8

A FEW DAYS AFTER HE’D SETTLED IN AT PESHA GOLDMAN’S, Itzik went back to Plac Grzybowski to find work. Hillel went too. They were listening to a half smiling organ grinder when all of a sudden Mendel the Blacksmith lunged out of nowhere, grabbed Itzik by the scruff of the neck, and dragged him, with Hillel at his heels, into the darkness of a courtyard entryway.

“What are you crazy, walking around here in broad daylight?” Mendel said, pushing Itzik against the wall. “You want we should all be arrested?”

Itzik, his breath knocked out of him, turned the color of paste. “What’s the matter?” he whispered.

“What’s the matter? Gottenu! You killed a man! The word is everywhere. You think you can just disappear in Warsaw?” His eyes narrowed. “Killed a man, you hear me? And not just any farchadat peasant, no. You had to pick one whose father saw the Virgin Mary over the Tatra Mountains. Now they got a bishop after you.” He cuffed Itzik’s left ear with one hand and grabbed him at the chest with the other. But it was fear, not anger, I saw in his eyes.

“You came to my house and let me think you were just another runaway kid I should return to his father. Made such a tumult, the whole building was talking about you and your friend there. If it gets out you’re the one they’re looking for, they’ll come and take me in for questioning. And when they find you, they’re gonna hang you from the nearest tree, believe me.”

He shook a jagged finger in Itzik’s face, but to me it looked like the hand of the Almighty Himself, scolding me for being so careless with Itzik’s safety. What was I thinking, letting him parade around in the open, maybe attracting dangerous attention? I was making speeches to God against the socialists, but they were the only ones protecting him. Them and this louse Mendel.

May you live to be a hundred twenty—without teeth, I cursed myself. Ten thousand times I must have said this in my life, but now that I was without a body to call my own, the effect wasn’t so satisfying. Ach! Say it plain, you foolish old yideneh. If you didn’t have children, it’s because God knew better than to give them to you. You didn’t protect this precious boy, not even from Mendel’s hand. You’ve broken your promise to his mother that you would protect him.

Itzik’s head hung to one side. He rubbed his bruised ear. “It was an accident with the peasant, Mendel. I swear on my mother’s name!”

I felt a blow from inside, and then my sight was gone. I don’t know for how long I was like this, but after some time, the pain disappeared and my sight returned, such as it was. Only, I couldn’t tell if what I saw was real. I saw Sarah, Itzik’s mother, wearing all her clothes on top of each other, carrying her red-haired little girl, Hindeleh, down an empty road, who knows where. I called to her, I won’t leave him! She didn’t hear. God forgive me, but I was grateful when she went away and I didn’t have to look at the pity of it. This much I knew: Sarah and her other children were outside my power to save, and they were gone from Zokof. But I promised Sarah again—what I could do for Itzik, I would.

Warsaw returned to my sight, and I humbled myself in gratitude to the Compassionate One.

“An accident? You killed a man!” Mendel scoffed at Itzik. “Ptuh! You think you got a city of refuge here? The goyim don’t care if you did it or if one of theirs did. Don’t you know yet they make it all up anyway? Schlemiel!” He smacked Itzik on the side of his head. “They make us up!”

I slammed a door inside the courtyard to get Mendel to his point.

He checked the courtyard then grabbed the outer door handle, ready to escape if he had to. “There are reports about a pogrom in Zokof. It’s all over the Jewish press. Everyone’s talking, so now the authorities have to make a show of an investigation. One thing’s for sure, you’re not going back to Zokof. Understand?”

Itzik’s eyes snapped open. “What happened to my family?”

“Do I know? The story is the Russian magistrate over there wouldn’t send a detachment of soldiers to stop it. Wouldn’t take a bribe. Probably wasn’t big enough. Now some landowner named Milaszewski is saying his peasants had to defend themselves from the Jewish devils who started up with them. People are dead, you little shit! All because you had to start up with the only famous peasant in town. What a business!” Mendel waved his free hand above his head.

“Why wouldn’t the Russian magistrate send the detachment?” Itzik said helplessly. “Avrum Kollek said they’d come. He had enough for a bribe.”

Hillel had been leaning against the wall, graceful but on guard. “It’s like I’ve been telling you, Itzik,” he said, pouncing on the chance to make a socialist’s point. “The landowners and the Russians don’t mind letting things get stirred up now and then. It gives the peasants a little distraction, so they don’t get ideas. A few Jews get hurt, maybe even killed, so what? The country’s full of them. It keeps the bigger peace.” He smiled ironically, for Mendel’s benefit, I thought.

Mendel’s blackened hands fell to his sides. Encouraged, Hillel went on. “And if things get out of hand, they can always count on the Church, the great Opiate of the People, to call us Christ killers from the pulpits and justify the bloodletting that way. You understand now, Itzik?”

I looked into Itzik’s bewildered eyes, so like his mother’s. The story was as old as Moses. Every Pesach we tell the tale of our redemption from bondage in Egypt. But if we were still being used for other people’s purposes, we were still slaves. Still slaves.

“What should I do?” Itzik whispered.

Hillel sighed, the oratory suddenly gone out of him. “You have to leave the country, Itzik.”

No! I cried. Blessed God, please don’t make us leave Poland! He needs Polish soil to grow. I need it.

But Mendel agreed with Hillel. “Leave the country and things will die down. What else can they do? Kill more Jews?”

Itzik shrank to the stone floor in the shadows of the entryway, scared as a cornered mouse. “Things didn’t die down when they found out I left Zokof. They made a pogrom,” he said, chin on his knee.

“They can’t make a pogrom against all the Jews in Poland,” Hillel argued. “Itzik, I have friends. I’ll book you passage to America.”

“Just get him out of here fast,” Mendel said. “And when you get to America, you’d be smart to change your name, like my worthless son Shima the Gonif—the Thief. Then no one will ever find you.” He sneered. “That’s what America’s for, a place to send our dreck.”

If he changes his name, not even he will find himself, Mendel! I said. But of course, he didn’t hear me. No one heard me. The Golden Land, they call America. What could such a name mean but that gold is all they value there? God help us, Itzik and I were going to a fool’s paradise. Then I cursed myself for dreading it, for resisting God’s will. If that was the place where Itzik would be safe, that was where I should gladly go.

“Zie gezunt—good health,” Mendel said, and walked out the entry door, finished with Itzik forever. Ach! A pox on him.

An awkward moment passed before Hillel took Itzik by the arm and led him back into the crowded street to Pesha Goldman’s empty apartment. He pointed to a chair by the kitchen table. “Sit down. I’ll pour you a cup of hot water,” he said.

Eventually, Itzik began to speak. “What happened, I’m not even sure,” he mumbled, not taking his eyes off the cup.

Hillel sat down opposite and laid his open hands on the table. “Try,” he said very gently, because Itzik looked sure to fall apart.

A mishmash of words came. “The boys had Yudel the Teacher’s lantern. It was late. I was on the other side of the road, but I saw Jan, the one with the laugh, the famous one. He had the whip out again. Always he has it out for the littlest ones. But the horse made him fall, not me.” Itzik looked up at Hillel, tears all over his face. “Now he’s dead.”

Hillel waited patiently for him to go on.

“The Poles came after me. I hid in the cemetery until they left. Then I went to Avrum Kollek. He gave me money, and he went for the Russian magistrate.” Itzik choked back more tears and collapsed in his chair, a heap of shaking rags.

I sang to him, curled my soul around him, and tried to soothe him as I’d soothed his mother. Nothing. Hillel came around the table and put a hand on his shoulder. “You did what you could.” He waited for Itzik to calm. I pulled back. Useless again. Even my gravestone he’d left out. For him, this was nothing. How was I to help this boy if he didn’t even know I was part of his story?

Hillel’s dreamy eyes had a look of melancholy. Their crinkled corners had lost their laughter. “We’ll have to hide you while I organize some papers for you and book the boat passage to America,” he said. Itzik hung his head, but Hillel, suddenly excited by his plan, rushed on. “We’ll put you in Pesha’s darkroom! It’ll be safe. It’s perfect!” He laughed and coaxed a smile from the boy.

Later, Pesha Goldman, may his name be inscribed forever, agreed to hide Itzik, even though it was a danger.

Itzik didn’t take much more on his journey to America than the clothes on his body and the contents of his small sack. The sun shone so bright on the day he left, it reached even the Goldmans’ damp basement apartment. Devora filled the sack with freshly baked poppy-seed rolls. “Safe journey, Itzik,” she said. Pesha smiled and handed him the two photographs they’d taken the day after Itzik had arrived in Warsaw. They were mounted on cards, with the studio name and address on the bottom right corner.

Itzik stared at one, his portrait. He looked so fine, dressed in the stately studio clothes Pesha had fastened in the back with clips. The second photograph was of him seated, with Hillel standing next to him, his hand on Itzik’s shoulder. In the white border below, Pesha had written, Chaverim—May 5, 1906.

Hillel glanced at Pesha’s writing. “Friends,” he said sadly.

“Take them both,” Pesha told Itzik. “With what’s going on, we can’t keep them.”

Hillel looked longingly at the photograph of the two of them.

“Thank you,” Itzik murmured.

Pesha winked at Itzik. “Don’t worry. They’ll never recognize the criminal Itzik Leiber under that cap Hillel got you.”

This made everyone smile, even Hillel. It was true. The cap was so big, all you could see was Itzik’s chin. He tugged nervously at the knots in his sack, and once again his eyes filled with tears. “I’ll send you my address when I get to America. I’ll send you pictures of Indians.”

Pesha nodded and patted him softly on the back, after which Hillel took him by the arm and led him out the door. The two of them wound their way through the back streets of Warsaw to the train station.

As they waited by the train, Itzik said timidly, “I won’t forget you ever, or what you taught me.”

Hillel chuckled, a little sadly, and rechecked Itzik’s papers. “Take your tunes to America. They’ll keep you from getting lonely.” He bowed his head and let his long hair fall forward so Itzik couldn’t see the tears gathering in his eyes.

“I can’t sing,” Itzik protested, clearly puzzled why Hillel thought he knew tunes. “You keep them and remember me, all right, Hillel?”

Hillel opened his arms and pulled Itzik into a tight embrace. The boy shut his eyes, his face contorted in pain, as if he’d never been held like that before and didn’t expect to be held like that again. They clung silently to each other for a long time.

“Go now,” Hillel said, pulling back, his eyes still lowered as he turned in the direction of the train. It was ready to leave its berth. With a final squeeze at Hillel’s arm, Itzik pulled the photograph of himself and Hillel from his pack and pressed it into Hillel’s hand. Before Hillel could protest, Itzik had joined the flow of families with their piles of bundles and fearful faces, all climbing on board for the journey west.

I sang my last song of thanks to Hillel then. He smiled slightly. Such a beautiful face, and the soul of a lamed-vovnik. If he was one of them, those thirty-six righteous souls on whom justice in the world depends, I would not be surprised.

The train pulled away from the station. Itzik pressed his hand against the glass to Hillel, who waved until Itzik was out of sight. Throughout that sorrowful ride across Poland’s flat farmlands, Itzik stared out the window as if committing every field, every willow, and even the Polish roadside shrines to memory.

Shah, shah, Itzik, I said, You’ll plant your soul in American soil and grow there. It will be fine. You’ll be safe. I said this maybe as much for myself as for him.

Itzik gripped the windowsill and hummed Aaron’s tune off key, as if it were the only thing he had left in the world. Over and over he hummed the tune, my tune, until he’d transformed the sweet Hassidic melody into a plodding march. His cap, pulled over his brows, hid the tears that didn’t stop until late in the day, when we reached the German border.

The German officials let him pass without questioning the papers that identified him as Leo Rudovsky. It was as if once they saw his ticket for the ship docked in Antwerp, he was no longer of any consequence to them. What did they care about a Jewish boy? they seemed to say as they returned his papers. He’d soon be gone.

When the train left the station, I got schpilkes—nervousness I couldn’t quiet. At first I thought this was because I didn’t want to go. Poland was where I belonged, with generations of my family. But I’d accepted that the Omniscient One had decided Poland wasn’t where Itzik belonged, and if this was His test of my loyalty to the child He’d given me, so be it. I made ready for the crossing.

I should have remembered that God responds to our prayers in strange and mysterious ways. When the train crossed the border, a dark whirling cloud came upon us. With deafening noise it swept me from Itzik. My vision, blurred and doubled as it was, faded until I could not see at all. I began to sink, slowly, softly. When my sight returned, there was nothing but the color blue, only blue. I felt a certain buoyancy and tried to speak, to say, Gottenu, where am I? But even my breath was bound, trapped in a liquid universe.

Master of the Universe, I protested. Is this Your judgment of me, an afterlife of exile in the waters of Your creation? Is this my punishment for breaking the chain of generations? Does it not move You that I repent? The sin of childlessness was mine, not Berel’s. I know now what I did not know in life, that the child nurtures Man as Man nurtures God. Fear made my tongue wag still harder. Almighty Creator, why did You give me a child, only to take him away before I could put something of You in him?

God did not answer me. As for Itzik, not a sound from him either. I waited desperately for his prayers, that they might redeem me. Even so, I told myself, surely a God of Justice would not have returned me to the living only to punish my sins. Surely there was a reason He had chosen me, not Ruchelle Cohen, to lead Itzik from Poland. Maybe He only meant I should believe myself condemned to eternal exile so that I would know the full sweetness of redemption when it came.

I clung to this midrash—this interpretation—like a drowning person clings to the branch. But I would be lying if I did not say I was also driven nearly mad to find myself floating in that vast blueness, helpless and insignificant as a fleck of dust. I waited, suspended between grief and wonder at the awesome power of God.

Then, without warning, a living soul came to me. It had lost its way to God’s great light. This was not Itzik, but someone from our town, one of those rare souls whose flame burns into the world beyond. My father used to tell me some souls suffer so profoundly they transcend the world, but I had not believed him until this one shone on me in the blue.

God the Joker has answered me at last, I thought. I am to guide this soul also, like Itzik, to where it needs to go. And indeed, when I touched that soul I emerged briefly from exile. What that man, that beautiful man, saw of me, I cannot say. I only know that with him, I had some peace, enough to give me hope of return to rest with my body, and some respite from the terror of my entombment in the blue.

The silence in that place was broken only once. The loud echo of a ram’s horn passed me like a comet. On its tail rode my father’s voice, clear as in life. Be vigilant and await the coming of Aaron’s sister, Miriam, he called to me. Return her timbrel and she will make an opening for you to return.

I waited. I became vigilant. I listened for the shake of a timbrel and wondered what it could mean.

Time passed. Itzik went to his final rest. I felt his uncooked soul return, exhausted, to the firmament. Master of the Universe, I prayed, let it not end here. Let me not end in this blue water.