by Maisie Mosco
“I shan’t have time to eat it. I’ve been called away for a day or two and I must leave immediately.”
“Where’re you going to? Has one of your patients been taken ill in another town?”
“A doctor’s daughter should know better than to ask questions like that.” Nathan dragged his troubled gaze away from the vase of full-blown roses he had been absently admiring. Why did he feel like a conspirator? Because the young man had asked him not to tell the rest of the family about the phone call. He glanced at his watch, edgily. “Is your mother still asleep, Leona?”
“How would I know? I don’t share a bedroom with her, either.”
Nathan avoided his daughter’s eye. This wasn’t the first time she had made that kind of pointed remark. But he had told her the facts of life himself and ought not to be surprised that she’d applied them to her parents modus vivendi. And no doubt supplied her own reasons. One day, he would explain everything to her, but it must wait until she was mature enough to understand.
“You’ve changed your hairstyle,” he remarked, noticing that she looked different. Her fiery locks had been shorn to ear lobe length and the front combed into a bang. The style enhanced her piquant features, which had looked a bit pinched with her hair dragged back from her face, as she’d worn it before. “It looks nice,” he pronounced.
“I got up early and cut it before Mummy was around to stop me,” she confided. “I was fed up with having a ponytail for that beast Henry to pull.” She popped into the cloakroom to admire her reflection in the mirror. “I look more grown-up, now, don’t I, Daddy?”
She would be grown-up all too soon, Nathan reflected, surveying her ripening body. But God forbid she should ever have the problem facing her cousin Marianne. “Do me a favour, love,” he requested. “Ring up Uncle Lou at lunchtime, when he gets home from shul. Just say I’ve gone out of town and will he get a locum to help out until I get back. Tell him I’ll explain when I see him.”
“And what shall I tell Mummy?” Leona asked as he went upstairs to pack a bag.
Nathan paused with his hand gripping the banister. To her I owe no explanations, he wanted to answer. “Tell her the same,” he said, thinking how farcical it was to maintain the pretence of marital felicity, when his daughter, for whom it was being maintained, knew perfectly well that it was one.
The deadpan expression with which Leona received his reply set him on edge still more and he sat tapping his fingers restlessly in the taxi that took him to the railway station.
En route, they passed some men and boys from the ultraorthodox community who were walking to synagogue for the Sabbath morning service.
“You’d think they’d just stepped off the herring-boat!” the taxi driver remarked. “Not that they were born here, like you and me.” He grinned at Nathan through his mirror. “I heard you’d joined the Reform Shul, Doctor. Now that far I wouldn’t go. But those people we just passed, they’re the opposite extreme.”
“I agree,” Nathan answered. “But maybe there’s something to be said for it.”
“What? Wearing long floppy coats instead of jackets? And sidelocks dangling next to their ears like my Zaidie did in Russia? It’s no wonder they get laughed at.”
“They don’t get laughed at by me,” Nathan said crisply. “Everyone’s entitled to his own way of respecting God.” And good luck to them if that’s how they want to be, he added mentally. One had to admire a faith strong enough to ward off all outside influences. Only to ply their trades did the members of that community venture outside the spiritual wall they had erected around their lives. They even eschewed the society of Jews less devout than themselves. God was their sole influence, and, in some ways, Nathan envied them their uncomplicated existence. Who could fall by the way if they never stepped on to a temptation-strewn path? Or be ruffled by the wind of change when they kept their doors and windows firmly closed against it? Such insularity would not suit Nathan; in his view you’d have to be born without curiosity in order to be content with it. But, he thought dryly, wasn’t it curiosity that killed the cat?
No daughter of theirs would ever find herself in Marianne’s predicament, he reflected on the train. Or her uncle with the problem she now presented to him. Her young man had seemed to take it for granted that Nathan would come; as if they’d been together long enough for him to know a lot about her family background. His manner on the phone had been brief and to the point. Almost abrupt. What kind of chap was he, to have got Marianne into this situation?
The train halted at Crewe and Nathan gazed unseeingly at the passengers rushing on to the platform to buy tea and buns from the station buffet before the journey was resumed. His niece had always been headstrong. But never foolish. Her affaire would not have been entered into lightly. She would have weighed up the pros and cons. As he had done himself, before he gave Mary up. And Arnold had when he decided to marry Lyn. Like every Jew or Jewess must surely do before taking one painful step or the other. Because in the end you only had two alternatives. But Marianne had tried to compromise, to find fulfilment in the shady no-man’s-land between. He could have told her that compromise wasn’t possible. But she had hoped it would be and was now faced with a worse dilemma.
It should be David, not himself, making this journey, he thought wryly. The one everyone in the family took their troubles to. Who imposed his advice even when they didn’t, in the heavy-handed manner that told people not to bother arguing with him because he was never wrong. But the youngsters of today weren’t prepared to put up with that kind of treatment. Was that why Nathan had been summoned to London instead of his brother? There was no shortage of medical practitioners in the capital, but Marianne needed support, too. As Arnold had when he brought Lyn to Scotland. Even David’s own son had chosen Nathan as his confidante. Because David aroused trepidation, as well as commanding respect, Nathan reflected, rolling up his British Medical Journal as the train approached Euston. He had been too busy ruminating to read it.
On the way to Kensington, he thought of Esther and Ben. How could their attitude to intermarriage possibly be reconciled with their daughter’s situation? What would Ben have done if he had received the young man’s call? Collapsed, probably. Esther too. Another marriage-out among their children would be like catastrophe following in the wake of calamity, to a couple who allowed emotion to override reason as they did.
Briefly, Nathan wished he had his elder brother’s cut-and-dried standards, whereby everything was subservient to the family. Avoiding disgrace at all costs would be David’s way of dealing with this. He would have Marianne secreted in the back of beyond during her pregnancy and the child passed to an adoption society the minute it was born. There was no doubt whatsoever in Nathan’s mind about this. But David wasn’t dealing with it, he was. And he was glad the younger generation were by-passing David and turning to him; that one by one they were deciding the archaic world David’s kind inhabited was not for them.
“I’m pleased you could come, Dr. Sandberg,” Ralph said when he opened the door and they shook hands.
“Belonging to a big family like ours has its advantages,” Nathan smiled. “There’s always someone you can call on when you need help.”
“But it has to be the right one, doesn’t it? And I gather from Marianne belonging is the operative word.”
They surveyed each other silently. Like boxers in opposite corners of the ring, Nathan thought. To him I’m from the enemy camp. I represent the family.
“You’ll have to excuse me for giving you the once over,” Ralph said, leading the way upstairs. “But apart from Marianne’s Uncle Joe, you’re the first of her relations I’ve met.”
“I understand,” Nathan replied, recalling Mary’s hostility the night she walked into the side ward at the Infirmary and found the whole clan gathered there. To a Gentile in love with a Jew, what could the family seem but a threat? “I was looking you over, too,” he said dryly. “It’s only natural.”
“Under the circumstan
ces,” Ralph added as they reached the top landing.
Under the circumstances was right! And how ironic it was that Nathan, the one-time rebel, now represented the other side.
But one-time rebels retained their sympathies, he thought when he saw his niece. And what her plight had reduced her to. The poor kid looked like a wraith.
Marianne got out of bed and ran to his arms. “It makes me feel better just to see you, Uncle Nat,” she said tremulously. “You don’t know how grateful I am to you for coming.”
“Gratitude has no need to enter into it.” Nathan patted her shoulder comfortingly. How painfully thin she was, he could feel her ribs jutting out as she rested against him. Like a small boat that’s found a haven in a storm, he reflected grimly. When you’d tossed on that same sea yourself, you knew how it felt! The deceit alone was damaging, without the extra burden which had accrued to Marianne because of it. Had God really intended the Laws of Judaism to cause such anguish? Why had He decreed that those whose only sin was love must be alienated from the tribe for ever? What had been gained from this perpetuation of the Jews’ difference from others? A difference which had made them the rest of mankind’s scapegoat throughout their long history. Rivers of blood had run because of it. God was supposed to be merciful, but there were times when He seemed otherwise to Nathan and this was one of them.
Ralph stood beside the hearth watching the long embrace between uncle and niece. “Everything’s going to be all right, Marianne,” he declared as if Nathan’s presence had given him confidence. “I rang up the right person, didn’t I?” he added with a shaky laugh.
Nathan met his gaze and noted its directness. He was a nice young man. “Yes, Ralph,” he answered. “You did. And between us we’ll sort things out. But first things first. We’ll talk when I’ve examined Marianne.”
After he had done so, he was able to reassure her anxious lover. “Everything’s fine, but she must have a few days’ rest after all that emotional upheaval. She can start by having a sleep while you and I go out for a pint and a chat.”
Marianne watched him repack his medical bag. “I’ve shamed the family, haven’t I?” she said quietly.
Nathan snapped the bag shut. “In my view, it’s the family that’s shamed you. And if, when it comes to it, they’re not prepared to accept the part they’ve played in bringing this about, I’ll be the one to tell them.”
He had not been into a pub since his army days, he reflected when he and Ralph were seated opposite each other in the lounge bar of the Bell and Anchor on Hammersmith Road.
“How do you like our local?” Ralph inquired.
Nathan glanced around the well-kept establishment. “It’s very pleasant.”
“We think so, too.”
Nathan could not prevent himself from raising his eyebrows. “Marianne’s taken to drinking?”
Ralph laughed. “Good God, no! She does me a favour and sits here sipping lemonade, occasionally. Jews don’t go in for pubbing, do they?”
“I’ve never known any for whom a bar was their second home,” Nathan smiled.
Ralph quaffed some of his light ale and set down the glass in a pool of froth. “I keep telling my beloved an evening at your local is part of the British way of life, but she doesn’t want to know,” he grinned.
“I’d be surprised if she did. It’s far and away from the Jewish way of life and she’s unlikely to forget her upbringing.”
Ralph’s momentary levity deserted him. “If it weren’t for her upbringing, we wouldn’t be sitting here. What’re the chances of acceptance by the family? – that’s how I think of them, by the way. Capital T, capital F –”
“That doesn’t surprise me, either. And there’s no chance of your receiving their blessing, if that’s what you were about to ask. So what we need, Ralph, is a plan of action. Marianne must face the music sooner or later. And when she does, I think if you were already married she’d be in a stronger position. It would cut out all the arguing and persuasion she’d be subjected to if she told them in advance.”
“Which suits me,” Ralph said vehemently. “Because I don’t want her to have to go through what she’s already endured in her imagination.” He told Nathan about Marianne’s harrowing nightmare. “Facing the music will probably bring on another one,” he added.
“But you, as her husband, will be with her. When she’s shown the door.”
Ralph gazed pensively at two elderly ladies who were seated in a corner sipping port and lemon. “That’s the only part of the whole shebang I’m not sure Marianne could live with.” He took his pipe from his jacket pocket and stuffed some tobacco into the ash-stained bowl, his face shadowed with distress on Marianne’s behalf. “Being cast out of the clan.”
Nathan thought of his nephew Arnold, content with his wife and child, but still not a happy man. “I’m not a magician, Ralph,” he said gently. “All I can do is advise you how to handle the present situation. Marianne knew what she was risking when she let things go this far. And she knows as well as I do that when it comes to Jewish attitudes, there are some things that will never change.”
“Would it help if I became Jewish?” Ralph said after a silence.
Nathan hesitated before replying. Conversion was not a remedy for which he would instinctively reach, though it wasn’t uncommon for Jewish families to do so when all else failed. Like his mother, he felt the outsider’s religion must be respected, too. “How would your folks feel about it?” he asked Ralph and was surprised to learn he had none.
“I was an only child and so were both my parents,” Ralph explained. “They died in a car crash when I was thirteen.” His lips tightened. “Driving back to Melbourne from a weekend jaunt they’d been on. I was always being left with handy friends and neighbours on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s something that won’t happen to my kid.” He drank some beer and lit his pipe. “My only other relative – the poor old dear’s passed on now – was a maiden aunt of my mother’s. She sent me a boat ticket and gave me a home here.”
Nathan surveyed his faraway expression. “Ever fancied going back?”
“No. Australia’s a beaut place, but I’ve no desire to return there.” Ralph fanned away some smoke and fiddled with a beer mat. “What draws a person back – or keeps them away – is what they associate with it. The things they remember. There’s too much about my childhood I prefer not to remember.”
Nathan, the psychoanalyst, pricked up his ears. “Locking memories away in your subconscious isn’t healthy, Ralph.”
Ralph managed to smile. “All right, Doctor. I’ll take ’em out and dust ’em off, if you think I should! But it’s just one big memory, really. Made up of a lot of little things. Mum and Dad were too bloody wrapped up in each other to have time for me. I don’t mean they were cruel; except in an unintentional way. I was fed, clothed and kissed goodnight. But I always had the feeling I was a nuisance. That they couldn’t wait to be on their own together and wished I wasn’t there. Have you ever met a couple like that?”
“I can’t say I have.” But who knows what goes on behind other people’s closed doors? Nathan reflected, thinking of Leona, whose parents cared nothing for each other. Cruelty, the emotional kind, could be inflicted on a child unwittingly – he glanced at Ralph, compassionately – and scar the adult that child would one day become.
“My great-aunt Zena left me her house in Watford,” Ralph conveyed. “And her seven cats,” he smiled. “I had a helluva time finding homes for them when I sold the property. The cash is invested, by the way. It’ll buy Marianne and me a nice flat.”
Well, she won’t be getting a dowry from her father, Nathan thought. That was for sure. Though Ben would have bought and furnished a home for her if she had married in the faith.
“But we were talking about me becoming a Jew,” Ralph said, as though picking up what Nathan had been thinking. “How did we digress this far?”
“You’d do it for Marianne?”
“I’d do anything for Marianne
.”
Nathan remained silent for a moment, then spoke his mind. “If you want my honest opinion, that isn’t a reason to abandon your own faith.”
“Officially, I haven’t got one. I wasn’t christened.”
“You know what our equivalent to christening is? For a male?”
“Doesn’t everyone? There was a Jewish boy at art school with me and when we all lined up for a pee the rest of us couldn’t help noticing the difference between his and ours.”
Nathan smiled. “I recall being the subject of that kind of interest in my grammar school days. ‘Look, it isn’t just their noses,’ someone said once.”
Ralph eyed his profile. “You haven’t got a Jewish nose.”
“But the lad who said it seemed pleased to find something different about me,” Nathan laughed. His tone grew serious. “If you were to convert, you’d have to be circumcised.”
“What!”
“With a grown man, it’s done under anaesthetic,” Nathan assured him. “Like any other operation. Usually, by a Jewish surgeon.”
Ralph shrugged philosophically. “Fine. When we get back, I’ll tell Marianne I’m going to be a Jew. It’ll cheer her up.”
Nathan watched him take their empty glasses to the bar to be refilled. What a way to make such a momentous decision, he thought. As airily as if he’d decided to buy Marianne a bunch of flowers to raise her spirits. The mechanics of conversion to Judaism took time but were not difficult. Just a set of requirements to be fulfilled to rabbinical satisfaction and Nathan had no doubt that Ralph would be a successful candidate. But coping with his new status in a world where hostility to Jews was a fact of life was something else.
“You’ve got a disapproving look on your face,” Ralph said when he returned to the table.
“Because you’re thinking of converting for expediency’s sake.”
“For Marianne’s sake,” Ralph corrected him.
“That’s the same thing.’ Nathan drank some of his ale and took out a pristine white handkerchief to wipe the foamy moustache from his upper lip. “I wouldn’t call myself a religious man, but there’s more to Judaism than its formalities.”