Then Sings My Soul (17 page)

CHAPTER 30

Once Jakob began, the words flowed from him like the ripples he used to make while tossing pebbles into the pond behind his childhood home in Chudniv. He told Nel everything, starting with Mama and Papa; his sisters, Zahava, Tova, Ilana, and Faigy; and his brother Peter. He told her about the colorful floral scarves all the girls and women wore, and about listening to the songs of fiddles and bayans as people danced at festivals and at the break of Sabbath. He told her about the wooden churches and synagogues, the sashes of shtetl homes painted pure white, and the doors painted turquoise. He told her about market day, when the peasants came to town, and how the commotion of shopping and playing and bartering felt like a carnival every week. He told her about Sasha the priest coming to visit, and how they learned about Yeshua Messiah from him, and how it made many of their neighbors very angry, but many other neighbors believed in Yeshua Messiah too.

Then he told her about his journey with Peter. About Raisa and the maniac in the barn. Peter losing his fingers. Finding the hundreds murdered in the woods. The cold. The hunger. The burning villages. The kindness of the old and wrinkled Luda. The hospitality of Russie and Chaim. How Peter sold Galya to Zsófia and Makár in Austria-Hungary. About the man who'd tried to rob him on the train. Parents selling their daughters in the shipyards. Two weeks on the ship in steerage. Ellis Island. John and Harriet Stewart. Saint Stanislaus. Mr. Grünfelder. The Battle Creek Sanitarium.

And finally Faigy. Faigy and what happened the night Peter left, the same night the pogromshchik came to the shtetl.

Nel stared at him. “Faigy? Your youngest sister?”

“Yes.” Jakob exhaled, pondering whether or not to go on.

He began with Peter leaving home on Galya.

“Sometimes I wish Peter had never come back.”

Peter always said God had told him to turn back, and that after a day of riding, he couldn't ignore the constant prompting in his soul telling him to return home. At first, Jakob had thought the sound of horse hooves against the hard-packed snow was another rider from the pogromshchik returning to kill him. And so when Peter found him in the cupboard, Jakob had screamed and screamed until Peter covered his gaping mouth with his gloved hand, then lifted Jakob and pressed his small head against his broad chest.

“Be quiet, brother,” Peter said, swaying for a moment like Mama did whenever Jakob cried. “You must be quiet.”

Jakob sniffed back a sob and his body slackened, if only slightly, as Peter held him on his hip and began to search the home for something—anything—to salvage from the scene of carnage before them. Mama lay half naked on the kitchen table. The arms of her dress sleeves were nailed to the wooden tabletop so her arms stretched out wide, like when she ran to greet Jakob, he thought, as he walked home on the afternoons spent learning Talmud with his siblings at a neighbor's. Her face was blue, her neck twisted at an impossible angle. Her skirts were torn off at the bodice, her pregnant belly rising into the air like a camel's lopsided hump. Blood dripped onto a round puddle on the floor through the cracks on the table. Ropes pulled tight around her ankles and secured around the table's legs had torn clear through to her shinbones.

Faint orange coals burned in the hearth, where remnants of the Bible Sasha had given them and Papa's Talmud smoldered. Above on the wall, a cross painted with blood spelled out “Die, Jews!”

Choked rage gurgled in Peter's throat, and he reached for Jakob's face, as if hoping to shield his eyes and protect him somehow from the gruesome scene. But Jakob brushed him aside, squirmed out of his arms, and walked up to his mama. He placed his hand on the side of her cold belly where he'd felt the kicks of his unborn sibling. Then he moved toward her ashen face and kissed her on the lips. Hot tears ran down the young boy's face and fell onto hers.

Grasping Jakob's hand, Peter moved toward their sister Zahava's body that lay curled in a ball at the base of the potbellied stove. In the center of the room, nails pierced the wooden floor in the shape of her arms and torso, resembling the crucifix-like shape of their mother. Chunks of fabric from Zahava's dress were still attached to the nails where she had managed to pull herself free.

In minutes Jakob seemed to age ten years as he helped Peter with Zahava. Jakob lifted one of her legs, caked with blood, as Peter lifted her limp body under the arms, and together they dragged their oldest sister to her bed, where they found two of their other sisters, Ilana and Tova, curled around each other like a pair of forgotten rag dolls, heads bashed in at the temples, gunshot wounds in the sides of their necks. Then they loosed Mama from the table and lay her beside her daughters, their sisters.

“Where is Faigy?” Peter asked.

Jakob's already pale face whitened, and he couldn't meet Peter's eyes.

Peter grabbed him by the shoulders. “Did you see? What did they do with baby Faigy?”

Still, Jakob could not meet his eyes.

Peter tilted his chin up gently, and it trembled as Jakob replied,
“Vony yiyi zabraly.”
*

Peter didn't ask for details and instead took his hat off and ran his hands through his hair. He searched the room for something they could cover their mother and other sisters with, since they couldn't stay to bury them. The only thing they could find that the pogromshchik didn't take was their six prayer shawls, strewn across the bedroom like rags.

“Where is Papa?” Peter asked Jakob, barely whispering the question.

Jakob shrugged. He didn't know that answer either. He had clambered into the cupboard by the time the men had finished with his mother and sisters, and he stayed there even as the house quieted, the pogromshchik taking their laughter and glugging of alcohol with them. He had only seen what happened to Faigy because the one man in the black robes had returned.

Peter searched the house quickly for anything of value they could collect before leaving the house to look for their father. Meanwhile, Jakob left his side long enough to wander back to the kitchen, where Mama had prepared Shabbat so many times, twisting and separating the challah dough, making the kugel, mixing pepper and matzo flour for gefilte fish. From inside a slightly open cabinet door, an object gleamed—one of the family's silver kiddush cups the pogromshchik left behind. Josef had etched a scene replicating the village of Chudniv onto each of the family's eight cups and had been working on a ninth for the new baby. Jakob stretched onto his toes to reach the cup and knocked it to the ground, causing both boys to startle severely.

“What was that noise? Are you hurt?” Peter ran into the kitchen and followed Jakob's gaze to the cup. “Good job, Jakob. We'll take this cup with us.”

As Peter started to tuck the cup into his coat, a piece of folded parchment fell onto the floor, startling them both again. Wary, Jakob crouched on his haunches, unfolded the paper, then held it toward his brother, who came and crouched next to him. The boys recognized instantly their father's squared-off penmanship. Words and numbers described precise instructions for faceting the Star of David aquamarine. Papa's penmanship was precise, as were the design and measurements on the thin, unlined parchment.

Peter stood quickly, as if suddenly realizing once more the precariousness of their situation, indeed the dire danger of allowing grief or fear or emotion of any kind to cause them to linger.

“Come on, Jakob. Papa must be outside.”

Peter refolded the paper and stuffed it, along with the cup, into a spare satchel. He slung the satchel over his shoulder, then helped Jakob put on as many pieces of clothing as he could wear and one of their sister's larger coats over the top. Together the boys walked out the back of the house to begin the search for their father, which didn't take long. Blood-soaked clothing, broken lamps, pottery, and books, pages torn out of some of them, others half burned, bindings curved and charred—all of it littered the snowy ground.

They discovered Papa's fate near the ancient oak by the barn. There was nothing they could do to bring dignity to his grizzly death. The murderers had decapitated him and stuck his head high upon the broken end of the house broom. His arms and legs had each been severed from his body, his torso dragged and dumped near the side road that ran past their home. Peter pulled the pole down and laid it gently on the ground, then turned away and vomited.

Jakob's eyes locked upon his Papa's torso by the road, ribs sticking out, the white
tallit katan
1
and the frayed strings of Josef's tzitzit stuck against the ground, bloodied and ruined. Peter walked over to the corpse, took a knife from the belt beneath his coat, cut a single tassel from the garment, and tucked it into the satchel next to the silver cup.

Then he picked up Jakob, held his trembling body against his shoulder, and took him to the front yard, where Galya waited, eyes wild, front hoof stomping with impatience. Puffs of frozen air escaped rhythmically from Galya's giant nostrils as Peter placed Jakob on the front of the saddle. He climbed on behind, pulling on the reins to steady the horse long enough to sear the sight of the little cottage into his mind, onto his heart forever.

Finally, with a flick of the leather and a kick of Peter's heel, Galya seemed happy again to run, frenzied and insane, across the cruel, white countryside toward the west.

“Faigy would've lived if it hadn't been for me,” Jakob said to Nel when he finished telling her the story.

“But, Dad, you were only four years old.”

“That's what Peter said. But I should've been able to scream or do something when the man came back. He took the rest of Papa's stones too.”

“You were a baby. What do you think you could've done?”

“I don't know. But I've never forgiven myself.”

“Dad—”

Jakob held a hand up to stop her. “I've often wondered since then if Lot's wife, as she turned to stone, felt the same when she saw Sodom burning as I did leaving them behind and failing my sister Faigy.”

CHAPTER 31

Nel stayed on the couch that night, afraid to be far from Jakob in his new makeshift bedroom. She heard him sleeping fitfully and attributed it to the hours he'd spent telling her everything. She could hardly sleep either, visions of her grandparents, aunts, and uncle she'd never met, their faces gray and solemn like the old portraits of shtetl Jews she'd seen throughout her research.

By morning, Jakob had developed a high fever. He was more than his usual confused too. She was tempted to call David or Mattie or both of them and take her dad straight to the hospital emergency room, but the visiting-nurse service was already scheduled to come that morning, so she waited to see what they would recommend.

“We'll take some blood and a urine sample and see if he's got an infection. In the meantime, let him rest.”

The kind nurse's calm words didn't reassure Nel, who flipped nervously through Catherine's old magazines and tried to busy herself dusting the first floor so Jakob wasn't left alone. She tried to do a little work on her jewelry, but any creativity she might've had that day was now doused with worry over her dad. Thankfully, she'd been able to assuage Sandra and her buyers by completing orders and commissioned work so that she was, as she'd hoped to be, ahead of schedule.

The phone rang and it was David.

“How was your night?”

“Not the greatest. I hardly slept worrying about him having another night terror, trying to get up by himself, or both. And now the nurse thinks he might have a urinary tract infection—she called it a ‘UTI'—which would make sense. The doctors at the hospital told me how those can really mess with elderly patients, making them all confused, sometimes being the underlying reason for a fall. Whatever it is, Dad's snowed. He hasn't been up yet, and I'm not sure that he will be today.”

“I'm sorry. Can I bring you some burgers or something for lunch? Maybe your dad would take a milkshake? I'm working at the old Thompson place just down the road today, so I'm close. I'm finishing up their kitchen cabinets this morning, and was planning on bringing some things by your house today to get things ready to start on the roof.”

“That'd be amazing—burgers and shakes for both of us.”

“And a large cup of coffee?” Nel heard the smile in his voice on the other end of the line.

“Extra large, if they have that,” she replied.

Frustrated with trying to calm her nerves with busyness, she settled herself onto the couch and flipped on soap operas and drifted off to sleep. She awoke to the side door creaking open and David carrying his red toolbox and a nail gun with one arm and lugging an air compressor behind him with the other. “Hey there, beautiful—”

“Shhhh—Dad's sleeping.”

“Oh, sorry,” he whispered, setting his tools down and kissing her on the cheek. “Looks like someone else might've been napping too. I'll be right back with the burgers.”

God bless him, Nel thought, hungry for lunch but more relieved to have someone with her when her dad was feeling poorly. Nel sat up, ran her hands through her hair, and tried to smooth her rumpled clothes before he came back. She blew the dreads falling over her eyes away from her face in exasperation.

“Let's eat out back,” she said when he returned with the bags of food and the carrier full of shakes and coffee. “We can talk out there without disturbing Dad.”

They settled on the back deck, and Nel brought the baby monitor with her. She'd picked up a set last-minute so she could hear Jakob if she was busy in another room, and she was glad she'd thought to do so. The similarities between caring for her father and what her friends described to her about caring for a young child were striking.

“Lumber company's delivering the roofing materials this afternoon,” David said through a mouthful of cheeseburger.

Nel played with the straw in her milkshake.

“Aren't you gonna eat?” David asked.

“I will … It was a rough morning, is all. Dad woke up confused. Incontinent, which isn't unusual. But he was talking out of his head like when he was at the hospital with his broken hip. That's how I knew something was wrong besides his normal, everyday loopiness.” Nel hesitated, searching for the right words to tell David the worst. “He tried to hit me. He just got so agitated when I was cleaning him up.”

“He tried to hit you?”

“Yeah. I ducked.” She looked at David sheepishly and grinned. It wasn't funny, but if she didn't try to make a little light of it, she'd burst into tears.

The phone rang and Nel jumped. “Maybe it's the doctor's office with the lab results.” She ran inside to grab the call.

“You look relieved,” David said to her when she came back several minutes later.

“I am. He has a bladder infection, but it's not too bad yet. They're calling in an antibiotic. They said he should be back to himself in a couple days.”

“That's good news.”

“I'm afraid I pushed him too hard yesterday.” She told David the major portions of the story Jakob had told her the day before.

David looked stunned. “That's incredible. And he's carried that around with him his whole life? He never told anyone? Not even your mom?”

“No. All she knew was that he and Peter were from Ukraine and that the Stewarts had adopted them. No wonder she'd been determined to figure out what his story was, if she'd been living through his nightmares and all that. Maybe since Ukraine gained their independence in 1991, she thought she'd finally have the chance to know the whole story, where he'd come from and such.”

“Makes sense.” David stuffed their sandwich wrappers back into the bag. “But you haven't heard anything back from what you sent to Ukraine?”

“No. I doubt I will. It was a long shot. But now that he's told me the story, I don't feel like I need to know more. Not really.”

Nel ran to the drugstore while David stayed with Jakob and waited for the lumber. After she returned and gave Jakob his first dose of antibiotics, he drank part of his milkshake. Then he fell asleep again.

“Hope you don't mind,” David said when Nel came back to the living room. “I called Mattie to see if she'll sit with him a bit so we can take a walk.”

“Mind? That sounds like heaven. How do you know what I need before I know myself?”

He shrugged, and she threw her arms around him and kissed him.

“Thank you, David, for everything you've done for me since I've been home, since all of this.”

Mattie arrived, and Nel and David walked down to the lake, which was unusually placid. A group of blue herons flew overhead, so low they could hear the sound of their wings beating against the wind.

Nel pulled the rough piece of tourmaline out of her pocket, the same stone she and Jakob had been talking about the day before. She sighed, holding it up to the sun hovering over the lake. “The stone that can't decide what it wants to be.”

David looked at her quizzically.

“That's what I call it. It's tourmaline. Turns to a solid color when it's heated up. Otherwise, it stays two-toned like this.” She turned the stone between her fingers. “Ever since I've come home, I feel like that. Like God's heating me up. Trying to teach me who He wants me to be.”

David picked up a flat beach stone and flung it across the smooth water, where it skipped half a dozen times. “He has a knack for that, that's for sure.”

Nel glanced at him and wondered what he was getting at.

“Have you noticed anything curious about me since we've met?” David asked. “Or re-met, I should say?”

“Hmmm. Let me think. You talk with a lot of clichés. You love takeout. You're a fantastic kisser, which makes me mad all over again that I never got to find that out at the senior prom.”

“You really bury the hatchet, don't you?”

“The handle could come in useful. Like today.”

They laughed, and then David got serious again. “No, really. Think about it. What's missing?”

“Seriously? I have no idea what you're getting at.”

“Your dad finally told his story. I guess I ought to tell you mine.”

“David, you don't have to …”

He stopped, turned to her, and brushed her windblown hair away from her face as the sun gleamed down on it. “I want to. Maybe I need to. There was a reason I left Florida. I lost my wife. Lost everything … I killed a girl.”

Nel stepped back instinctively. “What?”

“Not on purpose. But it was my fault. I started drinking in high school. All those bonfires we used to sneak off to? Turned into a big problem for me. Got worse in college. But everybody drank back then, so my fiancée didn't think twice about marrying me. Turns out she should have.”

“What happened?”

“She couldn't handle my drinking. Especially when I'd start up about noon every day.”

“No, I get that—you were an alcoholic. I mean what happened to the girl?”

“First of all, I
am
an alcoholic. Always will be.”

“Okay, you
are
an alcoholic.”

“I was driving drunk along the ocean-side road during the time when all the college kids come down for spring break. I'd already racked up three, maybe four DUIs.” He hesitated. “Sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky. I didn't even see her and her friends crossing the road. It was the middle of the afternoon. They were heading to the beach, a whole group of them. She was the last one to cross, and I barreled right over her. She died instantly.”

“Oh, David.”

“By that time, my marriage was over except for the paperwork. The judge who sent me to prison helped finalize the divorce for her the same day.”

“How much time did you serve?”

“I was sentenced to fifteen years. Vehicular homicide. Got out in seven and served the rest on probation. Sobered up when I was in prison through an in-house AA program. Isn't a day goes by that I don't think of that girl and her family.”

Nel watched his eyes fill with tears as he looked out at the horizon.

“Figured God'd be done with me then. I had nothing in that concrete cell, or out of it, for that matter. Folks came in from prison ministries and tried to tell us we were forgiven and how much God loved us, and I couldn't believe them.” He held his hand out toward her. “Can I see that tourmaline?”

“Sure.”

He held up the lucent stone and peered at the different layers of color. “I can't tell you for sure when God started changing me. Maybe the day I killed that girl. Maybe in prison. Maybe before all that, but I was too drunk to pay attention. But He did. I was all mixed up like this stone too. But He changed me. Still is. I tried running from Him. Over and over again, I ran and ignored His voice. But He kept heating me up. Bringing people or a scripture or a piece of nature into my life unexpectedly, and I knew it was Him, talking to me and chasing me. I still carry a lot of shame. But at least I know I can live a better life with His help.”

“Wow.” Nel stared at him, disbelieving.

“Yeah.” David hung his head and watched the waves lap onto the shore. “You deserved to know.”

The squeak of hydraulic truck brakes, followed by the repetitive beep of a truck backing up, caught their attention.

“Sounds like the lumber's here,” said Nel. “We better get back up to the house.”