Chapter Five
July 1905
THERE WERE always little dramas in Gershen’s bakery on Friday mornings. What with the women standing in line for their Shabbes loaf, impatient, irritable, their appetites sharpened by the smell of baking bread coming from the two ovens in the yard, there was always some incident to break up the monotony. On that morning, a small clot of women had just stepped inside the bakery, anticipating an end to their long wait. They each carried a lump of braided dough wrapped up in brown paper, and from time to time looked up from their conversation to see how far they had to go before they reached the counter. They were all dressed in black, for each had lost a loved one and was still in mourning.
There were two among them whose skirt and blouse were a deeper shade of black. These garments belonged to the two professional mourners in Mosny, whose job it was to be the embodiment of sorrow, hopelessness, and despair. They were dedicated mourners, blessed with all the requisite talents: a pallid complexion, a sorrowful expression, and an all-black wardrobe.
“What are you talking about?” snapped Aviva Kaspler. She had kneaded her challah the night before because she had an early funeral that morning. “He has not been here since Tisho be-Av. If he had been here, I would have known it. You think I don’t know who comes and goes around here?” She was a tall woman, with broad shoulders, a jowly face with heavy features, and a booming voice, perfect for keening above a crowd.
“Draikop!” said Yael Schlaifer, her partner and the only other official mourner in Mosny. “He was here right after Reb Shtarker’s funeral and in that droshky of his with the yellow wheels. How could you have missed him? And her in those fancy clothes. They went out riding. She was carrying that parasol of hers, the one with the lace. I ask you, who puts lace on a parasol?” She had a small, pointed face that was engulfed by dark-rimmed glasses. Her greatest asset was her pinched mouth that could effortlessly convey heart-wrenching sorrow for as long as was required.
“She calls me a draikop!” exclaimed Aviva. “And who is the draikop? You’re thinking of the bookseller. He was the one who came by that day.”
“You don’t think I can tell the difference between the wheat merchant and the bookseller?”
Since cholera and typhus were frequent visitors to Mosny, these two enjoyed a thriving business, albeit a rocky partnership due to the stresses of their success and their strong personalities. Although they argued about most everything, when it came to mourning, to crying as if their hearts would break, none were better. They worked themselves into a frenzy, playing off each other like seasoned opera singers. They were crowd pleasers and knew how to get a funeral off to a good start.
“Either way, he hasn’t been here since before Shabbes Chazon, that’s for sure,” said Nessie Laiser, the wife of the roofer. She was careful not to take sides. Nobody in Mosny wanted to take sides when it came to the official mourners. They had sharp tongues and they knew how to use them.
“And you know what that means?” added Yaffa Hamerow, the tavern keeper’s wife. “She’ll end up a spinster after all. Her poor mother must be brokenhearted.”
“I would not like to be Rivke Lorkis.” said Aviva. “To have a daughter like that? And speaking French when you least expect it.” She was about to say more, but Yaffa elbowed her when she saw Berta pushing open the door of the bakery.
Berta stepped inside and edged past the line on her way to the counter. “Gut Shabbes,” she said in their general direction. She didn’t like coming to the bakery, especially on Shabbes, when it was crowded.
“Gut Shabbes,” they said nearly in unison.
She stepped up to the counter and asked the baker if there was any challah left. “Of course there’s challah left,” he replied irritably. He was a busy man and had no time for foolish questions. “There’s the line, Your Highness. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.” Berta shot him a look and turned back to the line. God, how I hate Mosny and everyone in it.
After Hershel’s last visit, it became apparent to Mameh that he was going to ask Berta to marry him. Since Berta had similar thoughts of her own, she didn’t bother to deny it and instead chose to keep quiet on the subject. Mameh took this reticence as confirmation, which gave her license to tell anybody who would listen about the fine wedding they were planning. Women who had nothing good to say about Berta Lorkis were making nice to her in hopes of securing an invitation. Esteem for her rose among the housewives and their daughters. She was going to marry Reb Alshonsky, live in a big house in Cherkast, and ride around in a practically new droshky. She would have store-bought dresses and jewelry and go to parties where an orchestra played and exotic food was served at midnight. There was even talk of indoor plumbing. But as high as their opinion of her was in those heady days, it plummeted after Hershel failed to reappear nearly four months later. One day she was to be the bride of a successful wheat merchant, the next she was jilted and disgraced, the humiliation of Moscow all over again. Now, nothing awaited her but spinsterhood and the consensus was that it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving girl.
“So, how’s your lovely mother?” asked Yael Schlaifer, as Berta passed their little group on the way to the end of the line.
“Well.”
“And your father?”
“Also well.”
As she walked on, she could hear them giggling and whispering behind her back. The greedy pigs, she thought, passing judgment on me, rooting around for every detail—the yachnehs, the yentehs, the loudmouthed gossips. She was halfway out the door when she nearly collided with the milkman’s wife. She ignored the woman’s murmured apology and walked on to the end of the line. She blamed her mother for this. If her mother hadn’t told everybody she was marrying Hershel, then she would’ve been free to suffer in peace. No one would’ve known what she was feeling. Now everyone knew and they were reveling in it.
At first when Hershel didn’t return, Berta thought it was just business that kept him away. It wasn’t hard to explain away the absence of letters. He wasn’t a writer. Then one Tuesday, when it was Lhaye’s turn to open and Berta was out for her customary walk, the thought struck her that he was with another woman. She hadn’t even been thinking about him. She had been standing by a stream using a low-hanging branch to keep her balance, while she dangled first one shoe in the rushing water and then the other in an effort to wash off the mud. The thought came to her like a sharp intake of breath and she sank down on the bank and stared at her shoes still dangling in the rushing water. Her limbs felt detached. She wasn’t even aware of the icy water seeping in through the cracks around the soles. Of course he had other women. Why hadn’t she seen it? A successful wheat merchant like that? A k’nacker, a bounder, he would have plenty of women.
On the way back, she pictured him out with a woman in his droshky. They might visit the same spots that she and Hershel had visited, laugh about the same things. She would be sophisticated, a worldly woman; perhaps she had been to university. Maybe he would tell her about the little grocery clerk in Mosny, the one who was still waiting for him. She would be another story in his repertoire along with Esther Churgin’s beggar and the succubus who claimed the rabbi’s son.