While We’re Far Apart

by Lynn Austin

  “As a direct result of this report,” the speaker concluded, “the president issued an executive order on January 22, 1944, to establish a War Refugee Board, as you no doubt already know from the news briefing. He has promised that our government will ‘take all measures within its powers to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death’ and to provide ‘relief and assistance.’ That’s why all of you are here. To assist President Roosevelt with raising support for this new board.”

  Silence filled the room when he finished. Jacob could hear the hiss of the radiators, the distant swish and honk of traffic outside. He looked around and saw that many of the rabbis had closed their eyes. Their lips moved silently as they swayed in prayer.

  Jacob felt a mixture of cautious hope and terrible fear – hope that something would finally be done; fear that help would arrive too late. The reports that trickled in from Nazi-occupied countries made the situation clear: The Nazis had sentenced the European Jews – his son, his family – to death.

  The next speaker explained how the War Refugee Board would send aid to refugees through the embassies of neutral nations such as Sweden. Some of this aid, Jacob wanted to believe, would go to help his family in Hungary. He tried to tally in his head the number of people in his extended family. Besides Avraham, Sarah, and Fredeleh, Jacob counted his two brothers, their wives, children, and grandchildren; Jacob’s cousins, their wives and families, Miriam Shoshanna’s brother and his family, and . . . he couldn’t count them all. More children and grandchildren surely would have been born since Jacob had last received a letter from any of them.

  When the meeting ended, he and Rebbe Grunfeld waited to speak with one of the Washington officials. “We would like to know if you have any reports from Hungary,” the rebbe said. “We have family there, and we have heard nothing since America declared war with the Axis powers.”

  “I’m not sure. Let me ask Ben Cohen.”

  The man named Cohen, who was Jewish but not observant, drew Jacob and Rebbe Grunfeld aside. “You didn’t hear this from me,” he said in a quiet voice, “but there have been a few tentative peace overtures from Hungarian leaders. They are disillusioned with Hitler, it seems, and are trying to make a separate peace with the Allies.”

  “Hashem be praised,” the rebbe murmured.

  “Nothing is definite, mind you. There have only been a few feelers within the diplomatic community.”

  “But that is still good news, yes?” the rebbe asked Jacob.

  “Yes,” Jacob agreed. “Yes.”

  He left the meeting feeling more encouraged than he had in many months. “From now on,” the rebbe said, “we must devote every moment of our time, every ounce of our energy to writing letters, contacting Jewish donors in America, pleading for funds.”

  “It will be a relief to be able to do something useful besides worry,” Jacob said. The work would keep him moving forward through the long, silent days of waiting. But as he walked home from the last bus stop to his apartment at the end of the afternoon in a biting February wind, he couldn’t help wondering if Avraham and his family were keeping warm. Did they have enough to eat? Or would help from the new Refugee Board arrive too late?

  Jacob unlocked the front door and went inside his warm apartment, stomping the snow from his shoes. Since it was so late in the day, the children would have already arrived home from school. He could hear Esther practicing the piano upstairs. He stood in the living room for a moment with his coat on, listening. She played beautifully for a girl so young, every phrase full of expression. She and Peter would have heard him come home. They would be down soon.

  And they were. By the time he’d hung his hat and overcoat in the closet and changed into his house slippers, they already were knocking on his door.

  “Come in, come in . . . How was your day in school? And the spelling test you were dreading, Peter? You passed it, yes?” Peter gave Jacob a shy grin and a nod. “Good, good. I believe the tin of cookies is on the kitchen table. Go and see if there are any left.”

  “What happened to all your pictures, Mr. Mendel?” Esther had come into his apartment and gone straight to his dining room table, as usual, to look at his newspaper clippings. But ever since Jacob had realized how they fueled Esther’s fears – and his own – he had known that he must get rid of them. Late last night he finally cleared them from his tabletop for the first time since Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia.

  “I have decided not to collect them any longer,” he told her.

  “What? . . . Why not?”

  “They were too discouraging. I need to turn my thoughts to other things.” He didn’t want her to know that he had removed them for her sake, but now that they were gone, he found that his fear had diminished, as well. Listening to radio broadcasts, reading the newspaper would be enough. He didn’t need to dwell on the horrors of war in his own dining room.

  “What did you do with them?” Esther asked. “Can I have them?”

  “I threw everything away.”

  Esther stuck her lip out in a pout. She looked like a very small child, but only for a moment. Today as Jacob studied her, he could see how much taller she had grown these past months, how mature she was becoming. She was no longer the little girl who used to sit in the kitchen with Miriam Shoshanna, eating honey cake. Esther was becoming a young woman before his eyes.

  “I wish you hadn’t thrown them away, Mr. Mendel. Why didn’t you give them to me? I could make a scrapbook.”

  “If they are no good for me, then they are no good for you, either. Besides, Esther, we cannot trust what we see in those pictures to tell us the entire story. We cannot know all of the things that are going on behind the scenes that we see in the photographs. They do not show us how Hashem is at work.”

  “What do you mean? What do you think Hashem is doing?”

  Jacob paused. Did he believe what he had just told her or were they only words? Was it wrong to talk to her of faith when his own faith was so tentative? Jacob was angry with Hashem, yes, but he still believed in Him. And he did trust that Hashem was at work, even though he sometimes wanted to tell the Master of the Universe that He wasn’t running it very well.

  “Today I attended a meeting to talk about a new organization the president has created to help war refugees in Europe like my son. The work they do will be invisible, behind the scenes. You and I certainly cannot see it. But I will raise money to send over there because I believe in what I cannot see.”

  “Does this mean Hashem is answering your prayers?”

  “Perhaps.” Jacob hadn’t thought of it that way, but she was right, of course.

  “I still wish you hadn’t destroyed the pictures,” Esther said. “Especially the ones from England, where Daddy is. I heard on the radio that two hundred German airplanes dropped bombs on London the other night, and I want to see what’s going on.”

  “Even though you can do nothing about it?”

  She gave a loose shrug, her arms folded across her chest, and he saw by her pout that she was cross with him. “Do you know the story of Queen Esther, from the Bible?” he asked.

  “A little. Not much.”

  Jacob put his hands on his hips in mock dismay. “Now, how can that be . . . when you are named after her?”

  “Will you tell it to me?”

  Peter must have been listening to the conversation from the kitchen, because he suddenly appeared in the dining room doorway with a cookie in his hand. He looked up at Jacob like a puppy pleading for a bone. “You want to hear the story, too, I suppose?” Peter nodded.

  “Hmm . . . Let me see something . . .” He went to his desk in the living room and checked his calendar. “Esther’s feast, which is called Purim, will be coming soon, in March. Even better than telling you the story, I think we should celebrate it. As part of that celebration it is our tradition to read the story together. Everyone will take a different part – and Esther must be Queen Esther.” He turned to Peter and laid his hand on the boy’s he
ad. “And you will play the part of Hashem.”

  Esther frowned at Jacob. “How can he do that? You know he doesn’t talk.”

  “You will see. It will be the perfect part for him.”

  Peter tugged Jacob’s sleeve and showed him what he had written. Do we light candles?

  “I am afraid there are no candles to light during Purim, but there will be other good things. You must bring noisemakers with you – bells, whistles, tin pots, and wooden spoons – anything that makes a noise.”

  “Who gets to make the noise?”

  Jacob couldn’t help smiling at the children’s growing excitement. “We all do. Purim is the only time when it is a mitzvah for children to make noise. Another tradition is to dress up in costumes.”

  “Like Halloween?”

  “Perhaps a little bit like that. You must wear a crown like Queen Esther. And we must invite Penny, of course.”

  “What else? What else?”

  Jacob was surprised to discover that he felt excited, too. “Let me think . . . My wife used to make Hamantaschen. They are cookies. But I do not know how to bake cookies.”

  Peter hopped up and down, pointing to Esther and himself. “You will help me bake them?” Jacob asked. When Peter nodded and hugged Jacob’s arm, it brought tears to his eyes.

  “We used to help Mama bake all the time,” Esther said. “Penny can help us, too. All we need is the recipe.”

  “Very well. Let me see if I can find it.” He went into the kitchen with Peter still holding tightly to his arm and looked through the file box where Miriam Shoshanna kept her recipes. Her handwriting, so flowing and elegant, reminded Jacob of dark lace. He found the well-used cookie recipe, smudged and speckled with stains.

  “Well, here is the recipe, but I am afraid it is written in our Hungarian language. I will have to translate it for you.”

  “Can we make them today?”

  “I do not have all of the ingredients. Besides, we still have plenty of time to prepare for the feast.”

  Jacob’s mind raced with plans. What else must he do to prepare? He would go shopping. They could bake the cookies the day before Purim. And he would make bags of treats for everyone. It was a tradition to give away candy and other goodies. As he tallied all the things he must do to get ready, Jacob felt different and couldn’t quite think why. Then he realized why. He was happy.

  He was very glad that he had gotten rid of the newspaper clippings. It would be much better for everyone this way.

  After the children went home to eat their dinner, Jacob called Rebbe Grunfeld on the telephone. “I have invited company for Purim, but I am not a very good cook. Is there a woman from the congregation who might be willing to cook for me if I pay her? Tell her that I will buy all of the ingredients and she can fix them in her own kitchen – something simple that I can warm up in my oven.”

  “I know just the person, Yaacov. I will ask her to call you for the details. I am so happy to hear you sounding so well. And celebrating Purim! Wonderful, wonderful.”

  “The work with the Refugee Board has lifted my spirits. From now on I will have something to do besides sit and worry. Who knows, we might even make a difference.”

  Miriam Shoshanna would be pleased, Jacob thought as he spread a cloth on the dining room table and set it with her good china plates and glassware. Tonight was the first time the dishes had been out of the cupboard since she had died, the first time he had invited guests for dinner. The woman he had hired to cook the meal had outdone herself, preparing cabbage rolls and potato latkes and a small brisket of beef. She had offered to bake Hamantaschen and seemed surprised when Jacob told her that he had baked them himself – with help from Miss Goodrich and the children, of course.

  Esther arrived dressed as a princess, with a crown on her head made of tinfoil and cardboard. Peter had pinned a bath towel to his shoulders and taped the letter S to the front of his shirt. Jacob wasn’t sure why until Esther explained that he was supposed to be Superman.

  They sat down to eat, and as Jacob broke the bread, he recited the blessing over the meal for the first time in nearly two years. Everyone relaxed as they passed the food around the table and ate their fill, even Miss Goodrich. Laughter hadn’t filled his apartment in a long, long time.

  “Mama used to fix potatoes this way,” Esther told him as she helped herself to more latkes.

  “Did she? I am glad you like them.”

  They dined like royalty, and although Jacob had worried that the children might not like the unfamiliar food, there were very few leftovers.

  “Just leave the dishes on the table,” he insisted when the meal ended. “I will clean them up later. Come, it is time to read the Megillah – the scroll of Esther. Did you bring noisemakers? Let me hear what they sound like.”

  He pretended to cover his ears as the children blew the whistles and rang the bells they had brought with them. Miss Goodrich banged on an old tin pot with a spoon. “Very good. Now, as we read the story, each time the wicked Haman’s name is spoken, everyone must stamp his feet and boo and make noise to drown out his name, yes?”

  They all sat down in the living room, Penny and Esther on the sofa, Peter on the floor in front of them. They had brought their own Bibles to follow along as Jacob read the narration. He took his copy of the Megillah from the bookshelf and sat in his desk chair, facing them. “Penny can take the part of Mordecai,” he told them. “Esther will be Queen Esther, and Peter will be Hashem. Are you ready?”

  They read the story together, stomping and booing whenever Haman’s name was mentioned, laughing at all the noise they were making. Jacob couldn’t help but think of Avraham, remembering how much fun he used to have making noise, just as the children and Penny were doing. Excitement flushed Peter’s face as if he was overjoyed to finally have a way to express himself after all these months of silence.

  “Now we must talk about what we have learned,” Jacob said when they finished reading. “That is how my people have passed on our faith from generation to generation, talking about it in our homes as we celebrate Hashem’s feasts and His weekly Sabbaths.” It seemed strange to celebrate with Christian children, but they were looking to him, waiting.

  “Queen Esther’s tragic past is told in just a few words, did you notice? ‘ She had neither father nor mother,’ it says. She was an orphan. There had been a war in her time, too, and her country had been defeated. She and her cousin Mordecai were taken away to a distant country. She must have thought Hashem had abandoned her when all of those terrible things happened, yes? But even though Hashem did not prevent bad things from happening, He made sure that Mordecai was there to adopt Esther and take care of her.”

  Jacob saw Peter writing something and waited for him to hold up his slate: Penny takes care of us. Since Daddy left.

  “Yes. Very good.” Jacob glanced at Miss Goodrich and saw her biting her lip, trying not to cry. Jacob was glad that Peter was finally accepting her, treating her like more than a servant. Even Esther looked comfortable sitting beside Penny, a pleasant change from a few months ago.

  “And once again,” Jacob continued, “when Esther was taken from Mordecai’s home to become part of the king’s harem, a servant named Hegai watched over her and took care of her. She wasn’t alone.”

  “We have you, Mr. Mendel,” Esther said quietly.

  Jacob could only nod, unable to speak for a moment. “Do you think Queen Esther wanted to be taken to the palace?” he asked, clearing his throat. “Would she choose to leave Mordecai and live in the harem, a place she could never leave? Remember, she did not know if she and the king would grow to love each other or not.”

  “I don’t think so,” Penny said. “I think she would want to choose her own husband, not be part of a beauty contest.”

  “I agree. Now, suppose Hashem had answered Queen Esther’s prayers the way she probably wanted Him to. . . . Suppose her country had not lost the war, and her parents had not died, and she had never been taken away to a fore
ign land. Suppose the king’s soldiers had not chosen her for the harem. How would our story have been different?”

  Esther looked thoughtful, and for a moment Jacob glimpsed the lovely young woman she would soon become. “She never would have been the queen,” she said.

  “Yes, that is right, Esther. What else?”

  “When Haman – ” Esther had started to speak, but Peter interrupted her by making noise at the mention of Haman’s name. She swatted him playfully before continuing. “When Haman made his law to kill all of the Jews, there wouldn’t have been anybody to stop him if Esther wasn’t the queen.”

  “Yes. Exactly so. Esther and her parents might have been spared for a time, but Haman would have destroyed every last one of Esther’s people in the end. What else do you see?”

  “I think Esther was very brave to come forward and approach the king,” Penny said. “She must have been a special woman to be chosen above all the others. I think she had beauty on the inside as well as on the outside.”

  “It takes courage to speak up when a wrong has been done,” Jacob said. “I think you all know that the Nazis are now persecuting the Jewish people, yet no one is speaking up, no one is helping them.”

  “But maybe people are helping,” Esther said, “and we just don’t know about it.”

  Her words stopped Jacob short. Hadn’t this story just shown that Hashem was at work behind the scenes? Jacob wanted so badly to believe it was true for Avraham and his family, as well.

  “You are right, of course. The help that the Refugee Board is sending will be used in ways we cannot see. . . . Now, I asked Peter to be Hashem. Did you notice why?”

  Esther grinned. “He didn’t have any words to say.”

  “Yes. In fact, Hashem is never once mentioned in this story – yet could you see Him working just the same? Arranging things between the pages?” Jacob saw Peter nodding his head, looking pleased. “Hashem was with Queen Esther all of that time, just as surely as Peter was here with us, even though neither Hashem nor Peter spoke a word.”