The River Midnight (45 page)

Friday, December 29, 1893

Greetings, Moyshe-Mendel
,

It being the short Friday in December, the village is in a flurry to finish its business by sunset. Just an hour past I was visited by one of our esteemed women, Malkah Isaacs by name. She came with a
shaaleh,
a question of religious significance, the kind that is of the greatest import in our town.

“Please, Rabbi,” she said, “have a look and tell me if the hen is kosher. I don’t even know whose she is. She wandered into my yard and fell over half dead. Just like that. I asked everyone if they’re missing a hen, but no one is. So it’s ours, isn’t it?”

I nodded in encouragement.

She continued. “But my husband says that if it fell over like that then there must be something wrong with it, even though Reb Pinkus took a good look at her intestines and said she was kosher. He should know, he’s the
shokhet,
after all. So fast with the knife. But still, I have to listen to my husband, don’t I? So I cut her into pieces and we all looked at her, my husband, his mother, even though she only has one good eye, and all the children, no evil eye
should touch them, they have sharp young eyes. And sure enough, Yankel found this in her throat.” The woman handed me a button. It was a tin button, the kind that might be on a pair of boy’s short pants. “And here,” she said, “I brought the hen so you can look at her.” She held out a basket, lifting the cover to reveal an eviscerated hen, with its innards neatly laid around it.

I motioned to a chair, and Malkah sat while I deliberated. I could see that she was highly anxious, sitting on the edge of her chair. It was only natural. Her family has not tasted meat for weeks, and at this very moment the children would be congratulating one another on their unexpected fortune, tasting the anticipated Sabbath soup as if it were already before them. But I have discovered that an immediate and favorable response to a
shaaleh
arouses suspicion. Someone in the family, a husband, a mother-in-law, will demand a second opinion from the rabbi of the old synagogue in Plotsk, which might not be so favorable. Compared to Malkah, with her twelve children and her husband who always ails but never dies, Gittel the raisin-wine maker is rich. I heard that the family would starve if it weren’t for the pot of cabbage and potato soup that Hanna-Leah brings them every other day.

So I hummed, I stroked my beard, I opened a volume of the Talmud, looked over a book of commentary, and laid on top of it a book of responsa to
shaalehs
from the Gaon of Vilna. Finally, I poked the hen several times, and pronounced her kosher. Malkah went home fully satisfied, and at this very moment I am sure is cooking a delicious soup.

The inkblot you see is my daughter Rayzel’s contribution to our correspondence. She is sitting on my lap, braiding my beard, while Adam is in his favorite place under the table, investigating my shoes. At least he has outgrown the habit of biting my toe where it sticks out of the hole. They both take after Hava, being fair, and Maria looks after them like one of her own, whom they rather resemble.

Hard times occasionally produce interesting flowers, my friend. Even here in the shtetl we have heard of how the tailors in Plotsk have a workers’ circle where they study such pamphlets as they can obtain in Yiddish, small renderings of the great thinkers’ works. And
while here such activities are dismissed as foolishness by some, others respect learning in any form. Certainly the young people hunger for knowledge as we once did in the yeshiva.

As I gaze out the window, I am privy to one of the typical spectacles of our village. An enormous man, wearing a fur coat so encrusted and odoriferous it has a soul of its own, is galloping around the village square in evertightening circles that will surely end in the old nag, which he is whipping frantically, biting him in the behind. This will, of course, cause him great aggravation, which he will be sure to vent on some lesser creature. Yet where will he find such a one? What man is so wretched as to be less than this man, whom we know as Yarush, thief and sometime peddler from Plotsk?

The sun is getting low, my friend, and there seems to be some sort of disturbance outside which I should investigate. Tomorrow, I will let you know the cause.

Addendum:

The Sabbath is over and now I must finish this letter by candlelight.

I left my study, yesterday, to observe the commotion in the village square. There I saw a crowd surrounding this Yarush and our own midwife, Misha.

“I’ll show you who’s the master here,” Yarush said.

Misha answered, “Master? Of me? The Pope will marry our blind Hindela first.” And she laughed at the very idea.

Then this Yarush threatened her and the crowd became excited. They looked from Yarush to Misha. Such excitement. Such drama. Better than you could see in Plotsk. Misha’s black hair was a storm cloud, her skirts a whirlwind. Yarush was slow and dangerous as a hungry bear.

But I must tell you that I was not entertained. This Yarush would not hesitate, I am sure, to stick a knife in anyone. I was riveted by the violence of his expression. He could have turned on anyone in the square who caught his attention, and with his large hands tear a person limb from limb as easily as pulling the thigh off a boiled hen. I imagined how his hands would feel on my throat, pushing me against the wall of the synagogue, everything blocked
from view except that fur coat of his, as old and dirty as the coats of the peasants during the pogrom in Warsaw. But while I was thinking thus, standing like a stick of wood, Hershel the butcher was calling the peddler to join him in a drink. Soon Hershel was leading Yarush toward the tavern. Our Hershel is a man of sense.

Misha stared at me as if she wanted me to follow them. And what good would that do? Hershel took care of everything. There was nothing more for me to do, was there? It is true that Misha is, shall we say, a particular friend of mine, but this is a confidence between myself and you, my oldest friend, from whom I have no secrets. She refuses to entertain any thought of a wedding canopy and requires that our friendship remain clandestine. Well and good. So then she should not expect me now to break the terms of our agreement.

But the most curious thing occurred last night. I was reading the news from Paris by candlelight. The animal scent of tallow melted onto the paper as I studied every word, even the small article on page seven about some army officer named Dreyfus.

But something distracted me. Perhaps it was a flicker of the candle or a sound that didn’t fit the noise of the house creaking in the wind. I glanced out the window only to see a shadow separate from the doorway of the tavern and lurch across the square toward the midwife’s house. I thought at first it was only the result of a strong wind, a flurry of snow, the strange shapes of night. But I will tell you something I would tell no one else. I also heard sounds that one should not hear at night from the village square. Something like the hammering of a rock on a wooden latch. A door splintering. The clatter of pots thrown aside. I thought I heard a woman’s scream ripping across the square and calling someone’s name, dreadfully calling, “Merciful God.”

I must have been having some sort of attack again. A delusion. I took myself to bed to put an end to it, first blowing out the candle for fear that it would start a fire.

I am sure that it was all just the wind. Do you think that it was? For if it was not the wind that I heard, I don’t know what I will do. This time I cannot run off to my grandfather’s hut in the mountains. How ironic that I, who am terrified of any fire larger than
the little flame of a candle, was named after Berekh Joselewicz, who commanded the Jewish legion in defense of Warsaw in 1794.

Tuesday, March 20, 1894

My dear Moyshe-Mendel
,

Tonight is Purim and the swallows have returned from their winter sojourn in Egypt. However, spring has not quite arrived, as I came home from synagogue just in time to avoid the ice storm that is now pelting the roof.

My servant Maria claims that something is amiss with Misha. This evening she said to me, “The midwife sent Boryna’s Agata away when she came to her with female troubles and I’m telling you, Rabbi, she’s not hanging any rags on the line.” Maria often speaks in this obtuse manner, usually punctuated by incomprehensible Polish proverbs. “When the grass grows doesn’t the horse starve,” she’ll say and nod wisely. I do not understand her more often than not, but the children love her, and in truth I am in some confusion regarding Misha’s recent behavior toward me.

My friendship with her is in disarray and I cannot help but wonder if it has anything to do with my strange vision on the night of the short Friday. One day I think that what I heard was just the result of an overfevered imagination linked to memory of the pogrom in Warsaw. The next day I am sure that something occurred, what exactly I do not know, but certainly of no benefit to Misha. But the truth is that I was at least remiss in not interfering on her behalf when Yarush accosted her in the village square.

Ever since then she has either avoided me or, to be quite frank, thrown me out on my ear. “Do you think a woman is a donkey you can ride anytime you like?” she asked me.

I protested to no avail. The next time I knocked on her door she said that a man is worse than a hyena that eats dead flesh. I will spare you what she said the third time.

And so I find that I am lonely once more and I must conclude that it is my own unworthiness that has caused it. For if I am paralysed by fear when others have need of my help then certainly I am not entitled to any human succor myself. As my esteemed cousin, Yekhiel, used to say, “Whatever a man fears, there is his destiny.”

I must end this letter as I am expecting the arrival of a young boy, Izzie Blau, who is receiving instruction from me in Talmud studies. I can easily listen to him chant, but if he asks me any questions, I must remember not to quote the heretic Elisha Ben Abouya and thus corrupt the poor child’s innocent faith.

Thursday, May 17, 1894

Dear Moyshe-Mendel
,

A brief note, my friend. I hope you fare well. We in Blaszka are drowning in rain. Some say that it is time to build an ark. But the season of rains aside, I am quite disturbed in my mind. The whole village is talking about Misha. Our midwife is pregnant. Yes, in the synagogue on Saturday it was clear that she was showing. Not that I, myself, would have seen a thing, as blind to such matters as I am. But the women in their balcony have better vision than I, as Misha has always claimed, and even I have heard the talk now. They say that the father is Yarush, the peddler with whom Misha argued on the short Friday in December. It now emerges that Hershel was trying to make a match, but did not succeed. Or did he? people ask.

Of course it cannot be. Misha would not accept that, that … I do not believe it. But what if it was Yarush who crossed the village square that night? And was she willing? And if not, and I did nothing.… Isn’t it written in the Talmud that if a man stands by while a crime is committed, it is as if he has done it himself? My friend, my friend, I can never forgive myself. Not if I live to be one hundred and twenty. If she would only speak to me I would beg her to allow me to give the child a name, whether it is mine or not.

Wednesday, May 23, 1894

Greetings from Blaszka to Paris
,

How quickly time passes. Suddenly, it seems, the days grow long again. And now young Izzie Blau, my pupil, has left me with a quandary.

We were studying the portion of the week when Izzie’s sister knocked at the window. I did not hear the conversation, except for the concluding comment, when Emma shouted, “God is a cabbage,” and slammed down the window.

The brother and sister are strangely similar although she is quick
and excitable, while he moves dreamily, like a person under water. Yet they have the same blue eyes that, when deep in wonderment, are swallowed by the pupils until they are black, barely fringed with an aureole of blue, like the sky as it passes from day into night. I have learned that when the boy’s eyes take on this color, questions will follow. Difficult questions. The uncomfortable sort that teachers dread. The kind that my cousin Yekhiel quite loved.

So my friend, as I watched Izzie’s eyes darken after his sister slammed the window shut, I steeled myself for an arduous conversation.

“What is God?” he asked.

I was greatly relieved. There are many lengthy answers to this question, none of which require any deep thinking on my part. To begin, I suggested we turn to Maimonedes’s thirteen principles. I had hardly commenced with “God is without form,” however, when the boy interrupted me vigorosly. It seems that his question was something more along the lines of “What use is God if good people like his parents, caught in a fire, are not rescued, but die in great pain?”

I was somewhat startled, but his sincerity is undeniable. He reminds me of my cousin Yekhiel, and it breaks my heart.

After many false starts, I finally confessed that I had no answer. However, I said to him, I could tell him a story. It was a story that my grandfather had told me when I was his age, herding his goats in the summer. My mother’s family are Hasidim, I said, and followers of the Belzer Rebbe. The story, passed on directly from father to son, I assured Izzie, was about the
Ba’al Shem Tov,
of saintly name.

He was wandering in the forest when he saw an old woman gathering wood. She was so hunchbacked she could barely walk, and yet she pulled a little boy in a small cart. The little boy had no legs. He was sucking on an old dirty rag, his eyes big in his hungry little face, and he made not a single sound. Finally the
Ba’al Shem Tov
cried out in anguish, “Eternal One, You see the afflictions of Your children, whom You created with your own hands, why do You not do something for them, I beg of You?” He waited and waited for an answer while the trees shook and the wind howled, until at last a voice came from the heavens. The voice said, “My child, I have. I created you.”

I was embarrassed to offer Izzie nothing more than this small story, but the boy seemed satisfied. He sat and thought, his chin resting on his hand, then he straightened up and asked me what, then, I was going to do about Ruthie.

Ruthie is my cousin Yekhiel’s granddaughter, Faygela’s oldest. She was arrested yesterday for carrying incendiary propaganda, though the idea of this quiet girl being a revolutionary is preposterous. There is no doubt, as my servant Maria claims, that Emma was behind it.

I am at a loss, however, as to what can be done. The Tsar’s wheels of justice are entirely dependable to grind up the innocent unless lubricated with sufficient gold imperials, and where are we to get such in this poor village?

The Russian in charge of this
gubernia
was transferred not long ago from St. Petersburg, and he is not happy to be sent (for some misdemeanor, surely) to the back end of the empire. His administration reflects his unhappiness, and he orders the public whipping of Poles for even putting up a sign in their tongue. Selling a Polish book is sufficient grounds for exile to Siberia, not to mention his predilection for hanging Jews, and I heard that he has tripled the level of bribes to which we are accustomed.

The community council is in the process of collecting money, but you can be sure that the total will do no more than perhaps allow the girl’s mother, my cousin Faygela, to visit her in prison and bring her some comforts. Ruthie’s release would require an additional bribe of a rather larger sum.

I cannot see what else is to be done, unless I seek the advice of my former friend, Misha the midwife. She knows the secrets of more people than I can name. Then perhaps a second bribe might be reduced by the whispered promise of revelation. Selfishly, I am embarrassed to ask a favor of Misha, who has had nothing but contempt for me these last few months. But I must do something, at least to warrant the boy’s trust.