“This one?”
“ ‘Fruma, daughter of Tzipora and Menachem.’ ”
And, at just this moment, a mournful yowl split the night.
Yehuda Leib and the Nameless Girl turned quickly over their shoulders.
Someone had fallen. Someone important.
Lilith.
Her body was impaled, limp and lifeless, upon a horseman’s lance.
She was dead.
“No,” breathed the Nameless Girl.
And then, something changed: in the blinking of an eye, one of the great gray War Cats had become a tall, slender woman, and as she strode forward through the ranks of the Lileen, her shift began to fade from gray to pure snowy white.
As one, the Lileen gave a roar of pride and leapt forward against the soldiers again. Lilith, wearing her new self like a well-fitting dress, lunged out to avenge her own death—but not before bending low to whisper to one of her War Cats, a single, slender finger pointing across the valley toward the Nameless Girl at the tower’s edge.
The Nameless Girl was transfixed. Yehuda Leib wanted to get her attention, to turn her back to the stone wall, but he couldn’t think what name to call out.
Softly, he laid a hand on her shoulder.
The Nameless Girl gave a little gasp of surprise at the warmth of his hand.
“Come on,” he said. “I think our extra time is running out.”
Swiftly, they worked their way along the tower’s face, Yehuda Leib choosing stone after stone, the Nameless Girl reading out name after name. They had just come to a corner and a new face of the tower when the names began to grow familiar:
Yekhiel Tzvi—he’d heard that before.
Nosson Dovid—that one, too.
And then Avimelekh.
That name he knew for certain.
Yehuda Leib moved down to the next stone and pointed with certainty.
“That one,” he said. “It’s that one.”
The Nameless Girl leaned in close and read:
“ ‘Yehuda Leib,’ ” she said. “ ‘Son of Avimelekh and Shulamis.’ ”
Yehuda Leib nodded.
This was it.
This was his gravestone.
Leaning forward, he let his fingers run over the strange shapes of the letters; lightly, smoothly, the stone swung back, like a door.
And what they saw beyond shocked them.
Outside the tower, the night was cold, crisp, and clear, the snow trickling down from above in small, lazy flakes. But inside, the summer sun shone out bright and warm over a thick carpet of lush green grass, its golden light falling through the open gravestone door onto the thick accumulation of snow outside. Yehuda Leib could feel the warmth bleeding out into the night, and immediately he dropped his knapsack and began to remove his coat.
His red woolen scarf, however, he left in place.
Beside him, the Nameless Girl was motionless.
“Are you coming?” said Yehuda Leib.
The Nameless Girl’s eyebrows fell. “It’s not my door,” she said.
“Well,” said Yehuda Leib, opening his knapsack wide to fit his coat inside. “Where’s yours?”
But before the Nameless Girl could answer, there was a roar, a yell, and the sound of flying feet and hooves in the snow.
Two lithe panthers were racing across the little emptiness of the valley that stood between the battle and the tower, and horsemen followed in hot pursuit. Quickly, his coat in one hand, his knapsack in the other, Yehuda Leib darted through the open gravestone door.
“Hurry!” he said. “Find your name!”
There was panic in the Nameless Girl’s face—the panthers were drawing nearer with every moment.
“I can’t!” she said. “I don’t have one!”
“What?” said Yehuda Leib.
But there was no time to explain. The gravestone door had begun to swing shut.
The last thing that the Nameless Girl saw before the door closed was Yehuda Leib, gasping, shoving his knapsack forward with all his might, managing, just barely, to slot it into the doorway as the stone swung shut.
And it worked. The door was jammed open—just a hair. Just wide enough for the Nameless Girl to fit her fingernails in.
As it happened, it was not the knapsack itself that kept the door from closing. When the Nameless Girl managed to pry the door back and dart through, one-half of the knapsack fell outside the tower, and the other half, neatly shorn, fell inside. The same could be said for all the items within: one-half of a battered old cup, of a sprouted potato, of an extra cap was inside; one-half, neatly shorn, without.
In fact, the only item in the knapsack that had not been cut cleanly in half by the great force of the closing door was something that had gone long forgotten at the bottom of the bag all the while:
The loaf of challah that the Nameless Girl had given to Yehuda Leib.
And in truth, most of the challah had been shorn as well. Only one very thin, sparkling layer remained uncut, blocking the way open for the Nameless Girl to follow:
The salt in the bread.
And this is how, with cold metal that was not cold metal, with blood-red thread, and with salt, Yehuda Leib and the Nameless Girl came to enter the House of Death.
* * *
—
The Rebbe of Zubinsk lay motionless in his bed, neither awake nor asleep, prayers flying all around him like a thick flock of starlings.
For nearly two hours the first night, the Hasidim prayed, cycling through psalm after psalm. They were all of them terribly moved: worried, impassioned, heartsick.
But it is very hard work to pray with all one’s might, and mortal men tire easily. Presently, the group flagged, and one by one they departed for home and bed.
But not all of them.
One of their number, a stranger in black clothing, blacker than the night, blacker than the darkness hidden inside your eyes, remained behind. He had not prayed in many thousands of years, but as soon as his mouth began to shape the words, his eyes drifted shut, and he did not stop.
In the gray light of morning, when the Hasidim returned, they found the dark stranger precisely where they had left him, praying for the Rebbe’s recovery with unwavering fervor.
All day he prayed, enveloped by an ever-changing crowd of Hasidim. He did not stop once—not to sit, not to eat, not to rest. By the time the afternoon came around, rumors had begun to circulate: Was he another holy Rebbe from a faraway town? Was he Elijah the Prophet come to advocate for the Rebbe’s recovery?
Darkness began to fall once more. A large assembly of Hasidim had grown up around the stranger like twining ivy on the tidy trellis of his psalms, and so fervently did they pray now that it was a short time before someone noticed that the Rebbe was stirring in his bed.
An excited murmur rippled through the crowd, breaking the Hasidim off from their psalms.
Only the voice of the dark stranger chanted on, until, looking up, he saw the open eyes of the Rebbe staring directly at him.
Slowly, the Rebbe raised a gnarled finger to point at the stranger.
“You,” said the Rebbe. “You should not be here.”
All eyes turned to the stranger, who began to sputter with tearful regret.
“No,” said the Rebbe. “You neglect your duty. They have breached your walls. You must go.”
Again, the dark stranger fought to object, but before he could manage a word, the Rebbe sat up in bed and bellowed “Go!” with all his might.
The word having passed his lips, the Rebbe collapsed into his pillows.
With a gasp, the crowd of Hasidim rushed forward.
In the mad press, no one noticed that the dark stranger was somehow gone without having taken a single step.
The Rebbe was dead.
&
nbsp; Each of us crosses the threshold of the House of Death eventually, and each of us goes alone.
You stop to let the honey-sweet sunlight warm your skin, and as the fragrance of the grass reaches you, you find that you are desperate to feel it between your toes. You bend to unlace your boots, just as everyone who came before you has done, just as everyone who comes after will do.
The grass is warm, the earth soft and supple beneath your feet.
The only sound you can hear is the light stirring of the breeze.
You are alone now, though there may be hundreds, thousands who come into the estate in the very same moment as you. Even Yehuda Leib and the Nameless Girl, who came in quick succession through the very same door, who stood in precisely the same position at precisely the same time, were entirely alone.
This is the peculiar perspective of Death:
Each of us crosses the threshold of the House of Death, and each of us goes alone.
* * *
—
The Nameless Girl stepped out of her boots and stockings and into the grass. She gave a heavy sigh.
It felt like forever since she’d seen the sun.
Part of her wanted to lean back against the warm rock, to allow the sunlight to flow over her, baking her into the stone.
But the stillness was too sweet, too persuasive. She had come for a reason, and it wouldn’t do to rest before she had accomplished it:
She must either reclaim her name and face or else give the rest of herself away.
And until this very moment, she’d thought she knew which she meant to do.
On either side of her, familiar mottled gravestone walls rose up into the sky, their particular names and dates washed away with age. The passage was narrow enough for the Nameless Girl to reach her arms out and touch the stone with both sets of fingertips, and yet, despite the interminable height of the stone walls, the sun always seemed directly overhead: there were no shadows.
This came to seem even more peculiar as she made her way forward to the first forking of the path.
Two branching ways presented themselves, each equally sunny and warm.
Which should she take?
Peering first down the right-hand path and then down the left, she found them practically identical: curves, forks, branches. Lush green grass, thick golden sunlight.
Slowly, the Nameless Girl began to gnaw on her lower lip.
How was she to make the choice?
* * *
—
Yehuda Leib stepped out of his boots and socks and into the grass. He gave a heavy sigh.
It felt like forever since he’d seen the sun.
Part of him wanted nothing more than to lie down and bask in the sweet warmth until the grass grew up over him, drew him down into the soft earth.
But somewhere within, the Angel of Death was holding his father, and Yehuda Leib couldn’t rest until he had taken him back.
And so, funneled forward by the high stone walls, he advanced until he came to the first forking of the way.
He gazed for a long while down one path and then the other.
He found them much the same.
How was he to make the choice?
Clenching his jaw, he sighed again and thrust his hands into his pockets.
And what was this in his pocket?
Cold, hard metal.
Yehuda Leib drew it up in his fingers.
An odd coin, heavy, battered, gray. On one face it bore the figure of an open eye, and on the obverse the same eye firmly shut.
He thought back to the moment when, ages ago and no time at all, he had stood across the road from a strange, dark Messenger in Tupik.
He had taken the coin with his own fingers.
If he had only known then what he knew now, would he still have done so? Would he have conducted the stranger into the town? Would he have let him go on in peace?
Almost angrily, he shut his fist around the coin.
And then, in his tight-sealed palm: movement. Drawing his fingers back, he saw the coin begin to dance, twirling, spinning like a top on its edge.
Now the coin seemed to show the figure of an eye both open and closed at the same time.
And suddenly, with iron certainty, Yehuda Leib knew what he must do.
It had been terrible, giving his eye to Dumah, painful and strange, and he had kept the empty socket hidden away ever since, as much for his comfort as for the comfort of others. When he drew the patch back now, though, the sunlight flooded into his empty eye, filling it with warm, almost fragrant brightness.
Leaning his head back, he dropped the spinning coin into the empty socket, and everything changed.
With his living eye, he saw the branching choices before him, infinite in their variety, opening out further and further, each fork leading to its successor, choice after choice after choice: a maze in which one false turn could steer you wrong.
But with his Death’s Eye, he saw in a calmer manner:
It was not a maze, but a labyrinth. One path masqueraded as many. No matter which fork he chose, the destination was the same.
The choice was never false—only the choosing.
The direction matters less than you think.
With a deep breath, Yehuda Leib strode forward.
* * *
—
With a deep breath, the Nameless Girl strode forward.
She was sure she didn’t know where she was going, but there was no use in standing still.
Choices had to be made.
Soon the forking paths seemed to come with every second step, choice after choice after choice. The Nameless Girl tried to keep herself moving toward the center of the maze, but the stony ways bent and curved, and, panic growing in her heart, she quickly lost her sense of direction.
She took a turn and found herself on a long, strange path.
Something didn’t feel right. Of all the paths in the garden, this one alone seemed to drive straight and unswerving toward the center, and though she thought this ought to feel right and good, she found the walls of the passage narrowing in on her as she went.
Little by little, the stone seemed to squeeze.
Little by little, the light seemed to dim.
Here alone, the walls grew so close together that even the magnanimous sun above could not penetrate their leaning gloom.
Farther and farther the Nameless Girl made her way down the narrowing passage. Soon it was so tight that she could not comfortably fit the span of her shoulders.
Was this right? Behind her she could see the path she had come down widening back out until the sun managed to light its aperture.
Perhaps she ought to turn back.
But no: ahead, through the deepening dim, she could see a brighter light still.
This was the way. The center of the garden lay ahead.
And so, turning sideways, she began to shimmy down the path.
Farther and farther, narrower and narrower.
Now the stone walls were so close to one another that she was afraid her head might not fit. Still she shoved, pushed, but it was no use—all she did was wedge herself in.
Suddenly, the Nameless Girl felt motion on her leg, and she let out a sharp, bright scream that echoed far and wide through the garden of forking paths.
But nothing had taken hold of her.
It was only the spoon.
The spoon, spinning in the pocket of her apron.
With care and difficulty, the Nameless Girl drew it out.
It was somehow very different.
Where before, outside Death’s estate, her reflection had dawdled, tarried, arriving late in the face of the spoon, here within, it raced ahead, and by the time the spoon was before her eyes, she found that her furtive reflection had already ar
rived.
But this was the least surprising thing she saw.
Behind her, in the looking glass of the spoon, she saw not a narrowing passage, not a dim stone path, but a small wooden house, sun-bleached and ancient, nestled in the grass.
The Nameless Girl was astounded.
Turning sharply back over her shoulder, she looked, and sure enough, there it was.
She felt the sun on her face.
The cold, squeezing passageway was gone.
In fact, she could not see any walls of stone anywhere. There was only this: a small wooden house sitting in the grass at the center of the world.
And the door was ajar.
* * *
—
It was with one living eye and one of cold metal that Yehuda Leib pushed his way into the House of Death.
This helped to determine what he saw there, for Death, mercifully, has a way of looking in the manner most understandable to you.
It was a small hut, simple, nearly bare: a fire in the hearth, an old wooden table, a single worn chair. The floor was made of earth, packed down by years and years of crossing feet. In the corner, an ancient broom had gnarled, warped to fit the pattern of the two grasping hands that had held it day after day.
With his living eye, Yehuda Leib seemed to see the scene lit in the bright light of the sun.
But with his Death’s Eye, it looked very, very different: the darkness was thick, so thick it seemed almost substantial.
And with both eyes he saw that every surface—the table, the mantel, the floor, the chair—was covered in flickering candles: beeswax and paraffin, bayberry, tallow, tapers and pillars and votives of all kinds. Some were tall and thin, some short and squat. There were decorated candles with inlays of colored wax, and candles molded into the shapes of animals. Some bore many wicks, some only one. Some sat in small dishes, others in candelabras or candlesticks. A few had even been placed in holes dug into the solid earthen floor. In places, several had melted together in blobs of seeping wax. There were flames that leapt and jumped, huge, nearly as tall as the candles they topped, and flames that flickered and shrank, little more than a glowing ember at the end of a blackened wick.
The Way Back Page 27