The River Midnight (30 page)

In the back, alone, sat Yarush the Bear with a row of glasses in front of him. He slugged down each glass in turn, then refilled them all from the bottle of schnapps under his chair. Several ladies and pimps had attempted to share in his obvious bounty, but a little deep growling from Yarush put them straight.

Hershel put two bottles on the table before seating himself opposite Yarush. “You left some business in Blaszka,” Hershel said. “Maybe you forgot.”

“Business?”

“The woman, Misha, remember?” Hershel filled the row of glasses.

“I know lots of women.” Yarush drank.

“This one is pregnant. People say she’s around six months. You were in Blaszka six months ago.”

“So?”

“So you want your baby to grow up without a name?”

“Who says it’s mine?”

“Who else’s would it be?”

“Anyone.”

“I’m talking a match. There’s a lot in it for you. A dowry. A strong woman. So why not? Since the child is yours anyway.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. A man never knows, does he?”

“Weren’t you with her?”

“What if I was? Women are dogs.”

“You don’t mean that. Our women? Daughters of Moses?”

“Dogs,” Yarush said, nodding his head, vodka spilling into his beard. “Wild dogs. Bite the hand that feeds them. Take away your last bone. Bitches, all of them.” Yarush burped, mouth wide, exhaling a fiery, desiccated breath.

Hershel squinted at him, scratching the inside of his ear as if he hadn’t heard right. Then he grabbed the neck of Yarush’s shirt. “Watch your mouth, you’re talking about one of ours,” he said.

Grunting, Yarush knocked Hershel’s arm away. The seven sons began to rise. Hershel looked at them, gauging his chances, shoulders
tensing as he got ready to kick over the table and grab Yarush by the eggs. He licked his upper lip, salty with excitement, eyes flicking from Yarush to the seven sons, to the sailors with their backs to the wall and their knives in their boots. When he was a boy, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but now he paused as if watching himself from a distance, seeing himself as he would quickly be, gasping on the floor, swimming in a fertile mix of vodka and blood. Hershel relaxed into his chair and refilled the row of glasses. He took a swig from the second bottle himself. The seven sons slouched back against the wall.

“So, friend, I expect we won’t be seeing you in Blaszka,” Hershel said.

“Why not?” Yarush asked. “When I’ve got something to sell, I go through there on my way upriver.”

“Well, sure, you used to,” Hershel said. “But you know, all the peasants, they come to Blaszka on market day. People talk. It’s too bad, but you know how people are. They’re saying that Misha cursed the father of the baby. Well, it can’t be true, of course, but the peasants are superstitious. They won’t buy anything from a cursed man.”

“I’m not the father, I told you,” Yarush growled.

“Sure, I believe you. But the peasants, who can talk to them?”

Yarush peered at Hershel with eyes like eggs poached in vodka. “What kind of a curse?” he asked.

“Didn’t you hear about the doctor from Plotsk?”

“You mean the one who—”

“It fell off,” Hershel said solemnly.

Yarush scratched himself thoughtfully. Probably checking to see if his
shmeckel
was in place, Hershel thought.

“I’ll tell you, though,” Hershel said, “they say a little silver can remove a curse.”

“Silver?” asked Yarush. “I have silver.”

“Lucky you,” Hershel said, taking another swig from the bottle as if Yarush’s silver were of no interest to anyone.

Yarush opened his fur coat, retrieving a tin box from the gusty innards. He slapped it onto the table. “Here.”

“What do you want me to do with this?” Hershel asked.

“Take it to the witch.”

“Not me. I’m not anybody’s messenger.”

“Take it,” Yarush said, half-rising. The seven sons were beginning to show an interest in them again.

“All right, if you insist,” Hershel said, “then what can I do?”

A
S SOON AS
he returned to Blaszka, Hershel stopped first at the shop, wanting to show Hanna-Leah the tin box full of silver coins. The shop was closed. It was a little unusual, but it wasn’t market day and maybe she had something to do at home. “Hanna-Leah,” he called as he went inside the house. She wasn’t there, either. “Did you see Hanna-Leah?” he asked his mother.

“In the middle of the afternoon? She’s in the shop, of course.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Hershel mumbled. He looked up at the wooden doll on its shelf above the fireplace. Where did it come from? Ever since she made the dress for it, she was different. One day she would seem all right, sharp-eyed, a proper woman gossiping with the customers, making a good bargain, helping his mother into her chair, carrying a pot of soup to a sickhouse. The next day she would disappear, returning with the smell of the woods on her skin, and he’d wonder what she found there. Or who. She would fall asleep as soon as she got into bed, her hair unbraided like random rays of light across her pillow. She would sprawl across the bed, arms and legs flung wide.

Hershel sat in the rocking chair, waiting for Hanna-Leah.

When she came traipsing into the house, her hair was loose around her shoulders like an unmarried girl’s, the hem of her dress wet. Hershel thought he had never seen her so beautiful. If there was someone else, he would … no, no. His hands clenched and unclenched. What was he thinking? She was here. She was standing behind his chair, her hands on his shoulders, leaning over him, her long hair on each side of his face a golden veil. She was laughing. Let her laugh. Let her be happy. “You sit, Hankela. No, no. Not at the table. Here in the big chair.” His fingers held onto hers so tightly he could feel the quick pulse of her blood. “You sit and I’ll bring everything to you. Everything. Why not?”

He brought her a bowl of soup and, sitting beside her on a stool, watched her eat. “Good, good,” he said. “Your dress is wet. You have to get warm. When you’re finished, you tell me what else I can bring you.”

While Hanna-Leah drank her soup, Shmuel was on his way to Plotsk with a pouch of gold and a letter to the Governor, Hayim and Alta-Fruma were talking outside the dairyhouse, and Berekh the Rabbi was walking with Misha along the riverbank.

Hershel spoke to the Rabbi’s housekeeper, Maria, about getting the farmer Boryna’s daughter to help Misha out. He entrusted the tin box to her, which she gave to the Rabbi, who went to his cousin Faygela to ask her what a woman requires during her confinement. Eventually the story came out: that Misha’s mother, may she rest in peace, had interceded on her daughter’s behalf in the Heavenly Court, and an angel had been sent down to bring her what she needed. You see, they said in the village square, it’s just like in the days of the
Alter Rov
, the Old Rabbi. God in Heaven sends down angels to save the innocents. But of course in heaven they don’t speak Polish, so they wouldn’t be able to find their way ’round the docks, and they sent Hershel the butcher to handle the affair. You know, like in the old days, when a Polish count who didn’t want to dirty his hands would hire a Jew to act as his agent. And if there was a biting edge to their voices, who could blame them? The Old Rabbi lived in a time when Poles and Jews thought they could be brothers and the Russian schools were open to anyone. Oh yes, they said in Blaszka, angels. My brother-in-law saw one in the factory in Łodz. It’s true. Right before the saw cut off his hand.

T
HE RASPBERRIES
ripened and then the blueberries. Misha and Berekh the Rabbi were seen walking along the river more than once. People talked, of course. But Hershel said, “I don’t want to hear a thing. First you beg me to make sure that she has what she needs for the baby, now you’re worried about who she’s walking with. Let me tell you, she’s walking slowly enough these days, as big as she is. She could use a little help. So?
Nu?
What are you going to do?” People still talked, but more than one also watered Misha’s garden, brought her a honey cake for the Sabbath, took her washing to the river.

In the meantime Ruthie was home and Emma contrite, but the
young people of Blaszka were still congregating in the woods. Not as often since the Rabbi began holding classes for them in science and philosophy, but who knew what kind of trouble they might still be getting up to? What are you going to do about it? the villagers asked Hershel. “It’s the press,” he said. “Even after everything that’s happened, they can’t leave it alone.”

In the first week of August, he took matters into his hands. Since it was the printing press that drew them, the printing press would have to go. He walked to the old hut in the woods, his ax over his shoulder. The air was sticky, his shirt clinging to his back, bees humming as they returned to their nest in the hollow of a beech tree.

As Hershel came to the clearing, he thought that this might be where his Hanna-Leah walked when she came to the woods. Perhaps here she met … no, he couldn’t think such things. But as he strode into the hut, hot with jealousy, his hands sweating so that he had to wipe them on his caftan before he lifted the ax, he could almost see her, here with someone. Teeth gritted, he brought the ax down on the press with all his strength. Chopping first at the struts that held the printing press in place, he then broke the supports for the type, the brackets that held the rollers, the chill sound of falling metal pieces ringing so loud he didn’t hear Emma come into the hut.

“You have no right,” Emma was yelling as she ran in front of the press. Hershel grunted as she grabbed him around the waist, throwing him off balance, his ax striking the metal at an odd angle and nearly bouncing out of his hands.

“Emma! Stop. I could have hit you with the ax,” Hershel said, flinging her aside.

Ruthie was right behind Emma, trying to pull her away. But she charged Hershel again, hitting his back with her fists. He tried to hold her but she was wild, and when she kicked him between the legs, he didn’t think, he just threw her down.

He didn’t mean for her to hit her head so hard. Afterward everyone assured him that you don’t get the typhus from hitting your head on a dirt floor. Yet he couldn’t help but think if she died, dear God Above, please protect her, it had something to do with him. When Hanna-Leah suggested they keep Izzie in their house so that the boy wouldn’t catch his sister’s sickness, Hershel was only too glad to agree.

He’s either an idiot or very brave to risk bringing the typhus into his own house, people claimed. But in the bakery Faygela said to anyone who wanted to listen, and everyone who didn’t, that Hershel had more sense in his little finger than a yeshiva full of scholars. “Do you know someone else who can milk money from a stone?” she asked. “And not for himself either, not a kopeck for himself, but only for the good of others. My Ruthie. And Misha.” You call that sense, people said. But to outsiders they began to boast, Here in Blaszka we’re not afraid of the authorities. Why should we be? Hershel the butcher takes care of everything.

I
N
1894, Tishah b’Av would be falling on Saturday, August 9th. Since it was forbidden to mourn on the Sabbath, the fast day would have to be observed after the Sabbath ended—from Saturday evening to Sunday evening.

That Sabbath was a solemn one, anticipating Tishah b’Av, the villagers anxious about the possibility of an epidemic, Alta-Fruma sleeplessly watching over Emma. After Hershel and Izzie returned from services on Friday evening, Hanna-Leah put the boy right to bed. “He’s worn out with worry. He has to sleep,” she said, wiping her face with a handkerchief. “It’s too warm in the house. I need a breath of air. A walk. Watch over the boy, Hershel.”

She left and he watched her go, chewing the inside of his cheek, worried that she might be getting sick and more worried, to his shame, that she might have another reason for going out at this time of night.

Hershel sat, arms flat on the table, looking at the carved figure in the green satin dress on its shelf above the fireplace. Where did she get the wooden doll? It couldn’t be from anyone in Blaszka. If it was, he would have heard. Someone gave it to her. What kind of someone? Not a scholar. Not a person with holy thoughts who wouldn’t lift his eyes to a woman. No. It had to be someone who worked with his hands. A
proster.
Not any better than Hershel himself. Looking at his Hanna-Leah. Touching her.

“Where is she?” he asked. “Who is she with?” He began to pace. Walking back and forth, he muttered, he groaned. “If I find her—them—I’ll …” He couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He was
always trying to hold himself back. Enough. It would be a relief to let himself go. He would find them and he would give them what they deserved. He hit the wall with his fist. The wall cracked and the boy whimpered, tossing in his sleep. “Sha, sha,” Hershel said, wiping away the blood on his knuckles. He sat down. He stood up. He sat down, his head in his hands. “Hankela, Hankela,” he whispered, “what would I do without you?”

He remembered their wedding day, when he stood in front of her, weak with fasting, Shmuel at his side. He had a speech prepared, the injunction to the bride informing her of her duties and instructing her in her behavior. But in that moment, looking at her sitting tall in her bride’s chair, wreathed with a veil and a crown of flowers, he thought only of how lucky he was. The same hands that could split a cow in half would soon lift her veil, and he saw himself falling into a bed of gold. The older men laughed at his speechlessness. It was something he would remember later. But then he didn’t care. He only said, “Hankela, if you’ll be a good wife for me, I’ll be very happy.”

But years had passed and now look what it all had come to. “Enough,” he said. “I have to find her. I have to know. And if she wants a
Get?
” No. A man doesn’t have to give his wife a divorce if he doesn’t want. He would desert her first. Leave town. Let her find out how good it is to be an
aguna
like Alta-Fruma. “If she wants a
Get
, I’ll, I’ll …” There were tears in his eyes. “I’ll let her go.”