Chapter Ten #3
“Naturally,” Sol said with another grin. “It’s why I’m so popular.”
“I have no comments to make in that regard,” Roger said, withholding the quip that was on his tongue.
“Anyway, Miss Adler is clever but incorrect, as I’m rightly confident in my abilities.
I’m private and thus aim to reveal as little as necessary of myself whenever possible to protect both the family and the community.
I use the good judgment I possess to correctly analyze situations. ”
His friend nodded along thoughtfully. “So you’re merely ‘overly monied’?”
“Better to have too much than not enough.” Roger shrugged.
“That’s usually how we survive.” Unless the gentiles’ internal troubles were so insurmountable an outlet was required.
Though at times a ransom could be paid for their lives.
Fortuitous when possible, for fleeing was not cheap.
Hence his family’s forced conversion over three hundred years ago and the century they’d spent living not as themselves before they could escape.
“Except those times when they decided we had too much,” Sol pointed out, breaking his thoughts. “Over the centuries, they’ve become quite good at taking and killing at the same time.”
“True,” Roger conceded. “Which is where my expertise comes in.” He raised a finger so Sol would pay attention.
The lesson was necessary for them all. “As my late mother used to say, ‘wealth never looks more grotesque than on a Jew.’ So while the ton’s grandeur dazzles the imagination and brings pride, the same on us can cause outrage.
Thus, we can never appear, at a minimum, to have more than the corresponding gentiles of our class—really, one or two classes below—or disaster shall surely follow.
” Something the Teres family likely also knew well.
Which was why he and the daughter would suit. Just like he and Lucy suited.
His friend tapped his lip, as if considering. “Wise and valid points,” he proclaimed.
“But?” Roger asked, raising a brow. “There is a ‘but’?”
Sol pursed his lips. “But the situation is only valid if the gentiles don’t strain too much at the bonds of their own distinctions.” He scooted forward in his chair. “When that happens, when their entire system is at war…”
“We’re eventually sacrificed to keep the peace,” Roger finished. Yes, that history existed, especially for the Ashkenazis. “That’s when we flee. At the first sign, and until then, we preserve the most favorable equilibrium.”
“A judicious strategy,” his friend said finally.
“Very,” Roger said, smiling a little. “Which is why it’s such a shame a woman as intelligent as Miss Adler doesn’t appreciate it, or me.”
“Yes, intelligent people can have their prejudices,” his friend said, his eyes sparkling. “Or should I say ‘good judgment.’ ”
“ ‘Good’ is in the eye of the beholder,” Roger retorted with a smile of his own, which was rewarded with a laugh.
“I should be getting back to Hannah.” Sol rose, and Roger followed, rounding his desk.
“I’ll walk you out,” he told his friend.
“Are you taking her to your brother’s for Shabbos?” Sol asked as they moved down the hall.
“She declined last week. Both Friday night and Saturday morning,” Roger explained. “Her loss, as his cook’s dafina is the best.”
“I most certainly remember,” Sol said. “You should let Miss Adler know that I’m hoping to be there, along with Hannah and my sister-in-law. If she appears, Isabelle and Aaron might even leave their guests long enough to say hello.”
Roger nearly choked.
“He’s a good man,” Sol argued. “You should give him a chance.”
Like hell.
“So he and his cronies can overthrow my family?” Roger asked, this time the irritation creeping into his voice.
“I thought we hadn’t had a monarchy in almost eighteen hundred years. And I don’t remember the last one being considered particularly successful,” his friend joked.
However, Roger was no longer in the mood. “You know what I mean,” he said.
“Your family’s business is the same as his,” Sol pointed out. “He’s also as straightforward as they come. If he wanted a go at you, he’d tell you, and it’d be with fists, not politics.”
A fair assessment of the man’s character, though he’d not concede the point.
“Yet that’s what he’s up to his ears in,” Roger pointed out. From the seat on the Commission that should’ve been his. Or at least someone like him. Someone who made sense.
“Which is perhaps also a good thing,” his na?ve friend had the nerve to suggest. “He has a perspective.”
“An unenlightened one.” Roger sniffed.
“Maybe,” Sol conceded. “But perhaps valuable in its own way.”
“He’s a self-righteous bore who likes me even less than I like him,” Roger told him as they moved into the hall. “You need to give up on the idea that we could ever be friends.”
He didn’t need friendship from Ellenberg and his ilk; he needed their acquiescence to his authority.
“One would’ve thought that about us,” Sol pointed out as they reached the stairway. “Perhaps you just need to change your perspective.” His friend placed his hat back on his head. “See something you might have missed, or perhaps, wasn’t there before.”
Before Roger could ask what he meant, Lopez reentered to help Sol with his coat, leaving Roger to return to his appropriate work for his appropriate life. Which he’d continue to maintain in the appropriate manner.