The Houseguest by Kim Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

fancy.”
    â€œA position? What sort of position?”
    â€œWell, I’m a rabbi, Shmuel. I have a congregation.”
    There was a long pause. “This is fascinating news.” The silence that followed humbled Max. It seemed to encapsulate everything he had not done since he had known Shmuel in Germany.
    â€œHave you looked at the Times this morning?” Spiro asked.
    â€œNo, haven’t had a chance. I just got back from Saratoga.”
    â€œSaratoga?”
    â€œThe horse races.”
    â€œHorse racing? Truly? Please be careful, Max. You aren’t a man who’d do well with gambling debts.”
    â€œIt was really just a lark, an excuse to go somewhere.”
    â€œWell, before you go somewhere else, take a look at page A7 in the Times. And then I need to ask you a favor. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
    He began to ask what he should be looking for but Spiro had already hung up. He walked outside and found the soaked-through newspaper in his front yard, brought it back to his office and opened to A7. There were no news stories. The entire page was an advertisement.
    J EWS F IGHT FOR THE R IGHT TO F IGHT
    T HE J EWS OF P ALESTINE AND THE STATELESS J EWS OF THE WORLD DO NOT ONLY WANT TO PRAY —
    THEY WANT TO FIGHT!!!!
    And beneath it, a quotation from Churchill: “Any nation, any man, who fights against Nazism will have our aid.”
    And beneath that, the claim that twenty thousand Jews had offered their military service in the war against Hitler.
    And beneath that, an essay expounding on the terms of this offer and the way it had been shunned by the British.
    And beneath that, hundreds of signatures.
    He’d never seen anything like it: Spiro advertising his cause the same way Chevrolet advertised its motorcars or Camel its cigarettes. It was so striking it was difficult for Max to know what he thought of it. It bore the undeniable stench of propaganda, eschewing all complexity or nuance or even just the realities of the world. Were the Jews of Grand Concourse and Hoboken going to see this and want to ship out? It had more shove than logic. But then that was the goal. This was Spiro’s new way of putting himself into the conversation. Except now he wasn’t sidling up to a group of students and making himself sound clever. He was screaming at an entire nation.
    He sat down and waited for Spiro to call back. The ten-minute mark came and went. Then an hour. He made himself a sandwich, wrote a few letters for the congregation, fixed the hinge on the cupboard door. He went onto the front porch to drain the potted begonias and pick up the broken branches and to assess the felled section of tree trunk on his porch. He was testing its weight when the door behind him swung open and the Canadian stepped out. He gave the rabbi a nod, shuffled down the steps, and made it halfway to his car when Mrs. Epstein stepped onto the porch and called out his name. The emotion in her voice foretold a scene Max had no desire to witness. He wondered if he might hide behind the tree trunk, but it was too late. She’d turned and spotted him there, and then looked back at her lover with even more sorrowful eyes. Her hair was disheveled and her feet were bare; the top button of her blouse was open, and she reached for it, fastening it with one hand. She held the hot-sweet smell of all thethings that intermingle when bodies do: sweat and tobacco and sex and cologne. She seemed thinner than she had a few days before, weak with hunger, unsteady on her feet.
    She started down the steps, but the officer stopped her, holding up his hand. “Nora,” he said. “I’ll be fine.” She didn’t answer, just crossed her arms over her chest as though she’d grown cold, then leaned against the front door, watching as he got into his car and drove away.
    Max was about to go back inside when she stepped forward and sat down on the porch steps beside the tree.