Everyday Jews: Scenes From a Vanished Life (24 page)

The next morning, Aunt Khane, dark, skinny, her hands bony and veined, came bursting in. She arrived with the first crow of the cock.

“Brother dear!” she panted. “You can see for yourself that it’s a golden business. All we need is a few hundred rubles. You know what?” she added a moment later. “Become a partner yourself.”

“I have no desire to own an estate.”

“But you’re my brother. Haven’t my children gone hungry long enough?”

“And my own children have always eaten their fill?” Father retorted angrily.

“But you make a living, thank God.”

“And they work their fingers to the bone, for strangers!” Father was growing angrier. “They’re servants, that’s what my children are!”

“What, after all, do I want from you? Am I asking you for money?”

“But I don’t know how to write.”

“I’ll write it out for you,” Mother said, “and you can copy it.”

“There’s no hurry.”

Father kept them waiting a week, two weeks. Mordkhe-Mendl and Aunt Khane came to see us many more times. Each time, Mother pleaded their cause. She quarreled with Father, calling him a peasant, a monster. But Father never gave the endorsement.

It was a gray, foggy, windswept day. All night long the wind had been beating against the shutters of our windows. In the morning, no pigeons flew onto the roof to warm themselves. That day there was no
kheyder
, no school. It was a Russian holiday, the Tsar’s birthday. During morning prayers at the main synagogue the cantor sang “God Protect the Tsar.” Bentsien’s Mendl, in a white collar and black, pressed trousers, stood beside him on the pulpit, sweetly drawing out the notes and adding flourishes. There was a representative present from the city council, an official in a three-cornered hat with silver sides. He was also standing on the pulpit, between the cantor and the rabbi. All eyes were upon him, as though he were the Tsar himself.

Later, at the market, there was a performance of Russian music. All the Jewish shops were closed. It was then that the idea struck me. Why not go out for a bit to the Wyszufka estate?

The ditches on both sides of the road were filled with dry, fallen leaves. The wind carried them aloft, strewing them across the stubbled fields, and whistled through the bare branches of the poplar trees. From the Russian cemetery, the willows answered back in a mournful echo. The road was littered with rubbish and was empty of carts and people.

If it hadn’t been for the Tsar’s birthday and for the fact that I had no other plans for the day, it would never have occurred to me to go out to the Wyszufka estate.

Halfway there, I began to regret my decision and was actually about to turn back, when I encountered a tiny, old Gentile woman coming from the Russian cemetery. She was bent double and leaning on a knobby stick.

She stopped me and said, “Little boy, where are you going on such a windy day?”

“To see my Uncle Mordkhe-Mendl.”

“Who is that?”

“He’s the Dziedzic,” I shouted proudly into her old, wizened face.

“Heh, heh!” the old woman bared two yellow teeth. “Is he really your uncle, that Jewish landowner over there?”

“Yes.”

“There’s no point going there, little boy. The Wyszufka estate doesn’t have a Jewish owner any more. It’s all over.”

She must be out of her mind, I thought. The tiny creature kept staring at me with two round eyes, like an owl’s. I left her standing in the road and continued on my way. Now I was all the more eager to get to my destination, let the wind blow as it may.

The tall, red chimney of the pottery, it seemed to me, had grown taller and redder. There was no smoke coming from the chimney today, but that was no doubt due to the holiday of the Tsar’s birthday, when no one was working.

A raven croaked down from a treetop, another, with a great flapping of wings, took flight from a pile of manure. Suddenly a whole flock of ravens flew in a long line out of the Russian cemetery, filling the air above me with their cries. The black birds were heading in the direction of the Wyszufka estate. Maybe they were flying to a wedding somewhere in the vicinity.

Just as I was nearing the estate, I caught sight of a person walking toward me on the empty road, dragging a cow. Since today wasn’t a market day—this I knew for sure—then in all likelihood the cow was being taken to the slaughterhouse.

A horse and wagon now came into view. The closer I got, the larger everything loomed—the person, the cow, the horse and wagon. I could have sworn it was Mordkhe-Mendl’s cow, for it had that same white patch over its eyes. It seemed to me that the person walking with the cow was none other than Aunt Khane—and so it was!

She was leading the cow by a thin rope. Now I could see everything more clearly. The horse and wagon were the very ones that used to haul the pottery to market every Thursday morning. But that was not Mordkhe-Mendl’s Borekh driving, but a Gentile. The wagon wasn’t loaded with pottery, but crammed with red, puffy bedding. From amid the quilts, a table stuck its four legs skyward, but not one of those reddishbrown tables which stood in the white palace. This one was white and rough-hewn. A bucket dangled between the wheels of the wagon. On top of the bedding sat Reyzl, swaying from side to side, as if she were dreaming. She was holding a bunch of flowers in her hands.

The wagon creaked slowly forward. Borekh, Reyzl’s brother, was walking behind it, as if—forgive the comparison—following a hearse. A younger brother and sister were sitting on the wagon, facing the Wyszufka estate. There were no others to be seen, including Mordkhe-Mendl.

The wind kept tearing through the poplar trees. On the far side of the palace, the flock of ravens was returning from its flight. The black birds circled over the horse and wagon, cawing with abandon. What was the meaning of all this? Was the family moving from the estate?

I stood on one spot, but no one saw me. The cow stared at me through big, tear-filled eyes. Aunt Khane looked at me without seeming to recognize me. Reyzl, flowers in hand, looked down from the top of the bedding, but she didn’t recognize me, either.

“Good morning, Auntie!” I shouted, and made straight for the cow.

Suddenly roused, Aunt Khane looked up and said, “Mendl?”

“Yes, it’s me. Good morning!”

“A good morning, a good year. Where are you going in this wind?”

“To the Wyszufka.”

“No point going there anymore,” Aunt Khane shook her head and slowly shut her eyes.

Her dark face sent a chill down my spine. It seemed as though it was not Aunt Khane talking but the cow, shaking its foolish head.

“It’s all over! No more Wyszufka,” Aunt Khane said, giving the cow a tug with the rope.

The cow shambled on, leaving behind her souvenirs on the road. She mooed and turned her head back toward the white palace and the stable that both had to be left behind.

The horse, plodding on his spindly legs, couldn’t have cared less. He pulled the wagon willingly toward town. He probably thought that today was Thursday and he was hauling goods to the market. But the flock of ravens wouldn’t move on and kept circling over the hapless procession below, crying into the gray expanse, just like that old, bent crone, leaning on her knobby stick.

“The Wyszufka estate doesn’t have a Jewish owner any more. It’s all over!”

Thus the dream of a white palace, beautiful flowers, and gold treasure drifted away.

Just as no one knew how Mordkhe-Mendl had acquired the estate, so no one had a clue as to how he had lost it. The talk in town was that the Wyszufka property had never really belonged to him, not a single clump of clay. It was said that there had been violence and swindling, that Mordkhe-Mendl had fooled Fleischer into giving him promissory notes and that Fleischer had no idea what was going on. Only after Mordkhe- Mendl had settled into the estate, and had put up the chimney and began hauling pots to the market, did Fleischer catch on that he’d been taken.

So began a whole new chapter of lawsuits and lawyers. It cost Fleischer thousands, as well as untold effort, but at last he prevailed, procuring a legal document ordering Mordkhe-Mendl and his entire family off the Wyszufka estate.

The upshot was that Aunt Khane and her children, along with the cow, the sole remnant of the Wyszufka glories, moved back once again into a tumbledown shack with a fresh earthen floor.

There were no tapestries on the walls, only streaks of blue lime. No tall, white windows, only four tiny ones with smudged panes. No fancy beds with gold-painted ornamentation, only simple peasant cots without headrests that had been hastily purchased at the Skarszew fair.

Mordkhe-Mendl himself was no longer to be seen in town. The High Holidays came, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Days of Awe, a time of great solemnity, when every Jewish home was caught up in spiritual self-examination. Not even then did Mordkhe-Mendl show up in the synagogue.

Day and night, he stood at the smudged windows of the flimsy shack, never taking his eyes off the road that led to the Wyszufka estate. His unkempt beard had turned completely gray, his eyes reddened. His teeth, once so strong and white, now began to crumble.

The final blast of the ram’s horn sounded, bringing the Days of Awe to an end. The other festivals followed in succession, Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles, and Simhath Torah, the Rejoicing of the Law. But Mordkhe-Mendl didn’t budge from the windows, watching the wagons that were coming from and going to the Wyszufka estate. They were carrying pottery and bricks out and bring building materials in. There was a lot of construction going on there, all without Mordkhe-Mendl.

He was standing at the windows one morning, not yet having said the morning prayers. His son Borekh had already left for town, looking to earn a few gilders. The younger children were still asleep, Aunt Khane had gone outside to milk the cow.

No one knew quite how it happened, but all of a sudden Mordkhe-Mendl’s hands hit the windowpanes, smashing the glass and leaving his hands dripping with blood. His daughter Reyzl was, at the time, hunched over a large earthenware bowl, peeling potatoes. On hearing the glass shatter, she dropped the knife and the potato and leaped up.

“Father! What are you doing?” she cried.

At that moment, Mordkhe-Mendl threw back his head, like a slaughtered beast. He held up his blood-splattered hands, turned them this way and that, swayed like a felled tree still teetering on its trunk, and then dropped full length to the ground. In the course of the fall, his head struck the edge of the table and a black stream of blood gushed from his nostrils.

Aunt Khane was in the midst of milking the lone, meager cow when Reyzl had called out, “Mama, come help!” She didn’t know if that’s what startled the cow, or whether it had sensed some danger on its own. At any rate, when Mordkhe-Mendl’s head unfortunately struck the table, the cow swished its tail right across Aunt Khane’s face. That, Aunt Khane later remarked, was her punishment for leaving her husband alone, unattended.

One of Aunt Khane’s eyes filled with blood. Her face was splattered with mud. The little milk pail overturned, spilling its contents. Only then did she jump up from her stool and begin to run, her heart missing a beat, knowing only that she must somehow save herself.

She saw Reyzl standing at the open door, her cry still frozen on her round mouth. Did Reyzl—God forbid!—hurt herself?

“Oh, woe is me! Reyzl! Reyzl!”

But Reyzl was unable to say a word. She merely pointed into the house. Aunt Khane ran inside. The room was dark. Could the sun have set already? What was happening? Why were the children screaming at the top of their lungs? She looked around and caught sight of her Mordkhe-Mendl sprawled on the floor, his head oddly propped against a leg of the table.

“Mordkhe-Mendl! Mordkhe-Mendl!” She began shaking him by the shoulder.

But at the first touch, Mordkhe-Mendl’s head drooped to one side and slid to the earthen floor. Only then did Aunt Khane see all the blood on his face, his hands, his beard.

She began fanning herself, as if trying to get some air, but her knees buckled under her. Then Aunt Khane, mud-splattered and swollen-eyed, collapsed right on top of her husband, letting out a piercing wail.

But what could be done for poor Mordkhe-Mendl now, lying there like a lump of clay, like a shard from one of his own shattered pots?

People in town said that a vein had burst inside his head. They took it amiss that a pauper like Mordkhe-Mendl should have had such aspirations, of wanting to be an estate-owner, no less. These were the foolish words of those who were jealous of him, who were his enemies. But all this talk saddened Father and darkened his face with grief.

After his brother-in-law’s merciless death, Father’s head sagged closer to his chest. Mother went around for some time with cloths soaked in horseradish, pressed to her forehead. There was an uneasy feeling in the house. Ite had already returned to Warsaw. Aunt Khane no longer dropped in, neither did her children.

Father was silent for days and weeks on end. His dreamy eyes seemed to have grown more bleary. Mother could no longer conceal her grief.

“Such an educated man!” she moaned more than once. “Such a precious soul! All he asked for was an endorsement. What! If you sign an endorsement for a brother-in-law, the world collapses?”

Father was eating his supper. He chewed slowly, without taking any pleasure in the food, not seeming to taste anything. Mother kept on talking quietly, as if to herself, but Father heard every word. He raised his head from the plate, displaying the deep, permanent furrows between his eyes that looked like worms. He swept his eyes across the table, as though searching for something but unable to find it. He didn’t say a word, only let the spoon drop from his hand onto the plate.

“Leyzer!” Mother got up abruptly from the table. “Stop it! Why aren’t you eating? What did I say?”

But Father never finished his supper that night. The chickpeas and dumplings grew cold on the plate. Mother began to cry. Father raced through the Grace after Meals, staring heavily out the black windowpanes.

No one talked about Mordkhe-Mendl anymore. The days were becoming sallow, consumptive-looking. The pigeons on the opposite rooftop stayed hidden in their shelter. At night it always rained. A gutter outside the house dripped incessantly, boring into our brains. In the middle of the night a haunting, drawn-out yawn sliced through the darkness, like a distant train whistle. It was Mother. She couldn’t sleep and lay awake in bed, thinking.