The Little Russian (21 page)

He stopped and looked over at her. Then he stood and stamped his feet, working his toes into the boots. “I’m not going without you.”

“But you have to.”

The door burst open and Olga raced in on bare feet, laughing and squealing. Berta turned on her. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out of this house.”

Olga stopped and stared at her, momentarily shocked into silence. She held up her hands and patted the air. “Yes,
kotik
, now don’t get excited.” She backed out of the door. “I’m going. We’re all going. Calm down.”

Berta slammed the door after her. They could hear her down the corridor telling the others that Berta had lost her mind and that they all had to leave immediately. There was a clamor of voices, questions and answers that faded down the stairs and out through the parlor door.

“Berta, listen to me.” Hershel tried to take her into his arms, but she pushed him away. She took a seat in the chair near the armoire and dropped her face in her hands. He sat across from her on the bed and leaned in. “There’s no need for this. There’s a new life waiting for us in America. We’ll stay with my sister. I hear Wisconsin is a beautiful place. It’s true we won’t have much at first, but I’ll find something.”

“What will you do there?” she asked through her tears.

“I don’t know. It’s a big country. Plenty of opportunity. It could make our fortune.”

She shook her head slowly. “I know how people live there, Hershel. You’re not fooling anyone. Is that what you want for us? For your children. To live like that?”

“There are all kinds of people and they live all kinds of ways.”

“I saw pictures of those horrible tenements in a magazine.”

“That was New York City. This is Wisconsin. It’s different. Now come, get up and tell Galya to get the children ready.”

She watched him through a haze of tears as he threw some clothes into the small case. She had heard about the tenements in New York City. She knew how people lived there. She wondered if Wisconsin was any better. Maybe it was worse. Maybe they ’d be hungry and cold and crammed into a few filthy rooms like the pictures in the magazine.

“Berta . . .” he said, slipping on his jacket.

“What?”

“We have to hurry.”

She drew a breath. Then she sat up and wiped her face with both hands. “I told you I’m not going,” she said grimly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You are coming with me.”

She shook her head.

“Then I’m not going either.”

“But they ’ll arrest you.”

“Undoubtedly.”

She was about to argue with him when they heard the sound of sleighs coming up the road. “Hershel . . .”

“Shush!”

The horses turned in at the drive and soon they were pulling up to the front door. He looked at her and smiled. It was the bitter half smile of defeat. “Well, it seems it’s too late now,” he said quietly.

“Oh my God. You have to hide.”

“I don’t think that would work. I’m not Samuil.”

“What are you going to do?”

Someone knocked at the bedroom door. “Go away,” Berta shouted.

“Madame . . .”

“Tell them to go away, Vera.”

“Who, Madame?”

“The men at the door.”

“It is only the cabs.”

“What?”

“For the guests, Madame. The cabs to take them home.”

And then, as if to confirm this fact, they could hear excited chatter and laughter in the foyer. There was a high-pitched squeal from Olga and a girlish shout from Yuvelir. Berta ran to the window and looked
out on the drive. Hershel came over and stood beside her. From where they stood they could watch the guests make their way down the snowy steps and pile into the cabs.

“Go now, Hershel,” she whispered. “Please, what are you waiting for?”

“Are you coming with me?”

“No . . . not now.”

He gave her a level look. “I could insist, you know.”

She held his gaze. “I know.”

He looked at her a moment longer and then down at his hands. “I always knew you were like this. But I thought if ever the time came . . .”

“Hershel, please, it happens all the time. You know that. Men go first and the women and children follow.”

He stood there a moment longer and she thought he was going to say something, but instead he picked up his traveling case and left the room.

At the front door she watched him put on a clean coat and pull a fresh pair of gloves from the pockets. “Where will you be?” she asked.

“Does it matter?”

He put on the gloves then a
papakha
and stepped out into the frosty morning. The towering black clouds on the horizon were lit from beneath by the rising sun.

“Hershel . . .”

“I’ll write,” he called back over his shoulder. “If you need money, see Levy. There isn’t much, so be careful. I’ll send you more.”

“I’ll miss you.”

He ignored her, threw his case in the back, and climbed in after it. Once he was settled in with the leather rugs on his lap, the driver urged the horse on and the sled plunged forward. She stood at the top of the stairs and shivered in her evening dress waiting to see if he’d turn around. When the sled disappeared beneath the crest of the hill, she came back into the house and shut the door. Her legs gave out and she slumped into a nearby chair. She hugged her chest and trembled. There was a glossy spot of red on the floor, hard and smooth. She bent down to touch it and found that it was nail varnish.

May 1914

 

IT WAS hours before dawn when Berta first heard knocking at the front door, not knocking exactly, more like tapping, so soft that she couldn’t even be sure she heard it at all. Then, after a short silence, it started up again, only this time it grew louder, slow beats, evenly spaced, until they tapered off into silence. At first she thought it might be a branch in the wind. But there were no branches by the front door, and it was a still night with hardly a breeze. Then she thought it might be some kind of prank, but certainly not by children. Not this time of night.

She’d been in bed for hours and hadn’t yet slept. Falling asleep was difficult now that Hershel was gone. She usually stayed up alone most nights worrying. He had been gone for four months and still she hadn’t received a letter: not a card, nothing, not even after she found his sister’s address among his things on his desk and had written to him several times. Not knowing was becoming more and more intolerable with each passing day. She’d made inquiries with friends who would have known if he’d been arrested, but nobody had heard anything. He wasn’t in any of the prisons or hospitals. He had simply disappeared.

The tapping began again, only this time it was so faint that she could barely hear it. She considered ignoring it, trying to get some sleep. Then it grew louder. She sat up and threw back the covers. She put on her dressing gown and found her slippers. She thought about ringing for Vera or Petr, but for reasons she couldn’t explain, she didn’t want them to know about it.

By the time she walked out into the darkened hallway, it had
stopped again. She stood there listening, her eyes settling on a puddle of moonlight that had formed on the landing. When she reached the top of the stairs, she could see an irregular patch of light jutting out over the parquet floor. She followed it across to the front door.

“Who’s there?”

Her voice sounded muffled, tremulous, like it was coming from a wax cylinder for a phonograph player. She tried to peer out through the windows on either side of the door, but the angle was too sharp. She could only see a portion of the doorstep.

“Who’s there?”

She hesitated, then turned the latch and heard the bolt retract. After a moment she turned the handle and slowly opened the heavy door. From where she stood, the front step looked deserted, but she couldn’t be sure. She opened the door a little farther and peered out until she could see the whole portico, the wide steps, and the drive beyond it. Nobody was there. It was quiet except for the crickets and a gentle rustling in the trees overhead. The moon was full, shadows flitted across the drive, and the branches of the trees were silhouetted against the black sky. She was about to close the door when she noticed something in the drive. She thought it might be a dead animal lying half hidden under the box hedge that lined the gravel. She thought of Masha the cat. Poor little Masha had been left out all night and had disappeared. Now, here was her body, killed by some wild animal. She hurried down the steps and strode out across the drive. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save her. She couldn’t imagine how she would tell Sura that Masha was dead.

When she got closer she could see that it wasn’t an animal, but an old traveling case, half buried under the hedge. She would’ve left it there, if there hadn’t been something familiar about it. She couldn’t be sure in the dark, but it looked a little like one of Hershel’s traveling cases. She picked it up gingerly, and holding it away from her night dress, she brought it back inside and carried it up the stairs, a litter of dirt and leaves trailing behind her. She went down the hallway to her bedroom and put the case on the floor before turning on the lamp. It smelled of mold and leaf rot and seemed to be more like a living plant
than a manufactured object. There were trails of snail slime on the lid that glistened in the lamplight and attached to the handle were old spider’s webs encrusted with leaves and bits of insects. The locks had been pried open and the hinges were rusty. Even with these insults to its integrity, Berta could see that it had once been a fine case. It was made of leather and although there were no engraved initials on the backing plate, it most likely had belonged to someone who knew quality. She tried to remember if all Hershel’s cases had initials on them.

When she opened the lid she found that it was empty, as were all the interior pockets, except for one that contained the stub of a train ticket to Kiev. Even though it had been a good case, it was a common one. There had to be thousands of them in Little Russia. How could she say with any certainty that this one had belonged to Hershel? How absurd to think there was even a remote possibility that it was the one he took with him. And yet as she lay back in bed and closed her eyes, she tried to picture him packing, throwing his shirts into the case, closing it up, grabbing the handle, and walking off with it down the hallway. She tried to picture the case as he threw it into the sled and then climbed in after it, ignoring her, adjusting the lap rugs before signaling the driver.

 

A FEW DAYS later Berta took the children down to the shops. It was such a warm and inviting day that she decided not to take the motor but walk down the hill. The Berezina was busy that afternoon. Gardeners and their helpers stooped over hillocks of bare earth, shoving bulbs into the ground, while nannies kept an indifferent eye on their charges and gossiped with their colleagues in the private parks. Samuil was excited and wanted to run down the hill. Berta told him he could only go to the corner but then must wait for her before crossing the street. A motorcar sped past, belching black smoke from the exhaust pipe, and startled everyone with an explosive backfire. Berta had promised Samuil a new trick from the magic shop and he had pestered her all morning, until she gave up trying to enjoy her breakfast.

“What if I find two tricks, Mameh?”

“What if you do?”

“Could I get both?”

Sura, who had no interest in magic, was cranky and complaining about the walk even though they had only gone a few blocks. She wanted to go back and get the motor. As a compromise Berta agreed to wait on the corner for the next tram.

Among the passengers waiting at the tram stop was a well-dressed woman in a large hat making a list in a little book with a pencil. There was a gentleman reading a paper with a headline proclaiming STRIKE! in large black letters. There were several girls in plain skirts and white blouses, servants most likely on their day off, and several young men, also servants, who eyed the girls and whispered among themselves.

Samuil stood on the curb and when the tram appeared up the hill he shouted, “Mameh, it ’s coming!” The gentleman glanced over from behind his paper.

“Not so loud, darling. I can see.”

The horse-drawn tram came to a stop in front of the passengers. The metal wheels screeched in their tracks and sparks flew out from under the carriage. Samuil tried to rush up the steps, but Berta put a hand firmly on his shoulder to hold him back. “Let the lady go first,” she whispered.

“Do we have to go at all?” Sura whined.

“Of course we have to go. Why did you bring her, Mameh?”

Berta took Sura’s hand. “Don’t you want to go to the magic shop?”

“No,” she pouted.

They started up the steps. “You’ll see lots of interesting things.”

“It’s scary in there. There are dead animals and it smells like old people.” She was referring to a stuffed fox in the window with a frozen snarl on its face.

“We’ll have a wonderful tea afterward. With cake and everything. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“S’ppose.”

At the top of the steps Berta handed the change to the conductor and was given three tickets. She led the children to the back of the tram, where they found seats by a window so Sura could feel the breeze on her face and not throw up.

Samuil said, “So, what about it, Mameh? Can I have two tricks? Two
would be much better than one. You know how quickly I master them. Two would last longer and we wouldn’t have to go back right away.”

“We’ll see.”

While the driver was still waiting for the new passengers to take their seats, an artel worker, wearing a black leather jacket and knee-high boots, ran over from across the street and climbed aboard. He reached into his pocket, handed over a coin, and took his ticket. The tram lurched forward and bumped over the cobblestones. Using the top of the seats to steady himself, he made his way to the back, and slid into a seat directly across the aisle from Berta.