26
We were not in a hurry to leave Vishnitz. The musicians played late into the night and the local people brought us all kinds of good things. The dealers, who for days on end had been plunged into the deepest gloom, once again began to circulate, buying and selling, and at night stuffed their coins and banknotes into the pockets of the old men. For most of the day, the old men sat in the synagogue, studying Torah and dozing.
In the morning, after prayers, I set out with Sruel to fish in the Prut. These quiet hours open my eyes, as Sruel tells me of his life in jail. His eyes are blue and affectionate, and he doesn’t speak pridefully. The sun and the waters of the Prut have beaten his face and neck to a coppery texture. He’s strong, and his strength is evident in all his movements. When we brought the fish to the clearing, he announced, “Fresh fish! Straight from the Prut!” The air was filled with his voice.
The following day he bought me a pair of shoes and two shirts. I wanted to thank him but I didn’t know how. Finally I said awkwardly, “Thank you very much, Sruel.”
“You should be studying Torah,” he said, as if rebuking me.
“I do study.”
“You have so much to learn.”
—
My teacher, old Avraham, now spends most of his day performing ritual immersions and studying. I dare not approach him. Since we arrived in Vishnitz he has devoted himself completely to the Torah. I gaze at him from afar and my head starts to spin.
“Laishu, my son, where are you?” he called to me.
“I’m here.”
“Be so good as to bring me a glass of water.”
When I brought him the cup, he closed his eyes and made a blessing over the water, and I saw with my own eyes how the radiance of the Torah glowed on his forehead.
While the evening light grew red in the sky and as people began preparing their meals, a man who bore a great resemblance to Ploosh emerged from the thicket. But his appearance was a bit different. A heavy beard adorned his face, and the beard and the fur hat made him look like a peasant who had come to survey his distant fields. There was not the slightest bit of animation or anxiety in his eyes.
One of the wagon drivers approached him carefully. “What happened, Ploosh?”
“I ran away,” said Ploosh, and a wild smile spread across his hairy face.
“And where are you now?”
“No place,” he said, his smile becoming even wilder.
This reply momentarily silenced the inquisitive wagon driver, and he looked around, seeking the help of his friends who stood near him. Everyone was seized with a feeling of amazement.
“What happened?” asked Ploosh, as if focusing on some irregularity.
“Nothing. How did you find us?”
“I know these parts like I know the back of my hand,” he said in a peasant’s tone of voice.
“And what do you want to do?” asked the wagon driver in the same tone of voice.
“Nothing.”
All his words used up, a profound silence surrounded him. Ploosh knew the people who had gathered around him very well. With some he had worked, drunk, and played cards; the others he had driven in his wagon. True, no one was fond of him, but since his imprisonment, people’s attitudes toward him had softened. They spoke of him as a wild man who didn’t know how to control his emotions. And while everyone was still in the grip of their amazement, Ploosh fixed his gaze on me and said, “What are you doing here, Laish?”
I froze where I stood, but I must have stumbled, because some men picked me up and shouted, “What do you want from him?”
“Nothing,” said Ploosh, and his smile softened a little. “Are you afraid of me?” he added.
Then he sat with the wagon drivers and told them about his adventures, beginning with the day that he escaped from the jail. The wagon drivers plied him with questions, and Ploosh gave them all the details. At first he had worked in the prison yard and had gained the trust of the man in charge of it. The next stop had been the kitchen. The doors to the kitchen were open most of the day and were close to the rear gate of the jail. Provisions and furniture would be brought in through the rear gate, and here the guards were less careful.
Ploosh’s escape had been as simple as could be. One night there was a delivery of beds and pallets to the storeroom. At first, the guard refused to open the gate. The peasant, an old man, would not yield. He claimed that he’d wasted an entire day coming from the main warehouse. Had they told him that they wouldn’t open the gate at night, he would never have come. The argument lasted a long time. Eventually the guard took pity on the old man and opened the gate. The kitchen door was open and no one but Ploosh was there. While the peasant was arranging the furniture in the storeroom, Ploosh jumped onto the wagon and made his escape. The horses took fright and galloped as if crazed, until they sank into the marshes.
On hearing the story of Ploosh’s escape, the faces of the other wagon drivers became flushed with happiness, and they looked as though they were about to cheer him. Ploosh gestured dismissively with his right hand, as if to say, That’s just how it is. It’s not like it was something that a very clever man might have done. You do it because you do it. You don’t fool yourself into believing that you acted with great wisdom.
I knew this gesture of his all too well, but now it came with additional force, as if it had been honed. Then the talk turned to wise and foolish people—wise people whose wisdom had led them astray and foolish people whose foolishness had saved them. Ploosh seemed to grow in stature that night. While he was gone, his forehead had broadened and his gaze had sharpened; he was like a peasant upon whom many misfortunes had fallen, but they had not managed to break his spirit.
Prior to this evening, Ploosh’s standing among the wagon drivers had not been particularly lofty. Now they stared at him, marveling at what came out of his mouth, asking questions, and listening without interrupting. Ploosh spoke at length, but without going into too many details. His trial was in its first stages. The prosecutor never hid the fact that he intended to demand the death penalty. When one of the wagon drivers asked if he was afraid, Ploosh replied unhesitatingly, “I’m not afraid. Fear is loathsome.”
That night they drank freely, laughed, and reminisced about days past. And of course about jail, the wardens, the junior wardens, the snitches, and the punishments. Ploosh drank moderately and kept his wits about him. He asked for neither help nor shelter. He knew that a man does not return to the place from which he was taken away in handcuffs to ask for refuge. The wagon drivers entertained him but expected that after the meal he would take himself off. And so he did.
Ploosh rose to his feet. “Must be going,” he said.
The wagon drivers also rose to their feet. One of them took a wad of banknotes from the lining of his coat and tried to give some of them to Ploosh. Ploosh narrowed his eyes, glared at the wagon driver, and said, “We don’t need any charity. Worry about yourself first; I will overtake my prey.”
Without further ado, as if merely going off to a day’s work, Ploosh plunged straight back into the thicket. Without saying a word, the wagon drivers followed him with their eyes as he disappeared.
27
The following day I again went to the Prut with Sruel. He was withdrawn and sullen. I knew of Ploosh’s enmity toward him, but I didn’t see any sign that portended ill. I helped Sruel spread the nets, and at ten o’clock I prepared breakfast. Even during his meal the sullenness did not lift from his face.
When he had finished the meal, Sruel’s lips suddenly pursed into a smile of sorts, and he said, “Ploosh hates me. I don’t know why he hates me. I’ve done him no harm.” After a short pause, he added, “He has hated me all these years. Murderers hate human beings.”
Yesterday he didn’t hate you, I was about to say, but I bit my lip. I’ve already learned: eyes can be shortsighted. A carefully nurtured animosity can seethe for years. And then suddenly, and for no apparent reason, it can burst forth like a storm. Even our hera
ld, Pinchas, a pleasant man who is well liked by the occupants of all the wagons, even he harbors a grudge against one of the quiet, miserable dealers. One day he went over and slapped the wretched man’s face.
I would soon learn the extent to which Sruel was right. That afternoon, near the wagons, a man’s voice suddenly rent the silence. Immediately thereafter we saw Ploosh, standing in plain view on the opposite bank. He looked like an escaped prisoner, perhaps because of the fur cap on his head.
“What do you want?” called Sruel in a firm voice.
The answer came without delay.
“Scum!”
That solitary word, spat out by Ploosh in his strong voice, rang out clear. But Sruel must have been so surprised that he could not comprehend it.
“What do you want?” Sruel called again.
Again, the answer was not long in coming.
“Are you still asking, you scum?”
Now, too, Sruel seemed not to understand the curse and asked yet again, “What do you want?”
“The reckoning will come, you scum! We’ll meet again.”
Now, finally, Sruel understood and, rallying quickly, he replied, “Son of a whore!”
“Thief!” Ploosh shouted.
“Murderer!” Sruel flared back at him.
“Horse thief!”
“Murderer of women!”
“Thieving son of a thief!”
The exchange of curses went on and on. Eventually Ploosh fell silent and slipped away into the thicket. Sruel’s face was red and his hands shook. He collected the nets and then picked them up with one motion. I knew that “horse thief” was the foulest curse that there was and that peasants don’t use it unless they’re at the end of their tether.
When we returned to the wagons, Sruel gave the fish away to anyone who asked. He gave with an open heart. He didn’t regard the fish as plunder for which he had labored for many hours, but as if they were supplies that belonged to the entire camp. The darkness had lifted from his brow, but his mouth remained shut. When people offered to pay him, he made a gesture of refusal that seemed akin to a rebuke.
After Sruel distributed the fish, I prepared a cup of coffee for him. He thanked me, but didn’t invite me to sit at his side. When I returned after about an hour, he was already fast asleep beneath a tree. He lay curled up, his height and his powerful build barely noticeable.
That night was clear and lofty, and the Holy Man of Vishnitz came out into his courtyard and spoke to us about the highest places in the world. He spoke of God, blessed be He, who can be found everywhere, even in clods of earth or the crevices of a rock, and about how there is not the slightest tremor in the world that He does not cause. It is therefore good, he said, to commit one’s body and soul to God each day from early in the morning, and to neither worry nor be afraid. Worry and fear are wretched feelings that cloud one’s vision and hearing. Without clear-sightedness and lucid attentiveness, we would be unable to take in the marvels that are constantly occurring around us and to hear the sacred melodies that rustle through the crops and the saplings.
After the Holy Man finished speaking, there was silence. No one stirred. Sruel grabbed my arm.
“Did you understand what he said?” he asked.
“A little,” I replied, for my teacher had taught me to listen.
“What did he talk about?”
“About God, blessed be He.”
“I was told that it’s forbidden to pronounce His name.”
I did not know what to answer and I said, “The Holy Man also spoke about worry and fear.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Sruel in a wagon driver’s tone of voice, and he turned away.
But I was afraid that night. The Holy Man’s words could not remove Ploosh’s fearsome appearance from my head. It seemed to me that he was crouching in the thicket alongside the wagons and was about to storm them, to send them flying, and then to crush them. In my memory of him standing bare-chested on the banks of the Prut, he looked like a giant.
That night Sruel drank a lot, but it didn’t lift his spirits. He cursed Ploosh and swore that if he ever ran into him, he wouldn’t take pity on him, because he was an abhorrent murderer, and it was only right to turn murderers over to the gendarmes. His drunkenness scared me.
We were summoned in the middle of the night by one of the old men, who stood in the clearing and cried like a child. His money, which had been sewed into his coat, had been stolen.
“I didn’t have much and now I have nothing,” he wailed.
Sruel tried to calm him down. “We’ll help you out.”
But the old man would not be consoled.
“Until now I was never in need of charity,” he muttered in a shattered voice. “But from now I will be forced to hold out my hand.”
“Don’t be afraid.” Sruel spoke to him in a voice that was different from his own.
“Why did he steal from me?” He could not stop whimpering.
Sruel drew a banknote from his trouser pocket and thrust it into the old man’s hand.
The old man was dumbstruck by this, and said, “That’s not my money. That’s not the money that I saved up.”
“It can stay with you until the thief returns what he stole.”
“The thief won’t give it back to me. They never give things back.”
The next day the old man rallied and wanted to return the banknote to Sruel. Sruel refused.
The old man grabbed Sruel’s arm and said, “You gave me more than was stolen from me.”
“An extra penny won’t hurt you.”
“I’m afraid to keep so much money on me.”
“I’ll look after you. I’ll cut off the fingers of whoever dares to steal from you.”
“Heaven forbid!”
“There will be no redemption for the wicked.”
“But not by force, not sheer force, my dear friend.”
“Then how?”
“Calmly and quietly.”
“So be it,” said Sruel, and we immediately went back to the tasks that awaited us.
28
Ephraim’s wounds did not heal. They brought in a village medic, and the man rubbed a yellow ointment on his back. Some of the old men were of the opinion that we should seek the Holy Man’s advice, but people were afraid. If Ephraim wants to ask, let him ask; we don’t have to ask for him. Ephraim’s wounds were changing color; they were yellow now.
Meanwhile, Ephraim was no longer lost in his visions. He would doze for most of the day, curled up on his pallet. During prayers, he would raise the upper part of his body and pray with his eyes closed.
“How do you feel?” my teacher, Old Avraham, would ask him from time to time.
“Good,” he would answer, and open his eyes.
Ephraim’s sleep was somehow scarier than his visions. Before he sank into slumber, he would speak of the pus that must be drained from an infected body and of the purified blood that washes the arteries clean. The awe of youth radiated from his eyes, as if all his years had been stripped away from him. Later, when Ephraim fell asleep, Blind Menachem stayed constantly by his pallet. Ever since Ephraim’s visions had started, Menachem had been tense, attentive to every word that came out of Ephraim’s mouth. Now that his visions had subsided, Menachem was filled with anxiety.
“How is Ephraim doing?” he would ask. “What is he saying?”
At Sruel’s bidding, I would bring them grilled fish and potatoes every evening. After the meal, Menachem would be taken to the clearing, where the story of Joseph’s sale into slavery was again being presented.
Pinchas had revived the play and changed it completely. He enlisted several wagon drivers and two dealers. Dressed in shabby fur coats, they become the sons of Jacob. They stand alongside the pit and look like a violent gang tracking its prey.
Blind Menachem continues to play our forefather Jacob. He sits on a chair, a footstool supporting his feet, looking like an abandoned father whose sons have grown up wild.
Peo
ple gather around, both Jews and non-Jews. Once again, the audience is spellbound by the performance. Two wagon drivers have put up a gate, and they charge an entrance fee. Late at night they divide up the earnings among the director, the actors, and the guards. Naturally, there are differences of opinion on the division of the proceeds, but eventually a compromise is reached and everyone returns to his wagon.
Sometimes the audience lingers after the performance, crowding in on the actors, asking them questions and complimenting them, and putting money in the charity box. It’s hard for those who dwell in houses to understand how a man can leave his home, his plot of land, and sally forth into the unknown. Sruel’s answer is simple and straightforward.
“A Jew must return to Jerusalem. But what does he do? He sits and waits for the Messiah to come. It’s true, the dangers are great, and villains and wicked people lurk in every corner, but a Jew has to overcome his fears and do as he has been instructed.”
I have noticed that whenever Sruel is feeling heady and enthusiastic, he uses the few words that he has acquired from the old men. The other wagon drivers don’t like to be asked questions; they either shrug people off with a dismissive gesture or they say, “Ask the old men and don’t ask us wagon drivers.”
Just as the actors were dispersing, the wagon drivers preparing for their night’s revels, and the musicians tuning their instruments, Ploosh leaped out of the thicket. He headed straight for our wagon, and when he saw that the horses were not there, he cried out, “Where are my horses?”
Laish Page 12
