In the morning, on the never-ending road to Lublin, the sky turns white, then red. Kiva is weak but resolute. His eyes burn with intention and all the softness flows out of his face. ‘He has to rest. He can’t travel.’ Ziv squats beside him, puts his arms around Kiva’s shoulders and draws him close. ‘Petseleh putz,’ he croons tenderly. He holds the cup while Kiva drinks.
Elya watching is surprised to see how large Kiva’s eyes have become overnight. How small his body. Where’s his pupik? And his sweet childish smile?
Ziv can whistle through a blade of grass and tries to show Kiva how. But Kiva remains elsewhere. What use has he for blades of grass or whistling now?
Elya paces. He cannot help it. Stay or go? His thoughts swing back and forth like a kerosene lamp dangling on a loose chain from some poor shtetl ceiling. ‘Shall we start walking again?’ he asks at last.
‘Walking?’ Ziv scowls.
‘Yeah. Walking.’
‘The only road that matters now is the road to Adoshem,’ says Kiva. His child’s face sharp. His clothes too big. Ziv wraps him tenderly in a blanket and strokes his sheyna punim. Elya wants to touch him too, to put out his hands and tell him everything will be all right, but something holds him back. ‘I saw Adoshem,’ Kiva jabbers. But how Kiva can see anything is a mystery. The lenses of his eyeglasses are covered in dirt, ash, sludge. ‘Here, let me clean them for you,’ says Ziv.
It is an effort for him to stand, but Kiva knows where he is going. Late in the afternoon, he leads Elya and Ziv back along the road, striding confidently, for Kiva, into the future. He doesn’t need a hand, an elbow, or a stick to walk upright. Chest pushed out. Arms bouncing. It isn’t far.
Where to?
The little Jewish village they passed yesterday and a studyhouse beside the shul.
Is Kiva sure?
He’s sure.
Before entering, he washes his hands in a barrel of rainwater outside the door. Inside is a long table made of planks; the smell of old books; cobwebs; raw earth; a dark ceiling; sagging shelves. A holy book bound in wood lies open on the table. Men crowd around it.
The day has turned cool. A poor fire barely warms the room. Scholars with pale faces, like Kiva’s face, wearing old-fashioned garments, hum and whisper, chanting and shivering as they pray. They take no interest in the world around them. ‘What Tsar?’ they ask, bemused. ‘What drought?’ ‘What rain?’ ‘What kasha?’
The saltiest, plumpest kasha. How about it Kiva?
But Kiva’s only interested in holy books now, praying and fasting. ‘What more does a man need?’ he will ask, his eyes bright with joy. ‘A shtikel brod? A sip fun wasser?’ He gives Ziv his shoes. He won’t be requiring them any more. He trades his fine clothes for the tattered garments of a zealot, a true believer, a prophet. Kiva, with his soft shoulders, short arms, plump hands, irregular bowel movements, prune pastries and sweet kasha pudding, is abandoning the false distractions of life. Even the faces of his dear friends will soon be forgotten.
A small lamp burns throughout the night, while Elya and Ziv try to sleep on the crude studyhouse benches. In the morning, they shake hands solemnly. Kiva’s grasp firmer than before.
Ziv’s eyes are wet. And Elya? Poor Elya still believes this trip is a real trip. ‘It’s not real,’ Kiva tells him.
Then Kiva returns to his prayers, his holy books, his shtikel bread. Sneer all you want, his eyes are radiating a strange, clear light. They must go on without him.
‘I won’t do it,’ Ziv says.
‘What’ll I tell your mother?’ Elya bleats.
Elya’s last view of Kiva: sitting in the presence of the Holy Scrolls, wearing a long, tattered coat and a worn satin hat, and smiling.
‘A zay gezunt Kiva.’
Elya and Ziv continue on their own without him. What else can they do? There’s a greater sense of urgency now. Ziv can move fast when he wants to. Elya always wants to. They don’t talk much. They just walk. After a while they come to a sign. LUBLIN. 100 VERSTS. Holy drek! They’re further away than when they started. They’ve been walking in circles. And in the wrong direction. Can it be true? They examine the sign. A sign doesn’t lie. It’s far, but it’s Lublin.
They’re on the right path at last.
Elya doesn’t just want to please the Uncle now. He wants to be the Uncle. Eventually he may come to resemble the Uncle, with a small paunch and skinny legs. In Lublin, he thinks, he’ll buy Libka a ring.
Insects trail after them as they wander into a poor region of unpaved roads. No birdsong. Only the whirling of insect wings getting louder and louder. Or maybe it’s the first aeroplane to fly over Poland. They look up. Cheer. At the sight of such a marvel, who could foresee anything but cheering? The light is bewildering, vexing, dreamlike as they blunder down the road. Then the sun comes out. They cross an iron bridge over a swollen river. Ziv looks back for Kiva. He isn’t there.
‘Remember Ahab,’ says Ziv.
‘Who?’
‘One of the four wicked kings of Israel.’
‘I think he made those stories up.’
‘How did he die?’ asks Ziv.
‘Kiva’s not dead!’
‘Ahab.’
‘A woman hit him over the head with a millstone.’
‘That was Abimelech. I want to know about Ahab the idolator. How was he killed?’
‘I can’t remember. Why do you want to know?’
Ziv shrugs and they walk on.
Ahab died, Kiva would tell him, by an unaimed arrow, an accident, which Ziv would find disappointing.
The road ahead is trembling. First it only trembles a bit. Then a bit more. A ringing, grating, churning sound. A shrill whistle. Hoofbeats. Boots. Elya and Ziv dive into a ditch as a long column of mounted and unmounted Russian soldiers comes into view. They are hauling a large gun on a carriage. Ziv reaches for Elya’s hand. First, they stare wide-eyed. Then, still holding hands, they stand up and cry, ‘Hurrah!’ They can’t help themselves. They’re just boys after all. And, well, it’s affecting. They have seldom seen soldiers in Mezritsh, although one day the town will be occupied by them, commandeered by a general, if you can believe that. And no one can. But never mind. It’s all in the future, a million versts away.
Ziv drops Elya’s hand. ‘Get off,’ he says.
When they regain the road, a carriage bus overtakes them, scattering road grit, the passengers laughing, eating, waving and shouting.
Ziv keeps looking back. Kiva still isn’t coming.
There are half-burned trees everywhere. A dead gonif swings from a rope tied to a low branch. He’s been there a while.
‘Imagine if Kiva was here?’ Ziv’s eyes twitch up to the branch and away. Wearing Kiva’s superior shoes, he lifts his feet high as if stepping, like Kiva, over something unpleasant. And he is: animal excrement; small corpses; rotting vegetation.
They pass no villages and find nothing to eat. One night they try to make soup from sorrel leaves. Elya’s mother makes this soup, which is Elya’s favourite, with one quarter of a pound of sorrel, six cups of water, one teaspoon of paprika and three beaten eggs. She serves it with sour cream and more eggs, hard-boiled.
The soup they make has no eggs, no sour cream, no paprika.
‘I can’t taste anything,’ Ziv complains.
‘You’re lucky.’
Oh, for a cup of tea.
But there’s no tea either. Not even in Mezritsh, where tea has lately become scarce. The only tea you can buy tastes like kerosene. Kerosene is also in short supply. A shipment, anxiously expected, mysteriously ignites and an enormous ball of flame pitches down the Mezritsh highway towards Biale, narrowly missing two Khappers and a line of boys they have captured.
Another night Elya and Ziv eat road seeds and unripe berries from a thorny bush. They pick bad mushrooms. Well, they looked all right. Then they’re sick. Next day, too weak to walk further, they locate a carriage stop in a posting yard outside an inn and hire two places on a goods wagon to Lublin. The night wagon is a poor one with no kerosene headlamps to show the way. They’re the only passengers, squeezed between a backload of barrels. They jolt over ruts in the road and groan. The inferior wheels are high and loose with large axles. Not a wagon that advertises a smooth ride. An uncovered economy wagon. The vehicle sways from side to side. They take the bends swiftly, the driver at first alert, wild whinnying from his lively horse. Eventually they all fall asleep. Including the driver. Perhaps he’s been drinking. Swaying, he rouses himself, cursing the moon which drifts behind a bank of clouds; the dark, wet road; his ungrateful wife; his children. All he has is his horse. The horse throws back its head and snorts. Only good thing in his life, a horse. It’s so dark he cannot see the road ahead. Then, skittering sideways on wet leaves, his horse stumbles. The carriage lurches forward. Hits a tree and rolls into a ditch. Elya falls out, flung onto the road. Ziv falls on top of him. Broken barrels, upturned sacks, spilled grain.
Elya has a cut on his cheek. Ziv is out cold.
‘Ziv, can you hear me?’
Ziv moans. Sits up.
They are stunned. Nearly dead. Seeing black spots before their eyes. Seeing birds, stars.
The driver also rouses himself. Face dark with blood, he stumbles. Finds his feet. Kicks the broken carriage wheels. His horse lies on its side, quivering, one eye rolling. The driver kneels close to the animal, then looks up and motions down the road. There’s a village not far away, he tells them, and Elya and Ziv start walking.
Then Elya stops. The brushes! He runs back. Their beautiful brush case is dented and scratched. But when he opens it, he finds their brushes unharmed.
‘No refunds!’ the driver shouts after them.
After walking all night and most of the following day, they come upon the village promised by the driver. Not far, as it turns out, is far enough. The village as a destination is a disappointment. Polish peasants, barbed wire, crying children, starving dogs, wooden huts with straw roofs or no roofs, goats; the roadside lined with gullies and deep ravines; more insects overhead, flying lower, buzzing louder; dusk falling from the trees. They ought to have hurried away. But it’s getting dark and they decide to camp nearby.
That night, Ziv’s restless. Looking into the shard of his mirror, he combs his hair. He’s noticed a taproom. A what? A drinking establishment. Where? In the village. Trust Ziv. You couldn’t miss it. Well, Ziv couldn’t. How about it? A glass or two of schnapps? And Elya agrees. After all they’ve been through. Putting on his own fancy but ruined shoes, and throwing the stout footwear he received from Kiva in his knapsack, Ziv’s ready. Elya changes his shirt. He tries to brush the mud off his knees.
A fearful place it looks at first. Never mind that. Ziv hurries towards the tavern door where men cluster. Soon they’ll be beating each other senseless. This is what Ziv’s been waiting for. But it’s early yet. A drunk pishes against a wall. Elya stares in wonder at his long putz and uncircumcised foreskin. The front door opens. Closes. Opens. Crude tables. A dirt floor. Flies. There’s some muttering as they enter. Are they not welcome? Nah, they’re welcome. Peasants in blunt-toed boots wave their arms and shout.
‘Good fellows,’ Ziv opines, then he laughs. There are card players and dicers at the tables, cracking nuts and spitting shells; serious drinkers at the bar downing shots. And there are women, wagon girls like the women of Babylon. Ziv throbs with excitement. And Elya? Perhaps he throbs too.
They get drinks. Sit down. Immediately, they are joined by two thick-legged, beautiful women. Both called Magda. The Magda beside Elya grabs his ears and holds them tightly between her fingers and thumbs, twisting and laughing. ‘What big ears you have,’ she cries in Polish, and the nape of his neck flushes pink.
Ziv winks at him. ‘Women,’ he says.
‘Women,’ Elya nods. His mind, like Ziv’s mind, confused by impure thoughts. Suddenly he feels handsome. ‘Another drink?’ Ziv leans forward and reaches into Elya’s money belt. And Elya lets him. He’s not stupid. He’s left most of their money at their campsite, buried underneath a tree. He knows which one. The brush case under a fall of leaves.