The Little Russian

by Susan Sherman

  “He is not coming to ruin my daughters,” Tateh was saying. “He is coming to buy wheat. And while he is at it he’s going to stay in our house.”

  “For what? For ten rubles? You are willing to ruin the reputation of your daughters for ten rubles? Do you know how people will talk?” Mameh had a love for news, as she liked to call it. She knew what constituted good fodder for gossips, especially since she was known to indulge in it herself.

  “Nobody is going to ruin anybody’s reputation. He will be a lodger, that’s all. People will understand. He’ll stay in the linen closet.”

  “And how will he stay there?”

  “I’ll take out the shelves.”

  “And where will we put the linens?”

  “What linens? A few towels. Put them somewhere else. Rivke, ten extra rubles!”

  “Who are they talking about?” whispered Berta.

  “Reb Alshonsky.”

  Berta stopped and shifted her gaze back to her parents. From where she was sitting she had a good view of their feet. Her mother’s solid shoes planted implacably on the smooth planks, her father’s worn boots shifting the weight of his body first to one foot and then to the other as he sought relief from the pain in his lower back. She had heard them argue before, only this time she was keenly aware that they were arguing about her future. She had decided some time ago that her future lay with Reb Alshonsky. And now fate, if she believed in fate, which of course she didn’t, was bringing him to her. But she was also aware that it hinged on her mother doing something that she had never done before, an act of capitulation that was completely out of character for her: Her mother would have to concede to her father and let him win an argument. This seemed inconceivable to Berta as she sat on the stair, listening to their every word and whispering an urgent prayer to a God she feared did not exist.

  HERSHEL ARRIVED during the last of the great storms. Berta was just closing up when he appeared out of the swirling snow wrapped up in a greatcoat and wearing a papakha on his head. He told her that he had been away on the Black Sea and gave her a little box covered in red and orange cockle shells. They stood by the stove talking about his travels, about a trip to Moscow and another one to Petersburg. He didn’t explain why he had been away so long and she didn’t ask.

  “So, is my room finished?”

  “It is. But my mother doesn’t want you staying here.”

  “I thought she liked me,” he said, removing his gloves and holding his hands up to the dying fire. He hadn’t yet taken off his coat. Melted snow circumscribed a neat circle of damp on the floor beneath him.

  “Not since she found out you’ll be sleeping in our linen closet. She thinks you’re going to ruin our reputation and come into our room at night and have your way with us. She calls you a mazzik, a demon, so if you want to stay here, you’ll have to win her over. Although, that won’t be easy.”

  “I think I can manage. I’m usually pretty good at that sort of thing.” He didn’t look the least bit concerned.

  Berta knew it would be this arrogance that would prompt her mother to send him packing. She would see his swagger, cheeky grin, and charming manner as a direct assault on the good name of her daughters. She thought about warning him, but she knew it would do no good. She had learned that about him over the summer months. He would do it his way, no matter what anybody said.

  That night, supper was served at the table in the front room. Tateh had just returned from evening prayers and had taken the time to comb his hair with water and put on his good Shabbes coat. It still had a torn piece of cloth affixed to the lapel from the last funeral he had attended, the wife of the cattle dealer who had died of a woman problem. He sat at the head of the table when Hershel came in and greeted his guest with a stiff formality. “You’re over here, Reb Alshonsky,” he said, indicating the chair next to him.

  Hershel nodded and took his seat across from Lhaye. She was wearing one of Berta’s Moscow dresses. It was a midnight blue satin with bugle beading and lace sleeves, much too fancy for a simple meal at home. She also took the time to pile her hair on top of her head and even added an ostrich feather that she found at the bottom of the trunk. Hershel complimented her on her appearance and she thanked him, the feather bobbing with determination as she lowered her head and blushed.

  Mameh made no special effort for her guest. She wore her old apron at the table and kept the lace runner that she used for holy days in the drawer. Instead she used the everyday tablecloth that was stained and yellowed and torn in two places.

  At first there was an uncomfortable silence lasting through the blessing, which of course was proper, but also through much of the bread and soup.

  “It’s very good, Froy Lorkis,” Hershel said, finishing up his bowl.

  She gave him a tight-lipped smile, rose, and gathered up the bowls. “Berta, help me in the kitchen.”

  Berta and Hershel exchanged a look as she reached for the soup pot.

  “Do you have to be so rude to him, Mameh? It’s embarrassing,” she whispered, after carrying the pot into the kitchen and setting it down on the counter. “Can’t you say something nice? Ask about his health? Anything . . . ?”

  Mameh was at the stove scooping out the last of the boiled potatoes into a bowl with a rusty slotted spoon. “It is not enough that we have a mazzik staying with us? I have to make nice to him too?” She made no effort to keep her voice down. She reached into the salt box and took a pinch between her thumb and forefinger and sprinkled it over the potatoes. As an afterthought she took another pinch and dropped it into the pocket of Berta’s apron.

  “Oh, Mameh,” she said with annoyance.

  “Hush now. I know what I’m doing. And take this.” She took off an amulet from around her neck and put it around Berta’s. “Keep it on and don’t take it off, no matter what anybody says.”

  Berta examined the amulet. It was the ugliest thing she had ever seen. “What do you think he’s going to do to us?”

  “Just wear it. Tateh has invited a demon into our house. So you will excuse me if I take a little precaution.”

  Berta gave her mother a look, picked up the bowl of potatoes, and carried it out to the front room. Mameh came out a few minutes later with the fish, and the meal continued on in silence.

  “So where are you off to?” Tateh asked, seemingly unaware of the tension in the room.

  “To Chewnyk’s and Kedzierski’s,” Hershel replied. “I thought I’d pick up a load or two if the price is right.”

  Tateh knew these families. They came into town for supplies. They had large farmsteads to the west of Mosny with many desyatins in cultivation. “I would also try Babzak,” he said. “They say he uses the scientific approach. He already paid off his debt, so he must have done well. Of course, he is always bragging about this so-called approach. But if you can stand to listen to him, I’d give him a try.”

  “Thank you, I will.”

  Tateh helped himself to a piece of fish and passed the platter to Lhaye, who eyed it suspiciously and passed it on. She didn’t like fish. “Will you be back tomorrow?” she asked, helping herself to the potatoes.

  “No, I go on to Bogitslav.”

  Tateh’s jaw clicked as he chewed. “I have a cousin in Bogitslav,” he said between bites, “maybe you have heard of him, Mottel Royzen?”

  Hershel thought for a moment. “I know a Zevi Royzen from Medvin.”

  Tateh considered this and shook his head. “No, never heard of him.”

  “Still, tragic story, Zevi Royzen,” said Hershel, carefully removing the skin from his sturgeon before sticking a fork into the white flesh.

  Mameh kept her eyes on her plate.

  “What happened?” asked Lhaye.

  “Excuse me?”

  “To Zevi Royzen. What’s the tragic story?”

  “Oh, very sad. His wife died. Beautiful woman and a fine housekeeper. A real balebosteh, they say.”

  “How did she die?”

  “She was cleaning a ch
icken and she cut her finger on the neck bone. It was nothing, a little cut, some blood, nothing to fuss about. But then the finger turned all red and her hand blew up like a balloon and she started to run a high fever. Her husband called in the best doctors, a whole team of them, but it was too late. Three days later she was dead.”

  Mameh looked up.

  “Just like that?” asked Lhaye.

  “Just like that. And that’s not the worst of it. He remarried. The daughter of a rope spinner, so of course there was no dowry. Not that he cared. He was a rich man. Well, not rich exactly, but he had money, could go out for a meal once in a while and take in a play. He made fine saddles and sold them to people who could afford them. Anyway, as marriages go, this one was a disaster.” He stabbed a potato with his fork and stuck it into his mouth.

  “How come?” Lhaye asked.

  Hershel chewed, swallowed, and shook his head. “Not such a nice story. You don’t want to know.”

  “But I do,” she said, her feather bobbing emphatically.

  Tateh said irritably, “What difference does it make? He’s not my cousin. We don’t know him. I’m sorry for his troubles, but it’s got nothing to do with us.”

  “But I want to know, Tateh.”

  “Go on, Reb Alshonsky. It’s all right. We’re all grown-ups here,” said Berta.

  Mameh poured herself another glass of wine and glanced briefly at him from over the rim.

  “Well,” Hershel continued a little doubtfully, “Let’s just say that a young girl gets ideas in her head. Maybe she starts to think she doesn’t want to be with such an old man. Maybe her eyes wander over the fence where the grass is greener. Maybe they linger a little too long on the glazer’s son.” His voice trailed off and they sat there in silence, mulling over the implications.

  After dinner they moved across the room to the settee and chairs. Hershel declined Tateh’s offer of the wing chair and pulled over one of the chairs from the table. “You know a Rabbi Liebermann from Dunivits?” he asked his host, once they were all settled.

  “I think I’ve heard of him. Is he famous?”

  “A little famous.” His eyes flicked over to Mameh, who was mending one of Tateh’s shirts. There was a rust-colored rip on the sleeve as if stained by old blood. “So you haven’t heard about his son?”

  “I didn’t know he had a son.”

  “Oh yes, he had a good son. A promising scholar they say, until the trouble started. All out of the blue like that. Without warning. Shocked everybody. No one could understand how one day he could be himself, a good, obedient boy, and the next . . . disrespectful to his mother, shouting out obscenities in shul. And you have to remember this was from a boy who never did anything wrong in his whole life.”

  “How old was he?” asked Lhaye.

  “Thirteen, fourteen. He was already promised to the daughter of a rich textile merchant. Of course, his father didn’t want the girl’s family finding out about it and calling off the wedding. He tried beating the boy, but the outrages only continued. Soon he was laughing at funerals and once he molested the serving girl, a shikse no less, and was even suspected of stealing money from the owner of a ribbon factory. Naturally the rabbi was at his wit’s end. He was just about to give up and send the boy to an asylum, when it came to him.”

  “What?”

  Here he paused for effect. “That his son was possessed by a succubus.”

  Silence.

  Mameh held the needle in midair. Lhaye stared at Hershel, her lips slightly parted. Berta burst out laughing.

  Tateh straightened. “Berta . . .”

  “You don’t believe in this nonsense.”

  “Reb Alshonsky is our guest.”

  “But he doesn’t believe in it either. He’s just having fun with us. It’s ludicrous, and he knows it.”

  “No, she’s right. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought the boy was bad or crazy or had eaten something that made him sick or some other perfectly rational explanation. But then I was there in Dunivits on the night they performed the exorcism and I saw it all with my own eyes.”

  “Oh, please . . . there’s no such thing as a succubus. It’s a fairy story to scare children.”

  Mameh turned on her daughter. “Listen to you . . . such a maivin. You would be wise not to laugh at such things, my girl. You do not know everything.” Then she turned to Hershel: “Please excuse my daughter. She speaks out of turn. It’s one of her many faults.” These were the first words she had spoken to him all evening. When Hershel’s eyes flicked over to Berta with an unmistakable look of triumph, she realized what he had been up to and sucked in a smile.

  THAT NIGHT she lay next to Lhaye, listening to Hershel tossing and turning across the hall, the straw mattress rustling under his body. She pictured him, bare chested, rolling to one side then the other, pulling up the covers and throwing them off again.

  Finally she fell asleep and woke up sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of an animal whimpering in pain. At first she couldn’t place it. She thought it might’ve been the little whistle Lhaye made when she slept, but then she heard it again. It was Hershel groaning in his sleep. When the groaning grew louder and threatened to wake the household, she rose and put a shawl on over her nightdress, her hair hanging in a thick braid down her back, and went out into the freezing hall. She shivered in her bare feet, her breath visible in the frosty air. When she pulled back the curtain she found him asleep on his side. She reached out and shook his shoulder. “Wake up . . . Hershel, wake up.”

  He opened his eyes and grabbed her arm. For an instant, he didn’t recognize her.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “You had a dream.”

  “I know. I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Go back to sleep.”

  She went back to bed and wanted to think about what she had just seen, but soon she too was drifting off. She was still aware of the bed and Lhaye sleeping next to her but also of a swirl of shapes behind her closed eyes. The shapes soon merged and became recognizable objects: a chair, the kitchen stove, a country road.

  HERSHEL CAME back a few weeks later and told them a story about a miracle rabbi who had saved a town from a pogrom by casting a spell on the pogromists. That night Mameh served chicken and it wasn’t even Shabbes. The lace runner was proudly displayed on the table. Mameh listened to the story with slightly parted lips, her eyes fixed on her guest, her pupils dilated in the dim light, listening to every detail while her chicken got cold. Mameh was a great believer in miracle rabbis.

  After dinner she invited Hershel to sit with her on the settee. “Here. On this side,” she said, plumping up the one pillow. Tateh was no longer wearing his good coat. He sat in his armchair and quietly nodded off. The girls were in the kitchen.

  “Shall I tell you about the pauper who died in Esther Churgin’s shed?” he asked. He sat back on the pillow, propped his elbow up, and dropped his chin on his hand.

  “I knew Esther Churgin when I was a girl,” Mameh said, picking up her mending. The light behind her threw a halo around her untidy hair and softened the lines around her mouth. The lighting and her eager anticipation made her look almost like a girl. “She married my cousin’s half brother. I heard they went to live in Kiev. But then he died and I haven’t heard another thing about her.”

  “Then this should interest you.”

  He told her a story about a pauper who had come to Esther Churgin begging for a place to stay. She let him have the shed in the back and even gave him a few sticks of wood for the stove. “Apparently, his heart gave out during the night, for when she went out to get him for breakfast, she found him dead on the straw.”

  Mameh tsked as she continued to sew.

  “But that’s not the end of it. When the porters came to take him away, guess what they found in his pockets . . .” Here his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “A big pile of rubles.”

  She looked up. “Big? How big?”

/>   “More than you ever saw in your whole life.”

  “Was she allowed to keep them?”

  “Of course. It was her shed, wasn’t it? And her pauper. The man had no family. No one to leave them to. It was only right and proper that she should get the money, especially when you consider that she was kind enough to give him a place to die. In fact, to this day, they say that because of her generosity she is now the richest woman on Slavyanskaya.”

  “I had no idea.”

  After that there was a story about a witch who turned babies into bats and more stories about angels, magic, and mayhem, a sudden turn of fortune, and a miraculous healing. Soon Mameh was looking forward to his visits and making the dishes he liked best. If he didn’t come, which often happened for two or three weeks at a time, she’d ask Tateh if he had heard from Reb Alshonsky, was he held up by business, would he be coming soon? She often said that she was worried about him, but really she was worried about missing the news.

  “I WAS THINKING, maybe I could come live with you once you’re married?” Lhaye asked. She was stretched out the bed next to Berta. It was late and they had blown out the candle to save the wax. Outside the night was still and the square was deserted. A mockingbird was protesting some disturbance, running through his repertoire of songs in hopes of attracting a mate even at this late hour.

  “Who says I’m getting married,” Berta said.

  “Don’t be silly. You’re getting married.” Lhaye propped her head up on her palm and looked over at Berta. “Do you think his house is large? Do you think it’s a mansion?”

  “How would I know?” Berta rolled over and closed her eyes.

  “I think it’s a mansion. I think it has a turret and lots of servants.” Usually Berta enjoyed talking about these things, girlish dreams of weddings, of her escape from Mosny and the life that awaited her once she and Hershel were married. Yet even in the happiest times these dreams were tempered by niggling doubts. After all, there hadn’t even been a proposal. Hershel hadn’t talked to Tateh and nothing definite had been said, although much had been hinted at. “You’re going to like Cherkast,” he had said to her on more than one occasion. Sometimes he talked about traveling together and how he wanted to show her Petersburg and Paris. Once, out of the blue, he asked her if she liked rubies. When she said she did, he nodded with satisfaction and fell silent as if he were filing it away for future use.