The River Midnight (56 page)

Emma weeded her garden.

Ruthie brewed pots of raspberry leaf tea to tone her womb.

Hershel brought her his mother’s amulet to hang over her bed.

Haykel the blacksmith brought her a horseshoe to put under her bed.

The farmer Boryna brought her a cache of fish.

Ambrose the beekeeper brought her honey.

Nathan the tinsmith pounded out her dented pots.

Pinye, the young carpenter, red-faced, brought her a new birthing stool.

Rivka the cloth seller washed her floor.

Haia-Etel brushed her hair and braided it.

Getzel climbed her stairs with a great effort so that he personally
could bring her a jar of strong pickles. “Everyone knows,” he said, “that a pregnant woman likes nothing better than a good pickle. Maybe with some sour milk?” he asked. “You like I should bring you some kefir?”

The Gypsy boy came to thank her for the medicine that healed the cut on his head. Afterward he sat on her stairs and played his
gudulka
, Avigdor the fiddler joining him. Berekh sang with them, though most of the time he wouldn’t stir from Misha’s room, stroking her hand and rubbing her sore back.

Faygela read to her from
The Israelite.
“The last few days are the hardest,” she said. “When you can hardly breathe already, and you can’t wait for it to be over, you should try to think about something else.” Then Hanna-Leah added, “Yes, and let me tell you what’s going on in the village. Shayna-Henya is playing at love with one of the klezmer. You know Avigdor, the fiddler? Well he’s fiddling something else now. I’ll tell you all about it …”

And Misha thought that although she had never been so uncomfortable in her whole life, it wasn’t so bad to have a table loaded with food that she didn’t have to prepare, a crowd of women entertaining her, the men fiddling outside, the children pulling up the rows of cabbage and peppers and turnips and carrots in her garden, which had grown larger than sin. It wasn’t so bad at all.

But at last, when Misha couldn’t stand the shortness of breath and the weight of her belly and the pressure between her legs another day, she took charge of her fate. Dosing herself every two hours with castor oil and vodka, she didn’t think at all of what day it was. When her waters broke, she nearly cried with relief, but ten hours later she wanted to cry with tiredness. It was Kol Nidrei, the most important night of the year, and everyone had to go to the synagogue. When they left, she was alone with the pains that went on forever, gathering her body up and dropping it aside with no thought for the person inside.

She is alone. The village is silent. Everyone is in the synagogue. It seems as though she has been alone since Adam
Harishon
, staring at the tiled stove, her table, the wreath of garlic, the string of onions. She
shivers. The hot water bottle that Faygela lay at her feet is cold now. The pains are bad, the baby pressing on her back. The head is in the right place, but it must be facing up. A midwife would tell her what side the baby is lying on. Then she would lift Misha’s leg and the baby might turn and come down. At least I should sit up, Misha thinks. But the bad pains have made her more tired than she could have imagined. There’s no midwife to help and who’s here to scold her? Everyone is in shul, being washed clean of everything bad, while she’s being squeezed and twisted like a rag with just the four walls to keep her company. The baby won’t come out, she’s convinced of it. She’s going to die with it still inside her.

The walls pulsate with her staring. Points of memory shine in front of her. Her mother, Berekh, Zisa-Sara, Yarush from Plotsk.… She puts her fist in her mouth as a contraction sweeps over her.

When her eyes focus again, she sees that she’s not alone. Someone is standing in front of her. A big woman, as big as she, with long pale hair, and a blue cap with gold ribbons dangling.

“Who are you?” Misha asks. She wonders that she has time for this conversation, as if an eternity stretches between contractions.

“Don’t you recognize me?” the woman asks.

“No. I never saw you before.”

“You did. You saw me in the river, and again in the woods.”

“You are …”

“Who else? Your great-grandmother, Manya.” The woman laughs. “Yes, finally I had a minute to visit you. Your mother sent me. She couldn’t come herself or she would.”

“My mother?” Misha asks, sitting up. “What did she say?”

“She said to tell you, ‘Misha, don’t wait. Fill up the bridal trunk. You have children coming to this world, and they will need to remember you.’ ”

“Remembering makes trouble.”

“Since when does trouble bother you?” Manya asks, her hands on her hips.

“Anyway, what does it matter? Why does anyone need to remember me?”

Manya grins, splitting her round face as she nods, her gold ribbons fluttering. “
Ahh.
It’s good you should ask.”

Misha sees without surprise the walls of her house falling away.
Should such a thing surprise her when she’s talking with her great-grandmother, her
Alta-bubbie
, who doesn’t look a day older than Misha herself? And now her bed is riding the sea. It must be the sea, it’s so wide and cold and it smells of the huge blue fish she sees spraying water out of the top of its head like a fountain. It jumps into the air and dives under, smacking the water with its tail and splashing her. Is that what you do to a woman about to give birth? Misha scolds. But she isn’t quite sure that she’s still in labor. The contractions seem to have stopped. Above her Manya floats, her dress billowing as she tows the bed with a rope of silver. Where are you taking me? Misha asks, but Manya doesn’t answer.

Here the sea narrows, like soup poured into the bowl of the red cliffs on either side. The bed is swimming up a river, past stone pylons where black birds congregate like the parliament of Old Poland. The bed floats under the criss-cross metal beams of the bridge, between herons walking in the shallows with their skinny long legs like Berekh’s. As Manya nears a little house on the right bank, the bed slows. Look, Manya says, and Misha looks, seeing as clearly as if she were standing right inside the house, where a woman, nearly as small as Faygela, is dressing herself in white. Of course, it’s Kol Nidrei. Who is she? Misha asks. Look, Manya answers. So she looks. Why not? Shouldn’t a person enjoy her dreams? The woman’s hair is dark as night with flecks of red like faint firelight, and her eyes are blue, as round and blue as Berekh’s eyes. The woman lifts her eyes as if she sees Misha and Misha waves. The woman waves back. Then she turns to a box on her table, a box with a window. On the window there are letters, unreadable letters, in neat rows of black. The woman touches the box and the window goes dark. Have a good fast, Misha calls, and the woman smiles.

Kneeling beside Misha on the bed rocking in the light waves of the river, Manya puts her hands on Misha’s belly. Warmth spreads through Misha as her
Alta-bubbie
nods at the house on the riverbank. Before you leave, give your great-granddaughter your blessing, Manya says. The gold ribbons on her cap shine in Misha’s eyes. She blinks, and then there is only the rosy blaze of the setting sun through the window of Misha’s house, where her bed has settled back into its accustomed place.

Misha gasps. The contractions have begun again. She has the urge
to push. The baby turned, she thinks. It’s really coming. No, no. Wait. It isn’t time yet. How often has she said to a woman, wait until you can’t wait anymore? It’s not so easy. Dear God, let the baby be all right. Never mind about me. Just let it be whole and alive. She half-sits, listening, hoping to catch the sound of Kol Nidrei though it’s impossible. She thinks that if she can just hear Kol Nidrei then the baby will be all right. But how can anyone hear the small sound of a human voice from one end of the village square to the other? There’s only the wind.

I
N THE
synagogue the women and men look at one another, whispering, Did you hear? That moaning. There it is again. It must be Misha. It’s her time, and she’s alone.

They all hear it. They all know what it is. Even though what they really hear is just the wind pushing its way into the walls of the old synagogue. But on the eve of Yom Kippur, when the Gates of Eternity swing open, even the wind can speak to an open heart.

The Court of Heaven looks down on earth to this small dot, this ordinary village, where the women and men in their white garments pour from the synagogue, a stream of light under the dimming sky. On Yom Kippur there is no night.

T
HE DOOR
to Misha’s house opens. Who is it? she wonders, frightened, remembering. She expects someone large, someone who has no good in mind, or someone, perhaps, who wears a white glove. But look, it’s Faygela, taking in everything with her dark eyes, pursing her lips and tying up the hem of her skirt into her waistband as if she means business. “So you’re here,” Misha says, faint with relief. She leans back on her pillow, closing her eyes thankfully.

“Lying on your back? This is how you’re going to have a baby?” her friend asks. Startled, Misha sits up. Ruthie has come in, smiling timidly at Misha and clinging to the doorpost as if she never saw a woman giving birth before. Behind Ruthie she sees Hanna-Leah and behind her all of the women, arm in arm, in their white finery, laughing and talking excitedly, walking up and down the stairs like the angels on the ladder to heaven in Jacob’s dream. Why, her house has become a wedding party. “The guest of honor isn’t in any hurry,” Misha mutters.

“Well, you know what they say,” Hanna-Leah says as she comes toward the bed. “When the band starts to play, the bride goes to pee. So we’ll just have to wait for her.”

“But Kol Nidrei?” Misha asks.

“The Holy One above can wait a minute, I think. Our lives may be short, but the Blessed One is eternal.”

“Well, I don’t have time to stand around,” Faygela says. “Young Pinye worked very hard to make this good birthing chair for you, Misha, and you’re going to use it. You think you’re the Queen of Sheba? God save me from women in labor. Get up, already.”

“All right, don’t nag,” Misha says as Hanna-Leah helps her to her feet. Leaning on the two women, Misha moves from the bed to the birthing chair.

Faygela nods. “Now, isn’t this better?”

“For you, it’s fine. For me nothing is better,” Misha says between gritted teeth. Then she says nothing, losing her breath for a moment as the contraction breaks her in half. She is sitting with her legs apart, bearing down, squeezing Faygela’s hand until the smaller woman pales.

Outside the women are singing. What are they singing? Do I care? Misha asks herself. Let them sing me into my grave. Hanna-Leah has a pot of water on the
pripichek.
What does she want with water now? Is it a time to have tea? The front door creaks open, a nail-scratching noise that makes her want to scream. Half-blind with a mixture of sweat and tears, Misha doesn’t quite see the figure coming through her door now. “
Nu
, someone else. Is my house suddenly the train to Warsaw? At least let me charge a ticket,” Misha says, rubbing her eyes.

Berekh sidles through the door, shy, embarrassed. This is not a place for men. “I’m here, Misha,” he announces.

“We’re not making chicken soup,” Hanna-Leah scolds. “Go back to your holy books. Go to the synagogue and pray with the men. You don’t belong here.” She dips a cloth in the pot of hot water, wrings it, shaking it, spattering the Rabbi’s prayer shawl before she takes it to Misha, wiping away the blood and mucus between her legs.

“It’s coming, I see the head. Look,” says Hanna-Leah.

“Very good. Take Misha’s hand, mine is already crushed and you, Ruthie, don’t stand in the doorway staring. Let’s see if you learned
something about bringing babies into the world.” Faygela rubs the feeling back into her hand while her daughter comes to Misha tentatively. Berekh hangs back, whistling at the onions hanging from the ceiling as he tugs at his beard, pretending not to notice the strange grunts and half-screams coming from Misha as she pushes.

Ruthie crouches, peering apologetically between Misha’s legs. “The head’s not coming out. It’s going back and forward, back and forward. You have to push harder, Misha.”

A big woman like you, Misha thinks, surely you have a little more strength. She pushes as hard as anyone can who is tired out from a hard labor, but Ruthie is telling her that it’s not enough. She tries again, but it’s still no good. The women’s faces are swimming in and out of her vision like flat moons. They are so far away and she’s cold. “It’s no use,” Misha says. “Let me go.” Her voice is weak. A pool of blood has formed at the foot of the birthing stool. Her head is rolling back, her eyes closing as if she’s going to sleep. The women look at one another. It’s from this tiredness that a woman can die.

Hanna-Leah shakes Misha’s shoulder. “You look at me, Misha. Do you think I’m letting you go somewhere? No. You’re staying right here with me.” She squeezes Misha’s hand, but there is no returning pressure.

“Ruthie,” Faygela warns, “something has to be done.”

Ruthie gets to her feet. She stands, her fingers plucking at her lips. She is wearing white, as they all are, and for a moment she’s frightened that death might find the color of the shroud too inviting. Taking up Misha’s red shawl, she throws it over her dress, thinking that even if she doesn’t believe in it, red is supposed to keep away the Evil Eye. Then she goes to Berekh, who stands beside the bridal trunk in the corner, twisting the fringes on his prayer shawl. Blushing, Ruthie whispers something to him.

With a startled look, Berekh listens to Ruthie’s instructions. His face turns as red as his beard, but he nods. Quickly walking to Misha’s side, his tall frame bends over her as he takes her hand. With his lips close to her ear, he says in a voice so quiet only she can hear, “So, this is what comes from having a little fun with a
shmeckel?
”

“Fun?” she murmurs. “You think yours is so great? I’ve heard of plenty better. Plenty.”

“Well, bigger, sure,” he says, still whispering. “But tell me. Did you ever see one prettier? Let the women be the judge. How about Hanna-Leah? She would be fair.” Berekh moves as if to take off his trousers.