A Bend in the Stars

by Rachel Barenbaum

  The sailor banged the pots together. The noise sent his ears ringing and his hands numb, but it did the trick. The villagers turned to face him. Finally, Dima could see Vanya, a bloody heap in the mud. Was he too late? Where was the American?

  “You all know this witch?” Dima yelled, pointing to Cook.

  “What’s it to you?” a woman replied.

  “Let her go,” Stepan said. “We’ve got a Jew.”

  “Friend, I asked if you know this witch?” Dima said. “You saw the omen? Lightning?” He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t the filthy Jew who brought the eclipse, who killed the cows. It was the Germans. Their leader, they call him kaiser,” Dima yelled. He knew his words were dangerous, but every villager had given a son, a father, a brother called to fight. “This war did it. The Germans cursed Russia. You felt the wind earlier, another sign? And now the cows, the lightning. They’re all omens. Signs that we’re cursed. The war that’ll kill us all.” Dima spit over his shoulder three times to show he was warding off evil. “Tell them or I’ll kill you,” he growled to Cook, pushing her forward. “Tell them what I say is true. The signs are warning us that the Germans’ war will kill us all.”

  She nodded. “He’s right.” Then she turned and yelled, “The kaiser brought the plague. His war’ll kill us all.” She paused. “The kaiser cursed us, not the Jew.”

  “Even if it was the German, the Jew’s his tool,” Stepan shouted back. “Friend, you’ve been taken under the Jewish spell.”

  “No. I know what I say,” Dima replied. “Cook can stop more from coming.”

  “More?” someone in the crowd asked.

  “He’s lying,” another said.

  “Yes. More. More cows. Pigs. Chickens.” Dima paused. “Children. They’ll all die. The cows, they were only the first.”

  “Can’t be,” a man yelled.

  “Are you willing to risk it?” Dima asked. He held his breath. His own hands were trembling now. Surely they’d come for him next if he couldn’t persuade them. He never believed, himself, not since he was a boy and the spells had failed to save his mother in childbirth, but he respected the old ways, knew how to navigate them. “Cook is going down to the pond where we found the cows. They were drinking the poison, but she can cure it. Cook can write her magic on the water and cure it.” He could see his words working their way through the villagers. They were whispering, nodding. He kept pushing. “Let’s follow Cook to the pond. Take her to the water. If I’m wrong, what do we lose? But if I’m right, we’re all in danger.” He paused. “What do we have to lose?”

  “Nothing,” Stepan said. “We lose nothing.”

  “Why should we trust him?” a villager called. “That man’s a stranger to us.”

  “Not to us,” Stepan said. “I can vouch for him.”

  “He’s right,” Vadim agreed finally. Dima was shocked and relieved. He watched them tie Vanya to the wagon. The scientist looked awful, but he recoiled when they grabbed him—it meant he was alive. Alive! He’d hurt for a long time, but Dima had seen sailors survive worse injuries than those.

  “To the pond,” Dima yelled as loud as he could.

  Cook led the procession down to the water. Vanya wasn’t safe, not yet, but Dima just had to keep Cook writing on the surface of the pond for as long as he could. The longer they were away, the cooler the crowd would be when they returned—and that might, might, give Vanya a chance to survive.

  XXXV

  Before the sun had tucked away for the night, Miri and Sasha washed up at the farmer’s well. The water was cold. She watched it turn the skin above Sasha’s stubble pink. “She could be wrong,” Sasha said. “There could be an American near here, she might not know.”

  “Do you think I read the telegram correctly? ‘Levi’s Monster’?” Miri asked.

  “I trust your instincts.”

  Miri sighed. “Wherever he is, if he’s safe, my brother could have his proof by now.”

  They climbed up to the loft and found the hay on the floor was loose, not baled as it should have been, as it would have been if the woman had had more help. They dropped to their knees and began to clear space to sleep. When their nook was finished, it was narrow and there wasn’t room to make it larger. They stayed on their knees, facing each other.

  “I can sleep downstairs,” Sasha said finally.

  “This will be fine.” Miri lay down on her back as far to the side as she could. Sasha followed. There was a finger width of space between their shoulders. She felt him tapping his hands but didn’t dare turn to look. Their faces would be too close.

  The lap of rain started on the thatch. The smell of turned mud and fresh moss grew stronger. And while they weren’t touching, it was all she could think about, the feel of him, the taste of him. “When we find Yuri, I’ll leave,” Sasha said.

  “Right.” She was surprised at how unconvincing her voice sounded. Sasha must have noticed it, too. He rolled over to face her. His weight, shifting, shook the loft. He propped an elbow up and leaned his head on his hand. He looked at her with eyes so dark she could barely make them out. “Is that what you want, Miriam?” He reached to touch her face, perhaps to tuck her curls behind her ear, but before he touched her, he pulled away. He rolled back, folded his arms over his chest. “You don’t know what you want, do you?”

  She lay there for a while. Hoping he’d fall asleep, knowing he wouldn’t, while rain spilled through cracks in the roof. She wanted to say something, but everything that came to mind wasn’t right.

  It was Sasha who broke the silence. “You never told me why you became a doctor.”

  “It’s a long story.” One she’d never told because no one ever asked. Even Yuri had just assumed her talent drew her to it, never asked if there was more. Miri closed her eyes. There was no question where to start, but she wasn’t sure she should.

  “Please,” Sasha said. “Tell me.”

  “Remember the night we spent in the hills, fishing? You were surprised I didn’t know how to fish?” Her voice was quiet, almost covered by the rain. “Helping women give birth, it’s what brought me to surgery. The births, they haunt me. Even when the mother lives, death comes so close, just at the moment when another life is starting. It’s powerful and terrible. I—I can’t describe it.” Miri despised the fact that birth and death were so closely linked. It was something no other surgeon at the hospital, not even Yuri, understood. He was confident in his abilities, certain he could save any mother, save Miri and their own children. But she’d seen him lose women in childbirth. Even the healthiest and strongest could go in a heartbeat. She continued. “For those first few seconds when a mother holds her child, when they’re still connected by the cord, they call it elation, they believe the worst is over. But it’s not. That’s when death is closest. Time stops for them, for me.” Like an eclipse, she thought. “And as soon as it starts again, everything rushes back. The pain. The joy. That’s when they die. Or most women do. When they bleed to death. But none of that answers your question. Why don’t I fish?” She tried to smile. “Our dacha. The house is deep in a pine forest. Near a sulfur spring. When I was twelve, my babushka came back from the market, and she told me she was going to teach me to fish. She told me to follow her to the spring. I thought Baba was going the wrong way, since there were no fish in the baths. ‘Patience,’ she said.

  “The path was steep. Hot. The higher we climbed, the stronger the smell of fouled eggs, the sulfur. Near the top, I heard a woman scream. Instinct had me jump forward to help, but Baba grabbed my arm. Baba’s stronger than she looks.”

  “I don’t doubt that.” Miri could hear the smile in Sasha’s voice.

  “She pulled me close. ‘At the market, I heard a wealthy man vacationing from Kovno sent for a doctor to help his wife through childbirth,’ Baba said. I’d never heard that urgency in her voice before. ‘While he waits for the doctor, he’s taken his wife to these baths to ease her pains. I warned him there wasn’t a doctor or midwife within a day of Birshtan,
but he didn’t believe me. Miri, you must help. You’ve delivered a baby,’ she said.

  “A month earlier, I was there when my cousin, Natalya, Klara’s granddaughter, went into labor. It was late. The doctor came, but it was only him. He needed help. And my cousin’s screams were unbearable. I would have done anything to help her.”

  “Of course you would,” Sasha said.

  “But why would you say ‘of course’? I was a child. What could I know?” Miri paused and looked at Sasha. Here, in the barn, under the leaking roof, she felt close to him in a way she didn’t expect, a way that kept her talking. “The cord connecting the baby, it was caught around his neck. Because of my height, I looked older than I was. The doctor looked at my hands. They were smaller than his. He asked if I was brave enough to save the baby. Could anyone say no?”

  “Many people would say no.”

  “I don’t believe that. Would you refuse?”

  “I’d never be asked in the first place.”

  “I guess that’s right,” she said. “The doctor guided me, walked me through each step. I slid my hand inside my cousin. I cried—it wasn’t sadness. Or fear, but something else. I felt the baby, my cousin’s pulse. And Natalya, she was so exhausted she barely had the strength to push again. I had to save them both. And I did.”

  “That was when you knew you wanted to be a doctor?”

  “No. I’d never met a woman who was a doctor. But I thought I’d be a midwife. It’s why Babushka pushed me to help.”

  “In Birshtan?”

  “Yes. In Birshtan, my grandmother insisted I could do it again. ‘I saw you taking in every detail,’ she said. I went to the woman at the spring. She was squatting next to the pool. Her husband’s face was like ashes. The pools are good if you’re ill, but something told me not if you’re in labor. There’s blood, and fluid. The woman needed to be cool, not soaking in salt. I told the husband to spread a blanket over in the clearing. ‘Are you a doctor?’ he asked. Babushka told him I was the closest thing he’d find to a doctor, and for the first time in my life, I was thankful for my height, for looking older than I was.

  “When I looked between this woman’s legs, I could already see the crown of the baby’s head. I told the woman it wouldn’t be long, and I tried to examine her just as the doctor had. I wasn’t skilled enough yet to know from sight as I do now, but my hands were steady. I thought the infant was in the position I’d seen with Natalya, and so I told the woman to push with all her might. She clenched my wrist and screamed. Sasha, when the baby came, she was pink and screaming. Perfect.

  “When the husband asked how much to pay me, Baba stepped in. ‘No money can pay for this happiness, but we will accept a kind favor in return.’ Anything, the man insisted. ‘We love to eat fresh fish. Does your cook or kitchen boy fish in the morning?’ Every day, the man said. ‘Is there a chance he could catch one or two extra fish for us?’ But that’s nothing, the husband objected. Baba insisted the fish were worth more than the man knew.”

  “And so the husband agreed to deliver fish to your door every morning?” Sasha asked.

  “Yes. Every morning. At least for the rest of that summer. Baba explained, ‘We will always need to eat, and this is how we survive, how we fish. Knowledge is the most important currency, and you, Mirele, you were born to be a doctor.’ On the way home, though, I asked her, ‘Isn’t love the most important currency?’”

  “And?”

  “‘Love,’ Baba said. ‘Love is what makes you want to survive in the first place.’”

  XXXVI

  Vanya cried out. He opened his eyes. He was wet. The sun was dim. The eclipse? No, the sun must have been setting. Someone had thrown water on him. Every part of his body screamed with pain. He didn’t know what was broken and what was still intact. He was shivering from terror more than from cold. He was in a cellar, or a prison. No, a barn. It smelled like manure and rot. Animals. Dirty animals.

  “Baba,” he moaned. If only she could help him now. If only Miri were there to fix him.

  In the dark, he made out Stepan standing in front of him. Vanya tried to ask Stepan to hurry, to free him before his captors came back, but it came out sounding like a groan, and any relief he’d felt thinking Stepan was a friend evaporated into fear as Vanya realized he was splayed over a roughhewn table, stomach down, while a man leaned on his back to keep him in place. Vadim. Vanya felt his peg leg jutting into the back of his knee.

  Stepan and Vadim were the men torturing him.

  Stepan leaned down and took hold of Vanya’s hand. Blood already poured from his thumb into a puddle on the straw below him. His fingernail was gone. His vision was going dark again at the edges. He’d never felt his heart beat so fast, the air so thin.

  “Swear not to send another eclipse,” Vadim said.

  “I swear,” Vanya cried. Still death wasn’t coming fast enough.

  Elul

  The sixth month in the Hebrew calendar, Elul, is marked as a time of repentance that leads up to the holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Elul comes from the Aramaic, meaning to search.

  The Talmud tells that the Hebrew word Elul can be understood as an acronym for the verse “I am my beloved and my beloved is mine,” words from the Song of Songs.

  I

  On Rosh Chodesh Elul, Miri woke before sunrise and said a quiet l’chaim, imagining her brother toasting with her. Her heart ached at the thought that they hadn’t been together for the eclipse, and now all she could do was hope he’d succeeded. She and Sasha set out before the farmer and her daughter were out of bed and soon it was clear they were finally close to Kiev. They approached the city by taking the road along a river, huddling in ditches when they saw soldiers. When the way was clear, they trudged through mud that sucked on their soles and clung to Miri’s skirts and Sasha’s uniform. He still insisted on carrying the greatcoat no matter how much Miri fought him over it.

  Away from the forest, the river was dark. It smelled of waste and moved so slowly that sticks oozed past like slugs. Wherever her brother and Yuri were, Miri had to find them—soon. She and Sasha would search in Podil among the factory workers, the poorest of the poor: tradesmen, fishermen, and Jews. This was the safest place to ask for an American, not because he’d be there but because someone might know something and no one in Podil would dare go to the Russian police, not even to turn them in.

  It was after noon when Miri spotted Kiev’s smokestacks. Hulking marble buildings glittered as if they’d been kissed in gold, crowned with red and green tiled roofs. A church’s five spires reached up toward the sky like a lady’s fingers bedazzled with jewels. Miri had always imagined coming to this city would be magical, that she’d feel the spell her mother wove around it, but as they got closer, she felt only fear underscored by the smell of burnt sweets from the factories owned by Russia’s sugar beet barons. Miri and Sasha took the road that turned toward the outlying slum. Soon their feet crunched over fish carcasses, potato peels, and rocks. They wound through throngs of bone-thin children dressed in rags. The head teacher at the first school they stopped at knew nothing about an American. It was the same at the next. And the next.

  “Someone must have heard about Russell Clay. Read something in a newspaper,” Sasha said. The only good news was this meant that Kir, or the Okhrana, might have just as much trouble finding Vanya as they did.

  They stood outside a yeshiva. The walls were black with mold and shivered in the wind. “I have another idea,” Sasha said. He stopped a crippled boy missing a foot. “Where’s the hospital?” he asked.

  “Two turns to the right,” the boy said.

  “The Jewish hospital of Podil. Of course,” Miri said. The hospital was the only one in Russia more famous than Kovno’s and just as modern. Russia’s most renowned Jewish physician worked there, Dr. Tessler. Yuri devoured every article he published and talked about him endlessly. “I should have thought of it. If Yuri’s nearby, he will be there with Tessler. He won’t sit idle while Vanya is busy.”
She paused. “But you weren’t thinking about Yuri, were you. You think they’ve been injured?”

  “I think we need a way in that won’t be suspicious.”

  “We could fake an illness. You could have stomach pains, appendicitis. Then you’d see a surgeon, maybe even Yuri.”

  “Stomach pains won’t be enough,” he said. “It needs to be convincing.” He added something else, but Miri didn’t hear. There, in the middle of the hustle and crowds, she went still. Yuri could be there. In two turns to the right.

  “Sasha,” she said. “Yuri will know what happened between us.”

  “There’s nothing to know.”

  “There’s everything to know. That’s what makes him a great doctor. He can look at patients and see everything.”

  “See what?” Sasha asked. “A kiss?” A mule barreled down the street, trailing an empty wagon. A team of men ran after the animal, cursing. Sasha and Miri stepped out of the way just in time. “You could tell him the truth,” Sasha said, and she looked away. “Or do you want me to leave?”

  Her lips moved but there was no sound. She was promised to Yuri and she loved him. That kiss had been the beginning and the end between her and Sasha. When she didn’t answer, Sasha tucked her arm into his, and together they slid into an alley so narrow they had to thread around one another to fit. He reached for his collar and popped one button out of its hole and then another until his wounded shoulder was exposed. He wiped a tear from Miri’s cheek, and she held his palm there, on her face. Then he was quick. Before she understood what he was doing, the knife gleamed and he plunged it into his shoulder where the skin had started to heal. Miri cried out. He covered her mouth with his good arm. “If we must go to the hospital, this is our way in. I need a surgeon. Don’t you understand? There’s no question now.” Blood oozed out over his skin and spread too fast. He’d gone deeper than necessary.