Five Years: Shared Heritage-Extended

“Here you go, Maxwell, you may light the first candle,” said Sebastian, handing him the attendant candle.
“Thanks.”
Max’s tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth as he carefully lit the candle on the right side of the menorah. They were in one of the smaller labs, with all the lights turned off and the smoke detector turned off for at least an hour, per Sebastian’s abrasive agreement with Ambrogio.
“Now, I must admit I haven’t been doing this for very long, so I don’t quite remember all the prayers.”
“That’s ok,” said Maxwell, returning the attendant candle to where it belonged, “My mom made me memorize them.”
After reciting the three prayers, Maxwell and Sebastian sat on two stools and watched the candle burn, the small flame hardly able to dispel the darkness.
“It’s so small,” he said.
“True, but sometimes it doesn’t take much to be considered a miracle.”
“It’s comforting,” Max admitted.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Mom used to tell me that the point wasn’t that it was a small flame, but that it was a beacon that refused to be put out. That the miracle was it would burn far beyond its allotted time and, with Hashem’s guidance, it will never go out.”
“Your mother is devout then?”
“Yeah, well both my parents are. My sister and I not so much.”
“You have a sister?” said Sebastian, surprised.
“Yeah, she’s five years older than me. Works as a civil rights lawyer in Harlem. Has two kids.”
“Does your family know that you are here?”
“Yeah.”
“Do they understand?”
“Yeah, Mom was all weepy, but Dad’s proud. Sissy…well she was less understanding, but she sent me dreidels so we’re on our way to making amends?”
“You’re ok with leaving them?”
Max stared at the light and shrugged and picked at a piece of dead skin on his palm.
“Someone has to, right? Besides I’m doing it for Anna and Michael, my niece and nephew. If we’re successful, they’ll have a place to go, a safe place.”
Sebastian nodded his head understandingly.
“Why did you start practicing again?” Max asked, aghast at his own daring.
“Hm?”
“You said you haven’t practiced in a while, so I’m assuming you stopped at some point in your life.”
Sebastian crossed his arms across his chest and watched the flame flicker in silence and Max frowned.
“I’m sorry. I-”
“It was three years after my mother died.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“She always seemed backwards when she was alive.”
Maxwell’s face softened.
“I was born in Dresden in the 1990s, when Germany was being unified. My father and mother were both Jewish, but only my mother practiced Judaism. My father had turned away when he was very young and, besides, he didn’t have time for it, not when the future was being built around us.”
“Sebastian, you don’t have to…”
“No, it’s all right. I always think about her around this time of year.”
He shifted on his stool and sighed.
“In many ways, I am my father’s son. We both didn’t have time for our past or for my mother, and then I left for college and then the war. I was in Poland when the war started.”
“Yeah, Celestyn mentioned it a few times.”
“Yes, I was helping him prepare for his wedding, well our weddings. It was cheaper if we got married right after each other and we didn’t want large ceremonies anyway. So, we got married and Magrit and I volunteered. A few months later, Germany joined the war and we were moved to R&D. The war never touched Germany, so my parents had a hard time understanding why I bothered. My father died a few years after that.”
Max nodded his head.
“I didn’t talk to my mother much afterwards. Too busy and we had nothing to talk about. And then, about five years ago, I was notified that she had died. Cancer. She never told me.”
“Jesus, Sebastian, I’m sorry.”
“She left me everything, but I didn’t have time to go through all the crap until about two years ago. I don’t know why I decided to look through her old things.  She was a hell of a hoarder.”
He smirked lightly.
“And then I found it. A box, the only one really taken care of. And inside was my father’s family history and her family history.”
“Oh?”
“My father had been a German Jew. He could trace his lineage back to the era of Saxony Electors and Kings,” he said gesturing, “but they had converted to Christianity centuries ago with a few renegades here and there. My mother, however, my mother’s family had been Russian Jews. It seems they had fled Russia in the early 1900s after the pogroms and resettled in Germany. Her great uncle had won a Knight’s Cross for his service during World War I.”
“Oh.”
“And then the 30s came.”
Max’s face fell.
“They wiped them all out. Only my great-great grandfather survived.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I never knew. She never talked about it, but, suddenly, she didn’t seem backwards anymore. And I started practicing again.”
Max looked down and played with a broken nail.
“I practice because my mom makes me.”
Sebastian chuckled humorlessly.
“My family missed all of that. They had moved to the US in the late 1800s and had been in New York for what seemed like eons by the time World War II started. Although, we traced our lineage back to Germany. My Uncle Morty likes to say my family used to live in the same building as the Oppenheimers, you know before the bomb. Supposedly we have family in Israel as well, but I never talk to them. My mom thinks they’re crazy. Dad…well Dad’s proud. I think my great-granddad served though, in a paratrooper unit. My family doesn’t talk about it much, either. Why do you think that is?”
“It’s ancient history now. It happened more than a hundred years ago.”
“You think that really matters for us?”
He sighed as he shifted again.
“I used to think it was because of shame.”
“Shame?”
“Shame that our family was exterminated like that. That, somehow, we didn’t fight back,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head, “But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it was because she couldn’t understand why.”
Max’s face softened.
“And I already thought she was a bit of an idiot. I imagine she didn’t want to tell me the truth and half no explanation for it. I would have turned her away or, worse, not taken it seriously. I don’t know if we’ll ever understand.”
“Maybe we’re not meant to,” he sighed, “Maybe if we did, I mean truly understand, we would be like them.”
“How did they handle it, when you were growing up?”
“Hm?”
“How did you learn about it?”
“I don’t know. It was…it was like death, you know, you always knew,” shrugged Maxwell, his face softening.
“It was very different when I was a child,” said Sebastian, “It was almost a myth.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t really understand until I was fourteen. I think that’s when they started to acknowledge the truth behind the targeting and who was really being targeted. It’s strange how something like that can be distorted. You would think it’d be the one thing you couldn’t change.”
“I remember my parents took me to Dachau, once, and we saw this sculpture of triangles. They were supposed to represent the badges people used to wear when they were in the camps, but the tutor guide made a point of pointing out that there were no pink triangles and only homosexuals wore pink triangles.”
Sebastian frowned.
“The sculpture was made in the 60s and they never added the triangles because they wanted people to know that even then we were willing to overlook certain people. I don’t know. That has always stuck with me,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Collective memory is a political tool, Maxwell. The best we can do is leave behind traces of the truth, so, when the tide turns, the truth can be revealed. But, you mustn’t let anyone use it to define you, Maxwell. I think too many of us get caught up in it, they forget we’re more than that. We have to be.”
The young boy stared at him uncertainly.
“We didn’t end in 1945. We didn’t end in 2017. We weren’t destroyed and we have to remember that. We have to live beyond them.”
Maxwell nodded his head and sighed, tracing the lines on his palms.
“It is hard?”
“Is what hard?”
“Being who you are and practicing?”
Sebastian cocked an eyebrow and Maxwell grinned slyly.
“I’ve seen the way you’ve looked at Cameron and I just assumed that you and Celestyn were…”
“Everyone does,” he said laconically.
“He’s a good match.”
Sebastian glared at him, causing Maxwell to cower.
“Celestyn is my brother, nothing more.”
Maxwell swallowed and focused on his hand.
“And, it can be. I am…it’s a little more complicated than being a homosexual.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I-”
“It is hard to interact with others, but it doesn’t affect my personal faith, what little I have.”
“I’m sorry, Sebastian, I don’t mean…”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“Really?” said Maxwell, looking up like a puppy about to be fed a bone.
“Of course not.”
“Good. I mean, I don’t know how it is in Germany, but in the U.S. you get this feeling that you can’t ask, because somehow needing to ask implies that you’re bigoted or racist or an idiot.”
“It’s fine, Maxwell.”
The young boy grinned.
“Thank you, by the way, for doing this with me. This is my first Hanukah without family or friends.”
“I’m sure you could have gotten Daniel to celebrate with you.”
“Probably, but….it’s nice with someone who, you know.”
Sebastian nodded his head.
“I suppose you normally celebrate with Celestyn?”
“Yes, although it comes with a steep price.”
“Oh?”
“I have to participate in his various festivities during the Christmas season. Do you know how many Christmas related events there are in Poland?”
Maxwell chuckled.
“I didn’t realize he was Catholic.”
“He’s Roman Catholic, the worst kind. He is surprisingly spiritual and a bit superstitious, which I blame on the Catholic Church. They are wrapped in mysticism and pedantic bureaucracy. It amazes me how they’ve survived so long as a world religion.”
“Wow, does he know how you feel?”
“Yes, he is well aware, but a deal is a deal,” said Sebastian, rolling his eyes, “And I generally behave during the actual celebrations.”
“You just complain when they’re over with.”
“And a little before,” Sebastian admitted, shifting on his stool.
“Does he ever complain about the services you put him through?”
Sebastian paused as he tried to remember.
“Complain? No, not really. He questioned everything though. Which I didn’t mind as much because we both felt the same way at the time. I remember the first time I took him a synagogue and he got into a rather heated debate with one of the rabbis there.”
“Celestyn?”
“Oh, yes, don’t let him fool you. He can be a stubborn ox when he wants to be.”
“As stubborn as you?”
“Well, I don’t think that’s possible,” Sebastian admitted rather sheepishly.
“I always fell asleep in the synagogue.”
“I do too and in Celestyn’s church. I remember his little girl caught me one time.”
“He has a daughter?”
Sebastian’s face fell and he rose from his stool.
“I think we should get going, before Ambrogio turns that smoke detector back on and chews my ass off for setting it off.”
Maxwell’s face softened as he slid off the stool and helped Sebastian clean up.