Page 41 of Dalliances & Devotion (The Truitts 2)

“Snowstorms are deadly and cold.” She snatched back her hand and folded her arms.

“Well, you aren’t cold.” He smirked a little. “Though I’m rather fond of cold. The summers here are sweltering.”

“You just need to wear more breathable fabric.” She gave him a half smile that couldn’t possibly have reached her eyes. She was not intended to be an actress. That was why she wrote, not spoke.

David released a slow sigh. “Amalia, I don’t know why you did all the things you did, but I’m sure you had reasons. You aren’t actually a dullard.”

“Naïve, at best, incompetent is more like it.” Her eyes burned. “And probably proving your points about marriage being just another way that society promotes inequality and keeps the masses down and that it should be abolished altogether.”

Before he could say anything else, the waiter brought their meals and the two ate in silence. The trout was smoked to perfection and the spinach bright and soft and should’ve made her smile, but it didn’t. It all tasted like dust. Still, she managed to get it down.

“I said that? I said that marriage should be abolished?” He grimaced. “I wasn’t particularly romantic as a teenager, was I?”

Amalia snorted, even if everything inside her was tight once more. Her fork clattered against her plate.

“I also was a bit narrow-minded.” David adjusted his napkin. “I don’t believe in it, certainly not for myself, but that was a touch harsh.”

Amalia could only stare at him, so many thoughts and questions swirling in her head.

“It’s funny, I always assumed I would one day. At least when I was a child.” David shoved a forkful of potatoes in his mouth. He placed his napkin on the table. “I was supposed to study and then marry whomever the matchmaker found for me and live out my days like my grandfather, and his grandfather before him.” He leaned back and folded his hands across his chest, an almost sardonic expression gracing his face. “You aren’t the only one whose plans didn’t come to fruition, you know?”

What did he mean by that? Amalia forced herself to pause, not speak, lest he told more of the story, lest he trusted her a bit more. Every fiber in her strained to hear, to learn, to know all of David.

“What happened?” Amalia rested her chin on her good arm, her elbow just off the table. A bit improper, but no one was paying attention to them.

“It turns out that I’m not the sort of man you want to maintain a community with.” He shrugged, but didn’t elaborate and she certainly couldn’t ask. “So I left and...well... I got a bit lost. I spent some time in Berlin and tried things, saw things...” He ran his hand through his hair. “Amalia, do you know why I came to America?”

She shook her head.

“I woke up one day, sick from eating pork, but equally as sick with the idea of living under the thumb of the tsar. I knew there was nothing for me in Europe.” David stared for a moment before sighing. “I came for ‘opportunity.’” He drummed his fingers on his knee, his eyes down for a moment. “For most people that means for a decent job. But for me, it was more because I realized that Europe could never be, as you say, ‘fixed.’ At least not any time soon.”

Amalia didn’t say anything, willing him to continue, to let her in. That first dinner she’d done so much of the talking... And afterwards, in their letters and even the few moments together, she’d been the only one to offer personal details.

Oh sure, David spoke. He could expound endlessly on what was wrong with the world and on how to make it right with verve and passion and fire that was infectious. But about people—not the crowd—specific, real people? Or himself? Who he’d be in the world he wanted to create? He’d always said very little.

“For people like me, Jews without means, America is the opportunity to own land or to live where we want for the first time. To have any job. To excel. To have a chance at some sort of equality, whether we assimilate or not. Because no matter how much we do, in Europe, it’ll never be enough. Here there’s a real possibility of something better.” He adjusted his spectacles and shrugged. “I knew it was no Garden of Eden. Discussions of slavery were all over Berlin.”

He leaned forward. “But America

is young. And I agree with you—I believe it can be changed, it can still be fixed. And I can help make it happen, without renouncing who I am, which is better than the life I thought I wanted. I just have to figure out where I fit in. Easy right?” David tapped his fist against his lips, his eyes far away.

She cleared her throat and his gaze returned to hers. He folded his hands in his lap.

“But, back to marriage. Let me tell you a story.” His half smile made her heart ache, or more her limbs itched to crawl onto his lap and lay her head against his shoulder and swear it would all somehow be right.

Instead, she just let him talk. “Once upon a time, there was a man and a woman. A girl and a boy really. Both from Grodno. The boy was the son of a bookseller, but the girl’s grandfather was a rabbi. Her father had died when she was young and she had four older sisters. So pedigree, but no dowry.”

All the rest of the noise in the restaurant faded as Amalia pictured the scene in her mind. The youngest, the last, the afterthought child.

“Anyway, when they were each seventeen the matchmakers put them together. Their families liked the look of them as a couple and they were married.” He stared over her head, as if picturing the two, their wedding. Even younger than she’d been the first time. She gulped—loud enough that he turned back to her. “She quickly became pregnant. She had two daughters and a son. The girls looked like her and the son like him.”

“And they all lived happily ever after?” She wrinkled her nose a little at the concept since she’d never come close.

David gave a derisive snort. “No. The boy became a man and continued his father’s trade. His business was mildly successful, but he needed more. He read a great deal and was restless. He’d take his cart to the other side of town, where the...”

“Gentiles lived?” Another gulp. Amalia worked to push back thoughts of her father and how he never converted into the back of her mind. She and her siblings were Jewish and her family was outwardly Jewish, but if the story was going the way one would guess...she squirmed in her chair.

“You can predict the outcome.” David echoed her thoughts and sighed. “He became more and more enamored with the life outside his circle and met a woman, well, lots of women, because just one couldn’t satisfy him and...anyway, at the time no one knew where he went. But he was gone.”

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