“Tell me, what is it? Go ahead, tell me, Yechiel?” Itzik implored.
“I’m in the Krimsker Rebbe’s beis midrash, and the rebbe wants to pray with a pure soul because the rebbe doesn’t want to pray alone. He chooses a very, very good boy and he prays with him in a very special way that only rebbes know how to do. They jump like—” Here he hesitated. Had he gone too far? But no, Itzik was clamoring, “Frogs, frogs!” in great delight. “Yes, they jump like holy frogs. And all the Jews in the beis midrash are happy to see such a perfect prayer. And the little boy’s father is very proud that the rebbe chose his son to pray.”
Yechiel opened his eyes to see Itzik sitting with his eyes and mouth wide open in glee. Spittle dripped down his chin. Yechiel overcame an impulse to dry it with his sleeve. Itzik began to moan softly, and the spittle only increased. Yechiel saw it falling onto Itzik’s pants leg, but mercifully, he couldn’t hear it.
As Itzik sat dribbling, Yechiel pictured the young boy leaping on the table with the rebbe, praying like a frog, and he remembered the rebbe’s prediction that night: Yechiel would never succeed in leaving Krimsk. Hadn’t the rebbe said that he would walk in Warsaw? Well, as a journalist, he had done plenty of that! The rebbe had also said that Krimsk was just the right size for him. And that was correct, too. He could never flourish anywhere as he had in Krimsk. He had always held himself back from fully joining into political life because of his skepticism; he never married because he didn’t feel like a complete personality.
He hadn’t gotten very far, had he? To Yechiel’s playful mind, Itzik Dribble seemed his twin: crippled by mind, alone, unable to marry, and in pain. Clever as the comparison was—for it contained the cleverest of ironic truths—he regretted it, embarrassed by the self-serving pathos he was so easily given to. He, Yechiel, was fully responsible for what he had or had not become. Itzik was not. No, Yechiel was not Itzik’s brother. To suggest that was unfair to Itzik. Yechiel might console, might encourage, might even make Itzik happy, but to do so he would have to take responsibility for his townsman. Itzik needed him not as a brother but as a father, someone whom Itzik knew, who would value Itzik’s life above his own, who would never betray him. Could Yechiel make such a commitment?
“It’s my turn now!” Itzik implored.
“Yes,” Yechiel answered, not quite understanding what it was his turn to do.
Itzik, however, closed his eyes. “They’re closed real tight. I’m ready,” he announced.
“What do you see that makes you very happy, Itzik?” Yechiel asked softly.
“We are all sitting at the Sabbath table Friday night. It is winter outside, cold and snowy, but inside it is warm and full of light. Father and mother are at the ends of the table, and I am sitting next to Uncle Barasch. Across from us is baby Moshe. He is in his high chair eating noodles, and we are all laughing at him, he is so cute. Mother is happy. Later, Uncle Barasch will tell me a story and kiss me goodnight.”
“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” Yechiel agreed, but he felt an ache of memory that threatened to be debilitating. They weren’t really in Krimsk, no matter how much they pretended.
“It’s your turn,” Itzik invited.
“Itzik, can you stay here?” Yechiel asked.
“It’s not so bad here. Captain Pizer—”
“No,” Yechiel interrupted, “can you stay out here with me tonight? Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”
“They like me to guard the bodies. Captain Pizer says that I am the only man he can trust. The others take things from them, and then they trade with the soldiers. Captain Pizer doesn’t like that. It’s wrong. The soldiers are wrong, too. It’s stealing. Even after they die, all things still belong to the Reich.” Itzik delivered his words with great sincerity.
“What will they do with them?” Yechiel asked, aware that they sat protected by the shadow of death.
“Oh, I don’t know that,” Itzik said cheerfully.
“What will happen to them tomorrow? Will they stay here?”
“Oh, no. This is a transportation battalion. We’ll put them on a train as soon as possible.”
“To Treblinka?” Yechiel asked.
“For this many bodies we might get an empty car, but you never know. There’s a war on. Did you know there’s a war on? Did you know there’s a war on?” Itzik asked very seriously once again.
“Yes, I did know,” Yechiel answered.
“Good. Captain Pizer says we must never forget. I remember,” Itzik said proudly. “There’s a war on,” he repeated, as if some message from his simple brain was continuing to revolve on neural circuits after it should have ceased.
“There certainly is,” Yechiel agreed.
Yechiel yawned in spite of the war. No, he yawned because of the war.
“Are you tired?” Itzik asked.
“Yes, I have had a difficult journey,” Yechiel explained wearily, as if they were not sitting amid a field stacked with corpses.
“Oh,” said Itzik, not really comprehending.
“Can I sleep here?” Yechiel asked.
“Yes. Why not?”
In response, Yechiel shrugged and gingerly lowered himself from a seated position to lie on his side. He was very sore; his chest, back, and shoulders had tightened up in the cool night, and he groaned trying to find the least uncomfortable position. He rolled onto his back, but that proved no better. His eyes closed reflexively from the pain. When they opened, he saw Itzik staring at him with the same frightened expression he had worn when Krimsk was first mentioned. Yechiel looked directly into Itzik’s worried eyes.
“Yes?” he invited.
“They said all those things.”
“Who said?” Yechiel asked.
“Everybody. People shouldn’t talk to you, they said. I remember.”
“What did they say, Itzik?” Yechiel inquired.
“The rebbe threw you out of Krimsk, and that you were a—”
Not capable of remembering, Itzik came to a halt. He simply sat with his mouth open and his face frozen, as if someone had pulled out the plug on a machine. Apparently, Itzik’s circuits were so poor that he was simply waiting for the message to arrive.
“A heretic?” Yechiel suggested.
“Yes, a heretic. That’s a very bad thing,” Itzik intoned. “I remember.”
Overcoming the pain, Yechiel managed to sit up so that he could answer the grave accusations with more dignity.
“No, Itzik, they were wrong. It is not true. The rebbe told me—no, the rebbe promised me—that I wouldn’t leave Krimsk even if I tried. He said that in some way I would always be in Krimsk. And he was right. Tonight with you I am in Krimsk.”
Itzik seemed slightly relieved that Yechiel had not been thrown out of Krimsk, but he was still concerned. There was the other matter of that difficult word, so difficult to remember.
“You’re not a . . . heretic?”
“Itzik, sometimes people think they know much more than they do know, and that gets them into trouble. Then when they find out what they don’t know, they understand things better,” Yechiel explained, but he had a hopeless feeling that Itzik didn’t understand at all and that he, Yechiel, was not capable of presenting his thoughts in sufficiently simple terms.
“No, Itzik, I am not a heretic,” he stated, and at that moment it didn’t seem to be such a serious lie; he was determined that he was going to serve Itzik as a faithful surrogate parent.
“Promise?” Itzik insisted.
“Promise,” Yechiel affirmed.
The fear disappeared. A promise was obviously sacred and inviolate.
“People say strange things. They like to gossip about someone if he is somewhat different. They can tell terrible tales and hurt a person badly. People live on foolishness. They can be very cruel,” Yechiel said sadly.
By Itzik’s nod of agreement, Yechiel saw that he did understand.
“You know what they said about me?” Itzik said indignantly.
Yechiel knew th
at it would be foolish, cruel, and hurtful to Itzik, but he also knew that Itzik’s new father must know so that he could comfort the child and try to educate him to be less vulnerable.
“What did they say?” he asked apprehensively.
“They said Zloty or some other cat was my father,” Itzik cried.
“That’s very foolish and impossible. I hope you didn’t pay any attention to them,” Yechiel said, but from the pained outcry, he knew how useless his advice would be.
“That’s what my mother said, but they did bad things. They said that Zloty and the cats fathered Freda the Fool from Krimichak, too!”
“They sound silly. Silly talk from silly people,” Yechiel insisted.
“They said that if Freda the Fool and I would get married, our baby would be just like Zloty the cat!”
Itzik announced this with such horror that Yechiel suspected he believed it.
“Nonsense! Who were these people who said such nasty things? Such stupid things,” Yechiel demanded.
“All the men from Krimichak. I couldn’t leave town without them trying to catch me.”
“Catch you?” Yechiel asked in innocent surprise.
“At first they tricked me. They told me that Casmir’s cow had given birth to a three-headed calf. When I went to see, there was no calf, just Freda the Fool without any clothes. They locked us in all night. It was terrible. Freda bawled more than a three-headed calf, and she made peepee all night. I could have vomited from the awful smell. The constable finally found us and let us out. Father paid him to look for me.”
“You were a very good boy,” Yechiel began, but Itzik interrupted him.
“That made them mad. They wanted to show that they were right, so they kept after me. Coming from the mill, they trapped me on the bridge with pitchforks, but I grabbed one and beat the others. I broke their heads and ran home. Mother and Father were afraid they would kill me, so they sent me to a family in the old Jewish section of Lublin until it would be safe to return. But those goyim never forget. It never was safe, and I never returned.”
Itzik uttered the last words forlornly.
“A Jew hits a goy in the head, and that’s that. He’d better leave town,” Itzik said as if he were quoting someone.
“So you were in the Lublin ghetto and then came here?” Yechiel asked.
Itzik didn’t respond; he was still dwelling on the injustice of his exile from Krimsk.
“I tried not to hurt them, but I didn’t know my own strength. Captain Pizer says that I am the best worker he has.”
“I am very proud of you. You have acted like a mensch, a gentleman, and a very brave Jew,” Yechiel said, embracing Itzik and kissing the top of his head.
“When the war is over, they’ll let us go back, won’t they?” Itzik asked.
“I hope so.”
“Not to Lublin, to Krimsk,” Itzik said.
Yechiel had heard in the Warsaw ghetto what had happened to the Jews of Krimsk. They were summarily marched outside the town, shot, and flung into ditches.
“Weren’t they nice in Lublin?” Yechiel asked.
“Very nice, but it wasn’t home.”
“But you saw your family, didn’t you?”
“They visited me when they could. We went on picnics,” Itzik said.
“That sounds very nice.”
“No yellow ones, though,” Itzik added by way of complaint.
“What?”
“No yellow butterflies in Lublin. I like them best,” Itzik explained. “They couldn’t visit.”
“I understand: no yellow butterflies.”
Itzik nodded, and Yechiel did understand. He crawled over to the blond golem and had him lie down, comforting him by gently stroking his powerful back and patting his head as one would a child’s.
“Let me hear you say your prayers,” Yechiel suggested.
Itzik closed his eyes and covered his head with his sleeve. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One,” he said. He opened his eyes when he was finished.
Yechiel leaned over and kissed him on his broad forehead. “You’re a very good boy. I’m proud of you,” he said, aware that he was repeating himself. Then he, too, lay down.
“I love you,” Itzik said in a small, weak voice.
“Yes, my child, I love you, too,” Yechiel said and fell asleep exhausted.
CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO
WHEN YECHIEL AWOKE, A FEW MINUTES PAST SUNRISE, his first sensation was of the bone-chilling cool of the night and the damp clamminess of his body on the ground. The haze of the early morning swirled low on the horizon, and with the green filter of the forest, a pinkish glow arose in the east as soft streams of gray-white light swept toward them, gently and clearly illuminating all. As he awakened further, he felt something stiff against his leg. He started to sit up and discovered the neat pile of corpses. Still frozen in their spasms of asphyxiation, they greeted the dawn with bulging eyes and twisted limbs, softened by the beads of dew that hung on them like the patina of a very cold sweat.
He rolled over and discovered Itzik’s leg knocking against him. Agitated, Itzik was staring at the station platform. Yechiel sat up and looked past the pile of bodies to see a steam locomotive, large driving wheels grinding slowly, bronze bell wagging and clanging in insistent greeting, and large billowing puffs of steam rising into the fresh sky. The lower part of the clouds rolled in the soft gray-white of the shaded morning, but the ever-expanding billows rose above the trees, caught the pinkish rays of dawn, and drifted purple and pink in the breeze like great circus balloons. The small black engine, huffing, puffing, and ringing its bell beneath the rainbowlike clouds, seemed a large child’s toy. Behind the cheerful machine rolled the cattle cars, sealed and stolid as coffins. Through the engine’s merriment, Yechiel could hear the inexorable metallic hum of small wheels on the track, punctuated by the clicks of the uneven rails.
The sound chilled his heart more than the damp dawn or the dew-covered corpses. Not only Yechiel was afraid. A frenzy of fear in his obtuse eyes, Itzik turned to him in terror. His voice squeaked in childlike fright.
“Yechiel, don’t go. Don’t ever leave me!” he implored.
The train slowed, the engine hissed, the bell rang louder, and Yechiel silently kissed Itzik’s hand with the full flush of a father’s loving lips. He felt the tightening fear of Itzik’s hand. His eyes narrowed, his voice grew weaker; loving lips had kissed him good-bye before.
“Take me with you,” Itzik begged in a whisper. “Love—” he croaked.
The train had stopped moving.
Itzik tilted his head to rest his cheek on Yechiel’s small hand. The bell had stopped ringing, and the release of the locomotive’s steam vented in infernal hisses. For a moment Itzik lay quiet on Yechiel’s lap. The soldiers were already calling Itzik’s name. Yechiel saw the anxiety in the dull giant’s profile and felt the blind terror surge through the slack, loose face, freezing it in half-baked fear. Without thinking, Yechiel leaned over and embraced his suffering child, delivering a kiss that sealed his fate.
“Promise?” Itzik whispered, his eyes blinking stupidly in hope.
The train to Treblinka stood still in the dawn.
“Promise?”
Yechiel knew there was no other way they could remain together; the law of the transport was that whoever came in on the train had to leave on the train. And if the Krimsker Rebbe had told him that he, Yechiel, the heretic who doubted the rabbis, would never leave Krimsk because there was always enough room for vermin, he had also commanded him, “Do not underestimate evil.” In his innocence, Itzik was willingly using his great strength to aid the Nazis. Yechiel did not have the older rabbi’s faith that the Jews had the strength of stones, but Yechiel knew that he could not refuse his newfound son. He had heard the Jewish mother’s cry; no true parent possesses a heart of stone.
“I promise!” Yechiel answered.
“You do?” Itzik asked fearfully.
“Yes, we have the strengt
h of stones,” the new father declared; that was what Jewish children must believe.
“Captain Pizer says that—” Itzik began, but Yechiel cut him off gently. “Sh-h-h-h! We are stronger.”
CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE
INSIDE, THE TRAIN NO LONGER SEEMED A TOY TO Yechiel, but it didn’t seem as real as it should have. The loading, the sealing of the door, the crowding, the discomfort of surging forward, all were real, but somehow these acts seemed distanced from his sentient self; they possessed a dreamlike quality in which everything appeared to happen as in real life but flowed smoothly in the most paradoxical manner. Each action was slower, but the entire sequence faster than in real life. He both participated and observed, flowing along with a wondrous fatalism and calm.
Yechiel imagined that was what Zigelboym must have experienced as he left Warsaw, crossed Europe, and arrived in London. Poor Zigelboym, he had done what was correct, but in doing so, he had violated his Jewish worker’s soul. Not one soul of Israel! Yechiel was not Zigelboym’s brother; he had not earned that privilege. Rabbi Yehoshua Ben-Levi and the prophet Elijah were Comrade Artur’s brothers. And the rabbis and the mother who lay dead in the carriage behind them. The dead child lay in that car, too; the son Yechiel had never had. The mother had the courage Yechiel had lacked. Was her son’s kiss less sweet to her than Itzik’s was to him? No, it must have been even sweeter, and yet she was willing to separate to save her child. When the law decreed that she could not surrender one soul of Israel, shrieking in horror she obeyed. He died at her side.
Poor Itzik, taunted that Zloty or some other cat was his father, rejoiced to discover that his true father was not a cat but a termite. Yechiel the termite. But Yechiel felt at peace with being a termite. In a world filled with evil, there seemed worse fates. With the observer-participant dreamlike sensations, the ultimate irony didn’t amuse him. After a lifetime of indecisively avoiding commitments, he had made the most fundamental and gravest decision imaginable when he was certain that he was doing the wrong thing. After a lifetime of too many choices, he had no choice. He had been so decisive only once before, when he had left Krimsk; and now this second decision had returned him irrevocably to the very same Krimsk.
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