Redemption

Redemption by Howard Fast Page B

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Authors: Howard Fast
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the acquisitions of a lifetime; law books, court records, history, philosophy, and novels. When my son married, he took his books with him, but I still had Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and Treasure Island from my age-ten-to-twelve time and a hundred other novels that I kept and treasured. Books that I did not feel deserved keeping, I would give away to whatever charity accepted books, but each of them was weighed and judged before I parted with it. I never throw away a book; such an action rates high on my catalog of sins.
    Liz’s response to this wall of books was sheer delight and chaotic curiosity. Whenever she worked a late shift at the store, and a short one at that, there was time for reading. I have thanked whatever gods may be for my good eyesight and for my ability to read for hours, and very often we would both curl up with a book, sometimes in the early hours, sometimes in the evening. I never attempted to direct her reading or to recommend a book. In some ways, she was better educated than I was; but she was more hungry than I for words and ideas, and she had told me that aside from the few books she’d brought into her marriage home, there were no books in the Hopper house, except for a few oversized coffee-table tomes on hunting.
    One evening, when each of us sat with a book, I asked her what she was reading.
    â€œDaniel Berrigan,” she replied, holding up the book. “It’s called No Bars to Manhood .”
    I nodded.
    â€œHave you read it?” she asked me.
    â€œYes—but that was a long time ago, perhaps twenty-five years. He’s a Jesuit priest who was involved in the peace movement against the Vietnam War.”
    â€œI’m not reading him because he’s a priest.”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œBut you were thinking it.”
    â€œPossibly,” I admitted. “I was also involved in the peace movement at that time.”
    â€œPerhaps I was reading it because he was a priest. It came out during my last year in high school. The nuns wouldn’t allow us to even discuss Father Berrigan, and when I saw it here—”
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, you don’t have to apologize for anything you read!”
    â€œIke—Ike, I am not apologizing, only explaining—but when it comes to anything about you being a Jew and me being a Catholic, you shy away.”
    â€œI don’t shy away,” I objected. “We are what we are, and we love each other. It is 1996.”
    â€œBut my dear, dear Ike, we are because I am a Catholic and you are a Jew. That’s why we know each other so well. May I read something to you?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œThis was during the war, Ike, and Father Berrigan wrote, ‘I seek so simple a thing as—sanity. For I confess to you that I regard these people, who are my people, with a growing horror, this believing nation that sounds its prayers as it goes about the task of Cain.’” She glanced up at me. “Do you understand, Ike?”
    â€œI think so,” I admitted uncertainly.
    â€œIke, you gave me something—Father Berrigan calls it sanity. You took me by the hand and led me from death to life. Sedge Hopper is a Catholic, and I have been struggling with that. Then I began to read this book, and I understand so much. I will always be a Catholic and you will always be a Jew. And it will never matter as something between us because there is nothing separating us.”
    I thought I understood her, but I was not sure. I knew many Catholics, but never one who spoke about his or her religion. The next day, when Liz was at work, I read through the Berrigan book. I spoke to Charlie Brown, who is Catholic, but he shied away from anything deeper than the surface. The subject made him uncomfortable.
    Liz was changing, emerging, becoming stronger. My role as a father figure, if indeed it had ever existed, was gone. Bit by bit, she was taking hold of my life, seeing

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