S

itting on a comfortable chair in a corner of the hotel kitchen, Annie breathed in the tantalizing smell of coffee percolating on the stovetop. She looked around at the kitchen where she’d worked so many years before. There was always a hubbub then, as she and Mrs. Horn, the Freed Hotel cook, sliced and diced and sauteed and fried three generous meals a day for the hotel’s boarders.

Today, though, an atmosphere of quiet calm rested upon the counters, pots, and aging industrial appliances. It was the time of day all overworked hotel cooks long for, with breakfast served and cleared and lunch preparations not yet begun. And while she and Mrs. Horn had cooked for dozens and dozens of boarders, now there were far fewer people to appreciate the food, with every month more families moving to growing Jewish neighborhoods throughout the city.

But really, she thought, as she watched Perele carefully pour two steaming cups of coffee and cut thick pieces of kokosh, the serene atmosphere reflected the woman who ran this kitchen. Perele had always seemed cheerful and unflappable. Now, having heard the story of her survival during the war and her escape from Communist Hungary, Annie was even more impressed by her graceful tranquility.

Annie had waited a day before visiting Perele. She needed some time to reflect on Perele’s revelations, to process her friend’s understated sorrows and griefs. But this morning Annie could wait no longer, and after seeing her children off to school, she’d come to the hotel for a midmorning visit.

“Perele, I really appreciate what you told me, and your advice.” (Even if I’m not going to take that advice, an impish thought interrupted.) “Would it be okay… you never finished your story. You stopped when… when you were crossing the border.”

“Of course, darling.” Perele took a small bite of cake, and her eyes seemed to look inward, to a place far, far away from this orderly kitchen.

“The other side of the barbed wire fence was no-man’s land. Just a few hundred meters away was Austria and freedom. Laszlo and the guide pulled up the bottom wire a little, and I crawled through the dirt underneath.” Perele gave a slight, almost unconscious shudder and Annie took a deep breath, imagining her friend, her always-immaculate friend, dragging herself through dirt and pebbles, mud on her face, her hands, in her eyes and mouth.

The narrative — calm, subdued — continued.

“Laszlo laid Jakob, poor, squealing Jakob, under the wire, and I pulled him through. Then the guide held the wire up for Laszlo to crawl under. But as I told you before, his leg got caught in the sharp wires.

“Suddenly, we heard voices. There was no time. The guide whispered to me to drag him through, and I did, though the barbed wire was cutting through his leg. The guide ran away, I picked up Jakob, and Laszlo managed to run with me to the Austrian guard posts even though he was bleeding badly.

“He collapsed when we reached the guards. They put on a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and took us in a jeep to the nearest hospital. He seemed to be recovering when sepsis set in. He died a few days later, and was buried in Vienna’s Jewish cemetery.” Her voice quivered a little, the only sign that her iron control was slipping. “I’ve never been able to go back to his kever.”

A loud and cheery voice broke the melancholy silence that fell onto the kitchen.

“Hey, Mrs. S., look at this!” Marjorie shouted, gaily waving a piece of paper. “I can’t believe it! I—” She halted abruptly. “Oh, hi, Mrs. L.” she added in a quieter voice.

The melancholy dissipated. “What is it, Marjorie dear?” Perele asked with a smile that was a little wan but definitely sincere.

“It’s an invitation to my graduation. I did it! I really did it!”

“You certainly did. And we’re all very proud of you.”

“You’ll come to my graduation, right?” she asked. “Please, please?” Marjorie was almost shaking with excitement. “And you, too, Mrs. L.? And your family?”

Did Annie have a choice? “Of course, Marjorie. It’s a great accomplishment. And what will you do now that you’re a college graduate?”

Marjorie beamed. “That’s for me to know, Mrs. L….”

Perele ended the sentence for her. “And for us to find out.” She burst out laughing, stood up, and wrapped the young redhead in a tight hug. “You are really something, Marjorie darling. I love you.”

Marjorie looked thunderstruck. Shocked.

Happy.

But Annie did not look happy at all.

B

ack and forth. Back and forth. From his bench on the boardwalk Mutty watched the waves struggling to escape the confines of the sea, reaching the damp sands and being pulled back by the ocean’s greedy and powerful grasp.

He heard the sound of footsteps on the wooden slats and turned around.

“Thanks for coming, Dad.”

All the Levine children knew that when you had something to discuss with their father, the boardwalk overlooking the beach was the place to go. “I can think better when there are waves in the background,” Abe once told Mutty.

And right now there was a lot of thinking to do.

“Dad, I meant what I said in the car. I want to enlist in the army. I want to train to be a medic.” There. He’d said it again, articulated the thoughts that had been haunting him for months, maybe even years.

And now came a torrent, a flood, a storm of words. “I want to do something that means something. I need a break from just being a student, year after year after year. America’s been good to me, good to our family. I want to serve my country. And….” He paused.

Abe’s usually cheerful face had taken on a grim cast, but he said nothing, letting his son continue.

“I want to stop the Communists.”

It all poured out. How Mutty had always admired his war hero father. “And Uncle Moe, too. Remember how you told me how you and Uncle Moe ate salami in the forest during the Battle of the Bulge, and how he interrogated Nazis and liberated a death camp. And you, jumping out of planes and lighting Chanukah candles in shot glasses on a barrel. You told me all those stories, Dad, remember all those bedtime stories?”

“I remember.”

“And after the war, when I spoke to survivors living in the hotel, they told me how much it meant to them, that America had given them a new home. America’s been so good to the Jews. And old Mr. Braunstein, who’d spent the war in Siberia, he told me how horrible the Communists were.”

Mutty paused for breath. When Abe spoke, his words were measured, deliberately calm.

“So you want to give back something to your country. But don’t you think, Mutty, that becoming a doctor and healing the sick is also contributing?”

“Yes, of course. And I will be a doctor. I just need some time out of the classroom. I’ll enlist as a medic, which can only help me when I start real medical training. And besides….”

“Yes?”

“Dad, when I finish my medical training, I think I want to go into emergency medicine. I felt… I can’t explain how I felt when I did something so small like taking care of Mrs. Schwartz when she was mugged. It was… exciting, rewarding, and I felt like this is what I want to do. Being an army medic will be a great way to start.”

“It’s a big decision, Mut. Have you really thought this out?”

Mutty stared once again at the waves breaking on the sand. Was this just a childish dream, a way of escaping from the boredom of classrooms and studying? Was he just a kid asking for that choo choo train?

No. His thoughts flew back more than three years before. “I think this all started at the inauguration. You remember, JFK’s, may he rest in peace. Like he said, my country’s done a lot for me — and I want to do something for my country.” Mutty’s voice grew more confident. “Remember when the Commies tried to put missiles in Cuba, and the President wouldn’t let them? We won then, because JFK wasn’t afraid and he stood up to them.” His voice became more urgent, a plea for understanding. “You and Uncle Moe enlisted to fight Nazis. I want to stop the Communists, before they take over the world.”

“And what about your Yiddishkeit, Mutty? Kashrus, learning?”

“I thought about that, Dad. It’s not like when you were in the army. There are chaplains who will help out, they sometimes have packaged meals for soldiers who want to keep kosher, and worse comes to worst, I’ll do what you did, live on raw vegetables and bread. And I’ll probably have more time to learn in the army than when I’m in med school. Davening? I might not make minyan, but you know what they say — no atheists in foxholes. I’ll daven better than I ever did in peaceful Boro Park.”

“Okay, you’ve thought it out. But Mutty — what about your mother?”

The tide was rising and the sea angrily thrust another wave onto the shore. “That’s the thing. I don’t know what to do about Mama. I know this will hurt her, and she’s expecting the baby, and she’ll be so worried, but Dad, do I have to give up the challenges I really want to face, just to keep my mother happy?”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 867)