My uncle relaxed and let go of the tin cup he had been gripping. Its sides were bowed inward. Color slowly returned to his face. “I believe I understand,” he said. “And after I am settled, I will see you to Dornburg. Yakov would never forgive me if something should happen to you on the road.” He began packing up our belongings in preparation for continuing on to the next inn.
“So be it,” he added, just as he had when I was a child on his lap.
* * *
I did wonder how I would take my revenge, but I did not wonder how I would escape afterward. I did not expect to escape Dornburg. I expected to take my revenge, and then to meet the same end as my father had. But I did not say this to my uncle. He would not have been so sanguine, I know, had he heard me say that.
* * *
That night, the Matronit visited me in a dream. I did not know who or what she was, only that she was nothing human. She was the moon, she was the forest, she was my childhood dolly. But she was terrible, and I was frightened.
She smiled at me, and through moonlight and the rustle of the trees and my dolly’s cracked face, she told me to turn away from Dornburg.
“Never,” I said. And the moon clouded over, and the trees cracked open, and my dolly’s head shattered.
And then she was gone, only a whisper in the air left to mark her passage.
I had this dream a second time the following evening, and again the following night. But the third time, it ended differently. Instead of shattering and leaving me, the Matronit’s face grew stern and she coalesced before me into the form of a woman who was a beautiful monster, my beloved mother with a brow free from fear, claws like scimitars ready to tear and kill. Her hair streamed out from her head like the tails of comets and blood ran down her face. Her feet reached down to death and her head to the heavens. Her face was both pale and dark and she beamed at me with pride.
I am coming, my daughter.
* * *
Worms was much larger than Hoechst, but my uncle had no trouble settling in. I suppose a peddler who goes from town to town must be used to a whirl of people and places. I liked Elias well enough. He had an elegant brown mustache and was very fond of my uncle. I determined to set out for Dornburg on my own, so as not to interrupt their idyll, but my uncle would not hear of it, and neither would Elias.
“Terrible things can happen to a maiden alone on the road,” said Elias. “Leyb and I have both seen this. But with him escorting you, you will be safe. As safe as anyone can be.”
I nodded my head in assent, secretly pleased to have my uncle’s company and moral support along the way.
“But Itte,” Leyb said, “what of when you are in Dornburg? You … look so much like your father. I see Yakov every time I look at you, and your father … your father carried Israel in his face.”
I remembered the woman in my dream, the woman with claws like scimitars, with her feet in death and her head burning in the sky like the sun. And blood, blood running down her face. “I do not yet know, Uncle. But I trust a solution will come.”
* * *
She came to me that night, while I was sleeping. I opened my eyes, sat up in bed, and words began pouring from my mouth, words in languages I had never heard, let alone studied. I wrested back control of my tongue long enough to stutter, “Dear God, what is happening to me?”
I am here, my daughter, echoed in my head. My mind flooded with pictures of moonlight, forests, and war.
“Who are you? Where are you?”
I am here, the presence said again.
“I am possessed? Inhabited by a dybbuk?”
I felt the presence bridle. I am no dybbuk, it said. I am your dearest friend and ally. I am the mother who protects and avenges her children. I am she who is called Matronit, and I speak now through your mouth. I am she who dries up the sea, who pierces Rahab, I am the chastising mother, I am the one who redeems the mystery of Yakov.
“Mother?” I gasped.
I am the goddess-mother of all children of Israel. And I am your maggid.
“My mother is dead,” I told the empty air. “And I am pious—I have none but Adonai as God.”
I have always been goddess of Israel, even now as my children turn away from my worship. And I was goddess in times of old, when I was loved and feared. For was not a statue of me set in the temple of Jerusalem? And did I not oversee the households of the Holy Land? Was incense not burned to me, libations not poured to me, cakes not made in my image in Pathros, when the children of Israel defied Jeremiah? And have I not intervened with Hashem on behalf of the children of Israel, not once or twice, but many times? And am I not your maggid, who will bring you victory if you but embrace me as of old?
“These were great sins,” I breathed. “To depart from the ways of the Lord—”
He is a jealous god, she continued. But he is not alone. Was not your own mother named for me?
“My mother was named for her grandmother, who was—”
Esther. Named for me, the goddess of Israel, and I have gone by many names, including Astarte, including Ishtar. You worshipped me every time you spoke her name.
Do you not understand? I will bring your vengeance to pass.
“What mother are you,” I said bitterly, “who did not protect a child of Israel ten years ago, when he was tortured and killed in Dornburg? And he is only one among many.”
There was a silence in my head, and I thought the presence—the Matronit—had departed, but then she spoke to my soul again. I have been greatly … diminished. Hashem is a jealous god, and his prophets have destroyed my worship, and so my power has dwindled. But still I can be your maggid, and guide you to righteous victory. And in turn, you will observe the rites of my worship, and help to restore some of my former strength, just as your brother will in Cracow, when he learns of me, the Matronit, the Shekhina, in his studies.
“My brother will learn only the most pious teachings.”
And he will learn of me, when he advances to the teachings of Kabbalah. And I will bring you vengeance as your maggid.
“My maggid?”
Your guide, your teacher. And something more. I will possess your body, reside in your soul, yet I will not wrest control from you. I will strengthen you for what lies ahead, yet I will leave you human. And when this work is done, I will depart.
“And you will bring me success? You will enable me to bring vengeance to Dornburg?”
Yes, my child. Through you, Dornburg shall become a wasteland.
In but a minute, I made my choice. I abandoned what I had been taught, not out of impiety, but out of sheer rage, for I realized then that despite all my piety, all my father’s piety, all my brother’s devotions, Adonai had allowed my father to suffer, to be ripped by thorns and then hanged while townspeople had jeered. What, then, should He be to me? And if this Matronit would bring devastation to Dornburg— “Then possess me, Mother,” I said. “I consent to this ibbur. I welcome you, and I will observe your rites.”
The Matronit paused before answering. Then you must know that I must first make your soul ready to receive me. And you must know that this cannot be painless. Your uncle and his partner will see you writhe in fever for seven days and nights. And you will be changed. You will be scorched with the knowledge I bring you.
I was not foolhardy, for I knew what I was accepting. My soul had been scorched before, when I was seven years old.
* * *
My uncle and Elias tended me faithfully as I convulsed with fever. I vomited, they told me, continuously, until my body could bring up nothing more, and then I shook and refused to choke down even water. They told me later that they did not believe I would ever regain consciousness, and Elias whispered privately that my uncle had sat weeping by my bedside more than once. Perhaps it is a blessing that I could not feel that pain, for I do not remember any of it.
What I remember are the visions, for while my uncle sat by my bedside, I was not with him. I was not there at all. I was among those to come, among m
y people when they were expelled from Vienna five years hence, when they were driven from Poland in the century to come. I saw our emancipation throughout that century, and I saw its collapse—and then I was among riots, watching parents throughout Bavaria clutch their children as their homes burned, as learned professors and their students tore their possessions apart and worse, an old man impaled with a pitchfork, unable to scream as blood bubbled from his throat. Again and again, I saw the pendulum swing, as my people’s emancipation drew near and then was wrenched away, slicing through the hands that reached out for it.
And I saw worse. The world around me teemed with flickering images, nightmarish visions of stone roads carrying metal beasts, of burning homes, of people pressed like livestock into mechanical carts, children crying, separated from their parents, toddlers’ heads dashed against walls, of starvation, and of our neighbors turning on us, only too glad to agree to our degradation and murder. The visions persisted no matter where I turned my head, and there was no reprieve, nor any justice, no justice anywhere.
* * *
“What is this?” I asked the Matronit. “What is happening to me?”
None of this has happened, as yet, she told me. You see as I see, across not only space, but time. This has not happened, but it will happen. It will all happen.
“And Adonai? What of Him? Why has—why will He abandon my people?” I wailed silently. “Does our devotion mean nothing, nothing at all? What of our covenant? Did Abraham smash his father’s idols for nothing? For nothing at all?”
The Matronit chose her words carefully. Hashem—Hashem … is … hungry for power. He always has been. He rides the waves of power and he does not care who is crushed beneath them. He never has.
“So He will desert us?”
My daughter, he deserted Israel long ago.
If I could have, I would have spat. “Then I will desert Him,” I told her. “Why should I remain devout, why should I—why should any of us—maintain our rituals or keep our covenant?”
My daughter, if you did not, who would you be?
* * *
I awoke with no voice, coughing blood. When I saw Uncle Leyb asleep in the chair by my bedside, tears ran from my eyes for his ignorance, and for his hope, and I cried for Hirsch’s baby, and all the children to come. My uncle awoke and wiped my tears as well as my nose. I was able to take his hand and to whisper that I was well again, but this effort exhausted me, and I fell back asleep. I dreamt not at all.
I was not well. I thought I would never be well again.
* * *
As I slowly recovered my strength, I kept faith with the Matronit. I poured out wine and lit incense for her; I baked small cakes in her form and in her honor. I did not tell Elias or Uncle Leyb the reasons for my actions. I myself was still unsure whether the Matronit was a demon or the goddess—and how strange it felt to think that word—and if she was the former, I had no wish to lead them astray, for they were good men. But I became convinced she was what she said she was—the diminished goddess of the Jews, she who had intervened on our behalf with Adonai. For how could she speak holy prayers otherwise? Even if Adonai was no longer with my people, the holiness of our prayers could not be denied. So I prayed for her strength to return, every night and day.
* * *
After such a long illness, it was many months before my uncle would allow me to travel. But recover I did, and soon even he could not deny that I was strong, stronger even than I had ever been before. And so we two set off for Dornburg, leaving Elias in Worms to manage the business.
* * *
When we had traveled for two days, my uncle turned to me and told me that he was not a fool. He had heard me talking to the Matronit, he said, and he told me he would not allow me to continue unless I could explain what seemed to him like madness. He would not, he said, abandon a woman touched in the head to a strange town.
I weighed my options.
“I have a maggid, Uncle,” I said at last. “My soul is hosting a righteous spirit who is leading my steps. Please trust in it as I do.”
My uncle looked strangely relieved. “I am glad to know it, Itte,” he said. “I will feel better knowing that you are not on your own. Tell me the name of this spirit, so that I may honor her as well.”
I paused for a moment, wondering if I should invoke the name of some learned rabbi, but I could think of none. “The Matronit,” I said. “It is the Matronit-Shekhina.”
My uncle said nothing. I hoped that he would remember her in his prayers, and that his prayers would add to her strength.
* * *
He left me five miles from Dornburg. I know my uncle did not like to turn back to Worms alone; I know he worried. He tried to disguise it, but I was less easily fooled than I had been ten years previous. And despite my maggid, after I had walked for two hours and found myself standing alone outside the walls of Dornburg, staring at the gibbet where my father’s body had rotted a decade ago, I found myself gripped by terror. I looked for the rocks my uncle told me he had placed atop my father’s grave, but without much hope. It would have been strange indeed if they had not been moved in ten years. Finally, I placed the stone I had brought from our garden in Hoechst at the foot of a birch tree.
Then I paid my toll to the guard at the gate and entered the town.
* * *
It was morning when I entered Dornburg. My uncle was right; it was not even as large as Hoechst, and after having been in Worms, it seemed even smaller than I would have thought it before. A cluster of women was gathered around a well, and a group of children were tearing around after each other, screaming with laughter. As I walked slowly, they caromed into me. One went sprawling and the others ground to a halt, looking embarrassed.
I tried to smile kindly, and I began to speak, but my throat was suddenly dry. In the pause, the boy who had fallen spoke.
“I’m sorry, Fräulein. I didn’t see you—we were playing, and I wasn’t looking where I was going, and then you were there—”
I lifted him up and helped him brush the dirt off his clothing and hands. “It’s no matter, liebchen. I too knocked into my share of grown folk when I was little. They move so slowly, you know?”
We shared a conspiratorial grin.
“Were you playing a game I know, kinde? Tag? Or—” I said, noticing some crude musical instruments in the children’s hands, “war? Are you piping brave songs to hearten the soldiers?”
“Neither,” laughed the child. “Dance-the-Jew! I’m the Jew, and when the others catch me, they must make me dance ’til I drop!”
I recoiled involuntarily. “I—I don’t know that game, child. Is it … new?”
“Dunno,” said the boy. “We all play it.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled, trying not to shake. “Well. Run along, then. Run along and enjoy yourselves.”
The children took off again, shrieking in delight.
“They will know,” I whispered to the Matronit. “They will know and they will hang me as they did my father, and then children will laugh for years afterward!”
They will not know, she said. They will not know, because they do not see your true form. I have glamoured you, my daughter. They do not see your true face, and they do not hear your accent. Be calm in your heart.
Slowly I made my way to the well at the center of town, past a tavern called the Dancing Jew. There, I found three or four women talking amongst themselves, but instead of happy, boisterous gossiping, they were speaking in low tones of worry and sorrow.
“Well, it’s not the first time one so small has been lost, and it won’t be the last, either,” said an older matron briskly, but with tears in her eyes.
“But for such a great man,” said a younger woman, “the loss is doubly sorrowful.”
“Guten morgen, Frauen,” I began. “I wonder if there is work in this town for one who is willing.”
“You have chosen a sorrowful day to come to Dornburg,” said the youngest woman. “For one of our fines
t bürgers has lost his wife in childbed just two days ago, and will soon lose his baby girl as well. And he is a fine man, who helps anybody in our town in need.”
“Is the babe sick?” I inquired.
“She will take neither cows’ milk nor goats’ milk, but she screams and turns away from any who try to nurse her. She will not last much longer.”
I felt the Matronit move in my body, and a sudden heaviness in my breasts, almost painful.
“I think I can help,” I said.
* * *
He has three gifts, the Matronit told me as I was being taken to Herr Geiger’s house. He has the fiddle that compels all to dance when it plays. He has a blowpipe that hits whatever it is aimed at. These two objects are on display, so that he may have the pleasure of telling of his triumph over the wicked Jew. The third is not tangible, but it is the most valuable of the three. No mortal can resist his requests.
“No—but then, if he asks me of my background—”
I will strengthen you. That and your appearance I can do right now. And you will meet his will with your own.
My fear subsided and I thought clearly again. “So he could have requested that he be set free, and gone on his way without consigning my father to the gallows, then?”
Yes.
“But he preferred to torture my father and take all he had and see him hanged?”
Yes.
* * *
Herr Geiger made only the most cursory inquiries into my background. I was a widow, I told him, and had lost my man last month in an accident in Hoechst. After my husband’s death, I said, his family had refused to take in me and my baby due to bad blood between them and my late parents. I had set out for Worms looking for work, but had lost the baby to a fever only days ago on the road, and could not go on. It was a very sad tale.
Burning Girls and Other Stories Page 3
