Enemy of the Tzar

by Lester S. Taube

  After a week of settling in, Hanna had begun looking for work. She was shocked to learn that jobs were not only scarce, but almost non-existent due to a year long recession. And since Roth had made it clear upon parting that they could no longer depend upon his organization’s financial support, Hanna had taken the cheapest of rooms, served the most meager portions of food, and walked from neighborhood to neighborhood seeking work. Weeks passed with the same discouraging results. She did not mention the depressing news to Jakob, for he had still not gotten over the shock of the attack, and she did not want to add to his worries.

  January came, and Hanna was frantic with fear about the lack of news from Stephen. He has been arrested, rang incessantly in her mind. They are beating him, tearing him apart. But he will escape, she fought back. He has the strength and courage. He will find his way to me.

  She was still getting an occasional letter from Zelda through the secret network about the children, and had written desperately for information regarding Stephen. But her cousin could learn nothing.

  And by January she was still unable to find work. By then, almost all of her savings had been exhausted. She and Jakob subsisted on the cheapest cuts of meats and chicken, cooked to death for soup, as Jakob joked now and then, with carrots, potatoes, and turnips–vegetables which could be found during the cold weather. Even heat became a problem. Each room had a small fireplace, so to conserve the meager supply of coal which was kept in a narrow locker in the cellar, they shared Jakob’s fire. In this fashion, he would have some warmth at least when he went to sleep. The most dangerous element for the recuperating man was cold, and she took all precautions to guard him from that. Since kerosene was at a premium, Hanna did as much cooking over the small fire as she could. But the time came when she had to face up to the immediate problem.

  “Jakob,” she said, as they sat at the tiny table in his room eating a stew of vegetables containing a few chicken feet and necks. “We will have to give up one of our rooms. I am going to ask Herr Rosenthal to allow you to move into my room.”

  Jakob, as usual, had been humming and daydreaming as he ate, but his mind captured her words. He shook his head. “There has to be another way, Hanna. I cannot subject you to such an embarrassment.”

  “We have no alternative, Jakob.”

  He studied his plate for a few seconds, the spoon held limply in his hand. Then he looked up. “I didn’t know we were that low in money.”

  “It was not necessary for you to know until now. Sometimes worry is more harmful to a person than a sickness.”

  “I have my watch. It is gold.”

  “It was your Bar Mitzvah gift from your father. We can manage without using it now. The most important thing is for you to help me by cooperating.”

  He sighed with dejection. “Of course I will.” He laid down his spoon.

  “Keep eating,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “That makes no difference. You must eat no matter how you feel. The body knows the difference.”

  He chuckled, a flash of his humor returning. “You should have been in the army. A general, perhaps.”

  “What does an educated Jewish boy like you know about generals and armies?”

  “Well, Torah…”

  She began laughing. “I should have known better. Does Torah tell you how to heat two rooms with one coal?”

  He leaned back into his chair, pretending to think. “Leave the door open, perhaps?”

  She was still smiling as she descended the steps to the Rosenthal’s quarters on the ground floor. The owner and his wife were in the parlor, reading, their two teen-aged sons were seated at a circular table playing dominoes.

  “Could I please speak to you alone?” she asked Herr Rosenthal.

  “Frau Rosenthal, too?” he asked, motioning at his wife.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “You, boys,” said Molly Rosenthal, rising from her chair. “Into the kitchen.”

  Dutifully, they left the tiles in place and went out. Molly pulled out a chair from the table. “Sit down, Frau Charnoff.” Hanna took a seat, folding her hands to control her nervousness.

  “How can I help you?” asked Rosenthal.

  “We are almost out of money,” she said flatly, deciding to get to the point at once. “The only way we can manage a little longer is for Herr Gulman to move into my room. I will need a cot or a mattress for me to sleep on.”

  “That bad?” asked Molly kindly.

  Hanna nodded. “That bad. Once I find work, we can get along quite well. In time, Herr Gulman can move back into his room, if it is still available.”

  “Well–“started Rosenthal.

  Molly interrupted him. “How about a cup of hot tea?”

  Hanna nodded wanly. “I would like one very much, thank you. But, if you please, I would rather take it to Herr Gulman.”

  Molly smiled and waved her hand. “Have a cup of tea. Afterwards, I’ll make another for him.” She left for the kitchen after a careful, self-explanatory look at her husband.

  He had understood her perfectly. “Frau Charnoff, I would let you use both rooms for a lesser amount, but as you know, the situation here is very tight. So, I guess, the only answer is what you suggest, for Herr Gulman to move into your room. I have a tenant for his room already.” He cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Frau Charnoff, but we find the situation rather…”

  Molly walked in on the tail of his remark, holding a tray with a pot and three cups and saucers. “Isadore,” she said, the trace of a bite in her voice. “I don’t think it is any of our business.” She set the tray down on the table. “However,” she continued to Hanna, “if there is anything you would like us to hear, we would be very discreet.”

  Hanna took a deep breath. Captain Roth had warned both of them more than once about revealing the details of their situation, but it was a fire burning inside which needed a sympathetic ear to quench. Somehow the Rosenthals seemed to be that sort. “Herr Gulman saved my life in Russia. He was seriously injured doing so. My husband saved us both by getting us here to Germany.”

  “Then you are Russian?” questioned Rosenthal. “But, your identity cards.”

  “A friend of ours had worked for the Germans in Russia. Some of his friends supplied us with the papers.”

  “Then your husband will be coming soon?” went on Rosenthal.

  Hanna had to fight to keep the tears from her eyes. “I do not know. He disappeared directly after he returned to university.”

  “A Russian university? A Jewish boy?” commented Molly.

  “He is Russian,” said Hanna.

  “Aha,” said Rosenthal slowly, all details now clear as a bell.

  “There’s a reason for everything,” said Molly protectively, passing over a cup of tea and a lump of sugar to her husband and Hanna.

  “For everything there’s a reason,” he agreed. He stirred the sugar in his cup. “Herr Gulman, he’s a Hasid, isn’t he? Isn’t there something about…well, a woman?”

  “Isadore!” said Molly indignantly. “Forgive us, Frau Charnoff. My husband sometimes asks things when he should be listening to the piano.”

  Hanna smiled at the play of words. “That is all right, Frau Rosenthal. I can answer him. A Hasid is not allowed to touch a woman except for his mother, sister, wife, or daughter.”

  “Not even perhaps on the hand?” went on Rosenthal, disappointed at the bland reply. Molly was leaning forward, savoring the discussion.

  “Not even her hand. Except,” she amended herself, “if it is for nursing. Even there, they usually prefer men attendants.”

  “But the same room…” said Rosenthal, his voice trailing away.

  “Herr Gulman is like my very own brother. He has faced death more than once to protect me.”

  “Well,” said Rosenthal, sipping at his tea. “I said it was all right, and I am a man who stands by his word.”

  “You’re a seamstress?” asked Molly. �
��Didn’t you say that?”

  “I am a dressmaker,” said Hanna.

  Molly nodded her head, thinking. “In a couple of days, the women of the shul will be meeting to talk of this and that. I want you should come with me.”

  “I am not much at social functions, Frau Rosenthal.”

  “For me, it’s a social function. For you, there’s always a lady who’s putting on too much weight and needs a dress or a coat taken out. The tailors here, I should bite my tongue, have a lot to explain on the Day of Atonement about the prices they charge all year.”

  Hanna stood up. “Thank you, Frau Rosenthal. I will be glad to come. And thank you, Herr Rosenthal, for your help.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Molly, going back towards the kitchen. Soon she returned with another cup and saucer, and a napkin holding two slices of challah. She filled the cup with tea, placed two lumps of sugar on the plate, and handed them over to Hanna. “For Herr Gulman. Tell him for us that he saved a very nice girl.” And as Hanna started to leave, Molly went on. “Frau Charnoff. I think for a while longer you should hold on to both rooms.”

  At the meeting, Hanna was an immediate celebrity after a few cryptic remarks by Molly that said absolutely nothing, but left no doubt that the young, lovely woman from the backwaters of Palestine was the center of a life and death struggle between two utterly unusual men. “Don’t say a word to her,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “But her story would tear the heart out of a bandit.” Hanna was served sponge cake and cookies and tea until she was ready to burst. Best of all, she was asked by three of the ladies to stop over to their houses to make some alterations. She returned to their room with a napkin full of leftover sweets, which she and Jakob shared after their meager meal. For the first time in weeks, gaiety dispelled the cloud of gloom they worked so hard to conceal.

  Hanna earned four marks the following week, and five the next. She took extra pains to sew as carefully as possible and consumed an hour to do the work of ten minutes on a machine. But she did not mind the long hours or the walks through swirling snow and cold winds to pick up and deliver the clothes. She and Jakob had become accustomed to practically living in his room. While he poured over a book borrowed from Rosenthal, Hanna sat and sewed, snipping off thread with a quick bite. It was a comforting silence.

  “Some tea?” she would say now and then, and as deep into the book that he was, he heard and understood. “Yes, thank you.” When he sipped the hot drink and munched on a piece of bread or cake, he would begin his humming.

  “You are bourchening,” said Hanna one time.

  He stopped humming. “Who’s bourchening?” he demanded.

  “You are.”

  “I am certainly not bourchening.”

  “Read, eat, and drink. See what happens.”

  He did as she suggested. After a minute or two, he looked up. “See, I’m not bourchening.”

  “You are thinking about it. If you did not think, you would bourchen.”

  “What do I bourchen?”

  She shrugged. “It is nothing. Now and then I hear a scrap of when you pray. Then it sounds like you have a terrible cold. Once I heard the sound of music. Where did you hear Eine kleine Nachtmusik?”

  “I never heard–whatever you called it.”

  “It means a little night music. By Mozart. It is very popular here in Germany. You were bourchening a part of it.”

  He closed the book with a smile. “It’s a plot, you know.”

  “What kind of a plot?”

  “I haven’t decided. Torah says that when a woman deprecates a man, he should cast her from the house.”

  She laughed with sheer joy as she resumed her sewing. It was pleasant to sit in a warm room, after a good meal, with the company of a man such as Jakob. One could forget, for a few fleeting minutes, the cost, the loss, and the payment still due from them all.

  As the weeks passed, Jakob grew more and more restless. He had read everything Hanna could borrow from Rosenthal and from her clients, and his pacing about his room and coming frequently to her room to look inside distracted her greatly.

  One day, while he was seated at their small table, his eyes staring off into the distance, Hanna bit off a thread and looked up. “Jakob, tomorrow is Shabbas. Herr Rosenthal goes to a small shul nearby. Perhaps, we should go, too.”

  He eyed her eagerly, and then his face fell. “But the risk, Hanna. Those killers are still on our trail. Even among the smallest of congregations, people will talk.”

  She chose her words carefully. “There would be less talk if you did not go as a Hasid.”

  He shrugged. The thought had crossed his mind as one of the scores of idle subjects that flowed through his super active brain each waking hour. “I could dress as an Orthodox,” he mused. “But the hair, beard.”

  “Back when we crossed the border, Stephen said your hair would have to be cut for safety. When I objected, he said that God would understand. Did He, Jakob?”

  Jakob thought that over for a long moment. “Yes, He understood. You are alive and well, and my peiyes have grown back.” He cracked his knuckles as he thought back to those days. “He was a wise man, that Stephen.”

  “He is a wise man. He is alive, and every bit of his strength is working to return to us. That is in my every waking thought.”

  “God willing,” he replied. He stood up and looked into a small mirror on the wall. “I could trim my beard,” he said, rubbing the scraggly growth. “And comb my peiyes behind my ears.”

  “Both would have to go,” said Hanna flatly.

  He stared at her as she bent down to bite off another thread. “That far, Hanna?” he asked softly.

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath of hopelessness. What she was saying tore at her own traditions as much as his. “We need time, Jakob. We need time to earn enough to live on, to find the children, to find Stephen. It is not just our lives we are endangering, but also those who may need us.”

  Jakob pulled gently at his beard. “I won’t recite all the laws that forbid such an action, Hanna. I will only remember the law which states that saving a life takes precedence over all else. So I will do it–for you.”

  He sat quietly, dejectedly, as she placed a towel over his shoulders and cut away most of the telltale signs. When she finished, he refused to look again in the mirror. Hanna stood back. “Your clothing, Jakob. We must change that also.” In a flash, she was out of the room and trotting down the stairs, soon returning with a suit.

  “It is one of Herr Rosenthal’s. He said it was too tight for him.”

  It took the rest of the day and evening to fit it to Jakob’s long, bone thin form, but on the Sabbath it was ready. They walked slowly, carefully, down the steps and over the three blocks to the neighborhood synagogue. Hanna went upstairs to the section reserved for the women and children and peered through the lattice. Jakob had taken a seat with an expression of near bliss on his face. During the service, all could hear his clear, perfectly timed chanting above the mumbling of the congregation.

  At the conclusion of the service, the short, white haired rabbi motioned to one of his people to have Jakob brought up to him. They spoke for a few minutes, and then Jakob came out of the front door. He was almost dancing. Under his arm were a number of books.

  “The rabbi loaned them to me,” he said happily to Hanna. “Also, he asked if I could tutor a few of the boys for their bar mitzvahs.”

  Hanna could scarcely believe her ears. A Hasid prince accepting work as a mere melamed. The old Jakob would have snapped off the head of anyone who proposed such an offer.

  So, starting the following Monday afternoon, after their regular German classes, five boys came to his room. Hanna could hear him through the door, and she never heard anyone teach so gently. He gave them little tunes to sing so their tongues would adapt to the pronunciation, then he led them along their lessons, accepting nothing short of perfection. The boys were smiling with satisfaction when they left.

  A few momen
ts later, Jakob came to her room and held out a mark he had earned. He was as proud of that as if he had handed over a fortune.

  CHAPTER 26

  Natalie Kaplan looked with dismay at her gown, and tears came to her eyes. The exclusive shop in center city, specializing in wedding dresses, had just finished it, and there was no denying that it fit her perfectly. That was the problem, for Natalie, a trim, active woman of twenty-one, had unusually prominent breasts that had been her bane since her early teens. She knew that her fiancé, Jules, adored her large bosom, but it made her stand out in any company, and her natural shyness had become a burden over the years.

  “I look like a house!” she wailed to her mother. “Do something!”

  The shop owner, the designer, and the principal seamstress circled her, each saying, “We can give some here, but it will do that there,” until Natalie was unable to stand them any longer. Only her mother and aunt, both as dismayed, kept her from tearing it off.

  “Natalie,” said her mother, sick at heart. “Another lace dress will look the same.”

  “I won’t wear it!” cried Natalie. “I would rather get married in a shirt waist and skirt.”

  “Fräulein Kaplan,” said the shop owner, quickly. “Leave it with us a day or two. I am sure we will make it look more…well, acceptable.”

  The next fitting was as bad. Natalie had to face the fact that it would be nigh impossible to redesign the gown at this late stage, so she had it boxed with icy disgust. Once out of the shop, she told her mother to drive her to another gown specialist. Two more fittings and alterations made it worse. The second specialist decided to add lace to the silk area below the bodice, hoping it would lessen the degree of thrust.

  “Look at it!” cried the tormented woman. “I look like Little Bo Peep. I won’t get married like this. Jules and I will elope.”

  “Natalie,” said her mother, turning for support towards her husband. “Nathan, speak to her. The invitations, the reception. One hundred and fifty people.”