Yakov’s thin, reedy voice riveted everyone in the room. My stomach lurched as I turned in his direction; this was everything I’d wanted to avoid. I glanced at the Rabbi and saw a strickenlook chip into his stony face then pass as his anger regained its footing. Reb Yonah raised his voice and spoke harshly in Yiddish, wagging his finger toward the door.

“No, Father, I’m not leaving. I won’t return to the Yeshiva,” Yakov answered evenly. Then he looked toward me. “You lied to me, Matt. You said there was nothing to my fears, but you yourself weren’t telling the truth.”

I gritted my teeth and kept silent.

Yonah shouted in rapid-fire Yiddish but Yakov shook his head vehemently. “I will not leave. And you must speak in English. This conversation is not just between us.”

Yonah turned to me. “This is your doing! You have succeeded in turning my only child against me!”

“I didn’t want this to happen, Yonah. I tried to keep this private.”

“Lies, nothing but lies.” Yonah couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. “You put these lies in Yakov’s head. From the beginning you wanted to take him from us, from me.”

“No, Abba, it was the opposite. Matt lied to protect you. He told me what I had seen and heard was of no importance so I could return home with peace of mind.” Yakov shook his head at me. “You thought too little of me, Matt. You treated me like a kid who couldn’t hear the truth.”

Simon walked over to my seat and tapped my shoulder. “Matt, maybe we ought to come back another time?”

I thrust his hand away. “It’s too late, Simon.” I refocused on the boy. “I didn’t lie about everything, Yakov. I don’t believe your father was responsible for Rabbi Dov’s death. But I believe he has information that can make sense out of what happened. And you’re right, I do want to give the two of you a chance together. A clean chance.”

“Listen to him, Roth. Do you hear how he seduces my son?”

Simon returned to his chair. “I don’t hear seduction, Reb Yonah. I hear care and protection. If this conversation had been left up to me I would have called in the boy. Yakov approached Matt with his suspicions, not the other way around. Matt wouldn’t allow me to involve him.”

“After which he would have gone directly back to Yakov,” Yonah cried out bitterly. “This man’s entire reason for being here is to drive a stake between me and my son.”

I looked at Yakov while I responded. “The stake was planted long before I landed in your life, Yonah. When Yakov’s mother died you backed off and allowed Rabbi Dov to play father. And when Dov died, you let Yakov dangle. I wasn’t, and am not, trying to tear Yakov away from you or your religion. Yakov was looking for help to find his way back. It’s pretty difficult when you’re young, all alone, and mixed up in the middle of something you don’t understand.”

I turned to see Reb Yonah drag his chair back to the table and sit down. “I am used to being surrounded by hatred. My entire life has been spent warding off attacks. Even before the Nazis occupied Poland we were always preparing for an assault. Everyone lived in constant fear. We were Saturday night sport for the drunken goyim. But this, this is different. This comes from my own son.”

“I’m not attacking you, Papa,” Yakov said from the doorway. “I could never hate you. I didn’t come to the house to blame, but to find answers. I don’t think the lawyer Roth is here from hate, nor Matt.”

The sound of my name rolling from Yakov’s lips re-ignited Reb Yonah’s temper. “You call this anti-Semite by his first name? You go to him with your concerns and fears but not to your own father? This is not what you’ve been taught! Where did you get these ideas if not from this schkutz?”

“You want to beat on the kid for your failures, don’t you?” I challenged. “I understand your anger. I’m forcing you to admit what you are and what you did. I also understand why you think I’m here to stick it to you. But your son is here out of love and respect. If you want to attack someone, attack me or yourself. Leave the boy alone.”

“I don’t need your protection, Mr. Jacob.” I was stung by Yakov’s use of my surname but listened while he spoke to Reb Yonah. “I love you, Papa, no matter what has happened, but I want to know the truth.”

“How is it you’ve come to be involved?” Reb Yonah demanded. “I haven’t pushed you into any of this. This man is the one who did that.”

“No, Papa, it’s not true. I was the one who overheard your telephone conversations. I was the one who followed you to the park and saw you meet with this Kelly. I was the one who told Mr. Jacob about all of it.”

Simon opened his mouth but I stopped him from speaking with a curt wave of my hand. Yonah had slumped forward, the wrath seeping slowly from his face. I watched him mouth silent words and tug at his beard. He removed his glasses, placing them carefully on the table. I felt my body relax as the intensity in the room slackened.

Reb Yonah said something in Yiddish but Yakov interrupted. “You must speak in English, Father. Everyone has to understand what you are saying.”

Yonah looked as if he was going to argue and I thought we were back to battle. But he restrained himself and rubbed his eyes. “I never wanted you to spend your life living with the same fear as I have.”

“You never spoke with me about any of those fears,” Yakov answered. “You only talk to the Never Agains.”

Yonah shook his head and gestured with his hands. “I couldn’t. Your life was difficult enough. We are encircled by a world that begs, entices us to turn away from our beliefs. And beats us when we don’t. To speak with you about the atrocities that happened in my life meant exposing you to my fear. I could not do that and expect you to take from me the strength and courage to be a Jew. Our kind of Jew.”

Yonah paused and when he spoke again his note of despair had deepened. “After your mother died my aggravations were so great I could barely speak to you at all. When I looked upon you I saw her. I saw another piece of my life that had been stolen.”

He dropped his head to his chest. “I had to do something, anything, to free myself of this affliction. It was after her death that I first met the Never Agains. These were not people frozen in fear. These were not Jews who walked quietly to their graves. I believed I could learn, that the entire Yeshiva could learn. That was why I met with them.

“But our Rebbe, with all his wisdom, all his knowledge, could not understand. He, Merciful God, had been spared the horrors of the camps. He had not seen firsthand the blood and bones ofdying relatives in piles in front of open trenches. Our Rebbe had not been forced to wonder whether a beloved had been used to make the thin sliver of soap the guards occasionally handedout. Or whether a child’s skin had been molded into a lampshade.”

Yonah groaned. “Of course our Rebbe knew of the horror, but he did not witness it the way I and the Never Agains had witnessed it. We saw these things with our eyes. With our own starvation, our own death staring at us each day.”

“But why, Father?” Yakov’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Why did you continue to meet with them after the Rebbe forbade it. Why did you meet with Kelly?”

Yonah looked at each of us in turn. “I stopped the meetings. I explained to the Never Agains that the Rebbe would not allow me to bring the organization to the Yeshiva. They were not pleased with my information. Nor were they pleased when I refused to continue my efforts without Reb Dov’s knowledge. In the past they had confronted similar objections, but always continued their work. I would not allow that here. I could not ignore my Rebbe and I could not let anyone else ignore him.”

There was a long pause while each of us digested what he had said. Yakov emerged from the doorway’s shadow and took a seat a couple feet from the table. Silent tears dripped from his eyes. When I looked at Yonah he too was awkwardly crying. Simon was white-faced and staring in my direction but I didn’t think he actually saw me. I let the silence ride then went on.

“But you picked up with the Never Agains later, Rabbi. Why?”

Reb Yonah spread his hands helplessly. “An important Rabbi, a friend from within the organization, contacted me shortly after these White Avengers began their systematic attacks upon the Yeshiva. Though I was at first reluctant, I became convinced there would be little harm if we met.”

“What was the meeting about?”

Some of his feistiness returned. “It was about the horror that has confronted Jews since we first became a people. Our conversation reminded me of why I had originally sought them. These were people who understood what organized anti-Semitism led to. They understood that the abuse would never disappear on its own. It would end with the destruction of our Yeshiva, ourcommunity. My friends understand the world as it truly is.”

“But the meetings didn’t stop with just one,” I suggested in an even tone. We were moving into the present and I didn’t want to trigger his temper.

I needn’t have worried. Reb Yonah was no longer interested in me or Simon. Throughout his explanation he continually glanced at his son. Finally convinced there was no condemnation to be found, he looked directly at Yakov while he answered my questions. “It was the first of many meetings,” he admitted. “I did not want to end my association.”

“What was their intent, Reb Yonah? How did they want to use you?”

He took his eyes from Yakov’s face, glanced toward me, then went back to talking to his son. “I had no sense of being used. I’m not certain they have used me. I have made my own judgments throughout this ordeal.”

He stared down at the table. “They asked me to approach the Rebbe again. They felt the Rebbe might feel differently since it was no longer isolated acts of hatred, but an organized system of anti-Semitism. I wanted to talk to the Rebbe about this.” He returned his gaze to his son. “People with numbers burned into their arms see all too clearly the nature of appeasement.”

“But Rabbi Dov still refused to let them recruit?” Simon found his voice.

“He said no.”

I stole a look at Yakov before I asked, “What was the Never Agains’ next idea, Rabbi?”

Reb Yonah lowered his eyes. “When my friends heard that I had been unable to convince Reb Dov, they asked me to recruit behind his back.” He lifted his head momentarily. “Again I refused. But as the attacks from the Avengers increased, they insisted something needed to be done to change the Rebbe’s mind.”

Reb Yonah took a deep shaky breath as anguish contorted his face. “This is when everything terrible really began. I met with my friend in New York and we talked through the night. If the Rebbe truly understood the gravity of the Avenger threat…If Reb Dov saw our vulnerability, he might finally understand. My friend suggested a disruption at the Simchas Torah celebration— thugs would interfere when everyone was out on the street. The Rebbe would clearly see how easy it was to be in harm’s way. He would want our Yeshiva protected. Protected by our own.” Reb Yonah covered his face with a hand and spoke from behind it. “To this day I don’t know why I countenanced this idea.”

“But you did,” I said.

Now that he’d begun telling the truth, Reb Yonah seemed determined to tell all of it. Maybe the Catholics were on to something with their confessionals. Yonah removed his hand. “Yes. But I returned from New York uneasy about our discussion so I put it from my mind. Eventually it became as if I had dreamt it. Such a long time passed before I heard from him, I hoped my friend had also forgotten.”

“But he hadn’t?” asked Simon.

I heard Yakov’s chair scrape along the floor, sliding closer to the table. I didn’t look his way.

“No,” Reb Yonah said. “He had not forgotten. Worse. He told me that through various contacts the Never Agains had been able to do the impossible. They had arranged for this Sean Kelly to disrupt our holiday! He said the Rebbe would taste our danger! After the disruption, if Kelly were caught, he would be identified as an Avenger. The Rebbe would now be certain to change his mind…”

“What were you supposed to do?” Simon’s eyes shot sparks as he leaned into the Rabbi’s words.

“Everything. I was told that my friend could no longer be contacted. It was important the Never Agains remain hidden, out of sight. They would call me after everything was finished. After Simchas Torah. I tried to remove myself but it was impossible. Everything had gone too far and I was the only one left to exercise any control over what was to occur. It was too late to stop Kelly. My friend gave me a time to meet with him.”

“Where were you supposed to meet?” I asked.

“I was given an address in the neighborhood. It was a church. When I got there I believed it to be the wrong address.”

“Why?”

“Because a Hasid would never go inside any church. I started to leave when Kelly ran over. We spoke for a little while and set times to meet again.”

“When did he start blackmailing you?” I asked.

Yonah lifted his shoulders tiredly. “I’m not certain of when. By then everything seemed as a dream. A terrible nightmare. This was not a Rabbi’s work.”

“But he did blackmail you?” I pressed.

“Yes, he blackmailed me. He had tape recordings of our conversations. He wanted twenty thousand dollars. I grew frantic and found myself negotiating, but I had nothing with which to negotiate. No matter what price he fixed, I would not be able to pay.”

“What did you do?” Yakov asked.

“I called my friend in New York. Then I went there, only to be given rough diamonds to push onto Kelly. I was told to refuse him any cash or any more diamonds until after the disruption.” Yonah looked at me. “This is when I was given a gun and instructed to pretend to protect the Rebbe on Simchas Torah. I was to chase Kelly from our midst.”

“Kelly went for the jewels?”

“He wanted cash. Also, rough diamonds do not appear valuable. I explained that when everything was finished, I would see that they were cut into gems. He was unhappy, but he finally understood I could do no more.”

Once again everyone lapsed back into silence, the only sound Reb Yonah’s labored breath. “Everything went wrong that night, didn’t it?” I asked softly.

Reb Yonah didn’t need to be told which night. “Yes, everything went wrong. Kelly was to have screamed and cursed while he threatened with his gun. He would stand in full view when the Rebbe came out of the building to be sure the Rebbe saw the threat.”

Reb Dov stared over my head. “It began as planned. I saw Kelly scream and curse. I made certain Reb Dov saw the disruption. When I turned my attention back to Kelly he was waving his gun. I took mine from my pocket and started toward him. Then I heard an explosion. I turned back to see my Rebbe fall to the ground.”

Tears washed over Yonah’s face, his arms and hands shaking uncontrollably. Inside his black suit he looked small and lost. He looked old. “Something happened within me. Something that would not allow another loved one to be taken away without revenge. I ran at Kelly. He continued to wave his gun. The next I knew I had pulled the trigger.”

Yonah slumped forward resting his head on his arms and sobbed. I heard Yakov leave his chair and watched him circle the table to his father. Yakov was ashen but dry-faced. He tentatively placed his hands on his father’s heaving shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed Yonah’s black yarmulke.

Simon sat quietly, a grim, hard look on his face. I kept myself from squirming in my chair.

Sometime in the future I would be comfortable with my role in having opened a path for Yonah and Yakov. Comfortable, even, with forcing Yonah’s Simchas Torah participation into the light. But right then I had a heavy heart. Right then, Yonah’s tears and Yakov’s gain were exposing my losses.