Rafael looked at the sky. “Many times I myself have wondered, does God read these messages? If He does, how could He have been so indifferent to the fate of this poor woman and her children? And what of the Seer of Lublin? Even with those famous eyes—they say he had one much bigger than the other, and that they saw through time and space—did they see Sarah Leiber?” He shook his head. “She wandered east toward Chelm and died of a fever.”
Nathan shrank inside. “My grandmother died on the road?”
Rafael nodded.
“What happened to Hindeleh?”
“Taken to a Jewish orphanage in Chelm.”
Nathan tore at the bark of the tree. “What about the other children?”
“As it is written, they were scattered like straw that flies before the wind.”
Even in his anguish, Nathan was taken with the poetic phrase and wondered if it was biblical. “Did any of them come back to Zokof after the war?” he asked.
“Nah. The war swept us all away from here. They didn’t come back.”
Nathan looked at the photograph of his father again and wondered what had happened to Hindeleh. How could it be that a faded hair ribbon was all that was left of a person, that it could remain intact years after she had disappeared? It was enough to make a man regard faith in a Supreme Eye on the world as something too painful to share with his children. Maybe that’s what Pop had thought. Nathan imagined him alone in his window, silent except when he talked back to the radio, silent as he read his socialist newspaper. Not like his holy brother Gershom. Just silent because that was all he had to say about God.
He ached for his father now, ached that they’d lost their chance to speak plainly with each other about Zokof, just as he’d ached for years that he couldn’t apologize to him for having made such a travesty of his funeral service. It turned his stomach to think of it.
Rafael stood up. “Come. It’s time to pray.”
Nathan looked around the unmarked cemetery. “I don’t know how to pray. I don’t know what is really even meant by God,” he said, surprised that he was ashamed to admit this. “After my father died, I never even visited his grave because I didn’t know what I’d do when I got there. Is that a sin?”
“What do you think?”
“I thought it wouldn’t make a difference to him anymore, if I came or not. He was gone.”
“But it made a difference to you. Why does a man pray, Leiber? To ask God to produce presents for him like a magician, or that He should grant wishes? This is for children!”
Nathan was impressed.
“A man prays so he can speak to his own still small voice. He prays to make himself change. In the beginning, the words mean nothing. Imagine a boy in the back of a shul, without a prayer book, reciting the Hebrew alphabet. When asked why, he says, ‘I don’t know how to pray, so I’m offering God the letters. I hope He will arrange the words.’”
The parable appealed to Nathan as an academic, and he smiled appreciatively.
“A man who spends his life working at those letters can learn to arrange the words himself. And if he needs help, he turns to the prayers of his fathers and they become a minyan, reciting as one voice across centuries.”
“And what if he doesn’t believe in the words?”
“Then he asks God for help—like your father, that night in the cemetery.”
Nathan quickly took issue with this. “My father didn’t believe in prayers. He didn’t believe in God.”
“Listen to me, Leiber. Your father believed. He lit a holy spark inside himself in this cemetery, the spark of man touching God. It was nothing less than that. Understand?”
“With all due respect,” Nathan insisted, “what you call a holy spark is what I would call a moment of inspiration. There’s no need for God in the picture.”
Rafael smiled indulgently. “Inspiration without understanding to sustain it lasts as long as a bubble of soap. The understanding that lasts is when a man realizes God’s presence in the world. A man who is touched by such understanding is changed, not for an hour or a day, but for a lifetime. He has crossed the bridge to what we call having the proper kavonah—paying attention to the meaning and the direction of one’s prayer.”
“I’m not sure I’d ever be constitutionally able to recognize the presence of God,” Nathan said, in his most professorial manner. “It goes against my whole rationalist orientation toward life. Awe at natural beauty is about as far as I go.”
“So, maybe for you it will be more difficult. So?”
“So, if I pray, I guarantee you it will be gibberish to me today and gibberish ten years from today, no matter how many times I say the words. To me, the prayers will always just be words, conversations with myself, at best. But there’s no God in that.”
Rafael smiled again. “And you are so sure that nothing could ever change your orientation, as you call it? You are the measure of all things and you are immovable? I can only say, if this is so, Leiber, then you have a problem bigger than not being able to pray. You live in a very small world that allows only for small wonders.”
Nathan hesitated before answering. How could a man so immersed in his religion as Rafael understand him? “I just don’t need to put a God in the picture to explain life, much less to thank Him for it.”
“The rabbis say a man who takes the fruits of the world but offers no thanks is a thief.”
“The rabbis have a vested interest in making sure people keep believing in God.”
Rafael laughed. “You sound like your father.”
“I learned from a master.” Nathan smiled back.
“A master of forgetfulness.”
Nathan stopped smiling. “What does forgetfulness have to do with believing in God?”
“Your father had the right kavonah that night he was here. It had nothing to do with those rabbis he hated so much. I’ll tell you something you don’t know. Your father loved God—he’d felt His breath. He knew how to pray. But praying from the heart takes a lot out of a man, especially when his heart is heavy. When Itzik found an excuse not to pray, he stopped.”
“What excuse?”
“Socialism.”
Nathan knew in his gut there was something to what Rafael was saying. After all, Pop had used socialism as an excuse not to do a lot of things. “I can’t change what my father did,” he said dejectedly.
“Yes, you can. It is almost enough for us that you returned here, after so many years. Now, be a Jew and learn to pray.”
Nathan’s ears burned at being put on the spot. But the thought of praying excited him in a way. What had he lost, he wondered, when the chain of generations had been broken, the yarmulkes and the identifying Jewish names removed, all so that he and his family could hide like chameleons among the Gentiles? Was that really all his father’s socialist Utopia had been for, to hide from a demanding God because the enlightened world had allowed it? Or were he and Pop just trying to buy a little peace from the boots of the bullies and the butts of their guns? What kind of people hand their legacy over to their enemies for a fairy tale? Socialism. He was depressed by his questions. He was becoming tired, and the crows were getting on his nerves.
“We’ll stand by Freidl’s grave,” Rafael said. “You can pray for her soul. We can say a special blessing to thank God for saving Itzik from imminent danger in this place. There is a special prayer for this.” Rafael took a few steps. The heel of his shoe caught on a root and he stumbled. Nathan sprang forward and caught him in his arms. He’d had a similar incident with Pop losing his balance once, at the Adirondacks cabin. “You need some fresh air in your lungs,” he’d told Pop, trying to persuade him to leave his newspaper and take a walk.
“What do I need with fresh air?” Pop had said. “I got all the air I need in here.”
The road outside the cabin, rutted and lined with pine needles, was one of the things Nathan liked best about the Adirondacks property. But he and Pop hadn’t gone twenty feet when Pop twisted his ankle. Nathan c
ouldn’t catch him in time to break the fall.
“What kind of place is this where they don’t know how to put cement on a road? Feh, it’s like Poland!” Pop had spat, his soft, doughy body defying all Nathan’s efforts to lift him.
Nathan released Rafael and helped steady him.
“Thanks, Leiber.” He chuckled. “The roots here. I got caught in your roots. Heh!”
Nathan smiled. He was moved enough by what had passed between them to follow Rafael to Freidl’s grave. All right, he thought, I’ll try to do what he wants, for his sake. Their coats swayed gently in tandem as they walked the short distance, hands clasped behind their backs. “Shouldn’t we be wearing prayer shawls?” he asked.
“Not here. We don’t wear them, out of respect for the dead, who can no longer join us in prayer.”
When they reached the foot-high pile of small stones, Nathan felt a bit sheepish. “What was the name again of that prayer you recite?”
“El Molei Rachamim.”
“Can I say it for all the Leibers that are buried here?”
“One person at a time, Leiber. This isn’t a party.”
“But I told you, I don’t know their names.”
Perhaps the upset in Nathan’s voice persuaded Rafael to back down. “All right, so if you don’t know the names, then say it for the family. God will survive it, I’m sure.” He did his customary shrug. “But if you’re going to say El Molei, you should at least understand what you’re saying.”
Nathan nodded gratefully.
“It means, God of mercy, You who dwell on high, may the souls of our loved ones find perfect rest beneath the wings of Your divine presence. And we say, Amen.”
“It’s only the God part I have trouble with,” Nathan said.
“That’s not trouble, that’s a beginning. Say the words with me, Leiber. Bring them into your heart.” He closed his eyes.
This is craziness, Nathan thought, even though he’d always secretly admired the elder statesmen of the faith, the way they proudly recited the anthems of their nation. They were men of undeniable power. Lou Gersh, Pop’s card partner, was one of them. Who could forget him at Pop’s funeral as he’d stepped forward, without warning, and broken the awkward vacuum by saying Kaddish. The mourners had gazed at Lou with gratitude they had not shown Nathan when he’d delivered his eulogy. He had stared at the memorial booklet, embarrassed that he was unable to follow even the transliteration of a prayer he knew was knit into his father’s heart.
After the service, Lou had put his arms around him and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry about it, Nathan,” he’d said. “You made your father proud when it mattered, when he was alive.” But Nathan was not convinced. He’d felt more distanced from Pop than ever.
A crow cawed directly above. Nathan and Rafael stood shoulder to shoulder, their heads bowed before the jumble of unremarkable stones that marked Freidl’s grave. Nathan rubbed his eyes under his glasses. As a younger man, he’d held on to the hope that one day he could become someone who experienced life more fully. God knows, he’d never had a talent for letting go of himself. Every time he’d tried, it had ended badly. There was that time he’d jumped off the rock ledge at the Adirondacks lake, hoping against hope that he’d fall harmlessly into the water below. He’d gotten seventeen stitches in the back of the head for his trouble, and the keloid would always remind him that he was a bound man, a man who toppled over into undignified states whenever he tried to break free.
He ran his fingers once again over the keloid scar, ashamed and disgusted at himself. But before he could work himself over with further self recrimination, he remembered Rafael’s admonition not to sacrifice to the idols. He commanded himself to stop worrying what the whole damn world would think of him if he prayed out loud for the boy who’d once crawled on all fours in this cemetery—his father, Itzik the Faithless One. He’d pray, damn it, not to let go for himself, but for his family buried here, because he’d never done it for Pop.
“El Molei Rachamim,” Rafael said. He signaled Nathan to repeat after him.
“El Molei Rachamim,” Nathan whispered, praying for brevity and the strength to go the distance.
“Shochain ba’m’romim, hamtzai m’nucha n’chona tachas canfai Ha’Sh’cheenah.” Nathan repeated the Hebrew, phrase by painful phrase, methodically forcing himself to ignore his skepticism about what he was doing. The tactic proved successful. After four or five repetitions, he began to feel oddly enfolded by the rhythm of the words, immersed, carried away by them.
“...sh’ha-lach l’o lo mo...” A wave of images came to him. Pop reading Hebrew at the Seder table, Ellen and her cousins listening to him, entranced. His mother in the kitchen serving the matzo ball soup, her ankles and feet puffed up like a souffl?. There they were. The Leibers.
“...b’Gan Edan t’heh m’nu-cho-so...” With each repetition, his voice grew more steady and his eyes met Rafael’s less often, until he realized that Rafael had closed his eyes and begun to sway, returning to correct Nathan only when he stumbled, repeating and repeating the phrases patiently until he got it right, nodding, moving on, guiding him gently aloft.
“...v’yitz-ror bitz-ror ha’cha-yim es nish-mo-so...,” Rafael chanted. Something about the phrase sounded familiar to Nathan, reawoke images of his Bar Mitzvah, his childhood, of that long ago time of stoops and stickball.
“...v’ya-nu-ach b’sholem al mish-ka-vo...” Nathan’s voice caught. For the first time in years, he felt that heat behind the eyes that precedes tears. They came, slowly at first, then spilled over the rims of his lower lids, blurring his vision, washing down over his cheeks and emptying into his mouth, salty as seawater. Like Pop at the Seder table, he realized at once. And in that moment, he understood the power of prayer, that it linked the man with his community and tunneled deep into his hidden self. He understood how even a Jewish socialist could not resist it, could not forget that despite everything he was a Jew first, even if he could not admit it to his son. So there in the Zokof Cemetery, standing over the unmarked bones of his ancestors, Nathan acknowledged it for them both, at last. “...v’nomar, amen.”
From your lips to God’s ear, Nathan, son of Itzik. Amen.
18
AFTERWARD, NATHAN’S STOMACH GROWLED. HE STAMPED HIS feet to disguise the sound and brushed away the tears that remained on his cheeks. His sense of otherworldliness fell away, and he now felt exposed and embarrassed at the passion with which he had recited El Molei Rachamim.
What had he been thinking, praying like a primitive to a God he knew did not exist, suspending his powers of reason and critical judgment? He stamped his feet again and fought the sudden desire to flee.
A cloud obliterated the pools of sunlight that had filtered through the forest only minutes before. He sneaked a glance at his watch. It was after two o’clock. Time seemed to have looped itself in circles around this day, slowing its progress with all these detailed observations of the past.
When his stomach growled again, he realized he hadn’t eaten since early that morning. He cleared his throat to announce it was time to go, but Rafael suddenly knelt and seized two pebbles from the underbrush. “We put stones on graves as a sign that we were here, that we remember.” Rafael laid one pebble on top of the pile and rose with difficulty as he handed the other to Nathan.
No harm in that, Nathan thought, hoping this would be the last rite he would be expected to perform before returning to the car. As he leaned over and balanced his pebble next to Rafael’s, he was already thinking about what he would say to Tadeusz.
“It’s not enough,” Rafael said, “but it’s all I can do. I had to do something for her. She deserves a monument, but if I made one, God knows what they might do to it. Better it should be like this.”
It sickened Nathan that even now a gravestone wasn’t safe in this cemetery. He wondered how long it had taken Rafael to build his memorial, pebble by pebble, prayer by prayer. He wondered if it had been built out of respect for the memory of
a real woman or if Freidl was just a folktale, buoyantly carried through time by the stream of stories that flowed from this town. Several crows cawed high above him. Their claws crackled the thin branches of the birch tree where they alighted. “How do you know if this woman Freidl ever existed?” he asked. “There’s no gravestone to prove it. Have you checked the municipal records?”
Rafael did not lift his eyes from the pile of stones. “I know almost everything about her.”
“How?”
“She told me.”
Nathan became alarmed. “How could she tell you anything? She died before you were born.”
“Freidl has her ways. The dead often do. We understand each other, Freidl and me.” Rafael sighed. “Sometimes she speaks. Sometimes she sings me a niggun, a tune, you know?” Closing his eyes again, he swayed back and forth, as if listening to music.
Nathan felt his confidence in Rafael slide out from under him like a chair. He’d been a dupe, a kid seduced by a magician’s charm, by the excitement of secrets revealed.
“You know what’s magic?” Pop had once said when the boy Nathan had offered to perform a card trick for him. “Gornish, nothing. Nothing but the sleight of hand. A magician’s like a rabbi. He pretends to make something out of nothing. And from the nothing he makes his living!”
Nathan tilted back his head. What the hell did Rafael want from him? He was no longer sure if he could trust anything the old man said, especially about Pop. For God’s sake, he thought, I’ve spent the precious few hours I had in Pop’s hometown with a man who thinks he communicates with a dead woman!
He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and tried not to think about Załuski’s cynical smile upon hearing Tadeusz tell him that Professor Linden, who did not care about the origins of his name, had followed a crazy old Jew into a cemetery.
“Come, we’ll go back to town,” Rafael said, taking Nathan again by the arm. “We’ll go to my house. There’s more I have to tell you.”
But Nathan had had enough.
A Day of Small Beginnings Page 14