Jesses Star (4 page)

He began to walk away. But then the Rebbe's voice rang out, “Now for the roof. Bring the cornstalks. Let's crown our beautiful sukkah!”

Everyone gathered around as Simon stepped forward with an armful of cornstalks. The sukkah was almost done. All that remained was to lay a thicket of stalks across the top. Yossi loved this part. He loved to see the sukkah's roof take shape, throwing dappled shadows on the ground, turning the sukkah into a shady bower. Although it was only made of leaves, the sukkah felt safe and holy — shelter in a world of trouble.

Papa and Simon went to fetch a ladder.

Then Yossi got an idea.

With his stilts, he could lay the roof. All
by himself — no ladder needed. Then they'd see what a fine helper he could be!

Yossi's stilts were leaning against the side of the schul. He jumped onto them and walked back to the villagers.

“Wait!” he cried. “Let me. I can do it!” Yossi scooped the cornstalks out of Simon's arms. Hands full of stalks, he hugged the stilts to his sides. He struggled for balance. A cornstalk fell. No matter. Yossi gripped the stilts against his sides, staggered a moment, then balanced perfectly.

“Him? The klutz? Woe is us!” Jonah murmured. Several people chuckled, but others said, “No, look, he can do it,” and “Good for you, Yossi.”

The praise rang in Yossi's ears. Yes, he could do it. Left, right, left, right, down the center of the sukkah, between the walls. Now, all he had to do was separate one cornstalk from the rest, without letting go of the stilts … Elbows in! … Lay it across … there. He'd done it. How lovely
the cornstalk looked, resting upon the two leafy walls of the sukkah.

“Good work, Yossi,” the Rebbe said.

Yossi grinned but didn't dare look aside.

Next cornstalk. Stuck in the pile. Yank. Elbows in! Dusty cornstalks tickling his nose. Stagger left, right, left. Come on, you silly stalk! Tangled.

“Look at Yossi dance,” Jonah jeered.

Yossi's cheeks flamed. Good thing no one could see. Too bad
he
couldn't see, either. Cornstalks in his face. Stilts slipping. Elbows in! Cornstalk up his nose. Tickle. “Ah
—”
Blindly stepping from side to side. “Ah
—”
Dried leaves scratching his cheeks. “Choooo!”

One stilt caught in one sukkah wall, the other in the opposite wall. Yossi shot forward. Up flew the cornstalks. Down came the walls. Yossi crashed onto a tangle of willow branches, onions, poles, apples and pumpkins. The cornstalks landed on his head.

“Yossi!” Mama screamed.

“The sukkah!” the Rebbe wailed.

“Lord save us!” Golda cried.

“Clumsy oaf!” Jonah said. “I told you he'd destroy the sukkah.”

Yossi wished he could stay buried beneath the cornstalks. Unfortunately, Papa yanked him to his feet. Papa's face was white with rage. Mama's was red with shame.

“Go home!” Papa roared. “And take those worthless sticks with you!”

Miserably, Yossi gathered up his stilts and slunk out of the crowd. “Useless fool,” he heard.

“Troublesome pest.”

“Bumbling brat.”

But I could have … Yossi said to himself. I would have … I meant to…

But he knew that meaning to didn't make up for anything. This time, he was really in disgrace.

The Rebbe poured wine into a chipped clay goblet. “Now, my friends, let us say
Kaddish
, and thank the Lord for all the blessings He has bestowed on us.”

It was that evening. Yossi stood in the sukkah — now completely rebuilt — with Mama, Papa, Miriam and the rest of the villagers. Together they were celebrating the first evening service of Sukkot.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good,” Yossi chanted in Hebrew along with the congregation. “The Lord's kindness endures forever.”

The Rebbe raised the goblet and took a sip of wine. As he lifted his arm, Yossi looked up, up to the roof of the sukkah. Through the leafy cornstalks, patches of yellow moonlight shown down on the villagers, lighting their faces with gold.

Yes, Yossi thought, the Lord
was
good. Despite Yossi's disaster, the sukkah was a place of beauty, graced with the abundance of field and garden. And even though the soldiers had taken half the beets, the root cellar still bulged with turnips and potatoes. There was food aplenty for the winter.

So, too, were Mama and Papa good. To be sure, they'd punished him severely, restricting him to the cottage for the next week. Still, they'd let him out for a few hours tonight, to attend services. And they hadn't burned his stilts. Yet.

There were many blessings to thank God for this Sukkot, Yossi reflected.

In his left hand, the Rebbe took an oval-shaped, lemon-like yellow fruit. Called an
etrog
, it symbolized the bounty of the earth. In his right hand, he took a palm branch intertwined with twigs of myrtle and willow, called a
lulav
. Chanting a prayer, the Rebbe waved the lulav up and down, turning first to the north, then to the south, east and west, to show God's presence everywhere.

Yossi watched the Rebbe turn. North, south, east, west. Everywhere in the whole wide world, there God was. And where would he — Yossi — go, if he could go anywhere? He remembered the place the villagers had spoken of. Canada. That sounded like a fine place. He didn't know exactly where it was, though he knew it was far away, across Russia, across Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean. You would have to take a ship to get there. A big ship. And he, Yossi, would sit with the
captain and look out for land, the green land of Canada …

“
Baruch atah adonoi
…,” the Rebbe began, and Yossi, awakened from his dream-voyage, joined in. “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God …” Like the other villagers, while praying he
davened
, swaying forward and back, forward and back, to the rhythm of the prayers. It was a comforting motion, davening, like the way Mama used to rock him when he was a baby. “…
elohainu melech ha'olom
… king of the universe …”

A distant sound. Thump, thump … Closer now. Pounding. Hoof beats.

The soldiers.

Yossi's heart started pounding in rhythm. Others began to get agitated, to whisper among themselves. The Rebbe kept praying.

The hoof beats were practically upon the sukkah. Villagers exchanged terrified looks. The hoof beats stopped. Boots thudded on the ground.

The Rebbe motioned the villagers to
continue praying. They did so, though they glanced around nervously. The words stuck in Yossi's throat, but he forced them out.

“
Ah-sher kiddish-ah-nu …”

Four soldiers — the same ones who'd stolen the beets — crowded into the sukkah. “Well, isn't this a cosy little party, eh, Yuri?” Misha said.

The short, round soldier barked a harsh laugh. “And they didn't even invite us, Misha.”

The villagers kept davening, bending and swaying, chanting in low voices.

“
B'mitz-voh sav
…”

Yossi tried to keep his eyes on his prayer book but, as if they had a will of their own, they were drawn to the four soldiers. He noticed that, despite their haughty expressions, the soldiers did not look directly at the Rebbe. Like the time they stole the beets, they kept their eyes away from him. How strange, Yossi thought.

“Not very neighborly,” said the soldier
with the bristly mustache. “And look at the feast hanging on the walls. We would have missed it all — and us poor souls going hungry all the time.”

“I'm hungry right now,” the fourth soldier said. A skinny fellow, he had a small head, and his sheepskin hat fell down over his ears.

“Hungry, Andrei, my friend?” Misha said. “In the midst of such plenty?”

“Say, Misha, you've given me an idea!” Andrei, the skinny one said, and, drawing out his saber, he hacked an apple off the sukkah wall. Shouting, the other soldiers began to pluck fruits and vegetables from the sukkah and stuff them in their mouths.

The Rebbe raised his head from his prayer book. Gazing at Misha, he said, “You are in a house of God. Show respect, or leave.”

Misha seemed to flinch, but then he pulled out his saber. “A house?” he jeered. “You call this a house?” He slashed at the
leaves. The wall began to lean.

Laughing, the other soldiers swiped at the walls. Pears and onions and gourds fell to the ground. The walls tilted inward. The people stood frozen, clutching their prayer books.

“You have desecrated the house of God, and He will punish you,” the Rebbe intoned, pointing at each soldier in turn. Yossi noticed that each looked away, then made a swift motion with his fingers, the Russian sign of protection against the devil. Now why did they do that? Yossi wondered.

Misha shouted in a blustering voice, “God, you say? You dare to threaten me, you Jewish devil?
I
will do the punishing around here.” He turned to his fellows. “Yuri, Andrei, Boris, seize their books. Now!”

The soldiers moved among the villagers, grabbing the prayer books from their hands. “No!” Eli yelled, and received a slap across the face. Daniel tried to hold onto
his prayer book, but a blow sent him to the ground. Wails and cries went up.

“Worthless books, full of Jewish mumbo-jumbo, eh, friends?” Misha said. He laughed, but Yossi could tell it was a forced laugh, full of false courage.

“Hebrew hocus-pocus,” Yuri agreed.

When all the prayer books had been gathered, the soldiers flung them to the ground. Boris struck a match. With a crackle, the books ignited. Yossi saw pages twist as if in agony before they surrendered to the flames.

Some villagers screamed. Others wept. Only the Rebbe looked straight ahead, still chanting the Sukkot prayers.

“Let that be a lesson to you, Jews,” Misha growled. “
We
make the rules around here.
We
do the punishing. Not your God who sends down his word in stupid backward writing!”

The flames blazed higher. The soldiers laughed, but at the same time they drew back, as if shrinking from more than just
the heat of the fire.

Odd, Yossi thought.

But he had no time to figure it out, for the walls began to fall in. Shrieking, the villagers fled. The soldiers leaped to their horses and galloped away. The sukkah col-lapsed in an inferno of flame and ash. The people huddled together beside the ruins, weeping.

“Curse them!” Eli said.

“May God strike them dead!” yelled Simon.

“Such a sin, to burn the holy books,” Golda moaned.

“Oh, Rebbe, Rebbe, what will we do?” Sadie said, wiping her eyes.

“We must leave,” Rivka said.

“Yes, we must,” Simon agreed. “But how? And where could we go?”

“Come, come, everyone,” the Rebbe said. Everyone drew closer. “I have news.”

“News? What news?” Golda said, squirming to the front.

“Hush, Golda, let the Rebbe talk, and then
you'll hear what news,” Sadie scolded.

“The Rebbe of Vladstok sent me a secret message,” the Rebbe said. “Many of his villagers have escaped to Canada. And there are people over there, he says, good people, who will help us emigrate to Canada, if only we can get away from Braslav.”

“Canada,” Yossi whispered. Just like in his daydream!

“That's never, then,” Eli said gloomily.

“Hush, Eli, don't say that,” Mama said.

“Well, how are we to get away, I ask you?” Eli returned. “The soldiers watch us like hawks. Do you think they'll just stand aside and say, ‘Very well, Jews of Braslav, off you go, have a nice trip'? I tell you, it's impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible, with God's help,” the Rebbe said. “If the soldiers could be distracted somehow, if their attention could be diverted from Braslav, even for just an hour, we could get away. We only have to get to Vladstok, after all. It's just across the river.”

Simon nodded. “The Rebbe's right. From there, people will shelter us from village to village, until we reach the sea.”

“We must be ready to go at a moment's notice,” the Rebbe said. “Pack a bag, each family. A small bag, mind, for we may be many days on foot. Take only what you can carry. Who knows? Perhaps a chance will come sooner than we think.”

Yossi listened with excitement. If only he could find a way to distract the soldiers. He'd save the village. Then people would be proud of him. They'd stop laughing at him. They'd forget how he'd wrecked the sukkah, and dropped the beets, and all the other things he'd done wrong.

Without thinking, he blurted, “I'll do it!”

“Do what, Yossele?” Papa asked, looking at him.

“Find a way to distract the soldiers, so we can get away.”

“Hah!” everyone scoffed, Jonah loudest of all.

“You!”

“Spindle-legs!”

“The long-legged hero!”

For once, Yossi ignored them. He paid no attention to their jeers. To be sure, he had no idea what had prompted him to speak out. Nor did he have the slightest notion how he would do what he'd promised. But he was determined to find a way. To prove that he was a hero — and not a fool.