The River Midnight (26 page)

“Yes, yes. Where is he? What happened?”

Zev, the young man, heard that the Rabbi was seen in the Łodz ghetto crossing over to the Gypsy side during the typhus epidemic. Everyone heard him singing with the Gypsies as they died. An older man, overhearing Zev, says that he also heard of Rabbi Blau, but it wasn’t in Łodz, he insists. No, it was in Buchenwald. The girl says, Neither of you remembers what happened. It was in Chełmno. But they all agree that on Simkhas Torah Isidore Blau danced with a Gyspy boy in his arms, singing. The Rabbi held the child toward heaven, saying, “This is your Torah, God.” And the Rabbi died. How? They heard he was shot protecting the boy. They heard he caught the typhus from the Gypsies in Łodz. That he had a heart attack. That he died of hunger. It was in Theresienstadt, you know, added a middle-aged woman with a number tattooed on her arm.

“But did you see him yourselves? Were you there?” Emma will ask.

No, they weren’t there. They only heard.

“Then you can’t know for sure. He might still be alive. It could be.”

In heaven the angels will turn to one another and whisper maybe. Maybe.

 

Hershel sat in the outhouse, contemplating his penis. It was an ordinary-looking one, wrinkled and red with a cap like a mushroom. An ordinary size, an ordinary shape. But it did not behave in an ordinary way. When he was alone, it jumped to attention at the strangest times and yet at home it receded into its nest while Hanna-Leah, so large and soft, lay waiting beside him. What kind of man was he? He couldn’t even study like other men. He would open the prayer book and then, before he could blink, the letters would start to swim in front of his eyes. Of course he knew the prayers by heart, he didn’t need the book. But a Jew is supposed to learn Torah. A man studies for the merit of his family. Take the ritual slaughterer. Hershel would buy a cow and bring it to the
shokhet
to slaughter according to Hebrew law. First Reb Pinkus made the proper benediction. Then he drew the knife across the throat, severing the windpipe, the jugular vein, and the carotid artery in one quick, merciful movement. A
shokhet
has to know exactly how to do it. If the knife
gets stuck, if the throat is torn, even if he pauses for one second, the killing is cruel and the animal not kosher. Afterward, Reb Pinkus inspected the cow to ensure that everything inside her was kosher. No lumps. No sickness. He had to know each of the organs and how it should look. A man of learning. With a certificate. Who studied. And Hershel? After the cow was slaughtered, he would take it to his shop and butcher it into pieces.

Hershel looked at his hands. Large. The wrists hairy. Like his broad chest and his short sturdy legs. A Jew should be pale with dark hollows under his eyes from study. His mind on holy things. But Hershel’s mind was always on what to do. The cow. The shop. The village. And Hanna-Leah. Could he approach her like she deserved, like something precious and delicate? No. He just wanted to grab her, hold her.… It didn’t bear thinking about. She deserved better. A man had his place, a woman her place. And when a man couldn’t give a woman her due …

The wind groaned against the cracked and rough planks of the outhouse as Hershel prayed, “Dear God, you know it’s a mitzvah, a virtue to sanctify the Sabbath with the love between a man and his wife. I want to, you know I do. But when it comes to the point, my tail just lies there like a worm, no life. I don’t look at another woman in Blaszka but my Hanna-Leah, a jewel among women. Yet there I am and nothing happens. So what am I to do, God? Give me a sign, a hint, something.” As Hershel raised his hands to heaven, leaning forward on the rough plank of wood, a splinter caught him like a knife in his nether regions.

I
T WAS
past noon and in the village square, the Golem Players sang and juggled and somersaulted over barrels. In a quiet moment, Hanna-Leah walked over to Misha’s stall for a remedy. Alta-Fruma crossed the bridge to walk among the ruined lanes of the new part of Blaszka. In the bathhouse, the old men were naked in the steam, pulverizing their reddened skin with bundles of willow twigs. Ah, they said, there’s nothing like a
shvitz.
One of them paused, the willow branch drooping from his fist. You know what I saw just a few minutes ago? Hanna-Leah at Misha’s stall again. So that’s news? Everyone knows she goes every month for another remedy. But look, you can’t raise a corpse. What’s dead is dead. A man doesn’t deserve such a fate. Listen to me,
it’s a warning from the Holy One. Hershel has fists like iron, and he uses them too often. Is that a Jew? Look, he was always like that. It isn’t his fault that he doesn’t have a head for study. Don’t you remember when he was a boy and he beat up five other boys for teasing his cousin Shmuel? If Hershel had a son, maybe his son would study.

If, if, it’s always if with you—if my grandmother had eggs, she’d be my grandfather. A man is nothing without children. Well, what’s up comes down and what’s down goes up. You heard of Eber the grain merchant? Yes, sure, Faygela’s grandfather. Well, his partner cheated him, so Eber had to depend on his son-in-law the baker. You mean Faygela’s father? Of course. Now you take Hershel’s father, a shoemaker, remember him? Sure, sure. Not even a shoemaker of uppers but of soles. Is there something lower? All right, maybe a cart driver or a watercarrier. But Hershel’s a butcher and that’s all. Other men can’t be just one thing and still earn a living these days. The Hebrew teacher sweeps up the dreck in the village square and he brings his own shovel, too. So you look at Hershel and you see a man that works with his hands, a plain person, a
proster
, it’s true, but the highest of the
proster.
Who should look down on him? Do we have so many fine people,
shayner
, in Blaszka? The rich left and we don’t have too many scholars, either. Even our Rabbi is an unbeliever. Well, nearly. Anyway, never mind. Look who’s coming in. Reb Pinkus, in a good hour. An old man with a young wife always looks healthy. So Reb Pinkus, how’s your wife, the
zogerin
Tzipporah …?

W
HILE
A
LTA
-F
RUMA
was watching the
zogerin
straighten her wig outside Hayim’s hut, Reb Pinkus, the ritual slaughterer, was in the bathhouse, enjoying the steam as the other old men left and Hershel came in. “Reb Pinkus, may I ask you a question?” Hershel asked. They were alone on the benches of the bathhouse.

Pinkus folded his hands over the yellowing beard dangling above his naked belly, a wrinkled melon of a belly resting on his skinny legs. His slaughtering knife was known to be faultlessly sharp, without a nick or a dent anywhere. People said that when he examined the intestines of a cow to make sure it was clean and kosher, the angels themselves wouldn’t argue with him. “Certainly, Hershel,” he said. “What can I tell you?”

“Reb Pinkus, you’re a learned man.”

“Yes, I have some little learning.”

“Well, I would also like to be learned. I wouldn’t normally mention this. I have my position to think of, but I’ll tell you in confidence that since I was a boy, when I look at the holy letters, they won’t be still. They jump around. Did you ever hear of such a thing?” Hershel pulled on his ear. “I wouldn’t mention it,” he said, “only I heard that in Plotsk there are study circles, and the workers are learning. If even a plain tailor can learn, why not me? So what about it, Reb Pinkus?”

Reb Pinkus chewed on the end of his beard to hide a smile. Everyone knew that Hershel was a man of the hands, not of the head. Not much of a man at all. But a person of learning can draw on his well of compassion to bring light into the darkness. “The soul is like a beautiful woman, big and strong. You must cherish her, but never let her overtake you. She must have your guidance, your firm direction. You cannot let her wander like an aimless woman. A true man is in charge of his soul,” Reb Pinkus said in the voice of a patriarch sitting outside his tent, beholding his dozen flocks. “And how? By study. Night and day. That is why we honor the man of learning. You must push away any earthly desires that distract you. Study in the morning before the sun rises, and in the evening after it sets. As it says in the Talmud …”

But even as Reb Pinkus droned on, Hershel, imagining the big beautiful soul, naked of course because what use does a soul have for clothes, felt a rising between his legs. He turned slightly, so that his back was toward the other bench. The steam lifting from the hot bricks seemed cold to his skin.

A
FTER
H
ERSHEL
left the bathhouse, he crossed the icy bridge, slapping his hands on his shoulders to warm himself, thinking of a glass of schnapps at Perlmutter’s tavern. Maybe two. Or three. But as he passed Misha’s house on the other side, he hesitated and turned back. It could only be the evil eye that caused his tail to be so unreasonable. And who better to deal with the evil eye than this woman, whose great-grandmother had been a witch, one who knew it intimately?

Hershel stood in the open doorway. The house smelled of beeswax and vervain. Pots bubbled on the cooking grate. On the eastern wall was an embroidered landscape of elephants and golden mountains.

“I thought you might have a little something for me,” Hershel said, twisting his ritual fringes around his fingers.

“Come in. What do you need?” Misha asked, no sign of surprise on her broad face at the sight of Hershel in her doorway. She was putting something in the oven, her red shawl fluttering in the draft as Hershel shut the door.

“I have a little weakness. It’s nothing, just a sort of weakness,” he said.

Misha looked at Hershel appraisingly. His eyes fell. “Where?” she asked.

“Where. Well, this weakness, it’s in the area of my leg. My upper leg.”

“Let me see how you walk.”

Hershel walked from the door to the table, crossing the braided rug, turning around the bridal trunk with its brass candlesticks under the shelves of bottles and jars. He paused every few steps to shake his right leg. “You see?” he said.

“To me your leg looks fine. Are you sure that’s the problem?” Again the deep scrutiny. Why did she have to look at him like that? As if there was something peculiar about him.

Hershel’s voice rose. “Of course it’s the problem. What else could be the problem?”

“Some men can have a weakness in other parts.”

He couldn’t stand to have her look at him like that. As if she knew everything. As if there was nothing private, nothing left to his dignity. What right did a woman have to know so much about a man, not even her own husband?

Misha casually added, “Not you of course, but when a man has a weakness in those other parts, the best thing to do is to forget about it. The man should remember that he has strong hands and soft lips. He should remember how it feels to touch his wife. These weaknesses aren’t that important.”

“I told you it’s my leg. Of course you can’t see anything wrong with my leg. What was I thinking? I should have my head examined. The
feldsher
would give me a leech or a good cupping and I’d be good as new. But you’re a witch, not a doctor. God protect me from the evil eye,” Hershel said. As the door slammed behind him, a piece of straw from the thatched roof fell onto his head and stuck in his hat. He punched the side of Misha’s house, gouging his fist with splinters of bark.

*  *  *

I
N THE
tavern, Hershel waved for a bottle of schnapps. “What do the women want from her and her potions?” Hershel asked his cousin Shmuel, the baker. When they were boys, Hershel had protected the shy and timid Shmuel. But now that they were grown, Hershel often found himself confiding in his cousin, a good listener, calm, sympathetic. They sat at the best table, backs to the fire, right near the window so they could see what was going on in the village square. Shmuel’s beard was still lightly dusted with flour. Hershel lowered his voice. “Hanna-Leah thinks I don’t know she goes to Misha. But I have eyes. I see what she does. Am I stupid?”

“No, of course not,” Shmuel said, “who says you’re stupid?”

“Every market day, you can see the crowd of women at Misha’s stall. What are they talking about?” Misha could be telling them anything. Even that a woman whose husband can’t fulfill her needs can require the rabbinical court to force him to give her a
Get
, a religious divorce. And what was worse, it was true.

“When you’re right, you’re right,” Shmuel said softly, flour drifting like snow from his beard. “But what can we do? My Faygela swears by Misha’s remedies. And I’ll tell you,” he leaned toward Hershel, “after five girls, I had a son, and it was Misha who pulled him out. The big doctor from Plotsk told me that Faygela was too tired. He was ready to cut her open, but she begged me to get Misha. Could I deny her? I ran as fast as I could, and Misha came back with me. I told her what the doctor said. So what does Misha do? She marches into the house and to the doctor she says, ‘And your wife, she cuts off a piece of your
shmeckel
when you get too tired? A little man like you, you’d have nothing left. Get out of here before I cut it off myself.’