One year later, my younger son was born, Shalom-Schena, and this time nothing could be taken for granted any longer. I was now aware of life’s complexity. I looked at this new baby; he had large eyes as black as wells, and a weak, slender body. There were many nights I prayed for him to live till morning. And when it was light, and when the golden rays of the sun were entangled on the bed quilt, he lay breathing next to me, flushed with the pain and effort of the night, or stretching out his arms to me, trembling and fragile and crying out with fever.
I would curl my body around him, and a wild joy set my soul ablaze. I stroked his dark head with its huge eyes and told him stories.
Here is our righteous Messiah going alone into the forest; a carpet of leaves rustles beneath his feet. Here he is sitting beside a pool in a forest clearing, casting his line and fishing for the souls of particularly beautiful children. And the fishing rod has a red hook, and its catches will grow up to be righteous or very wise men.
I went on to tell him about the city that King David built at the top of a mountain. And how the drought in the Land of Israel did not touch the mountain, how rain fell only on the city and there was desert all around it, and how they built the Temple at the edge of the mountain. And the Gate of Mercy that leads to it. And afterward, when the Temple was destroyed, the gate remained standing where it was, strong with its curved arch on top.
And how, one day, the Messiah will come through that gate on his white horse, riding to the ruins of the Temple, and he will search among the stones for the hidden holy spark. And when he finds it, he will light the flame anew, and light up the innermost hearts of the Jews. And everyone, the poor in their rags and the rich in their carriages and the crippled and ill leaning on their sticks or carried aloft on their sickbeds, all will stream toward the holy mountain.
I can see those years before me: I’m a girl of fourteen, I’m fifteen, I’m sixteen, running across the fields of Vohlyn with my older son behind me. He takes slow, careful steps, and my younger son is in my arms.
And then my sons are toddlers, running ahead or following behind me, and the soft air of summer caresses our faces. There’s a heady scent and vast open spaces, and the bodies of my children are warm in the sun. The rays of the sun not only warmed my body, but warmed my heart, which had hardened after the births. And soon my protective love for my fragile little son melted me.
I shout, “Blessed be You whose world is so pleasant!” The boys roll in the soft grass. And I pull my kerchief from my head and a wave of warmth suffuses my shorn head.
When my sons grew older, they began, one after the other, to study Torah, and my elder son joined the world of the men and was lost to me. He prayed and he studied, and when he was around me, he lowered his eyes and was silent. Only my little son continued to run with me in the fields; only my little son, Shalom-Schena, the four fringes of his undervest whirling in the air around his lean body. Only he would throw himself down next to me in the tall, soft grass, and his black eyes would open wide when he heard my stories.
Only he threw his skullcap off his head, as I did with my headscarf, and the two of us were like Eve and her son in the Garden of Eden. The two of us alone, all by ourselves in an abandoned kingdom. And there were no laws in our kingdom. He was a prince and I a queen in the Land of Dreams, a land of earth and trees and tall grasses and a light, playful breeze.
My little son, Shalom-Schena, was almost nine years old when I handed him over to the men in black. I told him that I was traveling to the city atop the mountain, in the heart of the desert. I said that, one day, he would come riding on a horse, and pass beneath the arches of the gate. And I told him that if he came, he would surely search for the hidden spark amid the ruins. Lies, so many lies . . .
He pleaded with me to stay, even talked to me about a match—marriage with Rabbi Nachum, his teacher—but I refused. I was conscious that a young Jewish widow in my position could not remain unmarried and independent for long. But I felt an intense resistance to returning to the life that I had already lived. My husband Avraham was dead, but he visited me in my dreams and tormented me, sternly warning me to stay a widow. And all this pushed me toward the dreams I had in my childhood, of the kingdom that awaited me in the east. I would not consent to losing it again, and I thought of nothing but running away.
Life is a journey of loss. First, I lost my father and my mother, then I lost my husband, and then I lost the land of Vohlyn and my two sons. Nothing was left to me but a dream and I followed it. And when I reached my dream, I lost it as well. The mountain was a hill, and instead of a holy city, I found a group of wretched houses filled with sick, desperate people.
When I came here, I blotted out my past and my name. I am only Gittel, the washerwoman, and I hear the voice of God in my loneliness. He speaks to me and breathes His light, even breathes to me, giving me tranquility.
The repose of God is with me instead of this poverty and suffering. At first, I also suffered; I was sick and my soul wished to die. But He who heals the sick and straightens up those who are stooped, He stood before me and infused me with breath, and since then, I have been stronger than all my ailments.
Health looms large in a city that swarms with disease. Those who are healthy are afraid of the sick, those who are sick hope for a miracle, and the fear and the fervent desire for a miracle can turn even a washerwoman such as me into a healer. I know nothing about medicine, but on good days, when the spirit moves me, I am ready to say a prayer and to lay my hands on the sick.
And they come to me with their infirmities. At first, it was only the Arabs—only the poorest of the poor and the sickliest of the Ishmaelites. After that, Jewish women started to come. And now, even respectable people make their way to me in secret, clandestinely, when no one can see them. I do not ask them for payment, only that they give something to charity.
Once, an Ishmaelite claimed that I had bewitched his son. The Ottoman guards came to exile me from the city. I took two plates, a knife, and a prayer book, and left my home.
For a long time, I lived in the fields outside the city. I lived like a creature of the fields, picking fruit and drinking water from the spring. At night, with my knapsack on a stone and my head lying on the knapsack, I slept like our father Jacob with all the stars in the sky traversing above me in song. Yes, those were nights when I could hear the singing of the stars, and during the day, I sang their song as I sat in the shade under a tree.
Then, one day, a couple came to me, lepers from the colony to the west of the city, asking me to heal their son. They dragged their child behind them; he was wrapped in a filthy cloth. He was shouting wildly, in a clear, piercing voice, and he hid his thin arms, covered in sores. I sang to him and I asked him to sing with me. While we were singing, I took off the filthy cloth, and when he was naked I washed him in the waters of the spring. Then I instructed him not to drink any water unless it came from that spring. That boy was granted healing.
After that, the villagers came to me, seating themselves in front of me in the field, under the tree, waiting for a miracle. I told them I was a washerwoman and if they would give me work, I would pray for them. They gave me clothes to wash, and I prayed for them. And so, very slowly, I was drawn back into the company of human beings.
One of the Ishmaelites prepared a room for me in a small village outside Jerusalem and I lived there for some years. On the Sabbath and on the days of the holy festivals, I would clothe myself in white and walk back to the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem. The village people called me “the Jewess” and “the enchantress” and put me on a donkey for the journey up to the city. Their life was simple and their eyes were always turning to the east, to their God.
I felt good living with them; even my loneliness felt good. After several years in the village I went back to live in the city, among my Jewish brethren. Man is like a fruit—he belongs to the tree on which he grew. And for us Jews, our tree flies in the air. Its roots are up above and its fruit touches the earth, but
is not quite connected to it.
Since my return to the city, I have a room and a rooftop. The room is shadowy and the rooftop is open to the skies.
I do laundry on the roof; I sit on the roof at sunrise and at sunset, climbing up and down the narrow stairs that spiral upward. And cats and dogs rub by my legs, wailing for food. And doves and sparrows congregate above and chirp for food. I scatter grains, and toss pieces of bread soaked in chicken broth.
The animals came here from the village. They followed me just as Ruth the Moabite followed her mother-in-law Naomi. The birds have come from the skies. Animals can sense a solitary soul and they cleave to it like a man cleaves to his home.
In my sleep, I sometimes hear the sounds of geese and ducks, and when I wake, I think I’m back in Vohlyn and that, by and by, I’ll hear my mother’s firm step or Dasha whistling to the fowl in the yard. Of late, my legs are heavy and a longing for the sounds of my childhood lingers with me.
One day, a Hasid came to me with his barren wife and said that he had been a disciple of Rabbi Shalom, the grandson of the Maggid, and that, since the young rabbi died, he had decided to set sail to the Land of Israel with his wife.
Up to that moment I was standing. Then I sat down.
The Hasid wiped his eyes with the edge of his kapote and said, “My beloved Rebbe, Shalom-Schena, was different from other righteous men. He would wear regal purple garments adorned with gold, but on account of the puddles and mud on the way to the beis midrash where we studied, he preferred to study in his home. It was in Froibich—even the name of the place gives me the shivers. We were a small group, perhaps some ten young men around him, serving him like the heroes of David. And he would tell us how, at night, he sat next to King David, their chairs touching, with David singing and playing the harp and revealing secrets to him. The splendor of his clothes and the splendor of his house were part of his secret, and we felt that each movement we made and each word we spoke might elevate us to the highest temple or send us down to the world of ashes.
“The external world is the gate to the spark within, like a temple within a temple, that’s what the Rebbe said. That’s why he held beauty and order in the highest esteem. And his wife also walked about like the daughter of a king at home, and serving women brought their food in splendid vessels. He and his wife sat at one table, while we sat at another table, lower than theirs.
“Even now that I am in the Land of Israel, praise God, I long for my Rebbe’s soft feet, encased in chamois leather, treading quietly, floating, with a fine scent trailing in their wake, accompanying them . . . O, my Rebbe looked like a prince!”
A sigh escaped from the Hasid’s sunken chest. Because of the heat, he wore his garment open, and stains of sweat and of something yellowish, perhaps soup, could be seen on his robe. I saw all this as I sat, mute, on the chair. His barren wife kept standing in the doorway, not raising her eyes from the floor. The Hasid moved around the room, distracted, agitated. One moment, he sat down on my bed without asking permission and, a moment later, he jumped up, blushing, and returned to pacing the room, his arms crossed behind him.
“I saw how he died,” said the Hasid. “Like his father, the Angel, he was slightly sick, and then suddenly he was gone.
“For a few days, he was pale and lay in his regal bed, spitting blood into a bowl. And he summoned his child to him, and said that he had seen himself in a vision. And in his vision, he sat in the temple in the sky. On the table in front of him was a splendid crown, a holy crown formed of letters from the Torah, but he was not permitted to put it on his head. The Rebbe laid his hand on the head of his son, and then he coughed and withdrew his hand, turned his face to the wall, and his soul departed.”
The Hasid again wiped his eyes with the fringe of his caftan. He tugged at his nose as he said, “That’s how my Rebbe died.”
What I said then, if I helped cure his wife, and how they left, I have no recollection—only that, after a time, I found myself alone in the room.
Only now did I know I had hoped one day he would come to Jerusalem. Only now did I know I had been waiting for him, that I’d had no doubt we would meet again. And now the dream I had secretly harbored had died, the dream that I had hidden even from myself had died. My younger son had died.
I began to pray to him, to pray to the child of almost nine I had given over to another’s care. I saw his face at that time, going to study with Rabbi Nachum and then returning to me, coming back to me. For years, I had not heard his voice, and now his voice came back to me, speaking from my womb.
We were still running, he and I, in the fields. We were still removing our head coverings, standing tall, without shame, without sorrow, in the eyes of God. We were still running, he and I, and suddenly I stopped. I stopped and fled. I fled from my son and I did not look back.
My cheeks burned with shame, but this time I faced my thoughts: I didn’t run from them. I had betrayed my younger son; for the first time, I uttered a word to myself: Traitor.
For the first time, I looked at his sorrow. How he had fled Rabbi Nachum, and fled again, and again. And said that Rabbi Nachum did not understand his soul at all. That was how he said it: “He does not understand my soul.”
Everything had been concealed, everything suppressed. The sorrow had been concealed beneath his face, the shame beneath mine. And he said that no one understood him like I did. And I betrayed him. And when someone betrays you, their words no longer have value. I said, “Go to Rabbi Nachum. From now on, he is your home.”
My eyes filmed over and beneath them, deep beneath them, my shame was concealed.
But now, years later, the thin film was torn. My eyes saw it all, how it was back then, when he was only nine years old. And remorse, sharp as a blade, pierced my heart.
Remorse has been tearing at my heart ever since. There is no way to escape the pain, not ever. No amount of light can dispel the darkness of remorse.
The colors of the Vohlyn countryside were gray and black. Black was the color of the men, the color of funerals, the color of the vultures that filled the skies. And gray was the everyday color, the color of the homes and the air inside, the color of the women’s dresses, the color of mud, the color of the forest when you were lost inside it. And at the edge of the grayness and blackness of life, there were streaks of green and silver. The fields were green, and amid them, the rivers wound like silvery snakes. And gold flickered on the heads of the young women, gradually turning silvery like the rivers. And when there was a storm, the lightning flashed and the gray clouds blackened, and the color of the Day of Judgment spilled down on the castles of the lords and the huts of the peasants.
And the Jews fled home to lock their doors. And they wondered if this was the day when redemption would come. And redemption was the color of Jews, white and pale like goose feathers. Swaying. Rumbling. Redemption was like the palm branch we wave on the Festival of Tabernacles.
When I left Vohlyn, I followed the road to redemption.
I walked south down the muddy roads that follow the River Bug. Barges floated on the river, as did heavy logs with peasants astride them, singing and laughing. Geese also drifted on the river and large birds, their wings outspread, flew above. The birdsong and the sounds of singing and laughter were lost in the tangle of vegetation that wound to the right and the left like silent walls.
The vegetation burst through to the water, and floated on it with branches laden with leaves. Roots spread over the water like nets. Sometimes, a musket shot would ring out, and after it, the silence hung even heavier.
Villagers passed me, stooped beneath bundles of wood. I spent the nights in their huts for a meager sum. They bowed before me and crossed themselves when they heard I was on the way to Jerusalem. “Ohhh!” they said in wonder, and at night, they hid small wooden crosses in my knapsack.
The farther I got from Vohlyn and the nearer I came to the Black Sea, the more the colors changed; they became brighter, clearer.
Through the trees,
large expanses of sky could be seen and the river grew broad and indolent. There was more marshland and clouds of buzzing insects hung in the air. Instead of the huts of villagers, there were now summer cottages. I traveled in wagons and, at night, I slept in inns.
Sometimes, I met Russian pilgrims who were also making their way to Jerusalem. The women talked to me, touched me, and smiled at me from toothless mouths. But I felt uneasy with their intimacies and kept slightly aloof from them. There was something frightening about the bands of pilgrims. They dragged feet wrapped in rags, held pinewood staffs in their hands, and their eyes shone feverishly like the eyes of the sick.
A terrible smell rose from the marshes and clung to my nostrils. The smell stayed with me when I crossed the broad Dniester River as it wound its way to the River Prut. There, I saw a group of women bathing in the river and I joined them. They had black hair like myself, and they were lighthearted, shrieking like doves. And when I took off my dress, they stared at me curiously and spoke among themselves in a strange language.
I saw that, around their necks, they did not wear a necklace with a cross and, with hand gestures, I asked them who they prayed to. “Allah!” one of the girls told me, waving a wrist covered in bracelets to the sky.
For the first time in my life, I was with Muslims. Their colors were new to me: brown and ochre, earth and sun. And when I bade farewell to the women and continued on my way, the awful smell was gone. My body moved lightly under my dress and the tinkle of their gold bracelets resonated in my ears.
The journey south, to the shores of the Black Sea, was like crossing a rainbow. Colors and languages were constantly changing. Women in colorful clothes mingled with men all in white, soldiers resplendent in shiny boots passed in open carriages, plump merchants stood by the roadside hawking their wares. Vagabonds loitered by the side of the dusty roads and begged for alms in the doorways of the inns. Sometimes, there was rejoicing and dancing in one of the village squares; sometimes, a bear stood there tethered with a chain and surrounded by a crowd.
Trail of Miracles Page 7
