The Landsmen

by Peter Martin

  “Go tell her,” said the Squire upon hearing Buzarov, “that she may have a full month to discover the treachery of her God. And tell through the town the cause of her journey so that after her failure she may be laughed at and spat upon together with her God. It will be a good thing.”

  “Should I saddle then for Pukop in the morning,” asked Buzarov of his master, “and deliver your request to the Colonel?”

  “I shall ride to Pukop myself,” said the Squire, his fingers tightened now about his goblet, no smile upon his lips. “Between us we shall manage. Take yourself back into the village, Valentin. Say that the

  Squire holds the Jew-woman’s journey as a test of her God, that her son will be given the month freely.”

  Then on that same evening which was a Sabbath in the summer did every Jew in Golinsk, man, woman, and child, gather themselves in their synagogue to pray for the happy success of the mother’s mission. And they prayed as for a festival, singing, “We will give thanks unto Thee and declare Thy praise for our lives which are committed unto Thy hand, and for our souls which are in Thy charge, and for Thy miracles which are daily with us, and for Thy wonders and benefits which are wrought at all times, evening, morning, and noon.” And on the morrow of the Sabbath day did they again all sing, “One generation shall laud Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts.”

  And then on the following day did the mother, Gitel, set her feet upon the highroad to Minsk, spurning all company and conveyance. The strong woman of the fields walked with firm purpose throughout two days, slept peacefully by the roadside throughout two nights, and on the third day came to the iron gates of the Gubernator’s castle. Seeing the ragged woman so close to the gates, the guards put upon her to remove herself, and she cried, “I will speak to the Gubernator.”

  Then the powerful guards of the Gubernator cast her to the street, but the mother lay there, saying, “I will speak to the Gubernator.” The guards fell to opening her skin in a hundred places. But when the mother moved her lips she said, “I will speak to the Gubernator.”

  The crowd gave her spittle and stones until Jews came and took her to a Jewish house to bind her cuts. For six days the mother could not raise herself, saying only, “I will speak to the Gubernator.” And when the man of that house had listened to the mother’s account, he ran wildly to a man of the Committee. With a number of his fellows this man of the Committee came to the mother’s bedside and with his own ears listened to her, afterwards turning to his Committee-members, saying in an undertone, “The poor soul is infected with Hasidic madness. The moment she is well enough to bear the ride, we must carry her back to Golinsk before she loses her life together with her mind.”

  These words, however, reached the mother’s ears, and before dawn she rose and clothed herself in her ragged garment and dragged herself again before the iron gates of the Gubernator’s castle. In that early hour there stood but one guard, and when he saw the mother stop close to him he ordered her away. But the mother did not step away and the guard drew his sword to her and pricked her with the point upon the head of a still-bleeding wound. The mother cried in pain, saying to herself in Yiddish, “Ay, God, help me.”

  Hearing the Yiddish, the guard lowered his sword and said, “A Jew?”

  “Deep, deep,” the mother cried in Yiddish, “and I will yet speak to the Gubernator!”

  Frightened, the guard stilled her with his hand, saying, “They spoke of you in the barracks. I, too, am a Jew . . . only speak in Russian! Or better, be still!” The Jewish guard then pulled the mother into the darkness of the sentry box, pleading, “Go away, mother, run for your life. The day-guard will come in a moment and this time you will be broken into pieces.”

  “No,” spoke the mother. “I will stay and I will not be broken into pieces.”

  “But if they see you here when they come . . .” the guard replied, “don’t you understand, mother? They will order me . . . order me to take my sword and , . . have mercy, mother, and go away!”

  “Have no fear,” spoke the mother, “your hand shall not murder me.”

  Yet even as the mother spoke, behind them opened the doors of the Gubernator’s castle, and the day-guard marched out, four tall men with heavy boots. “They are here already,” gasped the Jewish guard. “Ay, mother, mother . . .”

  As the sound of the boots filled her ears, the mother looked upon the crying Jewish guard and said, “If you must kill me, my son, do it with one strong push.” But the Jewish guard stood transfixed, listening to the relief guards asking each other, “Where is Misch?”

  “Probably asleep in the sentry box, the bastard,” one of them replied. Hearing their boots now coming toward the sentry box the Jewish

  guard screamed out, pulling his pistol from his holster, “I’m here.” Then the Jewish guard ran quickly out of the sentry box and along the deserted gray street, and one of the others saw and shouted, “Done for him,” and began shooting and pursuing.

  As they all flew after the Jewish guard the mother ran out of the sentry box; and seeing the door to the Gubernator’s castle standing open she ran to it and entered into a large dark wooden-walled hall lit with a single taper. The mother heard sounds of people running down from above her and shrank herself into a dark corner. Soldiers ran past her through the gates, and bullets could be heard from the distance as more soldiers came running down the stairs. A few women came out of doors in the hallway and began to pass flame over the candles. The mother shrank deeper into her corner as the hall grew lighter and lighter. And then at the head of the stairs appeared a livid man wearing a dressing robe with a mink collar and slippers of the finest leather. His eyes snapped with anger yet the mother, Gitel, seeing him at last, ran to the foot of the stairs, her arms stretched up, crying “Gubernator! Gubernator!”

  The mother fell to her knees as the women drew themselves about her, chattering, “Who is she?” The Gubernator ran quickly down the stairs, saying something to the women as he passed and headed for the street. They took hold of the mother harshly and threw her into a windowless room, locking the door. There she fainted, with a prayer for the Jewish guard on her lips.

  After a long time the door opened again and the mother was once more dragged out by the same women, who took her to a water closet and began to brush the dirt from her garment, and to wash her, and to comb her hair. The mother submitted, asking, “Then the Gubernator will speak to me?” The women made no reply but continued their scrubbing; and when they had done with the mother they put her in the hands of a guard who motioned her to follow after him.

  In this manner she proceeded up the staircase until they came to a wide and brightly candled corridor lined with spotless footmen standing on the deepest of carpets. The guard paused before a high door,

  knocked, and when it opened, motioned the mother to enter. Thereupon she came into a festive hall tabled by gentry in the midst of their banqueting. At the head of the long table stood the resplendent Guber- nator, smiling to the mother and holding one hand to her, saying, “This way, my good woman.” The mother then walked by the glittering gentry at the table, and knelt before the Gubernator. “Up,” he commanded and she obeyed. “Wherefore come you to me?” the Gubernator questioned her, glancing warmly at the attentive gentry.

  “I come on my feet from Golinsk to speak to you,” declared the mother. “I have a son, an only son thirteen years old that they would take for the army. Yet it came to me in a dream that you are wiser than an idiot, Gubernator, and that this being so, you would grant me my son to myself, and no army.”

  Much chattering rose from the table of gentries at the words of the mother. The Gubernator demanded, yet with a smile, “And wherefore am I deemed wiser than an idiot, mother?”

  “In my dream,” she replied, “you came to me as King Solomon, the wisest of all, and gave me back my son. King Solomon was wiser than any idiot, and so it must be with you.”

  “Now tell me, mother,” remarked the Gubernator, smiling even
more warmly at his gentry, “why Solomon was wiser than any idiot.”

  “Idiots believe that they are wiser than anybody,” the mother said. “Yet Solomon was so greatly wise that he could persuade even idiots to admit themselves fools.”

  At this the Gubernator threw back his head and laughed with the pleasure of a child, and the gentry dutifully imitated him. “Yes, then,” the Gubernator said, composing himself, “you think me wiser than the idiots who told you not to come here?” The mother raised her head and spoke, “My son stands on the list for next month, Gubernator. Spare him for me, I beg you, I beg you.” Then the mother fell to the floor and kissed his feet, and the gentry stood up to see, and the Gubernator stepped back. “Raise yourself, mother,” he spoke. “Your son shall be spared. Go now and be fed, and your hurts dressed, and in good time we shall settle this of your son.” With a small cry did the mother

  again kiss the feet of the Gubernator and moan to herself happily. Then footmen led the mother away to be fed and her hurts dressed. Yet at the door she paused and asked, “What of the Jewish guard ?” But the footmen replied, “That is over,” and brought her to a clean chamber where women came to her with ointments and clean garments.

  The mother had not known that the Jewish guard had flown into the Jewish district of Minsk, and that in killing him the guards had fallen upon Jews who had sheltered him. Through that whole day terror lived in the Jewish district, and crowds gathered angrily and sent fire and flame into Jewish houses, and firemen drowned Jewish children, and dead lay in every Jewish street.

  To put a clean face upon this, to counter evil with good, had the Gubernator smilingly granted the blessing of her son upon the mother; and until quiet returned to the Jewish district the Gubernator kept the mother within the castle. The days fell into weeks and the mother appealed to the women to bring her to the Gubernator. “I am healed,” she cried, “and I must be soon in Golinsk before the time is up.” Then one day the women led her to the Gubernator. “It shall be as you dreamed,” he told her gently. “Today you shall be taken in a carriage with two horses to your village. And in your hands will be the paper ordering your son’s exemption, with my seal upon it.”

  “God bless you forever,” cried the mother, “but give me no paper with your seal upon it. I may lose it or it may be taken from me.” She bared her arm to the shoulder and held it out to the Gubernator. “Let the order be written here, with needles, together with your seal. Then I cannot lose it or have it taken from me.”

  The Gubernator agreed. Men of such craft came to the castle and imprinted the order, with the seal, as the mother had requested. Upon the following day the happy mother set out for Golinsk in a closed carriage drawn by two horses and with two corporals riding on the driver’s seat.

  The mother sat proudly. They rode without incident until the carriage came within two miles of Pukop, where they met a company coming from the garrison there. The corporal pulled his carriage to the

  side of the road, allowing the garrison to pass, and exchanged remarks with the garrison sergeant.

  “How is it in Minsk?” said the sergeant from Pukop.

  “You haven't heard?” asked the corporal from Minsk.

  “Everything is as should be,” said the second corporal from Minsk loudly, throwing a glance behind him.

  “Somebody important in there?” asked the sergeant from Pukop in an undertone.

  “Very,” said the second corporal from Minsk.

  Hearing them, the mother thrust her head out of the carriage window and the sergeant glanced at her once and at the corporals twice, saying suspiciously, “Show me your papers.” The corporals showed their papers and the sergeant examined them. Then he spoke to the mother, “Kindly stand outside.”

  The first corporal from Minsk said, “Sergeant, she had better stay where she is. She is important to the Gubernator.”

  The sergeant turned and sent the company from the garrison on its way, and the second corporal said, “Well, Sergeant, we’ll be going along.”

  “You will remain a moment,” the sergeant replied thoughtfully. Then he spoke again to the mother, “You are from where?”

  “Golinsk.”

  “And your name?”

  “Gitel, wife of Maisha . . . mother of Haim.”

  “You have identity papers?”

  “No papers,” the mother replied. Then she added, smiling, “But I have this.”

  Baring her arm, she showed the sergeant the Gubernator’s tattoo. “It is the Gubernator’s order exempting my son from the army,” the mother said. Reading the tattoo, the sergeant’s face grew annoyed. He looked at the two corporals again and the first told him, “It is as it reads . . . yes.”

  “May I, kindly, have another look?” the sergeant said to the mother, climbing into the carriage and closing the door. The corporals in the

  driver’s seat heard what they took for the gasp of a woman whose bare arm was unceremoniously squeezed. But when the sergeant did not soon emerge, the second corporal, becoming curious, jumped down from his place and looked into the carriage. There he saw the mother sprawled limply on the seat, a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth, and the cuffs of the sergeant’s blue tunic high upon his forearms.

  The corporal said, “What trouble is this?” And the sergeant replied, “The trouble is over.” By then the second corporal had jumped down from the driver’s seat and the sergeant spoke further to both. “This one had a boy of thirteen on the list for next month. But he was mistakenly taken two weeks ago and shipped far to the east. The thing on her arm says, ‘Serious punishment for all disregarding this order.’ I had to protect the Colonel.”

  “Well, the Colonel,” said the first corporal. “Yes, but . . .”

  “Let us leave her with the sergeant,” said the second corporal, “and turn for Minsk as though we had taken her to her door.”

  They carried the mother into a piece of woods not far from the highroad. The sergeant then said, “Go back to the carriage.” The two corporals obeyed, and as the first of them leaned down to pick up the reins, he muttered words of annoyance at the sergeant who had suddenly placed him in this unexpected position; but his companion assured him that neither of them had seen nor heard the act, and that whatever the outcome of the sergeant’s loyalty he was only one while they were two. At this, the first agreed and took heart, whipping the horses away.

  The sergeant cut sapling wood with his sword to make a small hot fire. Removing the handkerchief from the mother’s mouth, he thrust the face and arms into the fire, keeping it hot with more wood until the skin had shriveled, more especially the arms. He drove the sword under her left shoulder blade as an afterthought of surety, wiped the sword with the handkerchief which had been in the mother’s mouth, and threw the handkerchief in the fire. Watching the fire burn itself out, the sergeant felt the sudden press of his bowels and he relieved

  them, and threw stones over the last few smoking embers, and walked back to the highroad.

  Of these things I knew nothing while I lived ... it laid in our heads that my wife had perished in Minsk; we had received news of the little pogrom there at the time Gitel must have been within the city; we learned vaguely of a soldier having run berserk in the Jewish district, and shooting. Making inquiries of the Minsk Committee long after Gitel’s disappearance, we were told that one such as Gitel had been beaten before the gates of the Gubernator, only to disappear in a moment of derangement on the day of the little pogrom.

  I then began the mourning prayers; and long after that, travelers’ gossip told of a woman’s burned body found in the forest near Pukop. But who listened? Why should anything have befallen Gitel near Pukop when she had been in Minsk during the pogrom?

  The landsmen came and urged me to look about, to find a good woman and live a bit contented. The wives picked Yentl, a widowed niece of old Zellik the beadle. Yentl wasn’t ugly and had nice children but I couldn’t see myself bothering. I was certain I’d say to Yentl, “What? If it’s all t
he same to you I’d rather have a glass of tea.”

  My father-in-law at last threw up his hands. “Maisha, I pawned and mortgaged myself for I don’t know how many years so that you and Gitel (may she rest) could have a house. If you’re going to do nothing but sit for your life, you might as well sit in the synagogue and sleep in a corner of my hut ... if you don’t take a wife, act like a man, I’ll take the hut back!”

  “Do so right away. I won’t marry again.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “As sure as I’ll be with Gitel in The Next World. Remember — even There a man with two wives has trouble.”

  “Don’t make everything into a joke . . . and about Haim. Who knows he won’t be coming home?”

  “I know.”

  “He won’t be over forty-four when they’re finished with him. But you are a Hasid, Maisha ... a Karliner Hasid . . . and don’t Hasids always say they must rejoice?”

  “I rejoice.”

  “How? By giving yourself nothing to live with?”

  “Because I have much reason to die.”

  So at nearly thirty-three in the year 1847 I was pleased to become old Reb Maisha of the crippled feet and asthma and jokes. The rest of my time in Golinsk, the remaining forty years, were really no more than that moment with Lipka.

  One more little story and I’ll be finished. I should have come to this long before, but a life without sense is not simple to tell of especially when it has been your own.

  I pass to the Friday before the Day of Atonement of 1885, the Friday Aaron and Leah died, the Friday of the big early snow and the Parsovs’ hill and Yeersel’s horse. I was seventy. My white beard came down to a point, like a question mark; my mouth was always open, an O, because of my asthma; and if I didn’t tremble from the heat I trembled from the cold; and if it was neither hot nor cold I trembled from the changeable weather.