The River Midnight (2 page)

Sure, that’s how it is in most places, but you can’t expect it here in Blaszka. Who would sit in the second row if not the butcher? In the days before the Russians blew up the mill, we had
shayner
in Blaszka. Fine people. But now? There’s just
proster.
Anybody who was anybody left Blaszka. And why not? You can walk for two hours down the road and you’re in Plotsk. The capital of the
gubernia.
Twenty-six thousand people. A theater. A Jewish hospital. Schools. Everything.

Tell me, what’s a town when there’s no fine people driving around in their carriages and telling you what’s what? That’s the kind of village Blaszka is. We have a rabbi whose greatest friends are unbelievers—I saw him get a letter from France myself—and he can’t stand the sight of a lit match, either.

Never mind. It’s good to be alive. A little schnapps, a little singing, something nice to eat on
Shabbas
, it’s all right. I’m old, but I’m in no rush to leave. Tell me, if it’s so good there in the next world, why doesn’t anyone come back to tell us about it?

Outside the bathhouse, a lane leads to the bridge and across the bridge, the road from Blaszka leaves the village square, following the Północna River down to the Vistula where it meets the highway that runs from Plotsk to Warsaw. Here, at the juncture of the Vistula and the Północna Rivers, there is a shiny black carriage with T
HE
G
OLEM
P
LAYERS
painted in yellow on the side. The horse snorts, flicking her tail, braided with a yellow ribbon. Crystals of breath have formed around her mouth, and the creature licks them off with her thirsty tongue.

The Director, in his top hat, sits aloft, puffing on his mahogany pipe, horns of smoke curling upward. He looks sideways at the landscape, the bare trees striped with snow like soft fur, the frozen river, the flat land. An open, unremarkable landscape. The Director’s new partner is walking toward him, carrying a bag with rope handles—a young and very earnest sort of person, the Traveler. The Director smooths his copper mustache and waves. The Traveler’s hair sticks up like rooster feathers. He wears a ragged black jacket with a drooping rose pinned to the lapel. His thin nose is crooked, bending a little to the left.

The Traveler climbs up beside the Director. Sighing, he tears a strip of paper from
The Israelite
, and lines his cracked boot with the headline, “December 29, 1893: More Refugees Fleeing from the East.”
While the Director relights his pipe, the younger man leafs through a notebook. The notes are in a small, meticulous script that shines as if the ink were made of a green florescence. “So many people hurt and lonely, talents going to waste,” the Traveler says, his voice hoarse with sympathy. “But what about this?” He frowns. “There must be a mistake. We can’t be expected to waste time on an animal like that.” The Traveler stabs the notebook with his finger.

“You have your orders and the fellow is on his way,” the Director says, pointing to an approaching cart. The driver is a large man in a fur coat who is whipping his horse till she bleeds while he gnaws on a hunk of salami.

The Traveler shields his eyes with his hands, gazing up the road. “I’d just like to have a choice. Is that too much to ask?”

“It’s the price you pay, my boy. You knew that when you came on board.” The Director rubs the bowl of his pipe against his velvet vest. “You could resign. But then it’s rebirth for you. You interested? I see not. You serious types are all the same.” He draws an imaginary bow across an even more imaginary violin that nevertheless plays the opening notes to Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. Tchaikovsky has recently died of cholera. The Traveler looks from his notebook to the absent violin. He is impressed. “It’s nothing, my friend,” the Director says. “Anyone can do it. Even you.”

“What’s the trick?” the Traveler asks, looking around for a hidden music box.

“Nothing at all. Just a bit of magic.”

“Magic,” the Traveler says thoughtfully, studying his notebook again.

“Don’t get any ideas. Let me tell you the facts. What’s magic? A piece of chocolate. An almond torte. Delicious, and then it melts away. But all of this,” the Director says waving his hand grandly, “is something else entirely. Open your eyes and look. Maybe you’ll learn a secret or two. But you can’t just sit there moping and letting the snow soak through the holes in your boots. No. You’ve got to look closely and pay attention. Then you’ll see where you can give a little nudge and open a door. And who knows,” he winks, “what you might find in there? Well, my friend, I can’t sit here and talk all day. I have something to deliver in Blaszka. Would you like to join me?”

“No. I’d better wait here. You go on.” The Traveler dismounts from the carriage, seating himself on a snowy log.

“Au revoir,” the Director says. He picks up the reins and clucks to his fine black horse.

The Traveler pulls up the collar of his jacket as the snow trickles down his neck. “Have to get assigned here in the middle of winter,” he grumbles. “Couldn’t be Warsaw. Streetcars. Electricity. Unions. Oh, no. It’s got to be where people still believe in witchcraft.” He shakes his head. “They don’t know what’s coming to them.” Studying his notebook, he taps his chin. “Could be an advantage, though. If you use it right.” He looks down the road toward Warsaw, as if he can see the next century riding the train, trailing a line of smoke, the whistle blowing.

T
IME IS
a trickster in Poland. In Warsaw they have electric lights. On the farms, peasants make their own candles. And in Blaszka? There, time juggles fire, throwing off sparks that reach far into the past and spin toward the future.

B
UT
shh, we can’t talk, now. The story is about to start.

 

In the bathhouse, the old men sighed as they sat on a bench, steam rising from the hot stones. A Friday night was the time for certain things. All of them had fulfilled the mitzvah of being fruitful years ago, but that didn’t relieve them of the obligation to satisfy their wives. No, that was sealed by the marriage contract. And it wasn’t true that a woman lost interest after the change of life. No, they said, you know what’s written about the marriage bed—it’s a woman’s right and a man’s duty.

Across the bridge in the village square, the noise of women in a hurry was as loud as a dispute in the court of heaven. Everything had to finish by sundown. Darkness came early on the last Friday in December, and only the expectation of long hours of
Shabbas
pleasures got the women through the rush. Instead of the grainy dark bread of everyday with its smear of fat and the sweaty smell of tallow on a bare table,
Shabbas
came with the honey scent of beeswax candles. Syrupy red wine. Not one, but two braided loaves of white bread plummy with raisins. Carrots and sweet potatoes. Golden soup. Meat.
On a white cloth where brass candlesticks gleamed with a ruddy glow. The wine and the bread and the children would be blessed. There would be singing. And the leisurely pursuit of
Shabbas
mitzvos, particularly of the kind foreseen in the bathhouse.

It was no surprise, then, that Hanna-Leah, the butcher’s wife, was more sharp tongued than usual, knowing that for her the early darkness would, unless a miracle occurred, remind her of her loneliness.

“Strangers. Every week someone else sleeping in the guest house,” Hanna-Leah said, shaking her head at the women in their shawls and quilted coats dripping melted snow onto the sanded, earth floor of the butcher shop.

She herself was wearing only a shawl over her dress, though the shop was cold. Hanna-Leah was always warm, like a pot kept at boiling heat by a quick fire. Tall and curvaceous, blonde under her kerchief, self-conscious about her hawk nose, she scoffed at the women’s envy of her beauty since it had no practical use. She was thirty-four years old, had been married to the butcher since she was nineteen, and was childless.

The women leaned toward her, elbows resting on the counter beside string, paper, and slabs of red meat.

“Strangers coming from who knows where and going to someplace worse,” Hanna-Leah said. She pointed at the window. Outside in the village square, a horse and carriage were tied to the post in front of Perlmutter’s tavern. “I heard that the Golem Players are running from the Tsar’s police, and where are they leading them? Right to Blaszka. And if the pogroms start again?”

It’s been more than ten years since the pogroms, the women said. When the old Tsar was assassinated, of course they blamed the Jews. Who else? But things are different now.

“You think what happened in ’81 couldn’t happen again? Don’t you believe it. My Hershel still has a scar on his shoulder. And my father …”

Don’t speak of it, the women said quickly. May God protect us from such a fate. Now tell us. Did you see the actors performing in front of Perlmutter’s tavern? They’ve been there half the day already.

“Singing and juggling in the village square, who needs it? Beggars at least have a use,” Hanna-Leah said as she wrapped some soup bones
with a good bit of meat left on them for a woman whose coat was more patches than cloth. “How could you fulfil the mitzvah to have a beggar for
Shabbas
dinner without one? And who would you give alms to? You know what they say. Wine is stronger than fear, sleep is stronger than wine, the Angel of Death is stronger than sleep, but charity is stronger even than death.”

“That’s from the Talmud,” Hershel the butcher called out from the back room.

“Listen to him. He can hardly write his name, but he thinks he’s a sage. So tell me, Mister Genius,” she called back, “What does it say in the Talmud about strangers?”

“Remember that you were also a stranger in a strange land.”

“A stranger? Me? My family lived right here in Blaszka since the time of King Krak.”

The woman in the patched coat reached into her pocket to take out some change for the bones. “Don’t insult me. What am I going to do with leftover bones, bury them?” Hanna-Leah asked. “So, look who’s coming with her nose in the air.” Through the window they watched the women’s prayer leader, the
zogerin
, approaching the butcher shop. “I heard she crossed the bridge.”

Her? No, I don’t believe it, the women said. In Blaszka when they talked about a woman crossing the bridge, they meant that she was carrying on with a man, and not her husband, either.

“Believe what you want. Just open your eyes.”

The door swung open with a rush of wind and snow as the
zogerin
, with her fancy braided wig and her silver prayerbook, sauntered into the shop. So nobody should miss it, the young
zogerin
swung her gold chain with the double case watch on the end.

“Look what I have for you. The best,” Hanna-Leah said, whipping out a two-kilo, purplish brisket crawling with fat. “For you, our
zogerin
, one ruble,” she said, half-laughing at the ludicrous price.

“Very good. Wrap it.” The
zogerin
wore a long string of pearls over her flat chest and it wasn’t even
Shabbas
yet.

Hanna-Leah shook her head. “She doesn’t even bargain. Like stealing milk from a blind cow.”

“Should I bargain? Before
Shabbas?
I have to think of higher things.”

“Oy, oy. The
zogerin
has to think of something higher than pearls. It isn’t easy,” Hanna-Leah said.

Well, she’s still young. And no one makes a bargain like you, the women said. Not even Misha.

“Well, let me ask you.” The women leaned forward as Hanna-Leah’s eyes narrowed. Even the
zogerin
, taking the brisket from the counter, paused. “Did you hear that someone saw a pair of man’s pants sticking out from under Misha’s bed?”

Who do you think they belonged to? the women asked.

“Anyone she wants,” Hanna-Leah said. “She wouldn’t hesitate. You see her sitting at her stall with the women hanging onto her every word, peasants and Jews, too, like she knows the cure for death. Listen to me. A woman who’s divorced and isn’t ashamed of it must have plenty to hide. When I was young, we were friends. Misha danced at my wedding. Can you believe it?”

What about your other friend, the one who went to America? I remember how she could dance—like a feather. But now she’s buried over there and who will visit her grave? Even her children are on their way back to Blaszka. You’ll have them come to you for
Shabbas
, won’t you, Hanna-Leah? A boy and a girl, I heard. But who knows what kind of children they make in America?

“They probably don’t speak a word of the
mama-loshen
,” Hanna-Leah said. “They’ll be trouble, you wait and see.”

W
HEN THE
shop was quiet for a few minutes, Hanna-Leah put her shawl over her head and slipped out to the village square. The pressed earth was slick with melting snow, and in her hurry, Hanna-Leah fell, bruising her hip. I should have stayed in the shop, she thought as she got up and brushed the mud off her coat. But do I have a choice? A woman doesn’t do what she wants, only what she has to. Not Misha, of course. No, never Misha.