THAT NIGHT Berta woke to what she thought was the sound of the mourners in the cemetery, until she realized that it was in the middle of the night, during a rainstorm. She lay there listening for the sound and when she heard it again she knew that it was Hershel having another one of his nightmares. She didn’t want to go to him. She wanted to ignore him and go back to sleep, but she could hear him struggling with something awful. So she swung her legs out of bed and walked on tiptoe across the damp floorboards to the door.
Out in the hall the roof was leaking in several places and the water was dripping into the pots her mother had placed throughout the rooms. For an instant the hallway was bathed in a cold blue light and a second later a crack of thunder shook the house.
“Berta… ?” He was calling to her from behind the curtain.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
He sat up and shoved aside the curtain. “I was dreaming again. I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. Go back to sleep.”
“No, wait.” He reached out a hand for her and caught her wrist. “Stay with me for a while.”
“I want to go back. I’m cold.”
He pulled her over to the bed. “Just for a minute. Here, sit here.” He moved over to give her room. “Put your feet up on the bed. It’s warm.”
She stood there on the cold floor uncertain what to do. The water was dripping steadily from the ceiling, splashing out of a nearby pot and seeping into the floorboards. The air was damp and smelled like mildew. After a struggle she sat down on the straw mattress and lifted her feet up off the floor. “What is it?”
“I want to explain about not writing and staying away for so long.”
“What’s there to explain? You have other friends. I don’t need to know anything else.”
“Friends? You mean women?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“It is your business and you’re wrong. There aren’t other women.”
“Then what?”
He watched the water drip into a nearby pot and then pushed himself up on the pillow. “I was in a shtetl.”
“A shtetl?” Her forehead crinkled in confusion. “Why?”
“I was helping people.”
“In a shtetl?
“That’s right.”
“All this time?”
He nodded.
“And what were you doing in this shtetl?”
He pulled the blanket up over his chest. “Educating them, I guess you could call it.”
“A school?”
“Of sorts.”
She stared at him in the dark. Then she shook her head. He was playing with her and she didn’t like it one bit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m cold. I’m going to bed.” She stood up.
He grabbed her hand again. “No, don’t go yet?”
“Why not?”
“Look, I can’t tell you what I was doing there, but I can tell you why I went.”
She took her hand back but made no effort to leave.
“Please,” he said, “sit down. Give me a chance.”
She looked across the hallway through her bedroom to the little window framed by the white curtains she had made herself. It was a blank square in the dark until another burst of lightning lit it up with the same blue light. Without looking at him, she slowly sank down on the edge of the bed, as far away from him as possible.
He began his story with the girl on the tightrope. He told her about the shoe peddler; his father, the starusta; and all the events that followed. When he had finished she sat there looking at him for some time and then slowly moved into his arms. At first he seemed surprised that she was even in the room with him. His mind was still on that night long ago and it took him several moments to come back to her. When he did, he kissed her and buried his lips in her neck. In a rush of relief she believed that she knew him, that he was a good man, and that she loved him. These were simple thoughts, uncomplicated, but so immense, so grand, that they threatened to overwhelm her. As close as she felt to him, she had to get closer. So she picked up the blankets and climbed in beside him. He rubbed her shoulders and drew her close to his bare chest. His feet found hers and he rubbed them with his instep to warm them. She had entered the nest of a wintering animal. It smelled of sleep and country roads.
They lay with their arms wrapped around each other, listening to the rain and the bony scratching of the bare branches on the roof. He kissed her again and this time his tongue searched out hers. His hands were flat on the small of her back gently guiding her up on top of him. With their breath all around them, they began their nearly silent lovemaking. The fact that they could be caught at any moment and had to stifle the sound of their pleasure only heightened it. Even the quick pain of her first time didn’t dampen the extraordinary sensation of having him inside her, all around her, enveloping her, absorbing her, until she was only vaguely aware of the storm outside and the rustling straw beneath them.
THAT FALL they were married in the groyse shul, the grand synagogue, the largest and most elaborate shul in Mosny. Since Hershel hadn’t asked for a dowry, most of the money the Malkiels had sent to Tateh—what was left after the odd emergency—was put into the wedding. There were flowers, fancy foods, famous musicians from Kiev; even the invitations were printed on linen, with two envelopes, one inside the other and tissue paper separating the pages. Everyone was invited, all the relatives, Aunt Sadie and Uncle Sol, the Rosenthals and the bunch from Smelo: all their friends from the village including the official mourners Aviva Kaspler and her business partner, Yael Schlaifer.
The procession started at the grocery door and proceeded on through the town and down to the Street of Synagogues to the main shul. Old women danced in front of the bridal couple, the klezmor band played a march, and children made a game of running through the crowd to keep up. As the crowd followed the bride and groom into the synagogue, there were audible sighs of relief, since it was a hot day and the interior of the stone shul was cool. The center aisle was decorated with swags of roses that looped from pew to pew. Nobody in Mosny had ever seen anything like it. Aviva Kaspler whispered to Yael Schlaifer that she thought it looked Christian and Yael Schlaifer was inclined to agree. They were both wearing their customary black, although, as a concession to the wedding, they each wore a bunch of silk flowers at their waist.
That night everybody gathered in the shalash, the three-sided enclosure that Tateh had built against the side of the store where the banquet and dancing were to take place. There was a platform built on one side for the orchestra and another on the other side for the bride and groom. All around the perimeter were tables and benches for the guests. There were delicacies on the banquet tables that no one had ever tasted in their entire life. Little bits of heaven they said, although some refused to touch them and whisperings of traif moved from table to table, especially among the older guests.
Moses Kumanov and his klezmorim had not been hired to play at the wedding. Once the guests had gathered in the shalash, the musical duties were turned over to a small orchestra that had been brought all the way from Kiev. Reb Kumanov was philosophical about it and was heard to say that it was perfectly fine with him. “A bride has a right to choose her own music.” But then in a stage whisper he added, “Although, what kind of music these fellows are playing is anybody’s guess. You can’t dance to it. No froelichs, no volochel, no bolgar. Certainly no kazatska. Forget Jewish,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, “it is not even Russian.” Some said it was from Germany, and like everything from Germany, it was well put together but lifeless.