Jacob wondered why anyone would be proud to be a liar, but he guessed it was essential during the war. Even so, Morris seemed a little too proud of himself.
“Esther, I must get your recipe for these noodles,” interrupted his wife as she bit into her piece of the brisket dripping in brown sauce.
“So glad you like it. It’s an old recipe from my mother,” answered Esther as she poured some more rosé into Morris’s glass.
“Honestly, I don’t know how you find the time to cook such delicious dishes, make your own curtains, and carry a full-time job. I barely have time to shop for groceries, and I don’t even work.”
“Just takes a little planning. You can probably do the same things, even better, I am sure,” said Esther, returning to her meal.
As Jacob listened to their conversation, he was glad for what he didn’t hear. Nothing was said about the reason Leora was so pressed for time, the twin daughters who were readying for college in a few months. Morris must have informed his wife of the tragedy in Jacob’s life, and although he liked to talk, Morris stayed away from this sensitive subject.
“Morris, why don’t you build me a home like the one Jacob built for his wife?” asked Leora as, after the dining room table had been cleared, they ventured back into the living room with glasses of tea, Esther’s sponge cake, and the box of chocolates.
“Here we go again!” exclaimed Morris, laughing, then sitting down and spreading his knees on the couch.
“Well, I have yet to get an answer from you. It wouldn’t even have to be this big for the two of us; maybe there’s a lot available in this neighborhood. What do you think, Esther?” she pressed, swiveling the beehive in her direction.
“Sure,” said Esther as she chose a strawberry crème from the box of chocolates, and in a lower voice, “That would be nice.”
“Well, Leora, I’m not saying no. But that doesn’t depend on me. That decision is up to Jacob,” Morris said as, with a smile on his face, he turned to his host.
“What do you say, my friend? When are you making me a partner?”
Jacob took another sip of his tea, feeling the burn on his tongue. He said nothing.
After the couple left the home, Jacob helped Esther clear the coffee table and wash the last of the dishes before going to bed. Neither spoke of the evening. But after the new software system was installed and two more contracts were closed, Morris continued to ask, daily, about when he would become partner, and Jacob finally silenced him. Perhaps running a business alone wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
The rhythmic motion of the great train rocked Jacob to sleep. Once again, in the dream he was seated on his mother’s lap, cuddled into her chest as she read the words of his favorite fairy tales. It did not matter that he wasn’t listening too carefully to the story, as long as he could take in her clean scent, as long as the brightly colored drawings of castles and forests continued to fascinate him. Her voice was melodic, like a song, a lullaby that soothed him to a peaceful sleep that he fell into soon after she had begun reading. He wished he could stay there forever. He was awakened by a screech, and then a sudden jolt.
“These engineers can’t drive. They are always putting on the brakes.”
Jacob opened his eyes and rubbed out the clouds. At first he had forgotten where he was, but soon the image of the boy next to him began to take form. He looked at his watch and again checked the large, overstuffed bag at his feet.
“Nearly an hour left to go until we reach Hamburg, Zalman. If you are hungry, I have another cheese sandwich in my bag.”
The boy shook his head and ran his fingers through his light wavy hair. I can’t properly call him a boy, he is nearly a man, Jacob thought as he observed his friend’s serious eyes, the stern set of his lips, his chin. He wondered if he, too, had aged as much in the intervening years since they’d first met in Frau Blanc’s barn. He wondered, too, about what lay ahead when he stepped off the train only to board a ship from which he would step off once again, this time in America.
He didn’t voice his concerns to Zalman, of course. To speak too much was to take the chance that a torrent of regrets, a storm of long-stifled emotion, would burst forth. And that was a risk Jacob was unwilling to take.
“Are you sure we are doing the right thing?”
It was the third time since they had left the apartment in Berlin early that morning that Zalman had asked the question. And Jacob always had the same answer for him.
“It’s absolutely the right thing. It is the only thing. Neither of us has anything left to hold us in this place. Not a father, not a mother, not even a straggly cat! We cannot even visit a cemetery, lay a rock on a grave. There are only crumbled buildings and ashes here. Not for us, two Jewish boys with hardly a penny between us, and no one left in the world.”