by Sally Quinn
Sadie thought she had never identified so totally with anyone in her entire life as she had with this frightened little boy.
Why was this night different from all other nights? Because she had made a total ass out of herself on this night, that’s why. Because she was placing herself in a situation that was completely unviable, because she had obviously lost another man she cared about. Each person began reciting various portions of the story, the legend of how Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom. When the story was finished Michael then gave a short speech about the meaning of freedom to the Jews. It was heartfelt and moving.
When the story was finished, Michael began in Hebrew and the others followed in English.
“The slavery the Israelites suffered in Egypt, and the freedom they won, inspired many of the more beautiful of the teachings in the Torah. Let us now read some of them together.”
They read several verses, then Michael said, and she repeated in English after him, “The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the native among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord.”
She looked up at him and saw that he was looking at her.
Everyone else was looking down at their text and when he spoke next he spoke directly to her. She listened to the words in English as the others read them.
“And a stranger thou shalt not oppress, for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
She smiled at him and he smiled back.
“How many wonderful deeds did God perform for us!” Michael was saying.
“Had he brought us out of Egypt and not split the sea for us,”
And everybody, including Sadie, said in a loud chorus, “Dayenu!” which the Haggadah explained meant, “For that alone we should have been grateful!”
“Had he split the sea for us and not brought us through dry-shod—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he brought us through dry-shod, and not sustained us in the wilderness for forty years—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he sustained us in the wilderness for forty years, and not fed us with manna—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he fed us with manna, and not given us the Sabbath—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he given us the Sabbath, and not brought us to Mount Sinai—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he brought us to Mount Sinai and not given us the Torah—”
“Dayenu!”
“Had he given us the Torah, and not brought us into the land of Israel—”
“Dayenu!”
“How much more, then, are we to be grateful to God for the wonderful deeds he performed for us! For he brought us out of Egypt, And split the Red Sea for us, and brought us through dry-shod, and sustained us in the wilderness for forty years, and fed us with manna, and gave us the Sabbath, and brought us to Mount Sinai, and gave us the Torah, and brought us into the land of Israel!”
The chorus of voices rose in a joyous crescendo with everyone almost laughing as they sang out Dayenu; when Michael finished they burst into actual song, singing, “Day, Day, enu; Day, Day, enu!” as loudly and as boisterously as they could.
Sadie was surprised by how quickly the service went from somber to gay, but she saw that Michael was laughing and smiling and she relaxed even more. Maybe this was going to be all right after all. If they ever got any food.
Mercifully the service was only a little longer and then they stopped for the meal.
The happy mood carried over to dinner, which was delicious. Both Abe and Sid turned to Sadie and almost surrounded her with warmth and attention. They obviously had sensed how uncomfortable she had been at the beginning of the seder.
“Let me tell you about those forbidden candlesticks,” Abe said to her with a mischievous grin, glancing surreptitiously toward his wife, who was probably giving Michael a piece of her mind.
“They were brought over to America by my father from Russia. The only thing they were able to take with them. He had no money of his own and he was able to afford only a cheap metal-like chrome for his Shabbes candlesticks. He was a wonderful craftsman. After my father died my mother took very good care of them, telling me always that they were more precious than real silver because they were made with love and used with love. She said they had kept the flame of hope burning on every Shabbes, even in the darkest times. They are very important to this family.”
“I understand and I’m sorry I touched them,” said Sadie. “It’s just that I had no idea…”
“Dahlink,” said Abe, putting his hand on hers. “Don’t say another word. You did a wonderful thing. You admired them. You recognized their beauty despite what they are made out of. You did the right thing.”
“Tell me about your mother. She sounds like a wonderful woman,” said Sadie. “She must have led a very hard life.”
“My mother, oy.” He laughed and looked heavenward. “My mother. You want to know about my mother, I’ll tell you about my mother.”
Abe turned out to be a comedian. Sadie could see where Michael got his sense of humor. Before long she was laughing so hard she was nearly in tears about Abe’s mother. Then Sid got into the act.
“My mother always favored my younger brother, who was a complete loser,” said Sid. “I was getting straight A’s in school and keeping a part-time job to help out with expenses. I played the violin in the school orchestra, I was editor of the school paper, head of the science club. I got a full scholarship to college and paid my way through medical school. And all I ever got was, ‘Lou did this’ and ‘Lou did that’ and ‘Lou said this’ and ‘Lou said that.’ One day I was so angry that I just screamed at my mother. ‘Mother, I’m the one who’s successful. I’m the one who’s supporting you and Lou, too, and you’ve never once said, “Well done” in my life. Can’t you ever just say one nice thing to me?’ ”
“See what you’ve done?” said Abe. “You’ve got a couple of Jews talking about their mothers.” He started to say, “Now Michael…” and she leaned forward intently, but Michael had begun to speak in Hebrew again.
“What now?” she whispered to Sid. “Is this the last part of the service?”
“Yes. We’re not supposed to eat any more. But there is plenty of drinking to be done.”
“Why this egg and why these flowers?” Michael was asking in Hebrew as Sadie followed the English text.
“The egg is the form of life and rebirth. These flowers rise up against winter as our forebearers rose up against Pharaoh. They remind us to sing the Song of Songs, of liberation through love.”
She looked up at him and saw that he had stolen another glance at her and that he was speaking to her again.
“Come with me, my love, come away,” he said, reciting from memory from the Haggadah.
“For the long wet months are past,
The rains have fed the earth
And left it bright with blossoms.
“Birds wing in the low sky,
Dove and songbirds singing
In the open air above,
“Earth nourishing tree and vine,
Green fig and tender grape,
Green and tender fragrance.
“Come with me, my love, come away.”
She felt sad.
Next came the cup of Elijah.
The cup was filled with wine. Michael rose and went to open the door so that the Prophet Elijah, who comes to set the Jewish people free, could symbolically enter.
He sent the little boy who had asked the first question to close the door, then quickly emptied the cup so the child would think Elijah had drunk it.
Then everyone sang joyously as the child rushed to the door to see where Elijah had gone.
The last part of the seder was mostly singing and responses, and although Sadie enjoyed it she didn’t know the tunes, and the words were all in Hebrew. The final song wa
s called “L’Shanah Ha’Ba’Ah Be’Yerushalayim” The mood in the room became sober again as it had been in the beginning, and everyone sang together. At the end, they all raised their hands and their voices and shouted, “Next year in Jerusalem.”
It was that line that did her in. There would be no next year for her and Michael. Even if there were, it certainly wouldn’t be in Jerusalem. He was Jewish. She was not. It was that simple. And that complicated. He had finished building the wall between them so high that she couldn’t see him over the top anymore. The mortar that built this wall was made of finely chopped apples, walnuts, and wine.
* * *
It had been over a month—six weeks to be exact. They hadn’t spoken since the seder. She had written an effusive thank-you note to him and Giselle at home. She had gotten no reply.
She was going crazy.
So many times she had started to call him; even held on as the line rang and the secretary answered. In the end she always hung up. What was she going to say? “All right. So you’re Jewish. I’m not. So big fucking deal.”
No. She was not going to say that. She wasn’t going to say it because it was a very big deal. At least for him. For her the fact that Michael was Jewish was completely irrelevant except for the fact that it wasn’t to him. That’s what made it a big fucking deal. That and the absolute certainty that she could never go through another religious ceremony with him again. Not with his mother and his wife present, anyway. That wasn’t the issue at the moment, however, since he hadn’t exactly asked her to participate in a meeting, much less a religious ceremony.
Meetings she had been to. She had never quite understood the meaning of the phrase “bury yourself in your work” until the last six weeks. She had been a whirlwind of activity, throwing herself into Blanche’s AIDS project with a vengeance. She had organized Blanche’s every moment. She had set up Blanche’s tour of the AIDS program at Children’s Hospital, which had gotten an enormous amount of good publicity. She had arranged for her to visit every AIDS hospice in the city, every shelter for abandoned babies with AIDS. She had persuaded Blanche to fly to San Francisco to talk to the people in the arts and entertainment worlds, and to tape an AIDS message to be aired during prime time on all of the networks. She had convinced Blanche to start rehearsals for her first Live AIDS concert with her music friends.
Sadie had practically taken up residence in the East Wing of the White House, and Blanche’s staff more or less answered to Sadie. Blanche was only too happy to have Sadie run her life. She was also thrilled with the turnaround in publicity and the new image Sadie had managed to create for her in little over two months.
Two meetings of the President’s Committee on AIDS had been planned. Blanche had had to postpone one, and Michael was out of town for the other and sent a substitute. Sadie was crushed. This was the only legitimate way she had to see him. She had gotten into this thing, and gotten Blanche into it, because of Michael. Then, after the seder, she had thrown herself into it to distract herself and to prove to him that she was a good person, a worthwhile human being. Finally, however, she had found herself genuinely involved and deeply committed. She was also surprised to find how important it had become to her in such a short time.
Blanche had eventually persuaded Freddy to actually take the first AIDS test for the national testing program. There had been a huge amount of publicity as the President had driven out to NIH for the test. The photo opportunity had been impressive, with the President smiling with a needle in his arm. Never mind that his smile seemed a bit frozen in the photographs. Michael Lanzer was in all the pictures. She cut them all out. She put them in a folder. She looked at them every day. His pictures made her smile. He had a surprised look in all of them. “What am I doing in this picture?” his expression seemed to say. It was an expression she had never seen on him before. He was either terribly serious with her, talking about medicine and science, or funny, making jokes, loving. Rarely loving, but she had seen that side of him. Surprise was not anything she expected of him. He always gave the impression that nothing could surprise him. He’d seen it all. Even talking about sex, an area in which he was hardly experienced, he had a worldly aura. Part of that obviously came from being a doctor, of dealing with life and death on an everyday basis, of dealing with human bodies. But another part of it, she decided, was being Jewish, for him, anyway. It was the sense that he had seen or experienced another kind of human suffering that left no room for surprise.
She liked the idea of the camera capturing something about him that even he didn’t seem to be aware of. Stealing something of him that nobody knew about. It intrigued her that the photograph seemed to have abducted a piece of his soul. She wanted it. She cut it out. Now she had it.
And why not? It was only fair. After all, he had a piece of hers.
* * *
“Sadie. It’s Blanche.”
The voice on the other end of the line sounded shaky and scared.
“Blanche, what is it?”
“Oh Sadie, I, I’m so scared.” Blanche burst into tears.
“Tell me what’s the matter.”
“It’s Freddy and that goddamn test,” she said finally. “I knew I shouldn’t have pushed it. I should have listened to him. He didn’t want to do it.”
Sadie’s voice was very quiet.
“What are you saying, Blanche?”
“We haven’t gotten the results yet. At least I don’t think so. When they took the test they told us it would be a couple of days. We didn’t hear anything for a week. I asked Freddy every night and he kept getting more and more upset and yelled at me to get off his back. Then yesterday Michael Lanzer came to the White House to see him.”
Sadie held her breath.
“What did he say?”
“I don’t know. Freddy wouldn’t tell me. But he was white as a sheet when he came back to the family quarters last night. He wouldn’t talk to me at all. He just got bowl-huggin’ drunk and went to bed. He had already left for his office when I woke up this morning.”
“How do you know Michael saw him? Did he tell you? Was it on the schedule? There wasn’t anything on the news last night or in the papers this morning about it?”
“I found out from his press secretary. He came up to see me yesterday evening. He wanted me to persuade Freddy to get NIH to give out the results of his test. The press was beginning to ask. He also said it won’t be long before they find out that Michael was here. And if they don’t release the results it’ll look like it was positive.”
“Blanche, do you want me to come over there?”
“No. I just don’t know what to do. I’m so scared. What if he has… I mean, what if… it’s just so awful I can’t even think about it.”
“Do you want me to call Michael?”
“Oh, would you, Sadie? I’m just too scared. Would you please?”
She knew she shouldn’t. It wasn’t ethical. But it would give her an excuse to talk to him.
“Yes. I’ll call him.”
“Just do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“If it’s bad news, I don’t want to know.”
* * *
His secretary, for once, put him on right away.
“Hey.” He sounded too casual.
“Hi,” she said.
“How are you?” He sounded as if he really wanted to know.
“Fine.” Oh, no! She was going to lose it. Her voice was wavering. “Not fine, actually.”
“What’s wrong?” He was alarmed.
“I miss you.” Oh God! How could she have said that?
He didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What have you been up to?” He acted as if he hadn’t heard her.
She pulled herself together and related her activities of the past two months.
“Good for you. I’m proud of you. You’re really doing it.”
“You patronizing bastard.” Make him pay.
“I’ve s
een your picture everywhere peering over the President’s shoulder and smiling for the cameras,” she said. “How does it feel to be famous?”
“I wasn’t trying to get in the pictures, I was trying to avoid the pictures.”
Ha! She had got him.
“That’s not how it looked to me. It looked like you were desperate to get the glory, like you had surgically joined yourself to the President in order to get the maximum publicity.”
“Did it look like that? Because I…” He was upset.
“It’s all right Michael. I’m sure it’s good for AIDS. So I wouldn’t worry about it. If it gives you a little ego boost at the same time, well then, no harm done.”
“You really are bad, you know that?” He was laughing.
“Why sugar,” she said in her deepest drawl, “you do say the sweetest things.”
“I have missed you, Sadie Grey.”
“Really?” She couldn’t help the sarcastic tone.
“Yes.” He was serious. “God help me.”
“I gather you went to see the President yesterday.”
“Where did you hear that?” he said carefully after a slight hesitation. “Blanche called me this morning. She’s hysterical, Michael. She said that they were told the results would be in in a couple of days. It’s been almost a week and the press is beginning to agitate. Then you make this secret unannounced visit to the White House. The President comes back to the family quarters in a foul mood, gets, if you’ll pardon the expression, ‘bowl-huggin’ drunk,’ and won’t talk to her.”
“You know I can’t talk to you about this.”
His voice was distant.
“Michael. I’m not asking you to tell me about the President. I’m asking you to do something. This is not just an everyday AIDS test. This is a national public relations campaign and we’re talking about the President of the United States. Not to mention his wife, the person he sleeps with. At least get him to announce the results. He can’t just stonewall this.”
“Sadie, he’s my patient. I can’t discuss this.”
