The Little Russian (11 page)

July 1905

 

THERE WERE always little dramas in Gershen’s bakery on Friday mornings. What with the women standing in line for their Shabbes loaf, impatient, irritable, their appetites sharpened by the smell of baking bread coming from the two ovens in the yard, there was always some incident to break up the monotony. On that morning, a small clot of women had just stepped inside the bakery, anticipating an end to their long wait. They each carried a lump of braided dough wrapped up in brown paper, and from time to time looked up from their conversation to see how far they had to go before they reached the counter. They were all dressed in black, for each had lost a loved one and was still in mourning.

There were two among them whose skirt and blouse were a deeper shade of black. These garments belonged to the two professional mourners in Mosny, whose job it was to be the embodiment of sorrow, hopelessness, and despair. They were dedicated mourners, blessed with all the requisite talents: a pallid complexion, a sorrowful expression, and an all-black wardrobe.

“What are you talking about?” snapped Aviva Kaspler. She had kneaded her challah the night before because she had an early funeral that morning. “He has not been here since Tisho be-Av. If he had been here, I would have known it. You think I don’t know who comes and goes around here?” She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders, a jowly face with heavy features, and a booming voice, perfect for keening above a crowd.

“
Draikop!
” said Yael Schlaifer, her partner and the only other official mourner in Mosny. “He was here right after Reb Shtarker’s funeral
and in that droshky of his with the yellow wheels. How could you have missed him? And her in those fancy clothes. They went out riding. She was carrying that parasol of hers, the one with the lace. I ask you, who puts lace on a parasol?” She had a small, pointed face that was engulfed by dark-rimmed glasses. Her greatest asset was her pinched mouth that could effortlessly convey heart-wrenching sorrow for as long as was required.

“She calls
me
a
draikop!
” exclaimed Aviva. “And who is the
draikop
? You’re thinking of the bookseller. He was the one who came by that day.”

“You don’t think I can tell the difference between the wheat merchant and the bookseller?”

Since cholera and typhus were frequent visitors to Mosny, these two enjoyed a thriving business, albeit a rocky partnership due to the stresses of their success and their strong personalities. Although they argued about most everything, when it came to mourning, to crying as if their hearts would break, none were better. They worked themselves into a frenzy, playing off each other like seasoned opera singers. They were crowd pleasers and knew how to get a funeral off to a good start.

“Either way, he hasn’t been here since before Shabbes Chazon, that’s for sure,” said Nessie Laiser, the wife of the roofer. She was careful not to take sides. Nobody in Mosny wanted to take sides when it came to the official mourners. They had sharp tongues and they knew how to use them.

“And you know what that means?” added Yaffa Hamerow, the tavern keeper’s wife. “She’ll end up a spinster after all. Her poor mother must be brokenhearted.”

“I would not like to be Rivke Lorkis.” said Aviva. “To have a daughter like that? And speaking French when you least expect it.” She was about to say more, but Yaffa elbowed her when she saw Berta pushing open the door of the bakery.

Berta stepped inside and edged past the line on her way to the counter. “
Gut
Shabbes,” she said in their general direction. She didn’t like coming to the bakery, especially on Shabbes, when it was crowded.

“
Gut
Shabbes,” they said nearly in unison.

She stepped up to the counter and asked the baker if there was any challah left. “Of course there’s challah left,” he replied irritably. He was a busy man and had no time for foolish questions. “There’s the line, Your Highness. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.” Berta shot him a look and turned back to the line.
God, how I hate Mosny and everyone in it.

After Hershel’s last visit, it became apparent to Mameh that he was going to ask Berta to marry him. Since Berta had similar thoughts of her own, she didn’t bother to deny it and instead chose to keep quiet on the subject. Mameh took this reticence as confirmation, which gave her license to tell anybody who would listen about the fine wedding they were planning. Women who had nothing good to say about Berta Lorkis were making nice to her in hopes of securing an invitation. Esteem for her rose among the housewives and their daughters. She was going to marry Reb Alshonsky, live in a big house in Cherkast, and ride around in a practically new droshky. She would have store-bought dresses and jewelry and go to parties where an orchestra played and exotic food was served at midnight. There was even talk of indoor plumbing. But as high as their opinion of her was in those heady days, it plummeted after Hershel failed to reappear nearly four months later. One day she was to be the bride of a successful wheat merchant, the next she was jilted and disgraced, the humiliation of Moscow all over again. Now, nothing awaited her but spinsterhood and the consensus was that it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving girl.

“So, how ’s your lovely mother?” asked Yael Schlaifer, as Berta passed their little group on the way to the end of the line.

“Well.”

“And your father?”

“Also well.”

As she walked on, she could hear them giggling and whispering behind her back.
The greedy pigs
, she thought,
passing judgment on me, rooting around for every detail—the
yachnehs
, the
yentehs
, the loudmouthed gossips
. She was halfway out the door when she nearly collided with the milkman’s wife. She ignored the woman’s murmured apology and walked on to the end of the line. She blamed her mother for this. If her mother hadn’t told everybody she was marrying Hershel, then she
would’ve been free to suffer in peace. No one would’ve known what she was feeling. Now everyone knew and they were reveling in it.

At first when Hershel didn’t return, Berta thought it was just business that kept him away. It wasn’t hard to explain away the absence of letters. He wasn’t a writer. Then one Tuesday, when it was Lhaye’s turn to open and Berta was out for her customary walk, the thought struck her that he was with another woman. She hadn’t even been thinking about him. She had been standing by a stream using a low-hanging branch to keep her balance, while she dangled first one shoe in the rushing water and then the other in an effort to wash off the mud. The thought came to her like a sharp intake of breath and she sank down on the bank and stared at her shoes still dangling in the rushing water. Her limbs felt detached. She wasn’t even aware of the icy water seeping in through the cracks around the soles. Of course he had other women. Why hadn’t she seen it? A successful wheat merchant like that? A
k’nacker
, a bounder, he would have plenty of women.

On the way back, she pictured him out with a woman in his droshky. They might visit the same spots that she and Hershel had visited, laugh about the same things. She would be sophisticated, a worldly woman; perhaps she had been to university. Maybe he would tell her about the little grocery clerk in Mosny, the one who was still waiting for him. She would be another story in his repertoire along with Esther Churgin’s beggar and the succubus who claimed the rabbi’s son.

After that Berta’s thoughts grew even darker and she stopped sleeping. Then she was sleeping too much and later she was back to wandering the fields in the early morning. Furious, indignant, wretched, and lost.

 

IT WAS a warm day and Berta was down at the river, although the water was still too cold to stay in for long. Soon she was wading back out, her toes avoiding the rocks and digging into the fine sand, her body wet and nearly numb, her clean hair streaming down her back. She reached for her towel before lying down on the beach and closed her eyes. She could hear the women by the water who had come down to wash their clothes. Their chatter mingled with the jays fluttering in
the oak trees. Off in the distance she heard the low chug of a barge traveling down to the docks, and from the cemetery that lay between the river and the town she could hear the wailing of the mourners at a late-afternoon funeral.

Even though the wailing was faint compared to the lap of the water over the rocks and the distant roar of the rapids farther downriver, it still seeped into her consciousness, soon becoming a prickly source of irritation, a hard bright reminder of her own hopelessness. When it was all she could bear, she got up, put on her clean clothes, tucked the dirty ones under her arm, and followed the path up the slope.

The path led around the perimeter of the cemetery, where she could see the funeral party assembled at the gravesite. They were burying the shul
klopfer
. There were a few mourners in attendance along with the rabbi and the beadle. The shul
klopfer’s
son was there too, watching the plain pine box slip into the ground, looking a little lost with his wife’s arm around his waist. A little girl stood next to them toeing the dirt and looking around at Berta, for no other reason than there was nothing else to do.

On the road back to town, Berta met Froy Salanter, the proprietress of the tearoom. Froy Salanter was something of a rebel with her wild frizzy hair and her high-heel lace-up shoes bought special in Kiev. She could afford to be because she had a successful business that sold only new items and a very good string of pearls that secured her place among the best people. For this reason she often spoke to Berta Lorkis, flaunting her friendship with the outcast, disdainful of the gossip that it would undoubtedly encourage.

“
Nu
, maybe now you will come back to my shop and play a little chess? Now that your partner is back.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your chess partner. That nice young man. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Well, he is here all right. Arrived about an hour ago.”

Berta was glad she had been forewarned, because now, when she walked into the square and saw Hershel’s droshky tied up outside the grocery, she was able to maintain an air of disinterest. This was fortunate
because the shoemaker’s good-for-nothing son, who was planted outside his father’s shop in his usual chair reading a Yiddish paper, actually put it down to watch her. The women at the well, their hair shiny with kerosene, turned in her direction, and the porters playing cards on the bench under the trees looked over at her with interest. With all these eyes on her it was important that she maintain her composure as a quick succession of emotions washed through her: first icy apprehension, then relief at his return, and finally a knotted ball of anger in her stomach.

“He’s back,” Lhaye said in a hurried whisper, when Berta walked through the door to the sound of the jingling bell. “He’s come back to you.”

A yelp of incredulity. “To me? Oh, that’s rich.”

“Shush, he’ll hear you.” She flung a worried look up the stairs. “He asked about you right off. He even wanted to go looking for you, but Mameh said you were bathing. Do you want me to fix your hair?”

“What for?”

“Oh Bertenka . . . don’t be like that. He really wants to see you.”

“And that’s why he stayed away all this time.”

“I’m sure he has an explanation. Don’t be angry with him.”

Berta looked at her sister and batted away a circling fly. “You don’t understand,” she said turning to the stairs. “He’s come to buy wheat, that’s all. I’m just a sideline.”

She didn’t expect the jolt she felt when she saw him standing in the front room with a glass of tea and a plate in his hand, awkwardly searching for a place to set them down. He left them on the side table and came over to her with a look of eagerness that was unmistakable. “Berta . . .” he said, holding out his hand for hers. There was nothing guarded about his greeting.

Ignoring his hand she said, “Reb Alshonsky.”

Her chilly reply produced the effect she wanted. His smile faded and he slowly dropped his hand. The samovar went on bubbling in the corner, giving off its comforting smell of charcoal, while her mother served poppy seed cake on the good plates, of which there were only three left.

She held one out to Berta. “Come have some tea with us,
maideleh
. Reb Alshonsky was just asking about you.”

“Another time. I have a headache.”

“
Nu
, a little tea will do you good.”

“I don’t want tea. I want to be alone.”

“Stay with us. This is your favorite.”

“I told you I don’t want any. I’m going to my room.” She turned and left before her mother could object any further.

That night over supper, Hershel told them about a stage show he had seen in Odessa featuring Wondrous Wisarek, the human snake. “I don’t know what kind he was supposed to be. A big one, I suppose . . . maybe a python or an anaconda. He had on a leotard that was covered with glittering scales and he slithered across the stage and up a tree trunk and wound around and around the branch. I don’t know how he did it. It was as if he didn’t have any bones at all. It was really quite amazing.” He took a sip of wine and tried to catch Berta’s eye, but she kept her expression neutral and her eyes averted.

Mameh kept fussing over him. She filled his glass the moment it was empty and gave him the best piece of fish. It infuriated Berta to see her mother behaving like that to a man who had treated her daughter so badly.

After supper, while Lhaye and Mameh were gathering up the dishes, Hershel took Berta aside and asked her if she wanted to come out with him.

“I have to help. I have dishes to do.”

“No, you don’t,” said Mameh, clearing away the plates. “Go with him. It’s all right.”

“Stop nagging me, Mameh. If I wanted to go, I would.” She picked up a platter, pushed past her mother, and went into the kitchen.