Ryan had mopped up the soup from the floor, set a place for Reuben and poured what was left of the tomato soup into shining bowls, first Doran’s and then Reuben’s.
‘Thank you, Ryan,’ Reuben said as his soup was poured.
‘You’re welcome, sir,’ said Ryan and he raised his eyebrow at Alice, who shrugged. She had no explanation for Reuben’s behaviour so it was no use looking at her. Reuben had never thanked Ryan before. Reuben smiled at everyone and Alice felt reassured. Perhaps her husband was going to be okay.
Soup spoons chimed against the silence as they dipped into the china bowls.
‘I’m Pastor Rose now,’ Reuben said.
‘Past what?’ snapped his father.
‘Pastor. I’ve joined the Baptists. I’ve been baptised, immersed.’
Lisbet gasped. ‘Oh Reuben! I’ve prayed for you to come to your senses, I’ve prayed for your safe return, but I never prayed for you to be a Baptist!’
Doran pushed his soup bowl aside. Soup slopped onto the table and began a painful drip onto the floor. He scraped his chair noisily on the floorboards; the sound sent shivers down Alice’s spine.
‘I should have known you would do something truly stupid one day. I should have seen it coming. I should have been tougher with you. It all started when you changed your name.’
‘Well, don’t get too worked up yet because there’s more,’ said Reuben.
They all stopped eating and waited. Everything inside Alice was still. There were too many changes happening too fast. What other change could Reuben possibly bring into her life?
‘We are moving to Australia. That is where God has called me to serve. My wife, my child and I are going to Australia.’
Doran threw his napkin on the table and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. The force of it made Alice jump in her seat. Lisbet, she saw, was determined to remain calm. Alice tried to copy her; she took deep breaths and rubbed the pain in her belly.
‘Wasn’t your bar mitzvah enough religion, Reuben?’ Lisbet said quietly.
‘Lovely soup, Ryan, please tell Cook,’ he said.
He looked kindly at his mother. ‘I know this is hard for you, but if it makes you feel better it’s not that I am no longer a Jew. Christianity is a sect of Judaism, really. It’s just that I am a Jewish Christian. I have welcomed the Lord Jesus into my heart. I have not turned my back on Judaism, I have just taken Christianity as well. I have completed who I am. I don’t know why Father is so upset, we’ve never been religious, but now I am, so I suppose I am more Jewish.’
‘A Jewish Christian,’ Lisbet repeated.
‘Such people do exist, you know. I am not alone.’
Alice thought of their baby up in the nursery. Did this mean he didn’t have to be brought up Jewish now?
‘So will we be baptising our baby as a Christian at St Martin’s?’ she asked hopefully. She would much prefer that they did.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Baptists don’t baptise babies.’
She heard Lisbet sigh with relief, but she groaned with anxiety. If the baby wasn’t Jewish and he wasn’t baptised, then he was nothing. If he died like so many children did with childhood diseases that always seemed to lurk in the doorway of the nursery, he wouldn’t go to heaven. How could Reuben do this to her on top of everything else? How could he do this to their child?
She glared at Reuben but he looked back as if everything between them had always been pleasant and sweet, as though she was his much-loved wife and he had always been her faithful devoted husband.
‘Alice, how do you feel about being a pastor’s wife?’ Reuben could have been asking how she felt about a picnic on Sunday.
She felt an overpowering urge to hit him, so she sat on her hands. Her mind reeled with the implications of what he had done and what he was saying and how he was moving her to the other end of the world. Then slowly she realised there was a payoff. It came to her like the tiny light of a match. It struggled for a moment to take hold but soon her mind was burning. She had heard about Baptists. Her friend Izzy had been a Baptist and she was no fun at all. If he was a Baptist he couldn’t drink any more or go out carousing. He couldn’t dance or gamble. He couldn’t smoke and, most of all, if he was a Baptist it would mean that he couldn’t sleep with the maids any more. If they were in Australia he wouldn’t be the celebrated fighter pilot or a Rosenberg from Ashgrove House. The girls wouldn’t fall into him because he would just be an ordinary church pastor.
‘Baptists don’t drink or gamble, do they?’ she asked nonchalantly; she wasn’t going to show him how much she cared.
‘Alice, I am a man of God now. I live a life worthy of God.’
‘Yes, but does that mean you won’t drink or gamble or — or anything else?’ she asked firmly. She wanted to see how sincere he was. It was possible this was just some elaborate joke to get at his father. He loved nothing more than upsetting his father and she’d never been able to work out why.
‘Reuben, does that mean you won’t drink or gamble or — anything else?’ she asked again slowly.
‘Alice, I am a man of God,’ he said again. ‘I won’t gamble or drink — or anything else.’
They both knew what anything else meant.
A smile grew inside her and came to her lips. ‘Well then, it seems I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I?’ She looked at her soup because she couldn’t remove the smile from her face. Her life had suddenly turned around. She was going to have a husband who would be true to her, who would
