Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(16)

“What was that? The Stamp Man wasn’t burned, what . . .”

“Captain Peter McFall, US Marines. He was at Belleau Woods in the last war. They had a bad time of it. And he had a very bad time of it.”

Rio remains silent, seeing the conflict in her father’s eyes. Tam Richlin is a quiet man, not one for long speeches, or even short ones. She waits.

“I guess the fire was the last straw for him. I guess he’s been waiting for death since that day. Year after year like that. The pain . . . Never able to go out into the world . . . The fire was taking all he cared about, all his stamps, all his . . . what little he had left.”

“Did he shoot himself?”

Tam was silent for so long Rio thought he hadn’t heard. Finally, in a single long sigh he said, “He wanted to. But suicide is an unforgivable sin in his faith. You see, it leaves you no chance to repent and atone.” Then, under his breath, bitterly, “As if he had not already paid for the right to sit straight and proud at God’s table.”

Rio was forming the next question, thinking the words, but I heard a shot, when she realized the truth.

Captain Peter McFall, retired, would not have been able to repent of suicide. But Tam Richlin had time enough to seek forgiveness.





5

RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA

“Du bist nisht mayn tokhter! Mayn tokhter shist nisht keyn mentshn. Afile natsis!” This pronouncement comes with a side order of two hands chopping the air for emphasis and a head thrown back as if to implore God to bear witness.

The speaker is Elisheva “Rainy” Schulterman’s mother. The language is Yiddish. In English it means, You are not my daughter! My daughter does not shoot people. Even Nazis!

It is a very dramatic statement, rendered somewhat less convincing by the fact that in her eighteen years of life, all in this same fourth-floor apartment, Rainy has heard that she is not her mother’s daughter on literally hundreds of occasions, including when she took up piano instead of violin, when she first went out in public with her head uncovered, and when she added ketchup to scrambled eggs.

“Mother, I doubt very much I’ll be shooting anyone. I’ve qualified on the M-1 carbine, but only just barely. Anyway, I’ve been assigned to the army intelligence training school.”

“This is good,” her father says from behind his newspaper, which, he has made clear, he will put down once all the food is served. “The army sees she is intelligent.”

Rainy’s mother, who has been hovering around and bringing new dishes to the table, stalks over, rudely pulls down the newspaper, sticks her face just inches from her husband’s, and says, “Intelligence, old man. Nyet intelligent, intelligence! Learn to speaking English like American, hokay? And no newspaper at my table!”

Rainy’s older brother, Aryeh, who, like her, is in uniform, winks at her. Rainy rolls her eyes in response.

They are at the dinner table, which is loaded with mismatched serving dishes full of noodles, chicken, pickled beets, bread, and spinach that has been cooked to a gray-green paste. Steam rises into the light of the shaded bulb hanging from the ceiling.

Also at the table are the elderly couple from upstairs who are nodding along in noncommittal agreement. To be fair, they also nod along with Rainy. They’re there for the free food.

“Do they give you gun?” Rainy’s mother demands. “Aryeh, eat some spinach, is good for you blood. If they give you gun it is for shoot, no? Hokay. It is for shoot.”

“They gave me a gun too,” Aryeh says, hiding a smile. “They give them to all marines. It’s something they kind of insist on.”

“Hah!” Rainy laughs, which is a mistake, because this launches a five-minute-long diatribe in a patois of English, Yiddish, Polish, German, and some words that are invented on the spot, all of which culminate in the pronouncement that sons are not daughters, and daughters are not sons, and only a woman can give birth, painful birth, lasting hours, while the man is in some tavern drinking.

“The chicken is good,” Rainy’s father observes once this storm has blown itself out.

“A woman’s place is in the home, respecting and obeying her fool of a husband!” Rainy’s mother cries.

“Yes, Rainy,” her father says in a tone of weary irony. “Why can’t you learn from your mother to be respectful and obedient to men?”

“Very tender, the chicken,” one of the neighbors says.

With dinner completed, Rainy helps clear the table, moving swiftly between the narrow but elegant dining room and the tiny kitchen so as not to be caught alone with her mother.

It’s her father who corners her, drawing her down the hallway to a discreet distance.

“Rainy,” he says.

“Dad?”

He sighs, scratches his head, makes a face like maybe what he’s about to say is a bad idea. Then he shrugs and says, “Listen, bubala, you know your cousin Esther?”

“Not really. Do I have a cousin Esther?”

“She’s your grandmother’s sister’s daughter. They live in Krakow. In Poland.”

“Yes, Father, I know where Krakow is.” She doesn’t mean to sound like a sarcastic teenager and softens it by prompting, “So, what about Cousin Esther?”

“Well, she writes letters to everyone, every branch of the family. Your mother gets a letter three, sometimes four times a year.”