Trail of Miracles

by Smadar Herzfeld

  Now, throughout the nights, by the sparkling light of a candle, I sail from port to port in a colorfully adorned ship, facing the wheel. People board my ship and disembark, the living and the dead; time inhales and exhales, engulfs and spews up, until there’s no distinction between Vohlyn and Jerusalem, between past and present, life and death.

  And now my ship is sailing into an old story. The Maggid, beloved of my soul, told me this story, his face aflame and, all around it, his white hair standing on end.

  Years before I was born, Rabbi Yisroel, the Baal Shem-Tov, set out on a journey to the Holy Land. He left his home with his daughter, Adèle, and a disciple whose name was Rabbi Zvi the Scribe. They reached Istanbul in the winter, but they could not find a ship traveling to the Holy Land. They stood on the shore and the Baal Shem-Tov took a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “I shall spread my handkerchief over the water,” he said to Rabbi Zvi, “and you must think about the name that I will tell you. If your thoughts wander from it for a moment, the three of us will be lost at sea.”

  He was ready to spread his handkerchief over the water, he was ready to set out upon the waters, but Rabbi Zvi caught hold of the handkerchief and refused. In the end, they hired a boat, but a storm broke out. Lost, the Baal Shem-Tov, his daughter, and Rabbi Zvi washed up on a desolate island.

  Then out of the wilderness, out of the blue, some brigands appeared and attacked them, and took them prisoner. Bound in fetters, Rabbi Zvi said, “Now is the time for a miracle, you must save us.”

  The Baal Shem-Tov replied that all his powers seemed to have been stripped from him.

  Rabbi Zvi realized he had also forgotten everything apart from the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

  The Baal Shem-Tov shouted, “So then why are you keeping silent? Say the letters!”

  Rabbi Zvi began to recite “Aleph, bet, gimel . . .” and the Baal Shem-Tov repeated the letters with great enthusiasm, nearly snapping the fetters from his hands. He had almost managed to break them when there came the sound of a bell. An old captain appeared with a band of soldiers and released the captives.

  When the three of them reached Istanbul again, the Baal Shem-Tov understood that heaven would not permit him to travel to the Land of Israel, and he returned home.

  “That is holy devotion!” said the Maggid in wonderment. And he placed his hands on the table and said that, if the heavens wished it, then right at that very moment, he and I would travel to the Land of Israel. For a while, he kept his fingers pressed to the table, then let them drop and sighed sorrowfully, “Oy!”

  I thought of the morning when we could have traveled to the Land of Israel, when the Maggid’s court moved from Mezeritch to Rovno. It was a day of great commotion. Froumeh bustled around me shouting about spoons and plates and no one had any idea where they were, my children trailed after me crying, tugging at my dress, and two wagons laden with furniture and belongings stood opposite the front gate. Next to them were two rented carriages, one for the women and the other for the Maggid and his entourage.

  I never understood why we were compelled to move.

  At that time, there was much talk about gentile armies drawing nearer to us, there was also talk about Jews who plotted against us and sent informers to spy on us. Young men stood in the courtyard, whispering secrets, and when the Rebbe showed himself at the window, they were greatly moved and the words “It’s a miracle” spread like fire in a field of dry thorns.

  Everyone waited for something extraordinary to occur, something that would change the laws of nature. But nothing happened, only that suddenly the men talked about moving, and they spent a lot of time arguing in the courtyard about where the Rebbe should move to and what this meant. The Maggid’s gout had become much worse. He seldom left his room, and when he did, he dragged himself about on crutches, Rabbi Feilet supporting his waist.

  Instead of coming to the table, he would call me to his room to drink tea with him. I would carry in the tray while he waited for me on the tall sofa, his wasted body lost inside it, his legs wrapped in a blanket. Behind him was Rabbi Feilet, always standing guard.

  In his room crammed with books and medications, the Rebbe said, “Rovno, there is no choice but to move to Rovno.”

  And he said that while sipping his scalding tea through a cube of sugar under his tongue. His sick hand trembled and some of the boiling water spilled on the blanket, and the silent giant behind him raised his bushy eyebrows, signaling that I should slip away.

  But the Maggid narrowed his eyes and examined me with great attention, until I could see the delicate threads of veins in his eyes and the watery light blue color that surrounded his pupils. Then he let his head drop and sunk into the solitude I knew so well, the solitude of those with great thoughts and of tall mountains that touch the clouds.

  While Froumeh was packing, Rivke’leh and I often ran off to the hills weeping together because she was about to be married and would not be coming to Rovno.

  On the day of the move, she stayed very close to me, and I held her chapped red hand in mine. The children straggled after me, and Shalom, who was finding the change difficult, buried his face in my dress and would not stop crying. The young men in the Rebbe’s court buzzed like a swarm of bees. Peasant men and women from the surrounding villages came to bid us farewell, thick-bearded men who stood outside the fence fingering their caps and their fair-skinned women whose children climbed the fence. The commotion grew and grew until it suddenly ceased.

  There was utter silence when they brought out the Rebbe. He was seated on a folding bed, his hands on his knees, his eyes half-shut. Then his hands floated up to bless all those gathered. The peasants bent their backs, bowing to the holy man, and the young men of his court gathered closer around his bed. Rabbi Feilet pushed the bed and ignored the large crowd.

  The door of the carriage was opened, and the attendant hoisted the bed with the great man in the air as if he were a small child, and then the door closed and the curtain was lowered.

  A long sigh of relief, of longing, of finality, went up from the crowd. A few women wailed quietly. Froumeh parted from her daughter with instructions and warnings about what she should do. The red fingers released my fingers, grew farther from me, waved good-bye, and we were off.

  My husband, Rabbi Avraham, was not with us that day. He had traveled to serve as a rabbi in a place called Fastov. I had two children, I was the princess at the court of a great rabbi, but my husband was not with me. Sometimes, he would appear in the forecourt, self-contained and distant. We would sit in the dining corner and he would glance at the children, then at me, quickly lowering his gaze when I looked back. And all the time, he was fearful, his voice low and hesitant, glancing around nervously, as if I might devour him, heaven forbid!

  The years in Rovno were the Maggid’s last. His body weakened and, when we sat together for tea, I would help him drink from a spoon. Sometimes he would ask me about my husband, calling him “my only son” and saying incomprehensible things like, “Never muzzle an ox when it is threshing” or “The rope went down after the bucket.”

  Rovno is situated at an important crossroad. It is a city of bustling alleys, of fine ladies and gentlemen, and I had nothing to do in it other than slowly suffocate. The fields were far away, having retreated to the surrounding hills. The noise of passing wagons and carriages could be heard from the house, and the house itself belonged to an influential local man and had a large reception chamber and a stable in the forecourt.

  In the abandoned stable, I kept chickens and geese. I made myself a corner among the animals and spent the mornings there with my younger son, Shalom. He was not yet studying Torah, his curls fell onto his pale, round face, and he ran joyfully about the stable. At first, he was afraid of the shadows and gloominess and the odor of horses that hung in the air, and he would lie on me and scratch his flea-bitten legs the whole time. Very slowly, he discovered the haystack and the water pump, and stopped scratching himself. He got used
to the smell and made himself a corner next to my corner.

  We would bring along bread and milk and we would play make-believe, him and me, about all kinds of things. For example, that I was a queen and he was my royal son, or that we were birds. I would tell him all kinds of legends I’d once heard from Dasha, my old servant, about the house I had lived in as a girl, about the Garden of Eden. He sat in the corner he’d made for himself, a little fort of chopped firewood, his eyes wide open as he listened to me and sometimes closing as he drifted off to sleep.

  Once he told me that, when he grew up, he would be an angel. I thought about his father, who was called the Angel, and I wondered what could be detaining him in Fastov so long after the holy days. I felt sad that our son hardly knew his father at all.

  Even inside the house, Shalom would follow me everywhere. Once there was a baby bird he loved to cradle and carry around. Froumeh shouted that I was spoiling the child and made a big fuss until the Maggid intervened and said that I was right. He stood up for me because he felt indebted to me. He never forgot his role in arranging my marriage. He said, “For me, there is no question: Gittel is right, she is always right. On no account I can come to her with complaints.”

  When he had gone, Froumeh said that the Rebbe was spoiling me just as I was spoiling the child. I did not know why exactly, but I knew that it was on account of Avraham that he always defended me.

  Rabbi Avraham’s shadow seemed to hang over me even when he was far away. And even after we returned to Mezeritch and the Maggid died, the shadow of my husband did not allow me to live my life.

  We went to Rovno to escape the armies of Napoleon as they were moving across Europe, and we returned to Mezeritch after a few years because the Maggid’s health had deteriorated. He said it was his wish to die in his old home, in Mezeritch. We returned as we had left, in carriages and wagons, but in complete silence and with no crowd to greet us.

  When we returned to Mezeritch, the broad expanses of the wet fields were spread out before me like a mantle. I gulped down the chilly air and was overwhelmed with bliss. I hugged Shalom, my son, and told him I had forgotten how much consolation there is in nature.

  And I went back to roaming about the fields, sometimes alone and sometimes with Shalom. He had begun to study Torah, but was not completely immersed in it like my firstborn. He still stayed close to me and would only leave me for short periods of time.

  The Rebbe also returned to his old room. His doctor lived with us now and took care of him constantly. The faithful Rabbi Feilet slept on the floor in front of his door, and liked to say that he relished the role of a worn-out doormat.

  Rivke’leh, a married woman now, cried a lot about not yet having a child. I asked the Maggid about it and he said her wish would be fulfilled after his death. And indeed, one year after he died, her first son was born and he was named Dov Ber after the Maggid. Rivke’leh compulsively examined his leg, fearing it might become paralyzed like the Maggid’s. By the time I left for Jerusalem, she already had two sons and one on the way. And every year, she would travel to the grave of the Rebbe and hear him telling her that her eldest would always be healthy.

  In the Maggid’s last days, Yisroel-Chaim returned home from the yeshiva where he was studying. He was thin and pale, and I devoted myself to making sure he ate. When the Maggid’s soul left his body, I was with my two boys in the dining room.

  We heard a loud scream. Yisroel-Chaim leapt from his chair and ran to the bedroom. When he came back, he said that Rabbi Feilet was shouting that the Rebbe was dead. I gathered my chicks to me and I did not know what to do. I shouted out Froumeh’s name and got no answer. I began to wail and little Shalom joined me.

  Then people started coming, more and more people. Rabbi Nachum’s flushed face, wet with tears, leaned over my sons. He whispered something to them and they followed him. I dragged myself to my room and lay on the bed, inundated with the voices of men reciting psalms for the dead. The following day, my husband arrived and seemed shrouded in darkness. He asked that the windows be closed and sat on the floor facing the wall.

  A large crowd assembled and filled the wooden stairs. We shut the doors and, behind them, we could hear restless noises. When the dead man was brought out, the crowd burst into a great moan. I saw my husband covering his face with his hands, and after that, everyone dispersed and the house emptied out.

  I went outside alone. I sat in the field waiting for the day to pass and sunset to come, but before the sun sank low, I went back inside to prepare the house for mourning. And I felt very sad to have missed the sunset that day.

  The Maggid died and I stayed in his house. We stayed, me and my two sons, and Rabbi Feilet, and Mistress Sarah, and, of course, Froumeh. Mistress Sarah’s mind was no longer clear. Froumeh kept her washed and fed while I supervised the kitchen.

  The Rebbe’s long-time students came to pray and to talk. My husband also sat with them, but he was silent the entire time and looked completely devastated. After a while, he again set out for Fastov, where he served as a rabbi.

  He would occasionally come back, but his absences grew longer and longer. I was married and yet I lived like a nun. My husband had no interest in our sons, but the Maggid’s students took them under their wing. Yisroel-Chaim did not return to the yeshiva. His body grew stronger and his cheeks ruddy.

  Rabbi Nachum, in particular, would visit us often. He was squat and rotund, with a pinkish face from which bristles of white hair stuck out like feathers. He talked a lot with my sons, in a loud voice and gesticulating, and when he spoke, his eyes would follow me.

  In our home, glances were the language beneath words. Rabbi Nachum talked to me in this language and I answered him in kind.

  At the end of the year of mourning, my husband asked me to come to live in Fastov, and I said no. Important people and dignitaries came to rebuke me for not following my husband, but I was firm in my resolve. I could not tell them that I was angry with my husband and that it was on account of this anger that I would not go to live in Fastov.

  Besides, I had grown to love the spacious wooden house with its windows that overlooked the fields, and I could feel the Rebbe’s spirit there. Sometimes, I even saw him as if he were alive.

  When he appeared before me, I told him what was in my heart. He would remain silent and look at me, and then I would know what I had to do. I talked with the rabbi’s spirit about Fastov, and as I was talking with him, it became clear to me that on no account would I go to my husband. I was too angry with him.

  Exactly one year after the death of the Maggid, six days before the first candle of Hanukkah, my own father, Meshulum Feivish, died.

  It was the depth of winter, and the roads were all covered with treacherous ice. The gloom of the forests held sway over the world and, with it, an immense quiet, broken only by the wind’s howling. It was in this dangerous quiet that I traveled to Kremnitz, to the home of my dead father.

  Here I was, parting from my children—my son Yisroel-Chaim, serious and obedient, holding Rabbi Feilet’s hand, and my younger son, Shalom, livid with anger, heartbroken, running after the wagon screaming. And on this journey, all alone, the quiet reminded me of my nuptial journey: my mother next to me, the scent of perfume, and the blue skies. Now in the opposite direction, my heart was as hard as a stone and I just could not cry.

  Once, my father was closer to me than anyone. Then, that fateful day, he’d hidden in his room with his holy texts, peering out the window as I was taken away, and I never saw him again. I opened Ecclesiastes and read aloud to myself, and the words accompanied me all the way back to my parents’ home.

  I did not cry even when we came into Kremnitz. And when I descended from the wagon I was alone. I raised my eyes to the window of his room and, for a moment, I saw his face, peering out at me as he did then. Again I was a girl, a stubborn, wise girl. My father taught me Torah, but he would have taught me more had I been a boy.

  When I went up to the veranda, Dasha came toward me, f
air and plump. A huge wave of smells engulfed me, and I buried my face inside her bosom with its coarse linen apron and, at long last, I wept.

  I never wept so much as during the days of mourning for my father. I wept for my childhood, for the fact that I was not a boy, for my early marriage, for a husband who was not and had never been with me, for the children I had left behind, for my brother who estranged himself from me after our failed journey to Jerusalem. I cried for my mother who still ruled the house with an iron hand, but looked older than I remembered and would speak of the same things again and again.

  My father, Meshulum Feivish, was a renowned Torah scholar, and so from far and wide people came to weep over the wisdom that was no longer. In my eyes, my father resembled the wise King Solomon, and like him, he sat and studied and saw and understood. And when he died, his death was like the death of a king.

  Next to the house, a large mourning tent was set up, and rabbis dressed in black delivered eulogies and spoke words of Torah. My brother Mote’leh also spoke, and I saw him the way he had been when the two of us went to Jerusalem and I could not stop crying.

  After the seven days of mourning, I found I could not leave. I had returned to my old home, to my father’s books, to the crowded kitchen with my mother and Dasha, and it was like returning from a long exile. At night, I slept next to my younger sisters, together with them in the soft, wide bed, and at dawn, I heard Dasha clucking to the fowl in the yard. Still in my nightgown, I would run outside; I could not help myself but ran to her, trembling with cold.

  My mother scolded me from the kitchen, “You’re still the wild creature you used to be,” and for a short while, I really did feel wild, with feathers and fur, and I forgot my children and my husband and the mourning that hung over the house.

  One day, a messenger came and said that my husband was waiting for me to return. Without wanting it, I returned. I loved the house in Mezeritch and I loved my children, but still I wept all the way back to them.