He raced on blindly down the street until he came to the little grocery at the corner that stood open and vacant. The windows had been broken, the door was gone, and there were smashed bottles and barrels out in the street, spilling their contents into the mud, mixing pickles and mushrooms with the eclectic brew of annihilation. He ran in and almost slipped on the sticky mess that covered the floor. It smelled like molasses and cooking oil.
He wanted more than anything to run back to the hole, but there in front of him were jars of herring, boxes of biscuits, smoked salmon, and crackers. He was starving—hungrier than he had ever been in his whole life and for the moment the gnawing in his belly trumped everything, the black blood, the gash in the throat, the lolling head, even the urge to run.
He gathered up what he could and stuffed it into a potato sack. He was about to dash back into the night when he heard the drunken cries of the Cossacks coming down the street. Without thinking he ran to a barrel and lifted the lid.
“Go away!” a young boy snapped. He was crouched in the barrel, standing on a layer of wheat flour, nearly doubled over so he could fit inside. He reached out and pulled the lid back down over the opening.
Samuil tried a cupboard, but another child was hiding there. Another barrel was filled with pickles and vinegar and another one was nailed shut. The Cossacks were on the front steps. There was a high shelf, but no time to reach it… potato sacks in the corner… too late even for that. The first soldier tramped in shouting to the others that there was food inside. His blue face glistened in the square shaft of moonlight streaming in through a window. There was only the corner now. Samuil dropped to the floor and melded into the stucco wall. His heart was stuttering and he had a tremendous urge to pee. He didn’t know if this would work, if he could stay hidden. He had never become a corner in a room before.
Chapter Twenty
March 1920
BERTA’S BOOTS shattered the icy puddles as she climbed up the steep path; her nose prickled from the cold; her fingers were stiff because she had lost her gloves. She could see a tree with white leaves at the top of the hill, silhouetted against the dawn, its thick roots gripping the ground like the talons of a bird. The grass beneath it was cluttered with what appeared to be boulders.
Down in the street she could hear the shul klopfer calling the men to morning prayers. Someone was chopping wood and from various quarters came the clamor of carpenters working full tilt to fill the coffin orders. It had been four days since the squadron of Zaporozhian Cossacks had pulled out, leaving twenty dead and the town in ruins. It was getting warmer and there were still bodies lined up on the synagogue floor that wouldn’t wait another day. Even at this hour the town was alive with people laboring for the dead: the gravediggers, the shroud makers, the men at the sawmill. All working to put the dead to rest.
The tree was festooned with scraps of paper that quivered in the early morning breeze. Berta had brought her own scrap and worked to tie it to a branch using a small piece of twine. On it she had written a few lines from a woman’s prayer, an ancient plea for her dead child, addressed to a god she didn’t believe in. The tree was alive with fluttering prayers: Some were for children, others for husbands and parents; some were for luck or simply for the gift of continued life. They looked like butterflies poised on a branch, ready to fly up to heaven with their messages on behalf of the dead and the ones who were left behind to mourn them.
She turned and joined the other women who had come up before her, who were sitting on the grass together and yet apart. No one spoke. No one had to because they understood each other, why they had come and why they were together. Their shawls were pulled up over their heads and their skirts were splayed out around them, solid women, easily mistaken for boulders in the predawn light. Berta pulled her shawl up too and sat among them, her skirts spread out all around her, giving her the same look of solidity, another sad boulder on the scruffy winter grass. She lowered her head and closed her eyes, but instead of a prayer she hummed an old Tartar song about horses on the steppes that she used to sing.
When Berta came back down she found Pessel running out of the house with laces untied, her coat thrown over her nightdress, wearing a kerchief over her wild hair that fell in disarray down her back. She ran along the boards that lay over the mud, extending her arms out for balance and calling out to Berta. “A merchant has come,” she said, nearly bursting with the news. “I just heard it from the old woman in the back. I know him. He lives near Zhvanets.”
Pessel knew all about Berta’s destination and her intention to cross the river into Poland. “Why are you just standing there?” Pessel asked impatiently. “Go, go. You’ll miss him.”
“What do you think he’ll charge?”
“He’ll be fair. He won’t take advantage. He isn’t like that. He’s harmless.” It was the highest praise Pessel could give any man.
Berta found the merchant in front of the stable harnessing his horse to a cart that was filled with sacks of potatoes. “Are you going to Zhvanets?” she asked.
“Eventually,” the merchant said, glancing up briefly.
“Will you take me and my son?”
This time he studied her more closely before shaking his head. “I cannot. Sorry.”
“Even if I pay you?”
“That’s not it. I can’t overload Esther. She won’t have it.” The chestnut mare looked around when she heard her name. “Yes, you, my beauty, I’m talking about you.” He kissed her nose and stroked her flank. “She won’t pull a heavy load over these roads. I know her. She’ll be cross and make everyone miserable.”
As it turned out, Mottel Fichmann was able to sell a lot of potatoes that day. He gave a pood to the rabbi for the destitute and sold several more by midmorning. By the afternoon, his cart was considerably lighter and this caused him to reconsider. He asked around for the whereabouts of the pretty widow and her boy and was told they could be found at the actress’s house.
It only took a few minutes for Berta and Samuil to pack up their things and say good-bye to Pessel. She hugged them and gave them each an autographed picture of herself as Fanitshke in Mentshn. The photographs were dull with dirt and creased by the many boots that had ground them into the floor. Still, they were a good likeness of her.
They went to the stables and found Mottel Fichmann already loaded up and ready to go. He moved over so there would be room on the bench. Once they were settled in, he gave Esther a flick of the reins and a string of endearments designed to get her moving. After that, they moved along so slowly that soon Pessel grew tired of waving her handkerchief and went home even though they were still well in sight.
Mottel Fichmann was a Jew who looked like a peasant in a scruffy sheepskin coat and felt boots. He seemed bigger than he was because of his broad shoulders and the way he planted his feet firmly on the ground. Because he had a deep appreciation for his own voice, it wasn’t long before he was telling them about his life in Zhvanets, about his lovely wife and their five children, about his travels and his get-rich schemes and anything else that happened to pop into his head as they plodded along over the muddy roads. When he wasn’t talking, he was singing to Esther, or stopping for the night with an obliging widow, of which there seemed to be an endless supply from Kiev Province to Podolia.