Work Text:
The Bookstore
“My good man, I am in need of your finest book on Judaism,” came the voice of a man in a well-tailored suit and trench coat who looked like he stepped out of the 1940’s.
“Have you tried the religion section?” asked Barry, the only cashier on duty, who had been working at this privately-owned bookshop for two full weeks.
The well-dressed man offered Barry a smile that looked enough like an apology that the cashier stepped out from behind the counter and led the strange gentleman down the aisles.
“You see, sir, I’m dating this incredible woman from a very nice family and they just so happen to be Jewish!” the man babbled on.
“Uh-huh,” replied Barry, who had quit his job in the restaurant industry, convinced the quiet atmosphere of a book shop would prevent him from encountering any crazies out in the wild. His dreams rapidly faded with each word out of the stranger’s mouth. He was not being paid enough, he realized.
“Here we are, sir, the religion section,” Barry said in a dull monotone. But as he turned to leave, the strange gentleman stood in his path. “Can I h–?”
“What books on Judaism would you recommend?” the man asked in a hushed voice as though he thought he was in a spy movie, passing delicate information. “I’m not trying to impress her with the vastness of my knowledge. I simply want to avoid making a fool of myself.”
Not much is going to help you there, Barry thought as he watched the nervous man rub his sweaty palms together.
“And, well, I-I-I have always had Jewish friends, but I’ve never hosted a Jewish…. event,” the stranger offered. “And I understand it’s a different culture so I–”
”Here,” Barry said, thrusting the nearest book with a rabbi on it into the frenetic man’s grasp.
“This will have the answers?” the man breathed.
“Yes,” Barry lied.
The strange man put out a hand. “Thomas,” he said, locking eyes with Barry.
“Uh-huh…” Barry muttered, and shook his hand the way a fish might flop when bound by a net.
Thomas studied the book day and night, and the more he read, the more confused he became. Three weeks later, he finally told Martha of his plan.
“I’ve read a book on… on Judaism,” Thomas insisted. “On your culture and practices.”
“Oh, yeah?” Martha asked, eyes wide, both eyebrows raised. “O-okay…? And?”
“Well, I knew the culture could be a little let’s say… different from the culture I grew up in, but there’s just… it’s so much,” Thomas went on.
“Is… that going to be a problem?” Martha’s tone became wary.
“NO! No, nooo, heaven forbid, or, er… Judaism doesn’t have a heaven, does it? So a sort of… up? Up place? Up in the air? Like an airplane? What am I saying?”
“Tom, you’re getting off-track,” Martha reminded him.
“Right, right, right, I just… there’s so much to remember. I don’t even know where the local Mikvah is for purification, and I don’t particularly mind that you’d have to shave your head after getting married, and I can certainly try to wear a kippa but I doubt that I could grow peyos at my age and–I sincerely doubt I could find a mohel-”
Martha covered her face with both hands and her shoulders began to shake.
“What’s wrong?” Thomas asked, his voice caught in his throat.
Laughter broke free from behind Martha’s hands. “What… what kind of book did you read?” she asked. Thomas produced it from his trench coat pocket and held it out to her. “This… this isn’t even a form of Judaism my family practices.”
“There’s more than one form?” Thomas asked.
“There’s at least four major branches, but yes. There’s more than one form. Listen, my family doesn’t do any of this,” Martha said. “But we know there are things you don’t know. You aren’t Jewish, we don’t expect you to know. So how about you come to my family’s house for Chanukah? You just… sit back and enjoy yourself and we’ll teach you about the holiday and our practices. You don’t need to know anything going into it, okay?”
“HaNUkkah…” Thomas murmured, missing the hard “ch” sound in the beginning and emphasizing the nu. “Yes, I… I would love that.”
Martha’s lips quirked into a warm smile. “Good. I’ll pick you up at 8.”
--
Chanukah at Wayne Manor
“We’re celebrating Chanukah!” Thomas declared, as Martha turned the page of a catalog of wedding decorations. Her fingers froze on a glossy sheet.
She, thrilled by the prospect of finally decorating a Christmas Tree for the first time in her life, chose her words carefully.
“We’re celebrating both,” she said, licking her fingers to turn the page.
“Both?” Thomas knelt beside her, looking to her with wide eyes.
“Both,” she said with certainty. “Christmas,” she pointed at him. “And Chanukah,” she added, pointing to herself.
Thomas fell silent as he mulled over this information. Martha dog-earred the page before turning to the next one.
“We can do that? he whispered to her as if uttering a state secret.
With considerable elegance, she choked on her breath before swallowing back the tickle of laughter. The only giveaway was her lips, and her eyes. Her lips pulled wide at the corners as she met his blue gaze, her own slightly obscured by her cheeks as they squinted in delight.
“Who’s going to stop us, the Holiday Police?” she asked him with warmth in her tone.
Thomas seemed to consider the possibility of the existence of a Holiday Crimes Department of the GCPD, before realizing what she meant.
“We can do both…” he murmured, stepping away to wander the living room, his head bubbling with this newly acquired-information. “We can do BOTH!
“ALFRED! HURRY TO THE STORE AND BUY THE BIGGEST MENORAH YOU CAN FIND!” Thomas called.
“Not biggest,” she gently corrected him.
“NOT BIGGEST,” he parroted, then turned to his fiancee. “If not the biggest, then what? The shiniest? The most… gleaming?”
Martha laughed into her hand and made it look like a cough.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug as she watched the man she was about to spend the rest of her life with order the “most glistening menorah on the market.”
--
The Menorah
“Go on, unwrap it my good man!” Thomas insisted, his cheeks pink from the egg nog that was more rum than nog, and his voice loud from entertaining company. His laughter rang throughout the room.
Martha cast a smile, coupled with a knowing look, towards her brother Jake as he pulled the heavy menorah free from its bag. Her gaze flickered, following his every movement.
“It’s…” Jake’s voice fell silent as he stared at the 7-staffed candelabra in his hands. 7. His gaze darted to his sister as if asking ’Where’s the rest of it?’
“Wow, it’s…” Jake tried again, struggling to find the right message to convey.
"We got you a menorah to match ours! I picked it out myself!" Thomas declared, a wide smile showing off his perfectly white teeth.
"You.... you certainly did," Jake stumbled and looked to his sister with that "help me" expression.
Martha’s laugh carried an edge of cruelty. "Oh, Jake's had a lot to say about our menorah, haven't you Jake?"
Jake choked on his words. The look of betrayal he shot his sister was one that echoed a common one she had worn when they were children.
"Well, that's fantastic!" Thomas declared. "Now you have one of your own!"
“Wh…. wow, wh… what can I say, Tom?” Jake stammered. The military prepared him for a lot of things in life. This was not one of them.
“You can say thank you, Jake,” Martha insisted, her tone overly sweet. It was all but glazed like a sufganiyot and she realized that having to watch Thomas gush about the incorrect menorah was entirely worth it for this moment. Her eyebrow arched as her eyes seemed to glisten with Machiavellian delight.
--
Meaning of Miracles
“Now, Bruce,” Thomas began, his tone business-like as if leading a board meeting. “I need you to be aware that Chanukah is a very important holiday.” He still hadn’t stopped emphasizing the wrong syllable, but at this point Martha found it more endearing than anything else. She didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.
The dribbling baby attempted to chew his own fingers as he crammed more of the chocolate gelt coin into his mouth, only to be thwarted by his father before the boy managed to peel the foil off of it. Thomas paused the meeting to gently re-pin the kippa that was sliding off the baby boy’s head.
“It’s about Mommy eating as many donuts as she wants,” Martha murmured, taking another bite of a raspberry-filled sufganiyot.”
“No,” Thomas insisted. Martha gave him a stern look. He conceded with a nod. “Okay, that too. But Chanukah is about rising up against people who will want to oppress you. It’s about fighting for freedom. It’s about finding the hope in the darkness.”
Thomas picked up the plush toy dreidel and showed Bruce the four sides of it.
“See this? It says Nun–”
“That’s a Gimmel.”
Thomas checked the face of the dreidel again and turned it.
“It says Nun, Gimmel, Hay, Shin, which stands for…”
“Nes Gadol Haya Sham,” Martha filled in.
“Nesh Gadool Hayam Shom.”
Martha made a negative noise in the back of her nose.
“Your mother said it better,” Thomas whispered.
“Bruce can tell,” Martha said with a wink.
Bruce made a small babbling noise that somehow managed to sound closer to what Martha had said than Thomas’s attempt, despite not bearing any resemblance to words.
“It means,” Thomas soldiered on as if being given a new piece of information in one of his presentations, “‘A great miracle happened there,’” Thomas said, gently taking Bruce’s hand and placing the weight of the soft fabric dreidel against his palm. The toy immediately went into Bruce’s drooling mouth as the boy looked up at his father with wide shimmering eyes filled with fascinated delight.
“Chanukah isn’t my holiday, but it is yours. My legacy is different, and also yours. But, I like to think the meaning we can take from this is that miracles happen when things seem to be at their worst,” he went on, his tone softening. “That when we feel helpless, and maybe we’ve already lost, something seemingly small can change your life for the better.”
Bruce made some noises akin to “Unk aga ack,” kicking his legs against his mother’s knees.
Martha let out a laugh. “I think he liked that,” she said, smiling as she took her husband’s hand. “I did too.”
Thomas gave her hand a squeeze as his expression softened. “I’m glad.” He grabbed the other half of her donut before taking a big bite from it. His triumphant grin was softened somewhat by the powdered sugar clinging to his chin.
“THOMAS WAYNE! I was going to finish that!” she insisted with a laugh, a small pout threatening her lips, which she fought back against.
“It was sitting on your plate for a long time soooo…”
“Hey Tom?” her voice pinched with that tone that reminded him of all the most difficult conversations they’ve had in the course of their relationship.
His heart pounded. “Yes, Martha?”
“You do know… Chanukah isn’t the most important Jewish holiday, right?” Martha asked, quirking an eyebrow.
Thomas’ heart froze in his chest. His eyes went wide and he couldn’t remember how to swallow that bite of donut.
“Uhhhh y-yeah yes, YES, YEAH, I DEFINITELY KNEW THAT,” his voice pitched up an octave as a nervous smile that more closely resembled a grimace slipped across his face. “THERE’S THAT OTHER ONE. REAL IMPORTANT.”
“Yeah?” she asked, raising both brows now as the baby clapped in delight, echoing his mother’s mood, “What’s it called?”
“R…. Rughhh… Rhshhsh…Rugah- Rush Meshugg-. RUSH HSSHGHSHSHGHS,” he declared, knowing full well that he loved his wife more than anything else in the entire universe and thus he was willing to withstand this kind of humiliation.
Martha grasped hold of Thomas’ tie and tugged him closer by it.
“I love you,” she whispered, blue eyes meeting blue as she pressed her lips to his.
Pulling back for a moment she rested her forehead to his, “Never try to say Rosh Hashanah ever again though. We’ll just skip that one for now. And don’t try to say Pesach yet.”
“Oh, Pay-satch, I know that one!” Thomas insisted.
“...I love you so much.” Martha kissed him before he could open his mouth again.