Tables of six were filled with men talking and laughing loudly over their drinks. A large archway led to another room, where the atmosphere was more subdued. At one table, the men were passed out, their heads on the table.
Tucked back in the darkest corner, he saw his father hunched over a table with men Sergei didn’t recognize. A gray cloud of smoke hovered above their heads.
“Papa…” Sergei glared at his father as he approached. “Papa!” he repeated in a louder voice.
Sergei’s father raised his head and tried to focus his eyes on the source of the voice. “What…what the devil’re you doing here?” His voice slurred.
“Mama is worried about you. She sent me to find you,” Sergei replied tersely.
The other men peered at Sergei, their drunken eyes mere slits in their ruddy faces.
“Oh, for goodness sake. Can’t a man have some time to himself?” Sergei’s father grinned, raised his glass and proposed a toast. “Here’s to…time with friends!”
He and the other men roared with laughter, and reached for their glasses.
“Are you coming home or not?” Sergei asked.
“When I’m good and ready.”
“Hear, hear!” yelled one of his cronies. The three men clanged their glasses together in a toast. Sergei noticed his father’s hand shake as he held his glass. Scowling, Sergei turned and left, sighing with relief when he was back outside. He savored the cool, clean air, but couldn’t rid his mind of his father’s drunken condition. He glanced back at the tavern, then walked toward lower Kishinev, with thoughts of Rachel crowding out the ugly images of his father.
Under the cloak of darkness, it was easy to forget about the massacre. Desecrated buildings were blotted out, hidden, unseen. The gaslights shining brightly in the night made the town appear picturesque, almost holy. Looming in front of him was the Jewish hospital. The stark building rose from the ground like a shadow.
“Sergei?”
Sergei turned and saw Rachel standing under a gaslight, her face partially concealed in the night’s shadows.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “When I closed my eyes, I saw…anyway, the lights shone through my window. At night I can pretend Kishinev is the same as it was. That it wasn’t destroyed.”
“I was thinking the same thing. But you shouldn’t be out here alone. You could get hurt.”
“I’m not afraid. Besides, I’m only a few steps from the hospital.” She spoke matter-of-factly, with no emotion. “Have you seen Menahem since he was sent to the orphanage?”
“A couple of times. He’s miserable. He spends most of his time doing chores, and there are fights. When I leave I feel terrible.”
Rachel nodded. “When I’m sad about losing my father, I think of Menahem and how much worse off he is. I feel bad for feeling sorry for myself when I know there are so many children like him out there.”
“I wish I could do more for him.” Despair and anger flooded through Sergei. “I lie awake at night trying to make sense of everything.” He grimaced and his voice rose. “Yet my father, who could have stopped the riots but didn’t, sits in a tavern as we speak,drinking himself into a stupor as if nothing happened.”
“It doesn’t pay to be good.”
“You’re right.”
“I should get back now, before my mother notices I’m gone.” She waved and moved out of the light.
“Wait! Let me walk with you,” Sergei called.
“It’s all right,” Rachel replied. “I’ll be fine.”
Sergei kept an eye on her until she disappeared into the misty night. After one last glance at the hospital, he went home.
A group of children hovered near Sergei as he stood in the entry hall of the orphanage with Menahem. Like Menahem, they all had sad eyes and protruding cheekbones. Although Sergei knew there were lots of children in the orphanage, actually seeing their faces made him feel guilty for befriending just one.
“I guess we should go, Menahem.” Sergei turned his head to the door to avoid the children’s hopeful gazes and left with Menahem clinging tightly to his hand. “Does anybody ever come to visit those other children?” Sergei asked as they headed to Chuflinskii Square. “Were they all orphaned after the riots?”
Menahem put his finger to his lip as he pondered this question. “I don’t know.”
Sergei’s eyes searched Menahem’s face to make sure he wasn’t upset talking about the massacre.
“Sometimes at night, I hear them cry out for their mothers and fathers.”
“What about you?” asked Sergei. “Are things getting better now?”
“I still miss my grandmother. She used to make special latkes for me, even if it wasn’t Hanukkah, and every night she told me a story before I went to sleep. She couldn’t read but she had all kinds of stories in her head.” Menahem’s voice grew faint.
They arrived at the square, but Sergei wanted to keep talking. Holding Menahem’s hand, he guided him to the walkway around the perimeter of the square. “You’ve never told me what happened to your parents.”
“They died when I was a baby. It was a fever that killed a lot of people. My grandmother’s always taken care of me.”
“Sergei!” Petya ran up to them from across the square. “Sergei…we’re getting teams together for a game of gorodki. We’re one short. Come and join us.”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m with…I’m with my friend Menahem.”
Petya spied Menahem hiding behind Sergei’s back. “He can come too. The two of you can share the spot.”
“I don’t know how to play,” Menahem said quietly.
“I can teach you, Menahem. It’s a great game,” said Sergei, thinking this would take Menahem’s mind off his troubles.
“You throw a wooden baton at a town made up of towers of blocks,” added Petya. “If you knock them down, you win.”
Menahem backed away from them with round, frightened eyes.
“Oh no!” Sergei said, hitting his forehead as he realized what he’d done. “I can’t believe we just asked him to play gorodki.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with gorodki?” asked Petya.
“Menahem’s home was destroyed in the massacre here. By us.”
“Wait a minute…I didn’t destroy anybody’s house,” said Petya.
“We didn’t exactly try to stop people either. And then what do we do? Ask him to play a game where we destroy a town.” Sergei saw Menahem running back the way they’d come and started to chase him, overtaking him on the sidewalk. “Menahem, wait! I’m sorry. We were idiots. We weren’t thinking. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
Menahem’s face was streaked with dirty tears, which he tried to erase with the back of his hand. He was breathing heavily.
“Please. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“You’re just like the rest of them,” said Menahem.
“No, no, I’m not. I really hate the people who destroyed your house and the rest of the town. And I really like you. I come to visit you because I want to, not because I have to. You know that, don’t you?” Sergei knelt down and took Menahem’s hands.
Menahem nodded slowly. “I guess so.”
Sergei smiled and hugged the boy. “If I had a brother, I’d want him to be just like you.”
Sergei opened the door and saw his mother on the sofa weeping and his father passed out at the table. An empty vodka bottle lay on its side near his head. Carlotta and Natalya were nowhere to be seen. He bent over his mother and spoke to her quietly. “Mama…what happened?”
She looked up at him. “Your father, he lost his position today.” She started to cry again. Sergei put his arms around her, which only made her cry harder. “What are we going to do?”
“If he had done his job and not let those rioters rui
n so many people’s lives, this never would have happened.” He pulled away from his mother.
“Sergei, don’t talk that way about your father.”
“You don’t understand, do you? You don’t see that he could have prevented the riots if only he’d arrested Mikhail’s uncle and cousin. Instead, he let everyone in Kishinev think the murderer was Jewish. He let the hatred build and then stood back and did nothing while innocent people were beaten to death. I was there! I saw the police ignoring the rioters. Forty-nine Jews were killed and more than five hundred were injured. How can you defend him?” Sergei raised his voice louder than he intended, but saw from the corner of his eye that his father was still passed out.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Sergei.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. There was even an article in the newspaper—about a document advising police to let the riots take place and not to help the Jews.”
His mother gasped. “No, this can’t be true. You’re wrong.”
Sergei shook his head. “It was written by the Russian Minister of the Interior, and it was called ‘Perfectly Secret.’ Papa says he was following orders, but if he was a good person, he would have ignored the stupid orders and helped the Jews.”
Sergei’s mother continued weeping into her hands.
He put his arm around her shoulder and held her until her crying subsided. “I’m sorry, Mama. I just thought you should know the truth.”
Hearing the rhythmic sound of his father’s deep breathing punctuated by powerful snores, Sergei crept out of bed into the kitchen. He stopped when the floor creaked. Convinced that nobody in his house was awake, he walked gingerly to the shelf near the window. He picked up the birch-bark-and-iron coffer that sat there. The moon provided just enough light to see. Sergei lifted the lid and peered inside.
The coffer was filled with rubles and kopecks. He shoved half of the money into the leather pouch he wore around his waist, then put the coffer back in its place and quietly returned to bed.
MAY
Local Jews are doing their utmost to relieve the suffering. Young Jewesses are attending the sick in the hospitals and money is pouring in from all the Jewish communities in Russia. Twelve thousand persons are receiving two pounds of bread a day, and 2,500 portions are distributed at the soup kitchen daily, but this is a drop in the ocean.
—The Jewish Chronicle, May 23, 1903
One
Rachel ran into the room where Nucia and her mother sat with three other women at a long table sewing.
“It’s here! A letter. An answer from Zeyde and Bubbe! Mother, Nucia!” Rachel held the letter up excitedly.
Nucia stopped working and stared at Rachel. Her mother looked up at her with a puzzled expression. The other three women glanced at Rachel and went back to their needles and thread.
“See!” Rachel said, waving the small white envelope in the air. “Rena just handed it to me.”
“You wrote to them?” asked her mother. “When did you write this letter?”
“A few weeks ago.” Rachel’s fingers fumbled as she ripped apart the envelope. “I didn’t tell you—in case they didn’t write back.”
“I can’t believe they actually responded,” said Nucia. She set her sewing down and looked eagerly at Rachel. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
Her fingers shook as she pulled the note out of the envelope and lifted her eyes to her mother and Nucia.
“What is it?” asked her mother.
“There…there are tickets in here!”
Nucia furrowed her brow. “Tickets? What kind of tickets?”
Rachel swallowed and took them out. “Train tickets. To Vladivostock. From Kishinev.”
“Why would we go there?” asked her mother. “They live in Gomel.”
“I don’t know,” said Rachel, her eyes scanning the letter for details. She began to read it out loud, her lips curling up into a broad smile as she reached the end of the letter.
Rachel,
We were overcome with grief when we read your letter. Gofsha was our only son and our hearts are in pain from our sadness and regret. Our stubbornness has cost us dearly. Bubbe has taken the news especially hard. She has been quite ill, but her condition has improved slightly and for that we are grateful.
Though we long to see you and to know you, we must put your safety ahead of our wishes. There is talk of a riot here, so you must go to the eastern port of Vladivostok, the gateway to Shanghai and America. Take a steamer or a freighter to Shanghai, where they accept us without papers, without hatred. From there, you can travel to a new life in America. Enclosed, please find three tickets to Vladivostok. I wish I could send you enough money for your passage to America, but this is all I have. Please let us know when you have arrived in your new home,
Zeyde
Rachel’s mother let out a big sigh. “This is too much…train tickets are expensive. They need the money for Bubbe.”
“They wouldn’t have purchased the tickets for us if they couldn’t afford it,” said Rachel, her eyes moving from her mother to Nucia.
“America,” said Nucia, her eyes shining.
“It is so far from here, from everything we know,” said Rachel’s mother, her voice breaking as she spoke.
“What would Father do?” Rachel gazed at her mother for a response.
The other three women stopped sewing and stared at Rachel’s mother—all of them now quiet and pensive.
Rachel’s mother turned and gazed out the small window facing the courtyard. It was open to let in the fresh spring air, and the dull murmur of voices drifted up.
“He would want us to be safe,” Rachel’s mother said finally, her eyes still on the window. “He would want us to do as Zeyde says.” She turned back to Rachel and Nucia and spoke in a strained voice that lacked the strength and vigor it had once possessed. “I know he would want us to go to America.”
“You are so lucky, Ita,” said one of their sewing companions. “And you must think of your girls.”
“Yes,” added another. “You must go. These tickets are a blessing.”
“Yes…but we still need to earn money for the ship’s passage,” said Rachel’s mother brusquely, signaling the end of the conversation. She took the tickets from Rachel and placed them in the cloth pouch that she wore around her neck. “Let us continue our work, Nucia. And Rachel,” she waved at a neat pile of fabric on one end of the table, “there is plenty for you to do, yes?”
Rachel sat down beside her mother and resumed sewing the chemise she’d been working on for hours. Excited by the news, she worked as quickly as she could, determined to make the money they needed as soon as possible. But her carelessness caused mistakes, one so large that she had to rip out an entire seam.
“Ech!” she groaned as she pulled at the threads in the coarse fabric.
“Patience, Rachel,” warned her mother. “Or you will have nothing to show for your efforts today.”
“I know. I just wish I could sew as well as you and Nucia.”
“In time,” said her mother. “In time.”
“I can’t wait to be out of this hospital on our way to America,” said Nucia. “Mother, did Father ever tell you about his parents?”
Their mother stopped sewing and rested her hands on the table. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “A little…it made him sad. He told me his father was very smart but very stubborn, and his mother was always frail.”
“I wonder if we’ll ever meet them.” Rachel sighed. “I wish they could come to America with us.”
Her mother pressed her lips together and resumed sewing. “From Zeyde’s letter, it is clear Bubbe is not well enough to make such a long journey.”
“But what will happen to them if there are riots in Gomel?” asked Nucia.
Rachel s
aw her mother’s back stiffen, but she didn’t take her eyes off her work. Neither did the other women. Rachel’s heart sank. Her grandparents could end up homeless, or worse.
Rachel shrugged her shoulders to release the tension. They were stiff from being hunched over her sewing all day. When she dropped her empty soup bowl into the bucket, Rachel glanced at her mother and sister who were still eating. “I’m going to take a walk,” she announced. “I’ll meet you back at the hospital.”
“Should you be outside by yourself?” asked her mother.
“I’ll be fine. The days are longer now, and I need to stretch my legs,” she replied, stepping back from her mother. Rachel had noticed a change in their relationship since her mother had regained her awareness. She no longer admonished Rachel for small things, and she trusted her judgment, as if Rachel had suddenly gone from being fourteen to sixteen. “I’ve been sitting so long today,” Rachel called back as she was leaving. “I almost feel like sleeping on my feet tonight.”
Rachel headed down the street without a backward glance. She craved time alone. It was something she’d taken for granted before the massacre, being curled up by the stove with a good book. Now the former world seemed far away.
Though some of the debris had been removed, there were still constant reminders of the hatred that had prevailed. And when she took a deep breath to revel in the warm spring air, it was the scent of decay that she smelled.
Almost every store she passed had been pillaged or destroyed. Rachel wondered how the town would ever recover from so much damage.
At the river, Rachel found herself on the same path she had taken the day Mikhail was killed. Today, however, there was no snow or ice. Instead, mud caked the weathered felt boots that pinched her toes, and trees and lilac shrubs dense with new leaves and blooms made it hard to see where she was going. As she moved further away from the street, the air grew fragrant with lilacs and the mud became thicker, like the dough her mother used to knead when she made black bread.
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