Finish this story. Start with: "Back in 1938, before..."
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Back in 1938, before my little world was turned on its head all I cared about was avoiding marriage to Shmuel Wasserstein.
"A son of a rabbi!" my mother nagged me, always in the tone that implied the exclamation mark at the end. The crowning achievement for a moderately attractive, "You're no beauty queen, bubbala!", seventeen year old girl. So what if the smell of him made me want to gag and he had the laugh of a hyena? He was interested and to my mother that was the end of the discussion.
"What to discuss?" she would say, throwing up her flour covered hands as if genuinely bewildered by my stupidity, "You need a husband, his family is interested, he is interested and you with your...!" She'd tail off as if even her impressively extensive vocabulary of both English and Yiddish expressions was powerless in the face of my stubborn refusal.
Father stayed out of it, only intervening should our raised voices interfere with his studies.
"Torah is not be to disrespected by this caterwauling," he would say mildly, coming out of the study into the kitchen where most of these exchanges took place. His appearance usually meant a reprieve for me as my mother would immediately turn the full brunt of her well-acted 'disappointed parent' routine onto him in a rapid-fire torrent of Yiddish and English, allowing me to escape to my room.
What did I want? Truth? I had no idea, but I knew I didn't want Shmuel or any husband for that matter, not then anyway. I had just finished the level of schooling my parents considered appropriate for a girl and it was time to get married. And Shmuel was "interested!". I overheard my mother say once that Shmuel's interest in me was practically a mitzve on his part, but then Father shushed her and I pretended that I hadn't heard. Was I really so without charms for it to be considered a good deed on Shmuel's part to be willing to marry me?
These arguments would all end the same way, with my mother accusing me of bringing shame on myself and the family. How much longer could I hold out in the face of her incessant badgering? And worse, what could I offer in return? What else was there for me but to give in and marry? Always, at the thought of going along with the marriage, my throat would close up with choking panic, followed by the feeling of drowning that dogged my nightmares as the arguments escalated and became more frequent.
And then suddenly the answer was right in front of me and it was so blindingly obvious.
I could go to Palestine and serve my time in the Holy Land in a kibbutz. There was no way my parents could say 'no' to that. Even Shmuel's parents couldn't object to their future daughter-in-law spending a year in the Holy Land before wedding their son.
I could see Rachelle again... And just like that, my vision suddenly cleared. I thought about Shmuel and other boys from the yeshiva and shuddered with distaste. I thought about saying good bye to Rachelle six months ago when she was heading off for a year in a kibbutz. I remembered the warmth of her hug, the barely suppressed tears, the softness of her hands as she held mine in hers, the unspoken question in her eyes, the trembling of her lips as she kissed me on the cheek and made me swear to write to her.
I couldn't stop a wide smile as everything fell into place.
I knew exactly what I wanted now.
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