by Talia Carner
“Koppel.” Batya’s mother snapped her fingers in front of his face as if to wake him up. “We’re talking about our daughter now, not your horse. What if Reb Moskowitz finds a more suitable bride and returns two years from now, not to marry Batya but to demand we return the money?”
“I know an honorable man when I see one. He would never do such a thing. On the other hand, Zelda, we will follow our daughter to America.”
“If there’s anything left after you buy yourself a horse and a cow, we need to get Batya a trousseau, and maybe there will be some left for a samovar.”
Chapter Six
Three stars shone bright in the sky, indicating that Shabbat was over. The three women were busy unloading their belongings off the cart and setting up the household. Batya located Surale’s old rag doll and gave it a quick hug before turning to lift her mother’s butter-churning bowl. Just then Reb Moskowitz knocked on the open door and walked in.
A whiff of his lemony cologne entered with him, momentarily masking the hut’s stench of mildew. His shirt under the brushed suit gleamed white, which meant that he owned more than one good shirt.
“I apologize for not having cooked borscht to welcome you into our humble abode,” Batya’s mother mumbled, bowing her head, and Batya’s heart ached at her mother’s face-saving pretense that she had beetroots and just hadn’t had the time to cook the soup.
“But I have something for you,” he told Batya’s mother, and handed her a small package wrapped in red cloth.
She unwrapped the cloth to reveal a beautifully painted wooden box. She set it on the table, and the family gathered around it.
“Take a good look at this miracle—and it’s not even Chanukah yet.” Reb Moskowitz wound a small key on the side of the box, then lifted the lid.
A collective gasp escaped everyone’s lips. Batya stared as a delicate ballerina twirled to music as clear and dainty as bells. The mirror set on the inside of the lid twinned her into a harmonized pair.
“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” whispered Batya’s mother.
“It’s yours. Now try winding it yourself.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Her eyes were riveted to the music box.
Batya’s father bent to peek at the back of the box to decipher the miracle.
“Zelda, it will give me great pleasure if you do,” Reb Moskowitz told her. “Please don’t be afraid.”
She relented, and soon the girls took turns winding the marvel and squealing with delight as the music repeated, and the ballerina in her pink tulle tutu never tired of dancing.
Reb Moskowitz turned to Batya’s father. “Koppel, my father-in-law-to-be, my future shver, are you ready to celebrate the engagement?”
“Let’s go to the tavern to drink to it.” Batya’s father slapped Reb Moskowitz’s back. “As the Good Book says, ‘If not now, when?’”
“I got it right here.” Reb Moskowitz withdrew a flask from his inside pocket, uncorked it, and took a gulp, then handed it to Batya’s father. “Lechayim.”
“Lechayim.” Batya’s father tipped the flask into his throat, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “This is how things are meant to be, and the proof, as the saying goes, is that it is happening.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Reb Moskowitz took another swig.
It was Batya’s third turn at the music box, but instead she was watching the men. Their celebration of her nuptials sealed her future. All afternoon she had been unsure whether to dread or look forward to the mystery that would be her adult life, telling herself that her future husband was wealthy and generous. Why didn’t she feel elated as a bride should?
Her mother put her arms around her. “I’m so happy,” she whispered, her chest heaving. “Some people have money, but we are rich with daughters. You’ll be our salvation, long before the Day of Judgment.”
Surale joined their hug, and Batya breathed in her sister’s still childish smell and her mother’s warmer musk. Her mother was right. Not only would they all be saved by this marriage, but Batya would also be rescued from the soul-crushing poverty of life in the shtetl—and fear of pogroms.
Reb Moskowitz opened his billfold again, and this time withdrew a pinkish bill sporting the number 100 in two corners. When he placed it on the table, the whole family gaped at the sight, none daring to touch it.
“No dowry is one thing,” Koppel said. “But as the Bible tells us, Jacob worked seven years for Rachel, and then seven more years to pay for her after marrying her sister.”
Reb Moskowitz laughed. “You want I should labor for fourteen years—or may I pay in kind?” He opened his arms as if for a hug. “Now that we’ll be family, it behooves us to share my bounty.”
Batya’s mother elbowed her husband. “Whoever here can change such a large bill?”
“Don’t you have coins?” Batya’s father asked Reb Moskowitz.
“Coins? If I carried all this money in gold and silver, its weight would make a hole in the ground and I’d be buried in it.” He tapped Batya’s father on the shoulder. “Koppel, my friend, my new family, you’ve made me a very happy man.” He turned to Batya. “Say your goodbyes.”
She felt her brow furrow, and her parents exchanged a look, but the confusion was settled when Surale chirped, “Goodbye, Reb Moskowitz.”
Batya’s mother raised the corner of her apron and dabbed her nose. “Blessings upon you, Reb Moskowitz, in your long travels.”
“As the Good Book says, ‘Go in health, and return in health.’” Batya’s father waved. “We’ll see you in two years’ time.”
Reb Moskowitz’s surprised gaze moved from one to the other. “I must not have explained properly. I’m not coming back. Batya will come with me.” He turned to Batya and smiled. “You will live with my sister until you are of age. She’ll teach you how to run a house, how to use your china and silver, how to supervise the servants that polish the mahogany furniture and care for the brocade upholstery. She’ll have French seamstresses outfit you in beautiful silk dresses. You do want to learn how to be a lady of means, right?”
Batya’s father raised his hand as if to stop him. “The river won’t catch fire if Batya waits here until you send for her.”
“Don’t you trust your future son-in-law?” asked Reb Moskowitz.
“Oh, yes. Of course, of course,” Batya’s mother said quickly. “But it’s too fast.”
A sad expression passed Reb Moskowitz’s face. “Unfortunately, I must leave tonight. My business interests require my immediate attention.”
Something boiled inside Batya like a teakettle on the stove. She was supposed to be happy at seeing all those rubles changing hands, all because of her. It was a blessing, yes, but also a huge misunderstanding. She wasn’t ready to leave her family.
Batya’s mother shook her head. “I must consult my grandmother Tzipporah in the next world.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “For such a weighty decision, I’m sure that tonight she’ll visit me in my dream.”
Reb Moskowitz turned to Batya’s father. “You know how business goes. You turn your eyes for a moment, and your competitor steals your deals.”
“Of course. Of course. That’s the way of business.” Batya’s father tapped his belly like a landowner. “Where in America will our daughter live?”
“In Buenos Aires. My beautiful city.”
Batya’s father’s beard twitched. “Is that near Pittsburgh?”
“South of it.”
Batya’s mother glanced at the music box. “We need to reflect on it,” she said to Reb Moskowitz. She motioned to her husband to step outside.
“Those things are a mother’s department,” Batya’s father said to Reb Moskowitz, his tone apologetic, and gestured to the girls to follow. It would not have been appropriate to ask the distinguished guest to wait outside, nor was it appropriate to leave girls alone with a man.
Once outside, Batya’s mother said, “It’s not right to let Batya go with a groom who has no
matchmaker to vouch for him.” She turned her face heavenward, as if her grandmother could see her.
“Did you see how much respect he received at the synagogue?” her husband replied. “They know him. Rather than just a single matchmaker, the whole congregation is vouching for him. Besides, doesn’t the Talmud teach us that forty days before a child is born, a voice from heaven announces, ‘The daughter of this person is destined for so-and-so?’” He pointed his finger over his head. “The Master of the Universe has led Reb Moskowitz to our humble abode. All along, our unexpected luck has been in God’s planning.”
Batya’s hand wrung the edge of her apron. Yes, her life had been preordained. She could lavish her loved ones with luxury and rescue them from Russia, but she couldn’t bring herself to acquiesce.
She felt herself tremble.
It was dark now, and they were standing outside in the cold air. The moon rose on the horizon, full and yellow, so close that Batya could reach out and touch it. “I don’t want to leave you.” She hugged her mother, then moved to hug her father. “Please. Not yet.”
“If we don’t let Batya go with him, he might find another bride on his travels,” Batya’s mother said, as if thinking aloud. “My mother always said that if it’s supposed to, a miracle will find you.”
Her father touched Batya’s hair. “Maybe God has answered our prayers? Finally, we got our bissele mazel.”
Batya felt numb with the enormity of what was required of her now, not in two years’ time. What if she refused to leave? What if she threw a fit, screaming and crying, proving to Reb Moskowitz that, rather than virtuous, she was a shrew he wouldn’t want for a bride?
Her father grabbed both his wife’s hands. “Zelda, here is our mazel, and it’s not even little.”
Disengaging his hold, she turned to Batya. “Did I want to leave my mama to get married? Every bride-to-be is scared, and every mother bird is unhappy when she must push her chicks out of the nest so they can fly.”
She turned to enter the hut. Her husband followed her, half hopping in glee. Batya and Surale trailed behind him. Surale was quiet, but her chin quivered with suppressed tears.
Batya looked at her mother’s back, straight with determination, and registered her father’s joviality in the lightness of his steps. After her sisters’ disappointments, how could she put them through this anguish again, dashing their hopes?
Once inside, her father broke down crying. He hugged the waiting Reb Moskowitz. “My heart is so full of happiness and sadness that it runs over into my eyes.”
Batya’s thumb fingered a hangnail, its sharpness telling her this was real. She sneaked a look at her groom, this distinguished man standing in the middle of her sorry home. He had nothing in common with her or her world, even if he’d come from a shtetl. No! she wanted to shout. This is all one big mistake. Yet, like the inevitable shadow, the Divine had assigned her a groom. She had felt destined for great things as God’s daughter, and now her parents’ assent proved it. One thing was certain: life in America would be as wonderful as it was promised to be.
Her father turned to her. “While you are living in gravy, make sure you visit your uncle. Give him our blessings and ask him to write.” He rummaged among the pile of belongings still on the floor and fished out a yellowed envelope showing foreign words and stamps. “Here. Sew it into your dress.”
“Take my candlesticks,” her mother said, pushing the brass set into Batya’s hands.
“Keep them. She’ll get herself a gold set as soon as we reach Buenos Aires.” Reb Moskowitz’s fingers twirled the end of his moustache, and his diamond ring sparkled. “Gold there is like snow here.”
Surale hugged Batya, then handed her the rag doll. “Keep this so you’ll remember to find me a good husband, too.”
“You’re too young to think about that,” Batya murmured, and took the doll.
“Where I come from there are a hundred men to one woman,” Reb Moskowitz told Surale. “Your groom is already waiting for you.”
Batya’s mother wrapped a piece of cheese in gauze cloth. “For the road,” she said, and Batya, feeling dizzy, didn’t have the heart to refuse, even though she knew her mother needed the gauze to make more cheese.
Her father didn’t bother to wipe his face as he hugged Batya. “These are tears of joy. It’s your bright future that I see.”
She breathed in the sour dairy scent of his beard. A sob broke through her chest. She forced herself to suppress it; she was doing it for them all.
“Take care of my child,” her mother whispered to Reb Moskowitz.
“I will care for her as if she’s my daughter,” he replied. “Until she’s ready to marry me.”
“May God be with both of you.”
Chapter Seven
Batya’s head reeled in confusion. So much had happened in the last few days that none of it made sense. How was it possible that merely days after Miriam’s murder, Batya was being carried away in a fancy carriage harnessed to two magnificent horses, like a princess in a fairy tale? The man seated across from her could very well have been a prince who’d awakened her from a nightmarish dream.
Darkness had fallen upon the earth. Through the small front window, Batya saw the coachman’s silhouette against the full moon. Inside the cabin, Reb Moskowitz pulled on his cigarette, the flare from its tip casting a reddish glow on the lower part of his face. Batya breathed in the fragrant aroma of his tobacco, so different from the raw cigarettes that her goyim neighbors smoked, made of weeds and smelling of field dust.
She was supposed to feel bliss, but her brain felt numb. Only the jolts of the road, cushioned by the soft seat, made the moments real. Mist filled Batya’s eyes. Was it only two hours ago that she had exchanged hasty goodbyes with her family? How could she wait two years, till she turned sixteen and married this man, before seeing her family again?
The image of the paper money her father had received made it worthwhile. It was twice as much as he had hoped for—and she was the one daughter who’d finally brought him happiness and hope.
The horses accelerated the rhythm of their trotting hoofs. Batya took out the piece of cheese, and, taking small bites, the taste of home brought her mother closer.
“Are you hungry, my dear?” Reb Moskowitz asked her.
She nodded, although she wasn’t sure that this was what made her insides rumble.
“You’ll have a queen’s meal as soon as we reach our inn,” he said. “Try to sleep now.”
She rewrapped the cheese in its gauze and curled up on her seat, her head resting on Surale’s rag doll.
She woke when the carriage came to a stop. Sitting up, Batya found that she was covered in a soft wool blanket. She fingered its silk trim. Her father, too, would have covered her, although not with a blanket as fine as this one. Reb Moskowitz was indeed showing his care, just as he had promised.
Looking out the window, she saw a manor house, three floors high, with twin columns flanking its entrance. Its many windows were lit as they would be only in homes of the rich.
Reb Moskowitz was standing outside the carriage and offered his hand when she climbed down, but she blushed and reached for the side handle to help herself. Her skin felt clammy and cold. With one hand she tightened her wool cardigan around herself, and with the other she gripped the small cloth bundle with all she’d brought from home: the rags she would use for her menstrual cycle, the leftover cheese, Surale’s doll, and her uncle’s letter.
“I’ll be right back, my dear.” Reb Moskowitz disappeared behind the front door. A stable hand came to lead the coachman and the horses away, leaving Batya alone in the chilled air. She checked her surroundings and, seeing no one, crouched behind a bush to relieve herself. Straightening up, she was about to follow the stable hand so she could enter through the back door, when Reb Moskowitz reappeared and signaled to her.
Touching the small of her back, he guided her up the few steps to the front double doors made of heavy, dark wood. Inside, a warm
fire danced in a huge stone fireplace, flanked by chairs upholstered in brocade and sofas covered in deep green velvet with gold tassels. The wood of the floor, visible between exquisite rugs, was polished so bright that it reflected the crystal chandelier above.
Batya examined the chandelier. It shone more brilliantly than a dozen candles—yet with no candles. Reb Moskowitz remarked, “Gas lighting,” and before Batya could ask what that was, he relinquished her to the care of a maid.
The woman tramped up many stairs lit by more fixtures without candles until they reached a small room with only a large tub in the center. Speaking Russian, the maid gestured for Batya to strip down and submerge herself in the water.
Batya couldn’t believe her good fortune. She hadn’t even arrived in America yet, and her first wish was fulfilled. She lay in the warm water, stared up at the light fixture so close to the ceiling, and wondered how it didn’t start a fire. The maid didn’t seem concerned, though, as she massaged foul-smelling liquid into Batya’s hair. It burned Batya’s scalp. This must be the concoction her mother had mentioned that people in America used against lice; they didn’t need to always pick them out of each other’s hair. Batya closed her eyes and wiggled her toes in the warm water. The wonders of America were already here.
It took the maid so long to comb Batya’s hair thoroughly and pick the lice eggs that Batya dozed off in the warm tub. She woke up when the water had cooled, and the woman rinsed her hair in rosewater. She brushed Batya’s hair several times and dabbed lavender-scented oil into it before wrapping a towel around it.
Batya raised her hand to touch the towel, amazed at its thickness. Her family had used one piece of cotton cloth as a towel; it had none of the soft, absorbent texture of this fabric.
When she finally emerged from the bath, her skin pink, Batya stood still, shy at the ministering of the maid, who dried her as if she were a baby, then pulled a good cotton night frock over Batya’s head and placed soft wool slippers on the floor. Eager to fall into bed, Batya followed the woman to a room down the corridor. The bed by the wall was covered with what looked like a puffed-up down comforter, but Batya’s fatigue evaporated at the sight of a table set by the fireplace, laden with fine dishes and food.