Son of a Smaller Hero

  Noah turned away from him. A lump formed in his throat. He understood the gift of Melech’s lie, and he was speechless.

  “You came here another day,” Melech said, “and told me I should try to understand. What should I try to understand?”

  “I started out here today with anger, Zeyda. I came here to tell you things that I’ve found out. Facts, I guess. But now – you are no longer the same man that I had in mind. I have changed too. I …” Noah paused. He realized gladly that Shloime had been wrong. For Melech, in Noah’s place, would have told his grandfather that his youngest son had started the fire. Melech, in his place, would have had God and would have done what was just. “You said you wanted me to be a Somebody. A Something. I’ve come to tell you that I have rules now. I’ll be a human being. I’ll …”

  “You are going from us?”

  “I am going and I’m not going. I can no more leave you, my mother, or my father’s memory, than I can renounce myself. But I can refuse to take part in this …”

  “I understand that you are going. Finished. Go. Go, become a Goy. But have one look first at what the Goyim did to your Zeyda. That girl in the picture had she been willing to become a Jewess, to … Stones they threw at me, Noah. My heart they made hard against my children. Who burned me down my office? Who murdered my first-born? Goyim Goyim. Now go. Go. Go join, become my enemy.”

  Melech Adler sat down and picked up his paper again.

  Their eyes met briefly. An old man crumpled up in a chair.

  Noah reached out and touched his shoulder. “Would you give me one of the scrolls, one of – one of the scrolls you copied …?”

  “The scrolls? You. I’m not a scribe … I …”

  “I would like to have one to remember – one that you made.”

  “They are not very well done, child. There are errors. My father now, he … I …”

  Melech got up and opened up a drawer. He glanced wordlessly through several scrolls, selected one, and handed it to his grandson.

  “I planned so much for you,” Melech began faltering, “I … Money you could have had – anything, but …”

  “You have given me what I wanted,” Noah said.

  Melech sat down again. Noah bent over and kissed him. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  After he had gone Melech touched his cheek and felt that kiss like a burn. He touched his cheek and felt that he had been punished.

  VII

  Early the next morning Leah sat in her armchair by the window waiting for Harry to come and get her. In seven hours, she thought, he’ll be gone. There’s nothing I can do.

  “Leah – Leah, did you … If – if there is a light …”

  Oh yes. Yes. Years, years, years. Noah was no picnic I can tell you that much, but … Her breath began to come quickly. Her father had been a poet and, having lived too long in another country, had died a character. Her husband, a – that man died a hero. Sweat streamed down her face. Her skin turned grey. A gathering yellow fog of exploding yellow lights, and Leah reached up wearily but in vain for a fading retreating Noah before she was washed back down under many, heavy seas. God, God. There is nothing I can do to stop him. Nothing. Her head throbbed. A vice-like pain twisted, tightened, in her chest. Tighter and tighter. An enormous weight passed down on her. Leah gasped. Stared. A fierce pain shot down her left arm and crackled in her two little fingers. Another – and fiercer – pain sped swiftly up her jaw. Tighter.

  “A light … If you should see … If – Boyele.…”

  Harry knocked on the door. Knocked, and knocked again. There was no answer.

  VIII

  About an hour later Mrs. Adler brought in a glass of lemon tea for Melech. “Noah was here?” she asked.

  “Last night. So?”

  “He is leaving?”

  “He’s going to Europe this afternoon. Finished.”

  “All I did was to ask.”

  “Ask.”

  Each man creates God in his own image. Melech’s God, who was stern, sometimes just, and always without mercy, would reward him and punish the boy. Melech could count on that.

  “I’ll get you some buns.”

  Melech didn’t protest. He picked up his prayer-book and began to read. And why not? Hadn’t the Angel of Death passed over King David because he was at his prayers?

  Mordecai Richler was born in Montreal in 1931. The author of ten successful novels, numerous screenplays, and several books of non-fiction, his most recent novel, Barney’s Version, was an acclaimed bestseller and the winner of The Giller Prize, the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, the QSPELL Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Novel in the Caribbean and Canada region. Richler also won two Governor General’s Awards and was shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize.

  Mordecai Richler died in Montreal in July 2001.