Threads and Flames (4 page)

“So what?” Avigal countered, flashing her dimples. “There's lots of money in America! She'll be able to send as many letters as she likes.”

Yitta, Avigal, and Dina visited Raisa many times after that, but it was Yossel and Sarah who came every day, always bringing a basket filled with treats. One morning they arrived with a bigger gift than usual.

Glukel raised one eyebrow as she took the heavy basket from the blacksmith's hands. Besides the freight of baked goods, two bottles of dark red cherry cordial clinked together. “All right, what's the special occasion?”

“She leaves in three days,” Yossel replied. “Is that special enough?”

“How did you know?” Raisa asked from her pillow-laden armchair. She no longer needed to sit all propped up and tucked in, but Glukel still insisted on fussing over her. As much as she hated being treated like an ailing infant, Raisa let the older woman have her way. She didn't want to argue with Glukel when she didn't know when or if they would ever see one another again. “The doctor was just here to say I can go, but we haven't told anyone about it.”

“Since when does my Sarah need to be
told
anything?” Yossel spread his hands in a gesture of complete helplessness.

“Ignore him,” Sarah said briskly, unpacking the basket. “He spends so much time with horses that he's got the manners of one. Here.” She thrust a fat bun, sticky with honey and fragrant with cinnamon, into Raisa's hands. “Eat while you can. Who knows what kind of pig slop you'll have on that ship? And America! You'll be lucky if you can find a decent loaf of bread, never mind a piece of cake that doesn't taste like brick dust!”

Yossel laughed. “Sarah, you sound like an old housewife. Why wouldn't she find good bread in America? It's the
goldineh medina,
the country where the streets are paved with gold!”

Sarah folded her arms and stared at her husband. “You
believe
that?”

“Well, not
all
of that, but—”

“So tell me, Mr. Know-it-all, if the streets in America are paved with gold, why did it take Henda
four years
to save enough money for her sister's ticket? What, maybe she walked down the wrong streets?”

Sarah was still pecking at Yossel when another knock sounded at the door. Glukel went to answer it and came back into the room followed by the innkeeper's son. Lemel was a big man but he walked with small steps, shuffling his feet over the plank floors. His head was bent, his eyes downcast, and he held his hands cupped together in front of him, as if he held a firefly.

“Hello, Lemel.” Raisa took care to keep her voice friendly and calm. Lemel was shy and well known for dashing away without warning if he feared he was about to be scolded or punished. “I'm glad you came to see me. Sarah brought me lots of good things to eat. Would you like some?”

Lemel shook his head emphatically. “Don't deserve it,” he muttered. “I . . . told the man the wrong thing. About you.”

Raisa stood up with her quilt wrapped around her and fetched another sticky bun from the basket on the table. Lemel still refused to raise his head, so she held the treat where he couldn't help but see it.

“It's all right,” she told him. “You made a mistake, just like all of us do. Come on, eat. Please.”

Lemel slowly raised his head and gave her a shy look. “You're not mad at me?”

She smiled at him. “No, but if you don't have some of Sarah's baking, she will be.”

It was wonderful to see how the big man's eyes lit up with pure joy, but before he accepted the bun, he looked back down. “Oh! I forgot. I made you a present.” He opened his cupped hands, revealing a tiny wooden horse, perfect in every detail. Astride the animal was a regal woman dressed in flowing robes, crowned with a wreath of flowers. “It's you,” Lemel said, blushing. “How you will look when you come back from America—a rich lady, a queen.”

Raisa accepted the gift, marveling at the skillful carving, the delicate way every tiny flower had been painted. “She's much too beautiful to be me, Lemel,” she said while Glukel steered her back into the big chair and tucked the quilt snugly around her once more.

“All right, so she's Henda,” Lemel replied cheerfully. He gobbled up the bun and licked his fingers.

Lemel didn't stay long. Everyone in town knew that he was ill at ease at even the smallest gatherings, more content when there was only one other person talking to him, happiest in the silent company of the inn's horses. Glukel used a napkin to wrap up a big slice of her honey cake for him to take home. He held it close to his chest and headed for the door, but before he left, he turned back for a moment and blurted out, “Henda is the queen, Raisa, but you are the princess!” His face flushed a deep red, and he ran out of the house as if his feet had caught fire.

Sarah laughed. “Well! Maybe you shouldn't go to America after all, Raisa. It looks like you've made a conquest here. A man who's his father's only son, heir to an inn that always does good business,
and
he thinks you're a princess? You could do worse.”

“Stop it, Sarah!” Glukel snapped. “A nice match you want to make for my Raisaleh! Poor Lemel has the mind of a child.”

Sarah couldn't resist teasing Glukel just a little longer. “So how different is that from plenty of other men?”

Before Glukel could respond or Yossel could intervene, Raisa broke in. “How could I marry Lemel? A princess has to marry a prince.” She ran her hand over her shorn head and laughed. “A fine princess I make now! But Lemel's right about my sister; Henda
is
beautiful enough to be a queen, even if they don't have queens in America.”

“No queens, maybe, but rich people?” Sarah said. “Plenty, believe me! Yasha the butcher's cousin went to America and keeps sending him pictures from the newspapers about all those millionaires with their fancy clothes, their big mansions, their wives covered in diamonds. And it's not just the gentiles with all that money. There are Jews like us living over there who have houses bigger than this whole shtetl, armies of servants, dinners served on silver platters!” She grew breathless describing the imagined splendor of such a life.

“You believe that, but not what Yossel said about the streets being paved with gold?” Raisa asked.

Sarah lifted her chin. “The difference is,
I
know what I'm talking about.”

 

 

On the morning of her departure for America, Raisa woke up before dawn and stole out of the house without waking Glukel. The sky was just beginning to turn light when she returned.

“Where have you been?” Glukel demanded, coming out of the kitchen just as Raisa was trying to go back upstairs as quietly as possible. “And without your coat! What were you thinking?”

“I just wanted to walk through the shtetl,” Raisa replied, turning around and coming back downstairs slowly. “And it's not that cold out, really.”

“Hmph!” Glukel grabbed Raisa's wrist, studied the girl's arm, and ran her fingers over the thick cluster of goose bumps. “This says otherwise. Never mind. Come into the kitchen and have some breakfast.”

Raisa drank a tall glass of hot rose-hip tea, holding a sugar cube between her teeth to sweeten it while she sipped. Glukel set down a plate piled high with fresh bread, poppy seed cake, and rolls just out of the oven and watched approvingly as Raisa spread thick layers of butter and raspberry preserves on the bread. “At least your walk around the village gave you a good appetite,” she remarked. “So, where did you go?”

“Nowhere,” Raisa replied. “Anywhere. I walked to the marketplace, past the inn, the synagogue, the dry-goods store, Yossel's forge . . . you know. The birds were singing. I passed Meyer's daughter, Liba, taking some goats down to the river, and Danek bringing in a horse cart full of beets and cabbages. And, oh, Glukel, there were such good smells coming from the bakeshop!”

“Better than these?” Glukel smiled gently as she gestured at the slowly vanishing heap of bread and cake on the table.

Raisa's answering smile was a little sad. “I can't believe I'm really going. I wish you were coming with me.”

“So do I.” Glukel drew up a chair and sat beside Raisa. “Now that Nathan is gone, there's nothing tying me here. Oh, I have my friends, but if you and Henda can make new lives in a new land, I can make new friends.” Glukel shook her head and smiled. “But today it's your turn; mine will come, I know. After all”—she embraced Raisa warmly—“what can I trust if I can't trust my daughter's promise?”

 

 

Raisa sat on the seat board next to the peddler who would take her to the train station. He wasn't from her shtetl, but he was well known to Reb Avner as a trustworthy family man with a good reputation. In spite of this, Glukel kept glaring at him as if he were a villain with a record of crimes as long as the road to Warsaw. She stopped scowling only long enough to speak to Raisa.

“Write to me, my dear one. Don't forget to write to me.”

Raisa's face reddened. “Glukel, you know I'm not very good at—”

“Then find someone to write for you! Surely in America
someone
knows how to write a letter. And while you're at it, have them teach you. I blame myself; I should have seen to it that you had more time to practice reading and writing instead of always sewing, sewing, sewing like a slave!”

“I didn't mind.”

“That's not the point!” Glukel held up one finger. “If we don't see to it that our children turn out better than we did, what will become of the world? Promise me, Raisa; promise me that you'll learn.”

Raisa's promise was lost in a fresh outburst of tears and hugs. She leaned over so far that she almost toppled out of her seat and onto Glukel. Luckily Yossel was standing nearby and stepped in just in time to help Raisa settle back safely.

“Be careful, Raisaleh,” the big man said, giving her his own pocket kerchief to dry her eyes. “You want to reach America in one piece.” He could manage only half a smile.

“Thank you, Yossel,” Raisa said, wiping the tears away. “Where's Sarah? Isn't she coming to see me off?”

“She'll be here.”

As if to prove Yossel right, his wife's unmistakable voice rang out through the morning air. “Wait! Stop! Don't go yet! Here I am!” She rushed up to the cart like a miniature whirlwind and pressed a large covered basket into Raisa's lap. “For the journey,” she said.

“All the way to America?” Yossel couldn't resist the urge to tease.

Sarah was in no mood for that. Her angry stare blazed hot enough to singe the beard right off her husband's face. “Maybe
you
should go to America, too,” she said. “Alone.”

Yossel was still trying to make peace with his wife when Reb Avner approached the wagon. The rabbi recited the prayer for a safe journey, and everyone who had come to bid Raisa farewell raised a thunderous “amen” at the end. Then Reb Avner reached up and took Raisa's hand.

“My dear, you have Henda's address safe?” Raisa nodded. The precious piece of paper had come from Warsaw shortly after Reb Avner wrote to his friend about Raisa's recovery. “I've heard from Reb Laski again. He's written to your sister, letting her know you're alive and well, but hasn't heard back from her yet.”

“The important thing is that his letter reaches her and that she knows I'm all right,” Raisa replied.

“Yes, yes, I'm sure it did.” Reb Avner nodded. “Perhaps she was too overwhelmed by the happy news to think of writing back to him.”

“Not as happy as I'll be to see her again,” Raisa said, smiling in spite of her tears.

The peddler announced it was time to leave.

“So soon?” Glukel clutched the horse's bridle, her face the color of frost.

The peddler looked at her with heartfelt regret. “I'm sorry, but if I'm going to get this girl to the station in time to board the train for Warsaw—”

“Yes, fine, all right, go!” Glukel released her grip on the bridle and turned away abruptly, hugging herself and shaking.

“You heard her,” Yossel said. “Go
now.
” He gave the horse a strong slap on the rump. It whinnied and set off at a brisk trot, leaving the peddler to try and regain control of his animal.

As they traveled through the streets of the shtetl and out onto the open road, Raisa heard her name called out from many lips, together with a flurry of farewell wishes for a safe journey. She set Sarah's basket down on the floor of the cart and twisted around in her seat, waving to the people and straining to keep the village in sight as long as possible. She cupped one hand over the brooch she'd pinned so carefully to her shawl. It was the same circle of pearls with one missing that Raisa had always kept close, the sole remaining piece of Mama's jewelry, the one Henda had insisted she keep, “so you won't ever forget Mama . . . or me.”
As if I ever could do that!
Raisa thought, and clasped the brooch even more tightly as fresh tears stung her eyes.

Far too soon, the road took the peddler's cart into an alley-way of linden trees. When they emerged on the other side, the shtetl was gone.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

A
fter a long and arduous journey by cart and train and finally on foot, from the shtetl through the countryside to the great city of Warsaw and beyond, Raisa reached the docks in the bustling port of Bremerhaven, Germany, her gateway to the
goldineh medina.
She trudged from the train station to the docks in the midst of a crowd of travelers like herself, all speaking Yiddish, all talking about the impending voyage, yet she felt utterly alone. No one spared her a single word. It was as if she'd become invisible. No sooner were the great steam-ships in sight than everyone scattered, blending in with all the other people swarming along the waterfront.