Read Online People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - Free Book Online Page B

Guardians, they were the natural leaders.
    One was the daughter of a city councilor, one the son of the pharmacist, a widower, for whom Lola’s mother did laundry. Another girl’s father was a bookkeeper at the finance ministry, where Lola’s father worked as a janitor. But Mordechai treated everyone as an equal, so gradually she gathered enough courage to ask a question.
    “But Mordechai,” she’d asked shyly, “aren’t you glad to be home in your own country, speaking your own language, not having to work so hard?”
    Mordechai had turned to her with a smile. “This isn’t my home,” he said gently. “And it isn’t yours, either. The only true home for Jews is Eretz Israel. And that’s why I’m here, to tell you all about the life you could have, to prepare you, and to bring you back with me, to build our Jewish homeland.”
    He raised his arms, as if including her in a communal embrace. “‘If you will it, it is no dream.’” He paused, letting the words hang in the air. “A great man said that, and I believe it. What about you, Lola, will you act your dreams, and make them real?” She blushed, unused to the attention, and Mordechai smiled kindly. Then he spread his hands to include the whole group. “But think of this. What do you will? Is it to do the pigeon dance, scratching around for the crumbs of others, or will you be desert hawks, and soar to your own destiny?”
    Isak, the pharmacist’s son, was a slight, studious boy with pencil-thin limbs. Lola’s mother often opined that for all his learning, the pharmacist didn’t have the first idea about how to properly feed a growing child. But of all the young people in the hall, Isak alone fidgeted impatiently during Mordechai’s rhetorical flight. Mordechai noticed and turned the full force of his warmth upon him. “What is it, Isak? Do you have a view to share with us?”
    Isak pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Maybe what you say is true for Jews in Germany. We all hear troubling news from there. But not here. Anti-Semitism has never been part of our lives in Sarajevo. Look where the synagogue is: between the mosque and the Orthodox church. I’m sorry, but Palestine is the Arabs’ home, not yours. Certainly not mine. We are Europeans. Why turn our backs on a country that has offered us prosperity and education, in order to become a peasant among people who don’t want us?”
    “So, you are happy to be a pigeon?” Mordechai said this with a smile, but his intention to belittle Isak was clear, even to Lola. Isak pinched the bridge of his nose and scratched his head.
    “Maybe so. But at least the pigeon does no harm. The hawk lives at the expense of the other creatures that dwell in the desert.”
    Lola had listened to the two of them argue until her head ached. She had no idea who was right. She turned over on the thin mattress and tried to quiet her mind. She had to get to sleep, otherwise she’d nod off over her tasks the next day, and her father would want to know why. Lola worked in the laundry with her mother, Rashela. If she was tired, it was a chore to walk the streets of the city with her heavy baskets, delivering fresh starched linens and picking up soiled clothes. The warm, moist steam would make her drowsy when she was supposed to be tending the copper. Her mother would find her, slumped in a corner, as the water cooled and a greasy scum congealed on the surface.
    Lujo, her father, was not a harsh man, but he was a strict and practical one. At first, he had allowed her to go to the Young Guardians, Hashomer Haza’ir in Hebrew, after her work was done. His friend Mosa, the custodian at the Jewish community center, had spoken in favor of the group, saying it was a harmless and wholesome youth organization, like the Gentiles’ Scouts. But then Lola had fallen asleep and let the fire that heated the copper go out. Her mother had scolded, and her father had asked why. When he learned that there was a