And this is not an ability that all possess.
* * *
—
In the flaring of the fire, Yehuda Leib saw:
The face of Death was his.
With a surge of fear and resentment, he understood. It is not your time, the Angel had said, but he ought to have said yet.
This Death was his, and as long as it was allowed to survive, Yehuda Leib was in danger.
Heart hot with pain, Yehuda Leib seized the Angel’s knife and cut as hard as he could toward Death’s throat.
In a flash, the Angel’s fingers intercepted, taking hold of the hilt, halting the strike at its very last moment.
“What are you doing?” said the Angel of Death.
“Putting you away,” said Yehuda Leib. “Once and for all.”
“Why?” said the Angel. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because,” said Yehuda Leib. “Because you wear my face. Because you are my Death. Because it is to be you or me.”
“Yehuda Leib,” said the Angel. “You must be careful.”
“Yes,” said Yehuda Leib sadly. “I know.”
“What do you think will become of you if you strike down Death?” said the Angel. “What becomes of the sheep that is separated from the herd? What becomes of the candle left to the wind?”
Yehuda Leib nodded.
“I’ll take my chances.”
* * *
—
“Thank you,” said Bluma softly.
But, turning back, she was shocked to see the Messenger’s eyes filling with terror.
Something had happened.
Her fingers, white-knuckled and trembling, were pushing back hard against her spoon, which seemed to hang in midair, its razor edge inching closer, little by little, to her throat.
“Hello?” said Bluma, and again, “Hello?” but the Angel gave no answer. Her eyes were vacant, as if she’d left them behind for other, more pressing work.
What was going on?
It was only with the flare of the fire that she saw it in the back of the looking-glass spoon, and she nearly ignored it, thinking it the blood that had been drawn from the small cuts in her cheeks:
The reflection of a red woolen scarf.
And above it, there, his face.
And she called out his name:
“Yehuda Leib.”
* * *
—
“Yehuda Leib.”
For a long moment, the boy blinked in confusion.
It was not the Angel’s voice that had spoken.
“Yehuda Leib,” came the voice again. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to save myself.”
“No, you’re not,” said the voice. “Take it from me.”
Yehuda Leib blinked in confusion. “From who?”
“Look closely,” said the voice, and then, softly, “Even here, you’re not alone.”
Not alone? Yes, he was.
“Look closely,” said the voice again.
And, staring hard, he began to see.
By force of habit, he had been favoring his living eye—it saw in ways that made sense to him, were comfortable and familiar.
But if he gave in to the darkness of his Death’s Eye, he could just begin to see, in the flickering of the hearth fire: there was another person on the other side of Death.
“Bluma,” said Yehuda Leib.
“Take it from me,” said Bluma. “You can’t hide from the things that make you yourself. No matter how hard you try. Not even from your Death.”
“But,” said Yehuda Leib. “But he wears my face!”
“Yes,” said Bluma, “and she wears mine as well. Look closer.”
And, concentrating on the dark eye in his head, Yehuda Leib saw Death’s face correctly:
Every face and none, every pair of eyes, every pair of lips, every tooth, every wrinkle, every nose, every hair, each man and woman, child and elder, who had ever lived or would ever live from the beginning of time until its Death.
“She’s mine as much as he’s yours,” said Bluma. “It’s not your choice to make.”
Yehuda Leib’s fingers began to tremble. “Bluma,” he said. “Bluma, I’m frightened.”
“Good,” said Bluma.
Yehuda Leib had spent so much of himself bashing against the cold, razor-sharp fact that he held in his fingers now, and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all, to change it.
Because the darkness shapes the light.
Because the spoon shapes the soup.
Because the dog shapes the herd.
He was so tired.
“Please,” said the Angel of Death. “Let me live.”
And, with a clatter and a sob, Yehuda Leib let the weapon of the Angel of Death fall to the hard bricks of the hearth below.
Slowly, tucking its instrument into the folds of its black garment, Death rose from its place by the fire.
“If vengeance belonged to me,” said the Angel, its voice flat with suppressed anger, “you may be certain that I would take it now.”
Yehuda Leib was still, exhausted, slumped by the hearth, but Bluma rose heavily to her feet.
“Go. You may not remain in this place.”
Wearily, Bluma turned toward the thin wooden door.
“That path will not avail you,” said the Angel of Death. “For no one may walk in through the door of my house and walk back out it again.”
“Then how can we hope to leave?” said Yehuda Leib.
Death was silent as the grave.
“What about the window?” said Bluma.
Death remained impassive.
Carefully, Bluma went and pushed it open.
“But where are we to go?” said Yehuda Leib.
“Can you point us in the right direction?” said Bluma.
“No,” said the Angel of Death. “There is none. For you have seen my face. And therefore every forward step you take from now until we meet again will carry you in one direction only: further toward me.”
“Very well,” said Bluma. “Then we must not go forward. We must go back.”
“But in which direction?” said Yehuda Leib.
“Oh,” said Bluma, peering through the open window. “As long as you’re moving, the direction matters less than you think. Everyone knows that.”
And, stepping up onto the windowsill, she began to back through. “Are you coming?”
* * *
—
From the moment the Angel of Death crossed the river into Tupik until the moment Bluma and Yehuda Leib backed out of Death’s house, only the span of seven terrestrial days—the length of the shivah—had passed. The night is long in the Far Country, and ground is quickly covered in the approach to Death.
But progress is much slower moving backward.
For an age, it seemed, they walked blindly back through the grass, the face of Death watching them closely through the window of its little house.
And it was true that the Angel was angry. But it lingered long in watching them retreat for a different reason.
Because until Yehuda Leib had held the Blade That Severs All Things to its throat, the Angel of Death had not understood. And when it heard itself beg for life, as it had heard voice after voice vainly do in language after language, place after place, moment after moment after moment since the very first death had befallen the world, it began to see:
This was the answer.
This was every answer.
And there they were, beaten, bloodied, exhausted: two from Tupik who knew what would have to happen one day and together chose to keep going anyway.
And so the Angel watched through its window in anger, to be sure. But with a sort of fondness, as well.
Because it is a difficult thing to walk backward through the tall grass for the span of a year, even when one is at one’s strongest. Time after time, the Angel saw them reach out to brace one another, to catch a fall or bolster flagging strength.
They were two red stitches looped together in the endless scarf of living.
And the Angel would miss them—miss them as friend misses friend, just as the Rebbe had taught.
Until they met again.
* * *
—
Onward and onward.
Backward and back.
Step after step after step after step.
Time ceased to have any meaning. Even the slowly growing distance between themselves and the little house on the horizon meant nothing.
All that existed was the walk: backward, fumbling, blind.
Step after step after step after step.
They mustn’t turn, not even for a moment.
Step after step after step after step.
Sun-warmed earth, long, soft grass beneath their bare feet.
Step after step after step after step.
At a certain point, they began to see oddities, artifacts, remnants half buried on either side:
A bullet-riddled breastplate.
A bloodied white shift.
A pair of cracked spectacles.
Onward and outward.
Backward and back.
Soon the debris grew thicker: bleached skeletons, waterlogged books, ruins of stone.
A bearded skull.
A torn prayer shawl.
Onward and outward.
Backward and back.
Day after day.
Week after week.
Step after step after step after step.
The window grew smaller and smaller in their gaze, day after day, week after week, the Dark One watching as they retreated.
And then, all of a sudden, in the teary wake of a blink, the Angel was gone from its tiny window in the distance.
Later, Yehuda Leib would find himself sure that he had known then, but the truth was that there was only the walk—step after step after step after step.
Only the walk.
And only each other: When one stumbled, the other reached out a steadying arm. When one wearied, the other lifted. When one thought they might lose their mind in the endless monotony of backing away, there was the face of the other, just as bored, just as weary, just as determined.
On and on.
Back and back.
Week after week.
Month after month.
Step after step after step after step.
After some time, the grass beneath their feet began to give way to a wide plain covered in sodden black clothing: coats and dresses, hats and head scarves, trousers, stockings, shirts, and shifts, everywhere, as far as the eye could see, dripping with water, twisted, intermingled on the ground.
Before they knew it, there was no grass visible between them and the horizon at all, only the twisted shapes of empty black clothing that squelched and squashed beneath their feet.
On they went.
On and on.
Month after month.
Step after step.
Now the air began to chill, the clothing to freeze, their bare feet to pink and shrink in the cold.
Slowly, the snow began to fall.
On and on, back and back, as the snow accumulated all around.
Soon it became difficult to ignore the shapes on the ground, the dark clothing drawn into relief by the highlights of ice and snow.
The twisted arms seemed to reach out for them, the fingers of gloves to point.
But on they went.
On and on.
And soon there were no shapes at all discernible beneath the snow: only drifts of white that rose and fell, hills and valleys as far as the eye could see.
On and on.
Back and back.
Harder the snow fell, harder and harder, thickening the air with white.
Backward and back, step after step.
The wind was howling.
“Bluma?” called Yehuda Leib.
“Yehuda Leib?” called Bluma.
Somewhere, a bell was ringing.
Arms reached out into the dim white emptiness.
And then, together, as if their heels had caught on the same raised threshold, they fell back.
From the moment they left Death’s house until the moment they fell, the span of one terrestrial year—the length of the Kaddish—had passed. The night is long in the Far Country, and ground is quickly covered in the approach to Death.
But progress is much slower on the way back.
* * *
—
With a crunch, Bluma and Yehuda Leib fell side by side onto the snow. Somewhere, a bell had been ringing; its humming decay lingered in the air like the warm scent of last night’s fire.
Where they found themselves now, the snowfall had long since stopped, sitting and setting, melting and freezing, until everything in the little glade seemed to be glazed with ice.
Where were they?
They had walked—that much Bluma knew. She could feel it in her legs and her aching, frigid feet, step after step after step after step until they finally fell. Even now, used to months of the pumping rhythm in her legs, she felt uncomfortable, restless, as if they ought to go on.
Why had they stopped? What had caused them to fall?
Then, lifting her head from the snow, Bluma looked down at her bare pink feet and saw what had tripped her up:
There, as if waiting, orderly and neat, her thick woolen stockings lolling out like laughing tongues, were the old boots she had stepped out of at Death’s threshold. Beside them, in a tangled jumble of lace and leather, were Yehuda Leib’s.
Gratefully, she sat up, reaching forward.
“Yehuda Leib,” she called. She didn’t have to look up in order to know that he was there.
Yehuda Leib raised his head from the ground, and when he saw the shoes at his feet, he made a grateful little sound: not quite a grunt, not quite a sigh, but full to bursting with relief.
For a long moment, they sat side by side, slipping their feet into socks and stockings, passing laces through hooks and eyelets, knotting and double-knotting.
All around them, fat drops of falling water drummed on the icy surface of the snow.
Bluma stood, working her frigid toes into the warm wool of her stockings, flexing her feet, stretching her legs.
Yehuda Leib remained sitting in the snow, admiring the sight of his shod feet.
Somewhere, a bell had been ringing, and before long, Bluma traced the sound to its source: there, low in the branches of a birch tree, someone had strung an old bronze handbell, scratched and battered and green with age.
Softly, Bluma reached up and laid a soft finger to the humming bell, bringing an end to its lingering tone, and in the newfound silence of the grove, Yehuda Leib was certain he could hear rushing water.
“Oh,” said a voice nearby. “Oh, how good it is to see you.”
The voice was familiar—and the face behind it, too—but neither Bluma nor Yehuda Leib had ever heard it speak so clearly before.
“Mottke?” said Bluma.
“Hello,” he said, waggling his fingers.
And, all of a sudden, Yehuda Leib understood where they were.
Just behind smiling, slump-shouldered Mottke, he could see the rushing water, the ferry. There was the muddy street that led up into town, and, just beyond it, the first battered houses of Tupik.
“Oh, Bluma,” he said, but she had already seen.
“I know,” she said, weary, hungry, happy.
“I imagine you would like to cross over,” said Mottke.
> “Yes,” said Bluma, and “Please,” said Yehuda Leib.
Mottke’s leathery smile deepened. “It would be my particular pleasure.”
Yehuda Leib pushed himself up to his aching feet.
“But,” said Mottke, “before we depart, there is an uncomfortable necessity to speak of: in order to cross back from the place where you have gone, I must be paid.”
“But wait,” said Bluma. “Aren’t you paid by the community of Tupik?”
Mottke winced apologetically. “I am afraid this is an altogether different sort of crossing.”
Immediately, both Yehuda Leib and Bluma began to explore their pockets, looking for anything of value they might have to offer, but Mottke stopped them.
“Your eagerness is dear,” he said. “But I have found in my long experience that I am generally better equipped to identify value than those in your position. May I?”
“Of course,” said Yehuda Leib.
Mottke’s evaluation was quick and thorough, his cracked and callused hands wandering over Yehuda Leib’s shoulders, elbows, wrists, reaching behind his head, patting down his front.
It wasn’t long before Mottke made his decision.
“Hold still,” he said, and, pushing Yehuda Leib’s forehead back slightly, he dipped two nimble fingertips into the socket that had once held Yehuda Leib’s right eye and withdrew the old coin that spun there.
Cold air flooded into Yehuda Leib’s head.
The coin in Mottke’s palm juddered, flopped like an unwatered fish.
“Your fare is paid,” he said.
Bluma, however, was a more difficult prospect.
Over and over her Mottke went, his face growing more and more drawn with each pass.
“My, my,” he said presently. “You carry little that is not a part of you.”
Bluma thought that perhaps she might be proud of this fact, except that with every moment, she grew more nervous that she would not be able to return home.
“Is there nothing?” she said.
For a short time, they haggled over the only foreign object she carried on her person—a page torn from the Dantalion that she had neatly creased, put into her apron, and promptly forgotten. Mottke was interested, and he perused it carefully, even reading a section aloud (“ ‘to the breaching of impenetrable walls; to the navigation of impassable ways, yea, even unto the overthrow of Death Itself…’ ”), but he insisted that he could not, as fare for the crossing, accept any stolen good.
The Way Back Page 29