“Are you all right?”
She did not answer.
“You screamed and fainted, Faigie. Do you hear me?”
She nodded slightly.
“We have to get out of here before anyone comes. All of Krimichak must have heard you. If we can get you back to the stream, a little water will refresh you.”
Faigie’s eyes rolled in horror at the suggestion. Matti suddenly remembered her obsession that death lay in the water. He clenched his fist in frustration.
“Faigie,” Matti begged, “we have to get out of here.”
He dragged her into a reclining position with her head resting against the base of the wall. “Say something!” he pleaded.
“You killed Grannie Zara,” she said in a voice lacking all strength.
“What are you talking about? She died. I don’t even know how she died. She died.”
“You’re the Jewish witch,” she said.
“You’re crazy. You’re mad. Faigie, there are no such things, but there are goyim, Faigie. If they find us here, they’ll kill us.”
“You’re a witch,” she repeated.
“We have to get out of here!” he screamed.
“I can’t leave,” Faigie said in despair.
“Try and stand. I’ll help you.”
He moved closer.
“No, I can’t leave without Grannie Zara.”
“Why not?”
“You know,” she said matter-of-factly. Now that she had nothing to lose, she had nothing to fear.
“Tell me, Faigie! I’ll help you,” Matti said.
Faigie looked at him with interest.
“The broom,” she said. “The broom and the cat.”
“What about the broom and the cat, Faigie?”
“Itzik Dribble’s father,” she explained.
My God, thought Matti. She’s gone mad.
“The broom and Zloty the cat,” she repeated.
“Forget the broom and the cat!” he said.
“No, they are alive,” she insisted.
Matti did not understand whether she thought Grannie Zara was still alive, but he was not about to tell her again that she was dead. Perhaps she thought Zloty and the broom were Itzik Dribble’s father and she wanted to reunite the family.
“Faigie, you want the family together? We’ll take the broom and the cat with us. Just let’s go.”
Without waiting for an answer, he jumped and plucked the large yellow broom from its resting place by the hearth. He ran back to her.
“Here it is. Come on, we can get the cat outside. And if we can’t find her, we can come back with a bowl of milk when there’s more light. Now please get up and we’ll go.”
As he finished speaking, he noticed that the cats had returned.
“Faigie, here’s Zloty!”
She closed her eyes and moaned.
“Let’s go!” he begged.
Faigie opened her eyes, took one glance at Zloty, who had walked over to her, closed them again, shook her head, and moaned, “No, not that!”
Matti was thoroughly perplexed.
“Grannie Zara is dead,” she said.
Matti stood tongue-tied. Faigie opened her eyes and looked at Matti. She was certainly mad, but at least she was no longer hysterical and she was speaking directly to him.
“Grannie Zara is dead,” she repeated. “They must die, too. Both of them,” she commanded.
Matti listened to Faigie, but he also heard a distant shouting in the woods. He could barely distinguish the faint “hulloos,” but the sound pierced his heart with fear the way stranded travelers on a winter’s night hear the first faint echo of the wolves’ howl. He swallowed, and his dry throat ached.
Having no awareness of the enmity the woman harbored for her, Zloty had stepped closer to examine Faigie. She looked straight at the curious cat.
“Kill them both or I can’t leave.”
Kill them or we shall be killed, Matti thought. Death was in the forest, and it was stalking the cottage. He looked at the fireplace. The heavy straw-brush broom would burn easily, but how was he to kill the cat? He glanced at Faigie, lying against the wall. She would be of no help at all. Matti had seen his father slaughter chickens by slitting their throats, but his father had held them tightly so they couldn’t jump away. How could Matti hold that large, clawing cat long enough to slit its throat?
“Faigie, we’ll do it!” he said with a determination that caused her to sit up. A “hulloo” softly reached them. Matti was certain that he was not imagining it; Faigie had heard it, too, and cocked her head slightly.
“We need a sharp knife and something for Zloty to eat,” Matti said quickly, as if naming the things he needed made them more accessible.
He placed the broom on the table and turned toward the large wooden double cupboard. Matti slid open the metal bolt fasteners on the bottom cabinet. Inside he found pieces of crockery, pots, pans, and various utensils, including the sharp knife for which he was looking. As he removed the knife, he had to push the purring, mewing cats away. Zloty stood closest and, purring all the while, rubbed her majestic leonine head against Matti’s elbow.
“Yes, Zloty, it won’t be long now,” Matti muttered quietly. He closed the lower cabinet without bothering to fasten the doors and stood up. He was praying that he would find something edible in the upper cabinet. In his anxiety he fumbled with the small bolts and had to steady his trembling hands before trying again. The cats had begun a frenzied chorus of meows and simpering cries that further agitated Matti. Finally he succeeded in opening the cabinet, to be greeted by a sour smell of cheese or milk that had been left too long in the infernal summer heat. Matti received the rancid odor with a rush of delight and a touch of fear now that he was getting so very close to slicing Zloty’s neck with the smooth, shiny metal blade.
Considerably higher than the candleholder on the table, the upper cabinet remained in shadow. Matti turned to get the candle and illuminate the cabinet. Once he knew exactly what was inside, he would take the appropriate bowl and serve it to Zloty on the table so the other cats would not get in his way. As Matti reached for the candle, he heard a heavy thumping sound in the top cabinet. This was soon followed by two softer thumps. With the candle in hand, he turned back to discover that Zloty and two of the smaller calicos had been unable to resist the tempting odor and had leaped into the cabinet. He brought the taper close enough to be certain that Zloty was inside. The cats had knocked over a milk pitcher and were ravenously lapping the spilled milk off the bottom of the cabinet.
Quivering with excited delight, he slammed the cupboard door, imprisoning the cats. Inside, the gluttonous slurps continued. Leaning on the door, Matti held the candle in his left hand and fumbled with the fastener. He finally managed to slide the small metal bolt into the lock position and put down the candle before reaching up to lock the higher one.
Quickly stooping to the open lower cabinet, he began to shovel the crockery and all but two pots onto the floor. As the platters and cups clattered and broke in ragged pieces and the frying pans clanged against each other in a medley of metallic madness, two small cats leaped aside. Matti positioned the two remaining pots about half a meter apart in the cabinet. He ran to the fireplace, dragged the kindling basket over to the cupboard, and placed a substantial pile of kindling between the two pots. Using the pots as andirons, he balanced two small logs on them. For good measure, he spread kindling into the corners and over the exposed areas of the cupboard floor. He reached for the broom and was already placing the straw end into the cabinet when he realized that it would not fit. He withdrew it and tried to break it over his knee, but the haft would not give. Matti dashed to the fireplace, placed the end of the handle under one andiron, and laid the rest of the broom over the other. He fell on it with all his weight, and it snapped with a wicked crackling into two pieces. He placed both on top of the two logs and snatched the candle from the table.
Faigie was standing on the other side of the table wi
th a frenzied, almost exultant gleam in her eyes.
“Get out! I’m going to light it!” Matti yelled at her.
She fairly skipped to the doorway, where she turned on the threshold to observe her tormentors’ doom.
Candleholder in hand, Matti approached the cupboard. Hearing the meowing and scratching of the cats behind the upper door, he hesitated and glanced at the plain wooden slab. The bolts were securely in place. He stooped to the lower cabinet and lit the straw brush. The broom caught at once; the sprigs shriveled and then burst into flame. Then he touched the candle to the kindling under the logs. The shavings and small sticks were so dry that they caught fire in a cacophony of crackles. The flame itself encompassed the entire cabinet so quickly that Matti leaped back from the withering heat. He left the candlestick on the table and raced to leave.
Faigie, her face glowing in accompaniment to the swelling flames, blocked the exit.
“Come on,” he said, pushing her, “we have to get out of here!”
When he closed the door behind him, he could barely hear the flames crackling because of the tortured screams of the immolating cats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
REB YECHEZKAL WAS STRUGGLING TO HIS FEET—SITTING on an overturned bench was every bit as uncomfortable for a man his age as the most stringent rabbi desired it to be—to tell the rebbe that he had not succeeded in finding Yechiel Katzman when the young scholar walked into the beis midrash. Reb Yechezkal stretched his neck in an unsuccessful attempt to remove a crick, then threaded his way through the scattered furniture to the center aisle to receive him. Reb Yechezkal appreciatively noticed the young man’s very serious, almost troubled mien. That, thought the sexton, is the proper Tisha B’Av deportment, and Yechiel knew enough not to extend a greeting on this day of mourning.
“I shall see if the rebbe will receive you,” Reb Yechezkal said.
Yechiel nodded, and the sexton knocked on the door to the rebbe’s study. To his surprise, he received no reply. He knocked again and called, “Rebbe.”
“Wait a minute,” he heard the rebbe call back.
As he waited, Reb Yechezkal imagined that all eyes in the beis midrash were on him. In fact, everyone had his eyes on Yechiel and wondered what he was doing visiting the rebbe on the night of Tisha B’Av. Yechiel himself wondered the same thing. He knew why he wanted to see the rebbe, but he had not been able to imagine any reason why the rebbe wanted to see him. He hoped that he would have an opportunity to discuss the things that were bothering him, but he didn’t quite see how he could manage that since it was forbidden to study Torah on Tisha B’Av except for material relevant to the day itself.
Reb Yechezkal thought that he had heard the scurry of people running around inside the rebbe’s study, but he attributed this absurd notion to his own overactive imagination. After everything that had been happening tonight, how could his imagination not be overactive? His reverie was interrupted by the rebbe’s saying, “Yes,” and Reb Yechezkal entered, closing the door behind him. Not surprisingly, no one else was in the room. Just the rebbe, and far from running around, he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch as a backrest. He was sweating profusely and breathing deeply. On the floor to the side of the couch the chenille tablecloth was spread over something low and lumpy like cushions. Reb Yechezkal noticed that the table was bare, and although he didn’t remember the cloth covering it, he assumed that was where the cloth had come from.
“Yechiel Katzman is here,” the sexton said.
Still breathing deeply, the Krimsker Rebbe lowered his head slightly, dipping his brushy eyebrows in what Reb Yechezkal knew from years gone by to be a nod of assent.
He returned to the beis midrash and told Yechiel that the rebbe would see him. Reb Yechezkal had no doubt that Yechiel would leap at the opportunity to become the rebbe’s son-in-law and successor. As he returned to reading the supplementary lamentations, he wondered about the bedspread on the floor. He was getting older, and he could not remember whether the rebbe had bedded down on the floor in previous Tisha B’Av nights or not. It had been six years since he was in the rebbe’s study on this day, and he just could not remember. Of course, he must tell his own wife to prepare a bedspread and cushions for himself. If the rebbe did it, it certainly was worth emulating.
Yechiel knocked and received what he assumed to be an assenting grunt. He felt overwhelmed to be in the private presence of the Krimsker Rebbe. Knowing that he could not greet him this night and feeling at a loss as to what he should do, Yechiel just stood there, continuing to hold the door open for support.
“Close the door and sit down,” the rebbe said.
Yechiel closed the door and wondered where he should sit. The rebbe pointed to where Yechiel was standing in front of the door and waved his finger up and down, commanding him to be seated. Yechiel seated himself with his back against the door and looked at the Krimsker Rebbe, who sat as if he were alone in the room. His great hazel eyes focused on some deep inward rumination. Yechiel nervously looked around the study and noticed the lumpy bedspread. Assuming that the rebbe slept there on Tisha B’Av, Yechiel deduced that although there was no prohibition against lying in a normal bed, there must be a stricter concept to which the rebbe adhered.
“How are your studies, Yechiel?” the rebbe asked.
Yechiel hesitated. For a brief moment he considered opening his heart to the rebbe, but he could not. He could not lie either and utter the expected, “Thank God.”
“They are not what they should be, rebbe,” he answered truthfully, if somewhat disingenuously.
The rebbe nodded. “They never are. It is a wise and modest man who knows this, but nonetheless, Yechiel, I hear very fine things about your studies.”
Yechiel felt like a fraud and did not know how to respond.
“How old are you, my boy?” the rebbe asked wearily.
“Eighteen, Rebbe,” Yechiel answered.
“The time has come. Yes, the time has come,” the rebbe said and nodded.
Yaakov Moshe saw that the modest young man was perplexed. Ah, well, he thought, so I must have been, also.
“Do you understand me?”
“No, Rebbe,” Yechiel answered truthfully. Does he mean that the time has come for me to leave? Did he call me in just to tell me he has heard good things about me? After all, the rebbe had been so loving and kind to Itzik Dribble, perhaps he sensed that I, too, need guidance and support.
“Eighteen is the appropriate age to stand under the wedding canopy,” the rebbe said.
Yechiel was absolutely stunned.
“The holy rebbetzin and I would like to welcome you into the family under the wedding canopy as the groom of our pure and radiant Rachel Leah,” the rebbe said in a most casual manner, as if the conversation bored him, which it most certainly did. This tone made it especially difficult for Yechiel, who was not expecting such a dramatic proposal, to believe what he was hearing. He just smiled weakly.
“We want you as our son-in-law,” the rebbe said forthrightly.
Yechiel leaned back in amazement and knocked his head against the door. A throbbing pain shot through the bump that he had received from Barasch Limp Legs’ table.
“Rebbe,” he said, rubbing his painful souvenir of revolutionary involvement. “I am unworthy. Thank you and the rebbetzin, but I am absolutely unworthy.”
“Yes, I thought the same thing when the sainted rebbe of Bezin offered me his holy Shayna Basya. I, too, was right, but I still married her.”
“But Rebbe, I am unworthy,” Yechiel insisted. “I may be a heretic and a sinner,” he added, shamefaced at his confession.
“Don’t bother about such things. Soon you will be married and have other things to worry about.”
Yechiel didn’t understand what was happening. Nothing he said dissuaded the saintly rebbe. He couldn’t let this go on.
“May I speak freely with the rebbe?” he found himself saying.
The Krimsker Rebbe nodded.
&
nbsp; “I cannot marry the rebbe’s daughter,” he stated flatly.
Yaakov Moshe looked at Yechiel. The young man had said that he could not marry “the rebbe’s daughter.” Yechiel was afraid of becoming the next Krimsker Rebbe. Yaakov Moshe glanced over at the bedspread. Now that the holy rebbetzin was pregnant with—well, with a son who certainly, at the very least, would preclude any dynastic demands on Yechiel, there was nothing to worry about.
“You have nothing to worry about. I understand you. You will not marry the rebbe’s daughter; you will only marry Yaakov Moshe and Shayna Basya Finebaum’s daughter.”
This should set the boy’s mind at rest. How could he make it any plainer? Yechiel was bright and should understand.
Yechiel did understand that he was being offered the daughter without the position of rebbe. Since the position was strictly hereditary and Rachel Leah was an only child, he assumed they would permit him to think whatever he wanted to think now and then ease him into the inevitable. If by some chance they could not succeed in gaining his acquiescence, at the fateful moment the hasidim would thrust the hasidic crown upon him. Yes, but the problem was not Yechiel’s becoming rebbe; the problem was that he really was unfit to marry Rachel Leah Finebaum.
Why was the rebbe suggesting a match on Tisha B’Av? Why couldn’t it wait? If he can discuss such things, Yechiel thought, perhaps I can talk about the things that are bothering me.
“Rebbe, Tisha B’Av is a day of great pain and suffering for the Jews,” Yechiel began in awkward introduction.
“No one suffers the way I do,” the rebbe snapped.
He was staring right at Yechiel; he no longer seemed so kind and loving.
“Of course, Rebbe, forgive. I didn’t mean ... I just wanted to ask . . .” His voice trailed off in despair that his attempt at a graceful transition had failed so miserably.
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