Faigie, no earth shaker, just wanted to avoid being hit by rocks that were forever sliding down the hill toward her. Now that Itzik had danced with the rebbe, she felt the rumbling of the earth moving toward her family. The Krimsker Rebbe had put the forces into motion, but Itzik, more properly, belonged to Grannie Zara. Faigie’s instincts told her that she had to see both Grannie Zara and the Krimsker Rebbe to tell them the truth. What else could she tell them?
“Do you hear, Faigie? Rabbi Chanina listened to his father, and that saved him.”
But Faigie wasn’t listening to her husband.
“Who?”
“The son, Rabbi Chanina.”
“Beryl, the rebbe is receiving people tonight?”
“Boruch Levi walked in just like that.”
“I must see him, Beryl.”
Reb Beryl’s enthusiasm deserted him. “You?”
“Yes.”
Faigie stood up, went to Itzik and gave him a goodnight kiss, then turned to leave. Beryl followed her toward the door.
“Why, Faigie?” His face had a foolish, pained look. “Haven’t we taken up enough of his time tonight?”
“I want to talk to him about our children,” Faigie said.
“But we have only one,” Beryl protested.
“Yes,” Faigie agreed as she stepped out into the soft, supple embrace of the warm night.
CHAPTER NINE
YECHIEL KATZMAN’S ERSTWHILE STUDENTS DISAPPEARED from the beis midrash immediately after services. One moment each sat dutifully by his father’s side, and one moment later each had vanished, fleeing barefoot beyond the boundary of Krimsk into the woods that lay on the road to Krimichak. Without pausing at the town’s outskirts, they plunged into the dark, cool shadows. When the sturdy tree trunks and the impenetrable veil of foliage snuffed out the last faint lights of Krimsk, they dropped, panting, onto the soft, mossy ground. Convinced that the entire beis midrash must be in frenzied, vengeful pursuit, they gulped for air, and as they did so, their own wheezing gasps frightened them all the more.
Froika Waksman thought he saw particularly frightening specters in the surrounding darkness, for it was he who had convinced Itzik Dribble that the Krimsker Rebbe was a frog. Itzik had resisted the idea, but Froika had turned to the others and commanded, “Show Itzik how the frog rebbe prays!” Yonkel Berman, Alexander Bornstein, and
Shlomi Feldman began jumping in a stooped stance, and Itzik’s resistance immediately collapsed. Froika then introduced him into the leaping circle, and Itzik practiced the prayer that he was to perform so successfully later in the day with the rebbe himself.
When Itzik asked the rebbe if he was really a frog, the boys knew they were in trouble. Their fears increased when Itzik informed the rebbe that the Messiah was an old joke and described the aromatic dish that accompanied this revelation. In fact the messianic turd belonged to a more mature, more fertile imagination. Older boys, with the assistance of the dairyman’s helper, had executed the prank over a half year earlier, but now the younger boys were certain to be blamed for it.
They held Itzik responsible for their problems, and perhaps God, too, the God who looks after fools—for Itzik unfairly had turned the tables on them. Or so it seemed, because they did not at all understand the redemptive nature of Itzik’s involvement with the rebbe. For acting the fool, Itzik was now the darling of the town, while they, who had suffered through innumerable hours with the Torah, were exiled into the dark forest reverberating with crickets and the other anonymous, menacing voices of the night.
“Do you hear something?” Froika asked in a whisper.
They reined in their wheezing and concentrated in silence. The sounds of the darkness seemed to swell into a great crescendo bursting about them in a chaotic roar.
“I hear them,” Yonkel Berman said in quiet terror.
“It sounds like they’re coming this way,” Shlomi Feldman added.
Gripped by fear, they heard the Krimsker Rebbe, frog turned tiger, and hundreds of hasidim charging toward them in a veritable pogrom of bloody, lusting vengeance. Aloft, they must be holding Itzik Dribble as their woodenheaded yellow icon. They sat in a nearly impenetrable thicket that the most skillful woodsman would have had trouble revealing, but to those sitting there, guilty victims of their own imagination, it seemed the most exposed and obvious hiding place in the world. Alexander Bornstein, the one most likely to cry, was frightened beyond tears. “What do we do now?” he asked in a tone so quiet and even that his friends understood it could have been ironed smooth only by terror.
“We have to get to Krimichak,” Froika answered with a certainty that lacked enthusiasm.
His friends heard the logic. No matter how impassioned, no Jewish mob would dare enter the peasant town. Once in Krimichak, the boys would be safe—from the Jews at least. The goyim were another matter, but at this juncture they appeared very attractive.
“We can’t use the bridge,” Alexander said, sounding as if he were sitting in the back of a closet.
“Nor the stepping stones; that would be the first place to guard,” Froika responded. He thought for a moment, then said, “We’ll have to cross the pond.”
Froika’s suggestion met with a solemn silence. Where the stream slowed down and spread out to form the pond, they would have to swim across. The boys well knew that on Tisha B’Av no one was permitted to wash above the knuckles of the fingers, much less go swimming.
“They’ll never look for us there,” Shlomi Feldman said, giving his consent.
“It’s pekuach nefesh”—Yonkel added the talmudic expression meaning to save a soul in a matter of life and death.
They began to thread their way out of the thicket toward the path that would bring them to the pond. Alexander scrambled to stay in contact with the vanishing figures and climbed onto Yonkel Berman’s heels. “What are you doing?” Yonkel cried, more in fear than in anger. The younger Bornstein couldn’t answer but managed to plant his feet onto the ground. Alexander felt somewhat better; Yonkel had yelled at him, and he still hadn’t wet his pants.
The ground was soft underfoot with the hesitating springiness that comes from the combination of decay and growth. Treading on that fertile organic resilience, their steps seemed disconnected from the reality of the earth’s surface. With the stinking, sweet aromas from the bruised turf flooding their nostrils in heady, dizzying swells, they had the sensation of traversing a distant dark land, foreign from Reb Gedaliah’s hard, dry benches. Drunk on its perfumed mulch and moving quickly, they could barely understand such a world. Then as suddenly as they had entered it, they lost it. Crawling through a tangled vine, they emerged into low bushes beside the path. Froika crouched low. The others quickly did the same. Satisfied that no one was coming, Froika furtively approached the path. With a final pause, he looked in both directions under the large quarter moon that found its way through to bathe the cleft in the forest in its pale, still light.
Froika started to run stealthily. His three friends pursued him. As the boys ran along the path, they felt exposed and hunted, the hard-baked clay slapping mercilessly at the soles of their bare feet.
Froika halted at a small hill before the pond and led them into the forest. The ground was softer, and they entered a third world. Not as dark, not as soft, not as closed, not as suffocatingly pungent as the thicket, but darker, softer, more closed, and more fragrant than the path. They flowed silently up the small hillock like raindrops on a dark night—unseeing but moving together in a formation that the elements can affect but not violate. At the hillock’s crest, they halted and furtively poked their heads above the bushes to observe the pond several meters down the forested slope. Bulrushes and reeds choked its shallows. Ten paces to their right was the path that led to an open grassy area, the easiest place to enter the water. The water itself lay smooth and dark like mildly stirring ink; the channel on the far side churned its way past the still water, which had the faintest haze hanging above it. Had it not been for the haze, t
he pond would have sharply reflected the trees and sinking moon. As it was, by looking down into the pond, the boys saw the moon already sinking into the sheltering fluid of some distant ether from unfathomable voids above. The Krimichak shore thirty meters away lay low, obscured by shadows. The boys searched for its outline. They could not detect it, but they could see the dark shape of trees lining the ravine walls above, and they could hear the distant crickets chorusing on the far shore—yet close compared to the silent celestial expanse clutching the moon.
When they heard voices, they instinctively pulled their heads below the bushes and waited, like very small children slipping under the blankets to hide from parental wrath. Even there, they scrunched their heads into their shoulders like turtles without shells and listened.
“She’s dead. I told you so,” a whispering voice argued.
That assertion met spirited shushing sounds.
“She was never this late,” the same voice persisted.
Froika listened to the young Polish voices and realized that he and his friends had not been discovered. Quite the contrary, they had discovered the boys from Krimichak. Froika wondered how they could cross the pond. For Jewish boys to be caught between Krimsk and Krimichak was not very healthy.
Alexander was aware of these problems, but at the moment he was more concerned with the warmth suffusing the front of his pants and the disappointing awareness that he had wet himself after all. This brought him to despair. It wasn’t enough that Itzik Dribble had maligned them and they had to flee for their lives, only to run into the boys from Krimichak in the middle of nowhere. Now this, too!
“And after the spell she ducks under again. What is she?” the same voice persisted.
“I don’t know,” a second voice answered. This voice sounded weary, but far from convinced.
“She’s dead,” the first voice answered with shrill insistence, “and whoever goes into that water tonight dies. There’s death in the water.”
This last assertion gripped Shlomi Feldman in terror, for he believed that the dark pool on the dark night of the dark moment of Tisha B’Av certainly held death in the rheum of its misty eye. He watched the quarter moon skewing in descent toward the shrouded depths like the eye of a dying man rolling upward into the skull of death. Shlomi wanted no part of the dark reflection of the water. Death was not for Shlomi, and his soul asserted its right to live in a warm young body.
Shlomi’s sneeze created a moment of quiet that was quickly followed by a flurry of whispering. Shlomi found Froika’s ear and begged for him to flee. Froika pushed him away so that he could listen better.
“Let’s get the priest,” the assertive voice yelped in fear no less overwhelming than Shlomi’s. “On three, we’ll run all together toward the bridge path.”
“One, two—” he counted.
“Wait a minute,” Alexander Bornstein called out. “It’s only us.”
And he stood since he knew that, as short as he was, the underbrush would cover his urine-stained pants.
“Who are you?”
“Just us,” Alexander said nervously.
And everyone stood up in the darkness that their eyes had adjusted to.
“It’s the Yids,” the assertive voice said with undisguised joy. The Krimsk boys recognized Casimir, two or three years older than themselves, a tall, strong, sinewy boy, stubborn and impulsive.
“What are you doing here?” Tadeusz asked. He was the quieter, more reasonable voice. Shorter, stockier, crafty and shrewd.
“It was too hot in town,” Alexander answered, and his answer momentarily disarmed them.
“You’re not here because of the naked lady?” Tadeusz asked.
The Krimsk boys feared his quiet, contemplative tone more than Casimir’s boastful taunts. Shlomi wished to answer, but he could only shake his head.
“We don’t know anything about that,” Alexander said weakly.
“A naked lady?” Froika respectfully queried.
“She comes when the moon is like this—from the Krimsk side, dipping naked in the moonlight. Then she covers her breasts and whispers a spell into the water.” Casimir interrupted his telling to look around fearfully, casting a particularly careful glance at the pond. “Barooka ta,” he said, quietly repeating the magic spell.
“That’s not magic,” Alexander piped in a squeaky voice, and as soon as he had, he realized that he should have kept his mouth shut. He fell silent too late. Tadeusz motioned for him to stand directly in front of him. The small boy with the wet pants complied.
“It’s not?” Tadeusz asked.
Half glancing at his interrogator, Alexander nervously shook his head.
“Then what is it?”
Alexander didn’t know what to say.
“What does this little drippy piss-pants Yid know?” Casimir taunted.
“What is it?” Tadeusz asked Alexander with a single-mindedness that demanded an immediate answer.
“It’s a blessing,” Alexander said softly.
“A Jewish blessing?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a lying Yid,” Casimir spat fiercely. “Then where is she? Why isn’t she here tonight?”
Casimir grabbed Alexander and began to shake him as if the information were physically stuck in his throat and could be dislodged. Alexander began to cry in choking sobs. “What a crybaby!” Casimir said in angry frustration as he continued to shake him. Alexander’s face contorted in pain, and his head snapped back and forth in futile pursuit of his shoulders. He was crying silently now, as if his voice within could not navigate the herky-jerky passage up to his mouth.
Tadeusz placed a restraining hand on Casimir’s arm.
“Why would Grannie Zara run around saying Jewish prayers?” Tadeusz asked.
No one answered. Froika, fearful that Alexander might be choked to death, thought some response necessary and said, “Why don’t we ask Grannie Zara?”
Casimir’s mouth dropped open, and his hands fell from Alexander’s throat. He turned to gape at Froika.
“Grannie Zara is dead,” he whispered as if giving voice to such a statement could endanger all of them.
A moaning “ooooh” emerged from Shlomi, as if he were part cow.
“They had to drive the cats off with torches,” added tall, ungainly Stefan, whose face already hosted significant numbers of red pimply splotches that seemed strangely dark in the moonlight.
Intimidated by the witch’s life and terrorized by her death with its corpse-hugging cats crouched in defiance, everyone stood in silence.
Tadeusz broke the oppressive quiet in his even, authoritative voice. “At least we can find out if death is in the water tonight.”
Casimir seized Alexander and dragged him toward the open shoreline. The other Krimichak boys firmly grabbed Froika, Shlomi, and Yonkel, following after Casimir and Alexander.
Casimir flung Alexander out into the pond, and he landed with a whomping sound on the seat of his already wet pants and sank down to his waist. He splashed about and staggered to his feet. The water was barely above his knees. He walked toward the shore as if the danger were in the water, but as soon as he reached the shore Casimir lifted him above his head and threw him farther into the water.
“If there is death in the water,” Tadeusz patiently explained, “you won’t know it unless his head goes under.”
Casimir’s face flushed with the wisdom of his friend’s suggestion, and he dragged Alexander deeper into the water near the reeds that reached up to the taller boy’s hips. He thrust Alexander’s head under water and forcibly held it there for several moments. Alexander sputtered, coughed, and gasped for air.
“It might take effect slowly,” Tadeusz cautioned his impatient friend.
Casimir, exhausted from his unsuccessful experimentation, turned to listen to Tadeusz. As he turned, he dragged the half-dead Alexander by the hair. Slumped over on the water, the victim bobbed his head in faint attempts to get air.
Breathing deeply fr
om his heavy exertion, Casimir stood still. Alexander, as if possessed, suddenly lurched toward the reeds. Casimir’s grip on his hair pulled him short. Alexander raised his arms in entreaty toward the reeds.
“What is it?” Casimir asked curiously.
Alexander stood up with his arms outstretched and implored in a desperate, strong voice. “Good Rabbi Chanina, save meeeee!”
As Casimir anxiously turned his head away from Alexander toward the reeds, he caught a glimpse of a large dark object that pounded into his head, tearing at his eyes, then fell with a slap into the water.
“Aieee!” he screamed in terror, letting go of Alexander and rushing to hold his wounded eyes. “I can’t see! I can’t see!” he cried.
Alexander, triumphantly chanting, “Good Rabbi Chanina, Good Rabbi Chanina,” reached the shore as Casimir continued to wail in blind terror, “My eyes! My eyes!”
In fear the Krimichak boys, who could not see what had happened, let their captives loose. Alexander ran up to his friends, explaining, “It was Good Rabbi Chanina who sent the talking frog to save me.” The Krimichak boys drew back from the Jewish boys in fright.
“I’m blind!” cried Casimir in horror.
“Let’s go!” one of the Krimichak boys yelled. Tadeusz started into the water to lead Casimir ashore. The Polish boys broke into a headlong rush along the river path toward the bridge, screaming as they went.
The Jewish boys grabbed Alexander and lost no time rushing back along the hard Krimsk path. They could hear the wild screams of Casimir and the more distant hollering of those escaping toward Krimichak. They themselves were quiet, except for Alexander Bornstein, who kept murmuring, “Good Rabbi Chanina.” The faint lights of Krimsk caused their souls to dance even though it was Tisha B’Av.
CHAPTER TEN
IN HER FATHER’S HOME, SHAYNA BASYA HAD FOLLOWED her mother and widowed grandmother into a small room off the beis midrash to sit upon low stools and listen to the reading of Lamentations. She would watch the tears silently form in the corners of her grandmother’s blue eyes until they overflowed into the deep furrows that creased her clear, pink skin. Softly and silently the tears welled forth into their long-established channels. Grandmother took little notice of them—dabbing her cheeks to keep her book dry—and in later years, when she could no longer see well enough to read, she sat quietly and let them splash upon the bodice of her dress. Shayna Basya had once leaned over with a handkerchief to pat the old woman’s cheeks. “No, my darling, now there is no holy word beneath ; let them fall,” her grandmother had said, and she reached for Shayna Basya’s youthful hand, which she drew to her lips. As she kissed the girl, the old woman’s tears fell onto her granddaughter’s hand. Shayna Basya refused to dry the drops. She watched them become smaller and smaller during the lugubrious chant of Lamentations—all the while reflecting the dim, flickering candlelight until suddenly they were no more.
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