A Day of Small Beginnings Read online

  Outside, the sun shone on his cold hands. He squeezed the ticket like a good-luck piece and stuffed it in his pack.

  I was wild with joy, dancing with it. I’d offered help and he’d taken it. Itzik, I called to him. Now do you hear me? Itzik! But Itzik heard nothing. He bought a bit of herring from a Jewish woman in the market and asked directions to the shul.

  “Have you heard about the trouble in Zokof?” she said.

  “What trouble?” He turned his face from her curious gaze.

  “Trouble with the Poles. They say there’s been lives lost. People made to run away with the shirts on their backs. A pogrom is what I heard. A real pogrom.” She was looking side to side, as if she expected Zokof’s pogrom to sweep through Radom like a summer hay field fire, as well it might have. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Itzik’s body got cold. He shuddered.

  Why didn’t my soul have the power to show me what had happened last night? God, give me mastery of what strengths I have left, for the boy’s sake, I prayed. Who had died? Who’d paid the price for all this folly? It was not enough, what God had given me, a snatch of information here, a veiled image there. Not enough.

  Itzik took his fish from the woman and hurried from the market square, sweat beads dropping from his brow. He walked faster and faster, until he was running. He didn’t stop until, out of breath, he’d reached the brick walls of the shul. Inside, he breathed in the smell of dust and wax and sank into the protective shadows of a large column, well away from the bimah, where he might be seen. His whole body was shaking as if with a fever.

  Eat a little, I pleaded with him, knowing he’d need all his strength now. Itzik gave no indication that he’d heard me. The fish remained uneaten. I shouted, I flew back and forth in front of him. Nothing. Itzik was deaf to me.

  I thought of Zokof. Pogroms were not so much a part of our lives in Congress Poland as they were to the east, in Ukraine and such terrible places as they had in Russia. But we’d had our share of the tremors of fear, the steady beat of whispers behind closed shutters, the quick click of boots assembling. I imagined the terrified Shuli squatting in the cellar, her eyes hot with silent tears, wondering when her father would arrive with the detachment of Russian soldiers to break up the mob. This must have been what I saw in that grieving face, not the loss of Itzik. But where were the Leibers now? I prayed they’d left town, but I couldn’t leave Itzik to find them.

  An old man, the shammes of the shul, shuffled by, doing his job of replacing candles in the wrought-iron lamps. When he murmured a vague greeting to Itzik, the boy hid his face in his bundle and crept out the door. Who could be more wretched, I thought, than a homeless Jewish child who feels like a stranger in the house of his God?

  With great sadness, I remembered a question my father, of blessed memory, once asked his students. “Why do children from religious homes sometimes become impious?” When none of them gave him a satisfactory answer, he turned to me with those dark, penetrating eyes that kept most people at a respectful distance. “What proverb is responsive, Freidl?”

  “Proverb Twenty-two,” I said, from my usual place, beside his shelves of tall books. They had the honor of resting against the driest wall of our house so that they shouldn’t touch the dampness we ourselves felt in our beds. To me, these books, our most precious possessions, always looked like a group of rebbes leaning comfortably on each other, sharing Talmudic commentaries.

  My father’s eyes danced with pleasure as he smiled at me. “Recite for us, please.”

  “‘Instruct a child in the way he should go, and even when he grows old he will not depart from it,’” I’d said, proud of my father’s delight in me.

  “Exactly right, my Freidleh. If a child has a good upbringing, he will love God. Faith will become a habit with him, and he will not forsake it. But if a parent teaches faith and disrespects God by behaving immorally, the child may become impious. What’s more, the child will imitate the parents’ acts when he grows up.”

  He looked at me again. “What a shame she’s only a girl,” he said, still smiling. “A tea, if you would, Freidleh. I’m a little dry.”

  At that moment, nothing could have given me more pleasure than the honor of drawing a cup of tea from the samovar for so exalted a rabbi, so righteous and loving a man as my father. And if he was less pleased with me for being a daughter instead of a son, well, this is the way men are, even when they admire a woman’s intelligence. What I felt always was his loving guidance. All his life he protected me from the talkers of our town who declared, as if God Himself had revealed it, that I was cursed with a male soul. Years after the marriage, they told each other, “Naturally, she is childless.”

  I looked at Itzik, sadly making his way back to the train station, and felt crushed for us both. I wanted so much for him to know I was watching over him, that I would teach him in the way he should go.

  Seven or eight people stood on the small platform, peering down the tracks for the train to Warsaw. Like a beaten dog, Itzik hung far back from the stationhouse. When the two-o’clock train arrived, he scrambled up the stairs to the almost empty car. I wrapped myself around him and whispered comforting messages about how strong a faith in God would make him, how I would teach him to be the man he should become. But if he heard me, Itzik didn’t show it. Through the whole, long trip to Warsaw, over the miles and miles of flat fields, he shook with muffled sobs.

  6

  AT WARSAW STATION, ITZIK STUCK TO HIS TRAIN SEAT AS IF HE hoped the ride would last longer. Who could blame him, poor soul? The boy had arrived alone to a big city with nothing but the name Mendel the Blacksmith, his father’s cousin who lived near Plac Grzybowski.

  Freidl, I told myself, go find Plac Grzybowski for him. In a few hours it will be dark. The boy needs a roof to sleep under tonight. His eyelids are drooping already. I floated through the roof of the train and left the station through a small window.

  Warsaw. Even the name had a magic for me. City of I. L. Peretz, whose books I could only buy in secret from pakn-tregers, book peddlers who didn’t know or care if Freidl, Rebbe Eliezer’s daughter, read trayf—non-kosher. If I were a man, they’d have given me trouble. Men are supposed to have eyes only for Torah. But no one expects much from a woman, as long as she acts pious. “It’s a shame Freidl’s only a girl,” Poppa had always said. But to me, a girl who could read stories and Torah had all the riches a person needs in life. More than a man.

  And now, as I looked around the great city, I realized even Poppa had never been here. I flew like a drunken bird through the teeming streets, into the wide courtyards. Children played tag under lines of laundry that swung like curtains from wall to wall. I smelled the baking breads and cakes, the stink of tar and sewage mixed with lilacs, and the cool breeze coming over the Vistula, bringing a scent of grasses and pine from the forests.

  Everywhere I went I heard the voices of the three hundred fifty thousand Jews who lived in that city. Three hundred fifty thousand! From the stone bridge to Praga to the tailor shops on Niska Street, where young men crushed together, hunched over their clattering sewing machines. On Nalewki Street they were selling lace, stockings, fancy goods. At Tłomackie Street, I had to stop, so awed was I by the sight of the Great Synagogue. It was said three thousand could pray there at the same time. Who could even imagine such a thing?

  Finding Plac Grzybowski was no trouble. I let myself be carried along the cobbled pavement by the cries of the peddlers. “Hot chickpeas, the best in Poland, right here! Lemons, fresh lemons! Hungarian plums, juicy as they come!” At lantern-lit stalls and on doorsills, merchants with leather pouches slung around their waists made their trades.

  The center of Plac Grzybowski was packed with Jews. This one selling furs, that one hats, cloth. Jews selling more Yiddish newspapers than I’d seen in my life. People ran like chickens after feed. Women haggled over shirts and candles, pickles and potato latkes, bread, pickled apples, and cider, each one arguing her price with the f
ervor of a Talmudic student defending a point of law.

  I cannot look at such women without thinking what a mixed blessing was my childlessness. If I’d had more mouths to feed, I also might have had a voice gone hoarse from hollering in the market. The wagging tongues of Zokof said Berel was modern because he earned the living instead of me. They said Berel worked too hard, that I should have helped him more so he could have more time in shul. They supposed I thought myself too good for him.

  But if Berel and I had to testify before God, I would have said Berel worked himself into an earlier grave because that was easier than facing the marriage. He wouldn’t have argued. His conscience gave him trouble too. Why else did he beg me on his deathbed to transfer half my good deeds to him so he could take credit before God? “Didn’t I study Torah for your salvation as well as mine? And if I hadn’t left you alone all these years, what good works would you have done?” he said, tormenting me. “You would have been a curse to a husband who made you bear children.”

  “I made you a home,” I said.

  “A home for two people who lived alone with each other.”

  He was right, of course. And now, as I sailed through Warsaw’s streets, I prayed that after his death Berel too had found a share of happiness.

  At the train station, I looked for Itzik, this boy who had brought me here from the grave, who’d taken me farther in death than I’d ever been in life. This was naches like a son gives his mother. Such a pleasure.

  He lay crumpled on a bench with his sleeping face resting against the cold wall.

  Itzik, I said softly. I circled his ear. Itzik! Nothing. Surveying the small body, I cried out, Master of the Universe, how do I talk to him? Is there a text, a commentary, to guide me? How can I protect Your Itzik, teach him to be a mensch, if he can’t hear me?

  But God wasn’t talking any more than Itzik was listening, so I drifted into the portals of the boy’s ear again. Itzik, I called, hoping to penetrate his dreams. Wake up now. Come with me. Wake up. I might as well have been calling into a hole in the earth. What I would have given at that moment for my elbow, a finger, anything to nudge the boy awake. Instead, from amid all those hundreds of people in the train station, along came Hillel.

  I noticed him right away. Who wouldn’t, even at my age? He had such a walk, a rolling motion in the hips that sent his shoulders swinging effortlessly. Young manhood’s proud elegance, the long dark hair, combed back from his face like a mane, distracted the eye from the worn jacket that tugged at his shoulders and the turned-up toes of his dusty shoes.

  Hillel reminded me of Aaron Birnbaum, how he’d have looked in his early twenties. They both had that distinctive, soulful beauty that I had always loved in Jewish men. But something about him disturbed me. His face was clean-shaven as a Pole’s.

  Freidl, I scolded myself, you’re acting like a silly young girl. Go find a proper Jew to show Itzik around, not some young ruffian who thinks looking like a goy is a sign of enlightenment. Oh, I knew plenty about those rascals, the maskilim, they called themselves. Enlightened ones, ptuh!

  But as luck, or the Almighty, I never knew which, would have it, there were no other Jews around. So I took a closer look at Hillel as he paused to hitch up the lumpy bedroll and guitar slung around his back. The eyes were good. They had depth, warmth, kindness. I decided to give him a try. As the saying goes, better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew. What choice did I have?

  He hesitated when he passed Itzik, the way Aaron Birnbaum used to hesitate when he passed my window, humming his tune, his sweet call, with its hop here and there, like a bird’s. He would wait for me to sing it back to him. Was that hopping, hoping melody so haunting it could persuade Hillel to stay with Itzik? Or were Aaron and I so captivated by it because it was our forbidden fruit, a prayer sung together by a man and a woman. Who ever heard of such a thing? my father would have said, if he had known.

  Now in Warsaw’s train station, I sang Aaron’s tune into Hillel’s ear, hoping it would be enough to make him come to Itzik’s aid. My voice sounded so familiar yet so strange to me, disembodied as it was.

  Hillel stood perfectly still, then, to my delight and my relief, he looked around for the singer. When he began to sway to the tune’s rhythm, I moved from his shoulder to Itzik’s, raising my voice around the sleeping boy’s face. Hillel looked puzzled, but he followed the sound obediently until he stood before Itzik, casting a shadow that roused the sleeper on the bench.

  Itzik bolted upright, hands to his face in panic. “What do you want?”

  “You were humming a melody in your sleep. I’d like to learn it.” Hillel’s deep voice had a seductive graininess to it.

  Itzik stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “Look, boychik, I play music to make a few groshen. If you hum that melody again, I’ll buy you a meal. You look like you could use one.”

  “Do you know where is Plac Grzybowski?” Itzik asked tentatively.

  “Of course. Everyone knows Plac Grzybowski.” Hillel smiled and clapped his hand on Itzik’s shoulder like an older brother. “First time in Warsaw?”

  Itzik nodded.

  “Where are you from?”

  Itzik hesitated a moment and, reassured by Hillel’s easy manner, said, “Zokof.”

  “Never heard of it. What brings you to Warsaw?”

  “I’ve come to see my poppa’s cousin Mendel the Blacksmith. He lives near Plac Grzybowski.”

  “Well, if you sing me that melody again, I’ll take you to your poppa’s cousin, all right?”

  Itzik looked confused. Hillel pulled a hunk of bread from his bedroll and handed it to Itzik. Then he picked up the boy’s sack and ushered him out of the station.

  As the two of them walked the stately streets of Warsaw, I sang snatches of the tune to Hillel, but not so many times that he would remember it and leave Itzik to fend for himself. I sang to him only when Itzik’s face wasn’t in his sight. That way, it almost seemed as if Itzik was too shy to sing while being watched. Hillel still looked confused, but he succumbed to the melody and began to hum along, his eyes half shut in concentration. That was fine by me because Itzik was so busy gulping in the sight of so many big buildings and wide streets, he couldn’t have talked much anyway.

  When finally we reached Plac Grzybowski, Hillel made inquiries about Mendel the Blacksmith. He questioned and wheedled everyone he stopped with all the charm and persistence of a young man used to making his way alone in the world.

  “He has a room in that building over there,” said a peddler leading a wagon. “Second floor, in the back of the courtyard.”

  Once again, I gave thanks to the Almighty.

  The outdoor passageway to Mendel’s courtyard gave off a musty smell, which was mild compared to the stink of cat spray and rotting food in the courtyard. Masses of flies buzzed over a pile of refuse dumped near the outdoor privy in the far corner.

  “Mendel’s not home,” a neighbor woman called from her window roost on the third floor.

  Hillel cocked his head to one side amicably as he looked up at her. “Where is he? His cousin here came all the way from Zokof to see him.”

  “He’ll be back. He’ll be back,” she clucked, resettling her ample buttocks on the window frame.

  “Then he’ll just wait here on the doorstep.” Hillel smiled up at her. The woman smiled back, displaying a gold crown on her front tooth.

  “I guess I’ll be going,” he said to Itzik. “Thanks for the melody. It has a special something, I think. Like a hopping bird. I’ll call it the ‘Foygl Niggun’—the ‘Bird Tune.’”

  Itzik looked at him blankly.

  “You’re a funny one,” Hillel said, jostling the boy playfully. “Here, let’s see if I can play it on my guitar.” He swung the instrument around to the front of his body and began to strum it gently. The bridge was warped, the strings unraveled, but Hillel knew how to coax and caress music out of that guitar’s scratched, gouged body. No doubt he could do the same with a woman
.

  What a joy to hear my Aaron’s tune returned to me. When Hillel had mastered it, he began to work on variations that filled me like a cup. I had brought something back to life! And that living thing was keeping Hillel at Itzik’s side, even if it hadn’t kept Aaron at mine.

  He’d left for America just before I married Berel. “I have to go,” he’d said. “My parents are crazy from worry they can’t pay my way out of the army. My mother goes around saying she doesn’t know what’s worse, that they starve the Jewish boys or that they feed them trayf.” He’d straightened the books he was carrying. I could tell he was getting up courage. “Besides,” he said, eyes downcast with shyness, “I couldn’t stay here with you being Berel’s wife.”

  I’d nodded, unable to speak, but for the rest of my life I sang his tune at my window and pretended I still heard him humming it back to me. On my deathbed, people thought I cried out for my husband, but it was Aaron and his tune that I was remembering. My regret followed me even then. That there’d been no child to teach that melody to gave my heart its last anguish.

  Itzik sat down on Mendel’s doorsill and hugged his knees to his chest. He stared intently at Aaron’s guitar as if it were the only thing he could rely on for comfort. Every once in a while, he lifted those great big eyes of his and stole a glance at Hillel, who returned the look with an encouraging nod.

  It was nearly nightfall when Mendel finally returned home, bent over and out of breath from poor lungs and overweight. His hands I remember most, black with dirt, fingers broken as tree branches and just as gnarled.

  “What’s this?” He frowned at Hillel and Itzik, who’d stood up as he’d approached.

  “I’m Itzik Leiber, Mordechai the Ragman’s son, from Zokof,” Itzik said, his words muddled together. Mendel turned to Hillel and raised his bushy brows.

  “He’s my friend,” Itzik blurted.

  “You’re a Zokofer?” Mendel asked Hillel.