Russka (126 page)

The Jews lived mostly in towns or in their own villages – the traditional, tightly knit
shtetl
communities. They usually spoke Yiddish amongst themselves. Some were craftsmen or traders; many were poor, and partly supported by their fellows. But there were also those who, like Rosa’s grandfather, went to live in ordinary country villages to farm the land.

But still they were not conformist: something had to be done about that. And the solution of successive tsarist governments was always the same: ‘Let them convert.’

It was a steady pressure that the regime applied, over decades. Jews paid extra taxes; their own system of community government – the
kahal
– was made illegal; their representation in local elections, limited by unfair quotas. More subtly, they were allowed into the school system, then encouraged to convert; less subtly, they were recruited into the army, then beaten if they didn’t. Conversion was enough. Though some people might be suspicious of one whose ancestry was Jewish, as far as the state was concerned, once the Jew had converted to Orthodoxy, he was a good Russian.

This policy met with some success: numbers of Jews did convert. More important, a gradual process of assimilation had begun, for amongst the younger generation there had arisen a liberal movement, the
Haskalah
, which argued that Jews should
participate more actively in gentile society. Rosa’s eldest brother, who was married and lived in Kiev, had told her all about it. ‘If Jews are going to get anywhere in the Russian Empire, then we should go to Russian schools and universities. We have to take part. That doesn’t stop us being Jews.’ But her father was very suspicious. Though he did not take the view of many strict Jews, who isolated themselves as far as possible from the gentile world, he frowned on the
Haskalah
. ‘It’s the first step down the slippery slope,’ he would say firmly. ‘First you put secular learning on an equal footing with religious education. In no time, the world comes first, religion second. Then you forget even your religion. And at last you have nothing.’ Rosa knew there was truth in this: she had heard of a number of these liberals turning into little better than atheists. So while Rosa’s family kept on good terms with their Ukrainian neighbours, they always observed their religion strictly with the other Jewish families in the area. Both Rosa’s brothers received a religious education, the elder reaching the highest rung, the
Yeshiva
; and her father had even hoped the young man might become a religious teacher.

There was one exception to her father’s strict rule, however, for which Rosa thanked God. ‘Studying music in Russian schools is different,’ he had always said. That did not compromise one’s faith. It was the best way for a Jew to advance in Russia.

They will not come here
. Why should they? The village was such an out-of-the-way little place. Besides, they had done nothing wrong.

Of course, she knew there had always been bad feeling between her people and the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians remembered the Jews as the agents of the Polish landlords. They also usually lived in towns instead of in the country – they were foreign heretics. To the Jews, on the other hand, the Ukrainians were not only gentiles – the despised
goyim
– they were also, mostly, illiterate peasants. Yet even so, they might have lived at peace but for one thing: their relative numbers.

Perhaps it was the Jewish tradition of having large families; perhaps their communal self-help saved children’s lives; perhaps their respect for learning led them to pay more scientific attention to hygiene or make more use of doctors: whatever the reason, it was a fact that in the Ukraine in the last sixty years, while the general population had risen by a factor of about two and a half
times, the number of Jews had risen by a factor of over eight times. And the cry was beginning to be heard: ‘These Jews will take our work and ruin us all.’

It was that year that the trouble had begun. No one could say exactly what started it. ‘When people get angry,’ her father had told Rosa, ‘almost anything can set them off.’ But whatever the true causes might be, it was in the year that the Tsar was assassinated that, all over the south, a series of disturbances began which made the world familiar with a grim and ugly word.

The pogrom.

Surely not here though? Not in the quiet village at the border of forest and steppe. With this thought in mind, Rosa turned to go home.

People were moving about in the village as she retraced her steps, but the place was still quiet. A cloudbank had arisen in the west and its shadow was advancing towards her. There was a faint chill now in the breeze.

She was halfway down the street when she noticed the little group. It was nothing much: just two women, both neighbours, and three men who looked like strangers, standing in the street in front of her house. From a distance, they seemed to be arguing. She saw two more villagers, both men, going to join them. A few moments later, she saw her father come out.

He was dressed in a long black coat and had put on his round, wide-brimmed black hat. The ringlets that hung down the side of his face were black but his handsome beard was grey. She saw him wag his finger at them severely. He’s telling them off, she thought with a smile.

And then she heard it: a single shout that echoed down the street, and that suddenly made her cold.

‘Kike!’

She started to run.

They were already jostling her father by the time she reached him. One of the men knocked his hat off; another spat on the ground. The two village men made a half-hearted attempt to restrain them but then they drew back, though why they should be afraid of three strangers Rosa could not think – until, a moment later, she glanced again down the street, and saw the reason.

There were six carts. They had just crossed the little bridge
over the river; and riding in them, or walking beside, came about fifty men. Some of them were carrying clubs; a few looked drunk.

Rosa looked at her father. He was picking up his hat, with what dignity he could, while the three men watched him. He was fifty years old, rather delicately built with a fine, thin face and large eyes like hers. Instinctively she wanted to take his hand for comfort, then she realized with a shock that the poor man was as frightened as she was. What should they do? Retreat to the house? Two of the men were moving round to block their way. The party down the street was getting close. Behind her, Rosa now saw her mother coming out to join them; though her husband waved her back, she took no notice. If only her brothers were with them, Rosa thought, but they were both away in Kiev that month. Helplessly, she and her parents stood there, waiting.

When the men arrived, they formed a circle round the little family. Rosa looked at their faces. Some looked hard, others wore a look of foolish triumph. For a moment nobody spoke. Then her father broke the silence.

‘What do you want?’

It was not immediately clear whether the party had a leader, but one of them, a huge peasant with a brown beard, now answered.

‘Nothing much, Jew. We’re just going to burn your house down.’

‘And give him a thrashing,’ another cried.

‘That too,’ remarked the first, to laughter.

Rosa could see that her father was shaking, but trying to appear calm. ‘And what have I done to you?’ he asked.

This was greeted with a chorus of derision. ‘Plenty!’ several cried out. ‘What have you done to Russia, Yid?’ called another. ‘Damned Jewish profiteers,’ screamed a third. ‘Usurers!’ But it was another cry, coming from somewhere at the back of the crowd, that really startled Rosa and made her turn pale.

‘Who drinks the blood of children?’ the voice shouted. ‘Tell us that!’

She had heard about this terrible accusation before. ‘Once,’ her father had told her, ‘long ago, foolish people used to accuse the Jews of the strangest things. They even said we killed Christian children and drank their blood.’ This was the infamous Blood Accusation of the Middle Ages. ‘Simple people actually thought it
was true,’ he had said with a sigh. How strange, and how terrifying, to hear it echoed now.

Yet it was another voice which, in a way, surprised her even more. For now, suddenly from the back of the crowd, a little old man with a completely bald head and a white beard pushed his way through and, pointing to Rosa’s father, bellowed: ‘You can’t fool us, Jew. We know what you are. You’re a foreign traitor – a Tsar killer. You’re a revolutionary!’ To which, to Rosa’s amazement, there was a roar of agreement.

How strange it was, indeed. For whatever her poor father might have been accused of, this, surely, was the most unlikely.

She knew about the Jewish revolutionaries. Some years before, it was true, a few radical students from Jewish families had joined the movement which, in the famous Going to the People of 1874, had tried to take revolution to the peasants in the countryside. These were the most radical of the Jews who had chosen to assimilate into Russian secular life. Indeed, in a double irony, many – not out of religious conviction but in order to feel closer to the peasants they wanted to influence – had actually converted to the Orthodox Church. These young people were exactly the ones Rosa’s father, and most conservative Jews, hated most. Their example, her father had warned his children, was exactly what became of those who strayed into the world and lost their religion. As for the Tsar: ‘We should always obey the law and support the Tsar,’ her father would declare. ‘He is still our best hope.’ And indeed, until the terrible assassination, the reforming Tsar had relaxed some of the restrictions on the Jews in his empire. The vast majority of Jews at this date were therefore conservative and tsarist; but one cannot argue with a mob.

For the men surrounding them had already burned down some Jewish houses in Pereiaslav the week before and now they were travelling round the local villages looking for more fun.

‘Time to get started,’ someone cried. There was laughter. The huge man with the brown beard, accompanied by the little old man, stepped towards Rosa’s father as she looked around desperately. She wanted to scream.

And it was just then that, twenty yards away, the stout cart bearing the massive form of Taras Karpenko and his son creaked into the street, and the two Cossacks caught sight of them.

‘Thank God,’ Rosa heard her mother whisper. ‘He can save us.’

The big Cossack did not hurry. He drove his cart calmly towards them, and the men parted to let it through. With his flowing moustaches and his powerful frame, he was a commanding figure. When he reached the edge of the circle round the little family, he pulled up and glanced down enquiringly at the fellow with the brown beard. ‘Good day,’ he remarked pleasantly. ‘What’s up?’

The peasant looked at the Cossack and shrugged. ‘Nothing much. Just teaching this Jew a lesson.’

Karpenko nodded thoughtfully. ‘He’s not a bad fellow,’ he remarked placidly.

Thank God. Thank God indeed for the big, powerful farmer. Rosa looked up at him gratefully. He would send these men about their business. She was so relieved that, for a moment, she did not fully take in the conversation that followed.

‘He’s still a Jew,’ the peasant objected.

‘True.’ The thickset Cossack glanced round at the men. ‘What do you plan to do?’

‘Burn his house and thrash him.’

Karpenko nodded again and glanced a little sadly at Rosa’s father. Then he spoke to him.

‘I’m afraid, my friend, you’re going to have rather a rough time.’

What was he saying? Rosa stared at him in disbelief. What could he mean? Her father’s friend, the man whose children she had played Cossacks and Robbers with – wasn’t he going to help them? In astonishment she saw him take up the reins. He was turning the horse’s head – leaving them.

A mist seemed to form in front of her eyes; she felt suddenly nauseous; and before her a great, cold gulf – something she had never imagined was there – seemed to be opening wide: wide as an ocean.

He was on the side of these men
.

‘Father!’ It was young Ivan. Rosa blinked through the haze of her tears and stared up at him. The boy was white, trembling; he was standing up in the cart. How slim, almost frail, he looked, yet so tense, so passionate that he seemed to radiate an extraordinary strength. He was looking down at the heavyset Cossack. ‘Father! We can’t.’

And Taras stopped the cart.

Slowly, rather unwillingly, Karpenko turned to the big peasant with the brown beard. ‘They come with us,’ he said gruffly.

‘There are fifty of us, Cossack,’ cried the little old man. ‘You can do nothing.’

But Taras Karpenko, though he glanced round at the crowd, only shook his head. Then turning to the big peasant again he explained, a little sheepishly: ‘I owe this Jew a personal favour.’ He motioned Rosa and her parents to climb into the cart.

‘Call yourself a Cossack? Jew lover! We’ll come and burn your farm down too,’ shouted the old man. But nobody stopped the Abramovichs from getting into the cart.

‘I’m afraid your house will be burned down,’ Karpenko said in a matter-of-fact way to Rosa’s father. But I’ve saved you a thrashing.’ Then he flicked the reins and the cart started slowly down the street.

As they went out of the village, Rosa stared back. The men were busy smashing the windows of her house. She saw the old man going inside with a lighted torch. They are going to burn my piano, she thought: the piano her father had saved a whole year to buy for her. She looked at him. He was sitting in the cart, shaking. There were tears in his eyes, and her mother’s arms were round him. Rosa had never seen her father cry before and she supposed it was not possible to love anyone more than, at that moment, she loved him.

Then her thoughts turned back to the Karpenkos. Ivan had saved them. As long as she lived, she told herself, she would never forget that.

But she would also remember his father, their friend. He would have left them. And she thought of something else her father had once told her: ‘Remember, Rosa, if you are a Jew, you can never trust. Not completely.’ She would remember.