“Oh, Hodel,” he said, voice flooded with love. “We cannot be stopped.”
“Your revolution?” she cried.
“No,” he said. “You and I.”
She walked home in silence.
Hodel leaned against the window, gazing out at the horizon. It was very early morning—the late-autumn sun was slowly climbing over the rugged beams along the roof of the barn and tumbling across the house, cascading through the windows and into the kitchen. The dark orange light glowed on the infantry of last night’s pots, which had been filed in neat rows along the warmer of the earthen stove to dry. It was a cozy and pleasant kitchen worn into comfort by generations of women. Like her mother and sisters. Like her. As the dawn crept on, noises emerged from the outside. The milk cows groaned. Chickens cackled. The heavy-eyed horse snorted sleepily in his stall, and their always-tardy rooster crowed even though the sun had long ago arrived. Hodel had been awake all night.
She stared at the letter in her hands, and a sense of excitement blazed within her.
The day before, Tzeitel had hurried up the road, her heavily pregnant body gasping for breath as she ran up to the house and delivered the letter directly. Her strong, familiar arms clutched Hodel fiercely as they read and reread the message together:
30 October 1905
Hodel,
There has been in a violent pogrom in the city of Kiev. A city hall meeting collapsed and a mob filled the streets. The perpetrators claim that Russias troubles all stem from the machinations of Jews and Socialists. There was wild looting, rape, killing-all directed at the homes, factories, shops, and persons of the Jews. Approximately one hundred were massacred. Serious injury done to at least three hundred more.
This is what we spoke of, Hodel. The events building up to this included what happened at Tzeitels wedding-a wave of anti-Jewish demonstrations across southern Russia. Not only here but in Elizabethgrad, Shpola, Ananyw, Wasilkov, Konotop. They are being followed by massive deportations of the Jews from their villages. Be careful. Warn your family. These demonstrations and relocations are premeditated. Everywhere, there is hatred.
Of course, I could not remain silent. I have been arrested and will be sent to a prison in Omsk until further notice. I am sorry, Hodel. Despite this setback and these hardships, I still believe I am participating in the greatest work a man can do. The work of freedom.
Burn this. Do not wait for me. I love you.
Perchik.
Hodel froze.
She knew this moment’s decision was the pivot of her life’s path. This or that. Yes or no. In Anatevka, decisions were often made for her, deference a virtue. She had been taught to see the world in the prescribed ways of her people—ways she deeply valued and respected, ways she felt had always served her.
She prayed for guidance. But today, in the silence of her invocation, the voice she heard responding did not belong to her father, to the rabbi, or even to God Himself. This voice did not lecture, explain, or even elaborate. This voice was clear and calm and certain. It was intuition.
This voice was her own.
The choice was simple. She loved Perchik so deeply in her tissue, bones, and flesh that her thinking mind could not comprehend it. She felt it acutely. It was lightning. It was tremor. Perhaps belief in her purpose was a new kind of faith.
She would go to him. She had to. She would leave all she knew and had ever known and loved in this world behind her. She would find him. Go to him. Even if it meant she perished in the process.
Hodel stood now before the collection of men, drenched in chains.
A stack of papers before the Chief Commander looked as crisp as he. Hodel could feel the contempt buried deep within him. She thought she would be glad to leave a world filled with people like this.
“Really, girl,” the Chief Commander said, in a voice dripping with disdain. “Really, it is to be admired. Your simplicity.”
She grimaced inwardly at the insult, but denied herself the reaction she knew he desired.
“The tsar fears your people contemplate some kind of uprising,” he continued.
She remained perfectly still.
“For the sake of God, put such thoughts out of your mind. Many of your comrades have tried; all have failed. Your movements have been watched, your actions and even thoughts tracked on every side. None have been able to escape the misery.” She watched a vein in his neck beat silently. “I can only assume you are acting on behalf of your sweetheart, this”—he tossed a glance across the papers—“Perchik Tsele-novich, is it? Now, whatever could Perchik have done to incur so harsh a watch upon himself?” He glanced up at her. “Or perhaps he was simply caught? Disgraceful, really, the carelessness.” The Chief Commander rolled his eyes. “Revolutionaries . . . good God. Join a youth group.”
He leaned back in his chair and stretched for a moment. “Dobro-vol’nye. Do you know that word in Russian, girl? It means ‘voluntary.’ It is the word we use for those who accompany or follow their men into exile. The dobrovol’nye are the unfortunate idiots who voluntarily choose to march thousands of kilometers into frozen hinterlands to share in a criminal’s hardship. I believe someone here falls into that category, do they not?”
The Chief Commander continued, “Your situation is complicated by the fact that you are not legally married to your criminal, and therefore we have had the most difficult time deciding what to do with you. As a legal wife, you would have been sent immediately to join your husband. But without a marriage license for your union, you are simply revolutionary fodder. So. Do we keep you here for our amusement? Perhaps we send you off to Irkutsk to become a Siberian baby factory? Or do we kill you for treachery? Or deem you innocuous and simply allow you to join your Socialist beau? Ah. Decisions. Your little boyfriend has been impressively weasel-like in his political life that we’ve had to keep an exceptionally close eye on him and upon those he has feelings for. You realize of course that you have had a terrorist in your bed, my dear, yes? Or”—he smiled—“has he not yet had that pleasure?”
She ground her teeth so ferociously that she thought they would crumble to dust. Yet Hodel remained rooted, her upright posture almost statuesque.
“What have you to say, girl?” the Chief Commander bit. “Just silence? Well, then. I must withdraw any influence of clemency that might have mollified my judgment. I sentence you to eight years labor in the Irkutsk katorga in whichever capacity the authorities there see fit.”
All she could think was that her journey could not end like this.
“You do realize,” he snarled, “you are going to die out there, my dear?”
What happened next shocked them all: from the depths of herself came a laugh—one that seemed ancient in its bitterness. The sound astonished her as much as the sensation, and when at last she quelled it, she spoke.
“Well,” she said with a light laugh, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I’m not dead yet.”
fifteen
TYGRYSEK! CALLED THE NOW FAMILIAR VOICE OF THE JAILER. “Tygrysek, you must wake.”
She lifted herself from the ground of this new solitary cell, which was even smaller and more miserable than the one she had occupied before. Her head was pounding, and her eyes were cloudy; she lifted her hands to her eyes to stop their incessant throbbing. Her stomach raged from within her as she began to move. She sensed she had been lying dormant for a long while.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked the jailer.
“Few days,” he said.
She noticed then that he was eating a slice of something on a tiny tin plate. Hodel felt her mouth fill with saliva as her stomach churned with want, and she could not help but stare.
“Why have you not woken me for meals?” she asked, her voice slightly desperate.
“We have been fasting, Tygrysek.”
“Fasting?”
“Why, Christ is born. It is now Epiphany.”
“Epiphany?” she repeated, stunned. It cannot be, she thought to he
rself. It meant that well over a year had passed since she had come to this place.
“The other guards are marking the baptism of Christ—priests are performing the Great Blessing of Waters.”
Hodel remembered the Christians who resided beyond their shtetl boundaries engaging in this water ritual. Apparently, all over the country, people spent Epiphany cutting holes in the shape of the cross in the ice of lakes and rivers then dipping themselves three times in the freezing water to honor the Holy Trinity. Whether to symbolically wash away their sins or to experience a sense of spiritual rebirth, she did not know or understand.
“Back in Poland we call it Trzech Kroli—Three Kings’ Day,” he said. He brushed off the crumbs that had gathered on his shirt and trousers. “Huge parades are held.” He wiped the corners of his mouth with his sleeve. He must have caught Hodel’s hungry glare upon him, for he paused, taking a moment to swallow properly.
“Polish-style Three Kings’ cake,” he said, gesturing to the now clean plate. “Made with a coin baked inside. The one who gets it is king or queen for the day. They will be lucky in the coming year. Some lady in the village makes Polish pastries if you request. She’s taken a terrible fancy to one of the guards. Delivered it yesterday. Stale.” He shrugged and placed the tin plate at her feet. “Anyway, farewell. Tomorrow you are to be taken to Irkutsk. I wish you health.” He licked his fingers and stood staring at her. They both knew full well that this was to be the last they ever saw of each other. “As they say in the homeland, Tygrysek: szczesliwego nowego roku—happy New Year.”
Hodel looked down at the empty tin plate. Settled among the flakes and crumbs lay the coin.
What luck.
sixteen
HODEL HEARD SOMEONE APPROACH. A PAIR OF FOOTSTEPS STOPPED before the bars. She lifted her head to see to whom the feet belonged.
“Hello,” said the man, his voice so gentle, it was almost hair-raising in a place such as this.
Before her was not a new figure but a man she had seen once before: it was the bulbous man with piercing blue eyes from the Commission of Inquiry and Deportation so quietly present at her sentencing.
This very large man looked upon her, the hint of feeling emitting from him strange after all the severity she had endured. Kindness, it seemed, was a language spoken long ago, but now unpracticed, nearly forgotten. A ring of what must have been hundreds of keys was clasped in the fat bulges of his hands. Smiling, he plucked the correct key from the ring and unlocked the cell. He slid the gate open with a single lurch of his tremendous arm, his movements clumsy, though not completely without grace.
“Come with me.”
She hesitated but obeyed. The man smiled again and led her through the ghostly rows of solitary cells, shafts of moonlight slashing their path as they made their way down to the end of the long corridor, the ring of keys still clasped tightly in his hand. When they reached the end, he turned the corner and gestured an after you before the entrance to a set of steps. She climbed stair after painful stair toward a light coming from above.
The room at the top of the tower was fashioned to serve as a kind of office. The man coughed hard as he caught his breath, and she looked about, noting the fineness of the large wooden desk, the ornate clock upon the wall with a slouched, woeful wallpaper stained with yellowing watermarks. The clock emitted a sonorous tick that disquieted her even more than the horrible howling of the wind, which was rattling the window. The man walked toward the window and gazed down at a sight below them. She made her way to join him and saw, through curtains of churning snow, a cluster of men.
Prisoners: plodding methodically in a circle, each man following the footsteps of the man preceding him. Their faces cast down, they appeared to move as one cog in a far larger universal machination. She moved her eyes from the men below to the man beside her: he was gazing at the prisoners with a kind of reverence.
“How solemnly they march,” he said.
“For how long must they circle in that way?”
“For a quarter of an hour, after which time they change directions. If the weather is poor, then they go without the exercise,” he replied, eyes fixed upon the sight beneath. “Those are very bad days.”
They stood in silence for a long while. Then suddenly, he spoke. “What is your name, my dear?”
“My name, sir?” She was certain he must know the answer.
He nodded. No one had asked for her name in all the time she had been here. She wondered if she even remembered it.
“Hodel,” she replied, startled by its simplicity.
“Hodel,” he repeated, his gaze still locked upon the prisoners. “Yiddish.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hodel: from Hode. A derivative of Hadassah. Meaning ‘the myrtle tree.’” His face was flushed. The exertion of the climb had caused him to overheat inside his thick uniform, which, despite this, he wore very well. A gold medallion pinned to his jacket indicated his rank and position.
The man turned to look at her. His face was wide and pocked and buttery, his piercing blue eyes filled with the first true expression of regard she had met since her time here began. His face revealed an understanding, a look that recognized without pity that she was still a very young girl.
“You really know nothing of politics, do you, my dear?”
She shook her head. The rush of deliverance that came over her at this was euphoric.
“I thought not, Hodel. It is evident.”
To be believed! To feel some semblance of sanity in this belief. She felt her eyes prick with tears of enormous relief; she nearly wrapped her arms around him.
“Do you know who I am, Hodel?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“I am a gentleman.” His voice had an unaffected ease.
A gentleman? Now that she could truly gaze upon him, she noted that everything about his temperament, grooming, and manner appeared to be nothing short of exact; a clear manifestation of not only his upbringing but also his will.
“I govern a camp much farther east of here. Our post specializes in silver and salt mining. It is located in the village of Nerchinsk.”
Nerchinsk. The camp where Perchik was! Oh, sweet Nerchinsk! The paper she had discovered said that he was there, and thus the word itself made her churn. Nerchinsk—this simplest of utterances—inspired in her such a feeling of yearning that all she could say was: “I have heard of it, sir.”
At this, The Gentleman clasped his hands behind his back and made a clean quarter turn toward her. “I have a daughter, you know. About your age, so I do understand. I can see through a young woman— whether her motives are tarnished or clean. I see purity in you.” He planted his feet in a tidy parallel. His boots were spotless. “I already know much of your situation,” he said. “But I suppose you already presumed that.”
She nodded, eyes wide and body rigid, her mind alert for the first time in uncountable days.
“Hodel, I believe we can come to some kind of understanding.”
She was not in any way braced for kindness. Her mind whirled, circling around and around like the prisoners who marched hundreds of feet below them.
“Mother Russia is playing catch-up with the world. The tsar can see that potential lies beyond the Urals. We already have thousands flocking to our mineral-rich settlements.” He leaned forward in his enthusiasm, teetering on his perfectly placed feet.
“Flocking, sir?”
“There are indeed the convicts serving sentences. But of far greater economic importance are the settlers, some admittedly forced, who live in developing Siberian communities—though not in prison! They reside in underpopulated regions of the country chosen for their economic potential. Many do not understand, but there are those of us who see that Siberia is merely a tool being used in the inevitable triumph of our people. I like to think of it as a . . . beneficial instrument.”
For so many weeks now, she had been prepared to rebut any attack and thus was armed with rage to defend herself. In th
e tranquility of this tower, she was off-balance.
“But there are very few women,” he continued. “Their numbers never manage to exceed fifteen percent. There are even fewer books, limited access to food and alcohol, beastly weather. Nothing to do but work. Hodel, we in the East truly have many noble uses for strong women such as yourself. The female populace in the East is in dire need of expansion.” With hands still clasped behind his back, he took a few assured steps closer. As he looked deep within her, she could feel him almost cupping her heart. “And I think you would agree that Nerchinsk has certain qualities that you would find . . . irresistible, yes?”
Hodel caught her breath. This new hope was quite a shock to her system.
“I would like to request that you accompany me to Nerchinsk. Would you consider this proposal?”
Her heart leapt. Tears fell hard, silently flowing down her hollowed face. “I would, sir,” she said.
“I will of course have to use my influence with our friend the Chief Commander of Omsk, with whom I believe you are already a little too familiar. But I am confident I can make a persuasive case in the morning.” The Gentleman paused, his eyes bluer and more piercing than before. He spoke again, his voice filled with a surprising degree of tenderness, “I will personally see to it, Hodel, that no harm comes to you. Do we understand each other?”
She nodded in disbelief, quaking with the mere thought of her deliverance.
“For our greatest rewards, Hodel, sometimes we must endure.”
Yes, she thought. She had endured long enough.
Located in Eastern Siberia, the village of Nerchinsk is in the Russian province of what is now the mountainous region of Transbaikalia, or Dauriya. To the east is majestic freshwater Lake Baikal. To the west and to the south is China; it is nearly a straight shot as the crow flies to Beijing. Nerchinsk sits on the left bank of the Nercha River, which flows into the great Amur River, which then empties out into the Sea of Okhotsk. In addition to agriculture and silver mining, there is a modest trade in fur and brick tea from China, but the major business is salt. The vast numbers of workers within the salt mines create a humming sound, like bees at work in an apiary. But Nerchinsk is so bleak a place, it is almost entirely made up of workers forced to reside there.
After Anatevka Page 8