As he caught Marc’s eye he waved casually with one hand but stayed where he was, leaning against the back wall by the door.
They had come to the final Kaddish in the Afternoon Service.
May the prayers and supplications of the whole house of Israel be accepted in the presence of their Father who is in heaven; and say ye, Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life for us and for all Israel, and say ye, Amen.
May he who maketh peace in his high places, make peace for us and for all Israel, and say ye, Amen.
The tired congregation stirred a little, but there was still another service before the Day of Atonement would end.
Marc turned to his mother and asked, "Do you mind if I go? Dave seems to have something on his mind".
"No, go along, I’ll see you back at the house".
Outside in the street David said to Marc, "Let’s go for a walk before dinner. I want to talk to you".
"And you, Brutus", said Marc wearily.
"Sorry. If you’re hungry, I’ll buy you a sandwich and a cup of coffee first, though. That Greek joint is just up the street".
"All right", said Marc indifferently. He was wondering just how his mother and father had managed to tell David about Erica, when his brother had only arrived late the night before, had gone to bed when he himself had gone, and had come downstairs for breakfast at approximately the same moment. It could only have been while he, Marc, had been taking a bath later on in the morning. His parents had certainly made the most of that bath, for it was obvious that David knew all about it.
Whatever it was he had to say on the subject, however, he said nothing while they were in the Greek restaurant or when they were walking through the town toward the road which led back through the strip of rough farm country to the bush, and eventually into the Algoma Hills. When they had passed the last run-down cottage on the outskirts of the town, he was still talking about Father LaFleur, the new priest in his district, who was a great improvement on the old one, younger, more adaptable, and far less fatalistic in his attitude toward the wretched living conditions in his parish. He was already talking about co-operatives, and on top of all of his other qualifications, he could even play a good game of chess.
"We usually manage to get together for a game every week or so", David remarked, his black eyes following a flock of crows which flew up from a hay-stack near the road, high into the blue autumn air and off toward the town behind them. "You have no idea what a difference a good priest can make to the local doctor. I had a devil of a time with the other one; he was as hard as nails, he’d put off calling me till the last moment, and sometimes I used to wonder if he didn’t actually prefer to have his parishioners enter the Kingdom of Heaven right away, rather than have their entry postponed by a Jewish doctor butting in and interfering with the Will of God. He was very strong on the Will of God".
"Does the new priest object to your being Jewish?"
"Well, he put out a few feelers when he first came, on the off chance of converting me, but I told him that my attitude toward religion in general, Judaism, Catholicism or any other, was chiefly scientific, and after that he gave up. On the spiritual side, we have a strictly live and let live attitude toward each other. Got a cigarette?"
They stopped in the middle of the road, and shielding a match with his hands, David lit Marc’s cigarette and his own, blew out the match and said, "I’ve got a couple of things to tell you".
"You and everybody else", said Marc, starting to walk up the road again. Straight ahead of them were the Algoma Hills, strung out like sentinels guarding the deep mining country beyond; below the hills was the bush, heavily splashed with color, and somewhere in there off to the left was a certain maple tree overhanging some falls, a long narrow shaft of water pouring down past the maple into an almost circular pool edged with evergreens, poplars, white birch trees and sumac. The effect at this time of year was always extraordinary, a kind of annual miracle, for the maple turned to pure scarlet, the water of the pool to cobalt blue, and the trees were a tangled mass of color ranging from deep bluish green through rust and orange to a clear, translucent yellow. He wished violently, so violently he felt almost sick, that Erica was with him, that it was early morning and they were starting back toward the hills with the whole day ahead of them, and instead of that, it was late afternoon, the hills had a darkening, purplish cast, and he was with David, about to listen to still another voice saying the same things all over again, and about to answer a lot of silly questions, with Erica five hundred miles away.
Eric, what are we doing? How are we going to live, you without me and I without you?
"Would you like to know what I think?" asked David suddenly beside him.
He started and then answered shortly, "Not if it’s what everybody else thinks".
"It isn’t. At least it’s not what Mother and Dad seem to think. I told them that if you decided you wanted to marry Erica Drake, I was going to back you up".
"You’re going to back me up?" he said incredulously.
"Well", said David shrugging, "Erica anyhow. I don’t know about you yet, I want to hear your side of it first". He paused and then remarked, "I gather the chief objection to her is the fact that she’s not Jewish".
"Obviously. There aren’t any other objections".
His brother glanced at him briefly and said, "I didn’t realize that you were so particular".
"It’s not me, for God’s sake", said Marc irritably. "I don’t give a damn whether she’s Jewish or not. It’s what will happen to her-what has already happened to her, in less than three months. You don’t know how much she’s changed. She’s been getting it from every direction because of me-because just by being what I am, I lay her open to it. And I can’t help it, I can’t even do anything to make it easier for her. I just go on making it harder".
He said, "I keep seeing her the way she was when I met her…" and broke off, as the picture of Erica in his mind divided into two impressions, one three months old and the other less than a week old, two portraits to be labeled "Before" and "After", before and after Marc Reiser, only reversing the usual order because After was always supposed to be a great improvement over Before, instead of the other way round.
Two portraits side by side, of Erica as she had been the day he had met her, with that look of having come to terms with life, and Erica as she had been up at the clearing near the top of the mountain the day he had left her, bewildered and beaten.
He said to the short, stocky figure marching along beside him, "You haven’t any idea how much she’s changed-My God, how much she’s changed! She doesn’t even look really young any more. If I’d deliberately set out to see how much damage I could do, I couldn’t have made a better job of it. What kind of case have we got? I haven’t given her anything compared to what I’ve already taken away from her".
Not for years and perhaps never again would he walk this road as he had walked it so many times with a fishing-rod and a basket slung over his shoulder, this road which led back through the fields and the bush to the hills, standing like sentinels against the sky, but he had forgotten where he was; he might just as well have been walking down a city street, he who had always loved Algoma and the bush and had always hated cities.