She said, “Yes, Nicholas?”
Well, Augustine thought, I might as well have my say too; Briggs had the consomme, Wexford had the salad, and I’d better take the chateaubriand before Dougherty does. The evening is ruined anyway. As if there had been no fiveminute lull in the conversation, he said, “Have any of you heard the story about the old Jew, filled with poverty and misfortune, who one day shakes his fist at the heavens and says, ‘God, I know we’re Your chosen people, but will You please, for Your own sake, choose someone else.’ ”
Rachel Wexford made a small choking sound, covered her mouth with a napkin. Wexford scowled and patted her hand. Dougherty and Elizabeth looked at each other and then down at their wine goblets. Briggs opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and finally put a forkful of potato inside it. Claire watched him steadily, neither surprised nor shocked, merely attentive.
Augustine said, “No? Well how about the one where the two old Jews-old enemies who have hated each other for forty years-meet on a railroad platform in Czarist Russia?” He finished his wine. “These two old Jews, you see, hadn’t spoken to each other for years, but finally one of them is unable to hold his silence and he says to the other, ‘Moshe, where are you going on this fine day?’ And Moshe, you understand, is a stubborn man, he doesn’t want to give his old enemy the satisfaction of a quick answer; so he considers for a time and then he says, ‘Well, Schmuel, to tell you the truth, which is more than you deserve, I am going this fine day to the province of Minsk.’ Schmuel looks at him then, shrewdly, and he says, ‘I know what you are, Moshe; you are a liar whose word can never be trusted; you would betray me at every opportunity.