CHAPTER 16
TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 1981
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At the Tuesday afternoon remand hearing, Judge Gomita, acting on a motion brought by Bonturo and assented to by Maddie, dismissed all charges against Levy. In a statement of political pettifoggery, Mayor Charles Sullivan wasted several hundred words begging the citizens of Boston to let the healing begin.
Boston’s Jewish community would not heal for several generations. Disguising their true feelings in unctuous lip service, they were loath to repeat the mistake made a generation earlier by their German brethren. They closed the spigot of campaign contributions to Mayor Charlie’s Senate campaign. Applications pending before the Boston Redevelopment Authority for major construction projects throughout the city were withdrawn as Jewish developers decided other cities provided a more hospitable environment and a better return on investment. Corporations being wooed to relocate to the greater Boston area sought cities where their Jewish employees would not feel threatened, or worse.
The militants in Boston’s African-American community challenged the authenticity of the recording of Mabi’s confession. To them and their agenda, the evidence of Mabi’s guilt was just another noose of white dollars around the neck of a black man. If the more moderate members of that community harbored the same doubts, they hid them behind platitudes and denunciations of anti-Semitism.
Boston’s Irish community was conflicted, unable to decide who most deserved its opprobrium, a Jew or an African-American. Both, equally, was the final consensus.
In this volcanic heat wave, Boston’s veneer of civility, its patina of liberalism, had melted and its true nature had erupted. It would take a cold wave of ice age duration to still the flames. Well into the twenty-first century they would flicker, flare up, die down but never die out, ever ready for new fuel to reignite the conflagration.
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On Tuesday afternoon, Maddie resigned from Suffolk County Legal Services. Steve Frohling, ever in character, squeezed her too tightly for a good-bye hug, resting his hands on the curve of her ass in what Maddie knew was not a sign of respect and affection. She did not return the hug.
At the Aer Lingus office in Government Center, she bought two tickets to Ireland, one for herself, the other for Michelle Furey, both one way, both open return. Maud O’Donnell consented to meet with them as did the leadership of the IRA to discuss the wording on the plaque it intended to mount on her grand da’s marker identifying him as a hero of the Republic. The future Maddie had deferred for so many years, the past she had avoided, she was now eager to embrace.
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That evening, Maddie joined Rabbi ben Reuben, Moskovitzky, and Levy at services. The streets around the shule were still scarred and Maddie knew the scars would never heal. The streets would be rebuilt, glossy new buildings, home to chain stores and fancy retailers and franchises, all intended to create a new Chelsea. For years into the future, descendants of the original community would bring their children to Chelsea and show them where the butcher shop had been, the bookseller, the ritual bath, the tenements where sewing machines once whirred. It was as much a part of the legacy of the Jews of Boston as the Pesach of these hot April days.
After services Maddie accompanied the rabbi, Moskovitzky, and Levy to the rabbi’s home. It was a subdued celebration, not really a celebration, the rabbi said, more like a shiva–a ritual of mourning.
Maddie did not feel comfortable. These men had seen her at her worst; yet, they accepted her with grace and a generosity of spirit.
“Schnapps?” The rabbi filled four shot glasses half way. “L’chaim. To life.”
Maddie marveled at this man who could offer a toast to life after all he had lived through. She felt something she had not felt in years, a simple elemental feeling she had not enjoyed since the last time she nursed Elizabeth on the morning of her death. She felt good, not guilty, about being alive. She felt good, not guilty, about being Irish. She felt good, not guilty, about being her grand da’s granddaughter. Now, when she visited the cemetery to place flowers on Elizabeth’s grave, on the graves of her ma and da, she would still cry; but she would also offer the Rabbi’s toast, L’chaim. To life.
Slowly, day by day, Maddie’s hair began to grow back. By the time she and Michelle Furey left for Ireland, she was more beautiful than ever.