The Bookseller's Sonnets

by Andi Rosenthal

  I heard the whole story over the phone during one of our weekly calls. I wasn’t sure what to say about it at first. Then I asked her what she meant by her comment about erasing the past.

  “You know,” she said. “This Margaret More person makes us not authentically Jewish, since now we know our family was descended from a Gentile woman.”

  I was glad she couldn’t see my face. “Why does the past matter so much to you? What about the future? What about your grandchildren? They’ll also have a parent who isn’t Jewish.”

  “But you are,” she said firmly. “So I’m not going to worry about it. At least I know they’ll be Jewish because it comes through the mother. I just want to make sure that I am and that you are. Maybe you should have a conversion ceremony, too.”

  I sighed. Even though she was pissing me off, as usual, I also felt immensely sorry for her. In her voice I now could hear how this new story, coupled with my grandmother’s terrible story of suffering and loss, had hurt her and twisted her ideas about who she really was, and who she was afraid of becoming.

  I knew she would probably keep calling rabbis until she found one who would tell her what she wanted to hear. She wanted some religious authority to tell her that she was not kosher because of this previously unknown Gentile foremother. And I was also sure that eventually, she would find herself going through some religious ritual that would have a sense of meaning for her — and no one else.

  Ironically, it almost seemed as if she was doing penance for some terrible sin – perhaps for not knowing more about her mother’s past, or maybe for not preventing me from marrying a non-Jew. As I listened to her voice over the phone, I smiled a little to myself, thinking about the Catholic ideas about sin and repentance which were now part of our family’s heritage. How much easier it might be for her, I thought, if only she had a priest she could confess to.

  As she talked on, I closed my wedding planner and put it away. There were some plans that I had wanted to talk about with her, but given her current mood, it seemed like such a discussion was out of the question for now. There were certain things between us, I told myself, which were better left unsaid.

  One by one and two by two, more people arrived at the graveside. Friends of my grandmother, friends of my parents, friends of ours. Mitzi Feldman arrived with my parents; they helped her along the narrow gravel path. Mitzi moved slowly and there was less spirit in her voice as she conversed with my mother and father. I saw that she had grown frail in the past year. Losing her closest friend, I thought, had taken some of the life from her, too.

  A black satin cloth was draped over my grandmother’s headstone. At last, Rabbi Beth took her place at the front of the small crowd. Her beautiful black coat made her look older and more serious than usual, but her red hair glowed in the sunlight, a riot of cheer in the midst of her sober clothing.

  I watched as Michael bowed his head reverently, along with the others, as the rabbi began to pray. He wore a small black yarmulke nestled in his curling hair.

  After Michael and I had read my grandmother’s “anonymous” letters together one night, I watched his face move through anger and sadness as he read the story. I saw his grief for the two little girls who never had a chance to be part of our family.

  We knew that the Holocaust was part of the history of the family we would be creating together, but we also knew now that we didn’t want to be defined by that history alone. Together, we registered for an Intro to Judaism class, which Rabbi Beth happened to be teaching at the local JCC. She greeted us on the first night like old friends.

  Having worked at the museum, I thought I knew enough about Judaism to be able to teach the class. But Michael and Aviva were right; I had been so preoccupied with the Holocaust that I hadn’t paid attention to the rest of Jewish history.

  Every week, the rabbi taught about all sorts of traditions and prayers and customs that I didn’t know about. The after-class conversations with Michael, as we took the subway back home, continued throughout the rest of the week. We started celebrating the Sabbath together, and even once had the rabbi and her husband over for a Shabbat dinner.

  Now, I turned my head to look at the rabbi, whose rich, reverent voice sounded like warmth itself in the cold winter afternoon.

  I tried to keep my mind focused on the prayers, but I felt uncomfortable every time I looked at the cloth-draped stone. Every time I looked around, I expected to see my grandmother, the way she had been at every family event for the last thirty-four years of my life.

  I felt my tears starting as I looked over at my mother. She did not seem able to say the prayers either. I watched as she stood in silence, her lips pressed tightly together.

  After I had shared with her the letters containing my grandmother’s story, I knew how badly she had taken the deaths of her two half-sisters and two aunts, and she was even angrier at my grandmother for keeping them a secret. And now there was no way for my mother to confront my grandmother, or ask why she had kept her own family’s history a secret for so long. She would have to learn to live with it, the same way; I told myself, she would have to learn to live with Michael as a son-in-law.

  I watched as my father put a protective arm around my mother’s shoulders. His face was grim and sad. I had never even met his parents – they died long before I was born – but I could tell he was thinking of them.

  “The sages teach us,” Rabbi Beth began, “that when a wedding party and a funeral procession meet at a crossroads, the wedding always has the right of way. This is because life always takes precedence over death, and sorrow must always give way to joy. As we remember the life of Anna Altschul, our mother, our grandmother, our friend, we also look to the future, to the fulfillment of her survival through those that she loved most, and knowing the depth of love for her family, which is without end.”

  “Miriam,” she said to my mother, “as you grieve the loss of your mother, remember how her sense of hope lives on in you and in your daughter. Remember your mother’s gifts to you, her joy, her stubbornness, her will to live, and her ability to create a new life in the shadow of her terrible history. Most of all, remember the love that was her eternal and unending gift to you and to the future generations of your family.

  “And for you, Jill and Michael,” she turned to us with a comforting smile, “as you prepare for your wedding in just a couple of months, may you know that in this place here on earth, which represents the crossroads of your sorrow and your loss, that your love for one another has surely given way to great joy in the World to Come.”

  Now, Rabbi Beth began to sing the memorial prayer – El Maleh Rachamim – God full of compassion -which I remembered from the shivah service she conducted at my grandmother’s apartment. Its melody felt like a thin steel wire being threaded through my heart.

  El malei rachamim

  shokhen ba-m’romim

  ha-m’tzei m’nuchah n’khonah

  tachat kanfei ha-sh’khinah

  b’ma’alot k’doshim u’t’horim

  k’zohar ha-rakiah maz’hirim l’nishmot

  yakireinu u’k’dosheinu she-hal’khu l’olamam.

  Ana ba’al ha-rachamim ha-s’tirem

  b’tzel k’nafekha l’olamim

  u-tz’ror bitz’ror ha-chayim et nishmatam.

  Adonai hu nachalatam

  v’yanuchu b’shalom al mish’kavam

  V’nomar: Amen.

  God filled with compassion,

  dwelling in the heavens’ heights,

  grant shelter beneath the wings of your Shechinah,

  amid the ranks of the holy and the pure,

  illuminating like the brilliance of the skies

  the souls of our beloved and our blameless

  who have gone to their eternal place of rest.

  May you who are the source of mercy

  shelter them beneath your wings eternally,

  and bind their souls among the living,

  that they may rest in peace.

  And
let us say: Amen

  Rabbi Beth removed the black cloth from the stone. I felt a sudden chill as I saw my grandmother’s name carved into the granite. In an instant, I felt Michael’s arms around me, and I hid my face in the warm dark wool of his coat. He smoothed my hair with his hands and pressed a kiss on my forehead.

  Then I looked at the stone again. It didn’t seem as frightening to me as it had a moment ago. It was simply her name - her full name – Anna Blumenfeld Altschul, and the dates of her birth and death.

  On the other side of the double stone, my grandfather’s name and the dates of his birth and death were just as I remembered them, when I last saw them at ten years old. Only now, with my grandmother’s name as companion to his, it did not seem as forlorn as it had before.

  I watched as each person placed a memorial stone, which had been given to them by the rabbi when they arrived, on top of my grandmother’s gravestone. The small, black ovals looked like rough, uncarved gems on the stone’s polished surface. After placing their stone, each person walked away down the gravel path, to where the line of parked cars waited along the narrow cemetery road.

  I watched as Robert laid his stone next to Aviva’s. He switched Hannah’s small body to his other shoulder. She murmured a little in her sleep, and then the three of them made their way back down to their car.

  My father and mother, the rabbi, and Michael and I were the last ones left. My parents spent a silent moment staring at the double headstone, their heads bowed.

  My mother then turned her head and looked at me, and saw my fingers firmly entwined with Michael’s. She placed her stone atop my grandmother’s grave. Then she and my father walked away, her head against his shoulder, his arm guiding her down the gravel path.

  Finally, Michael removed a tiny artifact case from the breast pocket of his coat and handed it to me. I opened it, and carefully removed the small dead rose that Minna had picked and given to my grandmother more than sixty years earlier.

  Michael and I walked toward the gravestone. With his hand over mine, we placed the dead rose next to the small pile of memorial stones as Rabbi Beth watched us in silence. We had explained the rose’s significance to her, knowing that there was a Jewish prohibition against flowers at an unveiling; because in the midst of death, there should not be any symbol of life. She had understood completely, knowing that in giving this flower to my grandmother, who had been pregnant with Chava when she took it from Minna’s small hand, we knew that we were remembering all three of them.

  Rabbi Beth led us away from the grave. My fingers were still entwined with Michael’s, and I could feel the warmth of his hand in my own cold one.

  I knew that the rose was probably too old and brittle to survive, and that it would not be here the next time we came to this place. But that was all right. It would bear the snow, and the rain, and the sunlight for as long as it could, and then the wind would carry it to some other place, the remnants of its petals merging with the air and the light, as fine and fragile as dust.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a work of fiction. While some of the characters, such as Margaret and Thomas More and William Roper, and some of the places, such as the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, are real, all have been used fictitiously.

  Although Margaret More was a scholar and a writer, none of her work, to date, has ever been discovered – despite the fact that her husband, William Roper, went on to publish a definitive biography of Thomas More, even though Roper was not known to be a writer nor a scholar.

  And although it is believed that Henry VIII did appoint Jewish scholars to his court to research Talmudic responses with regard to the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, all matters pertaining to this research in this book are purely speculative.

  All other characters are inventions of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Throughout my career as a writer, I have been fortunate to have met and worked with people who believed in my talent, and in this story. I offer infinite thanks to my teachers, Joan Mellen, Jeanne Murray Walker, Sara Horowitz, David Bradley, and the members of Temple University’s Class of 1995 Fiction Writing program, especially Frank Lauro (z”l), who first gave me the courage to try writing a novel. I am also grateful to Rosalie Siegel for years of professional help and advice in bringing this story to fruition.

  I also offer heartfelt gratitude to my Museum family: to Esther Brumberg and Bonnie Gurewitsch, whose help with research was infinitely valuable; to Dr. David Altshuler, Dr. David Marwell, Ivy Barsky, Dr. Louis Levine, Sharon Steinbach, Tina Kunkin Schweid, Tracy Figueroa, Rachel Woursell, Zahava Mandel, Deborah Tropp, Julie Cohen, Dr. Jay Eidelman, Dr. Ilana Abramovitch, Elissa Schein, Rabbi Audrey Marcus and Warren Shalewitz, and all those whose deep knowledge, love, and friendship gave me good reason for the homesickness that motivated this story. And no thanks could ever be sufficient to express gratitude to my friend, mentor, and role model Abby Spilka, who hired me for the gig all those years ago.

  My thanks also to my Larchmont Temple family, whose constant support is a source of inspiration: Rabbi Jeffrey and Susan Sirkman, Rabbi Mara Nathan, Cantor Fredda Mendelson; cherished friends: Lee Perlman, Rabbi Debra Goldstein, Carolyn Kamlet, Meg Fienberg, Stacey Chervin Sigda, Carol Scharff, Mark and Yvette Goorevitch, Andrew and Marnie Foster Marks, and Selma Bernstein. I also thank the LT Outreach Committee, who helped see this project through to publication, especially Ann Gittelman, Jill Sarkozi and Beth Belisle, all of whom were wonderful readers and friends. Special thanks to Rosel and Arthur Wolf for all of their menschlikeit.

  The Westchester Writers’ Group (SIG) has provided countless years of support, smarts, and sustenance for which I am grateful: Sarah Bracey White, Elizabeth A. Sachs, Donald Capone, Jack Rosenbluth, Linda Simone, and David Charney (z”l).

  Special thanks to Julie L. Cohen for her beautiful photographic eye, and to Howard Levine, whose vision for the cover made this story come to life.

  I am also grateful to the team at O Books who believed in this story and worked tirelessly to bring it to the reading world. The kind and generous staff of Borders Books and Music in Eastchester, NY, cared for me during the process of writing and always made me welcome at my regular table.

  Finally, thanks to my friends and family, who have put up with me, and with this book, for more than fifteen years: Megan Kearney Bailie, Christine Gustafson, Mary Kathleen Karczewski Zeman, Dana Phelan, Bill Edelstein, Ellen Thurmond, Stephanie Ives-Bartow, Danielle Freni, David Lacher, Kira Citron, Dom Cervi, Hayley Kobilinsky, Todd Napolitano, Jennifer Thatcher, my online community of Facebook Bookseller’s friends and supporters, and the extended Ignelzi clan. My mother, Marie Rosenthal, was the original source for Margaret More, and is the best person I know. Laura McNerney is an unwavering champion and evidence that I totally lucked out on the sibling lottery. Connor and Ryan McNerney give me reasons to believe in love, life and joy every single day.

  And finally, inexpressible gratitude for immeasurable generosity: Without Amy Dixon, there would have been no time. Without Jeanine Cotter, there would have been no opportunity. Without Sally Srok Friedes, there would have been no future. And without Richard Leonard, I would never have been a writer.

  O is a symbol of the world, of oneness and unity. In different cultures it also means the “eye,” symbolizing knowledge and insight. We aim to publish books that are accessible, constructive and that challenge accepted opinion, both that of academia and the “moral majority.”

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Epilogue

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS