The Elected Member

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The Elected Member Page 21

by Bernice Rubens


  But there was something more than the look of age that disturbed him. There was something radically wrong with her hair. Having accepted that she had to age, even though he wasn’t there to sanction or to watch it, he would have expected her hair to have grown less fair, and perhaps to have thinned a little. But her hair was thick, very thick, and a dark brown, with no vestige of her early curls. In fact, it didn’t look like hair at all. It looked coarse and hard, as if it had been cut out of a door-mat. And then the full meaning of what she had done, brought a lump to his throat and gave a bitter footnote to the twenty years that he had lost her. She had shaved her head for her marriage, and she was wearing the ritual wig, and Rabbi Zweck realised, that the marriage, which he had never allowed himself to accept, had been for her as meaningful as if she had married one of her own kind.

  She saw his shock, but she had expected it, and so was better prepared. She was prepared too for what change she might see in him. He looked much older, but her own vanity did not allow her to be surprised. In her terms, fathers and mothers were always old people. But his obvious shock at her appearance angered her. What did he expect after all? Had he expected her to stunt her growth, to freeze-frame until he was ready to accept her again? ‘I’m older,’ she said from the door, ‘and I’m happy.’

  Her protest was too early and there was an edge of malice in her voice. But Rabbi Zweck took it as part of his punishment. ‘So happy I am to see you,’ he said simply. ‘Come, let me look at you.’

  She went towards him and they looked at each other for a long while. He could not not accustom himself to the mat on her head, and he tried to avoid looking at it. Why, even Sarah, God rest her soul, and she was pious enough, why, even she hadn’t gone that far when they were married. He thought perhaps that he should mention it, so that it would be open between them and less embarrassing.

  ‘A scheitel. I see you’re wearing,’ he ventured.

  ‘I’m married, Poppa,’ she said.

  home. He heard her crying. She knelt by his side, and he took her into his frail arms, forcing himself to stroke her false protesting hair. ‘You still have me,’ he said, ‘your old Poppa. Together we are,’ he said, 'so now we stay together,’ and he began to sob with her until she was no longer a stranger.

  Now it was easier, and Bella and Auntie Sadie joined them. Esther did not speak about her life with John, and she was not offended that they could not refer to it. It was Rabbi Zweck who launched each topic of conversation. Events that had taken place since Esther’s departure, either in her life or in theirs, were not spoken of, and so their conversation centred around their common memories. When they had recalled her old schooldays, the cheder, Rabbi Zweck’s years as a minister, and remembered the odd highlights of those years, it seemed that nothing more was needed to re-instate her into the family. Then their conversation flagged with the avoidance of the subject of Norman. None of them was embarrassed by the silences. Families do not sit down to make conversation. They gather around for conference, the discussion of something quite specific, and when the silence between them became noticeable, Esther said, ‘Tell me about Norman.’

  Rabbi Zweck and Bella looked at each other. Both needed to tell the tale, but both knew that the telling was more painful than the keeping, and each wanted to save the other from that pain. So they both started together, and as it unwound itself, they shared it between them. It came out as less the story of Norman’s condition, than of their own heart-ache, and this too, chained Esther to her return. She felt guilty that she had had no part of it. She was sorry for Norman, but it was their suffering that moved her, and she pictured them both, sitting around the same table, with her mother and Norman, after she had left the home. She had often seen them sitting there, and in her mind, she had known their agony. But it was only now that her own heart ached for what she had done.

  She cursed Norman for what he had encouraged her to do, while all the family thought that he was innocent. She had often imagined how he had read out the letter to them, the letter that he himself had dictated. She imagined his feigned astonishment, his feigned accusation, his feigned misery. She wondered how he had come to terms with David’s death, and whether he had yet admitted to himself that he was partly responsible. She thought of John and already missed him. She didn’t love him any more. In fact, the loving had ceased many years ago. But the marriage had lasted for the simple reason that it had had to last. To have broken it would have made David’s death even more meaningless. But she was entirely dependent on him as if her guilt were too heavy to be borne alone. Together over the years, they had shared the sad damage of what they had done, and alone, she was burdened and unsure. But if her father would forgive her, she would be ready to leave John, as she had been ready for many years, at the slightest hint of a reconciliation with her parents. And John, though he loved her deeply, would let her go for her own peace. But her mother had died without breathing her name, and she would have to settle for half their forgiveness. Her mother had never known the true story. Neither had her father. It was not as they thought. It wasn’t a straight-forward elopement, a marrying-out. In fact, when she’d left home, she’d not even been married. No, it was not as blunt as that, nor had it happened so quickly. It had started years before they had ever known.

  She was in her last year at school, and she often went to the library to browse away among the books and sometimes to study. She knew John as a family friend. He had procured a special concession to borrow books from the reference library for her father, so he came often to the flat, armed with her father’s requests. Though he was only a little older than Norman, those two had little to say to each other. It was her father that John came to see, because he loved listening to him, and over the years he had acquired a more than superficial knowledge of Jewish lore.

  One day, Esther went to the library after school, and because it was raining, she stayed to read. His desk was in the middle of the floor, and he presided at it, flanked with files and telephones. She sat on the bench directly in front of his desk, not with any design, but because, unlike the others, it was empty. She read with little interest in the book, waiting for the rain to stop. From time to time, she would look up from the book and gaze out of the window, and once, she looked at him at his desk, and she thought he was staring at her. She went back to the book and pretended to read, but soon she looked up again, and he was staring at her still. She carried his look back with her to the book and she found herself trembling. His face was planted on the printed word, like the light of a lamp, that once seen, is carried elsewhere by the eye. She noticed for the first time, his thick black hair, high forehead, the eyes, gentle as a woman’s. She was afraid to look up again. She stiffened her legs to keep her body still. She had an instinctive warning to get up and leave the library before looking up at him again. She got up, fearing that her trembling was noticeable, and as she made for the he called her. She hesitated, knowing that it was courting danger to go back, but she excused herself on the grounds that it would have been impolite to ignore him. As she walked over to his desk, her legs seemed to stiffen with an intense and giddy growing-pain. She no longer saw him in the context of her family. Such an association had, in that moment become impossible. As she neared his desk, he wondered whether he could ever visit her father again.

  ‘My flat is only across the road,’ he said. ‘Go and shelter there. You’ll get soaked if you go straight home. I’ll be back in about half-an-hour.’ He needn’t have made any excuses. She took the key and the card on which he’d scribbled the address, as if she were expecting it, as if it were an arrangement of long-standing, and she went to his room to wait for him.

  That was the beginning, or rather, that was the acknowledgement of the beginning. Almost every day after school she would meet him. Occasionally they would risk a walk together, but usually they stayed indoors, because it was more in tune with a clandestine affair. They were deeply in love, though neither of them would risk talking of their future. John
knew as well as Esther that a marriage between them was impossible. There were times when Esther refused to recognise its impossibility, and at these times, she would suggest breaking their relationship. Then they would avoid each other for two or three weeks, but inevitably they would come together again.

  Their friendship continued for almost two years before David looked at her that day in the synagogue. She responded with affection, but primarily with gratitude, because she saw in David a way of extricating herself from a relationship which she knew could end only in unhappiness. So she saw less of John, and tried desperately to respond to David’s love. But she had to admit to herself that it was impossible. Nevertheless, she decided to marry David; she thought that the legality of their partnership might in time, free her. But her deception of them both agonised her, and, desperate to unburden herself of her dilemma, she told Norman she wanted to talk to him. Her parents would never have listened to her, and Bella wouldn’t have understood, so it was Norman she chose, because though she liked him little, she respected his intelligence and understanding.

  They were alone in the flat together, and she came straight to the point. ‘I’m not in love with David,’ she said. She thought he smiled, and she attributed it to his nervousness at their unaccustomed intimacy. ‘I’ll never love him,’ she added.

  ‘Then why are you going to marry him?’

  ‘I’ve got to,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way I can break the other thing.’

  ‘John?’ he said.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I guessed. About two years?’ he said, rather smugly, Esther thought. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘No-one else has the slightest suspicion.’

  ‘But how did you find out?’

  ‘Well, I see quite a lot of John at the library. He’s never told me, but I can tell by the way he talks about you. Anyway,’ he laughed, 'you’re made for each other, you two. Why don’t you just accept it.’

  She was enormously grateful to him for his understanding to the point of sanctioning their affair. ‘But I can’t marry him,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  She was horrified at his callousness. ‘But I can’t do that to Mom and Pop. Mom maybe, but not to Pop. It would break him.’

  ‘Parents don’t break that easily,’ he said. They’ll get hysterical, and they’ll get over it. If you love each other, this is what you must do.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘They’d never forgive me. In any case. what would happen to David? What would he feel?’

  Norman leaned forward. ‘D’you really want to know?’ he said. ‘D’you really want to know what David would feel if you didn’t marry him?’

  She was surprised at the obvious significance he was giving her question. ‘Yes,’ she said, unsure. ‘I want to know how he would feel.’

  ‘Relieved,’ he said. ‘Utterly and absolutely relieved.’ She stared at him, incredulous.

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t tell you this unless you needed to know, and it’s obvious that you do, and right now. I thought you might have found it out for yourself. But David, you see,’ he spoke slowly now to give his words more emphasis, ‘David is intending to marry you for exactly the same reason as you intend to marry him. He too, wants to break a habit.’

  ‘Is there someone else?’ she said. She felt a slight twinge of jealousy. ‘But then,’ she added, ‘then we could help each other. We can be honest with each other from the start.’

  ‘Well,’ Norman began, ‘it’s not as simple as all that. His habit is not quite the same as yours.’

  ‘What is it then?’ she was irritated by her own lack of perception.

  ‘Haven’t you guessed?’ he said. ‘You’ve known him long enough.’

  She couldn’t imagine what there was in David’s habit that was so strange and complicated. ‘No, I haven’t guessed,’ she said. ‘You’d better tell me.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this might shock you. But he doesn’t have other women.’ He looked at her for some glimmer of understanding, but she stared at him, bewildered still. ‘He …. he likes men, Esther,’ he said. ‘He’s basically a homosexual.’

  It was a word that she’d often read in books, and she knew its meaning. But she had relegated the word to ancient history or other lands, because she could not envisage that it could have anything to do with her or her environment. Her first reaction was one of sour distaste, and anger that she had been so deceived, but then she felt pity for him, and abundant relief that Norman had told her in time. ‘Then of course, I can’t marry him,’ she said. ‘That’s completely out of the question.’

  Norman smiled again, and she couldn’t understand why it was a smiling matter. ‘Why are you smiling?’ she said. ‘I’m not smiling,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’m nervous. I’m relieved I suppose, that you know the truth. But you’re right,’ he said, ‘and I’m glad it’s your decision. You can’t marry him. You must break it off.’

  But she was not strong enough to make any decision. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘What could I tell him. He must never know that I know. And I can’t tell Mom and Pop either. I couldn’t bear their disappointment. They see me married already. They’re already talking about their grandchildren.’

  ‘Isn’t it time we stopped doing things for their sake?’ he said. ‘Isn’t it time we started doing things for ourselves? Look at Bella, chained to them for the rest of her life. Look at me. Twenty-six years old and still living at home. For their sake, ‘cos they robbed me of the guts to be me. Listen Esther,’ he said, ‘if you can’t face them in their disappointment, get out. Go, and say nothing beforehand. That’s what I should have done. But I wanted discussion, I wanted blessings,’ he laughed. ‘You couldn’t discuss it with them. They’d root you to the ground with guilt, and you’ll end up like Bella. Go with John. Marry him, and be happy.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got the courage to face them. So I’ll have to go. I’ll leave them a letter,’ she said appalled at her own weakness. ‘But I won’t marry John,’ she said more firmly. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘You must,’ he said even more firmly. ‘It’s you who’s marrying, Esther,’ he said. ‘Not them. If you don’t want to marry immediately, you can wait. But tell them you’re married. Let them think it’s a fait accompli. Write it in the letter. I’ll draft it for you.’

  She was curious about his eagerness, and he sensed it. ‘I don’t want you to end up like Bella,’ he explained. ‘And one day, you’ll be grateful.’

  She insisted that she would not marry John, but he talked her into telling them that she had, otherwise, for what reason in their eyes, had she left home. ‘Unless,’ he added, ‘you want to tell them about David, and that would hardly be fair to David or his mother.’

  Now he had really trapped her. Staying at home was unthinkable. And so he had drafted the letters, one to their parents, and the other, with infinite care and love, to David.

  And so it was arranged. While Esther made her preparations, she questioned her brother’s motives. His eagerness to push her into marriage with John, puzzled her, and she could find no answer for it. She had been moved by his own admission of failure regarding his own freedom, which would give him added cause to wish for hers. She had no intention of marrying John. She was leaving home, because it was easier than staying, because she could not bear the blame for her parents’ disappointment. She was grateful to Norman who had been able to define her weakness as strength.

  As for Norman, he felt little scruple for what he had done. He talked himself into believing that David had a problem and that marriage would be no solution. He was doing him a favour. He wanted David for himself, and his need for him made it right and proper.

  And so the letter had been found, and afterwards, David’s body. She was alone in John’s flat when Norman came to tell her. He lurched through the doorway, drunk with weeping, and fell into a chair, his head in his hands. ‘Is Mom all right?’ she whispered. His sobbing was uncontro
llable. ‘Is Pop all right?’ She was terrified at the thought of the news he had brought, and instinctively she blamed him for whatever had happened. ‘What have you come for?’ she screamed at him.

  He looked up without seeing her. ‘It’s David,’ he said. ‘You killed him.’

  She did not immediately take in the second piece of information, but she heard it, and she stored it to deal with later. ‘Did he have an accident?’ she said. She refused to equate David’s death with her letter.

  ‘He did it himself,’ Norman said quietly. ‘You go and tell his mother. He did it when he read your letter.’

  ‘My letter?’ she whispered. ‘It was your letter,’ she pleaded. She had to sort that out first. The grief would keep for later, and she knew bitterly how well it would keep. ‘It was your letter,’ she said again.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he wept. ‘Why did you have to do it?’

  ‘Relief, you said. Utter and complete relief, you said, when I asked you how David would feel. That’s what you told me.’ She took him by the shoulders and shook him with her hatred. ‘You knew he loved me, didn’t you.’

  ‘Come home, Esther,’ he said broken, ‘you’ve got to come home.’

  She took her hands off him, stupefied by his request. ‘Oh no,’ she said, and she was astonished at the aged bitterness in her voice, ‘oh no, you caused it, and you’re going to pay for it. You bought my guilt, and you can take it home, and you can live with it for the rest of your life. And together with your little lot,’ she said bitterly, ‘it’ll make a fine parcel. Take it home, yours and mine, and I hope it will rot you.’ She hated herself for her glib and ready cruelty, and when he had gone, she gave way to her grief and acknowledged her share of the blame. It seemed now almost incumbent on her to marry John, so that David’s death would not have been entirely without cause. But her love for John was slowly evaporated by her grief, and she punished herself into marriage. That too, Norman could carry with him. But a month later, when she went through the marriage ceremony, it was David she married, which was why she had shaved her head.

 

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