Although Eve had always known deep in her heart that Russian life could never be sweetly peaceful, even golden, she had allowed herself to dream of it. But after the night of the pogrom, she could no longer even fantasize about it. If she permitted herself to daydream at all about a beautiful world, it was a fantasy that excluded the bitter reality of Russian life altogether. Still, life was to be lived to its fullest, and she was determined to be cheerfully optimistic even within the confines of Mother Russia as it truly existed. It was into this Russia, after all, that she would soon deliver her child. Early fall, a lovely time of year.
The late August day was hot and the road to the manor house dry and dusty. The only thing that refreshed Eve at all was the sight of the giant sunflowers blanketing the land. She had almost decided not to go to the Countess at all that day since she knew the trudge would be exhausting. But the Countess was even closer to giving birth than she herself, and since she had just finished the last of the tiny garments that made up the Countess’s expected baby’s layette, she had decided to make the special effort to deliver the baby clothes. Most likely the Countess would think to send her home in the carriage.
Over the months they had become friends, as friendly as a Squire’s wife who was a Countess to boot and a humble Jewish seamstress could be. The Count was away frequently and the Countess was lonely with only her servants for company. There’d been a sound basis for a certain intimacy between them. They were both young and with child and with a penchant for fashion and laughter and stories. And they shared an interest in art and literature. The Countess was hungry for a little knowledgeable conversation, and Eve avid for the juicy and lengthy tales of a sophisticated world she had only read about—balls at the Tsar’s palace, picturesque descriptions of Venice and Paris and St. Petersburg, of exotic people and grand revelries. Eve had soon realized that the first negative impression she had had of the Countess was erroneous, although there were some negative qualities, the worst of which was a shallowness, an unawareness of anything that didn’t revolve around her and her immediate circle, which was more a natural consequence of her birth and subsequent station in life than of any real meanness. As for these less-than-attractive characteristics, was there really that much of a difference between those of the Squire’s lady and the women Eve was more familiar with? Wasn’t everyone only concerned with his own life and affairs?
Once in front of the manor house, Eve decided to throw caution to the wind and knocked on the front door. She was simply too tired to walk another step, to go all the way around to the back door. If that Truska scolded her, let her! That disagreeable wretch couldn’t scold her too severely since Eve had earned certain privileges in the household. As a matter of fact, she planned on demanding liquid refreshment the moment she entered instead of waiting demurely to be asked.
Yes, it was Truska herself who came to the door, her round face red and perspiring, looking especially glum and cross—she who normally had an unpleasant cast to her expression. “Oh, it’s you! Go away! The boy is ill!” She crossed herself. “He won’t last the day.”
“Constantin? Oh, my God, I’m so sorry! What is it?” Eve had become fond of the boy whom she had seen frequently on her visits.
Truska wrapped her hands around her throat in a dramatic gesture. “He’s very sick. He can’t breathe. The Doctor’s been here day and night, but he left this morning. Now only the priest is here!” she said angrily as if somehow this was Eve’s fault.
“I’ll go . . . I’ll leave this . . .” She held out the package. “Please . . . Tell the Countess how sorry I am. Tell her I’ll pray for Constantin.”
Truska grabbed the package, started to close the door. Then Eve heard the Countess’s voice, frantic and high-pitched with hysteria. “Who’s there, Truska?”
“It’s only the Jewish seamstress, my lady. Don’t concern yourself. I sent her away.”
“Eve? Tell her to come in! I want to see her!”
Eve turned around. The Countess was in the doorway, her huge belly so extended it seemed she’d topple from its weight.
“Eve! It’s my little boy. It’s my Constantin!”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He can’t breathe! It’s the diphtheria!”
Diphtheria! Eve’s instinctive impulse was to run.
The Countess beckoned her in. Her hair was in complete disarray, her dressing gown soiled and rumpled. “I’m going mad! And my husband isn’t here!”
Eve could only think of the contagion. Diphtheria the killer!
“Father Gregory came this morning but the doctor’s gone!”
Eve knew she had to get away and quickly. She had to think of her own baby. The manor house wasn’t a place for a Jewish girl, not with a priest in attendance, with the crosses and the icons, with death so close by. Who knew how these people would react if death arrived while she was present?
“I’d better go, Countess. I don’t want to bother you at a time like this. I’ll come back when little Constantin’s better.”
“I don’t think he’s going to get better, Eve,” she said piteously. ”Even the doctor’s left. He said Constantin’s in the hands of the Heavenly Father now . . . I’ve sent for my husband but who knows when he’ll get here? I’m frightened. I’m going crazy! You must come in and stay with me. Talk to me! I have no one here with me except Father Gregory and he’s with Constantin. I can’t go back in there, Eve, I can’t. You must come in!”
No! I don’t have to! It’s not my place!
But she looked into the Countess Sophia’s imploring eyes. They were wet and tortured and pleading, no longer the eyes of the haughty woman Eve had encountered on their first meeting. Now she was any ordinary woman, now she was only any anguished mother, helplessly watching her child slip away. She was only another human being in need of comfort. Can I refuse her? Would she refuse anyone of her sisters-in-law? If God and death itself made no distinction between Countess Sophia and the Markoff women, could she? The Countess, who had offered her as much friendship as she was capable of, was now as much a hostage to the capriciousness of fate as the lowliest of peasants, as the most long-suffering Jew.
Eve stepped into the house.
“I can’t go back in there, Eve . . . The poor baby . . . His throat’s so swollen he can’t breathe. He just lies there unmoving as if death had already come . . . His face is black . . .”
Black? The throat distended? An image formed in Eve’s mind. Old ladies with scarves on their heads . . . a small child with a blackened face . . . an engorged throat. Motionless as if already dead.
Yes, she remembered. But can I? If I make the attempt and the child dies, they’ll point a finger at me. I know it! God, I know it as surely as I stand here! They’ll accuse me of killing him! Even the Countess will!
But how could she not?
“Truska! Get salt herring and vodka! Hurry!” Eve commanded.
The woman was startled, hostile. “Salt herring?”
“Yes! You must have some salt herring in the house.”
“Yes, of course. The servants eat it but what do you want with it?”
“Tell her to get it and the vodka!” Eve told the Countess.
The Countess stared at Eve, turned to the servant. “Don’t stand there!” she screamed. “Run!”
Father Gregory was a huge man with a long black beard, towering and terrifying. “He is going to God!” he intoned and shielded the bedside from Eve.
The Countess heaved herself at him, forestalling interference. “Let her be!”
The priest stepped back, continued to chant, acted as if they weren’t there at all.
Eve tore off a piece of the herring, then thrust the rest of the fish at Truska. “Tear it into pieces!” Then she forced the dark-faced, comatose boy’s mouth open and pushed the hunk of herring she had ripped off into his mouth and forced it down his throat with her fingers, following with the vodka, pouring it straight from the bottle into the mouth even as it spilled over the boy’s face, everywhere. She did it again and again, first the herring, then the liquid, over and over again, a chunk of the salt fish, then the burning liquid, sticking her fingers in, jamming it all down.
“There’s a ball there in his throat, membranes, mucus, pus, an accumulation not letting him breathe . . .”
Then the boy started choking, an explosion of choking. He choked and coughed and sputtered, startled back to life from the brine and the fiery liquid. He choked and coughed until it all erupted, streaming from his mouth—water, pus, blood, mucus. It all came spewing out and he breathed.
Two coachmen brought Eve home in the Count’s carriage. She was already in the first stages of labor—her water had broken on the way. David shoved the coachmen aside. He didn’t want them touching Eve. They had done enough. He and his brothers carried her into the house and into her bed. As Dora and Ruth undressed her, Yacob ran to fetch Hannah and Miriam.
David, sitting at the kitchen table, swore to his brothers that if God and the goyim had exchanged his baby’s life, or his Eve’s, for the Count’s son, he’d make them pay—he’d make them all pay.
But several hours later Eve gave birth to her son, Yitzhak, apparently none the worse for his premature entrance into the world. The boy was named for David’s mother Yetta whom he had never known.
The Count in his regimental uniform and with many medals spread across his chest came calling himself to inform Eve that the Countess Sophia had given birth to a girl who was to be called Alexandra Evangelina in Eve’s honor. Eve was very pleased yet at the same time she couldn’t help thinking how different a story it would have been had little Constantin not lived despite the same efforts on her part.
Proudly she showed the Count her son born on the night Constantin had rejoined the living. “The Countess will be pleased, Madam Markoff, when I tell her that Yitzhak Markoff is a fine, vigorous boy. She has told me to tell you that she looks forward with all her heart to seeing you soon, and of course, I, too, bear you eternal gratitude. We are both in your debt. But it isn’t enough to voice gratitude; it behooves one to show it. My wife told me that you are a dealer in livestock, David Markoff, so I have used my influence to obtain a government contract for you, sir. You will supply horses and cattle for His Imperial Highness’s forces. This means, of course, that you will be under his protection—”
Eve and David exchanged amazed looks. Under the Tsar’s protection! An official contract to supply the Tsar’s army!
“Also,” the Squire continued, “since you’ll need more property with room to keep the animals as you do business, it will be arranged for you to have a parcel of land large enough for this purpose.”
Did he mean that they’d actually hold title to this land?
The idea was almost too enormous for David to grasp. He wished desperately that he could confer with Eve alone, to hear her thoughts on the matter. But the Count was already tapping his thigh with his crop impatiently, waiting to be showered with thanks and their gratitude so he could be off.
No, he couldn’t wait to speak with Eve. The moment was now and the decision was his. All Eve had ever demanded of him was that he be a man.
He cleared his throat, found his voice. “We thank you, sir. We are overwhelmed, even astounded.” He struggled to find the proper Russian words. “Isn’t that so, Eve?”
She nodded her head, her eyes focused only on David. “Oh yes, Count, we thank you.”
Under the Tsar’s protection—what seductive words.
She heard David speak. “The fact of the matter, Squire, is that while your offer is very generous, we cannot accept . . .”
Now the Squire was astonished. These people! Who would ever understand them? But of course, this husband’s only a boy, in spite of that long yellow beard. He doesn’t realize . . . She’s only a girl but a very capable one, bright and sensible . . .
He turned to Eve, “Madam?”
She was looking only at David and her pride was showing. Oh David! The devil with the Tsar and his protection! I know you’re my only security.
“Yes, Squire, that is our decision . . .”
For moments the Squire’s annoyance warred with his amusement at the ridiculous notion of having to talk these people into accepting what amounted to a prize of a lifetime, even for non-Jews. “May I ask why you’re refusing? Is it possible that you don’t have a full realization of what’s being offered you? What it will mean to you and your family? Wealth, for one thing . . .”
Eve could no longer contain herself. “That’s part of it, sir. We can’t accept a reward for saving little Constantin’s life. Saving a life is a reward in itself, a great privilege that’s accorded very few people. It’s a privilege that will reserve us a place in heaven—”
Jews! An impossible race, just as everyone said. A stiff-necked people!
“That’s a very admirable attitude and all very well, but I think you’re being foolhardy. Both of you are extremely young and with much to learn about the world. I suggest you take the advice of an older man, one better situated in life, shall we say? Never look a gift horse in the mouth and always grab with both hands all that’s offered you.”
David was embarrassed. Sheepishly he said, “I beg the Squire’s pardon but you see, it’s not so much a matter of accepting that which is being offered. It’s more of what I’d be giving up. If I accepted your offer I’d be an employee of the Tsar and now I’m my own master and beholden to no man.”
“I wonder if that’s ever true, David Markoff, for any man. But so be it. All I can offer you then are my thanks and my eternal gratitude. I, you see, will always be beholden to Madam Markoff.”
He held out his hand for Eve’s, took it and brought it to his lips. Then he offered his hand to David. “There is one more small thing. I have instructions from the Countess to inquire which day would be most convenient for the two of you and your son to call. I’ve been told not to take my leave until an hour and day have been set so that she may send the carriage for you. . . .”
After the Squire left Eve turned to David, feeling the desire for him in all the parts of her body, the taste of desire even on her tongue. In all the time they had been married she had never felt it as strong. It was as if all of her was aching for him with an urgency . . . and they were all alone except for their son sleeping in his cradle.
Mutely she went to him. She looked into his eyes. Everything she was feeling she saw mirrored there. She put her arms around him, felt his desire for her in the tension of his body against hers.
He picked her up and carried her into their bedroom, at the same time whispering endearments in her ear. As he undressed her, her body arched and moved to help him, and then when she was completely undressed, it moved and arched to meet his.
Fleetingly she thought of the Law that forbids the communion of man and woman when a wife was nursing, the Law that proclaims a nursing mother unclean. That Law had to be written by man and not God, written by someone who knew nothing of the passion of the body, and neither of the spirit, and was wrong! She was sure that God in His heaven knew this moment was right!