They both glanced up to see that the door was still open. The rebbe wondered why Reb Yechezkal had not closed it after he had entered. “Reb Yechezkal,” he began to call, and then he thought better of it. Better to get this bumptious fellow out of here first.
“Reb Boruch, whatever in the world makes you think that I can help?” the rebbe asked with a hint of amazement.
“The rebbe is a tzaddik, and the rebbe knows how a frog prays. Is a horse so different?”
There was a certain logic to what he was saying. “Does your horse speak to you often?” the rebbe asked, not knowing where to begin.
“No, no. This was the first time,” Boruch Levi answered.
“What did he say?” the rebbe asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What were the words?” the rebbe asked wearily.
“There weren’t any. Just light. The sunlight shining off his—off his backside,” Boruch said.
The rebbe leaned forward, thrusting his head into the shadows so that he could get a good look at the man across from him. To his surprise the man did not look at all crazy. Boruch Levy, lithe and powerful, slightly anxious, looked very, very sane, indeed. He looked like a man you would want on your side in a fight. Like a man you could rely on and whose word you would readily accept on pledges far beyond his means. The rebbe shrugged. “Reb Boruch, I am at a loss; it would have been, after all, a miracle for the sun not to reflect off your horse’s—backside.”
“Yes, I suppose so, but this was something different. It was as if someone were writing a message in light first on one haunch then on the other, almost like they were arguing.” Boruch Levi paused, hoping that he had succeeded in convincing the rebbe that there had indeed been a unique communication.
“What do you think they were arguing about?”
“Whether or not I should go to America,” Boruch Levi said quietly with an apologetic tone; he knew all too well that the Krimsker Rebbe had never given his blessing to any Jew leaving for America.
“Even the stones in America are trayf,” the rebbe replied succinctly with his standard answer, wondering why this horse peddler was bothering him with such a trivial question when surely he knew how all the rabbis felt about this matter.
“I know that, but”—here Boruch Levi paused—“but why all of this? If the Evil Inclination wanted to send one more poor, ignorant Jew to America, would he have to bother with all this?”
The Krimsker Rebbe looked at the uneducated man who met his own gaze with such resolute strength. Not at all intimidated, this horse peddler was a most surprising fellow. The rebbe suspected him of having a very good native intelligence. He was blessed in another way as well; he had come to the right rebbe with his question. If the Krimsker Rebbe was not one of the great experts on the Evil Inclination, then who was? This was, after all, a true hasid.
“Reb Boruch, my hasid, you are asking very well and I shall explain the matter to you, but you are not to tell anyone else.” The rebbe saw Boruch Levi nodding in agreement. “These matters are not for the marketplace. There is no doubt that you received a special message through your horse. The message said that you should leave Krimsk very soon in no more than two weeks for America. The message of light came from the setting western sun. This means that your golden light is in the West, in America. You, however, were traveling east at the time behind your horse; as long as you remain in the East, you will be following a horse’s backside and facing impending darkness. Since you are now in a state of change, neither here nor there, you can see both simultaneously, the horse’s backside and the magic light.”
“So I shall be leaving Krimsk,” Boruch Levi said thoughtfully.
“God forbid!” the rebbe retorted. “This message is obviously Satan’s work from the Other Side. You must pay absolutely no attention to it. Reb Boruch, the answer to your question is this: the Evil Inclination has to bother with all this, as you call it, because your soul is from a very elevated root—so high I dare not tell you—and to seduce it, he needs very sophisticated devices such as the sun’s shimmering golden letters. You can not imagine, Reb Boruch, the wiles of the Evil Inclination in our day.”
Boruch Levi knitted his brows in concentration and nodded. “Thank God she died,” he whispered.
“The horse?” the rebbe asked.
“No, Thunder, may he live and be well, is not a ‘she,’ ” Boruch Levi answered.
“Then who died?” the rebbe wanted to know.
Boruch Levi shifted his weight in discomfort by leaning forward and grinding the palms of his hands onto his knees. “Rebbe,” he said in embarrassment. Then he sat up straight and answered, “Grannie Zara, the cat lady.”
Upon hearing this, the Krimsker Rebbe sat bolt upright. “The witch of Krimichak?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” the rebbe asked.
“I watched her funeral go by,” Boruch Levi answered.
The rebbe drummed his index finger on the floor with monotonous fury and began to hum. “So that’s how it is,” he said. “So that’s how it is.” He nodded his head in vigorous agreement with himself. The rebbe did all this in joy, almost in ecstasy. Boruch Levi, however, thought the rebbe was angry at him for having gone to consult the witch.
“I ask the rebbe’s forgiveness,” Boruch Levi said.
“Forgiven, you are forgiven, but next time please knock.”
Boruch Levi cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, excuse me, but I ask the rebbe’s forgiveness for having gone to Grannie Zara.”
“What?” the rebbe asked. He continued to drum and hum.
“I was on my way to ask the witch to interpret my horse’s message when I met her funeral procession, and the truth is I was very disappointed to discover that—” but the Krimsker Rebbe had stopped drumming and raised his hand to stop Boruch’s confession.
“Enough, Reb Boruch, you are forgiven, and I ask your forgiveness.”
“My forgiveness?” Reb Boruch asked in quiet astonishment.
“Yes, yours. If the shepherd does not remove the stone from the well, then the flock must drink where they can. Reb Boruch, I ask your forgiveness.”
“A hundred times you are forgiven. A thousand times even!” Reb Boruch blurted, both embarrassed and delighted that the rebbe would ask his, a simple peddler’s, forgive-ness. “Rebbe, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I take the responsibility.”
Again the rebbe raised his hand. The rebbe found himself liking this man more and more. He was steadfast and honest, made of very strong stuff.
“You had a very narrow escape in the afternoon. Be on guard against the Evil Inclination day and night, Reb Boruch. With you it will try anything. And remember, the Evil Inclination has a great advantage over us. It has no Evil Inclination to make its job more difficult.”
“Yes, Rebbe, I will be careful.”
The rebbe pointed to the open door. Boruch Levi nodded and rose to leave.
“Thank you, Rebbe.”
“Boruch Levi the son of Naftali, the place does not matter. You will always make a good living. For you the question is not what kind of a living, but what kind of a life. For now, forget America.”
The rebbe returned to his book, and on his way out Boruch Levi shut the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WORD OF THE KRIMSKER REBBE’S RETURN SPREAD SO quickly through the town that many were convinced that, quite literally, it flew on the wings of the twittering swallows that darted through the darkening evening. That the rebbe knew the birds’ language, and that of all Creation, was beyond doubt after hearing his story! And indeed many hasidim hurried home with the news only to be greeted by the family massed in impassioned inquiry. Did the rebbe really dance on the table with poor Itzik Dribble?—Yes, like an angel. And did he cry for the Messiah to come?—Such tears can’t be imagined; how the Holy One didn’t redeem us on the spot I’ll never know!
As the story was told and retold, lived and relived, everyone became more excited. Techni
cally it was the wrong time for such feelings. They could neither eat nor drink, and how could hasidim celebrate without even so much as a small glass of spirits or a friendly little herring? Moreover, they couldn’t very well talk jubilantly while sitting on the floor like dumb mourners. Yet the restlessness and high spirits—the thirst for song and the hunger for dance—could not be denied. Spontaneously they flowed into the streets, telling and retelling, discussing and marveling at the miracle that had occurred in the beis midrash. With one topic, with one attitude, with one voice, Krimsk was one great stream of conversation, sailing about the marketplace, swirling through the lanes, and flowing reverentially quiet as it passed the very majestic fount of the Krimskian sea, the beis midrash and the study itself in which the rebbe once again was receiving hasidim in private audience.
Not all of Krimsk participated in the mass celebration. The Krimsker Rebbe’s highly praised dance partner, Itzik Dribble, sat at home sucking serenely on a candy while his father, Beryl Soffer, paced back and forth retelling the amazing events to his wife, Faigie, a slight woman from whom Itzik had inherited his blond hair and the physical grace he had exhibited on the rebbe’s table earlier in the evening. Very quiet, she sat shaking her head from side to side in amazement as her husband strode to and fro, either addressing her directly as he approached or indirectly over his shoulder, propelling his rapid words as he lumbered past. “Do you hear, Faigie? The rebbe delayed the evening service for all of Krimsk to dance with Itzik. The Book of Lamentations, too, Faigie! That’s no small thing, the Book of Lamentations on Tisha B’Av, but it had to wait while he told Itzik a holy story.” Faigie continued to shake her head from side to side. “And then he said that Itzik was a good boy and that, he, the holy Krimsker Rebbe, was very proud of him. Do you hear, Faigie?”
Faigie heard as she continued to shake in fearful amazement. As she looked at her little golden calf blissfully devouring the sweet, she was pleased that the rebbe had recognized and honored the divine spark in Itzik, but she was also afraid that nothing good would come of all this. Had she heard about Itzik telling the rebbe that the Messiah was an old joke—which, of course, her husband purposefully omitted —she would have been relieved, for Faigie believed that if the sun of good fortune shines upon you, it inevitably casts the shadow of sorrow. That was simply how the universe worked. In some way, Beryl’s full bank account was paid for by Itzik’s empty head. For her, unlike her husband, Itzik’s failing held no mystery. She expected no miracles concerning Itzik. Quite the contrary, she dutifully expected disasters. Beryl believed that they were the innocent victims of fate. Faigie shared his belief that they were victims, because everyone was a victim, but she knew only too well that they were not innocent. When the sun shines, beware the shadow.
When she finally had become pregnant after two years of marriage, Beryl had commanded her not to go near Grannie Zara. The rebbe had said that a witch denies the heavenly host and that anyone who went to Grannie Zara was certainly denying the will of heaven. For a Jew to go to the witch of Krimichak was like worshiping the golden calf. But Faigie, so much of the time passive and accepting, had a streak of resistance, deep, stubborn, and not at all predictable. What did the Krimsker Rebbe know about giving birth? He was a great tzaddik who knew the holy Torah, but that was not the only one; there was another torah, another law. The everyday torah—the torah of the kitchen with its spilled salt, the law of the path with its black cat, and the way of the womb with life’s dark beginnings. So when Faigie felt the first kick from the child inside her very own body, she threw a pinch of dough into the oven and went out the back door and through the fields to the stream path. She followed it past the wooden bridge to the stepping stones. Lifting her skirt to keep it dry—Beryl would never guess where she had been—she negotiated the mossy green rocks to the Krimichak side. All went well until she approached the clearing behind the witch’s cottage. There, Zloty, the witch’s great calico cat, appeared.
She calmly padded up to Faigie, arched her back, and rubbed her furry side against her legs. The soft nap caressed Faigie’s still-damp ankles in luxuriant warmth. The witch’s cats, especially Zloty—their feline queen—inspired fear in both Jews and peasants. Zloty’s affectionate welcome would have driven most of Grannie Zara’s visitors to absolute distraction, reducing them to sweaty fear. Not Faigie, however. She knelt down to pet the cat. Zloty responded with a loud purring and pushed herself more demandingly against Faigie. Faigie scratched the creature behind the ears, and the cat hunched up in furry delight. Faigie paused with her outstretched hand near the cat, and the feline lifted her great front left leg, white with an orangish brown patch near the paw, and placed it into Faigie’s hand: a gesture of trust and affection. Faigie looked down at the outsized limb, large enough for a cat twice Zloty’s size—and indeed it was twice the size of Zloty’s other limbs. Everyone greatly feared Zloty’s large left leg, for they ascribed the abnormality that lay in Faigie’s hand to witchcraft. One version had it that Grannie Zara, using Zloty as a messenger, often enlarged her to various sizes, and after one such enlargement the reduction worked imperfectly; one paw did not return to its original size. The other explanation had it that Zloty was someone whom Grannie Zara had bewitched through a spell. The imperfection of limb resulted from technical failures in the otherwise successful transformation. Had Faigie been forced to choose, she would have preferred the latter explanation. There seemed to be something conspiratorial in the way the cat’s paw lay in her hand, as if the cat really were someone in disguise. The cat seemed to be holding her.
It was then that Grannie Zara’s voice had sung out in sweet clarity, “Who treads in my garden where no weeds grow?” Faigie wanted to stand up and answer; after all, she had come to see Grannie Zara, but Zloty would not remove her paw, and Faigie remained hidden. “I sowed the seed; there was no weed. Enter, my guest, and therein feed.” Zloty shook her whiskers at Faigie, warning her not to reveal herself. “Who’s there?” the witch demanded. Zloty, still holding Faigie’s hand, answered with a clear meow. “Come out!” the witch called, “Lest you give birth to this!?” Faigie, still kneeling, looked up across the clearing to see Grannie Zara’s golden straw broom waving high in her open window. She started to rise, but Zloty increased the pressure of her paw and Faigie stayed where she was. The cottage window closed; Zloty removed her paw, nuzzled against Faigie’s knee, and bounded away into the woods. Faigie rose and returned home to await her fate. When the midwife brought her newborn child to her and Faigie saw the straw-colored film of wispy hairs lying limp upon the infant’s head, she was not surprised. Grannie Zara had waved her gold broom, and sure enough, from Zaigie’s womb emerged a blond golem.
Faigie loved the child as a mother should, putting his needs above hers, but she did so with a calm detachment. Since there was no mystery in his faulty genesis, there was no hope. Nor was there the spontaneous joy that so often accompanies the miracle of renewal. She was calm; calmer than anyone she knew, for there was no depressing sense of guilt. Faigie believed that she had done nothing wrong. As for going to the witch, everyone did it—because they had to. After all, it wasn’t as if Grannie Zara hadn’t saved the Jews. She had. Twenty years previously, in the terrible pogroms of the eighties, she had singlehandedly stopped the Cossacks with an upraised broom. The marauders had swept into the country with license to plunder the Jews, but what Cossack could read a license, much less obey one when his saber dripped blood? They pillaged what crossed their path, all the while cursing the Jews and praising the tsar, to be sure. It was Krimichak and Krimsk’s fate to lie in their path. They galloped up to Krimichak’s outskirts and reined in their mounts.
Grannie Zara, her ever-present cats in tow, strolled out of her cottage, lifted the straw broom above her head in religious solemnity, and intoned, “You are wise to listen. For every sprig you see, one year of life less for you and your horse if you do not ride for one peaceful hour by the Mother of God—lest Black Mary do her work.”
And they turned and rode on for a peaceful hour to heaven knows where to do heaven knows what. Of course the Jews flocked to Grannie Zara. Who else had saved an entire Jewish community? The Krimsker Rebbe, whom Faigie’s husband worshiped, wouldn’t consent to give blessings—until tonight he even refused to look at the Jews. At least Grannie Zara had invited her inside.
Faigie had enough confidence in the blind fortunes of destiny to imagine that Zloty had saved her from a fate worse than that of giving birth to her golden calf. Not that Faigie was pleased with the way things had gone, but they could have been worse. Had she not gone to Grannie Zara’s, she might have given birth to a cat, and had she accepted the invitation to enter—against Zloty’s advice—she might have been turned into one herself.
Faigie, not given to speculation, had followed her instincts. What else did she have? Others followed their passions. Even her own Beryl, sweet and unpretentious, had a passion that grasped his portly soft flesh in an iron vice. He didn’t worship money or what it could buy, but such an otherwise decent simple man could neither eat nor sleep when he contemplated the possibility of anywhere in all Russia a forest in flames, a cigarette smouldering, a frying pan sizzling, or a kerosene lamp glowing without a match from Soffer and Company as the cause of it all. And her Beryl was a simple man!
The Krimsker Rebbe only wanted to be holier than God Himself. Even plain Gittel Waksman, her husband a shoemaker, has to buy her son Froika a violin. She can’t carry a tune, the boy can’t carry a tune. So dream that he fiddles at poor Jews’ weddings? Never. No less than the tsar. Gittel Waksman won’t be satisfied with less than the Romanov family for Froika’s audience. And she won’t! No compromise.
Where did they get such ideas? Faigie’s instincts seemed more reasonable to her than the mad passions she saw blazing around her. Still, Faigie worried that something was wrong with her; she didn’t fit in Krimsk. Every match in Russia, God, the tsar himself! What was in their pillows that they dreamed such dreams? It was enough to make Faigie hold her head in her hands to keep it from bursting.
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