In fact, the furniture was Mameh’s from the grocery. After Tateh’s heart gave out, she decided she wanted to follow him. Her family and friends told her that she was too young to die, that she should learn to live with her loss, perhaps make a new life for herself near her grandchildren. But she wouldn’t listen. Instead, she sat down and wrote a long letter to her daughters. In it she explained that while she loved them both equally, she was giving everything to Lhaye since Berta had married a rich man. Then she sold the store and waited. It took two years.
“I think the Okhranka is following me.” Berta said, barely above a whisper, once her sister had returned to the front room and settled down in the chair across from her. They were speaking Yiddish. Berta had tried to teach her Russian, but Lhaye never wanted to learn. Lhaye preferred the old ways, the Jewish cycle of observances, keeping kosher, bringing to Cherkast the life she once had in Mosny.
She looked worried. “Why?”
“I don’t know. It must have something to do with Hershel. When he left I thought they wouldn’t be interested in me, but I think I was wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
Berta kissed the baby again and handed him back to Lhaye. “I don’t know. That ’s just it. I don’t know what ’s real and what ’s not.” She got up and went to the window. She could see Vulia playing hoops with his friends in the street. “Last night someone was knocking at the door.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. When I went down to see, no one was there. I found an old suitcase in the bushes. I thought it was Hershel’s. The one he took the night he left.”
“How could that be?”
She shrugged and came back to the sofa and sat down.
“Have you heard from him?”
She shook her head. “I think he was arrested.” She kept her voice down so the children wouldn’t hear.
“You don’t know that.”
“There was a man in the magic shop.”
“What magic shop?”
“He asked about Hershel. I think he was trying to tell me something. But I don’t know what it was. I don’t know, Lhaye. I don’t know anything.” She started to cry.
Lhaye moved over beside her and put her free arm around her shoulder. “Oh, Berta, you’re all worked up. Look at you. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. Listen to me, sometimes when people go to America they don’t want to write at first. They don’t want to write until they have good news to share. That ’s probably what Hershel is doing. He’s waiting until he has something good to say.”
Berta didn’t answer her. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hugged herself even though it wasn’t cold in the apartment.
“If you’re so worried about him, why don’t you go?”
She looked up. “To America?”
“Why not?”
“What if I can’t find him?’
“He’s at his sister’s.”
“What if he’s angry and doesn’t want to see me? What if he’s done with me?”
“Berta, such silliness. He loves you. You’re everything to him. Why would he leave you? He’s a good man. Good men don’t leave their families.”
She laughed a little. Sometimes she grew impatient with Lhaye’s innocence.
“What? You don’t think I know a thing or two? You think I’m so simple I’d believe anything, is that it? Well, I’ve got news for you—everything isn’t all black either. There are bright spots too.”
THAT NIGHT Berta lay in bed and tried to recall the face of the man on the tram. She remembered the leather jacket and the way his pink scalp showed through the stubble on the back of his head. She remembered his deep-set eyes. Then she tried to recall the man in front of the restaurant. She tried to picture that moment when he turned toward the window and she saw his face. But was he really looking at her? Could he actually see her through the glass, or was it too bright outside ? Maybe he was only looking at own his reflection. Maybe he could only see the things around him on the sidewalk, the passersby, and the traffic in the street. And did he really look like the man on the tram? True, he was clean-shaven with short hair, but his hair was thick and blond, his jaw jutted out, and his chin wasn’t right. He couldn’t have been the same man.
After that she began to relax under the covers. She rolled over on her side and brought her knees up to her chest. The rest seemed ridiculous too, the suitcase in the hedge, the watch, even Reb Rubenstein, a harmless shopkeeper asking after a valued customer. Lhaye was right about seeing things. She was on edge. In the morning she would write and tell Hershel she was coming. She would wait for his answer, pack up her things, and walk away from her house. The thought of being with him again made her feel light and sleepy. She closed her eyes, letting the knot in her neck ebb away. Vague images of a sparkling lake came to her in the dark behind her eyes: a beach, a boat, a tree-lined shore.
Then she heard it: faint tapping at the front door.
Part Three
THE HOUSE JEW
Chapter Twelve
August 1914
BERTA SOLD the motorcar and gave notice to Karl the driver because she could no longer afford him. He couldn’t have been very surprised—she had already let Vasyl and Petr go. There were no more salons or dinner parties or ice sculptures. When she wanted flowers for the table she picked them from her garden or stole them from a neighbor. Hershel had been gone for seven months.
It was late morning and she was standing at the window in the breakfast room watching Karl and the new owner lean over the open hood and inspect the engine. Karl had brought out his special tools and was showing the young man how to use them. He had been washing and waxing the motor all morning, as if he were laying out a corpse for viewing.
That afternoon Berta took the children down the hill to the Iliuziia Theater to see Cossacks of the Don. Usually she would’ve sent Galya, because she didn’t like to be seen in such places, but she wanted to spend time with the children and they had been pestering her all week to take them even though they had seen it many times before. As they walked down to the tram stop, Samuil chattered on about the film, describing all the scenes and getting so tangled up in his descriptions that eventually she stopped listening.
“If you’ve seen it so many times, why do you want to see it again?” she asked.
“It’s wonderful, Mameh. You’ll see. The riders stand on their hands in the saddle even when they’re galloping really fast. And they do other tricks too. They turn around so they’re facing the wrong way and then they stand up and let go altogether and hold their arms out like this.” He held out his arms and pretended to lose his balance.
“They sleep in tents, Mameh,” added Sura. “And eat from tin plates. And they sit around fires and tell stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“I don’t know. It’s silent. You can’t hear what they’re saying. You can only see their lips move and read the words at the bottom of the screen. But I can’t read that fast and Galya can’t read at all and Samuil won’t tell me, so I don’t know.”
“Why should I have to stop and explain every two minutes,” grumbled Samuil.