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 fervor 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.

“No, I’m from łód.”

Mendel nodded. “So,” he said, turning to Itzik. “What brings you to Warsaw? Your father knows you’re here?”

“No,” Itzik answered, lowering his eyes.

Mendel looked hard from one young man to the other. “Do you think I don’t know what’s what here, boy? Your father gave you a good thrashing and you took off, right?” He eyed Hillel’s clean-shaven face suspiciously. “From the look of things, he caught you reading trayf books, right?”

Incredulous, Itzik denied it.

“Ach.” Mendel spat disgustedly. “You’re all the same. A worthless generation. I’ve seen your kind before. You boys from the provinces, with your heads puffed up with socialist nonsense, come here to make trouble.” He swatted impatiently in Itzik’s direction. “What do you think, I’m going to put a roof over your head and feed you while you laze around? Go to America if you want to live in a godless place.”

“See here,” Hillel interjected. “We only met at the train station. I was just helping him find you.” Since Hillel knew nothing about Itzik or why he’d come to Warsaw, he turned to him for support. But Itzik remained speechless, which Mendel seemed to take as proof of his assessment of the situation.

“Your father is a pious man,” Mendel said evenly. “I won’t play any part in your game, boy. Go back home. Ask his forgiveness and study Torah like a Jew.”

With that he pushed past the two boys, opened his door, and went inside. The sharp smell of pickled cabbage escaped briefly from within. I thought to try to go after him, make him reconsider, but something about the man put me off. A man who doesn’t listen, who jumps to conclusions, can be a danger. I didn’t trust him to take care of Itzik. After all, this was the cousin of a man who’d abandoned his family. I didn’t see a wife or children. The situation didn’t look good. Not safe. Itzik was better off with Hillel.

Itzik stood motionless, his ears burning dark crimson for all the world to see. Hillel fidgeted with a string on his guitar and began to gather his things again. In an instant, I was at his ear, humming. He had to take Itzik with him. I had to make sure of that.

Hillel’s head jerked up at the sound of my voice. He looked quizzically at Itzik, who was too lost in his shame to notice. “Come, Itzik,” Hillel said softly, putting his hand around the boy’s shoulder. “What do you need with him, anyway? You can stay with me, if you want. We can go to my friend Piotr’s house.”

Itzik ran his fingertips across Mendel’s closed door but stopped when he reached the bronze mezuzah on the doorpost. He considered it for a moment, then with a quick hoist of his bundle, turned away. “Are you really a socialist, like Mendel said?” he asked.

“Of course,” Hillel answered, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

“What’s a socialist?” Itzik’s little face was more animated than I’d seen it. This boy whom I could not reach, whose soul had bolted itself into a prison of anger and resentment, was coming alive before my eyes. And why? Because of a man I’d brought to him, Hillel the Socialist. Dear God, I called to the heavens, do not let this child of mine go.

Hillel smiled and ran his fingers through his hair. “A socialist is a person who believes that everyone has equal worth and a right to an equal chance in life, no matter if their father was a prince or a peddler.”

“Do they have rabbis?”

“No. We believe in mankind, not in God, not in any religion at all.”

Itzik’s eyes opened so wide you’d think he’d just seen the Messiah.

“Do socialists ask for money from poor people?”

“We share what we have to fight against capitalists who exploit poor people.”

That was it for Itzik. With a grin so wide it changed the whole contour of his face, he said, “I’m a socialist too.”

“I’m sure you are,” said Hillel, laughing, and clapped Itzik on the back. “I’m sure you are.”

I’m sure you are a fool, Hillel, I said, if you socialists think you can drop four thousand years of wisdom into a slop bucket and say that God and Torah are a figment of our imagination. With dread growing in my soul, I watched helplessly as Itzik and Hillel left Mendel’s courtyard and sauntered past the skeletal remains of the day’s market in Plac Grzybowski. Near Twarda Street, Itzik ventured a tentative pat on Hillel’s shoulder.

“Look over there,” Hillel said, pointing to a grand white building. “That’s the new shul built by the Noyk Family so they could put their name on something. Do you really think this city needs another shul? Think of what they could have done with that money. Given it to striking workers or hungry mothers.”

Itzik looked up happily at his new rebbe. “In Zokof, I used to say the rabbis were all thieves. You should see how they came after my mother when my father left. I had to throw them out of the house.”

“So your father didn’t throw you out, like Mendel said?”

Itzik shook his head.

“Ha! Mendel was talking to the wrong man. My father’s last words to me were, ‘Never enter this door again, you Bolshevik!’ He didn’t care that my mother was screaming for me. I was her favorite, got all the meat she could save up special, and he knew it, the old bastard. Where did he go, your father?”

“He just left. The day before Shavuos, two years ago. Said he’d got us through the winter and that’s all we were going to get from him.”

“What about your mother?”

“She cried. Same as always. And my brother Gershom went running to the shul. Same as always.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to work at the mill.”

“How was the pay?”

“Terrible.”

“The hours?”

“From eight in the morning to ten at night, six days a week.”

“You know what that is? That’s slavery.”

Itzik’s face brightened at being understood. “I had no choice,” he explained eagerly. “There was no one else to feed the family.”

“That’s why it’s slavery. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the rabbis. Instead of fighting slavery, fighting for the rights of the workers, for people like you who have no choice, they tell us to pray. They’re all cowards. Noyk’s shul over there is just a shell where weak men run to hide like snails.”

Itzik’s eyes were shining unnaturally bright. His head bobbed up and down as if he’d just received the revelation from Mount Sinai. His voice grew stronger as he struggled to tell Hillel who he was. Even though I sensed he was shocked at his own candor, he was desperate to nestle under Hillel’s warm wings.

I was sick to my core. What had I done? My Itzik was being pulled in by a man who had no respect for a house of God. A man whose philosophy could land him in prison, and Itzik along with him.

They passed Noyk’s shul, contempt written across both their faces. This confidence that Judaism could be taken for granted, insulted even, made me afraid.

A growing wave of anxiety for Itzik overtook me. He was like the Wicked Son they tell of at the Passover Seder. The one who knows the Four Questions he’s supposed to ask, about why this night is different from all other nights, but who doesn’t want to hear the answers because he wants to keep his distance from Jewishness. My father used to say that the child of the Wicked Son is the Simple Son. He barely understands what’s happening at the Seder because his father didn’t teach him the tradition and his grandfather, the Wise Son, is gone. By the fourth generation, all that’s left is the Son Who Doesn’t Even Know There Is a Question. That will be Itzik’s grandchild. If Hillel doesn’t get him shot first.