"Was it this business with Rov..."
"I suppose it helped trigger my decision, but I imagine I came to it a long time ago. I’ve been wrestling with the problem for some time you know, even before we came here."
"But when you broached the idea to me—"
"I was half hoping you'd object. It would have made it so much easier. But I'm glad you didn't because, of course, it's something I had to decide for myself."
There was a pounding on the door, and she got up to open to Jonathan and Gittel.
"I played football" Jonathan shouted. "Didn't I, Gittel? Tell them. There were some kids, and they started to play, so I played, too."
"Why. that's wonderful," said his father. "He's quite a kicker." said Gittel.
The rabbi looked at his watch. "It's later than I thought. It's time to go to the synagogue for Havdalah. Do you want to come. Jonathan? You'll have to change your clothes."
"All right. It won't take me long. You'll wait for me, won't you? Will you help me with my jersey. Gittel?"
"Sure. Come along, Jonathan."
The rabbi leafed through his pocket diary and said to Miriam. "If we take off a week from Monday, we will get home three months to the day. I'd like that. Maybe you could call the airline tomorrow and see if we can get a flight."
When the rabbi and his son had left, Gittel said, "You know, Miriam, I didn't have time to tell you before, and I didn't like to say it in front of him, but Avner Adoumi was very impressed with your David, and— and, so was I. He did a fine thing for the Stedmans, but also it was very good for Israel."
"But not so good for Dr. Ben Ami." said Miriam, "and I feel sorry for him. The one time you took me to see him, I was in something of a state, and he was kind and gentle and very helpful. I wonder what will happen to him?"
"Dr. Ben Ami? Nothing will happen to him."
"Nothing?"
"Of course not. Adoumi is not police. The Shin Bet work largely on their own. I imagine. And if he does have to report to a superior, it would probably be merely to tell him that he is satisfied that Roy had no connection with the terrorists, and that will end it."
"But he can't simply ignore what Ben Ami did."
"What terrible thing did he do? That business in Russia? There is no proof of that, only Memavet's story. Always, when you make an administrative decision, the person affected thinks you had it in for him personally. In any case, what happened in Russia years ago is no business of Adoumi's."
"But he killed Memavet." Miriam protested.
"Yes, but your David proved that it was an accident and that Ben Ami was acting in self-defense. It must have been something like that because Ben Ami wouldn't recognize one former prisoner out of the thousands he dealt with, but Memavet would remember him. So what else? He didn't report finding the bomb? He tried to; he disarmed it and called Adoumi to tell him about it."
"But then he rearmed it and exploded it."
"True, but essentially without doing any harm, because Memavet was already dead. He damaged the building, to be sure, but it's his brother's building. I doubt if he would want to lodge a complaint even if he were to find out about it. No, I'm sure by the time Ben Ami gets back, that's the way Adoumi will think of it, and take no action against him, or even say anything to him. You'll see, when Ben Ami gets back, he will probably go right on treating Sarah."
"I won't be here to see, Gittel. We're leaving and returning to the States, in a week or so."
For once, Gittel's assurance and poise left her. "But I thought you said—"
"That David wanted to stay on? I'm sure he does, but he knows he has to go back. He knew it all along deep down."
"It has been lonely here with Uri in the Army." said Gittel sadly, "and I hoped that at last I would have a family— to visit, to help. And now you are going away, and Uri will get married, and I will be more alone than ever."
Impulsively Miriam went over to Gittel and sat down and put her arm around her. "Don't be sad. Gittel. we'll be coming back regularly— to relax, to renew and refresh ourselves."
"I am sad." Gittel admitted, "but it is for you. It is sad to think of you returning to the Exile when you could have remained here in the Promised Land. But go in health and return in health. Your David is a smart man. Maybe next time he can arrange to stay."
Chapter Fifty-One
When I got your cable. I was sure you were bringing home some girl." said Betty Deutch as she maneuvered her car expertly out of the airport and onto the highway that led to Barnard's Crossing and home. "You said. 'We are arriving' instead of just 'Arriving.' It seemed an uncharacteristic extravagance to use two extra words, and then I thought it was your way of alerting me that you were coming with a girl you had picked up or who had picked you up."
Stedman laughed. "That was shrewd of you. Bet, but it wasn't a girl; it was Roy. I thought we'd come here for a week or so; but Laura met the plane at Kennedy, and Roy decided to go home with her first."
"Oh, I would have loved to have him down for a while. You know how I feel about him, Dan."
"Well, he's your only nephew—"
"When you have no children of your own, a nephew becomes something more than a nephew, even more than an only nephew."
"Well, he'll come down for a nice long visit after he gets settled." he promised.
"That's wonderful. He must have worked hard to get through so early. He's taken his exams already?"
"Well no." said Dan. "There was some mixup—"
"He's all right, isn't he?" she asked quickly. "He didn't get ill or anything?"
"Oh, no. He's fine. I'll tell you all about it when we get home. No sense in my having to repeat it to Hugo. How is he, by the way?"
She would have preferred to talk further about her nephew, but she knew her brother and knew he was not to be drawn. "Well, Hugo is in good health. He's always in good health." she added, "but he can be very aggravating at times."
Although she was intensely loyal to her husband, she was not blind to his faults, and although she would never mention them to an outsider, she did not hesitate to admit them to her brother, who was. after all. family and hence in a sense even closer than spouse.
"It's hard to be married to a rabbi; they're home so much of the time. They're around and underfoot. And then you never can tell when they're going to have to run off to some special meeting, maybe to substitute for a speaker that didn't show up. So you prepare a nice dinner and plan on going to a movie afterward, and there you are eating alone and watching TV afterward instead. Or it might be some youngster who is in trouble, or thinks he's in trouble, and has come to talk about it. And of course, it has to be right then and there because otherwise he'll run away from home or commit suicide or elope with someone quite unsuitable, and you sit and wait while the dinner gets spoiled, wondering whether to go ahead and eat by yourself or wait while you listen to the murmur of voices in the study and try to guess from the sound whether they're finishing up or will go on for a while."
Stedman laughed. "But surely you ought to be used to that by now."
"Some things you never get used to. When the roast is overdone, it doesn't help to remember that it was overdone last week too. But what I was going to say is that all that is nothing compared to living with a rabbi who is not actually holding a pulpit. When Hugo retired, he was full of ambition; he was going to edit his sermons and publish them in book form; then another book was going to be worked up from his notes on counseling; and another was a book on the Jewish holidays. He was full of ambition, full of the wonderful things he was going to do now that he finally had the necessary time. He had his typewriter overhauled and he laid in a supply of paper and carbons and an extra typewriter ribbon and a special kind of paper that made it unnecessary to erase if you made a mistake. And for just three days he went to his study right after breakfast and stayed there for a couple of hours. Then the next day he decided to take a walk first. I went into his study, not to spy. you understand, just to clean up and dust. And all there was were a few sheets of paper on which he had typed things like 'the quick brown fox' and 'Four score and seven years ago'— that kind of thing."