The Slaughterman's Daughter

by Yaniv Iczkovits

  Telekhany

  I

  * * *

  The night tightens its grip on Fanny, sinks deep within her and expands, imbuing her with the sudden realisation that she is free. Man was endowed with five senses to perceive Creation – sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch – and only one sense, the sense of freedom, was granted to Creation in order to perceive man. The Shechinah uses it to examine the human heart and distinguish between servants, masters, and those who are neither one nor the other – and right now, Fanny can feel Freedom probing her bones, making her soul sing and her heart throb. She has always suspected that the good God On High is not content with having only the blindly obedient among His believers.

  Then, out of nowhere, she is assailed by pangs of guilt. Natan-Berl will be devastated by what she has done, and her children will miss her terribly. Who else will whisper in their ears the first words they hear each morning? Who will cook their food? Who will clothe their delicate bodies and shoo away their bad dreams? What freedom is this, if it is bound up with betrayal and tor-ment? Every day of their lives she has carved a path through her children’s bodies, into the nooks of their souls and the crannies in their hearts. She has woken and fed and dressed and bathed and frolicked and consoled, each time etching new signs of her motherhood into their flesh. Few words were ever needed; she could register their innermost secrets simply by listening to the tone of their voices. It was enough for her to observe how they poured their tea or ate their rice, as their souls quivered. They never told her things she did not already know or reported anything that was news to her; all they gave her were ever-sweeter memories. Her children were ageless in her eyes, eternal souls, from baby Elisheva to her eldest, eight-year-old Gavriellah, whose courage Fanny had recognised the moment her firstborn emerged between her legs at birth. Now her sudden disappearance will mark them with an ugly scar. She has derailed their routine and demolished their stability. Her freedom is their prison. What kind of a mother is she?

  And yet, from the moment the idea that she should set out on this quest first flickered in her mind, she felt that it was her duty to leave her home. Just as in the moments of giving birth to her children, when her overwhelming desire to care for them merged with her duty as their mother, she now knew full well that freedom and necessity are intertwined. When she returns, she will explain to her children that she had decided not to think of her sister’s suffering as a divine decree. She had to gallop all the way to Minsk to bring Zvi-Meir to his knees.

  Fanny disliked Zvi-Meir even before he married her sister. He had been thrown out of the Volozhin Yeshiva – evidently, he was no great scholar – and yet he never stopped dispensing the pearls of wisdom he had gleaned from the Gemara, and pointing out contradictions he believed he had found in the Bible. Whenever the family sat down for dinner and shared cabbage soup with noodles, pickled cucumber, kugel and rye bread, Zvi-Meir would also share his scruples: how could Adam and Eve have deserved punishment if they had received the gift of Knowledge only after eating from the Forbidden Fruit? And sure enough, the conversation would soon become a full-blown monologue, because Zvi-Meir had no interest in listening to anyone else and would anticipate anything he thought they might say before they had a chance to say it. If he ever condescended to listen to others, his ears would only pick up the words that his mind could assemble in support of his sermon. All conversations with him ended the same way: he would tell them that they should all read a little and study a little, and that he was probably wrong to have raised the matter in the present company in the first place.

  Zvi-Meir deserved to have it all, and everyone else was to blame for the fact that he had nothing. The rabbis at the Volozhin Yeshiva were to blame for not cultivating his talent as soon as he arrived. Customers were to blame for not rushing to buy his wares in the market. And Mende was to blame, because, as far as Zvi-Meir the Genius was concerned, intimacy should consist of his tête-à-têtes with himself and nobody else.

  All the while, she, Fanny Keismann, witnessing Mende’s embarrassment, had chosen to sit at the table and keep silent lest she heap further humiliation upon her sister, but Zvi-Meir never considered the silence that followed his sermons as a sign of hostility, rather as a victory. If only Fanny had intervened back then, perhaps she would not have had to abandon her sweet children and abscond from her home at an hour befitting brigands on the prowl.

  * * *

  Zizek takes off his army coat and places it over her shoulders. At first, she is alarmed by the uniform, which in her eyes represents the government’s crushing might; but then she huddles into the coat’s warm lining. As the wind picks up, she fastens the top two buttons and notices that Zizek is turning east, away from the first village on the riverbank. Fanny does not understand why this detour is necessary, but it does not make her in the least suspicious. Under any other circumstances she would have begun to plan how best to leap from the cart, but in his presence, she feels anything but intimidated.

  With the first glimpse of sunshine, the emotion of the night fades, and glints of sobriety shimmer in the light that soon floods their eyes. The hazy mist evaporates completely. Now Fanny and Zizek are exposed. Zizek takes off his uniform, rolls it up and puts it in a large wooden box. This is the first time she has seen him without his uniform and the army cap that always shades his face. His age, she reckons, is probably close to sixty. His clothes, a peasant’s jacket over threadbare trousers, ooze a smell of fish, and receive the addition of a grey, gentile-looking flat cap. A red sash that the locals wear for good luck is tied around his waist, and his feet are encased in plain bast shoes.

  Without further ado, he removes the army coat from her shoulders. Fanny shrinks back in her seat and looks imploringly into his bright-coloured eyes. Even though he does not respond to her gaze, she lets him undo two buttons in the collar of her dress and remove her headscarf. He pulls out a brown woollen coat like the ones that the local babushkas wear, and hands her a white kerchief adorned with a Polish emblem. When their transformation is complete, they look at one another: they are two locals, he is no longer a soldier and she is no longer a Jew, and a hint of contentment spreads across Zizek’s cracked lips, or so it seems.

  II

  * * *

  A flock of greyish crows swoops in formation in the sky, blackbirds scavenge for worms, and a somnolent stork keeps a half-open eye on them from the top of an ancient, bare oak tree. The tributaries of the Yaselda suck the mire from the black bogs, and Zizek draws the cart to a halt when it reaches a tall pile of reeds and moss. He unharnesses the horses and tethers them by a hidden pool of stagnant water. Then he unloads a sack of hay from the cart, and Fanny follows him along the sloping, muddy stream.

  She notices that the grey horse is quite old. Its hide hangs from its back like a blanket, its body is thin, its belly muddy, and its dark mane is strewn with silver hairs that give it an air of nobility, rather than submission. It discontentedly chews the hay she offers it, stretching its nose towards her, as if urging her to hurry up and finish serving its fodder. Its gaze remains unimpressed.

  The chestnut horse is much younger. Its eyes are curious and it swishes its tail in circles. It sniffs at her for several moments and then goes back to snatching at the hay and chewing with urgency. Fanny returns to the cart, which Zizek has in the meantime camouflaged with reeds. Before them lie fields of wheat, oat and flax, and blueberry bushes, and in the distance she even sees ripe potatoes ready for the summer harvest. How long are they to stay here? She is not sure. Zizek is unloading pegs and canvas. His plan quickly becomes evident: they will travel only in the dark, because travelling by daylight in unfamiliar territory is too dangerous for two unarmed strangers like them, and all the more so considering that they lack the travel documents required of Jews wandering between counties.

  Zizek secures the pegs in the ground but does not fasten the canvas too tightly, presumably to enable them to pack up and leave at a moment’
s notice. He adjusts the tent’s position, keep-ing it low, so that they have a direct line of vision to the horses while staying hidden from passers-by on the main road. She is amazed by his meticulous preparations for her journey and by the care with which he has crafted each stage, and she feels ashamed for having brought along merely money and some cheese and bread. She had thought that she would stop off in villages and inns, pave her way with roubles, and catch the first train from Baranavichy to Minsk. But what had she been thinking? That she could pass from one village to the next with a wad of notes in her pocket without arousing suspicion? Wouldn’t she have attracted attention with her curious accent? And what business could a Jewess from Grodno County possibly have in Minsk? Wouldn’t they ask her to present her passport? And now, as Zizek is unloading yet more bags of potatoes and vegetables, she understands that he has no intention of speaking to anyone until they reach Baranavichy.

  The air grows oppressive. Zizek takes out a water flask and hands it to her. There is one problem, which neither of them had anticipated: the scorching sun of Polesia, where, for three weeks a year, the heat becomes unbearable. The advantage is clear: in the heat, the bogs recede and the roads become convenient for travel. On the other hand, the tent that Zizek has set up is like a furnace, and outside the sunlight is beating down ruthlessly, while the only shaded place for miles around is by a hill that is too close to the main road. How can they rest in these conditions? Sensing Fanny’s distress, Zizek stretches out the canvas sheet to create more shade. But the heat and the bogs summon hordes of mosquitoes for an urgent conclave, and their sweating bodies attract flies in droves. This unbearable situation keeps them wide awake, and their appetites evaporate to nothing. Fanny knows that two more days of travel like this will end with a bout of cholera.

  Zizek lies down on the black ground, turning his back and folding his body away from her. She puts her head in the stifling tent, because she can no longer bear the sun’s blazing touch. Now that she does not have to care for children or maintain a farm, she can do whatever she likes, and yet she wants nothing more than to disappear altogether. If she were home right now, she would have washed clothes, cooked, urged David to eat and taught Elisheva another poem; hundreds of actions that any other person could have done instead of her, but whose particular meaning derives from the fact that it is she, Fanny Keismann, who is doing them. An onlooker would not have perceived anything unique about her life, would have failed to notice the lushness of its internal logic . . . Just look at her, the poor sod, not one day of freedom has gone by and she is already pining for her home.

  The flies and insects prevent any prospect of napping. As soon as her eyes close, she feels something climbing up her leg and stinging her ankles. Not far from where she is lying a toad rustles in a bush – or is it an otter? Or a snake? Fanny leaps to her feet; there is no way of knowing. The dense heat forces even time to loiter, heavy and sweaty. How many days have they been on the road now? Not even one? Impossible. And in only a few hours they could be back on Zizek’s boat, and time would regain its conventional dimensions. Her disappearance would soon be erased from the memory of her husband and children, and her journey would be quickly forgotten. Her passion for securing justice for her sister would amount to a brief attempt and nothing more. Worse things have happened.

  Right in front of her, Zizek’s back is heaving deeply. His arms are lax, and his cap is lying upside down on the ground next to him. She wonders whether she should share her misgivings with him, but knows that his answer will be silence. If she asked him to return to Motal, he would harness the horses and lead them back to the road from which they have come. If she chooses to go on, he will take the reins without blinking. The boat on the Yaselda has been replaced by the cart, and Zizek is at her service. But why did he, of all people, offer his help? How did he manage to detach himself from the meaningless daily routine on the banks of the Yaselda? She looks at him and knows that, the way things stand, they cannot go back. They? Yes, she and he.

  As though he had read her mind, Zizek gets up, folds the tent, and leads the horses back to the road. The old horse moves hesitantly, probably exhausted by the heat just like them, and Zizek slows their pace. Fanny looks apprehensively at the massive man sitting next to her; if they continue travelling in this way, they will manage no more than twenty or thirty versts each night. The journey to Minsk will take longer than expected, and it is not even clear whether they will be able to endure another day like this one.

  Zizek’s face is expressionless, but he hands the reins over to her and turns to lift a few sacks from behind her seat. Before long she realises that he is preparing a headrest, so that she can catch up on her lost hours of sleep. Yet she feels compelled to stay awake next to him, appreciating her responsibility for their situation. And so she finds herself battling against the torturous fatigue that is throwing her head backwards and forwards without mercy. Suddenly she wakes, panicked, because she has almost fallen from the moving cart. Zizek winds a rope around her waist and fastens her hips to the seat with a tight knot. Conceding defeat, she accepts the sentence of being tied to her seat, realising that this journey is a far more complicated affair than she had anticipated. Heavy sleep abruptly descends, and her dreams are couched in scents of rum and mead.

  III

  * * *

  On the second day of their journey, they stop in a more convenient spot on the shore of a small lake, shaded by a thicket of willows and bulrushes. When the sun rises, Zizek realises that they are too conspicuous. Some four versts away they spot a few wooden shacks standing in a cluster, probably built illegally by muzhiks who have had enough of the rent they have to pay elsewhere. Zizek decides to fold the tent and stand watch. Fanny tries to talk him into resting a little, but his face remains still as a rock and his determination is equally firm. His ears are open to any rustle or peep, and he is ready for any threat that may come their way.

  The shade revives Fanny, and their improved position makes her more confident that they should push on. She has a hearty meal of apples and cucumbers that Zizek has packed, and she carefully lays a tomato and two plums by his side. Rumour has it in Motal that Zizek’s diet consists of live eel that he catches in the river. Others believe that behind the unassuming, shabby appearance hides a millionaire, with a luxurious mansion where butlers serve his meals on fine china from Kiev and pour French wine into Viennese goblets.

  Zizek looks at Fanny as though seeking her permission, and, seemingly against his better judgment, grabs one of the plums. His scarred mouth can hardly chew the fruit, and his face becomes distorted, as if he has bitten his tongue. She notices that his teeth are struggling with the fruit’s flesh, takes the plum from his hand and cuts it into smaller pieces. Zizek says nothing when she hands him the slices but she can see that he already has his eye on the other plum.

  He munches his food like an old goat, his chewing monotonous and diffident. Something in the incongruity between his enormous size and his gentleness reminds her of Natan-Berl. But while Natan-Berl’s eyes are always filled with a tender expression, Zizek’s bright-coloured eyes are devoid of any vivacity, despair or hope. The infinite placidity that stretches across his face is terrifying, like a lake without fish that reeks of fish nonetheless.

  At midday, without Zizek noticing, Fanny lifts up her skirt and lets the breeze blow between her legs. Dressing as a peasant has its advantages; she knows them well, living out in the country as she does. Away from the townspeople of Motal, every now and again she allows herself to take off several layers of clothing and carry on about her garden like a shiksa. Even though she knows that her immodesty does not sit well with halakhic rulings, she isn’t inclined to think that it amounts to transgression. Even at this very moment she does not feel the need to pray, and yet she senses the sheer presence of the Almighty all around her.

  Protected by the dark, they set off again and arrive at a major road, where they meet the carts of beggars and
pedlars on their way to and from Telekhany. Most people who choose to travel at night tend to be in a great rush and rarely seek company. They are not the ones Zizek fears. There are also a few vagabonds with secrets that need hiding, just like theirs. Zizek does not fret about them either. But there are certain other types that the darkness prompts to inflict harm, and they are the ones that make Zizek afraid.

  As soon as they have crossed the Oginsky Canal, a few drunks call out to them in a spate of high spirits, and Zizek shrinks back in his seat and waves at them. There is nothing that drunks detest more than being ignored, and all one has to do is acknowledge their merriment for them to let one be. One of the band waves a bottle at them and yells, “Somethin’ else! This is somethin’ else! You should try some too, girls!”, proceeding to plead with the driver of his cart: “Stop, my friend, let’s get to know these beauties!” Zizek is relieved when they pass by without stopping.

  When the road becomes empty around midnight, Zizek’s eyelids start to droop uncontrollably. At first he slaps his cheeks and wets his face, but when his tiredness worsens, he changes his position, gets on his knees and pounds his jaw with his fist. Fanny offers to take over the reins – she knows how to find her way at night – but Zizek stands up and urges the horses to a gallop like a wild drunk with a bottle of rum in his hand.

  A wagon laden with bags of wheat comes alongside them, and Zizek immediately slows down. A middle-aged couple are sitting on the wagon waving and wishing them luck.

  “Where to, good people?” the woman asks, her face hidden by a neckerchief drawn almost up to her eyes. And Fanny, knowing that Zizek will not say a word, replies in his stead, “Minsk.”