Back then, Patrick Adamsky was called Pesach Abramson, and he lived with his older brother, Motl Abramson, in the house of his uncle. Pesach and Motl’s parents had both contracted tuberculosis and received a summons from On High, and the two brothers had joined the seven children of their uncle and aunt, Scholom and Mirka Abramson. Theirs was the poorest family in Motal, and the townspeople would offer them charity from time to time, but not too often, lest they should stuff themselves until their bellies burst open.
When the accursed wave of army quotas reached Motal, the conscription of Pesach and Motl could have been easily justified as a way of lifting some of the burden from Scholom and Mirka’s shoulders. And yet, with an unfathomable stubbornness, the uncle and aunt refused to turn in their orphaned nephews and defied the sborchik’s warrant. On the night when the foul child catcher Leib Stein knocked on their door, Scholom Abramson even dared to face him wielding a pitchfork. The pitchfork, needless to say, was quickly broken in two, with a single blow over Leib Stein’s thigh, and Scholom Abramson felt closer to his Creator than he ever had before when a second blow hit him full in the face. Nor did the abductor spare Aunt Mirka: when she rushed to her husband’s help, Stein slapped her across the face too. The blow was so surprising, and so violent, that everyone instantly stifled their sobs and screams and stared at Leib Stein, aghast, as though everything he had done up to that point had borne the hallmark of pure reason. The man’s sadistic smile was unequivocal: he delighted in beating women, and if they resisted, he would move on to their daughters. In any case, Motl and Pesach were seized by the scruff of their necks by Stein’s thugs and joined another petrified boy who was already waiting in the prison next to the synagogue.
Scholom and Mirka Abramson swelled the cries of Selig and Leah Berkovits. The people of Motal cried along with them, the heart of the town’s rabbi broke in two, but that night many sighed in relief, thankful that at least their own children had been spared.
But then something happened that took even Leib Stein by surprise. His task had been to take the children to the ispravnik, the regional governor, and from there to the cantonist camp. But before dawn, as they were about to stop off in one of the gentile households where they had arranged accommodation and meals, fourteen-year-old Motl Abramson leaped from the wagon and hurled himself towards the black marshes. Leib Stein and his crew chased after him, but the boy vanished as though swallowed up by the swamp. Leib Stein searched for him until sunrise, but in the morning mists, earth and sky became one, and the boy was gone without a trace.
Where did Motl Abramson go? No-one knew. But a series of events that followed his escape led to the hypothesis that he had not gone far, that he had remained in the area to avenge the forced conscription of his brother, or perhaps to avenge the entire Jewish population. First, a month after Motl’s abduction, the houses of two low-ranking officials went up in flames. This was arson, without a doubt, and the usual suspects were members of the Polish underground. But then, two months later, there was a similar incident in Baranavichy, and this time a fire was started at the house of the assessor, the governor’s local representative. The police declared a state of emergency, a reward was offered in exchange for information about the arsonist and heavy penalties were announced for anyone who dared to aid the criminal’s escape. Threatening envoys were sent to the leaders of the Jewish community. After all, the Russian army provided a living bulwark against rioters and pogroms, and if it transpired that Jews were indeed sheltering the outlaw, the soldiers would no longer be able to protect them from an angry mob.
The next victim in line was one of Leib Stein’s thugs. No-one knew how it happened, but while the child-catcher was on the road, an unknown perpetrator broke into his home and abducted his blameless son.
The last person to pay the price was Motal’s very own sborchik, whose role required that he fill the conscription quotas imposed by the army. In this case, the fire was considered exceptionally violent, at least to the minds of the people of Motal, although it was not clear how one arson could be more violent than another, save for the fact that it had taken place in their town and had targeted a Jew, one of their own. At this point, though, it became clear to all that Motl Abramson was involved in this affair, and the community leaders had no doubt that these despicable acts of vengeance had to be stopped. If he continued, Motl might draw the entire Jewish community into a bloodbath. After all, the King of Kings had not consecrated the Jews above all other nations, only for them to drown in the slime of secular politics and deals. This is why they accepted any form of government that came their way and why they would sell their wares to the Russian army and also to the Russians’ enemies, without thinking that this created any conflict of interest. They were not political because they had only come to lodge in Poland, “Poh-lin”, until the coming of the Messiah, the Son of David who would lead them to Jerusalem. The Abramson affair, however, pitted them against the authorities and threatened to drag all the Jews into a vortex of escalating violence. If a sheigetz turns out to be a murderer, he is nothing more than a madman, but if a Jew is an arsonist, then all żyds are traitors. They had no choice. Motl Abramson had to be turned in.
However it was done, and whoever gave him away, the information was accurate enough to prompt ten policemen to surprise the Abramson household in the middle of the night and arrange a roll-call of their children. Scholom Abramson asked them to count the children in their beds, but the officer in charge insisted on waking all of them, including a one-year-old infant. Indeed, the tally was seven children, an exact match with the records, three boys and four girls, the same number as the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs in the Torah. Scholom Abramson shrugged as if the matter were settled. But instead, the officer examined the papers of each child, until he reached the eldest of them, a boy of about fourteen, and yelled, “Name!”
“Yaki Abramson,” the boy answered confidently, and the policeman carefully inspected the certificate, and muttered, “Well, then, um . . . How old are you, Yaki?”
“He doesn’t speak Polish,” Scholom Abramson said.
“Age!” the officer shouted, and then unexpectedly added in Yiddish, “Elter?”
“Seben . . . acht . . .” stammered the father, adding, “seven, eight, they grow up so fast.”
The officer glowered and, in the blink of an eye, the boy posing as Yaki Abramson shoved past him and ran for the door, and the other police officers, who had been standing guard, chased after him and subdued him with punches and kicks.
The information that reached the police had been horribly accurate. Motl Abramson had indeed been hiding in his aunt and uncle’s home, pretending to be one of their children, while one of his cousins, Yaki Abramson, had been sent away at the age of eight to apprentice as a blacksmith in another town. The policemen cuffed Motl and his uncle Scholom, while his aunt and cousins wailed. The court sentenced the accused to twenty years of hard labour in Siberia. A month later, the family was informed that they had both died before the sentence could be carried out. Official cause of death: typhoid.
Broken into a thousand pieces, Mirka Abramson completely rejected any comfort that Motal’s community leaders and residents offered her. She agreed only to meet with Leah Berkovits, Yoshke’s mother, and in secret at that. And if the Berkovitses and Abramsons recovered with the years, the mothers of the two families continued to keep to themselves, their one concession being to meet once a year with Rabbi Schneerson of the Chevra Techiyas Hameisim, who came to Motal to report on what was known to him about their sons.
The town’s residents respected the mothers’ wish to remain shut away in their houses, even though a decade later this seemed rather extreme and excessive – if only for the sake of their other sons and daughters, who all deserved a proper shidduch and a better future. After all, more children remained at home than had been snatched away. Nonetheless, whenever people tried to explain this unassailable fact to their faces, however gently, they were met with an impolite rejection bordering on ingratitude. They came to offer comfort and help, and left feeling reviled and humiliated. When Rabbi Schneerson passed away, no-one else tried to break down the walls of their solitude.
Pesach Abramson and Yoshke Berkovits arrived in the cantonist camp where they were to be re-educated. They refused to sit in the Christian prayer classes and would not participate in the marching drills. Their teachers explained that this was their only ticket into Russian society, and the pair’s rebellion earned them serious floggings which tore open their backs but did not break their spirits. The continued obstinacy of the two friends resulted in the worst punishment of all: cleaning the latrines, which was as good as a death sentence, what with the exposure to the plague and dysentery.
Motl’s escape gave Pesach hope that his brother would return and rescue him from that hell. He continued to secretly perform the commandments as he remembered them and to pray to the Father of Orphans, although he reflected that, in the light of his job in the latrines, it would have been better if God had not created man with so many pores and orifices, reversing the meaning of the blessing said upon relieving oneself. But once Pesach Abramson heard what had happened to his brother and uncle, Yoshke never again saw him cry or show any other kind of emotion. The nauseating work at the latrines appeared to compel Pesach Abramson to shed the customs of his people at the tender age of twelve. On completion of his education, he asked to train with the infantry corps, and in due course he was baptised into the bosom of the Son of God and christened Patrick Adamsky, a name that allowed him to become a field officer. He was honourably discharged with the rank of captain, and most people simply called him “Captain”.
His bravery in the Crimean War made him famous among soldiers, as did his hatred for the Chosen People. Rumour had it that whenever he was told to ward off an excited mob on its way to lynch żyds, he wouldn’t urge his soldiers to carry out their mission right away, but would let a few Jewish homes burn down first. In the war against the Ottoman Empire, he stood at the gates of the city of Stara Zagora and did not even blink at the sight of its synagogue going up in flames. There were only two exceptions to his hatred. The first was the fond memory of the boy who had been abducted with him on that night of damnation, Yoshke Berkovits. The second were the envelopes he sent once a month to his aunt, Mirka Abramson, containing half his military salary and no word of explanation. The other half of his salary he saved, and after being discharged he bought the tavern in Baranavichy. Needless to say, Jews were not welcome there, and he was not welcome among them. As they whispered behind his back: “His brother was a murderer, and he is even worse.”