Peter and Veronica

by Marilyn Sachs

  “I’ve never been inside a synagogue before,” Veronica said, twisting up her face. “Stop pulling my hand, Stanley! What do I have to do?”

  “Nothing special. Just come and sit down. Oh, wear a hat and maybe a nice dress.”

  “Like church.” Veronica nodded. “But what do I do inside?”

  “It’s easy. Sit down, and take a prayer book, and just do what everybody else is doing.”

  “Well, you know, Peter, I’m Lutheran, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to do what everybody else is doing in a synagogue.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Peter. “Well, I guess you don’t have to say or do anything if you don’t want to. Some of the other kids who are coming aren’t Jewish either. Just read the book or look around.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m up in the front with the rabbi and the other boy who’s being bar mitzvahed. The two of us read selections in Hebrew from the Torah—that’s the first five books of the Bible—and then we make speeches.”

  “In front of everybody?”

  “Uh, huh.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Nope.” And he wasn’t. Not about making the speech. It was going to be a good one, that he knew. Most bar-mitzvah speeches dealt with the debt of gratitude the boy owed to his parents and his teacher. Peter’s speech would also contain the expected words of gratitude, but he had some other ideas he thought he might also like to include. This part of his speech he had not discussed with his teacher, preferring to develop it all by himself. The idea for it had actually grown out of his friendship with Veronica, and his struggle in her behalf. He had some polishing up to do, but by and large, the speech was completed. He was proud of it and of himself. It would be somewhat different from other bar-mitzvah speeches he had heard, somewhat more important, he thought. Of course, the way matters stood now, he might never get to give it at all.

  “You just be there,” he said grimly.

  Stanley’s skates skidded out from under him and he flopped down on the ground.

  On this particular Friday, Stanley had again joined them, on skates, this time, and was occupied at present with clutching Veronica’s hands, legs, skirts-whatever he could reach.

  Veronica turned her attention to him. “Get up, Stanley, and don’t hang on to me. You’ll never learn to skate if you hang on.”

  Stanley remained seated on the ground. “If I don’t hold on to you, you’ll run away,” he said pathetically.

  “All right. I promise I won’t run away. Now stand up. Here.” She held out a hand to him. Stanley grabbed it with both hands and staggered to his feet.

  “Now—let go!”

  Stanley let go, swayed, skidded, and flopped again to the ground. He began hiccuping.

  “Why don’t we put him between us,” Peter said, “and each of us hold one of his hands. That way we can balance him better.”

  “I’m not going to hold your hand,” Stanley said, turning his special look of loathing on Peter.

  “Now look,” Veronica said sharply, “nobody wanted you along today, but you said you were just dying to skate. So get up, and you’re going to skate whether you like it or not.”

  She pulled him to his feet, grabbed one hand, and motioned for him to give Peter his other hand. But Stanley’s arm hung limply by his side. Peter put out his hand, took Stanley’s, and Stanley clenched his fist so that Peter ended up holding his thumb. The three of them began moving along, Veronica and Peter supporting Stanley between them.

  “Who else is going to be there?” Veronica asked, continuing the conversation.

  “Marv, and Paul, and I have to ask Bill, and I guess some of the girls, and ...”

  “I’m not coming,” Stanley said, lurching into Veronica.

  “Nobody asked you,” Veronica said, yanking him upright.

  Around the corner came Roslyn Gellert and Reba Fleming. Reba began giggling as soon as she saw them, and Roslyn seemed to be studying something in another direction. There was strength in numbers, and Peter decided that this would be a fine time to invite Roslyn to his bar mitzvah. And since one should not harbor thoughts of malice at such an important occasion, he might as well ask that drip, Reba, too.

  “Hey, Roslyn, Reba,” he yelled, letting go of Stanley’s hand and skating in their direction.

  Stanley’s feet flew out from under him and he fell down.

  “Aw,” said Reba, “the poor little kid.”

  She and Roslyn hurried over and helped Stanley up.

  “Hello, Veronica,” Roslyn said. “Is this your brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What a cute little boy!”

  Stanley grabbed hold of Roslyn and held on for dear life.

  “Roslyn,” said Peter, “I’d like you to come to my bar mitzvah. It’s three weeks from tomorrow. You too, Reba.”

  “Thanks,” said Reba. “I can come.”

  Stanley had one arm around Roslyn’s neck and the other around her waist.

  “There you are, honey,” Roslyn cooed. “You won’t fall. Just let go of my neck.”

  “Let go of her neck, Stanley,” Veronica ordered.

  But Stanley hung paralyzed where he was.

  “You’re choking me,” gasped Roslyn.

  Veronica grabbed Stanley and pulled. He hung on. She pulled harder.

  “I can’t breathe,” Roslyn gurgled.

  “Let go, Stanley,” Peter yelled, and he tried to unfasten Stanley’s fingers.

  A strong yank from Veronica, and then Stanley came loose, and the two of them were rolling on top of each other on the ground.

  “Roslyn,” Peter repeated, “I’d like you to come to my bar mitzvah. It’s going to be three weeks from tomorrow.”

  Roslyn’s face was very pink. She looked at Stanley and Veronica twisted up together like a pretzel on the ground and suddenly began laughing. Peter followed her gaze. They sure did look funny, wrapped up in each other that way. He began snickering, too, and then Roslyn looked at him, and they smiled at each other, and it was all very comfortable and friendly again.

  “I’d love to come, Peter. Thanks. I’m sure I can make it.”

  “Swell,” Peter said enthusiastically, and then he added quickly, “How’s everything? How are you doing in math?”

  “O.K., I guess.”

  “Well now, don’t forget, if you need any help, just ask me.”

  Roslyn looked away. “Thanks, Peter,” she said softly, “I will.” She took Reba’s arm. “‘By now, ‘By Veronica, ‘By Stanley.”

  The living knot had disentangled itself and began to assume the vertical. Veronica’s face was angry.

  “Come on, Stanley, we’re going home.” She pulled Stanley to his feet and began skating away from Peter.

  “Hey, wait,” Peter yelled, going after her. “What’s wrong?”

  “You laughed,” Veronica said sullenly.

  “Well, so what? You sure looked funny, the two of you.”

  “If it was you, you wouldn’t think it was so funny. I’m going home.”

  Peter put an arm on Veronica’s shoulder. “Don’t be like that, Veronica. I’m sorry if I laughed, but— here—this is what you looked like.”

  He began lurching back and forth, making crazy, clownlike gestures. Finally he let one skate skid and went down, twisting himself up as he went.

  Veronica looked down at him coldly.

  He crossed his eyes at her.

  She pursed up her lips in disdain.

  He made Mortimer Snerd noises at her. She blinked. Then he began waggling his tongue and trying to lick his nose. Veronica burst out laughing, and Stanley said sadly, “Aren’t we going home, Veronica?”

  Peter leaned back on his hands and smiled fondly at Stanley. The kid had his good points after all, and now Roslyn and he were friends again.

  “Come on, Stanley, let’s skate,” said Peter. He stood up, reached for Stanley’s thumb where it hung limply at the end of an unresponsive arm, and the three of t
hem were off again.

  They came to a big hill, leading down to a busy thoroughfare. He and Veronica had zoomed down it many a time, turning sharply at the end of it to avoid the heavy traffic that always whizzed along the cross street. They stood on the crest, looking down hungrily, and Veronica said, “You sit here, Stanley, and we’ll be back up in a second.”

  “No!” said Stanley.

  She took him by both arms and sat him down, protesting, on the pavement.

  “Let’s go,” she cried, and she and Peter flew down the hill with the wind and Stanley’s cries spurring them on. At the bottom, each turned sharply in different directions, finding anchorage in the parked cars along the curb.

  They climbed back up the hill and Stanley was waiting for them.

  “I want to go down too,” he said.

  “No,” said Veronica. “You can’t even skate.”

  “You take me.”

  “No!”

  Stanley hicced, and Peter said generously, grateful for Stanley’s presence today, “Look, if I hold him by one hand and you hold him by the other, we can do it.”

  “No!”

  “I wanna go,” shouted Stanley. “I wanna go.”

  He offered his thumb to Peter, and Veronica smiled and said, “Well ...”

  “I wanna go.”

  “O.K.,” said Veronica, “but don’t fall.”

  The three of them stood poised at the top of the hill.

  “Get ready,” said Peter, “get set.”

  “Go,” shouted Stanley.

  And they were off. Peter tried hard to keep a tight grip on Stanley’s thumb, but it kept wiggling. Stanley managed to skim along with them though, and at the bottom he yanked his thumb out of Peter’s hand. Thinking that Stanley had gone along with Veronica, Peter made his sharp turn, anchored himself around a parked car, and turned, smiling, to look at Veronica and Stanley. There was only Veronica on the opposite side of the street, leaning against a parked car and looking at him in horror.

  “Didn’t he go with you?” she shouted.

  “No—didn’t he go with you?”

  “Oh-no!”

  For a moment he couldn’t look. He just couldn’t. All those cars and buses whizzing along, and little Stanley, poor, little Stanley who couldn’t skate, somewhere lost under them.

  And then Veronica began screaming, “Stanley! Stanley! Stanley!”

  Peter took a deep, terrified breath and looked. The cars were still whizzing along, and from across the broad, busy street, Stanley stood on the sidewalk, waving and laughing and marvelously safe.

  Peter got across first. “Are you all right?” he cried. “What happened?”

  And then Veronica was there. She grabbed Stanley, and pulled him close to her, and said, “Stanley, Stanley, oh, Stanley!”

  “I can skate,” Stanley said, pushing her away. “Now, I can skate. Come on, Peter. Let’s do it again.”

  He offered Peter his whole hand this time, which was, in this afternoon of miracles, the greatest miracle of all.

  Chapter 11

  But there was nothing miraculous in the weeks that followed. His mother said no. His father said no. And Peter stubbornly kept insisting that if Veronica didn’t come, then he wouldn’t either.

  He began to dread the evenings after dinner when the family would sit around the kitchen table and begin discussing the bar mitzvah. It would start with his mother wondering how many pickled tongues and corned beefs she should cook, or whether the tailor would finish the alterations on Peter’s new suit in time, and why she still hadn’t heard from the cousins in New Jersey. His father would talk to him about his studies and listen to him read the portion from the Torah that he would recite during the services. Then the fireworks would begin as he brought up, as he did every night, the issue that was making them all tense and unhappy—Veronica.

  Over and over again, back and forth, the arguments would fly. His mother would cry. His father would point out to him how childishly he was behaving. Rosalie would insist that it was his bar mitzvah and he should invite whomever he wanted. And he would continue to repeat that if she didn’t come, then neither would he. He grew exhausted and unhappy at the misery he was bringing down upon his family. But he knew he was right, and the justice of his position burned inside of him.

  A few nights before the bar mitzvah, when the arguments had raged fruitlessly all evening, Peter got up from the table, ran into his room, threw himself on his bed, and began crying. After a while, he heard the door open, and somebody came and sat down on the bed and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  The hand began slowly patting, and Peter, knowing that it was his mother, lay with his face buried in the bedspread and tried to check his sobs. Then she said, with a sigh, “You’re wrong. You’ll understand when you grow up that you’re wrong.” The hand began patting again and then she said, “It means so much to you then?”

  “Yes,” he cried into the bedspread. “More than anything else.”

  She took a deep breath, and said, “Come, sit up. We have a lot to do.”

  He sat up and looked at her, and she took his face in her hands and smiled at it. “Such a face!” she said. “For a bar mitzvah boy, everything should be golden. Invite the girl then and be happy.”

  He threw his arms around her neck and kissed her face over and over again, and she said stubbornly, “But you’re wrong. You’re wrong.”

  Wrong or right, the next few days were filled for him with excitement and a fierce glory in his triumph.

  He spoke to Veronica again in school on Friday. He would not be skating with her that afternoon. He told her to be at the synagogue at nine o’clock in the morning and he urged her not to be late.

  Her face had a funny look, but she nodded and said she knew where the synagogue was.

  And then it was the day. All the way to the synagogue, his mother brooded. She knew that her honey cakes were not up to her usual mark. She was certain that there would not be enough chairs and not nearly enough food. And she couldn’t understand why the cousins from New Jersey had never answered her invitation. His father kept telling her to be calm, and kept telling Rosalie to be calm, and Peter to be calm in a voice that shook with nervousness.

  So many people were at the synagogue that morning. Peter tried to keep his mind on his speech as the family took their seats and waited for the services to begin. Across the aisle from where he was sitting, he saw Nathan Katz, the other boy who was also being bar mitzvahed today, move nervously under his mother’s hands as she tugged at his collar and tie. The funny thing was that he didn’t feel at all nervous. Frozen, maybe, but not nervous. He longed to turn around in his seat and look at all the people, but it would not be seemly.

  Uncle Irving came up to shake his hand and his father’s hand. His mother wiped her eyes and said, “If only Papa had lived to see this day I” Peter’s grandfather had died a year ago, but his grandmother, leaning on Uncle Jake’s arm, came down the aisle, kissed Peter, and sat down next to his mother.

  “Did you take the pickled herring out of the refrigerator?” she whispered.

  “Yes. I only hope it’s enough.”

  “It’ll be enough. Jake has the knishes in his car. Did Sadie bring the spongecake last night?”

  The services began, and the rustling and fidgeting settled into attention as the cantor’s voice sang the opening prayers. When the ark was opened and the Torah brought forth, Peter and Nathan Katz were called up to the altar to take their place with the other men around the holy book. His mother gripped his hand as he rose to go, and he tried to look calm and untroubled as he walked up the steps to the pulpit.

  When it was his turn to read a portion from the Torah, he could hear the silence throbbing against his head. He began to speak, and the Hebrew words that he had practiced for so long sounded unfamiliar and very important. He focused all his attention on the book in front of him, marveling at how the words flew out in a voice that did not seem to be his own. But there was no break, no uncer
tainty, no stumbling, and when he finished reading and stole one quick glance toward his mother and saw her radiant face, he knew that in this, at least, he had not failed her.

  He took a seat in the back of the dais along with Nathan and his teacher, and waited until he should be called upon again to make his bar mitzvah speech.

  While the rabbi preached his sermon, he was able to look over all the faces in the congregation. So many people—so many cousins and uncles and aunts. He saw Marv Green, smiling at him, and Reba. He tried to catch a glimpse of Veronica, wondering where she was and what she would think of his speech. But there were so many people that he couldn’t find her.

  Nathan Katz spoke first. He thanked his parents, his teacher, his friends, and relations for helping him to arrive at this important day. He pledged himself to be a credit to his family and promised to carry out the obligations and duties that his religion required of him. It was a short speech, spoken with modesty and sincerity. Nathan was a serious boy and a good student.

  Then it was Peter’s turn. He walked to the pulpit and began speaking. He, too, thanked his parents, his teacher, and the rabbi for their help and support, and he also promised to try to be a credit to them and to the Jewish religion. But then he said, feeling nervous for the first time, “All over the world, people are fighting and killing each other because their hearts are filled with hatred. I pledge myself to work for better understanding among all men so that one day, the word of God as shown to Isaiah will be fulfilled.

  “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares

  And their spears into pruning hooks

  Nation shall not lift up sword against nation

  Neither shall they learn war any more.”

  He finished, shook hands with the rabbi, his teacher, Nathan, sat down again, and saw the rabbi turn to the congregation, sigh, and say, “What generations of wise men have failed to do, this boy hopes to accomplish.” There was a ripple of laughter from the congregation, and Peter felt his cheeks grow hot.

  But the rabbi continued. “And yet, what would the world be without the vision of the young, the purity of the dreamer? Who knows? Perhaps if the world of tomorrow is filled with people who feel the way Peter Wedemeyer feels, perhaps it will indeed be a better world. We can only hope it will.”