“Amen,” the major said. “If we can lick that one, we’ll be a helluva lot closer to home than we are now.”
“How about it, mama?” Moshe Glickman asked. “Do you think maybe we should tell him tonight already?”
Esther Glickman had been weighing the matter in her mind ever since the mail had been delivered. “I’m thinking that it would be a good idea,” she answered. “But for you, you shut up and let me do it. And on your face no expression either until we know what he says.” She turned to her other son. “And you, David, you’d better be there, but you’re saying nothing — nothing at all. Understand?” “Why not, mama? I can help.”
“Best you can help by keeping quiet. After papa comes home and we have dinner, then we’ll see.” She picked up the official notice and read it over once again although she could have recited it by heart. “So maybe this is the best thing that ever happened to us.” The last words stuck a little in her throat and she had difficulty giving them birth. She looked about her hurriedly, picked up a paper tissue, and wiped her eyes.
Moshe jumped up and went to her. “Don’t cry, mama. Like you said, maybe nothing so good happened to us before.”
David offered her a rumpled handkerchief. “Hell, mama, it’s no sweat,” he said. “If I can keep out of the damn Army we’ll be fine.”
Esther once more took command. “In the Army you’ll be going,” she retorted. “So here you followed that crazy man Orberg and when we needed you, where were you? In jail yet. Better you should have been in uniform; maybe there you could have helped.” “Mama, it’s too late for that now,” Moshe said. “When we get there, maybe we both join the Army; at least they’ll have kosher food.”
The door of the small Brooklyn apartment opened and Morris Glickman came in to greet his family. He kissed his wife and then asked almost casually, “Did it come today?”
Love welled up in Esther’s throat and for a moment she lost the power of speech.
“Yes, papa,” Moshe answered for her. “Today it came.”
A little awkwardly Morris embraced his wife. It was not an easy thing to do, at least it was not as it had once been when she had been dark-eyed, long-haired, and slender and he had married her. He reached far enough around her now ample girth to make his presence felt and patted her gently. “Now now, mama,” he said. “In a way the news is good. The waiting — the uncertainty, that’s all over. I was tired of teaching anyway. The kids, they’re worse every year. Now we can make plans.”
“So what can we plan?” Esther asked miserably.
Her husband was equal to the challenge. “You know they need teachers badly in Israel. Here I don’t think we have a future. Later, maybe, we can come back when things are better. Already I’ve talked to Mr. Farkas; when we can come back, my job will be waiting.”
“Such a good man Mr. Farkas is. But will he be here to help us when we need it?”
Morris smiled and stepped back so that he could hold out his arms in confidence. “Of course! Didn’t you know, he works as a partner with a gentile. A WASP yet, but a good man too; I trust him.”
“Aw, quit your kidding,” David interjected. “Who the hell knows if we’re ever coming back. Or if we’ll want to. Everybody seems to think that in a little while this’ll all blow over.” He flung himself down onto the davenport. “Crap, we’re Jews and we’ve been taking it on the lam since Moses, so what do you expect to have happen now.”
Esther was shocked. “David, such language! And in your father’s presence. You should be ashamed!”
Morris Glickman rose above his son’s outburst. “Gather around,” he said. Obediently his wife and elder son drew up chairs close to his own when he sat down; after a few seconds David dragged in one of the dining chairs and reluctantly did as he had been bidden.
“It is time,” Morris began, “that we should count our blessings. First, no matter what these people do to our country, in two weeks we can be out of here and out of their reach. We will be safe. How many Polish Jews didn’t have that chance just before — excuse that I say the word — Hitler.”
He leaned back and placed his fingertips together. “Second, for thousands of years other Jews have had to move when they had no place to go. Now we have Israel — we are entitled to live there and to become citizens if we want.”
“And have to join the Army,” David concluded.
His father looked at him; his features hardened and there was no love in his voice when he spoke. “David, for the first time I say it; I am ashamed of you. You are a coward. You would not fight for the United States of America where we belong, now you want to escape helping the one country where we will be made welcome and offered everything we need — the Jewish homeland.”
“I’m no damned soldier,” David said.
“No, a soldier you’re not, but God willing where were going they’ll make you one. And a better man you’ll be for it. My brother Herman died for this country; if we had had more Hermans in our Army, maybe we wouldn’t have the trouble we’ve got now.”
“O.K., he died — how did that help him?”
Morris ignored that. When they reached Israel it would be different; they would straighten David out. “I think,” he said, “we ought to tell papa right away.”
“Before dinner?” Esther asked.
“Yes — now. And we all go, otherwise he might not believe it.” “All right,” David grumbled. “I know what you mean. I’ll come.” Bravely Esther led the way down the narrow corridor to the back room. She tapped lightly on the closed door, then opened it a small fraction and looked inside. “Daddy, it’s us,” she announced.
As she entered the room old Ishmael Goldblatt looked up in concern. His expression deepened as the whole family trooped in, first Morris, his son-in-law, then the two boys, Moshe and David. He sat defensively, hunched in his rocking chair, a shawl draped across his shoulders for comfort, his gray hair straggling out from under his yarmulke like a tonsured priest. His glasses were perched halfway down on his nose in defiance of the optometrist’s careful instructions because it suited his purpose better to wear them that way. As he stared at the assembling family, distrust deepened in his eyes: not of them, but of the thing, whatever it was, that had brought them to him in this manner. For he regarded every unknown thing, every unvouched-for person with a deep, ingrained, and perpetual suspicion.
“Daddy, we want to talk to you,” Esther said. The words flowed from her in Yiddish with an easy grace; she was proud of her English, but her father had disdained to learn the new tongue — he had no need of it.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” The old man’s sunken eyes narrowed as he spoke and he thrust his head out as though to peer into the face of adversity.
There were only two other chairs in the sparsely furnished room. Esther sank into one of them while her husband, a little gingerly, eased into the other.
“Daddy, nothing is wrong,” Esther assured. “We came to see you because this is a great day in our lives.”
The old man turned his mind inward, but he could think of nothing to celebrate and his face revealed his consternation.
“We’ve been saving our money,” Esther continued. She took a fresh grip on herself as the searching eyes of her father probed into hers, trying to read out whatever she might be concealing from him. It was hard for her, but she continued with a smile on her face. “Morris has been doing well, and the boys have contributed too.”
“So what do you want to spend it on?” Ishmael asked. His shoulders stiffened and he became as shrunken hard as a walnut shell.
Morris came to his wife’s rescue. “Daddy,” he said, “all of us, we have been having a dream. For this we have saved our money and for this we have worked.”