ONE AFTERNOON MADAME HALEVY was waiting for me when I left our store. It had been months since she and Madame Jobart had tried to persuade me to allow them to find me a suitable match, another husband I didn’t want or love. I was sure I wouldn’t be interested in whatever Madame Halevy had to say now. I did my best to disappear, hurrying away. But she followed as if she were a much younger woman, despite her cane.
“I haven’t given up on you,” she called.
“Please do.” I went on, but Madame Halevy surprised me by keeping pace. I had no choice but to stop and face her.
“Your mother loved you no matter what you think,” she said. “You don’t know all the circumstances.”
My mother had always said there was no finer woman in St. Thomas than Madame Halevy, but she seemed like a snake to me, coiled and waiting. She wanted to convince me to think as she did. “Thank you for that information,” I said wryly. “Had you not told me I never would have known.”
“Sara Pomié was a compassionate woman. She wanted the best for our people. And for you.” Madame Halevy took my arm. We stood in the shadows. I felt mesmerized somehow; a sparrow to her snake. “If she saw what you were doing now, she would be horrified. Unmarried and living with that man. Searching the office of the Reverend.” She threw me a look. “Did you think you’d find God in those files?”
So she had been spying on me after all. I pulled away from her. “I also knew my mother,” I said. “Nothing I did was right in her eyes. If the goal of my life was to please her, I would have already failed a dozen times over.”
“You were a difficult baby, now you’re a difficult woman,” Madame Halevy chided. “You cried all night, I remember it well. Your mother used to call me to her so she could get a few hours of sleep. Believe me, her husband wasn’t there.”
“Do not discuss my father,” I said.
“I know you from the beginning, so let me tell you in no uncertain terms that this scandal you’re creating affects us all. There are quiet sins and ones that echo for everyone. This situation is larger than your petty needs. People look at Jews with hatred and mistrust, and if we’re fighting with each other it gives them all the more reason to despise us. We have to live with no stain upon us.”
“Is that why the Book of Life is changed when it suits the congregation? To make certain that the facts fit our beliefs?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You saw changes?”
“Names inked out. People erased.”
Madame Halevy was blunt. “We have to protect ourselves.”
“Tell this to the Reverend,” I suggested. “I’m sure he’ll agree with you. Better still, tell it to his first wife. She died in childbirth and he was married again within a year to the girl of his choice. My first husband did the same when he married me to save his business, and I never questioned why my life was worth so much less than his.”
“Rachel.” Madame Halevy stopped me. “Do you think this scandal won’t come back to haunt you?”
I wasn’t afraid of ghosts and I told her so. I’d been haunted before, and had lived to tell the tale. I thanked her politely and excused myself. I could feel her watching me as I walked away, but I didn’t care. Perhaps Madame had good intentions, but intentions were not enough. I’d thrown my fate away once, and I would never again allow other people’s opinions rule my life. As a girl I’d done what was necessary, but I was a girl no longer.
Adelle had promised I would have another husband.
This time I would choose who that would be.
WHEN FRÉDÉRIC COULD GET no further with the Reverend, I insisted upon going with him to plead our case. My weapons were bitterness and a righteous attitude. Frédéric was still a young man, with a young man’s certainty that right would win out, whereas I knew we must fight for what we wanted. The weather was wet, with a storm brewing out to sea. It was a bad omen, and sure enough the Reverend’s wife refused to let us in the door. Women were to stay at home, especially sinners such as myself. She let us stand in the rain as it began to pour down upon us.
The Reverend’s wife did not look at me but instead stared at the ground. There were red ants, the kind you don’t want to come across barefoot. The Reverend’s wife was shaking. “You need to leave or the authorities will be called.” Her face was flushed and she stumbled over her words. Clearly she’d been told what to say to us.
I was a woman with eight children, the daughter of Moses Pomié, the proprietress of the largest store on the island, a lifelong resident of Charlotte Amalie, a full member of the congregation, yet I stood there drenched, as though I were a beggar woman. Frédéric took my arm. Unlike me, he had a kind, forgiving heart, and he did not wish to insult anyone. “There’s no point in us being here. Let’s not degrade ourselves any longer.”