NOT WITH A BANG
Chapter 7 Fathers and Daughters
Rabbi Polonski knew he was a failure as a father.
For years he had been pre-occupied with the twin problems of weaning his wife off of alcohol and keeping the general problems out of the public eye. Only recently had he realized the devastating effect on his only child, who had grown up cynical, combative, and willfully ugly.
At that, he had been peculiarly lucky -- he might even say blessed. At least Grace had not turned out like Judith Montgomery, the self-destructive girl who had finally thrown her life away in a dark alley. Grace appreciated her religious heritage even if she refused to keep kosher, and if she was cynical and combative, it was because she had high ideals of how people SHOULD behave.
Recently things seemed to have been looking up. His wife had apparently kicked her habit for good. Grace had found a boyfriend who seemed to draw out the best in her. But it was too late. Grace's 18th birthday was fast approaching and she made it fairly clear that she intended to move out once she was a legal adult. In at least one way she had already put her childhood behind her, surrendering her virginity to the boy. He didn't really blame Luke for taking up her offer: it was his only failing from Polonski's point of view, and besides Luke was not the rabbi's responsibility.
And now this.
Grace had not been at Sabbath services today, but then, she frequently wasn't. The rabbi assumed that she was enjoying herself at the Giraldis. After the service he spoke to a lawyer in the congregation, Aaron Lowen, who agreed to be Grace's advisor, and even agreed to an appointment tonight in case Monday brought an early crisis. The rabbi then drove to the Girardis to pick up Grace and explain this development.
Grace wasn't there, and nobody seemed to know where she was. Helen, quickly intuiting that something was wrong, persuaded the rabbi to wait until Will came home and could look into it.
The rabbi called Lowen, canceling the appointment, and sat down to wait.
Will, when he came in, seemed to think his kids seemed to know something about it. He went up to talk with them, and came down again ten minutes later. "They say Grace went to visit her friend Maggie Begh at her farm. Do you know where that is?"
"I've dropped Grace off a couple of times to go horseback riding, though I've never been inside, or met the professor." The truth was that the rabbi had been putting off the meeting. The Muslim professor seemed genuinely nice to Grace, but suppose he was hostile toward Jewish "leaders"?
"Would you like me to come with you?" asked Will.
"No, I don't want it to look like a police inquiry. Just a father concerned about his daughter."
-----
The door was opened by a heavyset man who looked like a bodyguard, though he tried to look a butler. "Yeah?"
"I'm Grace Polk's father. I understand my daughter was here today--"
"Come in. I'll get the prof."
The rabbi entered and found himself in an ornate Moorish-style hall. The desert-like architecture contrasted oddly with the cold January weather outside, but the rabbi wasn't in the mood for aesthetics. He was relieved to hear approaching footsteps. A bald, bearded man entered.
"Good evening, Mr. Polk, I'm Professor Begh. You were asking about your daughter?"
He seemed friendly enough. He must know that the family was Jewish, even if that rabbi had not been wearing his yarmulke. Thank the Lord, a friendly Muslim. The rabbi decided to be careful, and avoid anything that sounded like an accusation. "My daughter and I have missed connections. I heard that she was here this morning, and might have mentioned where she was going." It sounded lame even to him; why come all this way instead of just calling on the phone? The professor looked as if he realized something serious was going on.
"I was out, but perhaps--?"
"The girl talked to your daughter," volunteered the bodyguard.
"I'll call her then. MORGIANA!"
"Evet, baba?" A pretty girl in an exotic outfit entered.
"This is Grace Polk's father," the professor said in English. "He is looking for the girl."
"I have not seen her today."
The professor caught the contradiction immediately: either the bodyguard or the girl was lying about Grace. He stared at the bodyguard, who stood his ground. Then the professor turned to his daughter and spoke in a foreign language, presumably Turkish. The girl replied similarly, and this developed into a long conversation. Although he could not expect a father and daughter to use the foreign English language between themselves, he also felt that he was being deliberately excluded. Though fluent in both English and Hebrew, the rabbi could not make out a word of this language; he learnt later that Turkish was not Indo-European like English nor Semitic like Hebrew, but member of a third language family called the Altaic.
What the rabbi could follow were the general emotions involved. The girl seemed to be telling her father a long story. The father first seemed confused (asking a number of questions), then angry. The girl argued with her father for a while but seemed to lose out. Finally he ordered her out of the room, and she obeyed with a sulky demeanor.
The professor threw himself in a chair and seemed to be sorting through his daughter's news. The rabbi waited patiently. After all, any man would be reluctant to reveal his family's problems to an outsider.-- as the rabbi well knew. The host signaled for the bodyguard to go, something that would have amused Polonski on any other occasion. Not in front of the servants.
"Your daughter has left Arcadia, and my daughter helped her," the professor said finally.
"Left Arcadia? Why?"
"According to Morgiana, Grace said she was being pursued by the police."
" But I was making legal arrangements to protect Grace. But your daughter helped her run away?"
"She should not have acted without talking to me. Still, I can understand why Morgiana would be frightened at the idea of police. She has read stories about Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gharib. To you they may be something distant, but Morgiana is a Muslim --"
"I understand, and I am not blaming your daughter for doing what she thought was helpful." Grace always thought the worst of authority herself. The two girls probably had frightened each other to death with lurid stories of what could happen to Grace in police custody. "Do you have any idea where she went?"
"Morgiana last saw her riding southward. Away from Arcadia."
"Riding?"
"Morgiana loaned her one of our horses."
It sounded crazy, but made an odd sort of sense. How many people were likely to see her galloping across open country? And even if they did, who would get suspicious of a country girl seemingly going riding on her favorite horse on the weekend? "Do you mind talking to Chief Girardi? He might be able to guess where she went, but at the same time keep the incident quiet."
"I've met his daughter. Strange, but a nice girl. I'll do that. Mr. Polk, I'm sorry to meet in such anguished circumstances, but perhaps later--?"
"Yes, later."
They shook hands and parted.
The rabbi was careful not to tell his wife of the crisis. She had abstained for six months, but there was no telling what shock might send her back to drink. He gave her the impression that Grace was, again, sleeping over with friends. But he knew the truth, and knew that he would get little rest tonight. Fortunately he and his wife were used to sleeping separately.
The cell phone went off at about 11:30 that night. Polonski dashed into another room, then pressed the answer button, hoping that delay had not discouraged the caller.
"Dad?"
"Grace?! Where are you?"
"I can't say that, Dad. But I wanted to call and tell you I was all right." She sounded exhausted.
"Grace, you MUST come home. I've lined up a lawyer--"
"It's safer this way. Gotta go--"
"Wait! Just tell me one thing. Do you have shelter? You could freeze to death, spending the night outside this time of year."
"I've got shelter. Don't worry. Bye."
"Grace---" but the connection was dead. The rabbi tried to dial her cell number, but nobody picked up. Grace had managed to stay beyond detection.
But at least she had called in an attempt to set their minds at rest. Regardless of all the problems over the years, she knew that her parents loved her.
TBC