A Curable Romantic (99 page)

“Dirge-like,”
agreed.

“They just mumble, and at times, you can barely make out the tune.”

“Perhaps it’s fear.”

“Fear?” I said.

“Fear closes down the heart, I’m afraid.”

“Even the hearts of angels break, Dr. Sammelsohn,”
said. “Or didn’t you know that?”

“Fear, despair, whatever,”
said.

At these sad words, the three of us fell into a silence made all the more profound by the impeccable acoustics of the room. One could have heard a pin drop, or a heart breaking, for that matter. I didn’t know what to say.
let out a long sigh; and
seemed to growl a little to himself. I thought I heard someone, from a distance, calling my name. I was
certain I’d imagined it, until I noticed that
and
had turned their heads in the direction of the sound, and then I heard it again.

Someone was calling me.

“OH, THANK GOD,
Dr. Sammelsohn, I’ve found you!”

It was the rebbe, of course. Who else could it have been? Who else would have been in the choir room at this time, singing God’s praises?

“I’ve brought you your hat.” He ran towards me, the wings of his black coat flapping behind him, his footsteps thocking against the wooden floor, cradling my shabby grey fedora in his hands.

“You were in the square at Tłomackie Place,” he said, a little breathless now, “and as I was approaching you in order to greet you, I saw it fly from your head. I ran to retrieve it, naturally, and having done so, I called out to you, but in the excitement of the moment, what with all that thundering and the storming, I suppose you didn’t hear me. I thought I’d follow you.” He looked at the two angels. “One must return lost objects to their proper owners, after all.”

He was quoting the Talmudic law to them, it seemed to me, in the hopes that it might provide him with a legal excuse for being here, if
or
were inclined to throw him out as a poacher from this Heavenly precinct.

Instead,
bowed. “Your Holiness,” he said.

“Rav Szapira,”
said, doing the same.

The rebbe nodded and encouraged them to stand, clearly embarrassed by their adulation. Not knowing what else to do, he glanced about the room. “Ah, is that a Bösendorfer?” He pointed towards his ear. “I thought I recognized the tone.”

Allow me to stop for a moment to dwell on this curious tableau: here we were, two Jews, one religious, one not, in our wintry overcoats and our hats, with our hateful armbands pinned to our sleeves, standing in the Choir Room of the Fifth Level of Heaven in the company of our angelic escort, one dressed, more or less, in the costume of a professor from the Old World, the other, in his black leathers, as a thug from the New, and yet the harmony between us was serene.

“Shall we proceed, then?” the rebbe said to
and
. “And
with your permission, may I join in with you?” The angels nodded in agreement.