Esfir Is Alive

by Andrea Simon

  “What happened?” she asked. “Oh my God, you have blood on your face, Ida.”

  “These boys threw rocks at us in the park,” I said, the hysteria building up. Before long, I was crying for real.

  Perl opened the door and screamed, “Do not come here again, do you hear?”

  “Did you see them?” Rachel asked Perl.

  “Yes, I caught sight of them rushing down the street. I think they are the same boys that came to the house, to see you.”

  “And why would they do that, Rachel? How do you know them?” Ida asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Rachel said. “I once met them with my father at the train station and saw them hanging around the neighborhood. They wanted to speak to my father about a job.”

  Meanwhile, Perl brought a wet rag and was dabbing at Ida’s cheek. Ida winced and held the rag tightly against her face.

  “Rachel,” Perl asked, “I will ask you this once and one time only. What do you have to do with these boys?”

  “Nothing, I swear. I had no idea they could be so brutal.”

  “So you had something to do with them?

  “No, no, as I said, I only met them one time. I am so sorry about what happened.”

  “Rachel,” Perl said, her voice even and strong, “if I hear that you were involved with these boys and what they did, you will leave this house. Is this clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Epstein.”

  Rachel gave Perl a head bow and backed away in little steps, inching toward the stairs, which she climbed on tiptoes. I heard her door slam, and it sounded like she was throwing something around her room. Ida later described Rachel as acting like a Japanese Geisha, whatever that was.

  “That girl is trouble,” Perl said. “Keep your eyes open around her.”

  I didn’t know if Perl was talking to me or to Ida, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t telling us anything we didn’t know. But one thing was clear: Rachel’s jealously was now making its way out of Perl’s house.

  “What did they mean about us going to the monkeys?” I asked, determined to change the subject.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ida said.

  But Perl didn’t let it go and wanted an explanation, too.

  Finally, Ida said, “You know that the Polish government is looking into using an African place to send the Jews.”

  “You mean Madagascar?” Perl asked.

  “Yes,” Ida said.

  “Where is that?” I asked.

  “It’s an island off the southeastern coast of Africa, a French colony.”

  “Is Africa where they have the monkeys?”

  “Yes, only in Madagascar they have funny animals called lemurs. There is one kind with a long black-and-white ringed tail. We saw pictures of them in school,” Ida explained. “They dance and jump very high, from tree to tree.”

  “Do they look like monkeys?” I asked.

  “Well they have fox-like faces and are like huge rodents.”

  “Why should Jews go to this lemur place?”

  “So we should be very, very far away.”

  Silently, we took off our coats and went into the dining room. I was shivering. As Perl attended to Ida’s wound with brown medicine, I kept envisioning all the Jews I knew, locked in cages, surrounded by giant screaming, leaping rats. Even if I had to creep out of the house in darkness and walk, I was more determined to go to Kobrin that night and warn my family not to go to this terrible place in Africa no matter what the government ordered.

  AFTER DINNER, THERE was another knock on the door. Luckily, this time, we heard a familiar voice outside and it was a woman Perl knew. She said that Perl’s aunt in Kobrin sent word to her big-mouthed half-cousin in Brest, who told this woman at the marketplace, that “Avrum was well enough to make Sheyne crazy from being under her feet.”

  This was just an expression but I had a laugh thinking of my mother digging her calloused big toes into my father’s lumpy back. This half-cousin was a source of much family criticism so I didn’t know if I should believe her version. I still couldn’t understand why we hadn’t received a telegram, but Perl seemed satisfied with this news and told me that I was worse than an old lady with my worrying, and that she knew things were okay. I began to breathe a little more easily about my father. Bad gossip made me feel like maybe things were back to normal.

  The next day after school, Ida decided that I was ready to return to my Hebrew studies. But nothing and nobody—even Ida—could get me to that park again.

  “I know what,” Ida said. “Sit by me and we will have a little fun.” She pulled a chair next to hers and wrapped a wool shawl around my shoulders. “Why don’t we call this Story Time, and I will begin with one. It could be a true story or a made-up one, or a combination. I’ll sprinkle a few Hebrew words now and then so you can learn them within the story. When it’s over, we can take a little break, have tea, and then it will be your turn. I’ll interrupt you occasionally and point out a Hebrew translation. What do you say?”

  Only two days before, I would have said, “Yes, yes, yes. Ida, I’d love to hear your stories.” But how could I tell her now that despite Perl’s reassurances, all I could think about was my father? I should be by his side. Maybe he was the one who needed a glass of tea. Maybe my mother had to help in his watch-making business. Maybe my sisters and brother were too busy with school and other activities. And maybe, my father had no one there and was angry at me for deserting him.

  I could get his book. I could bring him his eyeglasses. I could even read a story or two from my own books even if they were baby stories to him. I could sing Yiddish songs; I knew the ones he liked. Recently he had heard at a Yiddish Theater concert, “Belz, Mayn Shtetele Belz,” about missing a childhood town. He shed tears when they sang it, my mother had said. But I didn’t tell Ida any of this because something inside me knew that if I was near my father now, I’d be the last person he’d want with him.

  It got worse for me because Ida began Story Time by relating about when she and her father had to go to the town of Visoke, about seven miles from Volchin, to deliver two bikes to a factory. “As we got into the wagon,” she said, “our horse started to neigh and jump. The sky was getting dark as it is turning now, and you could see storm clouds.” Ida stopped the story to tell me that the Hebrew word for storm was seara and rain was geshem.

  “Then,” Ida continued, “my father put a tarp over the bikes and my mother Bashke handed me an umbrella. After going a few feet, the sky burst open and huge hail balls came flying down.” This was the first time I learned the Hebrew word for hail, barad.

  “I was about your age then, Esfir,” she said. “My mother wanted us to wait out the storm. But my father didn’t want to disappoint his customer. Suddenly he jumped off the wagon and went into the shed while I ran inside the house—the bayit.”

  It was hard for me to focus on Ida’s words. I tried to picture the last time I was on my father’s wagon; my sister Rivke and I had been helping him unload sacks of scrap metal and old tools. “Take the smaller ones,” he had said, “and make sure you don’t drop anything.” As soon as my father said that, the sack slipped from my hands, and I dove into the dirt and picked up a few pieces of bent metal. “I’m so sorry,” I had said, but my father pushed me aside, mumbling, “clumsy girl.”

  “Esfir, are you listening?”

  “Yes, Ida, please continue.”

  “After a while,” she said, “my father knocked on the door and presented his creation: it was a carton, maybe half the size of my body. He had made two holes and screwed a small glass jar into each hole. This was for my eyes. He gouged a large hole for my nose and mouth, and sliced slits for my ears. To top it off, he nailed a rubber hose to the back, pinning each end so that it formed an arc. For effect, he hung the umbrella from the hose.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said.

  “And so, we went to Visoke,” Ida continued, her voice rushing now, “me with my helmet, hearing the hail pounding my cardboard-
covered head. I must have been some sight, like out of a Jules Verne underwater story, but Esfir, I didn’t care what I looked like.”

  I pretended to know who Jules Verne was, and I forced out laughs not to insult Ida. It was a funny story, but to me, it was an arrow through my heart. Finally, when I didn’t say anything more, Ida said, “Esfir, is there something about my story you didn’t like?”

  I couldn’t hold it in anymore and blurted, “Ida, you are so lucky.”

  “Why, Esfir?”

  “Because your father loves you so.”

  “I’m sure your father loves you, too, Esfir. Just because he sent you to Perl doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you home.”

  This was not what I had meant, but I was too embarrassed to confess to Ida that being at Perl’s wasn’t the problem. In all my life, I couldn’t think of one good experience with my father that I could tell Ida when it was my turn for Story Time. And now with this heart-attack business, maybe I’d never get the chance

  Five

  AT THE TARBUT Gymnasium, Ida discovered that there was another man who could inspire her. All the girls had a crush on Mendel Feigen, a soft-spoken man in his twenties, who taught natural science. Ida was very specific about his distinguished facial marks: “Matching fingerprint-size cheek dimples, a triangular chin cleft so deep it was more of a gouge, and two temple-to-temple forehead lines, sweeping chevrons activated by raised eyebrows.”

  Surely, the girls were taken by these unique indentations, but they basically liked him, she explained, “because he was the only male teacher who talked to us in the school halls, not in a flirtatious way, but in a way that said, ‘Hello, you are interesting and I wish I could get to know you.’ ”

  The night of my first Story Time, Freyde came into our room.

  “Can I borrow your history book?” she asked Ida.

  “Sure, but I need it later.”

  “Oh, Ida, I forgot to tell you something about my brother Yossel.” Freyde’s voice lowered and even I suspected that the only thing she had forgotten was that her cheek was smeared with jam.

  “What about Yossel?”

  “I saw him after school. He mentioned that he had spent a recent evening with Mr. Feigen at a political rally.”

  Freyde must have also “mentioned” this news to the other girls because soon they crammed into our room, squeezing onto our beds.

  Fanny, one of the twins, asked, “Do you know where Mr. Feigen lives?” After Fredye shook her head, Fanny said, “Maybe near the Fortress? Remember when he took our class there, he seemed to know the neighborhood well?”

  Her sister Liba seemed more interested in Yossel’s activities, questioning Freyde about the location of her older brother’s rooming house. Then she asked what was on everyone’s mind: “Ask Yossel if Mr. Feigen is married. He doesn’t wear a ring. But that doesn’t always mean something.”

  “I’d like to know if he attends a synagogue,” Rachel said in an accusing tone.

  “Of course he must,” Fanny said, her head darting from girl to girl, trying to make peace.

  “Why? Many of the teachers are against religion.” Rachel, of course, knew everything about everyone.

  Strangely, Ida was silent.

  Freyde was overwhelmed by all the questions and wrote them down in a notebook, promising she would ask her brother. “But,” she said, “I want to do it in a natural-like conversation, otherwise Yossel will become protective—like boys can get—and not reveal anything.”

  After the girls left our room, Ida said, “Esfir, this is the best lesson for you.”

  “Are we having another Story Time?” I asked.

  “No, Esfir. I just want you should know that there’s a time to ask questions and a time to keep your mouth shut.”

  Sometimes Ida talked in riddles. I didn’t want her to think me stupid again, so I smiled.

  “When you show others how much you are interested in something or someone,” she said, “suddenly that thing or person becomes more interesting to everyone. People want to know all kinds of things, even too personal. They don’t care if that person may be offended by such interest.”

  “But how can I know the difference between good questions and bad ones?” At this point I was so confused. The other day, Ida was asking Freyde about Mr. Feigen’s talk at some important meeting. And now, she acted like she didn’t want to learn anything about him.

  “You don’t have to know this now,” she said. “You’ll understand the difference when you get older.”

  Everybody always said that to me. Would the knowledge of what to say and do come to me in a flash? Would I gather a little each day until it formed a set of rules I could follow? Or would I go through the rest of my life listening to others, scrutinizing them to see how I should be acting?

  The next day, Freyde came home from school and announced her findings in the dining room where the other girls were doing homework at the table: “Yossel says Mr. Feigen lives with his elderly parents on Bialostocka Street near the Jewish Hospital. He is not, I repeat, not married; and he is a Zionist big shot. He plans to actually go to Palestine—to join his older brother who lives in a kibbutz. And get this:he is very interested in girls. I mean in what women think. Many girls come to these meetings, too.”

  “They do?” Fanny asked.

  “I heard someone in school say he was a Bundist,” Ida said.

  “What’s that?” I asked, risking laughter. It sounded like a terrible disease.

  “It’s a group that represents the Jewish workers’ union. Bundists believe that Jews should make conditions better where they live now.”

  “Maybe he’s changed his mind,” Rachel said. “You know you can believe in the rights of workers here and a better life for them somewhere else.”

  Rachel was always happy to point out that Ida didn’t get it right. Besides, Rachel’s father belonged to another group called the Right Poale Zion, which she said was “a moderate Socialist-Democratic party that supported the modern Hebrew movement.” There were so many words, I wrote them down to ask Ida to explain them later.

  Meanwhile, I was lost. Should Jews make a life in another place altogether? Did they have those crazy lemurs in Palestine? Shouldn’t we stay where we knew how to find everything? Should we speak Yiddish or Hebrew? There seemed to be so many views, so many groups, so many possible ways of life. Maybe for a Jewish person, this was not unusual. My aunt Perl said, in her own version of a popular saying, that in a roomful of a hundred Jews at a bar mitzvah, you’d get a hundred-and-one different toasts to the boy’s family.

  “Yes,” Freyde said, “there’s so much political fighting. But these meetings that Mr. Feigen attends are about serious changes in society.”

  “You mean like Karl Marx, revolutionary?” Ida’s voice was breathless and she quickly turned her head as if she was expecting a policeman to arrest her.

  “Well, that would be part of the Bundist ideals, but Mr. Feigen doesn’t follow Russian doctrine. He’s part of the Revisionist Zionist movement, which prepares people for life in Palestine.”

  “How?”

  “I think they organize kibbutzim—you know collective settlements—in Poland.”

  I didn’t know what Freyde was talking about but I was impressed anyhow. She knew a lot of big words that got instant attention.

  “And you know,” Freyde continued, “he believes in Hebrew as our national language. He has certainly corrected enough of our Hebrew at school.”

  Ida nodded, probably unable to admit to such a total immersion. Even though most of the students who attended the Tarbut came from secular Socialist families, we didn’t know anyone who actually did anything more than talk, not like Mr. Feigen’s brother, Freyde said, who gave up a doctor’s career to toil on arid land in Palestine.

  “Can we go to a meeting?” Ida pleaded. “I mean can you ask Yossel?”

  “I already did.” Freyde waved a piece of paper. “I have the date and time.”

  Ida jumped off
her chair and hugged Freyde. “You’re wonderful,” she cried. “When are we going?”

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, I stopped thinking about my father. Catching Ida’s enthusiasm, I begged Aunt Perl to let me go to the meeting with the girls. She said “absolutely not” more than once. When I showed her the flyer and she read that the topic of discussion was the founding of the Revisionist Zionist movement started by Vladimir Jabotinsky, Perl’s soft brown eyes lit up like a lantern wick.

  “Oh, Esfir, Jabotinsky,” she said, crooning. “Years ago I went to one of his lectures. What a voice, like velvet! And what passion! We were all transported. He gave us what we hadn’t had before—pride in our own people and hope for the future.”

  I had never heard my aunt talk like this. To me, she was a plump, good-natured, graying woman—a balaboste, the number-one homemaker in my family, even if she no longer had a husband.

  Perl could spend hours talking about material for curtains or argue about the ingredients of borscht. I loved to snuggle against her as she exaggerated funny family stories or read from the big color picture book of bible tales. But I couldn’t imagine that she had such worldly ideas.

  Although she had read many articles and speeches about Zionism, Perl said Jabotinsky had kindled a fire under her to do more than talk. “If it wasn’t for my husband and his obligations to his aging parents, I would have gathered my gardening tools and made the pilgrimage to Palestine, right then and there.”

  Perl was dying to go to the meeting, too. But if she went it would mean no one would be in the house except me and Mr. Kozak. Not that Perl didn’t trust him, but it didn’t look nice to leave a young girl with a man alone.

  So Perl compromised. “Esfir, you’ll come with me and the girls. I will only stay for a little while, maybe thirty minutes. Then I will grab your hand and you won’t say a thing. Do you understand?”

  Do I understand? To be able to go, I would have agreed to silence for a year.