Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death by Mark Reutlinger Read Free Book Online Page A

her children hair-raising stories of soldiers or mounted police riding through her village on horseback, breaking windows and even setting fire to the modest little houses of the residents. Everyone would try to hide until they went away, and if they caught someone outside, maybe an old man or woman, the soldiers would beat them, or worse. Then when Bertha was only twelve years old, the police came to the door of her house and demanded entrance. Bertha’s parents hid her in the root cellar just before the police broke down the front door. They took her parents away, and she never saw them again. Bertha was taken in by another family, and she managed to survive the Shoah—the Holocaust. After the war, she came to America, where she met and married Bernard Finkelstein (of blessed memory
)
. It is a blessing that Bertha, after her traumatic childhood, settled down in America to a quiet and happy life, making a home for herself and Bernard, and helping Bernard to run his business. They were married for over fifty years when Bernard passed away and Bertha came here to the Home to spend her remaining years.”
    So Bertha had survived the Holocaust, but not Mrs. K’s chicken soup!
    The rabbi went on for a while, as rabbis will do when you give them the chance, but you get the idea. As he spoke, I was struck by how much Bertha’s past, about which I knew only a little, and mine were similar, at least as children. I too, as I already mentioned, remember the visits from the soldiers—as well as the stories my parents told of terrible pogroms they had lived through—although I grew up in what was then part of Russia and not in Poland. The lines they draw between countries, always dividing them up and changing their names or where the border is between them, really make no difference. It is the people who live there who make a difference, and for the Jews in Russia or Poland, it was the people who lived there, whatever they were called, who made our lives as difficult as possible.
    —
    After the service and lunch, Mrs. K told me she had been thinking about what had happened since the day before and would I mind if she ran by me some of those thoughts. I said I would be happy to oblige, and where would she like to talk?
    “I think it would be best if we did not talk here in the lounge, or even in the building,” she said. “Let’s see if the shuttle is going downtown this afternoon, and if it is, we’ll go along and have a nice chat over tea at the Garden Gate Café—the one next to the Four Star Theater.”
    I agreed that would be a good idea. We went up to the front desk and looked at the schedule for the shuttle. We could always take a taxi, or even the public bus, of course, but the shuttle is so much more convenient, not to mention it is free. We found that the shuttle was indeed going downtown just after lunch, so after we finished eating (the vegetable soup tasted just like warm water into which a few carrots had accidentally fallen and drowned), we signed out and climbed into the van.
    Already Mr. Jack Winterfelt and his wife, Miriam, were seated in the front, which is actually where we like to sit, and at the back were some ladies from the bridge club, probably on their weekly outing to play against the ladies at the Lutheran Home. These ladies take their bridge extremely seriously, and I have heard that the competition with the Lutheran Home is fierce, sometimes leading to angry words that are not very ladylike at all. Personally, although I always try to win, I prefer a nice quiet game among friends.
    So Mrs. K and I settled for the long sideways-facing seat just behind Andy, the driver. I looked out of the window and I became anxious when I saw Daisy Goldfarb leaving the building dressed in her hat and coat and heading in the direction of the van—I was not ready to talk with Daisy about her earrings, and I was sure Mrs. K was not either—but she passed right by and walked in the direction of the corner