It is a sweltering summer day in Motal, one of those days when a Jew proves his faith even with the clothes he wears, as he is reminded that religious faith and comfort are often in conflict. After all, had the Blessed Holy One commanded His people to glutton on food, become inebriated in public and openly fornicate, the entire human race would have been devout followers of the Torah.
Even though the exertion shortens her breath, Mende skips past the houses, a child grasping each hand. At first, she thinks it better to stay on the shaded footpath, but her feet lead her to the main road. She spots the church spire and heads towards it. Her son Yankele struts along, looking as proud as a peacock. On her other side, her daughter Mirl is ill at ease, she has a shadow on her face like someone trying to recall something important.
“Do not worry, daughter,” Mende says, sensing that in spite of the hardships they’ve had to endure they are now walking as one. “Our family must be strong in order to help those who suffer.”
My poor sister, Mende thinks. Is she a lunatic now? Maybe she got up in her sleep, walked off, moonstruck, and lost her way? Or perhaps she has always been miserable with Natan-Berl but too proud to share her secret?
The latter possibility seems the more likely. There has always been something about her sister’s life that has never been completely compatible with what one might call “a family”. Natan-Berl is – how should she put this – an ignorant yishuvnik, a graceless, cumbersome bear, whose dull eyes prove that silence is not necessarily golden. He protects his flocks from peril and disease well enough, and he is an accomplished cheesemaker, but the truth is that Mende has always believed that the general enthusiasm for his products has been exaggerated. Cheese is cheese, and it remains cheese even if you step on it. The nuances that connoisseurs marvel at are mere trifles blown out of proportion. After all, we are speaking of matured milk, Heaven help us. At least Zvi-Meir had a certain hidden sagacity about him, a certain keenness of mind. If anyone asked her sister why she liked Natan-Berl, her answers could amount to no more than “milking” or “seasoning”. In her heart of hearts, Mende knows that she has played a part in her sister’s disappearance. Instead of dissuading Fanny and saving her from a senseless marriage, she kept quiet and enabled her sister’s nightmarish choice.
But now she will help Fanny, and she will not be deterred by a lack of money. Mende resolutely comes to a halt before Simcha-Zissel Resnick’s shop, as the church spire looms above them. The man is, as ever, leaning against the counter half-asleep, running his fingers along his tzitzit like a placid child. Most shopkeepers sit in their back sheds studying the Torah, while their wives, righteous women that they are, work at the counter to sanctify their husbands’ ascent up the ladder of wisdom. At weddings, the women sing:
Cobblers’ wives must learn to hammer nails,
Tailors’ wives must work under lamps,
Carters’ wives must tar the boards,
And butchers’ wives must haul the meat.
But this Simcha-Zissel character, his wife came to learn, falls sound asleep as soon as he lays his eyes on the Holy Scripture. In the early days of their marriage, this infuriated her. “Shame on you, Simcha-Zissel, sitting idly while your wife breaks her back.” He pleaded his defence: “My darling, how can a man study all day long without closing an eyelid every now and then?” Over the years, his wife has realised that Simcha-Zissel Resnick will never join the learned elite, and has decided that he may as well spend the time half-awake at the counter instead. Alas, one cannot remain standing all day, and, as he leans on the counter, once in a while one eye will droop while the other stays alert, lest Mrs Resnick should ambush his moment of sweet slumber.
In walks Mende and clears her throat. Startled awake, the butcher sighs with relief when he realises that it is not his wife standing in front of him. He sweeps his beard aside and thunders, “What can I get you, madam? Chicken?” And without waiting for an answer, he seizes the nearest knife and begins to cut slices from an unsolicited sausage.
Now that he has proved that he is awake, he glances at her, but fails to recognise her face. After another glance at her children, he sweeps the sausage scraps from the counter and charitably offers them on a sheet of newspaper. He wonders which cruel tailor might have donated such a tight dress to this poor, plump woman. Sights like these make Simcha-Zissel Resnick all the more convinced that the line between charity and abuse is often blurred. This is why he never gives the needy anything more than leftover sausage. If a beggar were to taste a decent cut but once, he could go mad thinking about all the flavours his life will never have.
But this relentless woman does not seem in the least satisfied. She is still in his shop and wasting his time. Typical of a beggar – they always confuse generosity with weakness. They will demand more and more from him, and if he refuses he instantly becomes a pinchpenny; if he acquiesces, he will instantly become a philanthropist whom they will never stop exploiting.
“Much obliged,” he says to the lady and her two urchins. Their odour is intolerable, and the children’s scrawny bodies are a depressing sight.
“Simcha-Zissel Resnick,” the woman says, “it’s me.”
Me? What does this lady beggar mean by “it’s me”?
“It’s me, Mende Speismann.”
Mende Speismann. Simcha-Zissel Resnick has not forgotten her. Since her last visit to his shop, she has often appeared in his dreams, sitting in the shack behind his house, biting into strips of red meat he has prepared for her. In his dreams, they are lying naked on mounds of raw meat, their teeth dripping blood and their appetites insatiable. Possessed, they devour each other, blood runs down Mende’s frantic face as her canines sink into his skin. Once they have finished dining, they lie in each other’s arms, fast asleep. Only this morning, Simcha-Zissel Resnick woke up in a state of excitement after dreaming of a frolic with Mende Speismann, and now this wretch says that Mende Speismann is her name. But the name alone is not enough to merge the Mende of his fantasies with the one standing here. It cannot be.
“Mende? It can’t be Mende, only a month ago she was . . . and then in the river . . . they said that Zizek . . . I didn’t know that—”
“Simcha-Zissel Resnick,” Mende says, “you may be surprised to know that I am fine, but my sister is in trouble, God help her.”
“Your sister?” The butcher is struggling to keep up with this overabundance of events. “Who? What happened?”
“No-one knows. But it’s a serious business. Make haste! I must set out for the village before dark.”
“Make haste?” says the butcher, still at sea.
“Pack up some of your juiciest cuts, please. Five hungry children are waiting.”
The butcher hesitates. Subduing his wild fantasies, he has managed to identify something of Mende’s features in the flabby face before him, but he cannot yet decide if she really has transformed from beggar to customer. He expects Mende to start searching in her pockets for roubles, but she stands there glaring at him, imperious.
“Simcha-Zissel Resnick!” she shouts. “I can see that the honourable gentleman is taking his time. Perhaps he expects payment? Perhaps he is forgetting his own debts. Does Reb Moishe-Lazer Halperin know how he took advantage of a woman in distress when she came to his shop on her birthday?”
“Took advantage? But you . . .”
“Does Mrs Resnick know how he lit the stove in the shack behind his shop, into which he lured said woman?”
“Lured? This is preposterous!”
“The cuts of meat, if you please, Mr Resnick, and do not imagine for one minute that they will pay off your debt.”
At this very opportune moment, Mrs Resnick appears.
“Your debt?” She hastens to her husband’s side and glances at Mende. “What debts are you discussing with this woman? Are we in debt now?”
Like any other Jewish man, Resnick knows that a wife has a way of taking the sting out of her husband’s authority. All she has to do is let her face turn sour and cease talking – both things he cannot forbid her from doing – and the house will be awash with gloom. When the wife is happy, Resnick knows, the household is happy; whereas the husband could be either happy or sad and no-one would care. So he turns to his wife with a guilty air and tells her about the miracle that has just occurred. This “woman” he is talking to is none other than Mende Speismann, risen from the dead. It is his duty to give her the choicest cuts of meat, how could he do anything else?
Mrs Resnick is unconvinced, but Mende leaves her to bicker with her husband and resumes her stroll around the market with her children. The accomplices of her last shopping spree rush at her, their guilt at their part in her breakdown overcoming all business sense. Schneider is all over her, telling her that he has been thinking of visiting her for quite some time and now she has beaten him to it. After all, he needs to mend her turquoise dress, the one he sewed for her on her birthday. Now he can see that he miscalculated. It is too narrow at the waist, and he misjudged the breadth of the shoulders. He has no choice but to make the dress again from scratch. The tailor fusses over Mende as though she were a bride. Remembering her children, he takes Mirl’s measurements for a brown dress with white muslin, and finds a new jacket and a smart white shirt for Yankele. And when Mende thanks him and promises to repay her debt, he dismisses her courteous words. “Have we just met? There are no debts among friends.”
Liedermann is not far behind. He gives Yankele and Mirl a pair of sandals each, and when the two of them look at him, amazed, he places in their hands two pairs of old galoshes for the coming winter months.
“For your mother,” he announces loudly, “I intend to make a pair of leather boots. Now, I know what you are thinking, Mrs Speismann: he just made me a pair of boots, why do I need two pairs? Well, I shall tell you exactly why – today we are not settling for the necessary, but striving for the possible.”
And before Liedermann finishes his job, Grossman the handkerchief salesman and Blumenkrantz the baker are standing at the entrances to their shops, arguing over whom she should visit next: will it be the finest handkerchief vendor in the district or the pâtissier whose reputation has travelled as far as Minsk?
But Mende comes out of Liedermann’s store without heeding either of them. She has little time for them now, so perhaps they had better come to her house in the next few days instead.
“Your house?” Blumenkrantz says, unsure.
“I mean, this is unusual . . . But of course, your house!” Grossman agrees, stealing a march on his rival with his enthusiasm.
What a miracle. Only recently, on her twenty-sixth birthday, Mende Speismann had walked around the market with thirty-two roubles and seventy-one copecks in her pocket – quite a sum – and a few hours later she was unconscious and nearly broke. And now, without a single coin to her name, she is returning to her in-laws with an impressive catch: fine clothes and footwear, succulent cuts of meat and promises of calls from traders. How could she ever have doubted the All-Merciful’s sagacity and faith in His people’s generosity, knowing how eager they are to fulfil His commandments? “Bless His name for ever!” she cries as she skips with her children all the way back to her in-laws, feeling new life pulsating inside her. Could it be that a child is growing in her womb, even though her husband has been gone for so long? She believes in miracles, by God she does, for no-one predicted that she would ever get up from her bed again. And now she is preparing to go to the village and rescue her sister’s household. As long as the Protector of Israel is up in Heaven, anything is possible, however outrageous it might seem.