“Of course not.” Novak bows his head.
“Why don’t they go somewhere else? Aren’t there other countries in the world?”
“I don’t know, sir, maybe they’re too comfortable here.”
“Quite so, that is exactly the problem. This whole affair comes at an excellent time. It will prove to people that there is only one answer.”
“Of course, Your Excellency.”
V
* * *
Motal has been transformed into Okhrana-berg. It looks like a police academy or a barracks. This is surprising, since the curfew does not apply to half its population – the gentiles – who for some reason have not rushed to take over businesses and make a quick profit now that the Jews are absent. The market is shut and few people leave their homes. Motal is desolate. Without its Jews it is like a creature paralysed.
Agents enter homes and leave carrying kartoshkes and bottles of yash. Every now and again they take a golden candlestick, which the hosts complement with its matching partner, whatever it takes to make the agents leave.
Reb Moishe-Lazer Halperin passes between his congregants’ homes. He is the only Jew permitted to ignore the curfew on Prokor’s, that is Piotr Novak’s, orders. The rabbi expects to be welcomed as usual: the table set, a loaf of bread ready to be served and eyes hungry for his every word. But now, their faces, good grief, their faces are so grim. Disaster is about to strike the town; they can all sense the impending doom.
It didn’t take much for everyone to piece together the story. Without any experience in murder investigations, they linked Zvi-Meir Speismann’s disappearance with Fanny Keismann’s unpredictable nature and background in ritual slaughter, and came up with the solution for one of the most complex episodes in the history of the Russian Empire. “If only she had stayed put, none of this would have happened. And what good has come of it? She disgraced her family, leaving her home after midnight, God knows why, like a moonstruck spinster.”
Fearing Rivkah Keismann’s accusatory gaze, the rabbi has been steering clear of the Keismann household, where Mende has settled in with her children. Rivkah Keismann blames the rabbi for everything. If he hadn’t been duped by Akim and Prokor, Avremaleh and Pinchasaleh Rabinovits – names that are obviously false – the town would not have been put under siege. Rivkah did not ask for much from the rabbi. All she wanted was for her son to unite with his wife’s sister. And what did she get instead? A sword at her neck. How can she leave this world? God help her, she would have been better off dead.
People say: Rivkah Keismann is a strong woman.
The truth is: Rivkah Keismann is on the verge of collapse. Her son sits at the dining table from dawn to dusk, his head in his hands. He cannot tend to his flock, he is not allowed to mend the fences. He cannot even go out to empty his bowels without permission. Every now and again he chews a piece of bread, without cheese, looking as if at any given moment he might hurl the table at the wall and confront the agents outside. All this time Rivkah sits opposite him and does not budge. She is afraid that as soon as she takes her eyes off him, he will do something that they will all regret.
And what about the children? God help her. Unmanageable, wild, just like their mother. Most little ones wet themselves as soon as they hear the word “police”. But these children? They slip away from the house, crawl under fences, hide in bushes. They think this entire affair is a funny game. Forget about the younger ones, they’ll be fine as long as they don’t hurt themselves. Not even the most brutal of soldiers would treat a child like a criminal. But Gavriellah, the eldest? She’s eight years old already. “Grown girls” like her can be accused of conspiracy. And true enough, she disappears for hours on end. Where does she go? No one has any idea.
“Natan-Berl, where is Gavriellah?”
“Mmmm . . . ummm . . . Gavriellah? She’ll be fine.”
People say: Rivkah Keismann is a bitter woman.
The truth is, Rivkah Keismann was right all along. Fanny Keismann was nothing but trouble, and now everyone can see the outcome. Rivkah should probably have put her foot down from the very beginning, but she always tries to please everyone. Perhaps this is all her fault.
Mende Speismann locks herself away in her room. She is fuming. How could her younger sister humiliate her so publicly? Good God! Wasn’t Mende managing just fine, even without Zvi-Meir Speismann by her side? Did Mende behave like those miserable women who send a grovelling advertisement to Hamagid? Did she allow her name to appear below any news-paper headline that reads “Lost” or “Help”? Did she ask the entire world to take an interest in her private affairs?
Now her name will be known to all, read not in advertisements but in the news sections; not only in Hamagid but also in Ha-Melitz and in other newspapers, too. What did Mende do to her younger sister to deserve this torture? Is Fanny that jealous?
Mende is not one to return the offences she receives. She certainly does not seek retaliation at the children’s expense. There is only one thing on her mind right now: making sure that no child leaves the courtyard. Natan-Berl is immovable. Rivkah Keismann is with her in spirit but her flesh lacks the energy to chase after anyone. So Mende finds herself watching over her two fledglings and Fanny’s five jewels like a hawk.
Only Gavriellah escapes Mende’s watchful eye. In fact, even if Mende searched beyond the courtyard she would never have found her niece. Gavriellah has started spending long hours away from home and no-one in Motal could ever guess where. The place is quite central, in fact, just a quarter of a verst from Motal’s main square. And yet no-one has noticed her. Did she find a hiding place in an abandoned stork’s nest? If not, where is she?
Like the other children, Gavriellah has collected bits and pieces of the story here and there. But, unlike them, she has understood exactly what the details mean and striven to learn as much as she can about Zizek, her mother’s accomplice. She has found herself siding with the Berkovits and Avramson families and begun to feel a strong resentment for everyone else.
Leah Berkovits, a cantankerous old lady at the best of times, could not believe her eyes when she opened her door and found an eight-year-old child on her doorstep.
“What are you doing here, brat?” she screeched, mistaking Gavriellah for a boy, since the old lady’s eyesight – how should we put this – has seen better days.
“I have come to stay with you,” Gavriellah replied, and she did just that.
What did Gavriellah talk about with Leah? Not much. Like the Keismanns, the Berkovitses are not big talkers. What did they do, then? Well, they did what most other Motal residents do. They sat down, stood up, cleaned, ate, knitted, read, day-dreamed, dozed off, waited. They definitely did something, that’s for sure. After all, neither the old lady nor her son slammed the door in Gavriellah’s face as they have always done with everyone else. What is more, they let her call Leah Berkovits “Babushka”. And not only that, they let her stroke Leah’s rugged face, a face through which tears have dug indelible furrows.
“I have come to stay with you,” Gavriellah told them, and they let her in.
VI
* * *
When Fanny wakes up, her right cheek is still burning where it met with a fist. In fact, her whole face is in pain. Her jaw creaks. Has she lost a tooth? Her nose is numb. Is it broken? The crown of her head feels like someone is pulling it upwards. Has she been drugged? She has no way of knowing.
Wouldn’t she rather be the owner of an unbattered face? Of course she would. Yet right now, she feels certain that a person who has never been punched in the face must know nothing about life. The blow she sustained not only aggrieved her face; it shook her to the core. The loss of control was absolute. She was entirely at the mercy of the brute who punched her, who could have struck her other cheek if he’d wanted to. But his single jab was perfectly accurate, a necessary conclusion to her journey.
Her head is sore. S
he has been travelling for many hours in a rickety wagon and the driver has not missed a single pothole. Her body is shackled in an uncomfortable position, and she is crammed in with three men. One is unconscious, still tended by a nurse. What is he dreaming about? Who’s to know? The second has a face that has not looked this serene in many years. Still holding Adamsky’s hand, it is unclear if he is alive or dead. Whereas the third, well, this is not exactly what Zvi-Meir Speismann had in mind when he heard that both the army and the police were on his trail. His eyes are locked on the floor of the wagon and his lips are mumbling meaningless prattle.
Fanny sees another wagon further up ahead, carrying Captain Istomin and the five sturdy hussars. From what she has heard, nothing in the history of the excellent garrison commander could have predicted that he would one day face accusations of disobedience and mutiny. Now, of course, none of the many brave acts he has performed for the empire’s sake will stand in his credit. People are mistaken when they think that good citizenship will earn them immunity. All it takes is for someone to swim just once against the stream for them to find themselves standing before a firing squad, shoulder to shoulder with criminals and traitors.
Two horses nicker behind her. One is grey with a black mane, and the dip in his back shows that he has been around for many years. He is ageless. There’s not a war he hasn’t been in. The second is a colt who won’t stop swishing his tail. On the night she left, when Fanny crossed the Yaselda and realised that Zizek had prepared horses and a cart for them, it dawned on her that this journey was not just about her. Now she is proud of the riff-raff she has gathered around her, the types that townspeople would point at and say: “See them? They’re exactly what we’re not.” Well, this is her army. And although none of them would admit it, she knows that whatever powerful thing it is that unites this divided, battered crew, it has made waves throughout the entire empire.
Is she of sound mind or insane? She could not care less. She is flooded by countless emotions, but regret isn’t one of them. Every prospect is clear to her, even that of losing her children, and yet she doesn’t wish she could go back in time and do things differently. They must be taking her to meet that inspector. Despite her unquestionable inferiority, this time he will have to talk to her face to face, in daylight, and not while gripping her throat. This meeting, she feels, is of paramount importance. She knew they would meet again after the night at Adamsky’s tavern. What will she tell him? She doesn’t know. But this time she will face him like his equal, even if her knife is no longer with her. He strikes her as the only person in the empire she can talk to.
She doesn’t expect to exchange a word with her brethren in Motal. She knows all too well that almost every single one of them will be convinced that she is out of her mind. The town community is hell incarnate, of this she is sure. Each of the townsfolk hovers somewhere between individuality and conformity, trying his best to think like everyone else. They will never be independent. They look upon any form of liberty as a form of rebellion; any uniqueness as deviance. Is there anything they will not say about her? Good grief, she should expect the worst. But Natan-Berl won’t believe them, nor will Gavriellah. And the little ones will not abandon her, however angry they are. She might very well be crazy, but she knows she will see them again very soon.
“Where are they taking us?” Zvi-Meir hisses a surprising question amid his barrage of gibberish.
Fanny says nothing and looks at Zizek, whose eyes join Zvi-Meir’s question. “Home,” Fanny replies. “Where else?”
VII
* * *
Kindness is not necessarily accompanied by courage. If it were, could we distinguish one from the other? Kindness reveals itself in any manner of ways and sometimes, when it is uncoupled from courage, people do not recognise it.
People who see the world in black and white might argue that the Motalers’ welcome of the procession from Minsk was unkind. To wit, for the first time since they came under curfew, the residents opened their shutters and hurled a range of missiles at Fanny’s wagon: wood chips, apple peel and all manner of rotting vegetables. Before passing judgment, however, one should stop to consider the following. What would you do after a week-long curfew? What would you do if the lives of your children were at stake? First, you would begin by looking for the cause. Well, there’s no question on that score: Fanny Keismann has dragged the entire town into this mess. Second, you would imagine that you’ll breathe a sigh of relief when Fanny’s fiasco is resolved and the Okhrana’s agents have left town. Third, you would want to demonstrate your allegiance to the authorities: both to set yourself apart from those responsible for this fine kettle of fish, and to make sure the police have no reason to stay any longer. In short, with all that in mind, who wouldn’t throw rotten tomatoes at Fanny?
Nonetheless, we must add, the rough welcome of the prisoners’ wagon could have been far worse. The townspeople could have thrown stones at the offenders; instead, they pelted them with apple peel and twigs. They could have hurled insults at the ringleader; instead, they whispered their rebukes behind closed doors. In any other place, the prisoners would have arrived at their destination with swollen faces and clothes wet with rotten egg yolk. Whereas here, two of the five hussars picked up the apple peel that hit them and ate it. Such are Motal’s Jews: like no other.
Take Mina Gorfinkel for example. Some people say that Yoshke Berkovits was in love with her before he was snatched from his bed. Some can still recount how he floated on air after seeing her at the market square. Others still will swear that he has dreamed his entire life of the day when he would see her again. No-one can confirm whether any of this is true or not. In any event, close to fifty years had gone by since the Berkovits family’s tragedy, and Mina Gorfinkel obviously did not sit and wait for Yoshke. She married at fifteen and became a grandmother twenty-five years later. But when the procession drove past her house, she opened the shutters and took a peek at the detainees. “Who are they?” her sons asked. She could have answered “criminals, crooks” like everyone else, but instead she closed the shutters and said nothing.
At the Weitzmann house, now transformed into makeshift headquarters, Colonel Piotr Novak and the rest of the top brass are waiting. The governor, Field Marshal Osip Gurko, is sitting behind the desk, anxious to return to Minsk with clear-cut proof of a murder plot against the Czar. Colonel Piotr Novak is standing next to Gurko, tense, waiting for the outlaws to arrive. Albin Dodek and Haim-Lazer are just behind him. Neither man is pleased to be so close to the other. Haim-Lazer feels that he is on the wrong side of the barricade, a collaborator with the corrupt regime, whereas Dodek is unhappy at being forced to collaborate with a prisoner. Sitting across the desk with his back to the door is another surprising figure: Colonel David Pazhari. For now, he thinks he has come to join the investigators, but he is soon to join the suspects.
“A great honour, sir,” Novak says to Pazhari when they meet. “It’s not every day you meet the future chancellor’s nephew,” he adds, waiting for his reaction. Pazhari nods but cannot look the inspector in the eye. Novak assumes that Pazhari is experiencing a pang of conscience, but in truth the colonel is taken aback by the inspector’s gaunt face and frail posture. At the Shipka Pass, he had encountered a well-built colonel, whereas the man before him now reminds him of a house of cards – extract one and the entire edifice will come tumbling down.
Although he knows this is probably a bad idea, Pazhari feels he cannot repeat the mistake he made at the Shipka Pass. He takes Novak aside and looks directly into the inspector’s eyes. “Voivode,” he whispers in his ear, “we fought together at the Shipka.”
Novak’s face lights up. A long time has passed since someone has called him “Voivode” – Commander.
“Did we?” He tries to hide his excitement. So there is a man in the room other than Gurko who has seen the true Novak. A man who knows that whatever takes place in the room now will not be what Piotr Novak
would have planned. A man who knows the difference between Albin Dodek and Piotr Novak.
“Some battle,” Novak raises his voice, wanting his agents to hear a conversation between two veterans, to show them what true courage looks like.
“I wanted to tell you that . . .” Pazhari lowers his voice, “I rode by your side when . . .”
Many things can be said about Novak, but slowness of mind is not one of them.
“For years I regretted not . . .”
“You have nothing to regret,” Novak says, with a grin. “The Turks fared worse than my leg, didn’t they?”
But this exchange leaves Novak feeling deeply troubled. On the one hand, the man here has seen him leading a cavalry regiment into battle. On the other hand, the same man saw him crawling on the ground like a lizard. This contrast – how should he put this – begs for reconciliation.
Gurko touches the inspector’s shoulder. “Is everything alright, my friend?”
Novak replies with a confident smile, “Perfectly, Your Excellency.”
When the prisoners are brought into headquarters, Pazhari turns pale at the sight of Captain Istomin in handcuffs. He signals to Novak that he wants to have a word before things get out of hand. The commander of the investigation nods and gets to his feet, but Albin Dodek winks at four of the agents and they step forward and disarm the colonel. Startled, Pazhari does not resist. Stripped of his sword and pistol, he goes back to being David from the orphanage. When they stand him next to Captain Istomin he hears in his head, “David, mon chéri, my sweet, my jewel, petit”, and starts looking for a way to escape. Strangely enough, he is relieved that the men who were his allies until a moment ago have now transformed into his bitter enemies.
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