The Accidental Anarchist (8 page)

Suddenly, I wondered why I had ever have thought of wanting to die. I needed to hold on to hope that I would still find Avrohom alive. Who was to say that he wasn’t, at the same time, praying for his own death out of grief over my probable demise? Then the two of us would be complicit in unnecessarily causing great pain to our parents. That gave me strength to urge myself and the men forward.

Afraid to abandon ourselves to the deadly seduction of sleep, we plodded through a wilderness of hills and valleys choked with snow. The following day, we were briefly encouraged to find other lost soldiers, numb, half-dead, emaciated, and with blackened faces, who attached themselves to our little column. Not one of them said a word.

Toward nightfall, we gained the top of a hill and saw beneath us masses of Russian soldiers lying sprawled on the ground. It was a bivouac area where other refugees from the battle had assembled, waiting for someone to feed them, help them to write a few words to their families and, only if absolutely necessary, re-form them into battle-worthy units.

Drawing closer, I was startled to hear someone call my name. It was Berezin, a friend from my original platoon. We embraced each other, and I asked about our Jewish friends.

The news was mixed. Korotkin and Smelnikoff had been killed or captured in the last battle. Our strong man, Grabasz, was unharmed, but my friend Rosenberg, while in the hospital, had fallen into the hands of a “tailor” who had shortened one of his legs. And Krug had gotten a bullet through his eye and, by now, was probably dead.

I begged Berezin for some bread, which I shared with Glasnik and Pyotr, who suddenly burst into the most bloodcurdling oaths that he would be a friend of the Jews for the rest of his days. I was baffled by his passionate conversion. Glasnik’s
tefillin
and my piece of bread hardly seemed enough to induce such a miraculous transformation.

But late that night, as we sat huddled around a small fire, Pyotr, who had managed to wheedle a drink or two, came lurching over to us insisting that he owed us his life. In what way did he owe us his life? Because in the brutish,
Vanya
view of the universe, it was a miracle that Glasnik and I hadn’t murdered him or left him to die during our long trek back from our positions, though we had had countless opportunities to do so. And, in his superstitious mind, it was equally obvious that only the magical powers of Glasnik’s
tefillin
had somehow kept us from fulfilling our bloody intentions.

As proof that he no longer harbored any ill feeling toward us, he demanded to be allowed to kiss Glasnik’s
tefillin
once again. I braced myself for an eruption of drunken rage. Just as it looked as though blood were about to flow, Glasnik put a finger to his lips and, round-eyed with solemnity, explained that the
tefillin
were sleeping now.

Pyotr seemed to consider this and then nodded, sat down by the fire, and was soon snoring. Glasnik and I, strolling out of range, agreed it would be unwise ever to turn our backs on this man. His oaths might have sprung from a heart bursting with sincerity, but how far could one trust a man who remained convinced that only “magic” had kept us from doing to him what he would cheerfully have done to us?

Chapter 7. The Phantom Synagogue 

With our new regiment, we were loaded onto trains, overcrowded as before. After the Devil-only-knows how many days of such tourism, we awoke early one morning to find our train pounding into a city we were told was Harbin. A maimed soldier had once told me that Harbin, a Chinese city, had a sizable Russian colony, largely owing to the capital and enterprise of
Siberian Jews
. And while he had not seen it with his own eyes, he also thought there might be some kind of synagogue, established by either Russian or
Cathayan
Jews.

I was relieved to hear this because I had, for some time, been anxiously counting the days and, according to my calculations,
Yom Kippur
began that very evening. Harbin was the only place in all of China where I might yet have a chance to spend
Yom Kippur
in the midst of a congregation.

It was not altogether a matter of piety, on my part. After hearing some of the returning wounded tell of what went on at the front, I was not very optimistic about surviving the year to come. This made me doubly determined to be in a place of holiness tonight where I might plead, for my parents’ sake if not my own, to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life. Perhaps I also had a more selfish reason: if Avrohom was still alive, no power on earth would prevent him from attending, either.

No one knew whether our regiment would remain there for any length of time, or would be sent directly into another battle. Our lines were crumbling in the face of the Japanese advance and anything was possible. But I had made up my mind: if there was a synagogue in Harbin, nothing, not even the prospect of standing trial for desertion, would stop me from finding it tonight.

At the depot, I picked up the hopeful rumor that we were to spend the next few days at an encampment near the city. “Near” turned out to be a march of several hours through a swampy, roadless, and thickly wooded wilderness through which there was no assurance I’d be able to find my way back.

As evening approached, I was left with a heavy heart. Our camp was in such a state of disorder that none of the officers knew about food or tents for the newly arrived regiment. It was obviously futile, amidst all this chaos, to ask for permission to return to Harbin. Especially for an errand as frivolous as asking the faraway God of the Jews to forgive our sins.

Some of the Jewish soldiers in our regiment had already begun talking about organizing services right in the camp. However, they were strangely convinced that
Yom Kippur
did not begin until the following evening, and I could not persuade them otherwise.

Yet, even those few who agreed with me that
Yom Kippur
began that very evening, felt it was hopeless to try and walk all the way back to Harbin that night. First of all, no one knew the way. Second, although none of us knew how many kilometers or how many hours we had walked, no one felt we could possibly arrive in time for
Kol Nidre
. 

Plus, the area we would have had to cover on foot was reported to be swarming with Chinese bandits who had already killed, robbed and mutilated a number of our stragglers.

I tried to convince the others that the rumor about bandits was spread by our own officers to keep us from wandering off. In the end, I persuaded only Glasnik to accompany me by painting the prospect of being invited to a fat, traditional Jewish meal after the fast, and perhaps even spending that very night in a warm, clean feather bed. But I had no doubt that it was out of friendship, not holiness, that Glasnik agreed to go with me.

We carefully loaded our revolvers and filled our pockets with bullets. I gave someone my watch with instructions to send it to my parents in case I was killed en route.

It took no effort to evade the few tired sentries guarding the camp, and as darkness fell, we were well on our way, blundering through a misty landscape strewn with unseen rocks, knee-deep patches of mud, and unexpected rivulets that left our boots filled with water.

I felt reasonably confident that I knew the way into town. But with no visible moon or stars, and no landmarks to guide us, we walked and walked and Harbin seemed as far away as ever.

Presently, we came upon a narrow road. I was certain that if we stayed on it, sooner or later we were bound to come to a village in which we could ask directions.

The path meandered through a dense and dripping forest. Any tree might be sheltering a bandit waiting for foolish travelers such as we. Although we tried to walk without making noise, our frequent stumbling made this impossible.

After another hour of walking without making visible progress, Glasnik said that the way he felt, anyone who would stab or shoot him would be doing him a favor. I helped restore his energy by pointing out that, from what I’d heard, when Chinese bandits caught a Russian soldier they didn’t kill him all at once. They had a method called “death of a thousand cuts” by which they whittled away at the prisoner piecemeal until, after several days, he was fortunate enough to expire.

By then, it was dark; it would be long past
Kol Nidre
time, but if we were headed in the right direction, there was still a chance we might find a Jewish home where we could get a warm bed tonight, and a festive meal tomorrow night.

We had left camp at half past six, and it must have already been close to midnight. The forest seemed endless, and I felt tempted to lay down under a tree and go to sleep. But we had to be closer to Harbin than we were to camp, so we continued in the pitch darkness.

Almost immediately, Glasnik walked straight into a swamp. Trying to help him out, I promptly sank in up to my hips. And then, as if to tantalize us in the midst of our struggles, the lights of a city appeared to be glowing just beyond the forest.

Caked with mud and soaking wet, we stumbled into the silent city. By the light of a dim street lamp, Glasnik and I regarded each other’s inhuman appearance, and decided to look for a pump where we could wash our hands and faces. After blundering through half a dozen streets or alleys, we spied a light burning in a little hut, and decided to knock on the shutters.

A Chinese man opened the door and gaped. Behind him, a squirming mass of seven or eight children started to cry at the sight of us. The man whispered something to his wife, who shot out the back door, screaming.

We tried with gestures to explain that we only wanted some water to wash off the mud. Other Chinese now came running out of nearby shacks. I realized, indignantly, that far from being terrified, they were laughing at us.

I waved a ruble at them, and within moments, two pails brimming with water appeared. A Chinese man who seemed to know about a dozen words of Russian offered, for another ruble, to act as our guide. He looked at least a hundred years old. But the way I was feeling at that moment, money was no object if he could lead us to the synagogue, which we tried to represent, with the aid of
Hasidic
gestures and contortions, as a place of prayer.

His face lit up with sudden understanding, and he motioned for us to follow him. After some twenty minutes of walking, we came upon an old frame building. Candles were burning inside. With great skepticism, Glasnik asked me, “You know how to pray in Chinese?” I, too, was somewhat unconvinced. Meanwhile, our guide had gone into a corner to argue, negotiate, or plot with the caretaker he had aroused. It was ominously clear to me that they were discussing us. And I couldn’t say I much liked the way they looked in our direction.

I interrupted our guide in the middle of his earnest conversation and asked him whether there was some kind of inn or hotel anywhere in the vicinity.

Our interpreter suddenly seemed to have forgotten even his modest repertoire of Russian words. He smiled and nodded reassuringly while echoing my question in his own singsong. His repetitions were so musical that Glasnik wondered if he were the cantor of the synagogue.

We continued wandering through lanes ankle-deep in mud, looking for the Russian quarter. Before long, Glasnik began to complain to me as passionately as the children of Israel had once protested against Moses for having taken them away from Pharaoh’s fleshpots, and made them blunder through the endless desert. The difference was Moses, at least, could talk to God whereas I couldn’t even talk to a Chinaman.

Passing a drab wooden building without windows, we suddenly heard ghostly, disembodied voices that sounded like reverberations from the bottom of a well. We drew closer to the entrance, which consisted of a large, flapping rag, and our noses were assailed by a strange odor. I told Glasnik this must be a Chinese restaurant. Glasnik sniffed once again and refused to believe that the odors could have anything to do with food for human beings.

I shared his distaste, but I reasoned that even a primitive restaurant might offer accommodations for the night. Just as poverty could break iron, so, I supposed, that exhaustion could tolerate the smell of Chinese food. We entered cautiously, our hands on our revolvers.

Inside, rows of Chinamen were sitting on the bare floor with their feet folded beneath them. A man I assumed to be the owner came out and began to talk at us, presumably asking what we wanted to eat. I tried to explain that we were looking only for a place to sleep, but Glasnik interrupted, indicating with gestures that we wanted food, lots of it.

The owner smiled, nodded, and went into what, from the stench, had to be the kitchen. Glasnik pointed out that I had no proof that
Yom Kippur
began
that night
, and was it not a
mitzvah
to eat well before the fast?

“I’ve heard about these Chinamen,” I told him. “He'll bring you a roasted cat, or a boiled dog, or a pickled snake.” Glasnik turned green, but bravely insisted that the food could not possibly taste as bad as it smelled.

A waiter finally came out of the kitchen, and set two steaming bowls in front of us. Glasnik sniffed at his portion and seemed ready to gag. He said, “I want to see you eat first.”

I shook my head. Glasnik dug his chopsticks into the bowl and tried to pick up a mouthful. It fell back. The Chinese men started to laugh. Glasnik promptly put down his chopsticks and commenced eating with his hands. The other customers now roared with laughter.