It didn’t help, Father, that you always saw the other man’s point of view, and even though Mother had died prematurely because of those bastards you could still find it in you to forgive.
If you had been born a Christian, you would have been a saint.
The rabbi put the letter down and rubbed his tired eyes before he turned over another page written in that fine script that he had taught his only son so many years before. Benjamin had always learned quickly, everything from the Hebrew scriptures to a complicated algebraic equation. The old man had even begun to hope the boy might become a rabbi.
Do you remember my asking you that evening why people couldn’t understand that the world had changed? Didn’t the girl realize that she was no better than we were? I shall never forget your reply. She is, you said, far better than us, if the only way you can prove your superiority is to punch her friend in the face.
I returned to my room angered by your weakness. It was to be many years before I understood your strength.
When I wasn’t pounding round that track I rarely had time for anything other than working for a scholarship to McGill, so it came as a surprise that our paths crossed again so soon.
It must have been about a week later that I saw her at the local swimming pool. She was standing in the deep end, just under the diving board, when I came in. Her long fair hair was dancing on her shoulders, her bright eyes eagerly taking in everything going on around her. Greg was by her side. I was pleased to notice a deep purple patch remained under his left eye for all to see. I also remember chuckling to myself because she really did have the flattest chest I had ever seen on a sixteen-year-old girl, though I have to confess she had fantastic legs. Perhaps she’s a freak, I thought. I turned to go into the changing room—a split second before I hit the water. When I came up for breath there was no sign of who had pushed me in, just a group of grinning but innocent faces. I didn’t need a law degree to work out who it must have been, but as you constantly reminded me, Father, without evidence there is no proof.… I wouldn’t have minded that much about being pushed into the pool if I hadn’t been wearing my best suit—in truth, my only suit with long trousers, the one I wore on days I was going to the synagogue.
I climbed out of the water but didn’t waste any time looking round for him. I knew Greg would be a long way off by then. I walked home through the back streets, avoiding taking the bus in case someone saw me and told you what a state I was in. As soon as I got home I crept past your study and on upstairs to my room, changing before you had the chance to discover what had taken place.
Old Isaac Cohen gave me a disapproving look when I turned up at the synagogue an hour later wearing a blazer and jeans.
I took the suit to the cleaners the next morning. It cost me three weeks’ pocket money to be sure that you were never aware of what had happened at the swimming pool that day.
The rabbi picked up the picture of his seventeen-year-old son in that synagogue suit. He well remembered Benjamin turning up to his service in a blazer and jeans and Isaac Cohen’s outspoken reprimand. The rabbi was thankful that Mr. Atkins, the swimming instructor, had phoned to warn him of what had taken place that afternoon so at least he didn’t add to Mr. Cohen’s harsh words. He continued gazing at the photograph for a long time before he returned to the letter.
The next occasion I saw her was at the end-of-term dance held in the school gymnasium. I thought I looked pretty cool in my neatly pressed suit until I saw Greg standing by her side in a smart new dinner jacket. I remember wondering at the time if I would ever be able to afford a dinner jacket. Greg had been offered a place at McGill University and was announcing the fact to everyone who cared to listen, which made me all the more determined to win a scholarship to McGill the following year.
I stared at Christina. She was wearing a long red dress that completely covered those beautiful legs. A thin gold belt emphasized her tiny waist, and the only jewelry she wore was a simple gold necklace. I knew if I waited a moment longer I wouldn’t have the courage to go through with it. I clenched my fists, walked over to where they were sitting, and as you had always taught me, Father, bowed slightly before I asked, “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”
She stared into my eyes. I swear if she had told me to go out and kill a thousand men before I dared ask her again I would have done it.
She didn’t even speak, but Greg leaned over her shoulder and said, “Why don’t you go and find yourself a nice Jewish girl?” I thought I saw her scowl at his remark. But I only blushed like someone who’s been caught with their bands in the cookie jar. I didn’t dance with anyone that night. I walked straight out of the gymnasium and ran home.
I was convinced then that I hated her.
That last week of term I broke the school record for the mile. You were there to watch me but, thank heavens, she wasn’t. That was the holiday we drove over to Ottawa to spend our summer vacation with Aunt Rebecca. I was told by a school friend that Christina had spent hers in Vancouver with a German family. At least Greg had not gone with her, the friend assured me.
You went on reminding me of the importance of a good education, but you didn’t need to, because every time I saw Greg it made me more determined to win that scholarship.
I worked even harder in the summer of ’65 when you explained that, for a Canadian, a place at McGill was like going to Harvard or Oxford and would clear a path for the rest of my life.
For the first time in my life running took second place.
Although I didn’t see much of Christina that term she was often in my mind. A classmate told me that she and Greg were no longer seeing each other, but they could give me no reason for this sudden change of heart. At the time I had a so-called girlfriend who always sat on the other side of the synagogue—Naomi Goldblatz, you remember her—but it was she who dated me.
As my exams drew nearer, I was grateful that you always found time to go over my essays and tests after I had finished them. What you couldn’t know was that I inevitably returned to my own room to do them a third time. Often I would fall asleep at my desk. When I woke I would turn over the page and read on.
Even you, Father, who have not an ounce of vanity in you, found it hard to disguise from your congregation the pride you took in my eight straight “A’s” and the award of a top scholarship to McGill. I wondered if Christina was aware of it. She must have been. My name was painted up on the Honors Board in fresh gold leaf the following week, so someone would have told her.
* * *
It must have been three months later when I was in my first term at McGill that I saw her next. Do you remember taking me to St. Joan at the Centaur Theater? There she was, seated a few rows in front of us with her parents and a sophomore called Bob Richards. The admiral and his wife looked straitlaced and very stern but not unsympathetic. In the interval I watched her laughing and joking with them: she had obviously enjoyed herself. I hardly saw St. Joan, and although I couldn’t take my eyes off Christina she never once noticed me. I just wanted to be on the stage playing the Dauphin so she would have to look up at me.
When the curtain came down she and Bob Richards left her parents and beaded for the exit. I followed the two of them out of the foyer and into the car park, and watched them get into a Thunderbird. A Thunderbird. I remember thinking one day I might be able to afford a dinner jacket, but never a Thunderbird.
From that moment she was in my thoughts whenever I trained, wherever I worked and even when I slept. I found out everything I could about Bob Richards and discovered that he was liked by all who knew him.
For the first time in my life I hated being a Jew.
When I next saw Christina I dreaded what might happen. It was the start of the mile against the University of Vancouver and as a freshman I had been lucky to be selected for McGill. When I came out onto the track to warm up I saw her sitting in the third row of the stand alongside Bob Richards. They were holding hands.
I was last off when the starter’s
gun fired but as we went into the back straight moved up into fifth position. It was the largest crowd I had ever run in front of, and when I reached the home straight I waited for the chant “Jew boy! Jew boy! Jew boy!” but nothing happened. I wondered if she had failed to notice that I was in the race. But she had noticed because as I came round the bend I could hear her voice clearly. “Come on, Benjamin, you’ve got to win!” she shouted.
I wanted to look back to make sure it was Christina who had called those words, it would be another quarter of a mile before I could pass her again. By the time I did so I had moved up into third place, and I could hear her clearly: “Come on, Benjamin, you can do it!”
I immediately took the lead because all I wanted to do was get back to her. I charged on without thought of who was behind me, and by the time I passed her the third time I was several yards ahead of the field. “You’re going to win!” she shouted as I ran on to reach the bell in three minutes eight seconds, eleven seconds faster than I had ever done before. I remember thinking that they ought to put something in those training manuals about love being worth two to three seconds a lap.
I watched her all the way down the back straight and when I came into the final bend for the last time the crowd rose to their feet. I turned to search for her. She was jumping up and down shouting, “Look out! Look out!” which I didn’t understand until I was overtaken on the inside by the Vancouver Number One string who the coach had warned me was renowned for his strong finish. I staggered over the line a few yards behind him in second place but went on running until I was safely inside the changing room. I sat alone by my locker. Four minutes seventeen, someone told me: six seconds faster than I had ever run before. It didn’t help. I stood in the shower for a long time, trying to work out what could possibly have changed her attitude.
When I walked back onto the track only the ground staff were still around. I took one last look at the finishing line before I strolled over to the Forsyth Library. I felt unable to face the usual team get-together at Joe’s, so I tried to settle down to write an essay on the property rights of married women.
The library was almost empty that Saturday evening and I was well into my third page when I heard a voice say, “I hope I’m not interrupting you but you didn’t come to Joe’s.” I looked up to see Christina standing on the other side of the table. Father, I didn’t know what to say. I just stared up at the beautiful creature in her fashionable blue miniskirt and tight-fitting sweater that emphasized the most perfect breasts, and said nothing.
“I was the one who shouted ‘Jew boy’ when you were still at high school. I’ve felt ashamed about it ever since. I wanted to apologize to you on the night of the prom dance but couldn’t summon up the courage with Greg standing there.” I nodded my understanding—I couldn’t think of any words that seemed appropriate. “I never spoke to him again” she said. “But I don’t suppose you even remember Greg.”
“Care for coffee?” I asked, trying to sound as if I wouldn’t mind if she replied, “I’m sorry, I must get back to Bob.”
“I’d like that very much,” she said.
I took her to the library coffee shop, which was about all I could afford at the time. She never bothered to explain what had happened to Bob Richards, and I never asked.
Christina seemed to know so much about me that I felt embarrassed. She asked me to forgive her for what she had shouted on the track that day two years before. She made no excuses, placed the blame on no one else, just asked to be forgiven.
Christina told me she was hoping to join me at McGill in September, to major in German. “Bit of a cheek,” she admitted, “as it is my native tongue.”
We spent the rest of that summer in each other’s company. We saw St. Joan again, and even queued for a film called Dr. No that was all the craze at the time. We worked together, we ate together, we played together, but we slept alone.
I said little about Christina to you at the time, but I’d bet you knew already how much I loved her, I could never hide anything from you. And after all your teaching of forgiveness and understanding you could hardly disapprove.
The rabbi paused. His heart ached because he knew so much of what was still to come although he could not have foretold what would happen in the end. He had never thought he would live to regret his Orthodox upbringing but when Mrs. Goldblatz first told him about Christina he had been unable to mask his disapproval. It will pass, given time, he told her. So much for wisdom.
Whenever I went to Christina’s home I was always treated with courtesy but her family were unable to hide their disapproval. They uttered words they didn’t believe in an attempt to show that they were not anti-Semitic, and whenever I brought up the subject with Christina she told me I was overreacting. We both knew I wasn’t.
They quite simply thought I was unworthy of their daughter. They were right, but it had nothing to do with my being Jewish.
I shall never forget the first time we made love. It was the day that Christina learned she had won a place at McGill.
We had gone to my room at three o’clock to change for a game of tennis. I took her in my arms for what I thought would be a brief moment and we didn’t part until the next morning. Nothing had been planned. But how could it have been, when it was the first time for both of us?
I told her I would marry her—don’t all men the first time?—only I meant it.
Then a few weeks later she missed her period. I begged her not to panic, and we both waited for another month because she was fearful of going to see any doctor in Montreal.
If I had told you everything then, Father, perhaps my life would have taken a different course. But I didn’t, and have only myself to blame.
I began to plan for a marriage that neither Christina’s family nor you could possibly have found acceptable, but we didn’t care. Love knows no parents, and certainly no religion. When she missed her second period I agreed Christina should tell her mother. I asked her if she would like me to he with her at the time, but she simply shook her head, and explained that she felt she had to face them on her own.
“I’ll wait here until you return,” I promised.
She smiled. “I’ll be back even before you’ve had the time to change your mind about marrying me.”
I sat in my room at McGill all that afternoon reading and pacing—mostly pacing—but she never came back, and I didn’t go in search of her until it was dark. I crept round to her home, all the while trying to convince myself there must be some simple explanation as to why she hadn’t returned.
When I reached her road I could see a light on in her bedroom but nowhere else in the house so I thought she must be alone. I marched through the gate and up to the front porch, knocked on the door and waited.
Her father answered the door.
“What do you want?” he asked, his eyes never leaving me for a moment.
“I love your daughter,” I told him, “and I want to marry her.”
“She will never marry a Jew,” he said simply and closed the door. I remember that he didn’t slam it, be just closed it, which made it somehow even worse.
I stood outside in the road staring up at her room for over an hour until the light went out. Then I walked home. I recall there was a light drizzle that night and few people were on the streets. I tried to work out what I should do next, although the situation seemed hopeless to me. I went to bed that night hoping for a miracle. I had forgotten that miracles are for Christians, not for Jews.
By the next morning I had worked out a plan: I phoned Christina’s home at eight and nearly put the phone down when I heard the voice at the other end.
“Mrs. von Braumer,” she said.
“Is Christina there?” I asked in a whisper.
“No, she’s not,” came back the controlled impersonal reply.
“When are you expecting her back?” I said.
“Not for some time,” she said, and then the phone went dead.
“Not for some time” turned out to
be over a year. I wrote, telephoned, asked friends from school and university but could never find out where they had taken her.
Then one day, unannounced, she returned to Montreal accompanied by a husband and my child. I learned the bitter details from that font of all knowledge, Naomi Goldblatz, who had already seen all three of them.
I received a short note from Christina about a week later begging me not to make any attempt to contact her.
I had just begun my last year at McGill and like some eighteenth-century gentleman I honored her wish to the letter and turned all my energies to the final exams. She still continued to preoccupy my thoughts and I considered myself lucky at the end of the year to be offered a place at Harvard Law School.
I left Montreal for Boston on September 12, 1968.
You must have wondered why I never came home once during those years. I knew of your disapproval Thanks to Mrs. Goldblatz everyone was aware who the father of Christina’s child was and I felt an enforced absence might make life a little easier for you.
The rabbi paused as he remembered Mrs. Goldblatz letting him know what she had considered was “only her duty.”
“You’re an interfering old busybody,” he had told her. By the following Saturday she had moved to another synagogue and let everyone in the town know why.
He was more angry with himself than with Benjamin and should have visited Harvard to let his son know that his love for him had not changed. So much for his powers of forgiveness.
He took up the letter once again.
Throughout those years at law school I had plenty of friends of both sexes, but Christina was rarely out of my mind for more than a few hours at a time. I wrote over seventy letters to her while I was in Boston, but didn’t post one of them. I even phoned, but it was never her voice that answered. If it had been, I’m not even sure I would have said anything. I just wanted to hear her.
Were you ever curious about the women in my life? I had affairs with bright girls from Radcliffe who were reading law, history or science, and once with a shop assistant who never read anything. Can you imagine, in the very act of making love, always thinking of another woman? I seemed to be doing my work on autopilot, and even my passion for running became reduced to an hour’s jogging a day.