Nancy nearly shouted “of course!” but regained her composure and quietly said yes.
“Thanks everybody. Say goodbye, Akela.”
The seeing-eye, wolf-dog barked twice, and the call ended.
The three sat in the living room, each staring at the evening darkness outside the wall-sized picture window, each wondering about the happy-go-lucky young man they knew as Jacob Geltmacher.
It was close to one o’clock in the morning, when the phone rang. They were still awake, dressed in pajamas and bathrobes, enjoying the last embers of the dying fire.
“Kinda like us,” Edison mused.
“What’s that, little brother?”
Galen had lapsed into bygone memories of his childhood and those final, fateful days with his family.
“What he means, Galen,” Nancy interjected, “is that we are like those embers. I, for one, would want to go out in a blaze of glory, doing some good in my final days. I don’t want to be a never-ending ember, providing nothing in the way of light or heat.”
Galen, continuing to stare at the now-dark hearth, said something that surprised even him.
“Do not go gentle into that good night; rage against the dying of the light.”
Edison had joined in on the last line with his friend then added, “Dylan Thomas said it all, didn’t he?”
Nancy had begun to cry silently, the universal sign of exasperated womanhood.
The men stared at her. Something was gnawing at her, something not even her husband could understand. It had started the day she rescued the owlet, but maybe, like those embers, it had been smoldering a long, long time..
Edison finally bit the bullet. He would say the right thing, or he would trigger off a new cascade of anger. Either way, he couldn’t let things stand as they were.
“What’s wrong, honey? I’ve never seen you this way before. Is it anything either of us…” and he looked at Galen for affirmation,” is there anything either of us has said or done, or even not done?”
She stared at them, two men older than she was yet still clueless about some things. But she was no youngster, either. And at that moment she didn’t know whether she wanted to keep crying or snap at them.
My God, I’m too old for menopause, so why the hell am I acting this way?
She took a deep breath.
“When I was young I said I never wanted to get old. Now I’ve gotten old. I couldn’t stop it. We all had a kind of reprieve for fifteen years when the kids came into our lives, but they’re mostly away now, and their adult lives are just beginning. What happens to us?”
“We still have purpose,” Galen interjected. “There’s always something new happening. Case in point is your owl family. The introduction may have been a bit shaky, but I suspect that little bird knows you’re a friend, don’t you?”
He stared at her and she knew that he knew.
“I…”
The ringing phone snapped them out of their introspection.
“Tio Eddie, it’s me … Jacob.”
Edison switched on the speakerphone, and the three heard a flat voice, so different from the ebullient young man they had met a year ago.
“Jacob, we’re going to help you,” Nancy cut in. “We’re wiring money to Faisal’s account. You’re going to use it to buy a train ticket to Philadelphia. We’ll pick you up there.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
He wasn’t used to receiving anything without hidden strings, so he couldn’t help feeling uncertain about why these people—friendly but hardly family—were getting involved.
Edison had the final word.
“Jacob, this is not the time to look a gift horse in the mouth. We know things have been rough for you, but now you need to get off your ass, leave the self-pity behind, and develop a plan of action. Listen, young man, the three of us have been where you are. Now we have our own demons.
“I’ll wire the funds first thing in the morning. You should be able to access them by noon. You can catch a train from the city to Philly. Let us know what the schedule is. Got that?”
Jacob’s voice was a mixture of hope and confusion as he answered yes.
Edison punched off the speaker button and looked at Nancy and Galen.
“Maybe this is our way of exorcizing our demons.”
Nancy looked back at her husband. He really did understand—Galen, too.
They turned out the lights and retired. Tomorrow would be very busy.
As he turned off the bedside table lamp, Edison turned to Nancy.
“Dear, what the hell are
shabbos, kasruth, niddah
and
mikva
?”
She grinned. “I’ll tell you in the morning … but only if you’re a good boy. Now, go to sleep.”
The excitement of anticipation, of being needed, of being alive, brought restful sleep to the three.
They drove to Philadelphia to meet Jacob’s train. It was scheduled to arrive at the 30th Street Station at 4:45 p.m. The city’s afternoon rush-hour traffic delayed their arrival until 5:20, so Edison began circling the old station on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, while Nancy and Galen kept watching the departing crowds. As they made a third circuit of the 1930s-style, Greco-Roman building, she called out, “There he is!”
A clean-shaven, short-haired young man dressed in blue jeans and spring-green, flannel shirt stood near the taxi bays tightly holding two suitcases. One was standard traveler’s fabric. The other appeared to be wood, heavily grained and well polished. Jacob’s eyes lit up, as he saw the three in the Subaru four-wheel-drive wagon that had replaced Edison’s minivan.
Galen quickly opened the rear door, and Jacob almost jumped into the vehicle, as Edison sped off, before the local police could ticket him for illegal standing.
“We didn’t recognize you, boy,” Nancy said.
Actually, she was startled by what she saw: fading bruises and facial puffiness that capped more extensive bruising on his arms.
“What happened, Jacob?”
“It’s what I am, what I’m going to be, Tia Nancy.”
“Tell us what happened. Were you in a fight?”
Galen spotted the telltale marks of fist-bruised skin.
“I ran into some skinheads. They didn’t like my long hair and beard. I decided not to fight. You ought to see what their boots did to my back.”
“Have you noticed any blood in…“ Galen started to ask.
Jacob cut him short.
“The emergency room didn’t find any kidney damage, Tio Galen.”
Edison put a classical recording in the CD player, and they drove home to the music of Mozart’s “Nozzi del Figaro.”
The four grew livelier, as they approached the turnoff to the mountain home. Jacob kept moving his head, looking out both sides of the car, his mind reliving those last, fun-filled days with his friends and the old people he now chose to call Tio and Tia.
A spring storm had darkened the skies by the time the car crunched the gravel in front of the house. Light spatters of rain dotted the windshield, as Jacob climbed out, grabbed his two suitcases, and walked toward the familiar, handmade wooden sign. He ran his fingers over the letters, tracing out each of the nine that made up the word SAFEHAVEN.
He remembered how lovingly Faisal would do the same thing each time he visited here. The wetness on Jacob’s cheeks was not from the rain.
“Come on in, boy, don’t let yourself get too wet,” Galen said.
“We’ve fixed up Tonio’s room. It’s yours for the duration,” Edison added.
“Everyone go wash up. I’ll start dinner.”
Nancy seemed more buoyant and interested in life than she had been for days.
Jacob shyly spoke up.
“Tia Nancy, you don’t need to use the special kosher dishes for me. I’m normal now.”
She shot him a look but said nothing.
The old men loosened their belts and stretched in satisfaction at the conclusion of the meal. Jacob ate well, too, but he seemed listless, almost apathetic. Galen knew that feeling. So did Nancy and Edison. How do you play the game of life when it deals you Jokers?
“Jacob, tell us what you’ve been doing. We know you haven’t been in school. Do you still have the DVDs you made of us the last time you were here?”
Nancy watched him, trying to be both observant yet unobtrusive.
“I … I had to sell most of what I had, but I kept my recordings, and your gifts, Tia, before the fit hit the shan…” and here he paused to make sure no one took offense, “I had a special wood case made up for your father’s phylacteries—and the dredels. There are some things I’ll never part with.”
He lowered his watering eyes and barely avoided crying.
“Tomorrow we’ll go into town and get you some clothes and, if the price is right, some new tools of the trade.”
Edison smiled at his own perceived bon mot. The old electronics expert felt rejuvenated by what the friends had begun calling their “Project Jacob.”
Galen piped up.
“What the geezer means is, if you’re meant to be a cinematographer, you need to have a camera. Drawing on your arm won’t work.”
He watched the young man and wasn’t surprised, when Jacob lowered his head to conceal his face.
“Come on, now, I think you need to rest. The four of us will make our battle plans later.”
The friends sat in the living room, the radio set on low as Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” played in the background. Galen broke the silence.
“What complicates this whole thing is the religious aspect. It was bad enough when I had to deal with the difference between old- and new-world cultures with my parents—but religion? How many people have died in the name of religious beliefs? Once that enters the picture, there’s no reasoning.”
“It may be the only weapon we have,” Nancy interjected. “I still can’t believe his parents—most likely his father—told him he didn’t belong. I don’t doubt the man’s sincerity, but nowhere in the Jewish faith does it promote what he’s saying or doing to his son. It’s just plain pigheaded!”
Simultaneously Edison and Galen burst out laughing at the incongruity of her last remark.
“Cut it out, you two!”
But even she couldn’t stop joining in, and the men felt glad to see the old Nancy once more.
“We need to question Jacob about everything that led up to this. I think we may have to visit his parents, so we’d better be well prepared.”
Edison said nothing, but he couldn’t help what crossed his mind.
She’s going to try to set another baby bird back on its perch, and this bird’s parents are even more dangerous.
Jacob lay in troubled sleep, twisting and turning, until finally he fell out of bed. The impact on his bruised skin made him yell out in pain. He picked himself off the floor and pulled his shirt over his head. He answered the knock on the door and saw the two old men standing in the doorway.
“Are you okay, boy?”
Edison flinched at the massive purple bruises, outlines of work-boot soles on Jacob’s back, a giant monochrome tattoo of violence.
“I’ll be right back,” Galen said.
Edison sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the victim of bigotry.
“Where’s he going, Tio Edison?”
“Probably went to get his magic little black bag. No doubt the old quack will bring back some concoction made of gopher guts and claim that it has healing powers—though I have to admit that what he prescribes usually works.”
They both laughed quietly, just as Galen returned with his cherished, worn, black-leather bag.
“I’m sure Edison has told you that my medical skills stop at leeches and bloodletting, right? Well, see how this feels.”
He pulled out an unlabeled jar, opened it, scooped a gob of off-white cream into his hand, and slopped it on Jacob’s back.
“Yeow!”
The young man shivered, as the icy cream hit his skin. Almost immediately, though, the pain disappeared. He grinned at Galen.
“What is that stuff? How come they didn’t give that to me at the hospital?”
“Didn’t Edison tell you? From the look on your face he probably said it was skunk extract or something just as delectable. Just for that…” and the old doctor turned to Edison, “I’m not going to tell you the secret of this rare and soothing balm devised by the ancients and passed down to their successors.”
“Just like I said, kid, he’s peddling snake oil again.”
Edison got up, opened the dresser drawer, and took out one of Tonio’s tee-shirts.
“Here, put this on. It’ll keep the quack’s goop from getting on Nancy’s clean bed sheets.
“You feel well enough to come to the living room and let us give you the third degree about what happened?”
Jacob sighed—he did feel better.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get cleaned up. We’ll meet you there.”
The three oldsters sat in a semicircle with Jacob in the center. Nancy fixed her attention on his face—she had to know for sure what the real story was.
“Take it from the top, Jacob. I’m sure your parents loved you, didn’t beat you or starve you. I’m sure they were proud of your scholastic success. Tell us about them.”
“Tia, my father’s great-grandparents, Herschel and Deborah, were diamond and gold merchants, as their ancestors had been for centuries. When they adopted the baby boy who would become my grandfather, they named him Abraham and gave him the family name of Geltmacher. Someday I would like to go back and research who my true ancestors were. I’d also like to find out more about the Geltmacher line.
“Anyway, Abraham was raised Chasidim. When he came of age, the elders introduced him to Sarah Glikberg, another adoptee from the war, also Chasidim. Abraham and Sarah had my father, Isaac. He was introduced to my mother, Rebekah Farber, granddaughter of another adoptee. That’s how I got here.”
He stopped, gazed into some unfathomable distance, and continued.
“All along the way the Chasidim community seemed to steer the adoptees and their children toward other adoptees.”
Galen noted the increasing discomfort in Jacob’s facial expression and body language. He tried to diffuse the young man’s tension with what he thought would be a humorous comment.
“Well, Jacob, if you follow your lineage, you’ll have your choice of two potential mates.”
“Funny you should say that, Tio. I’ve already been introduced to two sisters, one named Leah, the other Rachel. And, yes, they come from an adoptee family.”