The River Midnight (5 page)

“Yes, but I want you to have this.”

“You don’t owe me anything. It’s fine. Good riddance. Just go.”

“Such a small thing. Take it. Please.”

Her hand reached to his, their fingers intertwined across the doll, his touch warming her, again. But she was too warm. Always too warm. A woman has to cover her head, and under her dress, unless it’s
Shabbas
, she should wear wool stockings and woolen underthings until she can hardly breathe. Because a woman doesn’t do what she wants, only what she has to.

“Good-bye, little mother,” the stranger said as he picked up his bag. “Thank you.”

“Never mind. It was nothing,” Hanna-Leah said, watching as he walked toward the river. When she came home, she put the doll in her bridal trunk, wrapped in Grandmother Rivka’s shawl. Her Sabbath shawl of green satin.

At the beginning of May, right after Passover, Hanna-Leah saw Faygela climb into Shmuel the baker’s cart, her girls crowded around her, Faygela kissing them and saying it was impossible, she
couldn’t leave them, Shmuel saying not to worry, he would watch over their children, Misha handing Faygela a basket covered with a red shawl. “Hurry, you’ll miss your train,” Misha said.

Hanna-Leah was sweeping her doorstep though she’d already swept it that day. “So you’re going to Warsaw after all, I hear,” she said.

“I didn’t want to go, but they’re pushing me out the door.”

“Shmuel’s sister-in-law is sick and she’s alone with her baby in Warsaw, so of course Faygela should go,” Misha said, “but I think Warsaw isn’t ready for Faygela. We should ask the postmaster in Plotsk to send a telegraph and warn someone. What do you say, Hanna-Leah?” The smallest girl was hanging onto Misha’s leg, Faygela’s youngest in Misha’s arms, his hand on her cheek.

“Faygela should watch out that she doesn’t get lost. Warsaw isn’t like Blaszka where a person knows every corner,” Hanna-Leah said.

“She’ll be fine. It’s not as easy to get lost as you think,” Misha replied.

N
INE DAYS
after Faygela left for Warsaw, the women’s gallery was full of whispers. Look at Misha, isn’t she showing? Yes, I think she is. No, it couldn’t be. And why not? You see how calm she is.

“So? That’s Misha,” Hanna-Leah said. “Her feet stick in the mud like everyone else’s, but she laughs at everything, even the Evil One himself. I tell you, she won’t be so cocky when the baby comes without a name.” But as she spoke she remembered the Traveler holding up a figure to the sun, his fingers caressing the wood as smooth as skin and she fell silent while the women were still nodding.

Go on, you know what you’re saying, the women murmured.

Hanna-Leah shook her head. “Never mind. Why should I waste my breath? You can’t have a tiger without stripes. That’s how it is.”

I
T HAD BEEN
raining since Faygela went to Warsaw and it continued to rain. In another week, peasants reported they had seen a shower of frogs and people began to say that it might be time to build an ark. On market day, boards were placed across the mud of the village square. In the tavern men drank, steam rising from their woolen caps. Women took shelter in the shops, Polish and Yiddish mingling with the squawks of hens held by their feet. Children chased each other
across the puddles, their boots, if they had any, tied around their necks.

In the butcher shop, the women said, Did you see Misha? She has no shame. Walking around with her belly out and no father for the child. The baker’s oldest daughter is learning from her how to be a midwife. Maybe she’s learning something else, too? If you ask me, the girl’s mother should be at home watching out for her. What kind of mother lets her daughter do whatever she wants?

“If she was my daughter, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight,” Hanna-Leah said. “But Faygela’s in Warsaw. Did she have a choice? If her sister-in-law is sick, someone had to go and take care of her. But listen to me. You can be sure that when Faygela comes back, I’ll have something to say to her.”

As the women nodded, Hanna-Leah pushed up her sleeves. Through the window, she could see Hershel bargaining with a farmer over a cow. It was a poor, rib-heaving animal, and when he sold the unkosher, sirloin and roast-ridden back half to the meat dealer from Plotsk, the remaining brisket, flank, shoulder roasts, tongue, and liver would be kosher, yes, but also shriveled and tough. “Look at that. Even a beggar wouldn’t want it for
Shabbas
,” Hanna-Leah said. “Let me go out to Hershel before he offers the farmer my grandmother’s candlesticks for the old cow.”

As she crossed the square, she let her shawl fall back a little so that the cool rain fell on her forehead.

“
Shoin.
My wife. And in a good hour. You see, Hankela, I was just making a price,” Hershel said, the tense lines between his eyes relaxing as she came near. “But a man studies, he prays, it’s a woman’s job to bargain.”

“Good day,” she said to the farmer. “Your wife, she’s feeling better?”

“Better than a corpse,” the peasant answered, crossing himself.

Running her hand under the cow’s flank, Hanna-Leah said, “I see you brought me a dried-up old milker. Her teats are older than Mother Poland’s.”

“You hear her? A woman knows business,” Hershel said.

“Yes, sure. And I also know that there’s half a cow lying in the back of the shop. What am I supposed to do with her? Sing her a lullaby?”

“Heaven forbid. The cow might wake up from the dead to beg
you to stop. I’d better go and save the poor cow from such a fate,” Hershel said, blinking as he pulled his cap lower over his eyes to block out the rain.

I
N THE
evening, Hanna-Leah washed herself for the
mikva.
As she sat in the tin tub, she said to herself, So Misha the midwife is pregnant. Even though she insults everything proper, she’s blessed with a child. Faygela has six children though she complains that they don’t give her a moment’s peace. Zisa-Sara had a son and a daughter. Now they’re orphans, but still they have family in Blaszka. So what about Hanna-Leah? For her there’s nothing.

How many times had she repeated the Woman’s Prayer for Childlessness:
“Where should I find offense, who should I blame? My mother? The midwife who delivered me? The angel who oversees pregnancies? No, they fulfilled their roles. It’s me. Only me. It is God’s will that I should have empty arms because of my many sins. I turn to You my Creator, with my hot tears. Deliver me from the harsh decree and shelter me under Your wing.”

So many sins, Hanna-Leah thought. And what are they? The sin of taking care of my mother-in-law. Of giving charity. Of running my Hershel’s shop and feeding him. Going to the
mikva
every month, though what for, I don’t know. Such terrible sins.

H
ANNA
-L
EAH
had immersed in the
mikva
for the first time before her wedding. When she was a girl, she’d known it was a married woman’s religious duty to go to the ritual bath a week after her period, to purify herself for her husband’s attentions. But what exactly were these attentions? she used to ask Faygela. They didn’t quite know. It all had something to do with the
mikva
inside the bathhouse, a sunken pool lined with stone, four feet by six feet, filled with water. And not ordinary water. No, it was holy. Faygela said that free-running water dripped into it from a tank connected to the river, joining the
mikva
to the network of waters that cover the earth and flow to the sea, the earth’s lifeblood.

Before Hanna-Leah went to the
mikva
for the first time, Grandmother Rivka sent her to the outhouse to sit on the wooden slats.
“Pish,”
her grandmother said, “and have a good
cack.
You have to be empty.”

When Hanna-Leah came back to the house, Grandmother Rivka and Faygela were preparing the bath. Faygela poured kettle after kettle of hot water into the tub, insisting that it was too heavy for the grandmother to manage. It was just after Hanna-Leah’s nineteenth birthday and Faygela was seventeen, already nursing her oldest daughter with another on the way. Into the water Faygela dropped lilies of the valley, while Grandmother rubbed hand cream into Hanna-Leah’s skin. Misha had made it fresh for her, and it still smelled of the honeyed beeswax. Faygela trimmed her nails and scrubbed her hair with bought soap, lavender-scented. Hanna-Leah’s mother, still lying in bed after a miscarriage, called out, “You have to wash good. Are you washing her good?” Yes, yes, Grandmother Rivka called back, don’t worry yourself, Daughter-in-law. They dressed Hanna-Leah in a soft white shift, and then the women arrived.

All the married women came. Lighting candles, they led her across the bridge, a procession of floating flames in the darkness, singing from the Song of Songs,
“I am my beloved’s and he is mine, who forages among the lilies. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.”
Among the married women, only Hanna-Leah walked with her head bare and her hair hanging loose like a shawl of sunlight, the warm wind ruffling her dress lightly against her bare skin. Around her everything was light. The candles flared. Threads of white smoke rose to the white moon, round in the sky and reflected on the water, bright and fat as a pregnant woman. From the bridge, she could see every house in its place, the village a single being, even with the broken lanes and overgrown bush surrounding the
mikva
on the other side of the bridge. The village was always the same, and she loved it with her whole heart, just as she expected she would one day love Hershel.
“Make haste, my beloved,”
the women sang. Hanna-Leah walked among them slowly, with dignity. The frogs sang, Grandmother Rivka cried softly. The air was redolent with lilies and apple blossoms. When they reached the bathhouse, Grandmother Rivka said,
“May the Holy One who let me live until this day be blessed,”
and she kissed Hanna-Leah’s forehead.

In the bathhouse, the women sat Hanna-Leah down on a bench to hear what they had to tell her, each one interrupting the other. You came to this willingly, they said, and now your life isn’t your own. You
have to work. You’re not a child. But on
Shabbas
after you light the candles, you’re a queen in your house. Your husband will take you, but it’s his duty to make sure that you’re ready, that you enjoy it. Don’t forget. Never mind, Hanna-Leah’s a healthy girl, he won’t be able to keep up with her. Better cook him some mushrooms, Hanna-Leah, to give him some strength on a Friday night. What are you telling her? Don’t make it rosy. Listen to me, Hanna-Leah. The day after your wedding, when your mother cuts your hair off, that’s your life falling on the floor. He’ll want sons from you, and each one will drain your strength away until you have no teeth left. What a thing to tell a bride, you’re scaring her. Listen, if your husband is a good man you don’t have to be pregnant all the time. A considerate man knows not to spurt the water on the soil if you don’t want flowers to grow. Depend on a man? No, don’t pay attention to her. What you do is you go to the
mikva
a week late. You think he knows the time? Do that, and you’re safe. One of the women shook her head at them all. My sister sent me something from Warsaw. Look. She pulled out a clear skin, rounded at the top, open at the end. What’s it for, stuffing
kishka?
For stuffing something. She stuck her thumb into it. In Warsaw they call it a nightglove. And your husband will put it on? Well, to tell you the truth I didn’t ask him, yet. Ah, the women said, ah.

Hanna-Leah didn’t understand any of it. Faygela just sat beside her on the bench, patting her hand, and not saying a word of sense, either. “Don’t worry, Hanna-Leah,” she said, “it’s not so bad.” Bad? To marry her father’s apprentice, whom she used to watch from the women’s gallery? To raise children, the sons to study Torah and the girls to be modest and good? What else would she want? What else could she imagine?

The
mikva
attendant came over to them. “Women, please,” she said, “let the girl alone. The stones aren’t heated today and you see she’s shivering. Let her dip, already. Come here, Hanna-Leah.” She held up a sheet near the sunken pool at the end of the room, and Hanna-Leah stood behind it, throwing off her shift. Liba the attendant inspected Hanna-Leah, looking at her trimmed nails, pulling a few loose hairs off her skin. “Did you go to the outhouse? Did you brush your teeth?” she asked. Hanna-Leah nodded. “Good, then you can go in.”

Hanna-Leah climbed down. The water was clear and pure, cold against her skin. It would enter every pore, changing her, preparing her to be a woman. As she dipped under the water, she thought to herself that she would have lots of sons, but daughters would be all right, too. She wouldn’t push them away. Not like her mother, for whom only her little brothers lived.

“Again,” the attendant said. “You have to go deep so your hair is covered. Open your legs. Good. Now repeat after me.” Hanna-Leah repeated the blessing word for word, loudly. “Kosher,” Liba said. “Now dip again. And once more. Mazel tov. May the Holy One grant that you’ll be pregnant soon and I won’t see you here until after the child is born, a son, God willing.”

Later the women told Hanna-Leah that Faygela had moved heaven, earth, and the community council to have the water changed that day, so Hanna-Leah wouldn’t have to immerse herself in greenish, slimy water her first time.

H
ANNA
-L
EAH
had been to the
mikva
many times since then. And this evening after the rainstorm, the stone steps were as mildewed, the water as oily as ever. It seemed to her that a person should take a bath afterward and not before, but of course that wasn’t the custom. The rain had stopped and the sky was clear when Hanna-Leah left the bathhouse. As she walked home, the air was sweet with lilies of the valley, and she took the long way through the woods along the bank of the river. The sun had set, no longer day, but not yet night, the sky in its depth of blue like the river’s twin.