The Accidental Anarchist (43 page)

Another relative pointed out that giving someone a material reward for a
mitzvah
diminished his or her reward in the World to Come.

I broke in to remind them I still didn’t have a clue as to who she was or where she lived.

Dvora said, “Why not ask her cousin?”

I exploded out of my chair. “What cousin?”

“She mentioned that she had come to Warsaw to visit a cousin named Golde, a wig-maker, who lived on Smocza, corner Gesia.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?”

Turning away, she said, “So who listens to a woman?”

Mordechai claimed not to have heard the girl say any such thing. But the rest of us, smelling a challenge, jumped up and clattered down the stairs, headed for Smocza.

Like any intersection, this one had a building on each corner, five stories each, two apartments per story, a total of forty apartments, not counting attics and cellars.

Smocza being that kind of a neighborhood, some of the people who answered my knock either mistook my intentions and closed the door in my face, or offered me a ready substitute – a hairdresser, a manicurist, even a dress-maker, although none were named Golde.

At the third house, a severe young housewife said, “I am a wig-maker, but my name is Guta, not Golde. Also I don’t touch men’s hair.”

Before she could shut the door on me, I hastily asked, “Do you have a cousin in Novy Dvor?”

“What has that to do with you?”

“Last year she did me a great kindness, and I want to thank her.”

“It took you a whole year to remember?”

“I was away. In Siberia.”

“For what?”

“For nothing. I was innocent. It’s not your business, anyway.”

She suddenly widened her eyes and leaned forward to stare at me in a better light. “Are you the young man in chains who was on his way to being shot?”

“That’s me!” I said, perhaps too proudly. “What is her name?”

Guta wrinkled her nose. “You couldn’t find a clean piece of paper to write on?”

“I was in jail.”

“She showed it to me, for my opinion. Did I think it was a joke? I told her it’s either a joke or written by a lunatic.”

“I am the lunatic! Now can you please tell me her name and where I can find her?”

“It would do you no good.”

“Why?” I had a sudden sense of fear I would learn, as I had twice in the recent past, that I was too late.

“Her father doesn’t let her meet just anyone.”

“All I want is to look at her face and say, ‘thank you’.”

“It starts with an innocent ‘thank you’, and who knows where it ends up?”

“And what if it does?”

“Take my word for it; you’re not the type he’s looking for.”

Before I could knock my head against the doorpost, Dvora smoothly intervened, “You are quite right. My brother will write her a nice letter. If you will kindly give us her name and address.”

With a suspicious glance in my direction, Guta said, “Her name is Bryna Migdal. I don’t know her address because I don’t need to; I recognize the house.”

I raced blindly down the unlit stairs, five at a time. Out in the street, I tried to hail a cab to the station. While I frantically waved my arms, as if that would make a cab suddenly appear, Dvora took my arm and dragged me back to her apartment so I could polish my boots and put on a clean shirt.

Somehow, Leibush already knew I was going to Novy Dvor, and before I reached Mordechai’s door, he was waiting there wearing a benign smile to let me know he was traveling with me, at his own expense.

“What for?”

“To handle the negotiations.”

“What negotiations?”

“Don’t be a child. You’re single, she’s single. Who knows what can happen? A look leads to a word. A word leads to another. If you don’t have someone to stand up for your interests, you’ll end up with nothing.”

“How do you know she’s single?”

“If not, I have two other girls for you in Novy Dvor. Twins. I already spoke to the father. . .”

Even as my brother politely escorted him out, Leibush assured me that, when I came back, he would surely have at least a “hopeful” decision for me from The Redhead in Łódź.

The train was marked Express, but its speed could not keep up with my racing heart.

Resting on my lap was a gift, heavily wrapped. I won’t tell you what it was or how much it cost, but it was not a pair of silver candlesticks.

To contain my impatience, I strode up and down the rattling corridors. This got me to my destination no more quickly, but got me there with tired feet.

I didn’t have my great-aunt, Hana-Tova’s, address, but my driver not only knew where she lived, but confided that she had the largest Jewish-owned store in Novy Dvor, employing as many as two shop-assistants at the same time.

Although I had not seen Hana-Tova since childhood, she remembered me at once. That is, she had heard that one of her nephews named Yakov had been, for some whimsical Czarist reason, sent to Siberia. And she was not only pleased to see me back, but also touched that I had traveled all this way to let her know.

Her next question was, “Are you married yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t had time.”

She did not consider this a serious answer. She was all the more intrigued when I explained that I had come to Novy Dvor to meet a particular girl.

“Who?”

“Bryna Migdal. Maybe you know her?”

She looked me up and down with what I took to be sympathy, if not pity. “How did you hear of her?”

“She saved me from being shot.”

My great-aunt nodded shrewdly, as if that were the most natural thing in the world for this particular girl to have done.

Elya, her husband, strolled in from the storeroom as our voices had awakened him. Hana-Tova introduced me as “Shloime-Zalman’s son, just back from Siberia.”

He shook my hand. “And what are you doing in Novy Dvor?”

“He wants to meet Bryna Migdal.”

My great-uncle sighed and patted my arm.

I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. What should be wrong?”

At dinner, I told them how this total stranger had, no doubt at some inconvenience, saved me from the firing squad. And that, indicating the parcel on their sideboard, I had come to express my thanks.

“Fine. I’ll have it sent over,” said Hana-Tova.

“Why can’t I give it to her myself?”

Uncle Elya sighed once more. “Don’t take this as anything personal, but her father, like any good
Hasid
, holds to certain standards for the sort of young man he will allow his daughter to meet.”

I kindly challenged my uncle to point out in what respects I fell short.

Both he and Hana-Tova assured me, with all possible delicacy, that it was not simply a matter of my fine English suit being of a color other than black, nor that the brief train ride from Warsaw had allowed me insufficient time to grow a beard. It was just that, through no fault of my own, I had spent some years in a world of lawless, violent men, shedders of blood, and probably was forced to do this-and-that and who-knows-what-else to stay alive. And while Elya could see that none of this had left its shadow on my soul, a man of such penetrating insight as Rabbi Migdal might, at the very least, regard me as a man who, begging my pardon, had seen something of life.

“And why should that be held against me?”

“No one is holding anything against you. It is just that Jews in Novy Dvor are serious people, and a young man cannot simply walk in off the street and hope to be introduced to a treasure like Bryna.”

Having nothing left to lose, I shifted to the offensive. “Then why is she not married, yet? Could it be there is something wrong with her?”

“Heaven forbid,” Hana-Tova said. But I didn’t fail to spot her anxious eye consulting with her husband. She finally confessed, “Since we know what kind of a family you come from, and I can see your interest is not frivolous, it would be only fair to mention one small blemish, at least in some peoples’ eyes, especially since she, herself, makes no secret of it.”

“Ah,” I said, but my heart quaked with apprehension.

“This girl, you understand, has been offered some of the finest matches in the country, brilliant scholars, eldest sons of
Hasidic
dynasties. Only. . .” She looked to her husband for permission to continue. Elya shrugged, resigned to having it come out. “The fact is, she has one indulgence. She reads secular books. Not only in Yiddish, but in Polish and Russian and I think even in German. What is more, she has let it be known that the man she marries can not dictate to her what she may or may not read.” Hana-Tova sadly shook her head. “Already any number of fine young men, hearing such a condition, have declined to meet her. But she will settle for nothing less.”

Throughout the meal, I brooded and schemed for some way to meet this elusive young lady. About the only thing that came to mind was to ask Hana-Tova to send one of her girls with a message to Bryna Migdal that she had just received a bolt of cloth that would go perfectly with her complexion. “And when she comes into the store, simply introduce me as a relative from Warsaw, and I will casually ask her advice on something to buy for my mother, which will indicate I am a serious person, and if the conversation goes well, then I might ask if I can buy her a coffee, and. . .”

Hana-Tova silenced me with an uneasy, “Yes, but what if she actually wants to buy the cloth?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I will have sold it to her on false pretense.”

I was ready to tear out my hair. But Uncle Elya was on my side. He reminded his wife that making matches is regarded as so urgent a Commandment that it is permitted even on
Shabbos
. She can also sell her the material at cost or give the profit to charity.

So Hana-Tova relented and sent off one of her shop-assistants while I, already burning with impatience, stood at the window and watched a rusty sun drown behind a horizon of chimneys and tiled roofs, in dread that night would fall too quickly and the girl whose presence I craved would choose to come tomorrow, a lifetime from now.

What seemed like hours later, the little bell on the door to my aunt’s store pealed and my aunt’s messenger sidled into the store, alone. My teeth cut into my lip with disappointment. She said nothing, so I blurted out, “What did she say?”

Ignoring my rude question, the salesgirl reported to Hana-Tova. Miss Migdal will come over, but not now. Then when? Later. How much later? When she has finished giving her father his dinner. I tried to master my impatience. A good daughter, after all, was apt to make a good wife.

Another half an hour crawled by. But suddenly time stopped. A graceful shadow was headed this way. Her face, as yet, was only a tantalizing blur. But the manner, demure but decisive, in which she placed one foot in front of the other was enough to stop my heart. In all my life, I remembered only one person I’d seen walk in this manner, and that had been outside the railroad station in Warsaw.

The blue flame of a streetlight stroked her cheek and I glimpsed, or maybe even recognized, a crown of rich dark hair, a perfect nose, and eyes dancing with zest.

I wanted to fling open the door and shout, “Please, walk a little faster.”

Only when she was about to enter the shop did I become aware of my oafish posture at the counter and forced myself to turn aside and look natural, even bored, like someone waiting for his order to be wrapped.

The little bell deafened my ears. My chest rumbled with apprehension. I was shocked to hear Hana-Tova greet this girl as casually as if she were some ordinary child from the street.

Smiling in anticipation, Bryna said, “What is this surprise you have for me?” Her velvety voice sent the blood thumping in my ears. Thankfully, up to this moment, she had taken no notice of my insolent stare.

“Oh, and my nephew just arrived from Warsaw. He brings regards from your cousin Guta.”

“Oh?”

I had to pretend that my shoulders were made of stone, which was how my head felt, in order to keep from turning toward her too quickly. But now that I faced her, what could I possibly say to this girl that would hold her attention for more than a second?

Just then, a customer lumbered in and demanded that my aunt wait on her in person.

It was up to me, alone. As King Solomon wrote, ‘Life and death lie in the power of the tongue.’ My future, and the future of my children and children’s children, hung in the balance. But not a word escaped my lips.

Seeing Hana-Tova occupied, the girl dismissed me with a nod and said, “Tell her I’ll stop in again tomorrow.”

I heard myself cry out, “Don’t go!”

This rated me only a look of mild curiosity.

“Do you remember, last year, in Warsaw, by the railroad station, a column of prisoners in chains? One of them dropped a letter, and you picked it up and delivered it to my brother. . .” All of which tumbled out of my mouth in less than one breath.