“Come now, Ossip, straighten up like a little man,” his father had said, teasing. The child had raised his limpid eyes, full of tears, and had frozen the smile on David’s face with his own expression of pain. “I can’t, Papa,” he murmured. The specialist the Gunzburgs called in declared that Mathilde’s sweet Ossip had Pott’s disease. A special crib was fashioned for him, and for three years he was not allowed to rise from it. Then, slowly, he was permitted to stand, but not to sit, and finally to sit for short periods of time. He had been late starting his lessons, but had quickly caught up with Anna, who was too occupied with pranks to apply herself.
Mathilde had left St. Petersburg with her children when Ossip had fallen ill, and she had been too shocked, heartsick, and weary to pay much attention at first to the second daughter who had been born only three months before. But then, traveling through Europe, resting at the homes of her mother, her cousins, and her friends, she had become numbed to the pain and the worry, and had awakened to the fact that her third child, Sofia Sara, was much worth considering. Sonia, as she was called, was tiny, well-formed, and gay. Not boisterous and spirited like Anna, but then again, not placid like Ossip. This baby gurgled and smiled and held out her rosy hands, and she seemed in perfect health. As she grew, people said that she was like a miniature of Mathilde, but her cheeks were pinker and her eyes a grayer shade. She followed Mathilde like a faithful puppy, and her mother would find her busily gathering breadcrumbs to the side of her plate, the way she herself did, unconsciously. Ossip was truly similar to Mathilde in his passive cynicism, but Sonia was serious-minded, with a studied calm. She enjoyed life, but thoughtfully, and tried to be brilliant like her father and feminine like her mother. Mathilde liked the presence of this child around her, and felt relief. Sonia, at least, would make the great marriage that Anna might never attain.
That summer, as Mathilde awaited the birth of her fourth child, she watched her children and was glad, for Ossip seemed healthier and Anna, for all her rebelliousness, was obviously a favorite among the inhabitants of Mohilna. Sonia scampered about, making Mathilde smile. Still, she was tired. It was time to seriously consider obtaining a governess for the children, someone educated to please David, yet someone who would teach Anna to be a lady. The present girl, now taking her vacation, had been too young, though she would last out this year. But this winter, in Paris, Mathilde would begin her search, for if the family was indeed to return to Petersburg, she did not want to do it without an appropriate Mademoiselle for her children. Titine, the old nurse, would naturally have charge of the new baby, as she had had of Ida’s nine and of Mathilde’s first three. She sighed, a languorous exhaling of breath, and knew that at least this part was settled. Titine was a family fixture, unlettered but sturdily competent.
She blamed her pregnancy as well as the oppressive heat and isolation of Mohilna for the one recurring thought that would awaken her at night, sending tremors up her spine. Ossip’s specialist, when he had first examined the boy, had said, “If he survives this attack, he will most probably suffer another one when he is twenty. Then, if he emerges once more, he will be struck again when he is forty-five. And then, my dear Baroness, his body will surely give up the good fight. But you must not take this prediction as the Lord’s word. In cases such as these, patterns exist, and they guide our prognosis. Yet patterns are not blueprints. Keep the boy out of any situation where he might be jostled or pushed, and he will be able to lead an almost normal existence.” Mathilde de Gunzburg said to herself: Do not be a fool. Ossip will not die, ever, and he shall not be sick again. And she upbraided herself for her emotions.
Toward the end of August, a woman arrived at Mohilna whom the children had not met before, and who filled them with excited wonder. She was middle-aged, with a plain, kind face, and her only attire consisted of a brown dress that hung in modest folds to her sturdy feet. Her name was Madame Gilina, and she took her meals neither with the family nor with the servants. Though they did not understand her presence, as the adults told them that it was not their business to know, the children liked her, for she spoke to everyone in her concerned voice and seemed equally at ease with their Papa as with their old nurse, Titine.
Anna and Sonia were not surprised when they entered their bedroom one evening and found Madame Gilina chatting amiably with the leathery, sinewy Célestine Varon. Titine, as always, was mending clothes, her bony fingers still agile. Madame Gilina was shaking her head and sighing, “Yes, they were being put out, and that house a mere hovel, no more.”
“What are you speaking of?” Anna asked abruptly, coming to the women.
Madame Gilina softly ran her fingers through the girl’s unruly hair, and said, “Never mind, Anna Davidovna, my dear.”
But Anna shook herself free, her brown eyes blazing. “Please, you must tell, especially if an injustice has been done! I need to know!”
Unnerved by Anna’s intensity, Madame Gilina said, “It was when I was being driven here from Uman. We passed a village—Rigevka?—and I saw a man and his servants putting a family out of their house. He was repeating over and over, ‘If you cannot meet the rent, you have no business occupying my property.’ But the father of the family, he looked so ill...” She wiped her eyes hastily on a sturdy white handkerchief.
Anna stood up, clenching her fists. “This story is as dreadful as what we learned about Count Tuminsky, when his man flogged me. If you are poor, you are a nobody, an absolute nothing! You can starve, and your body gets kicked aside! Oh, sometimes I wish that I were not a Gunzburg, that we did not possess Mohilna, or our fine carriages, and Mama’s elegant dresses. They make me feel—ashamed.”
“My little love, that is simply the way things are,” Madame Gilina murmured gently.
“And your blessed Papa gives work and homes to all of us,” Titine added reverently. “Oh, the Baron has never struck any of his people. But the Count, he has that reputation…” She motioned to Anna’s back.
Sonia, standing behind her sister, had been listening thoughtfully. Now she took Anna’s elbow and spoke softly. “Mama says that some people are born one way, and some another, and that one mustn’t question, for that is the world. If we did not have Papa’s money, then we would not be able to help the others.”
“That’s childish nonsense,” her sister replied. “Why should we help them? Why can’t they have enough money of their own to help themselves?”
“Mama says it is because we know what’s best, and can help better. Look at our Papa—he is brilliant. He can help anyone who needs it. But Mama also says that we must have all kinds of people in the world, so that all kinds of work can get done. Titine knows how to take care of us, and Eusebe carries the water, and Papa does things in the government. And the Tzar is the Father of Russia.”
Anna said roughly, “You are five years old, and you don’t know how to think. You don’t even understand any of this. But you do care about the family that was evicted, don’t you?”
Sonia nodded solemnly. “It is so cruel. We must tell Papa. He will make it better. But if you yourself changed places with the father that was so ill, that wouldn’t help anybody. Someone would still be without a home, just as your getting whipped didn’t help any peasant child at the Count’s.”
Madame Gilina exchanged a sharp glance with the old Breton nurse. She smiled suddenly at Sonia, and sighed. Titine, under her breath, said, “Blessed Virgin, he must be another poor Jew. It is usually so.”
Anna had already turned away, her mind aflame with plans to rescue the victims. But Sonia had heard Titine, and now her eyes grew larger. “But aren’t all good people Jews?” she asked.
Madame Gilina was amused. “Did someone tell you that, my dear?”
“Well, the Bible says we are the chosen people. Surely all of us are chosen, aren’t we?” Sonia was suddenly worried.
“It would be wise to ask your father, Sofia Davidovna,” Madame Gilina said.
The next morning at breakfast, Sonia therefore took th
e problem to David. “Papa, I thought all good people, who believed in God, were Jews, like us,” she began.
Her father put aside his jam and crumpet, and leaned forward. “And so we have come to that. No, Sonia, all the world is not Jewish. You see, the Jews came first. But there were other people who believed in God, only they chose to worship Him in different ways. Not better, not worse— simply different. God loves all who worship Him.”
The older children already knew this, of course, but Ossip asked, “Then why is it important to light the candles on Friday? What does it matter, since God loves Titine just as much as us, and she eats fish on Fridays to make Him happy? You don’t think Titine is any worse than we, yet you don’t follow her rules. Why don’t we all simply stop doing all these things and just believe?”
Mathilde, at the head of the table facing David, brought her fine linen napkin to her mouth to conceal a smile.
But David was not amused. “What you say makes sense,” he said to Ossip. “Religions were built to strengthen faiths, however. You see, if my life is miserable, if I feel alone, merely thinking of God is sometimes not sufficient. Sometimes I need a ritual, something I do by habit, to make me realize how important my God is in my everyday existence. I feel good when Mama lights the candles. Titine feels pure when she does not eat meat on Friday. The Gunzburgs have always been Jews. We react to our traditions from our hearts. But that does not mean that God prefers our ways, necessarily.”
Sonia said, “Titine was talking to Madame Gilina about the father of a family which was thrown out of their home because they had no money for the rent, and then she said that he was probably a Jew. Why did she say that, Papa?”
David’s heart contracted, and he gazed with deep affection at his small daughter. “Because, my sweet, most people, especially here in Russia, are not Jewish. And to those who do not worship as we do, and who are not kind and intelligent people, something different means something bad. Many people think the Jews are bad, and so they hurt them.”
“That is like the Jews of the Bible,” Sonia said. Then she sat up brightly. “But why are we not being hurt?”
David sighed. “Because we have enough money to prevent hurt.” For an instant his pale blue eyes flickered, and caught his wife’s piercing sapphire ones. The memory of Anna’s back loomed between them. “But it is our duty to help the Jews who have no money. Otherwise, people will keep on hurting them.”
Mathilde was eating quietly. She was thinking of the double taxes, of the bribes to the police in St. Petersburg, and she murmured within: The wages of sin is death, but the wages of a Jew are measured in gold. She thought of the quotas, and wondered if even gold could stretch them. David was the first Jew to have been admitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and only because, in all the land, he alone could speak so many languages. There was another measure, then: intelligence. She was glad for her son, who was so sharp and who studied well. Had he been more like Anna, who never opened a book unless compelled to, no university would admit him when the time came. No, gold and brains worked in tandem, and without both, a Jew was lost indeed…
David was announcing, “I think it is time you children saw Hashchévato. We shall drive there this afternoon.”
Mathilde parted her lips to cry out against her husband’s plan to go to the shtetl; to ask at least that Ossip, whose back was so fragile, might be spared the long ride which she remembered with quiet tremors. But an abrupt thought struck her before she could utter a word. She looked at Ossip’s fine white profile, at Sonia’s tiny, well-formed hands, at the contained energy that had brought fine coral hues to Anna’s cheeks. Oh, my darlings, you will suffer, she said to them mutely. You will suffer, in spite of your status, your title, your intelligence. And there is no escape, for Gunzburgs do not escape from their duty. Mathilde knew that all too well. Gunzburgs do not choose, they accept with dignity. So go, go with your father, so that you will not be surprised when the pain comes to your own lives later. She rose, and with unusual swiftness for her condition, she left the room.
That afternoon, Ossip was strapped into a special back brace, and the three children and David were settled into the Gunzburg victoria. Sonia burned with curiosity. What was this Hashchévato that had made Mama turn so pale, that had shot pain into Papa’s intense face? But she asked no questions. Anna had asked about Madame Gilina, and had been rebuked for her unseemly curiosity. So she sat quietly, gazing out the window at the immensity of Mohilna, her heart filling with joy when fields of fuchsia-colored flowers burst into view, when gold and orange butterflies rose in swoops above the wheat, and when the sun darted in and out of lamblike cloud formations.
After a drive of several hours, they left Mohilna behind them and entered county property. It was there, Papa explained, that Hashchévato was located. An old statute had forbidden the inhabitants of that village to extend their boundaries to accommodate increases in their population. As the victoria approached, Sonia saw a jagged cluster of houses, one-room shacks made of rough planks. Then the road ended, and was replaced by dirt. The carriage slowed, and now the children could see the village. The shacks were low and gray and sagging, huddled like cramped crates in an attic. But what struck Sonia most of all was the crowd. It seemed as though every inch of space was taken up by people—ragged people, screaming people, women with torn shawls and puling babies, bent old men with yarmulkes worn to shreds. She held her breath, shivers shaking her small frame, horror assailing her. It was as though all the tramps she had ever seen in the gutters of Paris had suddenly converged upon this miserable village.
The coachman stopped the victoria and she felt the door being pulled open. She heard, “Baron! Baron!” as Papa descended, and then someone lifted her from her seat and into the commotion. She was being passed like a small bundle from one pair of hands to another. Finally, a strong man heaved her up on his shoulders, and she felt the stench of pickles and garlic from his breath, the sour odor of poverty around her. The coachman, she saw, had kept frail Ossip beside him, and had lifted him to his own seat. Anna was somewhere in the air, as Sonia herself was, on another man’s shoulders. Sonia was filled with wild terror. This multitude of evil-smelling, ill-clad people descending on Papa was beyond her comprehension. Then she caught sight of Anna’s face, and saw the tears in her eyes, and how Anna was bending down to hear what was being said. Surely Anna did not understand, for these people spoke a strange dialect, but Anna was nodding, and Sonia saw her stroke the top of a baby’s head. Sonia’s fear melted then. Her sister had made friends among these people. Now, to her, they appeared no more harmful than the kindly servants Anna had befriended in the kitchens of Mohilna.
At long last she was placed on the ground, and found Papa and Anna beside her. Papa spoke to the people in their dialect, and then, to his daughters, explained that they spoke Yiddish, the only tongue that their own great-grandmother, Rosa Dynin, had ever learned to speak. He took his daughters’ hands and led them into a small shop, where he purchased some greasy cakes, then into another where he bought thread, and down the entire length of the dirt highway, not bypassing a single store. When he was finished, he stood still, and now a wailing arose around him, which he stilled with his hand. He pointed to a thin man holding onto the tails of his baronial waistcoat. At once the man began to plead, bowing to David many times. David handed him a purse, and the man released David’s coat and, still bowing, backed off into the crowd. “He needed ten rubles for his daughter’s dowry,” Papa told the girls. In the space of ten minutes, Papa had handed many purses and coins to the people surrounding him. Then, deftly, he removed from his coat pocket a sack of rock candies he had purchased only moments before, and distributed the sweets to the children. When the sack was empty, he walked back to the victoria. The coachman helped Ossip inside after his sisters, the door was closed, and the Gunzburgs turned back toward Mohilna.
For a long time the only sound came from the hooves of the horses. Then, her throat throbbing, Sonia said, “Oh, th
e poor Jews! To suffer so because they are the chosen people!”
Ossip said nothing, but his eyes, bright blue, rested with brief compassion upon his small sister. Anna cried out, “No! It is not because of that! It is because they are poor! They need money from us to live, if they can survive in those horrid houses.” She burst into nervous tears. “Jews, or Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic! What does it matter? We are rich, and they are poor, and that is why they are reduced to needing our few rubles.” Then, to her father: “How large is my dowry going to be, Papa?”
But Sonia exclaimed in shock: “Annushka! You know that we must never ask such questions! Papa will not answer you, he will punish you!” She gazed beseechingly at her older sister, who had trespassed into the world of grown-ups.
Anna said resentfully, “Well, then, never mind, Papa. I am old enough to know a dowry for us would be hundreds of thousands of rubles. And that man was happy to have ten, for his own daughter!”
David was very grave. At length he spoke. “You are not entirely wrong, Anna. Of course we must help all poor people. But you see, there are so many wealthy Russians, and so few of them are Jews. That means that we must give first to those who are most frequently ignored. Do you understand?”
Anna said, “A poor man is a poor man. I still think you must help whichever poor man happens to be near you when your purse has money in it—even if I am still a child,” she added petulantly.
But Sonia, her pure voice rising like the trill of a bird, said, “Yes, Papa, I understand. I shall do as you do when I am a lady, and have money of my own.”
The Four Winds of Heaven Page 4