Read Online The Rhythm of Memory by Alyson Richman - Free Book Online

into her lap. But she would look at him and instead see her late nephew, Tovi, the boys having shared the same week of birth. And she would reference everything with “If Rosa were here,” her sister-in-law’s memory, like a shadow, hanging over her in the heavy, humid air.
    Unlike most families, Justine considered her husband’s family her own. Rosa had welcomed her like a sister, and their friendship was genuine. Rosa was the first one she had told when Justine suspected she was with child. Before her mother, before Isaac. And Rosa held her and told her that she too believed she was pregnant.“They’ll be the same age,” she said, and her black eyes were now wet from her tears. “Let’s tell the men separately and let them have the joy of discovering on their own that the children will be born in the same month, perhaps even the same day!” They both reveled in their sisterly conspiracy and went into the kitchen to prepare their afternoon tea.
    The boys were born within a week of each other, and Justine had loved Tovi as if he were her own son. After the children’s births, their circumcisions having been completed, the two women confessed that they felt as though they had each given birth to twins, their hearts so full with love for the other’s child.
    After Jacob had refused to leave with them, Justine had begged Rosa to try to change his mind. “We will all be together,” she tried to assure her. “Together, the journey will be less hard, the transition not as difficult.” Rosa was shaking her head and repeating, “I cannot influence this decision, it is not mine to make.” Rosa wrapped her sister-in-law in her shawl and held her close. “I promise we will come if things get worse. You understand, I must trust my husband.”
    They bade each other farewell in the early hours of the day they were to leave. Justine knelt down and kissed her nephew and rubbed his cheeks one last time. “Write us,” she said to Rosa, and tried to muffle her breaking voice. “We will see each other soon.” From a few meters beyond, Isaac beckoned Justine to hurry, insisting that they could not be late. As she approached the car, she turned once more, catching sight of her sister-in-law one last time. Rosa’s tiny fingers waving good-bye, her face tightening as it tried to force back her fear. Years later, Justine was forever haunted by that last glimpse of her sister-in-law’s face. Often, she replayed it in her mind, imagining herself running back to the three of them,dragging them into the car and insisting that they leave Paris. If only, she thought to herself again and again, so much that even her dreams gave her no rest. If only she and Isaac had done more.
    Justine knew that Isaac had no satisfaction in that his intuition had been correct. But still it was as if she had to punish both herself and Isaac for their and their family’s survival.
    “We left them there, Isaac. Rosa, Tovi, Jacob, my mama, my papa…all of them. We should have insisted they come.”
    He was quiet. His gray face bearded white.
    “Don’t speak to me of what we should have done,” he said solemnly. “I see how you look at me every day, as if I am to blame.”
    “No,” she begged, and began to weep. “It’s only…”
    Isaac looked at his wife sprawled out on the bed, her face buried in the pillow. Her long black hair spreading on the linen, like the feathers of a large black bird.
    “I’m sorry, Justine,” he said, his own voice cracking, for it was nearly impossible for him to communicate his grief. He reached out to stroke his wife’s back. “You mustn’t blame yourself.” He felt his throat beginning to constrict. He was struggling in dealing with his own emotions, let alone those of his wife.
    So, he rose to his feet and began to walk out the door. But as he reached the threshold, he placed his palm on the sideboard and said softy, “It was I who should have been stronger. It is I who am to blame.”
    In his last year