NINE
REUVEN HAD no notion of time. It could have been hours since his sister’s murder, or days, or maybe just minutes. It was as if he had been wrapped in an all-enveloping numbness. He felt neither cold nor hunger nor loss nor outrage nor despair. He could not cry, but he was suddenly aware of a little cry coming from someone else, a whimpering that seemed to scratch at the numbness of the chamber that sealed him off from all feeling. He blinked. The light that fell through the slot was not lamplight, but natural light from a window. An entire night must have passed. It was a new day. The whimpering sound pulled him inexorably toward it.
Like a fish pulled from the sea, Reuven felt himself being reeled out of his hole. He was beyond fear; he was beyond hope. For the first time in a week he stood up to his full height in the light of day. Something lay on the floor twisted and caked with blood. This is not Shriprinka. The words thundered in his head. No, not his sister! He refused to believe that. He could not touch her. If he touched her, he would have to believe. But he could not leave her like this. He took a tapestry that Uncle Chizor had given them. It had been torn off the wall, and he now spread it over Shriprinka’s body.
No sooner had he done that then there was the whimpering sound again, then a cry. A loud insistent cry. Where was that coming from? Everything was turned topsy-turvy. Tables upended, bed mattresses ripped open. His mother’s sewing machine lay smashed in the fireplace, and the big wardrobe that his father had taken the door off and built a few shelves in for their few books and dishes was facedown on the floor. This was where the whimpering was coming from.
Reuven stood and looked down at the back side of the wardrobe. Another cry.
“Rachel?”
This must be the miracle, Reuven thought as he lifted the heavy wardrobe and discovered Rachel in her crib. She raised her arms to Reuven. Her face was smeared with tears and snot. But she was alive! The huge crash he had heard the night before had been the wardrobe falling over. Falling over so precisely it had simply dropped like an enormous box over Rachel’s small crib, sealing her off from the violence of the slaughter. And it had been a slaughter. Shriprinka was dead. He could see the bodies of his father and mother through the doorway of the cottage, for there was no longer a door. It had been torn off. Beyond them, other bodies lay in the street. Several houses had been burned to the ground. By some miracle, theirs had been spared, or else he and Rachel would have never found themselves alive on this morning, the last day of Hanukkah.
Rachel was remarkably well, considering that she had spent the last fourteen hours in a coffinlike box. The sleeping draught they had given her must have worked very well. She was hungry and she was frightened. Her little mouth stretched into an enormous, lopsided, dark O as she howled for her mama. It was a din of rage, and her eyes seemed to slide with terror. Then she looked at her brother as if to say, Fix this. I am the baby! Just a baby. Feed me! And Reuven realized that it was all up to him now. Her life depended on him. Him alone. There was no one to help them. There were only people out there who could kill them.
And then it suddenly struck Reuven that it was very possible that he and Rachel were the only living things left in Berischeva. He had not heard a dog bark, a horse whinny, a chicken cluck. He had not heard the voices of any humans. He had not even heard a footstep in the street. The stillness began to creep into him, settle in him like mist. The Cossacks were gone and everybody else was dead. This he knew. Therefore, at this moment he and Rachel were in no immediate danger, but he had to make plans. Careful small plans. He could proceed only step by step. His first problem was how to prevent Rachel from seeing the dead bodies of their parents and Shriprinka. This made burying them impossible. He knew it was terrible to leave them like this, but what choice did he have? His duty was to the living, his little sister.
Then the first step of a small plan took shape in his brain. He and Rachel would leave by the back door. But they could not leave in the light of day, could they? The Cossacks might be just outside the village. And yet if they waited here, Rachel might discover Shriprinka under the tapestry or run out the front door. She was already squirming in his lap. They would have to leave now. He would just have to be very careful. He sat staring at one of the immense woven baskets that his father used for transporting grain to the miller. It gave him an idea. Rachel could easily fit into the basket. If he strapped it to his back and then wrapped his head up with scarves and wore a skirt of his mother’s—there was one flung over in a corner—from a distance, he might look like one of the old Russian peasant women going to market. Anything was better than looking like what he was—a nearly sixteen-year-old Jewish boy, muscular and fit for the tsar’s army.
Reuven told Rachel to sit very still, that he was going to show her something funny. He had managed to find her a hunk of cheese and some bread, which seemed to satisfy her for now. He went and put on his mother’s skirt. Rachel looked at him curiously, her face slipping to an expression halfway between a laugh and a cry. Next he found some of his mother’s scarves and wrapped them around his head just like the babushkas the Russia peasant women wore. Rachel pointed. The corners of her mouth crinkled into a tentative smile.
“Yes, aren’t I funny? You can call me Miriam, or Tovah, or …” Another odd expression seemed to play across her face. She’s trying to figure this out, Reuven thought.
“Mama!” Rachel pointed her finger again and giggled a bit.
“Yes, Mama.” Reuven whispered the words so softly only he could hear them.
“Mama!” It began as a whimper, a plea. But then her face slid into that awful grimace. The little mouth began to stretch into the dark hole that seemed to blot out her features. It was almost as if she were swallowing herself.
“Mama! Mama!”
The entire house seemed to shake with the single word. Now Rachel was standing up and stomping her little feet. Her face, turning red, was contorted into a horrid mask. Suddenly it was illuminated by a shaft of brilliant sunlight that flooded through the two small windows of the house. God, she looked like a baby dybbuk. It was as if a tiny evil spirit had taken her over. He had to get her out of here. She was toddling toward the doorway. Reuven lunged for her as she began to run off. In one swoop he put her in the big basket and slung it up onto his back. Now Rachel whooped with glee. This was the greatest fun! Whoever heard of riding in Papa’s wheat basket?
They were out the door, through the muddy backyard. One large open field to cross and then they would be at the edge of the woods. They could lose themselves in the dense shadows of the trees. There they would wait until dark, when it would be safer to travel.
As soon as they had gotten beyond the village, somehow Rachel had sensed that her mama and papa were gone. Carrying her on his back, Reuven could almost feel her stiffen through the basket. A cry so wrenching and so enormous came from her that it stunned Reuven. He could hardly believe that a body so small could make such a sound. She cried and cried and cried and then, finally exhausted, she fell asleep in the basket.
It grew colder as the afternoon wore on. Rachel awoke and began to squirm in the basket. He knew he had to get into the woods and build a fire to warm them. Reuven had remembered to throw the rest of the bread and cheese into the basket with Rachel, along with a box of matches, but he had forgotten diapers. This thought first struck him as he lifted Rachel from the basket in the woods and set her down by the stream where they had come to rest.
“Phew! Rachel! You stink.”
Rachel giggled. The giggle startled Reuven. It was a relief. Had she momentarily forgotten this sudden rearrangement of her world? Had the gaping hole somehow closed? This gave Reuven an idea. Perhaps he could make her believe that they were on some wonderful, funny adventure. Yes, a funny game where he dressed up like a little old lady and she rode in a grain basket. The problem was that this little old lady didn’t know the first thing about changing a diaper, even if “she” had had a fresh one. He supposed he could spare one of the scarves from his b
abushka if it were absolutely necessary.
Two seconds later he decided it was absolutely necessary.
“Come here, Rachel. We’ve got to change your diaper.”
Somehow, Reuven managed to do this. He tried to tie the nappy knots the way they had been. He took the dirty nappy and rinsed it in the stream. He cleaned Rachel’s dirty bottom with snow, which made her squeal but not really cry.
Darkness on this short December day had begun to fall by midafternoon. In another hour it would be safe for them to travel, but where would they be going? All the way to Vilna, he supposed. But that would take days. It was maybe one hundred miles from their little village in the Pale. Hadn’t Reuven heard somewhere that there was a priest in Posva who befriended Jews? Posva was not that far. Maybe two or three days’ travel from where they were. And once in Posva, maybe another two days to Vilna.
What choice did they have?
The stubble of the fields turned to gold in the last rays of the setting sun. Crouched in the shadows of the woods, Reuven and Rachel looked across the field to Berischeva. Some of the houses were still smoldering, and curls of smoke and ash rose in the air hanging over the village like a dark calligraphy. He could actually pick out the chimney of their house, the house where his mother and father and older sister lay dead. The setting sun seemed to break on the horizon like a bloodied egg. The sky flared, and it began to snow lightly. The flakes came down slowly, each spinning in a dance of its own making against the blood-streaked orange of the sky.
The snowflakes seemed to grow larger, move more slowly, and it was almost as if he could see their intricate crystal pattern, white and beautiful against the fiery red sky. He had seen their bloodied bodies, but it was only now that Reuven finally realized that he would never see his parents and older sister again. Minyans, gatherings of at least ten men, were required for prayers of mourning. There was only himself and Rachel, but Reuven’s lips began to move around the barely whispered words of a Jewish prayer.
“In the flight of a bird, we shall remember them. In the stirring of a leaf, we shall remember them. In the first blades of grass after a long winter, we shall remember them. In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we shall remember them… . As long as we live they too shall live for now they are a part of us, as we remember them.”
His eyes streamed with tears, and even though the Cossack had walked off with his violin, it seemed as though some ineffable part of the instrument had been left behind. With it came the ghosts of the Cerutis, the violin makers from Cremona. They were his minyan. The soul of the violin rested now somewhere deep within him. It had joined with his own soul to help him chant these prayers of loss and grief for his mother and father and Shriprinka and yes, for Herschel and Reb Itchel, for they undoubtedly lay dead as well. But then the darkness seeped over the land and it was time to leave. The crooked old lady with her huge bundle dissolved into the snowy night.
TEN
THE COALS in the brazier glowed as bright as oranges. The priest urged them to move closer.
“But not too close, for the baby. Babies’ skin is so much more delicate than ours,” he said.
The priest stroked Rachel’s cheek and then patted his own, which was plump and smooth. Reuven thought his skin looked very delicate, for a grown-up.
They had arrived at the priest’s house a few hours before, in the late afternoon. It had taken them a day longer to get to Posva than he had anticipated, and by the time they got there they were cold and very hungry. But at least Rachel’s earache had gone away. In the three days they had been on the road, they had seen half a dozen villages like Berischeva that had been destroyed by the tsar’s troops. Their bread and cheese had given out a day and a half earlier. They had passed an orchard, and by digging in the deep snowdrifts, they had collected some old withered apples from beneath the trees. Even the worms had deserted these apples, and not much fruit was left, but Reuven and Rachel ate them anyway.
Now they had already been fed a bowl of cabbage soup and bread with pickled herring, in front of the fire. Reuven knew that they must be careful. After eating so little over the past few days, they could make themselves sick. But the food kept coming. The priest sipped a cherry liquor that he said aided his digestion, and from the looks of what the servant was setting on the table, he would need it. A roast chicken and rolled veal breast stuffed with vegetables, steaming pots of potatoes, and a fish fillet baked in a clear jelly.
“Are we almost ready, Bozieka?” the priest asked.
The servant, a corpulent lady with a face the color of raw meat and glistening with perspiration, nodded and made a grunting sound as she set down the last bowl.
“Come, children,” he said.
Reuven took Rachel’s hand and followed the priest to the table. It was spread with a delicately embroidered cloth, gleaming silver bowls, and platters laden with food. Rachel’s eyes were wide with wonder. Reuven could not help but think it was a lot better business being a priest than a rabbi. He had never seen a rabbi’s table so laden.
The priest poured them a bit of wine in their cups. Reuven did not really want wine, but he felt it would be impolite to refuse. The priest was already raising his glass.
“A toast to our guests, Bozieka,” he said.
Bozieka had no glass, but her lips moved in a tight little smile. Her mouth was very small for her large face and it gave the appearance of having been stitched on like that of a rag doll. If she smiles too much, the stitches might rip, Reuven thought. Her eyes were pale, and Reuven could not tell if they were brown or gray or perhaps green. They seemed diluted like weak tea. She had no eyebrows but had drawn two highly arched curves above her eyes with a black pencil.
The priest bowed his head to give a blessing. Reuven did as well.
When he was finished, the priest looked up. “So you say Berischeva is ruined?”
“Yes, sir, and so is Ru’ov and Pecorchova and …” Reuven’s voice dwindled off.
“You speak good Russian. Where did you learn?”
“There is an academy”—Reuven paused—“or there was an academy in my village. Small, but one teacher came from St. Petersburg and another came from Moscow. So we learned Russian.”
“Now tell me once more … where are you heading?”
Reuven had not told him the first time. For some reason he did not want to say exactly where he was going. If the soldiers came to question the priest, it could be dangerous for him. For the priest’s own sake it might be better if he did not know.
“We are to join relatives.”
“And where might these relatives be?”
“Grodno.”
Reuven didn’t know why he had said Grodno so quickly. It was as if his tongue was not his own for a brief instant.
“Ah, Grodno. Yes, there are many Jews in Grodno. They have it a bit easier, I think. Here, have some more beets. Bozieka is the master beet pickler, or should I say the mistress of beet pickling.” He looked at the servant, who stood by at attention.
“The baby doesn’t eat much,” Bozieka said.
“Oh, you must realize that it is hard for us to eat a lot after eating so little. It is better for us to go a bit easy,” Reuven replied. Rachel was playing with a bean on her plate. Bozieka sniffed. Reuven was not sure if it was a sniff of disapproval or agreement.
“Ah, but you must save a little room for Bozieka’s pastries. They are superb,” said the priest.
A few minutes later, Bozieka brought in a tray of pastries. There were tiny frosted cakes and sugared nuts and little cream-filled tarts. Reuven noticed a small tail of cream in the corner of Bozieka’s mouth. She must have eaten one in the kitchen. The priest was piling their plates with samples of each. There was no way he could eat this, and he prayed that Rachel, who was pointing excitedly at the fancifully glazed cakes, would take one bite and be satisfied.
“Aah, my little pumpkin, you like those pretty cakes,” said the priest. “Here, have two.”
Reuven su
ddenly wanted to get away from the table. He yawned, which he knew was rude, but perhaps this would be a hint.
“You are both tired. Do you want to take a pot of tea up to bed along with some of these cakes?” asked the priest.
“Oh that is very kind of you, sir,” said Reuven.
“And when you leave tomorrow, we shall have a packet of food for that big basket of yours. It will fit with you, won’t it?” He reached over and gave Rachel’s cheek a playful pinch. Rachel tucked her chin down into her collar.
“Bozieka, show the children to their bedchamber. And oh, don’t forget the plate of cookies and cakes.”
They followed Bozieka up a narrow creaky staircase to a small room in a gable just under the eaves of the house. There was a window in the gable that framed the town clock, which chimed very loudly for a full minute every hour on the hour. The bed was plump with a fresh puffy white cover filled with goose down and big square pillows.
“Fresh diapers,” Bozieka said, pointing to a stack of neatly folded cloths.
“Oh, that is so nice of you. Thank you so much,” Reuven said, nodding and even giving a little bit of a bow. The small mouth ripped a few stitches in a slightly bigger smile. “And where, may I ask, is our basket?”
“In the kitchen. I have filled it with food already for tomorrow.”
Broken Song Page 5
