Chapter 54

Sam called his uncle at the office. “Onkel Gershon, it’s Shmuel.” It felt so strange to call himself by that name that Sam momentarily forgot how shocked his uncle would be to hear him say it.

There was a sharp intake of breath, a receiver clattering on the desk, and a silence so prolonged Sam was afraid he’d given his uncle a heart attack. Then the words, “Can this be?”

Although he’d tried to prepare for the first contact with his family, Sam was still shaken by Gershon’s voice. His stomach cramped and he had to force himself to breathe. Before he’d fully recovered, he raced through the story he’d rehearsed, adding that since coming home, the Jewish Welfare Board had found him a room, including meals, at the YMHA. Gershon, usually a garrulous Talmudic debater, didn’t interrupt. Either he accepted Sam’s explanation, like Ryan had at first, or he was struck speechless by the sound of a ghost.

“Uncle Gershon, are you still there?” Sam asked when he was done.

There was coughing, mumbling that sounded like a prayer, and then at last Gershon spoke. “How is your mother taking this?”

Sam should have expected the question. “I haven’t called anyone else in the family yet.”

Gershon’s voice got louder. “And when are you planning on letting her know that the son she sat shiva for is alive? More important, how will you tell her so she doesn’t drop dead herself?”

Sam cringed. He’d often pictured his mother missing him, but never really imagined her thinking of him as dead. He saw the lips that had kissed his bruises, told him how proud she was of him, and secretly excused him from his studies, now saying the words of the Kaddish. “I haven’t figured that out yet. I thought it would help if I saw you first.”

“You want me to tell my sister?”

“God, no!” Sam lowered his voice. “Please don’t tell anyone. That’s my responsibility.”

“It’s good you figured out that much.”

Sam said nothing more until his uncle relented and invited Sam to talk. Gershon suggested the Mendelsons’ apartment. Afraid to see his aunt and cousins, Sam proposed the basement of the Eldridge Street Synagogue, provided there wouldn’t be a study session going on and his father wouldn’t be there. When Gershon agreed, Sam knew Avram would be nowhere in sight.

Just as he remembered, the windowless room was unadorned, the better to focus the would-be scholars’ attention on the texts. Nor were there chairs, only a long table to hold the Torah scrolls around which men stood gesticulating and arguing. With only him and Gershon in the room, the quiet was eerie. Thinking reading would be easier than talking, Sam held out the letters he’d written but never sent. Gershon, tears leaking down his cheeks, pushed them back for Sam to read aloud.

He read in a hushed voice, listening to the words of the youth he’d been when he wrote them. His world was so different now, it seemed that decades, not eight years, had passed. To Sam’s surprise, Gershon’s showed little curiosity about his war experiences. His attention perked up at the questions Sam had put to him: Why had Gershon given up scholarship for business in America? Was it to make money, fit in, or leave the past behind? Why had he later resumed his studies? Was it because he’d never abandoned his faith? Could Sam reconcile his love of learning with the urge to escape his father? Could he, like Gershon, make all the pieces mesh together?

Gershon waited until Sam finished before speaking. “You admire me for finding myself, but while you were writing letters, I felt like a failure for not finding you. It nearly killed me.”

Sam knew his family would be upset with him for leaving, but never had he expected they would turn their anger inward. “Why blame yourself? I made it impossible for anyone to find me.”

His uncle gripped the table. “I can find the most esoteric meaning in a single word of Torah. How could I fail to find you?”

Sixty-three tracts of Talmud, hundreds of years of interpretation written by thousands of sages, spilled off the shelves lining the room. “Torah yields many answers. A missing person has only one but Jews don’t think that way.” Sam smiled at his uncle.

Gershon did not smile back. “Jews read these books to make us wiser about God, but I was outsmarted by a stupid bureaucracy.”

“You were outsmarted by a determined sixteen-year-old boy.”

Gershon winced, then returned Sam’s smile. “For some reason, that feels better.” His large body relaxed and his tongue loosened. “Now, I’m outdone by women.” He told Sam what a devoted mother Zipporah was and how he kvelled with pride over Ruchel’s work in Washington as a women’s union advocate. “My Yetta is the wisest of all. You know the tale of Rabbi Meir?”

Sam leaned forward, eager to hear the stories he’d loved as a child. The empty room filled with his uncle’s voice. “Some louts in Rabbi Meir’s neighbourhood were giving him trouble, and in exasperation he prayed for their deaths. His wife Beruriah said to him, ‘How can you think such prayer is permitted? Instead, pray for an end to sin, that they may turn from their ways.’ Then Rabbi Meir prayed on their behalf.” Gershon nodded. “Like so, Yetta turns me around too.”

Teshuvah, renouncing sin and turning back to God, was a mainstay of Judaism. Sam wondered if he could find his way back. “In the end, your mother outsmarted me too.” Gershon’s eyes bore into him. Sam nodded; he was finally ready to hear the price she’d paid for his sin.

“Rivka’s grief broke my heart.” Gershon placed a hand on his chest. “For a while, she lost the will to live, but eventually she found the strength to take care of others. I finally realized that she didn’t feel nearly as sorry for herself as I did for her. Today your mother fights for poor immigrant women. Looking after others makes her stronger than she was before.”

Hearing Rivka had recovered from his loss was a relief. Yet, Sam was also hurt, a child’s reaction to discovering he wasn’t the centre of his mother’s life. “And taking care of Dev ...?”

“Your mother took care of Dev, and Dev took care of herself. I helped a little, but only with money. Your sister may turn out to be the wisest woman of all.” Gershon told Sam that Dev was living on her own and halfway through college, planning to become a medical researcher. He wrote down her address and telephone number, handed it to Sam, and raised his eyebrows.

Sam nodded that yes, he’d get hold of Dev, and was grateful that Gershon didn’t press him about when or how. Or whether he’d do so before or after seeing his mother.

“So,” Gershon said, “that brings you up to date on everyone in the family.”

Except Avram, Sam thought, not surprised that his uncle had failed to mention his father.

“What will you do now?” Gershon asked. “Seeing you, I can begin to forgive myself. Your mother will be shocked, but she’ll grant you forgiveness. As for Him,” Gershon pointed up, “the prayer book says, ‘We do not ask that our sins be forgiven in the sense that their effects may be cancelled. That is impossible. All we can ask for is purer insight, fuller strength. For this we repent, atone, and receive God’s grace.’ The question is whether you can forgive yourself.”

“I’m just beginning to realize what I need to be forgiven for,” said Sam.

“You hurt your mother ... your parents,” Gershon said. “But your intentions were good. You went to fight for your country.”

“What if that’s a lie I told everyone, including myself? Suppose the real reason I left was to escape my father’s insistence that I become a rabbi?”

“To choose work other than what your parents have in mind is not such a sin, provided the work is honourable. My father wanted me to marry a poor girl and be a shopkeeper.”

“I didn’t just change my name and age, Onkel Gershon. I didn’t keep kosher, I worked on Shabbas, and I pretended I wasn’t a Jew after it was no longer necessary. I came back because something was missing from my life. I want to return to my faith, but I don’t know if I’ll be allowed. My sins, whatever they are, may be too great and they’ve gone on too long.”

“Remember what the Chasidic Rabbi Bunam said to his followers: ‘Our transgression is not that we commit sins—temptation is strong and our strength is slight. No, our transgression is that at every instant when we can turn to God, we do not.’ Why not turn right now?”

“How do I know God will hear me?”

“One more story,” Gershon said. “Rabbi Baruch’s grandson was playing hide-and-seek. He waited for his playmate to find him, but after a long time realized his friend wasn’t looking. Eyes brimming with tears, he came to his grandfather. Rabbi Baruch wept too and he said, ‘God says the same thing. I hide but no one seeks Me.’”

“And if I did seek God? I wouldn’t even know what questions to ask Him.”

“Does it matter? Just to ask a question, any question, is a religious act. Without questions, the answers dry up and wither.”

“Increase your knowledge, or you will decrease it.” These words arose from a place deep inside Sam.

“That’s from the Mishnah. See, you do remember.” Gershon tapped Sam’s temple.

Joy flooded him. Not only did whole passages start to come back to Sam, he was having fun trading them with Gershon. A candle of hope flickered inside him.

“God says, ‘Though you be far from Me, I will draw near and heal you, if only you come toward Me.” Gershon quoted this Midrash on repentance and return.

Sam recited Isaiah. “My hands reach out to the penitent. I reject none who give me their hearts.”

Gershon opened a prayer book. “Therefore we read, ‘Peace, peace be to all, far and near.’ This can mean peace among the nations, but inner peace too I think. Yes?”

Sam took a deep breath. The candle within him burned brighter. It had been too long since he’d automatically felt he was a member of a community. For eight years, he’d worked hard at fitting in among strangers. With his own people, he simply had to be in order to belong.

Gershon sighed. “Welcome home, Shmuel. Come to Torah study on Wednesday night.”

It startled Sam to hear someone else call him Shmuel. His identity as Sam was so deeply embedded. The small flame of resolve and confidence sputtered.

Mistaking the look of fear on his nephew’s face, Gershon reassured him. “Don’t worry. No one will recognize you. Your hair is longer, your skin is tougher. You’ve grown muscles.”

“My father would know me however much I changed.”

“Avram won’t be there. He goes to the Sunday night study group, when Dev cooks dinner for the rest of the family, including your mother, at her apartment.”

“Dev cooks?” Sam thought with a start that his little sister had probably changed as much as, if not more than, him. What would it be like to see her? How would she react to seeing him? He told Gershon he’d think about joining the Wednesday study group. Debating him was nothing like his boyhood sessions with Avram. There was an openness and freedom, a search for possible meanings, instead of the one right answer. Could he, Sam, begin to see his whole life this way?

Outside the synagogue, as stars awoke in the sky, Gershon offered Sam a last quote, from Psalms. “In the time we spend brooding, we could be stringing pearls for the joy of heaven.” The two men embraced. “Call your mother,” Gershon said, slipping subway fare and change for a pay phone into Sam’s pocket. Sam grasped them until the cold metal turned warm between his fingers.