Between Sky and Sea

by Herz Bergner

  The sailor moved slowly towards her, looking for an opportunity to hurl himself at her. But she watched every movement and gesture of his powerful body, moving back all the time. Suddenly she slipped away from him and began to run. She ran as if from a fire, through many passages, panting, certain that he was following her. With her last ounce of strength she burst into her husband’s cabin, and threw herself into his arms and clung to his big body as though afraid somebody might tear her away. She caressed him, held him tightly as if to seek shelter from her misfortune. Marcus did not know what could have happened to his wife and tried to soothe her. But still she clung to him without speaking. At length she burst into tears and began to complain.

  ‘Why do you always leave me alone? I have a husband. Why aren’t you like other men who look after their wives? Won’t you be nice to me? You won’t leave me again, will you?’

  Her husband wanted to know what had happened but she would not say anything. But Bronya was recovering and later, when she went to bed, she could no longer keep it to herself. She got hold of Ida and cried, telling her that only an intelligent person like her could understand. Bronya knew that Ida had gone to secondary school and matriculated. And she too had been to secondary school.

  Bronya told Ida everything. All her former reserve had vanished and she didn’t care that she was waking up everybody in the cabin. It made no difference when Ida tried to quieten her and stroked her still fresh, full cheeks and her thick hair that had been cut short at the time of the disinfection. Ida whispered into her ear that everybody was awake and listening to every word and begged her to talk more quietly. But Bronya took no notice.

  ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’ she complained loudly. ‘What have I done to deserve it? It makes me sick even now. It is revolting to think of such a thing.’

  The other women had been awakened by Bronya’s sobs. They recognised her voice and instantly pricked up their ears. In the darkness voices arose, although no faces were to be seen. Darkness covered everything as with a black curtain and voices fell upon Bronya and mercilessly flayed her.

  ‘What is she crying for? What is all the fuss about? When she sees a pair of pants she swoons! Why does she play the role of a wounded innocent?’

  ‘Why is it that nobody touches me, only her?’ somebody asked in a cracked, old voice, that became shrill with anger. ‘I don’t play around with everybody. I don’t run around at night so no one treats me insolently. It serves you right. Who tells you to go where you’re not supposed to? A Galician lady to behave so foolishly!’

  ‘Oh, how terrible! Someone touched the crown of the nun’s head. She had never seen a man before in all her life,’ a self-righteous voice from afar rose above the other women.

  ‘We don’t sell ourselves. You would think we had more to eat than she had!’

  Bronya had never expected such a reception. She became silent, and tried with all her strength to keep back her tears. She stuffed her fists into her mouth so that not even a whimper should escape. But it did not work. The things she had heard had stripped her and she felt she could not bear it. A pain shot through her heart and she sobbed quietly as she lay in Ida’s arms. The tears rolled down her cheeks and she answered nothing. She submitted to her punishment, feeling a load lifted from her heart. She wanted the talk to continue. She was guilty and she was paying the penalty.

  And the women went on talking without a pause. The beds creaked with malice and the women took revenge on Bronya for everything that had happened. Nobody could be distinguished in the darkness and each one let her tongue run freely and said just what she wanted to.

  CHAPTER VII

  The next day the women had something to tell the men. And even Ida couldn’t restrain herself from telling Nathan. She confessed that she wasn’t any better than the other women; she was just a woman with a loose tongue and liked to gossip just as they did. She called herself an idle chatterer and, with childish charm, slapped her own face. Nevertheless she told Nathan everything, dotting all the i’s. She enjoyed the piquant situation and rattled on in her husky voice.

  Nathan didn’t take it as lightly as Ida had. It worried him greatly that all his representations to the captain had helped only as much as a plaster on a dead man and that Bronya had been so insulted. He felt it deeply as evidence of a contemptuous attitude to all the Jews on the ship. He told Ida, but she was so cheerful and lighthearted that she paid no attention to his talk and ironically called him ‘preacher’ and ‘fighter’.

  ‘The sea looks so beautiful,’ she said with a childish gesture and she wrinkled her impudent, snub nose, screwed up her amber eyes and showed her straight, white teeth.

  ‘Look at your serious face. You’ve become a real fighter lately! You hardly ever look at me. See how beautiful everything is!’

  It really was a beautiful, sunny morning, although it was very hot. The water was smooth and so crystal clear that one could look deep into the bed of the sea. The sun had just risen, washed by the clean blue waters, and still retained the purity of the newly born as it tinted the sky around with gold. A little warm wind touched the surface of the water and gently rippled it without disturbing the great calm which lay over God’s earth.

  Ida and Nathan strolled the deck. She took his arm but he could not forget her reproach and he scarcely glanced at her. But Ida radiated energy and vitality and soon he began to feel more certain of himself, like a child near its mother. He felt her hand under his arm and all his old dreams began to stir in him again. Of these he had many; they changed from day to day and often had no basis. Plans that he had played with for a day now assumed some reality and appeared possible to realise. He walked beside Ida full of schemes, worked out to the last detail, of what he would do in the new land whither they were bound. He would resume his studies and finish his engineering course. This was a profession that was in demand everywhere. In every country in the world an engineer could make a living and feel firm earth beneath his feet. He had had enough of business. He was not cut out for that. After every few words he would ask Ida if she understood him and if she agreed with him. For him only one thing was necessary—to begin his studies again. Not for nothing had his old father had so much faith in him and been certain that he would grow up to be something. When as a student he had come home to the little township, his father, a timid and self-effacing man, had taken him along to the synagogue and prided himself before the leading citizens on his talented son. The heart of the poor artisan swelled with joy when the eminent Jews from the front benches honoured him by paying attention to his son, questioning him about Warsaw, good humouredly inquiring whether the city still stood in the same place.

  And later at dinner the door had been never still. Through it came a stream of cakes and puddings borne by the shy girls of the township who were too bashful to look in Nathan’s direction but mumbled through their noses to his father and mother, ‘A welcome to your guest.’

  A rich match was proposed for him, but he was not interested in it, preferring to use his spare time to devour every book that came to his hand. His aloofness hurt his father, who wanted him to talk to people. But Nathan, who could not stand his father’s humility and his anxiety for the future of his gifted son, never gave him that satisfaction. He saw something of his father in himself, so he never stayed long in the township, always hurrying to return to the city.

  But where did all this lead? He had never achieved anything, because he never had any money. He had not been admitted to any faculty at the university. He had had no chance of going abroad although he had always dreamed of travelling. His life never proceeded smoothly. He worked beyond his strength, teaching and studying far into the night by a kerosene lamp in poor boarding houses. While he studied he bit his nails until it hurt, stubbornly pursuing the road he had chosen and having no time for anything else. Although he had disliked the way his father had wanted to make him the light of his poor life, sacrificing his last bite for him, he hadn’t departed far from his fath
er’s path. He had gone against his father deliberately, always quarrelling with him, though he had always wanted to realise the same dreams—but it hadn’t worked.

  Nathan and Ida stood near the rails of the deck as they talked and did not notice that Zainval Rockman and Noah, ‘the red’, stood near by. Rockman had been searching since early morning for someone to tell his stories to, slowly and with a voice full of dignity. All the time he had been on the ship anxiety had built up within him and he was pining to get it off his chest. He was aching to talk just as he ached for a cigarette. At home he had loved to preside over the table, taking a leading role. But on the ship he no longer shone; he drifted about like a discarded rag; nobody noticed him and nobody listened to him. His white, starched collar was no longer spotless as it had always been and his well-trimmed, shovel-shaped beard was untidy and neglected. He didn’t play the part he should amongst such a congregation of Jews. Although he was often annoyed with the way Fabyash always knew more than everyone else and would not listen to the few but inspired words from the mouth of Zainval Rockman himself—words that were stretched out to give them their full value—it was precisely to Fabyash that he loved to talk. He liked to argue with him and to prove him an ignoramus who knew nothing. But since Fabyash’s sorrows had caused him to roam the ship distractedly Rockman had no one to talk to and he went about with the young people. He is not old-fashioned, he is not conservative, he reads newspapers and books and knows what is going on in the world. He talked to the young people with carefully chosen words learned from the newspapers and from his two sons. They were words he did not use well.

  Although Zainval Rockman liked best to talk himself he would politely listen to others. But what they said was of no importance; it went in one ear and out the other. He waited for the other person to finish, meanwhile thinking out what he was going to say next and smiling at the great thought that had occurred to him and the clever words that lay on the tip of his tongue. He listened to Noah with pretended patience as Noah complained that he was on the ship only because of his brother-in-law, Marcus Feldbaum, and cursed the day that brought him there. He could now be in Russia, not only in Russia, but in his own city Lvov, where Soviet power ruled and the Red Flag flew over the town hall. All his life he had fought in Lvov and been imprisoned in all its gaols in the struggle for the emancipation of the workers and now that victory had come he had to be far away and unable to see it with his own eyes.

  ‘Do you know what joy it gives me,’ Noah said more to Nathan and Ida than to Rockman; ‘In my own Lvov, the hammer and sickle flies freely and proudly over the town hall! Lvov was always a city of struggle. It produced Botwin, one of our own. He was a good comrade and a hero. His name has been enshrined in the history of the working class.’

  Noah’s eyes flashed and his black curly hair shook as he talked as though to himself.

  ‘The revolutionary songs ring out clearly and freely in the workers’ clubs and trade unions in Lvov and I am here! And all because of my brother-in-law. He was always friendly, a good brother, although he was rich. He treated the peasants well, worked together with them. But, forgive me for saying so, he was always a big ox. The best proof is that he has always allowed my sister to lead him by the nose.’

  And Noah told how Marcus always had a plan to go to Palestine and settle on the land there. But he, Noah, had persuaded him to go to Biro-Bidjan. In the end he hadn’t gone anywhere, because his wife, the Parisian dame, wouldn’t allow him to go. So when the war broke out and Germany seized almost the whole of Poland, his brother-in-law had harnessed a peasant wagon, and, with everything he could save, was convinced that he was going to Palestine at last. Meanwhile he went to Rumania, and he took Noah with him.

  But he didn’t get to Palestine because he wasn’t allowed to enter. He no more went to Palestine than Noah had gone back to Lvov, although he had tried hard enough when he heard that the Red Army had entered that city. The refugees with whom he had wandered through many countries had always pushed him on, never allowing him to turn back. They had talked him down and told him that no one was ever allowed to enter Russia, until he became confused and didn’t know where he was.

  Rockman listened to Noah, barely restraining himself from interrupting. Something lay on the tip of his tongue, something that would show the young people that he was not a stick in the mud, that he had his eyes open and knew what was going on around him. He wanted everyone to listen carefully to him and several times he coughed to add significance to what he was about to say. Gravely he began to tell of his two sons who had fought each other so often that he wanted to send them to the devil. He had often asked the younger one why the government didn’t suit him. Why did he want to turn Poland upside down, legs up, head down? And the elder he had asked, why had he to go to Palestine? Why didn’t Poland suit him?

  But it appeared that his socially conscious sons—well educated young men with the brains of professors—were not so mad after all. They knew what they were talking about. He was convinced of that when high taxes choked him, stripped him as naked as Adam. He was not lazy and he went up to the taxation office to have a talk with the officials, to appeal to their conscience, to ask them why they wanted to strip him.

  ‘I went to the office,’ Zainval Rockman slowly measured out the words and stroked his beard as was his habit, ‘dressed in the very best coat I possessed, not humbling myself as many of our brethren do, and went straight to the head. I always like to go to the head, not to the tail, if you will excuse the expression. And I asked the head “Why? Why precisely do you want to make a pauper of me?” Now guess what the gentile, that nobody of nobodies, answered me: “To get rid of you from Poland. If you don’t like it you can go! It is high time the Jews left Poland.”’

  Reb Zainval coughed and looked around to see what effect his words had on his listeners. He was greatly excited, as if he was living through everything again. He continued to talk: ‘What I lived through then! I wish my sufferings on Hitler, may his name be erased from history! I felt suffocated and I thought I would not be able to bear it. That I was being tossed around like a ball was no small thing! I was being thrown out and it seemed the world was coming to an end. And from then on I began to look at my brave sons with different eyes. When my eldest son left for Palestine I saw him off myself from Warsaw. Jews must have somewhere to rest their heads. My heart swelled with joy when I saw the young people dance on the station. What do you call that dance? Hora? And when some larrikin—a nobody, not really grown out of his nappies, but barking like someone of great importance—began to throw stones at the young people, I nearly broke his ribs. Disgraceful insolence! Imagine such a one lifting his hand!’

  Zainval talked on and because he was being listened to, he never grew tired. Now he had the opportunity to pour it all out.

  ‘Yes, since the affair with the taxes,’ he went on, ‘I felt that we, the handful of Jews, were without any protection. We are always on shifting sand and we need firm ground under our feet. A support and an ideal.’

  His eyes shone with pleasure because of all the fine words he had spoken.

  ‘Now, take for instance, the grocer! That slovenly Hassid has a support. Once I used to look at such Jews with contempt, holding that they made themselves and others mad. But now I can see that I made a mistake. Who can compare himself with Reb Lazar? Who is as well off as he is? We must know exactly where we are in this world. We must be either faithful to God or to man!’

  Rockman had now really got into his stride and he would have talked and talked had not Ida pulled Nathan away. It was such a nice day, she said, and her head was already full of these sorrows. She was in a good mood and she wanted to go for a stroll.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Ever since Fabyash’s two children had been taken to the hospital Mrs Hudess had somehow felt guilty. She couldn’t look Mrs Fabyash in the eye and she sought an opportunity to make friends with her again. Her conscience troubled her, not giving her a moment’s peace: she i
magined that she was not guiltless, that her hand had played a part in the misfortune that had fallen on Mrs Fabyash. Besides, she was afraid for her own children, terrified that they might catch the infection.

  The epidemic still raged and not one day passed without a new case. Everybody crept about carefully, as if they were afraid to touch the floor. They listened suspiciously to the merest sounds within themselves and every time something hurt or ached they were afraid.

  Mrs Hudess anxiously watched over her children, not allowing them to play on the deck. Most of the time she kept the little girls locked in the cabin under her own eye and when they were out she went everywhere with them. But whenever she and the children passed Mrs Fabyash, her heart contracted and she felt guilty that her children were so bright and healthy while the other’s lay seriously ill in the hospital. She covered her children up; she didn’t want them to look so well. She wanted to disguise them, to make them smaller, so that they wouldn’t be too conspicuous in Mrs Fabyash’s eyes, so that the sight of them would not hurt her.

  But she was mistaken. Mrs Fabyash didn’t look with any bitterness upon the children, nor did she harbour any hatred. On the contrary she was delighted that the girls—may no evil eye light upon them—were in good health. Once when Mrs Hudess sidled past her, Mrs Fabyash stopped her, and, not looking in her direction, said, ‘How are your daughters?’ She spoke calmly as if nothing had happened between them. ‘How are they getting on?’

  Mrs Hudess trembled as if she were caught in a theft. She was terribly ashamed that she had harboured such ugly thoughts when the other woman was so good and so free from evil. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that she was confused and didn’t know what to answer. She lowered her head and stammered, speaking respectfully, ‘How do I know?’ She didn’t know what she was going to say next and she had nothing to catch hold of. ‘How do I know? How are you? How is your health?’