The Whipping Club Read Online Free Page B

daughter’s in love with him, she told me. They’d make a good shiddach . They’d be a great match. Talk to him, Sam, before it’s too late. Tell him that a shiksa colleen–”
              “ Schweig !” Sam followed after her into the foyer.
              “Mammy!” Ben raised his voice, holding tight to Marian’s hand.
              Beva turned. “Let me just ask the two of you. Do you think Marian’s mother wants–”
              “I’m going,” Marian decided, reaching for her handbag.
              “If she goes, I go,” Ben said. “Mammy, apologize. Look what you’ve done.”
              “What I’ve done? What have I done? You’re the one who brought her here!”
              “Shut it!” Tatte shouted, holding the sides of his head. He gripped the staircase, then leaned on Ben’s shoulder.
              “Sam!” Mrs. Ellis leaned over her husband; his eyelids were opening and shutting, and she began slapping his flabby cheeks. “Benjamin, call Dr. Eisen.”
              “No doctors. Marian, get me a glass of water, would you,” Sam said.
              Marian turned back to the dining room, grabbed a glass of wine from the table, and hurried to the foyer washroom to dump it and return with water.
              “Listen, you’re a smart girl. I’m trying to save you both from a lot of pain. The two of you, it’ll never work.”
              Marian looked past Beva, watched Mr. Ellis.
              I don’t have to listen to this a second longer , Marian decided, and fumbled the glass onto the foyer table. “Ben, take care of your da,” she said. “And ring me later.”
              “Wait. I’ll be right with you,” Ben said, as he helped his father shuffle to the living room couch.
              She left the house and came out onto the street. The cold air from the canal washed over her, a relief from the heat in that house. What had she been thinking, waltzing over there, hoping for their approval? Had she really deluded herself into thinking that teaching at the Jewish Day School would be enough for his parents to accept her? And what about Ben assuring her that they would love her? In the bay window Ben tried to comfort his parents. Marian wanted to protect him from the pain they were causing him. There was something about the exhausted look in his eyes, something she couldn’t pinpoint, something simple and complex; she loved this essence of him. But a complex relationship is one thing. Complications are another, Father Brennan would say.
              Ben rushed outside.
              “I wish you had warned me about her, Ben.”
              “I had no idea this would happen. Tatte told me he’d handle everything. Marian, I’m sorry.”
              “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Your da’s splendid.”
              He was perspiring, and she reached out and wiped his forehead. She felt dizzy and confused, but one thing was certain. Ben loved her, and she loved him. She could see the excruciating love he had for her; it was right there on his troubled face.
              “I’m going home,” she said.
              He looked across the narrow street and wiped the back of his neck. Neighbors peered at them from doorways; small children in upstairs windows made funny faces at them.
              “I can walk home alone tonight,” Marian said. “You help your da now.”
              Through the bay window she watched his mother give Tatte a sip of water.
              “I’m going with you,” Ben said.
              “I know you are, but not now, Ben. Go and straighten out your