“So I became a tailor, a good one even, and the people here have always let me be.” He glanced at the sewing machine beneath the window. “And it is not such a bad thing. You see, God has provided. I have even made my own linen shroud.”
Nathan looked stricken.
Rafael waved away his concern. “No one escapes the boundaries of death, Leiber. Not even Moses, whom God favored. Not even he could persuade Him to set aside the sentence.”
“And Freidl?” Nathan asked. “How has she escaped that sentence?”
“Freidl is dead, Leiber. She crossed the boundary. Her body lies inside the cemetery, walled in by God, even if the gravestones and the wall are gone.”
Nathan knew full well that he was crossing the boundary of his own beliefs, but he couldn’t resist asking, “But how does she participate in your life?”
Rafael pulled nervously at the ends of his beard. “When I moved into this house, I was haunted for many years by the memory of my wife and my daughter. The Poles began to call me the ‘crazy Jew’ because I wandered the streets. What did they know what I was looking for? Could they imagine what it was to be homesick in my own town? I would walk to the marketplace on Friday, just before Shabbos began, and see Shima walking the streets, shaking the birch whisk, calling, ‘Jews to the bath.’ It was terrible. I was making myself sick with grief.
“Freidl came to me. She said, ‘To the cemetery.’ I thought she wanted me to do something for her. But she said, ‘Pick up stones. Put them on the graves.’ And I did. I began to talk to them, the buried ancestors, as if we were family. It was craziness and I knew it, but it consoled me, stone after stone. After, she began to come to me at night.”
“In dreams?” Nathan guessed.
“Dreams, yeh. But not like dreams. We talked. She told me her life, and what came after, and about Itzik and Hillel. There was more between us too, but of this you do not have to know.” He gave a little shrug. “I needed her. She needed me. We are alone here. But she never forgets your father.” He looked at Nathan.
“She wanted so much to know what happened to him. Why he did not return when the danger was past. Why didn’t she feel his prayers? Did he remember her? Did his children pray for her? She is in terror that she will never be able to return, to rest again in her place in the cemetery. Don’t look so skeptical, Leiber. You are fortunate that such a woman of valor is bound up with your life. This is a great woman, wise, and a scholar, like you. The daughter of the famous Rebbe Eliezer of blessed memory.”
Nathan felt lost. “How do you expect me to believe it could make any difference if my father or I prayed for her?”
Rafael laid his hand on the table. “Because to pray is to understand and to understand is to heal.”
Platitudes made Nathan impatient. “That’s a very nice statement,” he said. “But with all due respect, that’s the kind of thing I hear from my students who fancy themselves Buddhists.”
“Then let me explain it like this. The night when I first moved into this house, it was the eve of Tisha Bov—the ninth day in the Hebrew month of Av. Freidl said we must read. Lamentations. This I explained to you before.”
Nathan nodded.
“I could not refuse her. In the beginning, as we davened, for me, it was just narrishkeit—nonsense. Empty words. Two thousand years ago the Second Temple was destroyed. What was that to me, after what I’d been through? But I was glad for her company, you understand?”
“Yes.”
“But from repetition, all through the night, I began to listen. This prayer said what was in my heart. Without Freidl, I would not have found it—my way back from the dead. ‘Yahweh, remember what has happened to us; look on us and see our degradation. Our inheritance has passed to aliens, our homes to barbarians.’” He had closed his eyes and begun to sway as he said the words, first in Hebrew, then in English. “‘We are orphans, we are fatherless; our mothers are like widows. We drink our own water—at a price; we have to pay for what is our own firewood.’”
He opened his eyes. “She helped me to heal what could be healed. That is what I prayed for. Now, you ask why I stayed here, Leiber? For her, I stayed. Because of her, I became observant. The way I thought about it was this: whether God thinks we are His chosen people does not matter anymore. I choose to be a Jew, like her. Let the world think what it likes. It’s nothing to do with me. I grew payess, put on the long coat and the yarmulke, and this comforts me. In time, the people in town began to call me ‘our little Jew.’ I don’t mind.” He took a sip of his tea and wiped a few droplets from his mustache.
Nathan looked at him incredulously. “You would have left Zokof and lived a secular life if not for her?”
“Maybe. Yeh. Probably I would have gone to Warsaw. There, at least, there were other Jews. Maybe I would have left Poland, gone to Israel. I had a cousin there, may he rest in peace. Who knows what might have been? It doesn’t matter. I lived my life here, with her, almost a full life, if you understand me, and I’ll die here.”
Nathan shifted in his chair. Even if Freidl was a creature of Rafael’s imagination, he thought, a ruse to reconnect him with his life after the war, he lived with her. They had a world. He actually felt calmer about her now, less alarmed at how Rafael knew details about Pop’s life that could not be explained without her—Pesha Goldman’s photographs; Hillel saying, “the synagogue is a place where weak men run to hide”; Hindeleh and the red ribbon; the light in Pop’s handkerchief last night.
He looked around the room and noticed that a fair number of Rafael’s books on Judaica were in English, which explained the ease with which he spoke the language. What would happen to these books when he passed on? He imagined the neighbors turning from the deathbed, eyeing the contents of this house. They’d want the wardrobe, the samovar, the meager furniture. But who would care for the books, the photographs, the artifacts of Jewish life in Zokof?
For a painful moment he thought that perhaps he should offer to do something about this. Part of him dreaded the thought of such an entanglement, but part of him almost hoped to be asked. In the end he decided that if Rafael wanted him to do something for him, he wouldn’t be shy.
Rafael took another sip of tea. “What tormented me, through the years, was that I could do nothing for her. Can you understand what that was for me? For her, there was only the blocked grave and the broken stone.”
He looked down at his lap and sighed. “Last night Freidl came to me, happy. Happy! She told me you brought back Itzik’s handkerchief.” He looked hopefully at Nathan. “All these years we waited. And now, my prayers for her are answered. You are here, and this business will be finished at last. Look at me, Leiber. I am an old man. I can’t last much longer.”
Nathan was ready. “What would you like me to do?” he said.
“I want you to help return her soul to rest with her body, as it was the night Itzik disturbed her.”
Nathan, who had already formulated a plan to donate Rafael’s books to worthy institutions and to erect some sort of memorial in the cemetery, had no idea how to respond to this request or even what it meant. His nervous fingers searched for the scar at the back of his head. He took a breath. “How would I do that?”
“Wait here.” Rafael almost jumped from his chair, then crossed the room and disappeared into the entry hall. Nathan heard the creak of the metal ladder against the wooden ceiling as it was being mounted. He rushed to the foyer. “Let me help you!”
“I go up and down this ladder all the time, Leiber. It’s nothing. Go sit. I will be down soon.” By then, Rafael was already at the top rung.
Reluctantly, Nathan returned to his chair. He stared at the floor. The linoleum had worn through, exposing wide, uneven planks of rough wood. He heard footsteps along the attic floor. A chair squawked as it was being dragged. It creaked, as if bearing weight. Not long after, Rafael descended.
He paused for a moment in the doorway, clutching to his chest an odd shaped object about two feet long and a foot and
a half wide. It was wrapped in cloth. In the muted light, Nathan thought Rafael looked like a prophet, like Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the tablets.
Rafael brought the object to the table and gently laid it down. “For almost forty years I have this,” he said, slowly unwinding the long strips of cloth that bound it. They came off in layers of different colors and textures. First, a rough cotton, then some blue muslin, under this a bit of lace with a blotch of brocade peeking through. Nathan watched the unveiling with fascination. A piece of green-and-orange silk fell away.
Rafael loosened the last piece of fabric, a black-and-white striped prayer shawl. Its soft weave gripped the object beneath it and relinquished its hold with pops and tearing sounds. He lifted a fold of the cloth and revealed an irregular piece of stone, about two inches thick, rounded at the top, broken off at the bottom.
Nathan leaned over it and saw two Hebrew letters at the top. Below them, inside a half circle, was a bas relief of a bird in a tree, its wings spread as if ready to take flight. The rest of the stone was covered in block-shaped Hebrew letters, bordered on each side by a candlestick with candles. “It’s Freidl’s matzevah, her gravestone, Leiber. The top piece that your father, Itzik, broke off. It was in the riverbed.”
The two men stood side by side before the stone. Nathan trembled at the thought that Pop might once have held this object in his hands, might even have been responsible for its having been broken. “My God,” he whispered. He bent to look at it more closely. “What does it say?”
Rafael pointed to the two letters at the top. “This is the peh and nun, that represents the words here rests.” He touched the letters below, from the right side. “It begins with a verse from Lamentations. ‘My eyes are in tears. Far from me is any comforter who could revive my spirit.’ Then it says, here, ‘The pious Freidl, daughter of Rebbe Eliezer, of blessed memory, master of the Torah, scholar of the holy community of Lublin, and dutiful wife of Berel the Butcher, of blessed memory, of our holy community of Zokof.’”
Nathan dared to put out his hand and trace the candlestick along the left side of the stone.
“Candlesticks show a pious woman, who lights the Sabbath candles, who brings God’s spark into the home,” Rafael explained.
“And the bird in the tree, here on top?” Nathan pointed.
“The bird is, for us, the soul. The birds are on many stones, especially for the women. But here, when you see a bird with wings spread, like this, making ready to fly,” he said, pointing to the carving, “this is not so usual. This is a sad thing. It comes from the psalm, ‘I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.’ That she was alone in death, without children or family. That is what it means.”
“W what are you going to do with it?” Nathan stammered.
Rafael smiled. “Still playing the Wicked Son, yeh? Well, Leiber, I’m giving this stone to you. Take it to America.”
Nathan’s throat tightened. When he swallowed, his glasses slipped down his nose, blurring his view of the letters. He pushed the frames back into place. “Rafael,” he whispered, “how can I take this last remnant of her away from you?”
But as he passed his hands over the stone’s rough inscription, he realized he wanted to take it home. He even started to worry how he was going to get it through customs. Hell, it must be against the law to take an old gravestone out of the country without permission. He could imagine the humiliating scene, an eminent constitutional law scholar caught stealing property of the Polish Republic. He could imagine Professor Załuski’s smug amusement at having to come to his rescue. But then he saw Rafael, gazing at him with a tenderness sons long for from their fathers.
“Leiber,” Rafael said softly, “understand this. There is nothing left of us from Zokof but bones and remnants.”
Nathan felt weak. “Where is the other part of the stone?”
“The bottom half is at Wladek Glٯwacki’s farm. Freidl saw the cham steal it from the street in town. It was there, facedown, since after the war. They made pavement from our stones, where people should walk. Ach! Take this part and pray for her eternal rest.”
Nathan stepped back from the table. “You want me to pray over it? I’m still not a believer, Rafael. How can I pray without being a hypocrite?”
“You don’t have to believe to pray, Leiber. You think even now, I don’t have my doubts about God?” He shrugged. “It comes with being a Jew. But, you repeat the words. You try to understand them. Meaning comes. It will come. It’s like a cholent. It needs cooking. A lot of cooking.” He smiled.
Nathan smiled back, but he was tense. “What would you want me to do with the stone?”
“That, I don’t know. It is Freidl who wants that you should have it. Pray, and you will know what to do. Maybe not now. Someday.” He nodded encouragingly. “You will know. Besides, after I go, there is no one left to take care of it.”
Nathan felt sick. He looked at the stone and remembered how Rafael had described its shielding Pop from harm. How could he leave it behind? This was a thing to be cherished. And even if it turned out that Freidl was only a story, it was one that belonged to Pop.
He lifted the stone to his chest. It was lighter than he’d expected, as light as Ellen had been, he thought, when she was ten or eleven months old. He closed his eyes and, overcoming a moment of acute embarrassment, hugged it tightly, as if it were Pop himself.
Rafael folded his hands before him. “Freidl says this stone is our witness. May God watch between us when we are out of sight of each other. Farshtaist?”
Nathan nodded, his eyes still closed. “Farshtaist,” he said. “I understand.”
It was my hope that the scholar in him would drive Nathan to learn to read the words of my stone, and with that beginning, he might develop a taste for Torah and a prayer for me. As it is said, if the world is to be redeemed, it will be through the merit of children. But it is also said, fruits take after their roots. When Nathan left for America the next day, only God knew which would prevail, the scholar or the son of a man with a soul like a potato.
PART III
ELLEN
Although my eyes cannot now see you,
Knowing your house—and the trees of the garden, and the flowers,
My mind’s eye knows where to paint your eyes and figure,
Between which trees to look for your white cloak.
From “Separation,” by Juliusz Słowacki, 1809-1849
22
ELLEN LINDEN HAD THE RADIO TUNED TO A JAZZ STATION WHEN the call came, late in the afternoon on December 11, 1992. A sax was playing a pared-down version of “White Christmas.” Her mother was on the line. From her frantic, disjointed telling, Ellen gathered that during the annual Marbury v. Madison lecture, her father had raised his hand to the back of his head and collapsed over his podium in front of a roomful of second-year law students. Forty minutes later, he was pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. The doctors said the heart attack had been so massive it was unlikely Professor Linden had realized what was happening to him before he succumbed.
Only three weeks before, Ellen and her father had had their long telephone conversation about her career. It had begun with an odd, unrelated event. Just after Ellen said hello, a crow had plummeted through the air shaft of her apartment building on Ludlow Street. Its cries echoed off the brick walls and were carried away by cold gusts of wind.
She had pulled the cordless phone from her ear and listened for the bird’s call. Hearing none, she crossed the studio in two or three quick steps, to see if it had indeed fallen five floors to its death. The wind rattled the chicken-wire windowpanes. She’d craned her head downward, but in the blue gray light she could only make out shadows.
“What did you say, Dad?”
“I said, I don’t know why you’re taking his offer so seriously. This Pronaszko fellow isn’t promising anything more than a performance of your work in a park.”
“It’s not a park, Dad. It’s an outdoor cultural festiv
al that gets a lot of attention in Europe.” She looked out the window again. No sign of the bird.
“Well, I think you should reconsider leaving New York City for almost three months. You’re just starting to get critical notice.”
His strategizing pleased her. Given his skepticism about her career, it was actually reassuring. She returned to untangling the mess of laundered leotards and tights piled on her dresser drawer. The carved mahogany monstrosity dominated her studio the way it had once dominated her grandpa Isaac and grandma Sadie’s bedroom. Ellen liked to say it was so ungepotchket it was beautiful. Her grandfather had always said that word to make her laugh.
“What kind of salary is he going to pay you?” her father asked.
She folded a leotard and laid it in the drawer. “Pronaszko said they’d cover my transportation and board. I think there’s a per diem stipend too, like when I was with Gayle’s company. I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure about the terms of the agreement? How can you be unsure about something that would control your circumstances halfway around the world?”
She bit her lip, angry at him for pointing this out and embarrassed at her own lack of professionalism. “Dad, it’s not a big deal. I just got the offer. I’ll work it out.”
She expected him to interject. When he didn’t, she reminded him that she didn’t have a lot of bargaining power in the first place. “You know the market for dance choreographers. If the artistic director of a prominent company asks me to do a piece, I pack my bags and go. End of story. And by the way, Eastern Europe is going to be the next new place. Everyone knows that.”
“I’ve never heard of this company.”
“Right. And if Professor Nathan Linden hasn’t heard of it, it doesn’t count?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying, Dad?” Now she was irritated that he presumed to know the subtleties of her field—who or what was in, or out.
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