A Day of Small Beginnings (52 page)

Marek patted her knee again. “Good, because now we are in the beautiful Malٯpolska Uplands, where a person should love nature
and not worry about monstrously religious people.”

She grinned, knowing he was trying to bring them back to common ground. “Okay, Mr. Tourist Guide, tell me all about the beautiful
Małpolska Uplands.”

“First, some Bruce Springsteen,” he said, pulling out a cassette tape.

Ellen loved the sheer absurdity of hearing “Born in the USA” burst from the clanky little Fiat’s speakers in the middle of
Poland. They sang along, laughing that neither could make out the words for half the stanzas.

Not long after, they crossed the plain of fallow summer fields and arrived in Zokof. Seeing it again, Ellen was almost sorry
at having brought Marek to this shoddy little place.

It was nearly noon, and people were out shopping. On the street that led to the main square, Marek braked for a group of boys
kicking around a soccer ball. The bell tower chimed from the onion-domed church. The air was filled with the sweet smell of
cut grass. Ellen breathed it in and realized she would have been disappointed if it hadn’t been there to greet her return.

At the now familiar curved narrow lane that led to Rafael’s house, the breeze blew gently through the open car windows and
mussed their hair. That Freidl was somehow with them at that moment comforted Ellen and even made her smile. “Marek, turn
here,” she said.

They approached Rafael’s house. “There he is!” she shouted.

Rafael, in his broad brimmed black hat and his gabardine, emerged from the door and stood waiting for them.

“How did he know we were here?” Marek asked.

Ellen flicked a lock of Marek’s hair into place and prepared herself to make the introductions. “I don’t know,” she said.
They parked in front of the house.

Rafael stepped down to the street as Ellen jumped out to greet him. Without thinking, she hooked her arm in his.

“She came to me last night!” he said, looking down at his arm.

“She came to me the night before.” Suddenly realizing his embarrassment at her touch, she turned hastily to Marek, who was
standing by the driver’s side of the car, looking quizzically at the two of them. “Rafael Bergson,” Ellen said, dropping her
hands to her sides, “this is my friend Marek Gruberski.”

Marek offered a friendly wave.

Rafael acknowledged him with a nod. “So this is the one she talks about.”

Marek smiled hopefully. “I hope she speaks well of me.”

It was clear to Ellen that Rafael had referred to Freidl, not to her, but she said nothing, hoping to forestall further mention
of Freidl until the two men had gotten to know each other better.

Fortunately, they were all distracted by the arrival of a man walking a dog with a rope for a leash. The man stopped a few
yards from the car and stared at the three of them. He seemed particularly interested in the bouquet of flowers Marek had
taken from the car. When it became apparent that Rafael did not intend to introduce the young strangers, the man pulled at
the tip of his cap, offered a muffled greeting to Rafael, and moved on.

“Now the whole town will be talking,” Rafael muttered. “Come inside.”

They unloaded the food from the car and carried it into the house. “It’s all kosher,” Ellen assured Rafael. The house was
hot, and the smell of dirt and sweat hung in the humid air. She took the flowers from Marek, glad for their fresh fragrance.

Rafael glanced at the grocery bags. “So much kosher food I did not know we had in all of Poland,” he said. “Am I such a
fresser?
”

Marek smiled, but Ellen could see he didn’t understand.

“A fresser’s someone who eats a lot,” she explained on her way to the kitchen for a flower vase. “I learned that from my grandmother.
To her, it was a compliment. But trust me, Rafael’s no fresser.” She gave him a look of mock disapproval.

Marek laughed. “My grandmother is the same! Always trying to feed.”

Rafael showed them how to stock the kitchen shelves. It seemed to Ellen that Marek knew his way around this kind of rough
kitchen, with its porcelain-tiled stove, its dented enamel pans, the coal bucket, and worn linoleum floor. It occurred to
her that the two men knew a daily way of life that was completely foreign to her.

They all sat down at the round table at the end of the main room. Ellen pointed out the Jewish paper cutouts, and Marek admired
them. He mentioned the paper-cutting workshop being held at the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków. Rafael acknowledged that
he had heard of the festival. But beneath this politeness Ellen sensed some tension.

“I’m very honored to meet you Pan Bergson. Perhaps Ellen has told you I play Jewish music,” Marek said, as if he felt obligated
to justify his presence. “I’m especially interested in the music from this region. I wonder if you could tell me why there
is more Jewish music from here than from most other regions of Poland.”

Ellen almost did not recognize this earnest musicological researcher. She had expected Marek to simply ask if Rafael knew
the “For-a-GirlTune” or to question him about the tunes he’d heard in his dream.

Rafael gave Marek an indulgent look. “The reason for the music, Gruberski, is God. This is music from God, music to God.”
He was frowning, but his tone was like a teacher’s. “You young people like the tunes because they are lively. But for us,
these are prayers. They free the human soul from bondage.” He stroked his beard, assessing Marek’s reaction.

Marek nodded but remained respectfully silent. Ellen wondered if he would have the nerve to say to Rafael that he, a Pole,
also heard prayers in Jewish music. She wondered how Rafael knew that young people liked the tunes and which young people
he meant. Most of all, she hoped Rafael would not dismiss Marek as someone whose interest did not matter, like the Jewish
boy Kopelman who had not mattered at Marek’s school.

Rafael squinted. “You ask, why so many tunes from this area? I’ll tell you, Gruberski, how it was. Before the war, the streets
in our town were twisted as a
yeshiva bucher
’s argument.” He raised his crooked, arthritic fingers. “You know what a yeshiva bucher is?” he asked testily.

“A student?”

Ellen wondered how Marek knew.

“In such streets as ours, melodies made echoes.” Rafael cupped his hands and held them out for Marek to see. “We lived and
prayed like in a musical nest.” Almost imperceptibly, he pushed out his chin, suggesting a challenge.

“Are you saying the reason for the music is architectural?” Marek asked tentatively.

“The reason for the music, Gruberski, is God.”

There was silence in the room. It occurred to Ellen that a non-Jew’s interest in Jewish culture was so inconceivable to Rafael
that he regarded it merely as Marek’s attempt to ingratiate himself.

Marek wiped his perspiring forehead and looked at a loss as to how to proceed. Ellen was about to come to his rescue when
Rafael added, “You have heard of Rebbe Israel, son of Rebbe Samuel-Elie,
alev ha sholem?
”

“I have heard of Rebbe Israel,” Marek said.

Ellen hadn’t counted on Marek really having that much expertise, and she was pleased.

“They said Rebbe Israel wrote more melodies than King David.” He bent toward Marek. “You know also of Aaron Birnbaum? Less
famous, but maybe more talented.”

The hair stood up on the back of Ellen’s damp neck, sending charges up and down her back.

Marek looked dejected, as if he sensed things were not going well between him and Rafael. “I do not know him.”

“Aaron Birnbaum wrote the ‘For-a-GirlTune’ Ellen said quietly. “And probably the others you heard.”

Marek turned to her in surprise. “How do you know this?”

“There was a woman named Freidl. She was from this town. He sang those tunes to her.” The explanation seemed so inadequate,
she added, “Because he loved her.”

Marek smiled, apparently mistaking this for flirtation. “If I could hear some of Aaron Birnbaum’s tunes, I would be very grateful,”
he told Rafael. “My group would be very interested to learn them, even if only for their liveliness.”

Ellen realized he was delicately trying to make the point that he was interested in the music in a serious way, but Rafael
would not go along. He seemed suddenly annoyed. “If you want to learn, then listen for them,” he said flatly. “They are still
here, underneath.”

Marek looked at Ellen uneasily, but she didn’t know what, or how much more, she should say about the music, or Freidl, or
why Rafael had reacted as he had. “Why don’t we eat lunch?” she suggested. “Then, Rafael, could we go to the cemetery?”

“Of course we will go to the cemetery,” Rafael said evenly.

“Maybe you’d like to rest first?” Ellen asked him.

Rafael rose and began to set out the dishes for lunch. “Rest? Rest is for the dead.” He winked at her.

40

I
T WAS EARLY AFTERNOON WHEN THEY LEFT THE HOUSE AND
drove through town to the cemetery. Ellen had climbed into the Fiat’s backseat. Rafael sat up front. “Slow. Slow,” he scolded
Marek.

Through the streets and narrow lanes, people watched them with the studied, impassive expressions that Ellen had at first
excused as curiosity, but now regarded as hostility. They recognized her Jewish face, she thought, and she blushed. What bothered
her was not only that people chose to look at her as a Jew, but that it mattered to them. She wanted to know what satisfaction
they got from playing this game of
Us versus You.
She looked at Marek. She wanted to ask him what the Zokofers might be thinking, but she didn’t want to embarrass him in front
of Rafael.

“I will show you first where was Avrum Kollek’s mill,” Rafael said. “Your grandfather told you about Avrum Kollek?”

Marek glanced at her expectantly.

“No,” she said. “Who was he?”

Rafael dismissed her question with a grunt. “Your grandfather worked in Avrum Kollek’s mill. On the night the peasant Jan
Nowak died, he went from the cemetery to Avrum Kollek. He had a daughter, Shuli. A gorgeous girl, everyone said. And she had
eyes for Itzik. She heard everything Itzik told her father. She was there when Avrum left to ask the Russian magistrate to
protect the people.” He shook his head. “Ach! A waste of breath.”

Marek seemed about to ask him a question, but Rafael went on. “After, Shuli ran to Itzik’s mother’s house, to Sarah, to tell
him to leave Zokof. A brave girl to do that, with what was going on in the town that night.”

Ellen listened to this, completely captivated by the thought of a gorgeous girl named Shuli having a crush on her grandfather.
Perhaps, she imagined, at fourteen her grandpa Isaac had that shy, reluctant quality that girls, herself included, found so
attractive. Perhaps this was what had hardened, in adulthood, into his well-known stubbornness.

“Later, a year after Avrum went to his death, alev ha sholem, she married a
gozlin
named Pinchas—a swindler, you understand? He married her for the mill, a business he didn’t know from.”

“What happened to Shuli?”

Rafael shrugged. “What happened? Your grandfather she must have taken for dead. When Pinchas blessed her with a son, she named
him Itzik.” He smiled slightly at Shuli’s mischief.

“Is she still alive?”

“
Ptuh!
She went to Treblinka, with a transport of Jews from Garbatka. Stop here,” he directed Marek. Ellen and Marek exchanged uncomfortable
looks. Rafael pointed to an opening between two small shacks set at odd angles to the street. “These were part of Avrum Kollek’s
mill that used to be here.”

Across the street, a squat elderly couple stared suspiciously at them. Ellen thought that the woman, in her kerchief, and
the man, in his tie and white shirt, looked much like the Polish couple she’d met on the Warsaw-Kraków train. But now the sight
of them made her angry, and she began a manic tirade in her head. She glared at them.
Where were you during the war? What did you do when they pulled the Jews out of their houses here? Did you take the food from
your neighbors’ tables? Did you steal the clothes they left drying on the lines?
Yet she knew that if she crossed the street, if she pressed them, with Marek translating, the old couple would talk about
how it was for them during the war. It would all be very civil and genial. They would tell her how terribly they’d suffered.
This would complicate her understanding of what did happen. This dual possibility so annoyed and frustrated her, she swung
her attention back to Avrum Kollek’s shacks.