Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

  Abe read in his slow, thorough way, as if it was the editorial page in one of his newspapers. He pursed his lips and nodded at her.

  “The doctor says this is how it must be; then this is how it will be,” he said at last. “When is supper, Leah?”

  The words came out halfway through the meal. Abe uttered them so softly that he could easily have denied speaking if Leah had pressed him. “Leah, I love you very much.”

  In May she suspected that she was pregnant. She did not say anything to Abe because she had always been irregular in her cycles and she did not want to disappoint him. In June she went to see Dr. Glueck, who confirmed her hopes. She rushed home to tell Abe and their celebration was joyous.

  Now, on the eve of their anniversary, Leah put their supper in the oven to roast and went into the parlor to await her husband. She sat down in an old overstuffed sofa they’d bought secondhand, glad for the opportunity to put her feet up on its matching ottoman.

  These days she was spending less time in the store and more time resting. She’d been alarmed by how tired she was feeling so early in her pregnancy, but Dr. Glueck told her not to be concerned.

  “This will be difficult for you, my dear,” the doctor warned her. “You are of narrow girth and delicate disposition. Other women may continue to work or keep house well into their term, but you must conserve your strength for what may turn out to be an ordeal.”

  Dr. Glueck insisted upon seeing her often. He warned that she would have to deliver at the hospital. Leah followed all his commands and accepted his decrees. It was due to his magic that she had conceived. Nothing else mattered and no sacrifice was too great.

  She heard the downstairs door open and then the click as it was relocked. Abe’s footsteps sounded on the squeaking stairs. He came into the parlor with his arms full of parcels wrapped in brown paper.

  “All those for me?” Leah laughed.

  “First this,” Abe handed her a small tissue-wrapped packet.

  Leah tore away the wrappings. It was a string of pearls. “They’re beautiful,” she cried.

  Abe, beaming proudly, came around the back of the sofa to clasp the necklace around her throat. As he bent to his task he paused to press his lips against her neck.

  “It’s a lovely gift,” Leah murmured tenderly. “Thank you, my love.”

  Abe sat down beside her on the sofa so he could watch his wife’s face as he handed her a sheaf of papers. Leah unfolded the documents and tried to read them, but the close-spaced English-language legalisms meant nothing to her.

  Grinning, Abe put his arm around her and with his free hand tapped the papers in her lap. “What it says there is that Stefano de Fazio and I are now partners in ownership of this building,” he announced. “Some weeks ago I went to see him. He had some money he wanted to invest, and I—”

  “Wait,” Leah interrupted. “Stefano is a union officer. He had union money he wanted to invest?”

  “No. I saw him in his private office on Sixth Avenue. This had nothing to do with the union.”

  Leah frowned. She had met Stefano only once and had instantly mistrusted him. Now, watching her husband duck her gaze, she became suspicious. “Abe, what is it you are not telling me?”

  “It is nothing to be concerned about. Stefano confided in me about where the money came from. He wanted to be straight with me, you understand? Always Stefano has been straight with me. So. He has control of so much money coming in and out of the union’s coffers. It is possible for him to put into the ledgers that a certain amount was Jo go to a fellow holding a job in a local. Perhaps that person did not come to work except to collect the money, and then gave all but a little of it back to Stefano. It often happens that as treasurer Stefano has to pay out a disability benefit to a worker, but then the fellow only gets half of the allotment. The rest of the money ends up in Stefano’s pocket. Then he has many relatives who have come over from Italy,” Abe continued. “And all of them might go to work for the union, and Stefano would control their salary allotments . . .”

  “What you are trying to tell me is that Stefano has stolen the money from the union, is that it?” Leah demanded.

  “What is stealing?” Abe scowled. “Who is to say? It is how it works in America, that’s all. Stefano had money that he wished to invest, but not in his name. He had his lawyer approach this building’s owner and they agreed on a sale price. Then Stefano, wishing to pay me a favor, says to me, ‘Abe, my friend, I will put the building in your name. You will collect the rents and give them to me and look out for the place, and in exchange you yourself will pay no rent at all.’” Abe paused. “Stefano’s lawyer will take care of my obligations with the law. Many years from now it will be arranged that I sell the building back to him, and I will receive some money for that, as well. So what is the harm, Leah? I have helped my friend invest his money, and he has seen to it that we have more money to put away for our children.”

  “But Stefano has stolen his money, Abe,” Leah sorrowfully repeated. “And now you have been made a party to the stealing.”

  “I don’t care,” Abe declared. “Every day the policemen come here to take home groceries without paying for them. Is that not stealing, Leah? The police, do they not steal from us?”

  “A few groceries is not the same as money—”

  “Please!” Abe turned away from her in disgust. “So from somebody else they take the money. Believe me, Stefano explained everything to me. This is how it works in America. This is how you become successful in business, Stefano has assured me, and I trust him. He has always been good to me.”

  “I’m afraid,” Leah whimpered. “What if you have to go to jail?”

  Abe chuckled, albeit nervously. “For what would they put a nobody like me in jail?” Then he hugged Leah, admitting, “Maybe I’m also a little frightened.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe when you start to be successful you’re supposed to be frightened. This much I can tell you, for you are my wife and you probably have already realized it about me. I was bragging to you just now when I said I was Stefano’s partner. I could never be the partner of a strong fellow like that, for I’m a little man—”

  Leah pressed her fingers to his lips. “Stop. You’ve done very well for yourself.”

  Abe shook his head. “Over two years I’ve been in this store. We have enough, but now we have children coming and our expenses will increase. I make our customers happy, but as hard as I think, I can’t figure a way to make more of myself than being a retail merchant. If something happened to me—”

  “God forbid.”

  “If I got sick and couldn’t open the store, we’d be out in the street.” Abe smiled. “Now that can’t happen. It would not be in Stefano’s interests to let it happen.”

  “I understand.” Right or wrong, the papers had been signed. Perhaps she was wrong in mistrusting Stefano.

  “There’s another thing too. Stefano mentioned that he intends to own other businesses someday. He said that maybe if I learn the food business thoroughly I could someday do the same thing for him that I’m doing now, but with a larger business, for more money. If I’m ever to leave something behind for my sons, it will come about through serving a man like Stefano de Fazio.”

  “You are my husband,” Leah said. “I leave our welfare in your hands.” She turned her attention to the other parcels, closing the discussion. One by one she unwrapped a succession of little boy’s attire: shoes, shorts and shirts. “Abe,” she scolded, this time in amusement. “These clothes are for a three-year-old.”

  “They were on sale.” Abe shrugged. “He’ll wear them when he grows.”

  “And what if it’s a girl?”

  “What do I know from dresses? You’ll buy for the girl and we’ll put these things away for the boy when he comes.”

  Leah bit her lower lip to keep from telling him what Dr. Glueck said. She’d kept the matter from Abe so as not to worry him and because she was still denying it to herself.

  “Your physica
l constitution is not a match for your force of will, young woman. No more children after this one. Not if you want to live to see your firstborn thrive.”

  “Supper is almost ready,” Leah said brightly. She swung her legs down from the ottoman and got to her feet. She took a few steps then staggered.

  Abe was at her side. “Are you all right?” he begged. “Should I get the doctor?”

  “I got up too fast,” Leah mumbled. “I’m fine.” She leaned against Abe for a moment and then let him escort her into the kitchen.

  “I was just teasing you, my love,” she whispered to Abe. “This first child is a son for you. It must be.”

  September brought in a spell of cool, blustery weather. Leah stayed upstairs in the apartment as much as she could, but there were times when she had to mind the store.

  She dressed warmly, but it was drafty there by the cash register as the customers came in and out. Leah felt a sore throat develop. Soon she was coughing and sniffling and cursing her bad luck to have caught a cold.

  Her cold seemed to drag on. Between its effects and her pregnancy she had no strength left at all.

  One night during the third week of September she awoke with stomach cramps, moaning softly.

  Abe came awake at once. He had always been a light sleeper, but since Leah got pregnant his eyes opened if he felt the least stirring beside him in the bed.

  “Go back to sleep,” she urged. “It’s nothing. My cold went down to my stomach, that’s all.”

  “Go see the doctor tomorrow,” Abe muttered.

  “I’m to see him at the end of the week anyway. What can he do for a cold?”

  Abe grunted and turned over as Leah got out of bed. It was not so dark in the bedroom that she couldn’t see that his eyes were open, watching her.

  “Go to sleep.”

  “When you come back to bed I’ll fall asleep.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She skipped barefoot across the icy cold linoleum floor on her way to the toilet. She did not bother to turn on the kitchen light. She could easily find her way in the dark to the little water closet.

  Another series of cramps hit her. She pressed her belly, bent her knees and waited for the pain to subside. Maybe I will go see the doctor tomorrow, Leah decided. A head cold was one thing, but in her mind, an illness moving down toward her belly was like an invading army.

  As she pulled open the water closet door she had a wave of dizziness. She felt warm liquid cascading down the insides of her thighs, sopping her flannel nightgown.

  I’m peeing on the floor, she thought distractedly. A high, keening noise had begun to build in her ears. I’ll have to clean this mess up.

  It was suddenly very much darker in the shadowy kitchen. Her hand rose to swat the air in search of the pull-chain that dangled from the overhead light fixture. She felt herself losing her balance and fell. She cried out, deciding that she was having a bad dream and wanting very much to be awake. She did not feel herself hit the floor.

  Abe jackknifed out of bed at her call. He ran into the kitchen and lost his footing as his bare feet skidded out from beneath him. He landed spread-eagled, taking a nasty crack to the back of his head. What the hell was on the floor? The entire back of his nightshirt was soaking wet.

  “Leah, where are you?” He got to his feet and pulled the light chain.

  Blood—an impossible amount of blood as bright as fire had spread across the floor. More of it was seeping from between Leah’s legs as she lay semi-conscious, curled up on her side.

  They must have given her a sedative. All she possessed were hazy recollections, memories just beyond grasp. Leah had vague remembrances of a weeping Abe in his bloody nightshirt being comforted by their downstairs neighbors. She remembered Dr. Glueck looking very sad as he explained something to her, but his words were lost. Then she was swathed in blankets and carried downstairs and through the store. There was a short ride through the deserted streets in the back seat of the doctor’s black automobile.

  And then there was Gouverneur Hospital. The ward was brilliantly lit, a vast, glaring cavern echoing with moans. They wheeled four walls of canvas screen around her bed and cut away the clotted, crusty flannel nightgown. She smelled acrid antiseptic and felt its sting as they scrubbed between her legs. Then came the stink of the ether across her nose and mouth. Her widely rolling eyes glimpsed a white tray arrayed with knives. Just before the ether swept her into oblivion she remembered Dr. Glueck’s words to her as she writhed upon the kitchen linoleum.

  “An incomplete miscarriage, I’m sorry to say. You must go to the hospital. I’m so sorry, my dear.”

  She came out of the ether late in the day. Her eyes sprang open. She knew where she was and what had happened to her.

  She also knew what had happened to her baby. An image came to her of a room deep in the bowels of the hospital. Inside that room there was a shelf, and on it rested a new glass jar containing something pink as a valentine and all curled around like a fiddlehead.

  She began to weep, but softly, so she wouldn’t disturb the other patients. She wanted the nurses to leave her alone with her grief.

  They kept her in the ward for one more night. Abe arrived early the next morning looking haggard, with a paper sack stuffed with her clothing under his arm. He waited impatiently for the attendants to wheel the canvas privacy screens into place. When they were sheltered from view, Leah began to get dressed.

  “You talked with the doctors?” she asked.

  Abe nodded.

  “It was a son, yes?”

  “Yes,” he replied, shaken. “How did you know? You also spoke with them?”

  Leah squeezed her eyes shut, willing away the image of that pitiful little thing in the jar. “No, I talked to no doctors, but I knew.”

  Abe scrutinized her, worried by the unfamiliar edge in her voice. He noticed how pallid she was, like a ghost of her former self.

  “We must forget this terrible thing, Leah,” he began, his manner almost formal.

  She winced, waving at him to be quiet, and finished dressing in the awkward silence that followed. He pities me, she thought, and probably himself, for marrying a woman with hips like a boy, who can’t even give him healthy sons. I should have died along with my son. A woman like me is better off dead.

  Abe walked around the bed to her. He was going to embrace her. “Don’t,” Leah warned, shrugging off his touch. She’d endured enough pity in her life. Any response from Abe—even hatred—was better than pity.

  Abe jerked back as if he’d been slapped. The anger and recrimination he’d fought to repress welled up in him. You stupid woman, how could you have lost my son? he wanted to scream at her.

  But he didn’t. He said nothing to her; he didn’t know what to say at such a time. As well as they knew each other, in tragedy they were still strangers.

  Always Leah had been the one to reach out. Why wouldn’t she now? Where was her compassion? He needed her to help him understand what had happened and what it meant.

  Say you love me, Abe willed. Help me understand.

  “Let’s go,” he said thickly. His initial humiliation had faded. Now there was nothing within him but a dark void.

  Chapter 17

  Degania, 1914–1915

  One evening in January Haim Kolesnikoff received a mysterious summons to attend a closed session of Degania’s governing board. The summons made it clear that Haim was to appear at Yol Popovich’s request, but it did not explain the purpose of the meeting.

  On his way to the dining hall Haim concluded that the meeting had something to do with that terrible night they’d searched for Moshe. As Trumpeldor predicted, there had been no trouble over the shepherd. The mourning fellahin of Um Jumi blamed their loss on the nomads.

  Yol’s sense of guilt had not eased. Haim well understood what his old comrade was going through. Yol had dreamed of being a righteous warrior and wound up killing a harmless old man.

  It gnawed at him. The coc
ky, joking monkey man was a shadow of his former self. There was no joy in his life.

  On his arrival at the late night meeting Haim was shocked to learn that his friend was requesting a leave of absence from Degania. The reasons for his mysterious summons to the closed meeting became clear to Haim. For Yol to make such a request was a serious matter.

  In the past Degania’s officers had granted limited leaves so members could receive technical training or for such personal reasons as visiting one’s parents in the old country. No one had ever asked to go without giving a reason or saying when he would be back.

  Yol’s request was summarily refused. The board lectured him on what it viewed as his profligate behavior. Yol countered by threatening to resign his membership.

  At that point Haim spoke up. He reminded the officers that Degania’s morale was to be considered. The settlement already had its first grave, poor Moshe’s. Was this the right time for one of the founding members to leave under a cloud? Haim suggested that the board call Yol’s leave Degania’s first sabbatical. The Old Testament specified that there should be a year-long period every seven years during which the plow is put away and the fields left fallow. Yol Popovich had been in Galilee for seven years. “Yol,” Haim loudly announced, “has been here longer than anybody.”

  The board relented and Yol’s leave was granted.

  “I’ve only been here six years,” Yol told Haim after they left the dining hall, his breath making vaporous puffs in the cold night.

  “The board members have all been here less than four,” Haim laughed. “They’ll never find out.”

  “Well, I thank you.” Yol smiled thinly. “That sabbatical business was very clever.”

  They walked on side by side with their coat collars turned up against the cold. Despite winter’s being the rainy season the weather had been dry the past fortnight. Degania’s usually muddy pathways had hardened, and keeping one’s footing was not much trouble.

  It was late enough for them to make their way in solitude, casting inkspills of shadow as they crossed an occasional square of yellow light cast from a cottage window. Overhead were myriad diamondlike stars and a milky crescent of moon against a canopy of black velvet.