nor can the nuns and the parish priest and the bureaucrats here convince me, much as they may try. Even Sister, whom I love, has not been able to change my mind. It is true I still eat pork. And I have broken other rabbinic laws I will not mention. Still, I am Jewish. What Catholics have never violated rules of their own faith? Yet when they transgress, they do not convert to Judaism; they go to Confession.
It has occurred to me to pretend to embrace Catholicism, but secretly go on being Jewish. When I was a child my father told me about 1492. It is a famous year among my people—the year of the Alhambra Decree, when Jews were expelled from Spain. Some kept their religion and escaped, like my own ancestors, who moved to France. Others stayed in Spain and converted. But the ones my father called the anusim—the forced, in Hebrew—stayed behind and pretended to be Catholic but secretly practiced Judaism. Perhaps I am related to some anusim. I have been able to dress as a boy, change my name, adapt as needed wherever I have found myself. And yet I cannot contemplate being a Jew only in secret. That does not match my need for freedom.
If you have words of advice for me, please may I hear them, for I do wish to make my life here in Québec, but as a Jew, and I am much vexed.
Please accept, Madame, my best regards,
Esther Brandeau
TO JESUS FROM ARISTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES
June 17, 1940
Bordeaux, France
Beloved Saviour,
I pray you will make your mind known to me soon. For three days I have kneeled by my bedside, in deep prayer, in turmoil, and in hope that you or the Heavenly Father will visit me, talk to me, give me a sign, so when I emerge from retreat the answer will be obvious. I cannot stay away from my duties indefinitely but neither can I emerge until I am clear in my own mind.
In the quest for clarity, today I add this letter to my prayers, O Heart of Love. Forgive me, as I am bound to repeat the anxieties I have filled your divine ear with over these last days and weeks.
I call them the shipwrecked. They have congregated by the thousands, many of them Jews. They gather all over the city and in front of my consulate. They come from farther north in France, from Poland, from Germany. Some say they have seen their family members abducted or murdered and are sure to be apprehended themselves, perhaps killed, if they are forced back. I believe their stories. Who would fabricate such tales? They tell me it is imperative, for their safety, that they escape the continent.
I desire with all my heart to help them. Dear Lord, I know Portugal is officially neutral in this war. Despite my long service in the diplomatic corps, I find it hard to grasp what we mean when we say we are neutral. We allow our longtime allies the British to set up bases in the Azores—in Lajes for the Royal Air Force, in Faial for the Royal Navy—but at the same time we sell our wolfram to Hitler’s Reich. The Germans convert the wolfram to tungsten for use in the manufacture of arms. It is well-known that our prime minister, Salazar, insists on payment in gold. Is he aware of where this gold comes from? Does he ask? Meanwhile, Nazi spies buzz around Lisbon, as common as houseflies. My government knows this well and tolerates their presence. Perhaps when we say we are neutral, we mean we will do business with anyone, as long as it is to our advantage.
As Consulate General for Portugal stationed in Bordeaux, I am expected to comply with Circular 14. It is specific in its terms. I must ask for permission from Lisbon before I grant exit visas, and clearly Jews are not favoured. I ask for permission, I wait for it, permission does not come. I ask again, I wait, I am met with silence. I ask a third time, I am told to be patient. This stalling continues, no movement occurs and I am told neither yes nor no. Is this what it means to be neutral?
Meanwhile the shipwrecked languish.
What if I grant them visas without waiting? Then they can pass through the French-Spanish border, and follow a route through Spain to Portugal, as others were able to do before them, before Circular 14. From Lisbon they can leave Europe and put the insane conflict behind them. Spain is also nominally neutral—and in Portugal, although there is not much appetite to accept Jews who pass through, at least we do not kill them.
I can help these people.
But, my sweet Saviour, at what cost? If I give them visas I must act alone and in defiance of the Portuguese government, my employer. Salazar does not like to be disregarded or obstructed and especially he will not countenance disobedience. With dictatorial fury, he will rage and then he will act.
I may lose everything.
How are my Angelina and our twelve children to survive, if I am stripped of my position, as is sure to happen? Will I even be allowed to practice law again in my home country or will that be taken from me too? My family, so respected in Portugal for many generations—what will become of their good name? What about the future of my children? Not just their survival but their education, their prospects for future employment, the way they are viewed by society?
How do I best serve God, you my beloved Saviour, and my fellow human beings in this circumstance?
Is it not my duty to protect my family?
Dear Lord, the shipwrecked gather in hordes outside my door. They are many; they are weary and hungry. And they are frightened, with reason.
Some days ago I spoke with Rabbi Kruger, who serves as a spiritual leader for many refugees. A brilliant and kind man, with whom I have formed a friendship. I thought perhaps if I could not help all, I could at least help a few, and offered to grant visas to his family. “All the people here—they are all my family,” he said. If I turn the others down, he will not accept my help for himself, his wife and their children.
Are they all my family as well?
As much as my own wife and children?
I will know when it i
s time to arise from prayer. In your wisdom, you will tell me. I must do this thing or not do it. There is no neutral.
Your devoted and loving servant,
Aristides de Sousa Mendes
TO LEO FROM AJ
July 31, 2012
Dear Leo,
I’m so happy you are getting that international summer school experience at Ajou University and it’s great that you’ve learned you love bulgogi and bibimbap—in fact, all Korean food. Still, I sure do miss you. And here is my comfort: I know that when you return, you will have stories galore for me.
For now, though, correspondence will have to do, and you have certainly been holding your end up with your emails. I know you would prefer that I email you back, or text you, or send messages over one social medium or another or another, and, as you are aware, I try those means of communication from time to time. But I do appreciate your indulging me as I turn, the majority of the time, to my preferred mode, the handwritten letter. I think better with pen in hand than with fingers on keyboard. We’ve discussed the matter enough times and I know you understand.
Today I feel the weight of particular information. How I hope it is false. The load is heavy and I am not sure how to manage it.
You see, for whatever reason, I have been thinking about mayors lately—the good, the bad, and the surreal—so as I contemplated the stellar performance of our own mayor during the floods in Calgary last summer, it struck me that I would like to read more about a mayor for whom I have always had enormous respect and affection: Charlotte Whitton of Ottawa. You may not even have heard of her; she was well before your time, a Canadian public figure in the 1950s and ’60s and earlier. Even for me, her active years occurred when I was only a child. But I learned about her as I got older and never lost my admiration for Ms Whitton. I liked her quick wit, her independence of mind, her role-modelling for other women who sought to participate in male-dominated activities such as politics and even hockey. (She was a star player at Queen’s University.) It was no small feat, I am sure, to become the first female mayor of a major Canadian city—twice. Quite a bit of what we now call affordable housing went up in Ottawa under Whitton’s watch and she made significant advances in the advancement of the profession of social work. All this I have known for a long time.
But it has been many years since I last considered the life and work of Charlotte Whitton. Yesterday, I decided it I wanted to brush up on my knowledge and discover whether someone had, perhaps, written a new book about this remarkable woman. If so, I was sure it would rightly be full of praise for her achievements. The weather was poor and I did not want to venture out to the public library. As a result, I did a search on the Internet (or the Intertube, as you call it when you tease me about my virtual cluelessness regarding technology). It is, in a way, a cruel medium. One sometimes discovers things too fast.
Now, Leo, you know I am neither naïve nor unthinking; I am not inclined to believe something is necessarily true merely because it has been written down. But after my Intertube search, I see documentation to the effect that Charlotte Whitton was antisemitic. It sounds as if she was not too fond of Ukrainians either. I am stunned. I knew she was in some ways a social conservative, but—a bigot? Or was she simply a person of her time?
How far her prejudices translated into behaviour I do not know. There is a difference of opinion on that. She sat on a committee in the late 1930s and, by some accounts, she strongly campaigned against a proposal to let orphans from Europe immigrate to Canada. Most of those children were Jews. So the children were returned to Europe and at least some wound up dead at the hands of the Nazis.
Did she know that would happen? I think it highly unlikely.
But what reasons did she give for opposing their entry? Well, it seems she was worried about the economy and had a go-slow attitude to immigration in general. I suppose that fits with her social conservatism. But still… to speak against the admission of orphans? A good part of her social work career was spent dealing with child welfare policies too. I can’t make sense of her wanting to keep those children out of the country. The only explanation seems unthinkable: racism.
At the same time, I wonder if I am being fair to Charlotte Whitton. She is not here to speak for herself.
I am searching inside myself for a way to reconcile what I knew before with what I read yesterday. But I can’t. As a result, I am heartbroken.
What do you think, Leo? You millenials understand, perhaps better than any previous generation, the importance of living with an open mind and heart. Maybe you can help me come to terms with what I have learned and how I now feel about a person who used to be one of my heroes.
Your friend,
Ariadne
TO GOLDA MEIR, PRIME MINISTER OF ISRAEL FROM AJ
Calgary, Alberta
Canada
May 3, 1972
Dear Prime Minister Meir,
Before I go further, I would like to wish you many happy returns on the occasion of your birthday. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica in the library here at Agnes Macphail High, you were born in Kiev exactly 74 years ago today.
Wholly occupied and preoccupied as you must be with affairs of state, I am sure you have little time to dedicate to correspondence that is not from a high-level source. Here I am, a simple fifteen-year-old Canadian girl. Yet, I prevail upon you to read this letter in its entirety and, if you would do me the honour, answer it personally, rather than passing it on to an assistant. (If the first reader is indeed an aide to the Prime Minister, please pass this letter on to your boss, and stop reading now.)
You see, Prime Minister, although I do not have, at this point, any particular political affiliation, I do have a strong interest in history, including history-in-the-making, and in people who are high achievers. I have followed your career from afar for the past five years, through international stories in our local newspapers, radio and television news, and Time Magazine, to which my parents subscribe. And I am currently faced with a puzzle that, of all the world’s humans, you are the best equipped to help me solve.
Inspired in part by your own known excellence in debate, I approached my school principal, Miss Bochner, and asked if I might organize a debating club. She said that would be fine, as long as I could find a staff advisor and leave the classroom assigned to club activities in pristine condition after every use. I would also be responsible for making sure all chairs were placed upside down on their corresponding desks before my departure. Those conditions struck me as reasonable. I approached Mr. Peters, my Latin teacher, who occasionally reminisces in class about his days as a university debater. He enthusiastically consented to act as staff advisor.
My idea must have struck a chord because, with no more advertising than a mention in the morning announcements, we found ourselves with 27 members. In a democratically held election, they chose me as president. On the advice of Mr. Peters we set up an executive committee. And that is what I am so anxious for your advice about.
Our vice-president, whom I will call X, does not think I should be in charge because I do not, in his opinion, have enough education to do a sufficiently sophisticated job. Therefore, he feels it would be appropriate for me to voluntarily hand over the reins to him. True, he is in Grade 12 and I am in Grade 10. However (and I say this with as much objectivity as I can muster), he has an inflated sense of his own virtues and is driven solely by the prospect of being top dog. Meanwhile, our treasurer, whom I will call Y, does not want me in office because, he says in the vaguest of terms, I am “unqualified.” In reality, it kills him to see me as president because I am a girl. It would be different if the club were girls-only, he says. Why do I not go off and organize an all-female club, he suggests; I am in over my head, he says. Our secretary, Z, is another story altogether. Monday, he declares his loyalty to me; Tuesday, he mumbles support for X’s view that I am too ignorant to lead; Wednesday, he wonders out l
oud whether a female should be at the head of a mixed male-female group. Where his mind and heart will take him on Thursday is anybody’s guess.
Of course, X and Y and, in his own inept way, the chameleon Z, chat all the time among the general membership, so what do we wind up with? Factions.
Now, as I have said, I have followed your comings and goings in Israeli politics as well as I can from so far away. And I know that four years ago you reached out to the Rafi, Ahdut and Mapam parties, which had all broken away from your own party, Mapai. You dealt with such big egos—like Moshe Dayan, the sabre-rattling swaggerer of Rafi, concerned mainly with power and control. How did you convince him to be on the same team as, say, Yigal Allon, promoter of a just division of land and a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians? And then there was Shem-Tov from Mapam, a party some people thought was too cozy with the Soviets. What a ragtag bunch they were, all at odds with one another. Hard to accomplish anything in such an environment, I am sure. And yet you managed to bring those people together, back into the Mapai fold, to form Israel’s Labour Party. How on earth did you do that?
You see where I am going with this, Prime Minister. How do I bring my executive together? How do I reinstate esprit de corps in my club, now suffering grievously from disunity and unhealthy, ever-fluctuating sub-alliances? How do I act to make us strong, so we can put our energy into the work of becoming better debaters, not petty squabblers?
Please can you share with me how you got through to those stubborn people you had to deal with four years ago. Did you appeal to their higher natures? Cajole them? Reason with them? Make them feel guilty?
What I am looking for here is an effective approach. My domain is much smaller than yours (although Israel is not exactly big, as countries go). Still, like you, I wear the mantle of leadership and must take measures to restore my club to robust group health.