The Singing Fire

by Lilian Nattel

  She paused in shock, as they meant her to. And it was then that they strapped her legs apart. They pushed up her dress. They pulled away her underthings. She screamed and pulled on the leather straps, arching her back and screaming again. Her chest was bare and her legs open and the air touched the curly hairs that no one but her sisters and her mother had seen. And the strangers watched her. The one with graying hair to his collar and the long jaw like a horse was touching her—here and here and here—while she screamed, pee dripping down her leg.

  “Quiet her, Nurse,” the doctor said, and the lady tied a gag around Nehama’s mouth. She fell quiet. She turned her head to one side, looking at the cabinet with the glass front between scrolled panels, and she memorized the colors of the jars while someone put an instrument to her naked chest. Her nipples rose in the cold. Someone pulled her legs up and forced her knees further apart. The pressure between her legs hurt. She was undone.

  “This girl is clear of venereal illness. You can see that her hymen is intact. She may be released.”

  “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to observe the untreated disease, sir,” the younger man said.

  “We’ll have another patient soon enough.”

  The white lady removed the straps. She pushed Nehama, sobbing, to the door. Outside the hospital the constable was waiting. She didn’t resist as he made her step up into the police wagon to take her to prison. Her sisters would never have allowed it. They would have known whom to bribe. But here anything was allowed.

  Dorset Street

  The sky was gray and ready to burst when the police wagon stopped, not in front of a prison but at a tavern with a sign swinging on one rusty bolt. A cornucopia was painted on the sign, and out of it fell fruits of some sort, the colors and shapes so worn they weren’t identifiable. The sign hung over a doorway, and there Mr. Blink was waiting. Somehow he’d known where to come for her, and at last everything would be fixed. Beside him stood a young woman smoking a short pipe. She looked about the same age as Nehama’s next older sister, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. Her hair was dark and her skin pale as a doll’s, her nose long, her lips wide, and when she smiled Nehama could see she had all her teeth. She was short and stocky, a body for pulling plows and surviving famines.

  “Where were you for so long?” Mr. Blink asked angrily.

  “I was in a hospital,” she said, and then told him the whole story because someone must comfort her. The young woman with the pipe was nodding and smirking as if she understood Yiddish and didn’t think much of it. Mr. Blink was waving his hand to say, Get to the point. Patrons of the tavern came in and out, looking like drunks do anywhere, wounded and stinking. One of them knocked Mr. Blink’s bowler hat into the gutter, and he picked it up, rubbing away the dust on the brim, while Nehama cried out, “Why did they do that to me?”

  Mr. Blink studied her without saying a word. Nehama put her hand to her hair, fallen out of its pins and hanging loose around her shoulders. Mr. Blink’s voice was sad, his eyes empty of any emotion. “So you’re no longer a good girl.”

  “I’m not?” She hadn’t thought—well, something had happened but she’d hoped that perhaps it wasn’t really the thing and now it seemed that her sisters were right, she was stupid, stupid not to know.

  “You know what I mean,” Mr. Blink said. “It’s too late to do anything about it.”

  “What will happen to me now? God in heaven.” The rain fell, drenching her as Mr. Blink stepped back into the shelter of the doorway.

  This was her punishment. Before she stepped on the boat she had made herself a thief, and then God had made her—She wouldn’t think of the word. To buy the ticket, she had sneaked into her sisters’ rooms and taken from each of them a piece of finery to sell. A pair of earrings, a blouse, a silk kerchief. From the middle sister, Shayna-Pearl, she’d taken nothing. Not because she was afraid of Shayna-Pearl’s temper but because her sister only had books and Nehama wouldn’t sell a book. She’d left a note that said her dowry should be given to her sisters so that they could replace what she’d taken. But Bronya’s earrings were the only thing her husband had ever given her. Repayment doesn’t exonerate a sin, does it?

  “I told you to stay in my rooms above the shop. And you didn’t listen. May God forgive you. Now. Well, now … What shall we do with you? To the loan committee, I can’t go. Not under the circumstances. But still the entrance fee must be paid. There’s only one thing to do. The fee will be paid by someone I know, and you’ll work for him to pay it back.”

  The young woman with the pipe rolled her eyes. She wore a brightly colored, badly made dress. “Should I take her now?” she asked in Yiddish. Another landsmann. Who knew there were so many Jews in London?

  “This is Fayge,” Mr. Blink said. “Here they call her Fay. She’ll take you to the Squire, and if you can’t be a good girl, then at least you can work hard. Remember that you’re only here because he paid for you, and he can turn you over to the authorities any time he likes.” He walked away just like that. In a big city, people come and go, her grandmother used to say.

  Nehama followed the other girl inside, her skirt dripping on the floor. The tavern was long and narrow, and at the far end the Squire sat at a table near the map of London 1809 and a door marked PRIVAT. If only there wasn’t so much noise, she might have heard her grandmother trying to talk to her.

  You see him? He’s called the Squire because he wears a watch with a chain, but he’s just a man who used to be a sailor. He’s a gentile, of course, are Jews fishermen? But now he makes his business with girls. A good drama he likes, and he can buy the best seat. In the theater he wears a long scarf and an old wool cap. A man in a silk hat is nothing to him. The magistrate doesn’t worry him either. But listen to me, my girl. He’s afraid of the wind. I’m telling you this so you should know that even a man like him is afraid of something. You don’t have to look at the floor. Look at him and see what he is. Then turn around and go away. Right now and not a minute later. Do you hear me, Nehameleh?

  But Nehama heard only the noise of the pub as she followed the stocky young woman with her solid walk to the Squire, who was knitting a scarf the color of the Spanish sky.

  “That’s the Squire’s friend, a smuggler,” Fay whispered.

  The smuggler was a small man, even for these streets, where men didn’t grow big, and he wore a Russian greatcoat, the collar around his ears. As he read his newspaper aloud, he took great bites of bangers and mash and swallows of beer, speaking up so the Squire could hear him above the accordion and the click of draughts and the toss of an iron ring at the hook on the back wall.

  “There were a row in Angel Alley what put two in the London Hospital. A drowned child found in the Thames. And an ointment from India what cures bad eyes.”

  “I could do with that,” the Squire said. “I smashed my spectacles yesterday. Go on.”

  “Ships stalled in the channel. An east wind. And one ship lost.”

  “Bloody wind. Naught you can do about it. Even the best knife won’t save a man from drowning in it.” The Squire took the watch from his pocket, rubbing the gold back against a piece of silk to shine it.

  “This is Mr. Blink’s new girl,” Fay said.

  So this was the man who was going to save her from the authorities because she wasn’t fit for the Newcomers’ Assistance Committee. The Squire looked her up and down as if he’d be glad to take his price out of her skin. Maybe he’d sell her to a factory. There were terrible factories in Plotsk, where girls breathed fumes all day long and coughed up black tar. “Tell him that I can sew,” she said to Fay. At least sewing wouldn’t kill her.

  “It’s not sewing he wants,” Fay said in Yiddish.

  The Squire nodded as if he understood. “You tell her she cost me ten pounds.”

  “What kind of work do I have to do?” Nehama asked. She looked directly at the Squire. Her grandmother used to say that if you don’t use your eyes while you’re taking the train from Pinsk to Minsk, your pocket
s will be picked clean and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. His face was hard and his lips were soft. He smelled like poison. Later Nehama would find out that he made a special grease to keep his hands and lips from chapping.

  MINSK, 1875

  Moskovskaya Street

  The Rosenbergs lived in a stone house with a wrought-iron fence in front and an apple tree in back. The house was three stories, the garden behind it small and private. A doctor lived next door, and sometimes he had musical evenings, the sound of the piano and violin drifting into the garden, where the ghost of the first Mrs. Rosenberg sat in the apple tree. There were now three living Rosenbergs left in the house: the second wife, the husband, and their daughter.

  The first Mrs. Rosenberg had been a mousy woman who took to her bed after Father pointed out her many failings. When she died, he fetched his distant cousin, a widow from a fine family, to be his second wife and take care of his home and children. She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. He already had his sons.

  The girl was too beautiful, more like a shiksa than a Jew, so why should anyone think she was his child at all? In fact there was no evidence. Mr. Rosenberg was a notary and liked the word evidence. It made him feel more like a lawyer. Or even a judge. He’d have been one if he’d been born a generation later, when the czar was more liberal toward Jews and let a few into higher schooling. But as it was, all he was authorized to judge were the bricks made in his factory on the outskirts of Minsk, a town of little distinction.

  The apple tree was still heavy with fruit, though it was late in the season. Under the care of the first Mrs. Rosenberg, the tree in the garden bloomed early and bore fruit into the fall. Emilia sat on the bench under it, thinking of how she would live with Mother when they ran away. The ghost of the first wife could come, too. Emilia didn’t mind sharing a garden with the dead. In the garden with its brick wall covered by ivy, it didn’t matter if Emilia was a bit cold in her fall coat. A thrush was singing, a squirrel chittering, the ghost rustling the branches of the apple tree, all perfectly peaceful while Emilia cut out a string of paper dolls.

  “Look!” she called up to the ghost of the first wife, unfolding the paper dolls. She knew the paper dolls were simple, but she was only nine years old. Next year she’d be able to make paper-cuts of roses and trees like Mama. The ghost of the first wife nodded in approval. She never spoke. Probably the dead couldn’t speak because they didn’t have real bodies. But they listened all the time, and really, as long as a ghost could nod or shake her head, she was just as pleasant as half the guests that Father invited for dinner. He never came into the garden. The only door was through the kitchen, and he wouldn’t lower himself to be seen there.

  “I don’t think Father will be mad tonight, do you?” Emilia asked the first wife, folding the paper for another set of dolls. She’d make boy dolls this time. Maybe she’d show Father. She would say these were her half brothers. She carefully traced the tall hats, thinking that Father would be in a good mood and he would smile as she unfolded the paper dolls.

  The ghost of the first wife came down from the tree and sat beside her on the grass as if she’d like to put her arm around Emilia. But there wasn’t any need for that. Emilia was a lucky girl, being both pretty and clever. Mama always said so. Mama said that Emilia would not make the same mistakes she had. “When Father sees the boy paper dolls, he’ll kiss my cheek and give me a coin,” Emilia said to the first wife. “Don’t you think so?”

  The ghost of the first Mrs. Rosenberg shook her head. She was making a wreath out of fallen leaves. Gold leaves and red, and flowers that blew over the wall for the first wife’s use.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Emilia said. “Kisses are for babies.” Perhaps he would be in a good mood and not throw the soup today. Yesterday they’d had beet borscht. When the soup hit the wall, it had left a red stain. The maid had scrubbed and scrubbed, Mama too. But there was still a pink mark, and Father was angry that his hard-earned money would have to be thrown out on painters. From now on there would be only chicken soup in the house, he said. Mama loathed cooked chicken. It looked too much like a living thing.

  Her mother opened the kitchen door. She was dressed for cooking, with an oversize apron from collar to hem. The cooking wasn’t going well. Emilia knew it because Mama’s cheeks were red and she was wearing the cameo brooch. Mama always wore the cameo when she was feeling wobbly. “What are you doing, Emilia?”

  “Cutting paper dolls.” Mama made beautiful paper-cuts, scenes of trees and flowers and sea animals riding waves. Father said that she should stick with playing the piano—paper-cuts were usually made by men to mark the eastern wall for prayer or decorate windows for festivals—but Father didn’t refuse to hang them, because Mama’s paper-cuts were so admired by his friends. “Well, come inside and have your lesson,” Mama said. “The German Bible is still on your desk, waiting for you to get past Adam.”

  The house was large. It had guest rooms and a library, where Father met with editors and other intelligent people, but Mama taught Emilia her lessons at a desk in the kitchen. Under the calendar on the left wall, there was a pine cabinet full of books and next to it a sewing chest without a single needle or spool of thread but everything you’d need for cutting beautiful scenes out of paper: the board, the small knife, paper and ink of many hues, stencils of trees, roses, eagles, lions.

  “Mama, isn’t the brisket done?” Emilia asked as she came into the kitchen. The maid was peeling potatoes, and something smelled burnt.

  Her mother poked at the meat with a silver fork as if it might rise up out of the pot and accuse her of anti-Semitism. “Maybe I should pour in a little more water. It will make gravy. Go on. Read.”

  “But if Father doesn’t like it …”

  “Don’t look so worried. Let me ask you—can he be any worse than a Russian officer?” Mama’s voice was tense, but she smiled as she pushed Emilia to her desk.

  The pages of the book lying open on her desk were stained with smudged pencil notes. Better a story from Mother. “Tell me about the Russians,” Emilia said.

  There were two tables in the kitchen—the big one beside the window for preparing meat dishes and the small one for dairy opposite, next to the cabinet of books. Mother waited until the maid came back from the cellar with the carrots. Freida liked a story, too. When they were both settled at the table by the window, peeling and cutting carrots for the tzimmes, she began. “It was in the year of the Polish rebellion. We hid the rebels in the woods around our village, and my husband—my first husband, alleva sholom—gave them boots and coats. It was winter, and you could see the footprints of horses in the snow when the Russian soldiers came.”

  “And then what happened?” Emilia asked, though she knew the answer. She was watching the shapes the curtains made as they fluttered against the open window. The curtains were yellow and sheer, like candle flames lighting her mother’s face.

  “When the Russians came to our village, they didn’t know who was doing what, but they blew up my first husband’s mill just the same. The officers came to our house, and I was sure they intended to kill us all. So I invited them in.”

  “Why didn’t you run away? That’s what I would do,” Emilia said.

  “No, you listen to me. It’s better to open a door yourself than have it smashed to pieces. What can you do afterward with a broken door? I brought out the crystal goblets, and I served them wine until they were drunk. Then I played the piano for them and they cried sentimental tears. Because of that, they only stole everything we had and no one was shot.”

  “But you lost everything, Mama.” Emilia had heard the story many times. How Mama’s first husband, the miller, died of a broken heart soon after the mill was destroyed.

  “Not everything. I’m telling you—out of this you came. When I finished mourning, I married your father. How would I know that a woman who could charm Russian officers couldn’t charm him? He’s a stone, your father. A hammer. After the wedding night, he told m
e that he didn’t want another man’s child in his house. That was my son by the miller. So I left him with someone—what else could I do? He was fourteen years old. But still, I saved whatever I could, a penny here and a penny there, and I sent it to him. I want you to know that a mother never forgets her child.”

  “Yes, Mama,” Emilia said. But she didn’t believe it for a minute. She didn’t even know the name of this half brother.

  Emilia had her dinner with the maid in the kitchen. On special occasions and the Sabbath, she ate in the dining room, but when she was older she’d have to eat there all the time with her parents and half brothers and their wives. For now she could sit with Freida and wave at the ghost of the first wife, and after Father returned to the factory, she snuck into his study to read.

  The study was the nicest room in the house. It had two windows facing south and west, so that it was as bright and warm as could be. Father’s desk was in the corner, and Emilia didn’t go near it, not daring to take the chance of accidentally messing it up. On the desk were spread many newspapers, which Father used to glean facts obscured by the czar’s censors. Cabinets lined the opposite two walls, and under the south-facing window, Emilia sat on the thick carpet with a book in her lap. Today she was reading Travels in Italy and the Levantine. Emilia always read with a purpose. There were certain facts she wished to corroborate, as Father said.

  Emilia was so engrossed in Travels in Italy and the Levantine that she forgot to pay attention to the sounds outside the study. She was thinking that she’d take Mama to Italy. In Italy the sky was warm and blue, according to the painting on Mama’s wall, and here it was again in the colored plates in Father’s book. No one could be sick in such a place.

  Father had many books. He was a cultured man. He preferred Russian to any other language. It was just yesterday that he’d said so before throwing the soup. He asked why Mama insisted on teaching her daughter German. He read only Russian. No other language was worth reading, but perhaps his wife thought he was an ignoramus compared with some others he might name. Then he threw the soup. Emilia was in the kitchen, but she heard the tureen smash against the wall. She didn’t eat any more dinner after that. Freida took away her plate and brought her a piece of cake. Emilia wasn’t hungry, but she had a bite of it so that later she could remember the taste and imagine she was eating cake in the cabin of a beautiful ship sailing away, and Father was left all alone to feel great remorse.