Their relationship never developed beyond the academic, and the highly rarefied academic at that. At one time Yechiel had hoped that it would. Yudel, too, after all, was very much alone in Krimsk. He made no close friends, and although he passed as religiously observant—Yechiel to this day was uncertain as to what Yudel did or did not observe—as a Litvak he did not participate in the religious life of the hasidim. The real problem with Yudel was that he was a cold fish. He had no need for other people and was altogether without passion. Whereas Barasch affectionately fancied Krimsk to be the Jewish proletariat, Yudel disdainfully scorned them as a primitive tribe of idolators. Yechiel was offended by this disdain for a community that supported him.
Yudel attended Barasch’s radical gatherings out of boredom. He did enjoy the occasional discussion with some of Barasch’s underground visitors, members of the various illegal organizations who stopped at the willing host’s to rest. Some were simple fugitives, but others were intellectual leaders in the revolutionary ferment that was stirring all of Russia—except for Krimsk, of course. It seemed merely to pass through Krimsk without leaving any impression, much as Napoleon had.
The night of Tisha B’Av, Yechiel found himself walking toward the match factory the way Yudel did; there was nowhere else for him to go. Before attending the beis midrash with his father and young Shraga, he had sustained himself with the idea of escaping to Barasch’s after suffering through the services.
Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua weighed heavily on his mind. The idea of priestly tithes seemed nonsensical, and the idea of not saving the group of women by sacrificing one seemed immoral. And not just immoral insofar as the group of women was concerned; immoral in the greater sense that such stiff-necked inability to adapt to a social reality seemed to be the essence of the stifling, parochial vigilance that characterized the life of Krimsk.
Now that he found himself approaching his destination, however, he was in no great hurry because of the Krimsker Rebbe. Yechiel had been amazed and impressed by the rebbe’s performance. The rebbe’s humility and humanity overwhelmed Yechiel. He simply could not imagine a Rabbi Eliezer or a Rabbi Yehoshua showing such kindness and attention to an Itzik Dribble. Yechiel felt ashamed at having thought that the rebbe was the captain of the Ship of the Dead. Who could be more alive and loving than Yaakov Moshe Finebaum, who leaped on a tabletop in order to help a retarded child pray on Tisha B’Av? Who would have believed such a thing possible? Certainly not Yechiel, and as honest as Yechiel was, he knew that such an admission opened a floodgate of possibilities. Spinoza or not, priestly tithes or not, the tradition was alive and kicking—quite literally leaping on tables—right here in his own backward Krimsk.
No, he didn’t want to be on the road to Barasch Limp Legs; he wanted to speak to the Krimsker Rebbe, but he had no idea such a thing was possible. Such a compassionate man would certainly understand Yechiel’s agony and uncertainty. After all, the rebbe had interrupted the Tisha B’Av services with a wild, childish fairy tale to meet the needs of a troubled idiot. Yechiel had no doubts that the rebbe never believed such nonsense about a talking frog. He had read some of the rebbe’s writings. They were firstrate intellectual achievements. Whatever else he was, the rebbe was as brilliant a creative mind as his hasidim believed him to be.
Yechiel entered the gate of the match factory, walked around the cavernous main building to the rebuilt shed that housed the live-in watchman, and lightly tapped the coded knock. Barasch responded, and Yechiel opened the door to the large, brightly lit room.
Barasch was seated in his usual easy chair at the head of a long plank table. On one side sat Yudel, already looking bored. Barasch waved his new guest to a place opposite Yudel. Yechiel noticed someone sleeping in the bed near the table but could not tell whether or not he knew him. Yechiel preferred to be able to see everyone in the room.
“No, I might wake him,” Yechiel said as he sat down next to Yudel.
“Not the way they sleep,” Barasch said. He pointed to the wine bottle and glasses in front of him. Yechiel noticed that Yudel was drinking on the fast day. Yechiel just shook his head.
He sat back and examined the sleeping figure to see whether he recognized him, but he could see no more than the man’s back. Like all of Barasch’s shadow visitors, he slept with his heavy boots on. This always struck Yechiel as absolutely uncivilized, revolution or not. Sleeping with filthy boots disabused Yechiel of whatever romantic notions of revolution he might have harbored. Why didn’t they remove them when they slept in a bed? Aware that he was not paying attention to those who were awake, he turned to focus on his host.
From Yechiel’s seat on a straight-backed rickety chair, Barasch’s large, horsey head seemed to loll as if he were grazing on the table. From this curious oblique position, Barasch directed the discussion, an exercise that Yechiel suspected was staged for his benefit. Not that the positions argued were not sincere, but the entrance of Yechiel in his long black gabardine coat seemed to have abruptly switched the topic of conversation. They were now arguing the merits of various social ideologies. It was as if they were salesmen displaying the latest fashions before the customer, who wore an ancient ill-fitting garment that would certainly have to be replaced.
“No, Yechiel, Yudel is wrong,” Barasch Limp Legs was saying. “Yudel doesn’t understand the true nature of the Russian commune. It is the essence of the people. You don’t go and ignore something like that. Labor should be meaningful. The commune must be transformed into a meaningful socialist form, both moral and democratic.”
Yudel, a short, wiry, fifty-year-old man, chewed on the ragged edges of his gray beard. He did not disguise the fact that he considered their host a dull reflection of very distant lights that barely flickered even before Barasch added his own dimming distortions. Yechiel realized that Yudel, the man who had introduced him to Spinoza and Darwin, had abandoned the discussion out of boredom.
“Moral and democratic?” Yechiel politely queried.
“Yes.” Barasch smiled and turned his head almost flat on the table as if offering himself in some sacrificial rite.
“Then how can you defend the Social Revolutionary Combat Group? Were the political assassinations of Bogolopov and Sipyagin moral and democratic?” Yechiel challenged.
“Yes, of course they were moral, or the Combat Group would never have permitted them. As for democratic, the central committee raised no objection, and they represent the people’s interests.”
“But then your commune in its meaningful moral and democratic transformation would be nothing but a gang of murderers,” Yudel said sarcastically, the edges of his beard still floating in his mouth.
Barasch lifted his unsmiling head from the tabletop to an almost normal vertical position. His eyes blinked as if he had been stunned by an unfair blow.
“Yudel, surely you understand the necessity of revolutionary action?” Barasch asked, but he really could not defend his statement. Not to Yudel, who would twist his words around like a talmudist until everything stood on its head.
“Assassination may be the queen of the revolutionary arts, but that doesn’t make it moral or democratic,” Yudel answered with a weariness inspired by the knowledge that Barasch could appreciate neither his own nor Yudel’s position.
The reclining figure on the bed stirred, stretched, and rolled over. Suddenly it sat up, revealing an unshaven young man in his early to mid-twenties whose rumpled clothes badly needed a wash. His face, however, was alert and without the least trace of the exhaustion that one would expect to see on someone who had been traveling hard with few resources. He swung his shabby boots across the bed onto the floor. Facing Yudel and Yechiel, he announced, “He’s right, you know,” in a confident and natural manner that Yechiel liked at once.
Yechiel warmly welcomed to the conversation someone nearer to his own age. Someone who neither limped nor had a ragged beard; someone who radiated good health, energy, and enthusiasm.
“He is?” Yechiel asked in
honest curiosity, which encouraged the stranger to continue.
“Of course he is. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. Look, God needed ten plagues to get the Jews out of Egypt, and when he killed the firstborn, he killed indiscriminately. Surely pharaoh was no more tyrannical than the tsar, but in several thousand years, it is we slaves who have advanced. We kill only our taskmasters. And we shall no more become a gang of murderers than the Jews did. If we execute proven murderers of the proletariat, then we are only protecting ourselves, and that is moral and democratic.”
Yechiel warmed to this impassioned exhortation. Yudel, too, was taking notice; his beard no longer dangled from his mouth.
“Let us assume the rabbi’s recipe for omelette is kosher,” Yudel said in mild sarcasm as he warmed to invective. “The God of the Exodus exercised Divine Right, and he took the Jews out of Egypt to give them the Divine Law, the Torah. What is the name of your God, and where is he taking us?”
The young man accepted Yudel’s chiding tone. He had a sense of dedication and an exuberance that gave him a tremendous amount of self-confidence. He moved over to the table and took a seat across from Yechiel and Yudel. He reached for the wine, and as he poured himself a full glass, he was already holding forth.
“Ah, yes. I know our people are afraid of blood except for circumcisions, of course. That useless snip is cheered and praised. A futile wound is blessed, but if the body is diseased, then the surgeon must cut and everyone shrieks ‘murderer!’ Never mind he must cut off an arm to save the entire body. And there is a social organism, too. Sometimes you may have to sacrifice a little to save a lot, but that is shocking when everything is static and sacrosanct. All you do is cry. You cannot resist evil. Who gives you the right, everyone screams, to take any life? All those I am saving give me the right. Society gives me the right. The party gives me the right.”
He paused to sip his drink. Yechiel listened attentively. It was as if this stranger had attended Reb Gedaliah’s class and knew Yechiel’s most intimate thoughts about pharaoh’s Ship of the Dead, Rabbi Eliezer, and Rabbi Yehoshua.
“I think I understand your concept of preventive destruction,” Yechiel said slowly, “but who is to decide? Isn’t there a question of ultimate authority?”
The stranger put down his glass. He, for his part, was taken with Yechiel. It was clear that this young talmudist did understand what he was talking about. The term “preventive destruction” was worth remembering.
“Let us be honest. You don’t believe in your hearts for a moment that the Ten Commandments came from heaven. You despise the rabbis who teach them and pity the Jews who believe them. But just let someone come along who wants to change things, make the world a better place, and right away you demand that he present divine tablets from Sinai. The proletariat is in bondage to a Russian pharaoh. Surely it must be redeemed, and that can be only through revolution. Starting with the intelligentsia, we must build a strong, disciplined party that will represent workers’ interests and educate the workers to their own interests. These things can be scientifically demonstrated if you have the time.” Yechiel had the time and wanted to ask for a scientific demonstration, but the stranger waved his inquiring gesture aside. “But the reality is that the workers can throw off their chains. You must read his works for yourself. A bright fellow like you will grasp the truth at once and be able to make a real contribution. Just read him.”
“Who?” Yechiel asked innocently.
“Vladimir Ilyich Lenin!!” the stranger proclaimed in a booming voice, an arm upraised in majestic selfaccompaniment.
No sooner had he intoned the inspirational name than a loud knock exploded on the door. An unholy terror seized all present. Both Yechiel and the stranger instantly dived under the table. The penetrating knock insistently shook the room.
“C-c-coming,” Barasch called in stuttering, frightfilled reply, as if his impediment had spread from his legs to his tongue.
Yechiel could see Barasch Limp Legs struggling across the floor. He felt someone touch his shoulder. He twisted backward to the stranger.
“Where are we?” the stranger asked in a sharp whisper that told Yechiel that his quick-witted companion had regained his composure and was already developing a plan of action.
“Krimsk,” Yechiel whispered back, revealing the debilitating fear in his voice and the lack of any plan whatsoever. Yechiel felt like a crumb, incapable of initiative. Whatever broom pushed under the table would retrieve him. He pivoted slightly to see what his masterful companion was doing.
“Where?” the companion repeated too loudly for safety.
“Krimsk,” Yechiel repeated as loud as he dared.
“My God!” the stranger mouthed as his face melted in fearful, amazed agony. In fact, Yechiel recognized that expression. He had seen it on his mother’s face when she had heard the very personal, very tragic, and very threatening news that her sister had been killed. Before Yechiel had any chance to reflect on his companion’s dramatic change of countenance, he heard a voice in the doorway.
“Reb Barasch, my father said Yechiel must come home at once.”
It was his little brother’s voice, thin but forthright and concerned. In reflex, Yechiel rose to greet Shraga and banged his head with a dull but conclusive thud into the table. Yechiel fell back, stunned, and the stranger’s hand quickly steadied him, firmly cautioning him to remain silent.
From what sounded to be very far away, Yechiel heard Barasch say, “If I see him, I’ll certainly tell him.”
Barasch closed the door with a great gasp of relief and turned expectantly toward the table, but no one emerged.
“It’s all right. You can come out now,” he said, but no one appeared. He hobbled back to his chair and fell into it, lowering his horselike head beneath the level of the tabletop. He saw both young men sitting on their haunches as if stunned. Yechiel, his yarmulke off, was rubbing his head, and his young companion was staring back at Barasch with unseeing, bewildered eyes. The thought crossed Barasch’s mind that they must have cracked heads together trying to escape, and that was the walloping sound he had heard from under the table. Some revolutionaries! At any rate, Barasch knew for sure that it was a very bad thing that Krimsk knew of their meeting. Barasch, too, had his instincts for survival.
“Hey,” he said quietly but forcefully. The two looked over at him with desultory, almost drunken expressions. “You both have to get going,” he ordered in an insistent tone that stimulated them to begin crawling from the shelter of their hapless refuge.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE BOYS ARRIVED BACK IN KRIMSK EXHAUSTED FROM their frantic flight from the pond. When they came upon the throngs in the street, however, their excitement and desire to tell everyone overcame their enervation. Their story, spewing forth amid gasps and wheezes, focused on two elements: the near-murderous unprovoked attack and the miraculous rescue by the great frog.
The largest and most amazed group gathered around Alexander Bornstein himself. His narrative was the least coherent but the most inspirational. “Good Rabbi Chanina, save me!” he coughed. “And the frog attacked Casimir’s eyes, blinding him.” Soaking wet and looking half-drowned, Alexander sputtered and wheezed, “Rabbi Chanina, Good Rabbi Chanina,” and his young eyes shined ecstatically in faithful testimony that he had called for deliverance and he had been delivered. To see him was to believe him, and Krimsk believed. All the great streaming swirl of Krimsk flowed toward the boys. Wave upon wave of new arrivals met the news of their miraculous escape. “The rebbe sent his magic frog, and it blinded the Polish boys!” “The talking frog!” “Look, he’s still all wet; the frog dragged him out of the pond!”
As the outside of the circle pressed toward the boys, those in front milled in hesitation and let themselves be pushed to the side. With their thirst for the miraculous slaked so surprisingly fast, they stood around murmuring listlessly and uttering perfunctory thanks that the children were safe. They exhibited ambivalence and unea
se. It was, after all, Tisha B’Av, the day of calamities, and their Krimichak neighbors were trying to kill Jews for sport. On the one hand, not the adults of Krimichak but just some rowdy boys had attacked them; on the other hand, if troubles were brewing, how many frogs were there? Rabbi Chanina’s frog at the pond was a wonder, but a small, distant wonder. It was an enchanting little miracle that would produce in time great legends, but Tisha B’Av was not a small, intimate, sheltered day. It was an exposed, gaping, timeless breach whose ragged edges continued to lacerate communities after millennia. Had not the Krimsker Rebbe himself said that the wondrous talking frog was crying today? To stop a Krimichak pogrom required a golem like the one from Prague, a veritable earthen monster, not a jumping frog, no matter how sophisticated its vocabulary.
A small figure pushed through the crowd’s selfconscious, static center all the way up to the boys. He tugged on Yonkel Berman’s hand until he got his attention.
“What were they doing on our side of the pond?” Matti Sternweiss asked.
“They tried to drown Alex to see if death was in the water,” Yonkel answered, expecting the crowd’s continued approval, but the word “death” received a diffident response.
“Yes, but why were they on our side of the pond?” Matti insisted.
Yonkel paused a moment; this had not been part of the litany he and the others had been reciting. He took a deep breath as if to say, Where should I begin?
“Why on our side of the pond?” Matti Sternweiss demanded in unrelenting inquiry.
By now the crowd concentrated on Yonkel and Matti. People suddenly became attentive and jostled each other to draw closer.
Yonkel began pompously, “Well, Grannie Zara died and—” but before he could finish the sentence, people were already dispersing.
Some sighed, some emitted short cries of fright and foreboding. Many even spat to avoid the evil eye, but all turned to go. Clutching her son Froika’s hand, Gittel Waksman spun around to spit three times—most of which inadvertently landed on Alexander Bornstein—and hurried down the street with Froika flying along under her arm as if he were a precious violin case. Shlomi Feldman’s father kissed his sweaty head and started down the street, pausing only for a second to grab Alexander Bornstein, too, who lived next door. The streets of Krimsk emptied as fast as they had filled. Only Yonkel Berman and Matti Sternweiss remained.
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