Suddenly his revolutionary discipline, riveted on the future, flagged for a moment; exploring his past, he looked around to see where he had spent the night. He was surprised at the chamber’s vast size and equally impressed by the solid, rich woodwork. Following the oak beams, his glance swept upward to catch the dull, sinuous gleam of the massive brass chandelier. His first impression was of a leafy, heavenly vine. Examining it more carefully in the hazy light, he realized what it was, and as stuffy as the Angel of Death was, he broke out into a cold sweat and gripped the back of the bench to keep from falling. Steadying himself, he looked up again to be sure that he had not imagined anything. No, he had not; the massive brass chandelier radiated into a myriad of branches like a man-made sunburst. Although Grisha knew with fearful certainty where he was, he had to confirm and reconfirm the obvious but awesome facts.
He stared at the chandelier that seemed capable of lighting the entire sky. Nothing could be more real than that mass of metal; yet nothing could be more unbelievable. Plagued by reality and in search of believability, he began crawling quickly toward the elevated stage at the front of the chamber. When he got close enough to examine the blue velvet hanging covering the ark of the law, he gasped, “God of my fathers!” The donor’s name stitched in gold letters boldly confronted him. He listlessly dragged himself to collapse on his bench.
So all of his revolutionary activity and nocturnal underground flights had brought him here! Grisha would have liked to dismiss it as mere coincidence, but he was overwhelmed by this heartless remonstrance of fate. Everything seemed to have conspired toward this conclusion, from the last party convention to Yechiel’s little brother’s knock on that crippled coward’s door.
Throwing caution to the winds, Grisha lit a cigarette and began pacing up and down the center aisle. Each time he approached the velvet hanging, he reread the dedicatory names. After several cigarettes, and more than several trips to the holy ark, he began to reassert his self-control. Although continuing to smoke furiously, he sat back down on the floor between the benches and continued to calm himself. Yes, he had been startled and frightened by the remarkable coincidence, but bourgeois superstitions must not rule him. They were not what Marx had meant by “historical necessity,” and it was by the Marxian concept that he meant to lead his life.
Snuffing out the cigarette on the floor, he looked up at the gargantuan expanse of chandelier. There was nothing for him to fear. Determined to leave, but equally determined to prove that he was not running away, he decided upon an act of revolutionary boldness. Knowing exactly where he was, he must now sleep in the synagogue. He had sufficient provisions, and Yechiel had said that no one would come in on Tisha B’Av. Even if it would delay him a half day, the test would temper him into a stronger, more self-reliant servant of the revolution. Having taken this decision, he lit one more cigarette and slowly nursed it in an effort to relax sufficiently to sleep.
Lying down under the bench, he found himself squirming as his earliest memories of childhood assaulted him, as though the bourgeois devil himself were flinging images into his head. This continued for a long time. He heard the hasidim going to the beis midrash and watched the day grow bright and hot, but Grisha was determined to have his way, and after several fruitless hours he managed to fall asleep. Even in sleep the pictures of childhood mercilessly pursued him with a poisonous sweetness and warmth. When these finally ceased, they were replaced by horrendous, violent scenes in which the massive brass chandelier ripped from its moorings on the great beams and fell, crushing and maiming scores of worshipers, including Grisha himself. And in the screaming and moaning panic and pain no one could hear a thing. Again the scene was reenacted, but this time at night, when the hundreds of lit candles set fire to everyone and everything—the books, the building, even the holy Torah itself. The smoke seemed so real that Grisha awakened; he even sat up to be sure that the clouds of smoke were a figment of his disturbed imagination. Feeling very tired in the stuffy, hot building and knowing that the sun was broiling hot by now, he lay back down and returned to his fitful, dream-infested sleep.
When the clamorous mob from Krimichak shattered the windows, the noise resounded like the one he had heard in his dreams. The heavy flaming torches spewed smoke no more acrid than that which had already falsely awakened him. But the fire set by the mob continued to burn. The bone-dry wood, so rich and heavy, seemed to seize the flames as only perfect kindling can. Since Grisha lay on the floor, he was awakened by the heat and noise before he was overcome by the smoke that had already begun filling the upper spaces of the synagogue. His first thought was that his carelessly extinguished cigarette must have caused the blaze; now the fire had progressed far beyond control. He grabbed his knapsack and turned to flee through the window, but between him and the windows, where the torches had landed, danced a wall of fire that he dared not cross.
He reversed his direction and followed the bench to the center aisle on his way to the large windows opposite, but a parallel conflagration barred his path. In a flicker of awareness, he realized that this was an odd way for a fire to have spread; he must have flicked yet another lit cigarette over there while pacing. How else could fire be climbing the two opposite walls? And the fire was relentlessly scaling the walls, sweeping onto the low roof along the side walls that served as the floor of the horseshoe-shaped women’s balcony. Grisha glanced up into the towering central space to see the monstrous chandelier reflecting the flames’ flashing brilliance. Reflexively, he drew fearfully back down the aisle toward the elevated platform and ark of the law. Away from the murderously heavy fixture, he stared up at the creature’s fire-bright reflections, which peeped through the swirl of smoke, mocking him and his Marxian concept of historical necessity.
Coughing from the smoke, he turned toward the elevated stage and saw his father’s gold-stitched name consumed in a blaze of incandescent brilliance, then, still intact, fall as a glowing ash onto the floor.
No, it can’t end here like this, he thought. But with fire everywhere his fate seemed sealed. By some deep, perhaps atavistic instinct, he leaped onto the stage and flung open the ark, whose base was already licked by the ubiquitous flames. Inside, he found a scroll of the law adorned in matching blue velvet. He seized it and, clutching it to his breast like life itself, turned to gaze upon a congregation of glowing flames shimmering in every pew, crowding the walls, and creeping into the aisle. The adherents of light had just joined hands across the back of the synagogue. Beyond that must be an anteroom that had locked doors, but Grisha prayed that it might have low windows through which he could escape. If not, he, too, would die with his father’s Torah, but not, please God, struck by that hideous chandelier! He leaped into the aisle and, bending low, dashed down toward the flames without hesitating for a second, since he feared most the outstretched patricidal tentacles that hung in the smoke above.
As he safely traversed the long aisle, he heard a horrendous roar behind him, but he didn’t have a moment to savor his hair-raising escape from the chandelier and falling roof, for he had already burst into the low, flickering flames. Instinctively he turned toward the small vestibule door to his right; the one to the left was already collapsing in sparks. By the time he reached the doorway on the right, he had learned with all his soul to fear the fire itself. Burying his face in the Torah scroll, he still felt the heat slapping his face in merciless, deadly insults. The portion that remained exposed felt as if it were already on fire. The air was so hot he could no longer breathe, and his searing, oxygen-starved lungs seemed on the verge of bursting. With a desire for life that defied the burning within and without, he entered the vestibule and through his one squinting eye thought he saw the light of day and of life. With a last explosive effort he propelled himself toward the opening. During his final moments in the blazing inferno he imagined that he saw a short bearded figure rushing toward him, and for a moment believed that it was, after all these years, his father greeting him in death, but then he was on the t
hreshold of the world and life itself, and as he felt hands touch him, he realized they were cool with life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
RUNNING FULL TILT, GRISHA DASHED INTO THE KRIMSKER Rebbe’s arms. The rebbe tightly grasped both the holy Torah and its bearer in an ecstatic embrace. Since Grisha was leaning to one side behind the scroll, his tremendous momentum carried them careening wildly around in circles to safety away from the building. Had not both men been clinging to the holy Torah for dear life, certainly one or both would have been flung to the ground; instead, they balanced one another around the Torah and slowly came to a stop, like a spinning windborne seed whose symmetrical wings cradle between them the germ of life.
“It’s the devil himself!” said one of Wotek’s cohorts, who had flung the second torch.
“The devil himself,” echoed the murmuring goyim in fearful incredulous agreement. “The devil for sure. Just look at him!”
Grisha did look like a visitor, if not an inhabitant, of infernal realms. Singed by the fire, his hair stood out in short bristles like a rusty wire brush, and the smell of it was sharp and repulsive. His exposed eyebrows and eyelashes had largely disappeared, and half his face was red and swollen and covered with black and gray soot. The arms holding the Torah were soot-streaked and covered with black and white ash. His shirt had been scorched in a dozen places until it looked like a burnt spiderweb. The bottom of his pants had been burned away—indeed, they had glowed as red as embers when he was whirling about with the rebbe. His charred shoes left black footprints on the ground as if the fiery devil himself had passed by.
The hasidim stared dumbfounded at this strange apparition, but the rebbe seemed oblivious to the man himself. The Krimsker Rebbe, as still as stone, clung to the Torah with the blissful ecstasy of a lover whose beloved, feared dead, has been miraculously restored to perfect health. His embrace, more expressive than any words, articulated the lover’s newfound appreciation and increased love for the beloved as well as the irrational, passionate rapture of the moment: never must they be separated again, ever.
“Only the devil himself could survive that hell,” stated Wotek with a nasty edge to his voice, as if he had been both made a fool of and cheated.
Releasing the Torah suddenly, the rebbe turned toward the goyim.
“The devil?” he repeated quietly but clearly, as one who is incredulous at what he has heard. “The devil?” he mused more loudly, as one who most certainly has misunderstood something.
“The devil?!” he screamed in amazed consternation. Then he shouted in triumph, “An angel! This is an angel!”
Springing back to Grisha, he took the Torah and held it high above them as if he were going to smash it over their heads.
“Fools, you tried to burn something that cannot be burned! Letters of fire!”
The Krimichak men who wore hats quickly removed them. All crossed themselves in fearful reverence.
“You have not burned what cannot be burned, and you cannot drown what cannot be drowned. Go, now! Go before the devil does arrive and the Angel of Death enters the waters! Run! Flee!”
The mob momentarily cowered before the rebbe, then all broke for home in a disorderly rout. In their haste to escape, they threw down all their staves and cudgels, even some scythes and pitchforks, and raced, babbling and shouting, toward the bridge. Each thinking only of his own danger, they kicked and stepped on one another, continuously knocking each other down. Those sent sprawling into the dust quickly regained their feet and scampered away after the crowd. Even those who suffered sprains or breaks hobbled off as fast as they could, and no one looked back for fear of finding either the devil or the angel of death himself breathing down his neck.
The sequence of events was too overwhelming for the Jews to cheer the rout of the goyim. Some murmured “Thank God,” but even that was hushed. Who was to say that the goyim wouldn’t return tomorrow, or a month from tomorrow? An angel’s continued presence—he had not disappeared immediately the way the magic frog had hopped back into the pond the night before—raised uneasy suspicions that the unnatural sequence had not ended. Respectfully curious, they pressed within several feet to examine the angel, who looked the worse for wear. No one had heard of any angel described like this, and no one had ever seen him before. Almost no one.
“Grisha, is that you?” Yechiel asked uncertainly.
The young scholar pushed his way to the front of the crowd and stared studiously at the apparition, trying to discern who was under all those disfiguring ashes, soot, and scorches.
“Grisha?” the Krimsker Rebbe repeated quietly but clearly in a tone of wonder. “Grisha?” he mused again more loudly.
The rebbe walked past Yechiel directly to Grisha and peered into the discolored face.
“No,” he said, “this isn’t Grisha.” His voice rose triumphantly. “This is Hershel Shwartzman. Hershel, the son of Chaim Shwartzman, may he rest in peace!”
The older hasidim shook their heads and rolled their eyes in speechless disbelief. The younger ones turned to their fathers, uncles, or grandfathers for an explanation. Yechiel, who had not taken his eyes off Grisha, knew that the rebbe was right. At the rebbe’s pronouncement Grisha’s mouth dropped open in frank amazement, and he blinked in astonishment, just as he had when he saw his father’s name stitched in gold on the blue velvet hanging.
Yechiel turned to Reb Zelig, who was standing next to him. “Who was Chaim Shwartzman?”
“May he rest in peace, Chaim Shwartzman was the wealthy lumber merchant who built the Angel of Death,” Reb Zelig said in a normal tone. Then he continued in a whisper, “And he died in it blessing the Torah on the first Sabbath, when the chandelier fell on him.”
Reb Zelig had thoughtfully lowered his voice, not because he feared the evil eye, but because he did not want to embarrass Hershel. As he stared at his late employer’s son, tears streamed down his face.
Yechiel approached Hershel-Grisha, who looked faint from his ordeal. “Grisha, are you all right?”
“Of course he’s all right,” the Krimsker Rebbe answered, irritated by the silly question.
“He was in the fire, wasn’t he?” Yechiel said simply, explaining his inquiry.
“Of course he was in the fire,” the rebbe said impatiently. “Today he received the Torah on Mount Sinai, and the Torah was given in black fire on white fire.”
The rebbe held the Torah close to his chest. “Receiving the Torah is difficult, but understanding what to do with it once it is in your hands is even more difficult. Our holy Hershel saved his father’s Torah today and gave it to the children of Israel—something his father could not do—and that is why he stands covered in holiness. The Evil Inclination has been burned away, and the ashes that remain are holy.”
The rebbe then turned to address Hershel directly. “My child, if only the holy sparks could remain as bright as they were today. Even now they cool into cold ash, but we must try, for we are a holy nation. We must try! I will give you my pure daughter Rachel Leah as your wife.”
Then the rebbe called, “Sexton!”
Reb Yechezkal stepped forward.
“Take my future son-in-law to my house. The rest of us must escort the Torah he gave us to the beis midrash, where it must rest before beginning its journey.”
As the rebbe turned to lead the procession, an agitated, tall young man with bold, square features stepped out of the crowd and into the rebbe’s path. Unlike most of the other hasidim, he wore a short jacket, and his beard was closely trimmed; he had a modern, aggressive, self-confident look.
“Forgive me for speaking. I do not mean to embarrass the rebbe, but the rebbe seems to have forgotten that Rachel Leah has been promised to me. We are to be married after the feast of Succos. Reb Yechezkal himself promised her to me in your name.”
Reb Yechezkal’s face flushed red with shame, and he stared down at the ground. The Krimsker Rebbe, however, looked up directly into Yitzhak Weinbach’s face with no expression of emotion wha
tsoever.
“What Reb Yechezkal did, he did in good faith, but he did not have my authority. I am not bound by his words. I am sorry if you are disappointed, but I have only one daughter and she must marry Hershel.”
Unlike the rebbe, Yitzhak flushed with embarrassment and anger. He was not one to surrender what he believed was rightfully his.
“You can’t do this to me!”
The Krimsker Rebbe flicked his hand impatiently, but Yitzhak refused to terminate their discussion.
“Who is he? He saved the Torah, but who is he?” he asked indignantly.
“That’s who he is,” the Rebbe answered. “He is the Jew who stood on Mount Sinai and saved the Torah. I’ll tell you who you are, Reb Yitzhak. You are the Jew who made the fire.”
“What is the rebbe saying?” Yitzhak asked in genuine ignorance.
“Look,” the rebbe said, pointing to the ground.
Between them and the burning synagogue lay a box of matches that bore the distinctive red letters of Weinbach and Company. The rebbe began to step around Yitzhak, but the match manufacturer turned to confront him.
“I’m responsible for all my matches?” Yitzhak asked quizzically, uncertain that he had understood the rebbe’s intent.
Calmly, with a tinge of reflective melancholy, the rebbe said, “Reb Yitzhak, if a man does not judge himself, all things judge him, and all things will become messengers of God.”
Yitzhak heard the rebbe’s words only too well and was frightened by them. Because he was frightened, he desperately wanted to deny them.
“That box is empty. Someone just threw it away. There aren’t any matches in it, and there haven’t been since it was discarded,” he said with heretical, brazen scorn.
To prove his point, he moved to pick up the box, but the rebbe casually extended one of his arms that had been cradling the Torah and pointed directly at the redlettered object, which burst instantaneously into a chemically fueled ball of brilliant flames. Yitzhak stopped short and leaped away. Later he was to claim that the heat from the burning building had ignited the matches, but at that moment he wondered whether the rebbe had miraculously saved him from sticking his hand into an explosion of matches.
Small Worlds Page 21
