I spent the next forty-five minutes frantically packing. Along with all sorts of memorabilia, I grabbed some clothes and half a dozen books. Fortunately, my real library was back at school.
Mama, who had been awakened by the sound of our voices, stood there in her robe, looking strange without her sheitel, talking to me—babbling really—as if her words could somehow blot out the sorrow of what she was watching. The scene was reminiscent of another played out five years earlier. A drama called The Banishment of Deborah. Only this time Mama was utterly desolate.
“I can’t bear it,” she wept. “He’s sent away both my children. Where will you go, Danny? When will I see you again?”
All I could do was shrug. I was afraid to talk, fearing I would burst into tears and throw myself into her arms for the comfort I so badly needed.
But she had asked a valid question. Where was I going to go? I’d probably get a night or two in the dorm before they kicked me out for being a traitor—and then what?
“What will you do, Danny?” Mama sobbed.
“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Maybe I’ll go to graduate school next fall.”
“And study what?”
“I don’t know. I’m much too confused right now.”
I didn’t say I was tending toward Psychology, not wanting to incriminate Beller.
The reins with which I had held back my anger now slipped, and I vented all my rage on my poor mother.
“Do you think this is easy for me?” I shouted. “Do you actually think I wanted to hurt you—or even Papa? I’m upset. I’m very …”
She put her arms around me and wept so copiously that her tears stained my shirt.
“Danny, we’re your parents,” she implored. “Don’t just leave like this.”
I could not stand any more.
“He’s thrown me out,” I shouted. “To him I’m not a person—I’m just a link in his goddamn ‘golden chain.’ ”
“He loves you,” my mother pleaded. “He’ll get over it.”
I challenged her. “Do you honestly believe that?”
Mama did not move. She was torn into shreds of conflicting emotions and felt more lost than I.
I looked at her with sadness and compassion. After all, she had to remain in this house of perpetual mourning.
I kissed her on the forehead, took my suitcase, and ran down the stairs into the street.
I reached the corner, turned around, and took one final glance at the neighborhood where I was born and grew to manhood, the familiar homes of the people who had formed my childhood, the synagogue where I had prayed since I was old enough to read. The eternal flame would burn above the ark, but I knew it would never light my face again.
My punishment had begun.
I got back to the dorm and walked into my room, which—like my emotions—was in total disarray. Open books were spread out on the bed and the radiator, all remnants of my previous chaotic existence.
With unconscious irreverence I pushed several books to the floor and sat on my bed. Late as it was I felt a desperate need to talk to someone—on the telephone at least. But I couldn’t muster the guts to wake up Beller. And I knew Ariel couldn’t provide the spiritual consolation I needed.
There was no one. So I just sat there motionless as my entire universe ossified into sadness.
I can’t recall how long it was except that during the time I was grieving the first dawn of my banishment had turned into day.
When I heard a knock at my door I thought for a moment it was one of the deans—or maybe two—come to kick me out … or put me in front of a firing squad.
It turned out, however, to be one of my former classmates from down the hall.
“Hey, Luria,” he said in a tone of annoyance, his excursion to my room having taken him away from his studies, “there’s a call for you.”
I shuffled to the pay phone and picked up the dangling receiver.
It was my mother.
“Danny,” she said, voice like a zombie, “your father’s had a stroke.”