CHAPTER 5

TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1981

 

Maddie sat on the toilet trying to squeeze out whatever was constipating her. She had assumed she would be awake all night, but had slept a deep, dreamless, death-like sleep as if she did not have a care in the world. No visions of Elizabeth. None of Traitor’s Hell, nor Kilmainham. No visions of Master Devlin, nor Grand da Michael. No visions of her namesakes, Mary and Ann. Her subconscious had made her decision. After flushing an empty toilet, she telephoned her acceptance to Mosca, whose feigned enthusiasm could not mask his condescension. Fuck him! Fuck Boston! She would insist on a written contract, one on her terms, the money guaranteed for the full term of the contract regardless of when she left or under what circumstances, the letter of recommendation subject to her approval, and St. Patrick’s Day off as a paid holiday. Being Irish, she was always on alert for the double-cross.

Before going to her office, she visited Rabbi ben Reuben to advise him she intended to resign the case after the bail hearing. The rabbi sat quietly at his desk, his white hair a halo against the black bindings of the books on the shelves behind him.

“Jacob’s grandson has found a Jewish lawyer to replace me. Howard Kaplan. Levy fights me. Says I’m unclean. Traif, he calls me. Says he wants a Jewish attorney. It’s like a broken record. He wants a Jewish attorney. I wouldn’t dare risk putting him on the witness stand. Maybe, he’d be a better witness for Kaplan. Jacob can tell you how essential cooperation is.”

“As is,” the rabbi said, “the lawyer’s belief in her client’s innocence.”

“Not as much as knowledge of her client’s guilt.”

“Avram told me when I delivered his dinner last night.” The rabbi clasped and unclasped his hands, sliding his fingers back and forth through the valleys between his knuckles. “Doubt is a natural human condition. Jacob and I would be lying if we denied having a scintilla of doubt about Avram’s innocence. Yet, we do not abandon him.”

For decades, the pain in the rabbi’s hands had deadened his emotions, his feelings. Now, that pain gave them life. The last five days had awakened him from the fog of complacency created by living in the United States. It was a thin veneer, he now realized, thin and easily pierced, that shielded Jews in America from the landslide of hatred that had buried them alive in Europe and Russia. He wished he had saved his yellow star from the old country. In Boston, he would wear it as an act of defiance, of rebellion, of assertion of his identity. If the goy have Bumper’s Brigade, let the Jews have the Yellow Stars.

“Who is this Howard Kaplan?” the rabbi asked. “A schmuck. A check casher. Jacob’s grandson is convinced you will win. He fears Jews will pay for Avram’s acquittal. In reality they, we, will pay for his conviction.” The rabbi paused, gathering his thoughts. “Let me share a story with you from the Talmudic commentaries.”

Maddie shifted in her chair, suddenly very conscious of the way the wire supports of her bra cups chafed against her skin. In parochial school, she had squirmed whenever the nuns told Bible stories as a way of drilling one religious lesson or another into her. More than once the smack of a ruler against her open palm had stilled her. The plot never changed. Sin. Punishment. Redemption, sometimes. Repetition had dulled the impact of those Bible stories, her familiarity with them breeding her contempt for them. She cloaked her face with a mask of attentiveness. She had been compelled to listen then; she was compelled to listen now.

“Hundreds of years ago in central Europe,” the rabbi began, “a learned man named Solomon traveled from village to village answering questions that stumped local rabbis. A man of simple tastes, he refused all payment for his wisdom except the necessities of life, plain food for nourishment, sturdy clothes for warmth, and dry straw for bedding. He wore a simple gabardine coat and a black fur hat, gifts from a tailor for whom he had solved a difficult problem. Mendel, the lazy son of a local rabbi who sought to become known as a sage so he could accept the gold Solomon refused, stole Solomon’s hat and coat and rushed to a village at the far end of the province where he posed as Solomon and received great riches for dispensing platitudes to the unsuspecting.”

Maddie rotated her shoulders. She wished she could unclasp her bra. The fact she had not heard this story before did not ease her discomfort.

“The duke who ruled this province was a virulent anti-Semite much like those who have risen up against Avram. When word of a new wise man reached him, he contrived a test. Jew, the duke said to Mendel who posed as the wise man. Give me your fur hat. The duke dropped two pieces of folded paper into it, saying one was blank, the other had the word ‘Jew’ written on it. Pick the blank paper, the duke challenged Mendel, and I shall reward you with your life. Pick the other and your life shall be forfeit to me.”

Maddie interrupted. “There is an Irish variation of this story. It was not a duke, but a British royal. It was not a Jew, but an Irish priest.”

Rabbi ben Reuben frowned. “Dressed as a beggar, Solomon saw through the duke’s subterfuge but dared not intervene. Mendel, unwilling to risk his life, called forward the beggar, not recognizing him as Solomon. Your test is too easy, Mendel said to the duke. This poor wretch shall draw for me. If the beggar drew the blank, Mendel would claim it for his own. If not, Mendel would quickly draw the remaining piece. Mendel didn’t believe the duke would slay a wise man when he could slay a beggar.”

“In the Irish version,” Maddie said, “the priest realized neither piece was blank and took one from the hat and swallowed it. The remaining piece, he said to the royal, is written upon.”

“As did Solomon,” the rabbi said. “The duke pinned a yellow star over Mendel’s heart and remanded him to the custody of his archers. Solomon he rewarded with Mendel’s fur hat.” The rabbi removed his half-glasses and wiped the corners of his eyes with a tissue. The light from his lamp reflected off the moisture in his eyes, turning them into miniature spotlights likes the ones that ornamented the walls that encircled the Charles Street jail. “What was the moral of your story, Ms. Devlin?”

Maddie hesitated. It had been a bedtime story her da told her when she was a little girl. If it had a moral, he never said. He just told it and she listened and he kissed her on the forehead and wished her pleasant dreams. Morals were for fairy tales like The Three Little Pigs.

“The kabbalist,” the rabbi said, “teaches Hashem ordained for the Jewish people to survive as many traitors as there are stars in the firmament before the Messiah will come.” The rabbi paused. “Your resignation will send a message that Avram is guilty and incite Bumper’s Brigade to greater violence. The Solomons will survive. The Mendels will die by their own tricks. Which are you?” The rabbi rose. “Excuse me. It is time for services.”

 

*

 

Outside, the temperature had risen two degrees since sunset and Bumper’s Brigade claimed responsibility for pelting diners at a kosher restaurant with dead pigeons.