“I didn’t hear you. What do you want to eat?”
“Mom, I don’t want to eat,” I answered loudly and clearly, emphasizing each word.
“You’re like Eli, you don’t like my food.”
“Mom, I got married!” I repeated.
“What are you saying?”
“I got married.” I said for the third time.
“Moses, Moses, what is he talking about?” She turned toward the bedroom. Silence.
“Moses, Moses, Michael’s here, and he’s talking about a wedding, he says he got married. Did you know about this? I don’t understand… Bring me a glass of water. I need to sit down. Where’s a chair?”
I held her hand and led her to an armchair in the living room.
My father appeared in the doorway of their bedroom.
He looked as if he had just woken from a restless nap, sheetcreases still marking his bare arms. He went to the bathroom sink to wash his face.
Silence filled the air.
A thin wail came from my mother’s direction.
“Who did you marry?” she asked between sobs. I was astonished by the question. What did she think – that I’d married Daniela, the nurse?
“Lily.”
“When?”
“Today, a few hours ago.”
“How? Jews don’t marry on Saturday.” My father remembered it was the Sabbath.
“I sanctified her with a ring in the presence of two witnesses – three, actually.”
“Guta, stop crying, let’s hear him out,” my father tried to be pragmatic, hiding the storm inside him.
“How can I stop crying? I’ve suffered all my life, since age two, when my father died.” My mother sobbed harder. “What would he have said about this?”
“Dad, I decided to get married. I wanted to take the burden of the wedding off you, so I just got married, simple as that.”
“Don’t think what you did is so simple.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure it isn’t a sin.” His answer shocked me. My atheist father, talking about sin? It confused me completely.
I sat down. The last thing I had wanted was to commit a sin – not against Lily, not against my parents, and certainly not against God. Who knows…
“Dad, I checked with two religious guys in the army, and it’s fine.”
“Not sure. Tomorrow I’ll check.” he said firmly.
“Don’t check, please Dad, don’t.” I nearly begged.
“And you won’t have a wedding? No chuppah? All my life, Idreamed that you, the son everyone envied, the one they thought I doted on, would marry properly.” My mother cried bitterly.
