The story of walimai

This is a tragic love story. It is written largely from the perspective of the protagonist, Benjamin, a lawyer, who is the son of a rabbi. It is set in Canada and starts in Benjamin's high school years. Benjamin, a Jew, falls in love with Christina, a German girl whose father is anti-Semitic, and had fought under the Nazis-for which he had been awarded the Iron Cross. As their forbidden romance grows, Christina becomes pregnant by Benjamin. But she is taken away immediately by her family, and forced to marry the son of an old family friend, Klaus Willing. However, it proves to be a sham marriage. Five years later, Benjamin reestablishes contact with Christina where they both live and work in Toronto. She divorces her husband and in exchange for a swift divorce, he gets custody of the boy Nicholas-who cannot see his real father until he is 21 and should not be told he is Benjamin's son. A year into their newly rekindled passionate relationship and marriage, Christina is pregnant again, and gives birth to a girl named Deborah. Unfortunately, she had not warned Benjamin that there were complications when she gave birth the first time, and had been advised by the doctors not to have any more children. She died during the childbirth. While on the way to the funeral, Benjamin-who is reconciled with Christina's parents and his own father-passes by the hospital to see Deborah. Unfortunately, the baby was too weak to survive and died not long after the birth. Unable to withstand the loss of both wife and child on the same day, Benjamin commits suicide. The story ends with the revelation that what the reader understands to be Benjamin's contemporaneous rendering of the events is in fact a suicide note that his father, the old rabbi, has read each day for the last ten years since the suicide occurred.