CHICAGO
ALBANY PARK NEIGHBORHOOD
SEPTEMBER 1965
Grandma loved to bake, and the Jewish holidays would find her home filled with sweet fragrances. She handed a box tied up in a blue ribbon to Mimi and said, “Would you please take this honey cake down to Mr. Rosen and wish him a sweet New Year? He’s a nice man. Isn’t he from Lublin or Lodz?”
“Yes, he is, Grandma. I think maybe both. On occasions, he’s opened a small window into his life in Poland. A couple of times, when I mentioned Lodz, I noticed a change in his expression. Like he winced. There is pain associated with Lodz, I’d bet on it.”
“I can understand that. That’s why so many families I knew fled to Lithuania.”
“He said he was transferred from Lublin to Lodz. He mentioned his wife, his father and his brother, but very briefly. I think he said he had a son.”
“What happened to them all?”
Mimi shook her head and shrugged. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t pry. Maybe they didn’t survive. He told me that the Nazis killed almost every Jew in Lublin. Forty thousand people.”
“So sad, so horrible. Well, bring him the cake and tell him I wish him a happy and healthy New Year.”
Mimi knocked on Eli’s door and waited. She was just about to leave when the door opened. Mimi held out the box. “Happy New Year, Eli. L’shana tovah. Grandma baked this just for you, and I know you love cake. It’s a honey cake for a sweet new year.”
“That is so kind. Please thank her for me. And you know my weakness—I do love cake! Come in for a moment. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? A soda?”
“If you have a Coke, I would take that, thank you, but I can only stay a minute.”
As Mimi waited, she noticed a Samsonite suitcase bearing a Washington Dulles baggage tag sitting in the hallway. Her attention was also drawn to the small black-and-white photo in the silver frame. It depicted a young boy in short pants and a sport jacket. Standing next to him was a woman with dark curly hair. She had her arm around the boy and was smiling proudly. “May I?” Mimi said.
Eli nodded, and Mimi gently picked up the picture. “Is this your wife?”
“Esther.”
“She’s beautiful, and she looks very kind and loving.”
“More than you can imagine.”
“Is that your son?”
He nodded. “Izaak.”
“He looks young in this picture.”
“He was five. It was right before the war.”
Mimi smiled. “My, what a handsome boy.”
Eli looked away. An uncomfortable silence followed, as though neither one knew where to take the conversation. Finally, Mimi put down the picture. “I’m sorry, Eli, I didn’t mean to pry. It’s Rosh Hashanah and I brought you a cake. Do you have plans to go to synagogue tonight?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t connected with a synagogue in a long time, Mimi. In Lublin, synagogues were targets, places of persecution. People were killed in synagogues.” He looked at Mimi with sad eyes. “I prayed and I prayed, Mimi, sometimes as hard as a man could pray, and I came to believe that no one was listening, because if He was listening, and He let it all happen, then … what’s the point? It’s beyond my understanding.”
“What you and the Polish people endured, no one will ever understand, certainly not me. I’m just a twenty-five-year-old journalism grad. I never took a theology course in my life and I didn’t really pay attention when my mother sent me to religious school. I was taught to believe that God is pure, good, all-knowing and all-powerful. But now I question the same paradoxes. Reason tells me that when He made the world, He could have made it any way He wanted. So why didn’t He make a world that couldn’t conceive of a Holocaust? Why didn’t He create a utopia instead of a world where people are free to be evil? I have no answers, and yet I still go to synagogue and pray and I hope my prayers are heard. I still seek answers to those questions. I guess that’s what faith is all about. Perhaps someday I will come to a better understanding. At least a workable compromise. And you, Eli Rosen, are welcome to come with my family tonight to seek the same answers if you like, but I can appreciate why you would decline.”
“Are you sure you’re only twenty-five?”
Mimi chuckled. “Just twenty-five.”
“Maybe one day we will sit, and I will tell you of my family and my life in Poland. You are an easy and comfortable person to talk to, Mimi Gold.”
“Thank you, Eli. I would be honored.”
“I don’t know about honored. I’m not all that mysterious.”
Mimi smiled. “My mom thinks you are. She thinks you’re with the CIA.”
“Ha, ha. Please tell your mother that I am definitely not with the CIA.”
Mimi bit her bottom lip and looked at him askance. “FBI?”
Eli furrowed his eyebrows. “That’s enough talk for today. Happy New Year, Mimi.”
“I knew it,” Ruth said. “I knew he was a G-man. Baggage tag for Washington? Unexciting government desk job, my giddy aunt!” She leaned forward. “Who do you suppose he’s investigating?”
Mimi twisted her lips. “I got an idea. He asks a lot of questions about Vittie.”
“Vittie!! Oh, my goodness, he’d better have both barrels loaded taking on one of the most powerful men in the country. Why do you think it’s Vittie?”
“I don’t know; I just have a feeling. He seems very interested. Unusually so. He’s asked me questions about Vittie, about who was at the party and the wedding, and he also asked Nathan questions about him. He even wanted to know about Preston and what he did in Vittie’s office.”
Ruth smiled. “Imagine that. All this intrigue going on in my building in Albany Park.”