would pray for an absent brother. I stopped in the chapel to pray for them.
And then, in the laundry room, I traded my habit for a denim shirt.
Â
"Why did you stay there so long?" she asked.
I looked past Molly to the desert nightscape we were leaving behind. The taxi was halfway to Jerusalem, and the garish suburban settlements were coming into sight. "Because no one asked me things I had no answer for." I laughed modestly, just glad to be with her, and despite herself she laughed too. Such questions could only make fools of both of us, her for asking, me for never being able to respond. When I looked at her silhouetted against the window I wanted it to be that I'd just awakened and that she and I were two of a family which had survived the harshest winter without wood for a fire. We'd stayed together through awful times. Her mother was a spinner, and I was a miller and she was the girl the prince was wooing. We were going home now. My wife would be in the corner at her wheel, making clothes for me.
"I hate it," my daughter said, about the land we were passing through.
"Because it's barren?"
She looked at me. "Because it's had you all this time."
"It has and it hasn't, Molly. The best years of my life happened without me." I smiled again, trying to steer away from her mood and from my guilt. We weren't an inch from the fact of my having abandoned her. "Tell me about Mount Saint Vincent's. I'm surprised you wound up there."
"Why? Because bright young women don't go to Catholic colleges?"
"No, because it's where your mother went, and she wasn't ... well ... exactly happy there."
"She says she was. She says she loved it."
"Really?" I didn't disguise my amazement. So Carolyn had mellowed too. "Is she still working?"
"Better than ever. She has a major show on now, in fact, at a gallery in Princeton. A dozen new paintings. There was an article in
Time
magazine."
I was surprised again, but now I did disguise it because of the envy it implied. "Very colorful? Geometric forms?"
"Mostly whites. She works in whites and pastels."
"Color was her trademark. Great splashes of color."
"She's more subdued."
Weren't we all, I thought. I returned to the haven of silence. These exchanges with Molly exhausted me. There were a million things I wanted to know, but each of her answers was like the glass wall in the Marcel Marceau routine; I kept bumping into it until a kind of panic set it. When I stopped talking, so did she.
In a few minutes the taxi slowed down. There was less traffic on the road than earlier, but the roadblock was still there. The taxi driver stuck his head out the window. The three soldiers were standing mutely before a pair of black-suited, bearded Orthodox men who were wildly berating them. The driver joined in, adding his own sharp voice, a one man antichorus. He was a Jew and his curses, if that's what they were, were in Hebrew. The soldiers waved us through. As we entered the outskirts of the city the taxi picked up speed.
"Everyone seems angry here," Molly said.
"They're at war...." I almost called her "sweetie," but my tongue stumbled and the endearment remained unspoken. "It isn't anger. Everyone's afraid."
"But why can't they just live together? Why can't they just leave each other alone?"
She looked like a woman, but she wasn't quite. "They both want the same thing, Molly. That's the trouble. They can't both have it."
"What, land? There's plenty of land."
"Not 'land,' Molly.
Holy
land. Do we have time to take a detour? I'll show you something that will help you understand." She looked at her watch. "We're supposed to be at the airport at two o'clock. They said the security check takes a long time."
I leaned forward toward the driver. "Can we get to Lod by two if we go through the Old City? I'd like to see the Wall."
"You have time, sir. But you'll have to walk. I can't get you closer than two blocks."
"Fine." I faced Molly. "I'd like to see it one last time myself."
"The Wailing
And then, in the laundry room, I traded my habit for a denim shirt.
Â
"Why did you stay there so long?" she asked.
I looked past Molly to the desert nightscape we were leaving behind. The taxi was halfway to Jerusalem, and the garish suburban settlements were coming into sight. "Because no one asked me things I had no answer for." I laughed modestly, just glad to be with her, and despite herself she laughed too. Such questions could only make fools of both of us, her for asking, me for never being able to respond. When I looked at her silhouetted against the window I wanted it to be that I'd just awakened and that she and I were two of a family which had survived the harshest winter without wood for a fire. We'd stayed together through awful times. Her mother was a spinner, and I was a miller and she was the girl the prince was wooing. We were going home now. My wife would be in the corner at her wheel, making clothes for me.
"I hate it," my daughter said, about the land we were passing through.
"Because it's barren?"
She looked at me. "Because it's had you all this time."
"It has and it hasn't, Molly. The best years of my life happened without me." I smiled again, trying to steer away from her mood and from my guilt. We weren't an inch from the fact of my having abandoned her. "Tell me about Mount Saint Vincent's. I'm surprised you wound up there."
"Why? Because bright young women don't go to Catholic colleges?"
"No, because it's where your mother went, and she wasn't ... well ... exactly happy there."
"She says she was. She says she loved it."
"Really?" I didn't disguise my amazement. So Carolyn had mellowed too. "Is she still working?"
"Better than ever. She has a major show on now, in fact, at a gallery in Princeton. A dozen new paintings. There was an article in
Time
magazine."
I was surprised again, but now I did disguise it because of the envy it implied. "Very colorful? Geometric forms?"
"Mostly whites. She works in whites and pastels."
"Color was her trademark. Great splashes of color."
"She's more subdued."
Weren't we all, I thought. I returned to the haven of silence. These exchanges with Molly exhausted me. There were a million things I wanted to know, but each of her answers was like the glass wall in the Marcel Marceau routine; I kept bumping into it until a kind of panic set it. When I stopped talking, so did she.
In a few minutes the taxi slowed down. There was less traffic on the road than earlier, but the roadblock was still there. The taxi driver stuck his head out the window. The three soldiers were standing mutely before a pair of black-suited, bearded Orthodox men who were wildly berating them. The driver joined in, adding his own sharp voice, a one man antichorus. He was a Jew and his curses, if that's what they were, were in Hebrew. The soldiers waved us through. As we entered the outskirts of the city the taxi picked up speed.
"Everyone seems angry here," Molly said.
"They're at war...." I almost called her "sweetie," but my tongue stumbled and the endearment remained unspoken. "It isn't anger. Everyone's afraid."
"But why can't they just live together? Why can't they just leave each other alone?"
She looked like a woman, but she wasn't quite. "They both want the same thing, Molly. That's the trouble. They can't both have it."
"What, land? There's plenty of land."
"Not 'land,' Molly.
Holy
land. Do we have time to take a detour? I'll show you something that will help you understand." She looked at her watch. "We're supposed to be at the airport at two o'clock. They said the security check takes a long time."
I leaned forward toward the driver. "Can we get to Lod by two if we go through the Old City? I'd like to see the Wall."
"You have time, sir. But you'll have to walk. I can't get you closer than two blocks."
"Fine." I faced Molly. "I'd like to see it one last time myself."
"The Wailing
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