Only Yesterday (6 page)

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The train wound its way up, and wound its way down. High mountains flew by and snow lay on them, and even though Passover was already past, the snow didn’t budge. And so, Isaac sits and rides through the realm of Austria, that same Austria that rules over eighteen states, and twelve nations are subject to it. One and the same law for the Jews and for the people of the land, their well-being is our well-being, for the Emperor is a Gracious King, he protects all who take shelter with him, Jew and non-Jew alike. Her earth is lush and fertile and the produce of her land is greater than the need of her inhabitants. She is blessed with everything and knows no shortage. One land makes wheat and barley and rye and beans and lentils and oats and corn; and another land makes potatoes and fruit of the orchard. One land makes plums for confiture and Slivovitz, and another land makes hops for beer. One land makes wine and another land makes tobacco and flax, and all lands are full of livestock, animals, and birds. Some give milk and butter and cheese, and some give meat and wool and skins and feathers. One land produces horses, and another land chickens and ducks and swans, doves, and pheasants, and bees make honey and wax, and her lakes and rivers are filled with fish and her mountains with silver and copper and tin and iron and lead for paint and salt mines, and coal and oil. And her forests make wood, and there are high mountains there, covered with eternal snow.

The train skittered between cities and villages, snaked its way between mountains and valleys, lakes, and streams. Then it threaded itself into a long cavity, crept on its bowels and crawled along slowly.

Darkness grows thick and black smoke rises. The red lanterns lighted in the car are wrapped in heavy mist. The wheels wrestle on the dark tracks, and it seems as if it’s not the wheels that are turning but the tracks are moving beneath them, and along with them, the walls of the tunnel are running behind the train, reluctant to part from it. But the train prevailed. No sooner did it get rid of the walls than the tun-nel grabbed it once again. The train roared a dreadful roar that rat-tled the walls of the tunnel and finally it shook off the tunnel and emerged, and a great light suddenly shone and greeted the passengers. And once again, forests are waving their trees and streams are peeping from the valleys and dales. By day the sun illuminates them and at night the moon smiles with light, sweet to the eye and pleas-ing to the heart. And from the high mountains comes a wind like a wind rising from the snow.

Passengers come and passengers go and officials change places with other officials. Some passengers are tall and dignified, wearing green coats and black leather pants and a green hat with a feather, and other passengers wear pink coats and speak a coarse Ger-man tongue that grates on the ear. And they too disappear and oth-ers come, speaking in a singsong. The night has passed now and in the train window a blue strip suddenly appears, stretches and widens with no limit and no end. People who were in the train with Isaac stood up and called out happily, That’s the sea. That’s our sea. Isaac stood up and looked at the sea. That is the sea which is a branch of the sea of the Land of Israel.

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Dawn broke and the train approached Trieste. All the cars in the train were filled with valiant women, fat and stout, with suntanned faces, loaded with heavy baskets full of chickens and eggs, fruit and vegetables. Most of the passengers jumped up from their seats and helped the women arrange their baskets, looking pleased and smug at the produce of their land, like sons returning home and seeing it filled with all the best. Some asked how their sisters were, and others asked how the fruits of their gardens were; some asked what this one was doing and what that one was doing, and others joked with the

women, and the women joked with them, until the train entered the station and all the passengers jumped up and got off. When Isaac had entered his car, he saw only those who were in the car; now that he got out, his eyes were confused by that population. And Isaac picked up his belongings and went down to the city. This was the city that was the end of all his journeys on land and the beginning of his journey by sea.

The city is big and noisy and large palaces loom up. All kinds of wares whose like Isaac had never seen before in his life he saw now in Trieste. And everything here is unusual and unfamiliar. Instead of horses—donkeys. Even the fish in the market are strange, even the fruit and vegetables. And a kind of warm bluishness permeates the space of the city and a smell of soaked grass wafts there. Carriages run and their noise is swallowed up in their rubber wheels. But a great turmoil rises from the city. A lot of people are here, and among all those many people, not a single one pays heed to Isaac.

Isaac walks around in the markets of Trieste, in one hand his sack and in the other hand his valise. The sweet sun he left three days ago in his hometown had grown old before its time. Spring it was when Isaac left his hometown and here it is summer. Endless sweat drips from his forehead and all his limbs are weary. Where will he go and where will he turn and where will he buy a ticket here for a trip to the Land of Israel? And Isaac put down his bundles and asked passersby, and they replied in a tongue that was incomprehensible to him. More than from their words, he learned from their gestures. Isaac set off for the sea. Innumerable ships are standing in the har-bor of Trieste. Some came from distant lands and others are leaving for distant lands. Among all those ships stands Isaac’s ship. The next day it sets off, and whoever buys himself a ticket buys himself a place on the ship, and is entitled to board it at once. Isaac bought himself a ticket and bought himself food. He ate a little and he drank a lot and he got onto the ship.

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Isaac boarded the ship and found his place. He untied his sack and opened his valise and changed some of his clothes, for he took pity

on his good clothes not to rumple them during the voyage so that he would enter the Land of Israel with them ironed. And after he found a place for his belongings he went to tour the ship. Aside from the crew, there wasn’t anyone there.

The day began to turn dark and small lanterns illuminated the ship. The crew went to eat their supper and as they dined they sang in German and in Italian, hymns to the sea and other songs. The waters of the sea turned dark and stars flickered in the firmament, and the moon rose from the dark water and the black waves swayed silently. Little by little the sailors’ singing stopped and silence spread over the sea. All that was heard was the sound of the waves lapping the boards of the ship. Isaac took out bread and sardines and sat down and ate supper and looked at everything around him, until his limbs started to grow slack and his eyes began to close. He stood up and packed the leftovers of his dinner and made himself a place to sleep. It didn’t take long before he was lying down.

Isaac lay down alone on the big ship by the light of the stars in the firmament and the voice of the waves in the sea. Never in his life did Isaac lie down alone and never in his life had he slept outside. Never in his life did Isaac lie down alone because in his father’s house there were only four beds. In one bed Father slept with little Vove, the son of his old age, and in another bed Isaac slept with his brother Yudel; and in the other two beds his sisters slept. And never in his life had Isaac slept outside, unlike rich boys who are used to outings and sometimes happen to sleep outside.

So Isaac lay and looked at the firmament. And since the stars that illuminate the sea are the same stars that illuminate the land, he looked at them and thought of his hometown, for it is the way of the stars to lead the thoughts of a person as they are wont. Isaac wondered and pondered, Now that I’m lying here, my brother Yudel is alone in Mother’s bed, for ever since Mother passed away, he and his brother had slept together in her bed. (And before Mother passed away, every night a place would be made for them, a kind of bed made of boards placed on chairs, two on each side.) Or maybe Yudel was joined by Vove, our little brother, so Father would have more room. What does Yudel put under his head, now that Father gave me the pillow that

was on the bed? Yet we shall leave Yudel and Vove and think about other things. Now that I’m here, the people of my hometown won-der why they don’t see me, and maybe they ask about me and are amazed when they hear that I have gone to the Land of Israel. Some envy me and others are sorry I went, for as long as I was in the city I was busy selling Zionist Shekels and stamps of the Jewish National Fund, and now they’ve got to take care of selling them. I do hope the revenue won’t decline.

And Isaac thought a great many other thoughts, and all his thoughts were about his hometown. The streetlamps have been lit by now and the city elders are sitting down to get a breath of fresh air, and girls are strolling between the marketplace and the post office, and students are escorting them, and maybe the girls are thinking about Isaac, because he went to the Land of Israel. Never in his life had Isaac paid any heed to girls. If his passion struck him, his heart carried him to the fields and vineyards of the Land of Israel. As he came to the Land of Israel, he saw a well in a field with flocks lying nearby, and a big stone lies on the mouth of the well, and it takes the strength of more than one or two men to roll it off. The village girls came there to water their flocks. And Isaac rolled the stone off the mouth of the well. They watered their flocks and returned to the village. The whole village was amazed, How did they manage to get back so fast today. And the girls said, We chanced upon a young man from Poland who rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, just as you pull a cork off the mouth of a flagon. And they said to the girls, Where is he, why did you leave him there? Call him and he shall dine with us. And they went out to call him and bring him with great honor, and a few days later he married one of them. Or perhaps this was how it was: Arabs were there and didn’t let the girls draw water from the well. Isaac chanced by there and drove out the Arabs, and the girls filled their ewers and told their fathers, A fellow from Poland saved us from the Arabs. And they said to the girls, Where is he ,
etc.

But as he lay down alone on the big ship and the offspring of the sky looked graciously upon him and the waves of the sea rocked him, his heart swelled and he thought thoughts he wasn’t accustomed to. At last, he cleared away all those thoughts and started thinking about himself, how he had given his soul to Zionism and how people used to make fun of him, and now that he was ascending to the Land of Israel, it was he who was making fun of them, for what importance do they and their words have if they don’t lead them to action, and what was the difference between them and all the other denizens of the city, the former live out their days in Exile and the latter live out their days in Exile, neither of them want to move until the Messiah comes.

After he thought about their deeds in general, he began detailing the deeds of every single one of them one by one. Here’s Reuben Leyb Weissbier, who is the first at every party and reads all newspapers before everybody else, and when Isaac came to ask him for the farmers of Mahanayim, he didn’t give him a cent. You’d think maybe he can’t give, but when it comes to giving money, that’s where his Zionism ends. The same with Hirsh Wolf Atamanut, and the same with most of the Zionists in town. They’ll give you prooftexts from the Talmud that the air of the Land of Israel is healing, but when they travel for their health, they go to Karlsbad and other places Outside the Land of Israel. And as for the young Zionist students we hoped would bring a new spirit of life to Zionism, they’re willing to put off every Zionist meeting to go walking with a girl. Many more things Isaac pondered about the people of his own circle in his hometown. Some of them caught the trivial and turned it into the essen-tial, and some heaped trivial on top of trivial and came up with trivial images.

And then again Isaac began musing on girls, and not because he was fond of them, but because of his sisters, who see their girl-friends strolling in a city street while they themselves don’t show their faces outside because they don’t have summer hats. How little Pesyele rejoiced when she put on her brother Isaac’s new hat, danced around and said, Look, I’ve got a hat too, I’ve got a hat too. Finally, he dismissed all his thoughts and started thinking of sleep that would certainly not come, since he was lying in a new place and was lying outside, while he was accustomed to sleeping in a room with all the windows closed, and he might catch a chill and would probably get sick. And there was no Jew here to take care of him. Isaac was not a

melancholy type who sees every illness as the beginning of death, but neither was he one of the optimists who don’t stir their heart off their worries. All his thoughts came to an end only when weariness took hold of him and he fell asleep, for in three days on the train he hadn’t slept but just leaned his head on the wall and dozed off for a while.

Who knows how long he would have slept if not for a flood of water that reached the place where he was lying. For day had dawned and the sailors were washing the deck and the water hit his bedclothes. He shook himself and jumped up from where he was lying. He scurried to fold up all his bedclothes and put them in his sack and put the sack wherever he put it. He washed his face and hands and put on his Tefillin and recited the morning prayer and drew out the prayers, since all the days on the train, he hadn’t put on Tefillin except for the first day on the way to Lemberg, when they formed a Minyan on the train. After he fulfilled his obligation to God, he took out bread and sardines and sat down to eat.

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By the time he sat down and ate, all the serenity of the ship had ceased. The crew were running in haste and in panic. Some were tugging heavy chains and others were hoisting big cargoes. Some were tying up all kinds of objects and others were bringing coal. The ship was in an uproar all around. And in the uproar and the confu-sion, men and women were boarding, dressed like lords and ladies, and in front of them and in back of them were porters loaded with trunks and packages. Soon the ship’s siren was heard. The ship jolted out of its moorings and began moving. And now she left the waters of the harbor for the mighty waters of the sea. The lords and ladies disappeared and the commotion that had been there ceased. Every sin-gle one of the crew stood at his post to do his job, the work of the ship.

Isaac was left alone on the ship. The lords and ladies went in to dine and the crew were at work among the big boilers and the other covered places. Isaac looked at his belongings and saw that they were in their place, and he went on a tour of the ship. He strolled up and down and checked the thickness of the boards of the ship and everything his eye fell on, as he pondered to himself, It wasn’t on a big, handsome ship like this that my ancestor Reb Yudel traveled, for in the days of Reb Yudel Hasid, there were not yet any steamships, but only sailboats that cruised the sea at the whim of the wind. Many troubles befell Reb Yudel at sea. Your common sense cannot grasp how he could endure them. But he did endure them all and accepted them lovingly, as if the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He had been merciful to him by sending him torments at sea, so that he would enter the Land of Israel cleansed. Once a big tempest came at sea and the waves were about to swallow the ship, even though they knew the Hasid was going by the will of the Blessed-One. But that Hasid stood up and was not afraid, for he said, Whatever the Holy-One- Blessed-Be-He does, for good He does it, and if this be the will of the Blessed-One, it must be good. And with this knowledge, he grew greatly excited and became all joy. And the waves saw his pleasure and were ashamed and went away. As they went away, the ship was standing in the middle of the sea and there was a danger that it would get stuck there and would not move. All the passengers on the ship were terrified and scared that pirates would come and take them into slavery or that they would die of hunger and thirst, and would be-come food for the fish of the sea. They howled and lamented and wept, Is it not bad enough that they wouldn’t get to the Land of Is-rael, but they wouldn’t even get to a Jewish grave. And there was great weeping on the sea, as if they had already fallen into the sea and all the creatures of the sea were coming to eat their flesh. And that Hasid was joyful, for all the acts of the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He were equal in his mind, and hence it didn’t matter whether they moved or did-n’t move. He stood and chanted a wonderful melody,
To the Lord for all His deeds
. And the winds heard and came to appease him. They bore the ship, as porters bear burdens on their shoulders, until they brought it to the Land of Israel. And all the feats of Reb Yudel Hasid in the Land of Israel are told and retold in the courts of the Rebbes at the Melaveh Malkah Meal, the farewell to the Sabbath Queen on long winter days, and sometimes they get up from the meal and still haven’t finished telling the events that happened to Reb Yudel Hasid.