The Sacrifice

by Adele Wiseman

  “For God’s sake!” In an access of impatience Laiah’s hand tugged sharply at his beard. “Hurry up!” Her voice jarred like a harsh command. “My back is –”

  Even as his arm leaped, as though expressing its own exasperation, its own ambition, its own despair, the Word leaped too, illuminating her living face, caressing the wonder of the pulse in her throat, flinging itself against the point of the knife. Life! cried Isaac as the blood gushed from her throat and her frantic fingers gripped first, then relaxed and loosened finally their hold on his beard. Life! pleaded Jacob as Abraham stared, horrified, into her death-glazed eyes. Life! chanted Moses as he smelled, sickened, the hot blood that had spurted onto his beard. Life! rose the chorus as the knife clattered to the ground, and the word rebounded from the walls and the floors and the ceiling, beating against the sudden unnatural stillness of the room, thundering in accusation against him. Weightier in death, Laiah pulled him to the ground.

  Kneeling, he cradled Laiah in his lap. “Please,” he whispered. With one hand he propped her head, which sagged grotesquely, forward to try to close the gaping wound in her throat. “Please,” he repeated hoarsely. With the index finger of his other hand he moved her slack eyelids gently up and down. “Live!” he begged her. He tried with his hand to cover up the wound, shuddering at the sticky wetness of her warm blood. “Live,” he pleaded, shaking her a little, and had to grip her head more tightly to prevent it from lolling over. “Please!” Anguished, he tried to breathe on her still lips. “Live!” He wept, his face against hers. “Live!…Live…”

  —

  Very early in the morning Jenny, agog to find out who the visitor was that Laiah had had so late last night – she had been awakened by the doorbell but had rushed to her door too late to see – knocked, as was her habit, on Laiah’s door. Then she knocked more loudly and tried the doorknob. The door opened, and Jenny, after wondering briefly whether she should just walk right in – after all, her friend might not be alone – giggled inside herself and decided that that would be the shock of her life. It was.

  —

  After she had cried herself out Ruth remained for a while with her head propped on her arms in a state that was close to exhaustion. Then she raised herself wearily, unable to think any more of what had caused the outburst. She looked at the clock and saw that it was late and wondered fleetingly where the old man had gone after the door had closed. She shook off the thought of him. Still, after bathing her swollen eyes, she looked into the room where the boy slept, alone now. She went out into the front hall, thinking that perhaps he was sitting out front, too stubborn to come in and go to bed. But there was no one on the porch. From the porch she looked up and down the street, vaguely uneasy. But no shadow of his figure lurked. She came into the house again, leaving the outside light on for him. Wearily she undressed and fell asleep almost immediately.

  About two hours later she awoke suddenly with a severe headache and the troubling knowledge that she had left something undone. She got up and went through the living room and down the hall to Abraham’s bedroom, where the child still slept alone. Then she hurried to the front porch, where the night light still shone. Where could he be in the middle of the night? Leaving the front door unlocked and the light on, she lay down again.

  When she awoke again she made the same rounds. By this time she could no longer sleep. Her mind unwound the scene of the evening before as she wandered from the kitchen to the front door and back again. In the re-viewing she lost much of her initial resentment. It had been such a stupid fight, a multiplication of errors. At any point they might have come together, reached a mutual understanding. But no, they had both been too busy pursuing their own devils. And she had hurt him, he who had been hurt so often before. She would have to be more gentle with him, make him understand that they were not enemies, that she had not meant so many of the things she had said in blind anger. And she would forget, would set aside the things that he had said. But why didn’t he come home? In spite of herself she could not suppress her fears.

  As the dawn began to relieve the night blackness she turned off the hall light, wrapped herself in her housecoat, and went out onto the porch to sit and wait. By the time the police came she already knew that something terrible had happened.

  SIXTEEN

  They were moving. Moses helped to uproot the furniture, pulling each piece out of its context with a kind of fierce pleasure and helping to push or carry it to the old wagon where it was piled crazily on with the rest. Though he resented old lady Plopler’s attitude, meaningful, conspiratorial, he nevertheless moved with a feeling of furtiveness, of haste, glancing about him every time he came out on the porch with another bundle, to see whether there was any movement in the neighboring houses, any sign of the morning stirring other than in the cool dawning breeze.

  Ruth had arranged for the cart to come to the house very early in the morning, while the street was still deserted. By the time they had piled on the last chair a wagon had passed, and several people, and Moses could sense the stretching that was going on in neighboring homes, the scratching, and the movements behind the blinds. Hurry.

  His mother told them to go on ahead in the cart, while she took a last look around to see that nothing was left. Sonya Plopler settled herself beside the driver. Even though she told people privately how unfeeling it was of Ruth – how brazen, in fact – to be thinking of business while her father-in-law was in jail and the whole city was in an uproar over him, she nonetheless agreed that it was absolutely necessary to get the child away and insisted on helping with the moving.

  Carrying the box with their remaining cat, Moses climbed up in the back, where he could crouch among the furniture, seeing but not being seen. “Clean getaway,” he muttered as the wagon began creaking down the street and still none of the neighboring doors opened, none of the neighbor kids flew onto their porches. Yet he still expected that from somewhere their voices would blare out again. “Hey, Moishe, what was your granpaw? a butcher?” – from Tony. “Heeeeaaaaaaw” – braying laughter from Dmitri. “Some cow!” But they wouldn’t come near.

  His mother had turned almost immediately back into the house. The wagon rounded the corner and headed up toward the avenue. The most familiar houses disappeared. Maybe he would never have to see them again until the day came. He was not quite sure what day he meant, but he was sure that a day would come when things would be changed again, unless – and he could hardly bear to think of it – there were no good days left.

  Though the driver showed less animation than was worthy of the subject, Mrs. Plopler, operating on the assumption that goyim were more likely to know about these things, persisted. “What are they likely to do with him?” she asked in Ukrainian, with a backward glance to make sure that the boy wasn’t listening.

  “They could hang him,” offered the driver. “Of course” – he ruminated slowly – “if he was drunk when he did it –”

  Wasn’t that just like them? It was not bad enough to kill, but they had to be drunk yet, too. An everyday thing, to drink, to kill, to murder. Mrs. Plopler eyed the driver with distaste. Slumped in his seat and occasionally interrupting himself to flick the reins at the horse, he told in leisurely fashion about a man he knew who had got only five years because he was drunk, although he had often threatened to – He could have stood as a witness himself; he had heard him threaten. But who wanted to give evidence to one of those English judges?

  But Mrs. Plopler did not want to hear about just any old drunk. She thirsted for more relevant discussion. Since what she referred to as “the day,” she had risen above her own personal aches and pains, had blossomed forth into a new vitality. Her daughters kept telling her to keep away from that murderer’s family, yet they came every day to hear what she had learned. Wherever she went a discussion began, or discussions paused and waited for her opinions on controversial points. She was able, by some miraculous act of synthesis, to hold simultaneously all points of view, rumors, theories, and judg
ments, no matter how contradictory, and believe implicitly in each one of them as it was voiced, bringing forth convincing arguments, based on her knowledge of the situation, as to why in each case it must indeed be so. Whatever the point of view, Sonya Plopler had gauged the entire range of possible emotions of those involved, and spontaneously re-enacted before her hypnotized listeners how it must have taken place. At least a dozen times a day she argued, condemned, pronounced, excused, emoted, until to some it seemed that her nose had indeed gone wild. At night she fell into bed exhausted, and blessedly without having had the time to stop and think all day.

  “Say there!” Moses had just caught sight of the old man when Mrs. Plopler’s voice called back to him. “Where are you, Moishele? Are you all right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Stop, driver!” Mrs. Plopler cried. “Where’s he gone?”

  “It’s all right, don’t stop,” he yelled.

  “I can’t see you there,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I fell off,” he growled.

  “Poor child,” said Mrs. Plopler in Ukrainian, turning back to the driver, “he’s so bewildered.”

  Crouched in his niche, Moses had not taken his eyes off the old man, who walked, with his prayer shawl in its pouch under his arm, in the direction of the green synagogue. With narrowed eyes he peered after the bent figure. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his finger and took aim.

  —

  Back in the empty house, Ruth walked from room to room. What was left behind? Nothing. Everything. The rooms resounded, hollow, to her footsteps. Yet she expected still in every room to see it as it was. As though two dimensions of being were imposed on each other, she actually felt for an instant that all was as it had been, and that she was really standing now in the middle of the ghost of the kitchen table and not in an empty room. She looked around for a chair to sit down on. She wanted very much to sit, but the kitchen was empty – four walls to lean against. She could hardly prevent herself from slipping wearily in a heap to the floor and burying her face in her hands. Instead she swayed on her feet.

  If only – her mind played its insistent game. If only I had called out just as he was leaving. I was going to; I’m sure I was going to. It was on the tip of my tongue to call out. If I had got up from the chair and followed him, begging him to forgive me, telling him I didn’t mean – flinging myself at his feet – If only…if only.

  What if they should hang him? Hang Isaac’s father, and because she hadn’t called out, hadn’t begged him to come back, hadn’t dreamed – She had told them everything, about the quarrel, how he had rushed out, about Isaac, about how she had found him that day after Isaac had died. She had confessed to them that it must have been she who had given him this idea of his that he repeated over and over again, that he had killed Isaac, that he had killed his sons. During their quarrel, in her aggravation, she had said something – she had not had a chance to explain.

  Did she do right? Did she do right to tell them all this? Better they should think him mad than hang him like a murderer. Of course he was mad. Thinking back, there were things he had said and done, things that she hadn’t paid any attention to at the time. Wasn’t this madness? And seeing him – was this a madman’s, this haggard face? Yes, yes, it was no ordinary face. And madness can’t be helped; it is no one’s fault. A man sinks under the weight of his life finally. It is not a sudden thing caused by words said in haste and anger. But what did he leave them with? What had he done to them? The child – Mad or not, when a man is selfish – his own desires…

  When they had let her see him she had held herself in, controlling herself against the desire to question, to blame, against all expression of horror, and against, too, the next moment’s impulse to beg, to plead for forgiveness. Be with him; he is Isaac’s father. Calm him. Pity him. What does it matter, the unanswered questions? Ask after his comfort – practical, important things. Bring him kosher food or he will starve himself. Above all, don’t let him excite himself, upset himself. Comfort him.

  She fought against the impulse to blame herself. Who knows, had he stayed, she herself or the child might have been – No! It had something to do with that woman. It was connected to her. Could he have been trying to break away from them all the time, to go to this woman, as Sonya Plopler had hinted? Had she misunderstood him all along? Was that why he accused her of running around with other men, because he himself wanted to be free? He hadn’t the courage to say to her straight out, “Ruth, I have been living with this woman.” When? When had he had time? Had he said, “I want to marry her,” what could she have said? Instead he preferred to throw the onus on her, to make it as though she were to blame. Was that it? Who could tell, when all you could get from him was this confusion? She had tried to tell him at the jail, aching as she was with regret, with pity. “No, you never killed Isaac, Pa. I didn’t mean that, Pa. I was upset. Isaac’s heart was weak.” But argue with a madman. What difference to him if you explained that he had not killed Isaac? He had killed. “All right, Pa. It’s all right. Don’t upset yourself. It doesn’t matter.”

  Had there really been those years of laughter and argument? What did it matter now? Anything, anything to get the child away from here, to a new neighborhood, so that he could go out into the street without being hounded. Thank goodness Harry was kind. The house, empty, no longer held her as she moved toward the door.

  —

  For the first time in days Chaim Knopp pushed open the door of the green synagogue. In the movement itself there was comfort, and in the familiar sight of the interior of the house of worship. He moved slowly down the aisle toward the ark, drawing his prayer shawl out of its pouch and unfolding it, making ready to draw its protective folds about him.

  Peace, Chaim was thinking, quiet and the knowledge that something still stands. Not to think too much, but to pray and perhaps to listen to the words of friends, exchanging doubts and the companionable nodding of heads. This was what he had needed the past few days as he lay in bed under the load on his heart, this, and not Bassieh’s voice of recrimination, adding his friendship with murderers to his list of shortcomings, as if it was merely a new chapter in a long-standing family argument. How can one know a man?

  “Chaim” – his friend Dreiman the shamus was greeting him eagerly – “we haven’t seen anything of you lately. Where have you been? Come, it’s early yet. Come sit and talk a minute.”

  Warmed by his welcome, Chaim let himself be led to where a group of his old cronies was gathered.

  “They said” – Dreiman slowed down before they reached the others and spoke confidentially – “that you would give up coming to this synagogue. They said you were hiding from us.”

  Chaim stopped. “Who said? Why should they say? Just because I was not feeling so well…” Of course this was Dreiman teasing him again in his good-natured way about his well-to-do children and about the fact that he nevertheless still prayed with his friends in a not-so-high-class synagogue.

  “Oh,” Dreiman said, moving with him again toward the others, “we thought maybe because of that butcher business, because you and he were such good friends, you might feel that – Here’s Chaim.” Dreiman now addressed the group with an air of personal pride, as though he himself had conjured Chaim up. “And he has been sick. If I had known, I would have come to see you, Chaim.”

  “Thank you,” said Chaim, “but one gets over it. Sometimes it’s better to get up and forget about it.”

  “You weren’t feeling well?” Pleschikov, shamus of the green synagogue, asked.

  Chaim nodded. “Something was bothering me in here.” He made a vague gesture toward his chest, pleased that they should be so concerned.

  “You certainly don’t look so well,” Dreiman was saying.

  “Gray,” offered one of the others.

  “A little tired,” Chaim admitted and sat down.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have come out so soon,” said Pleschikov with a glance at Dreiman.<
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  Chaim shook his head and waved his hand. There was no one left to whom he could say frankly that if he had stayed home with his Bassieh any longer he might never, heaven forbid, have got up again. As though he himself had taken a knife and – But he had told her finally; he had told her so sharply that she had stood there, scarcely able even to open her mouth, for a change. He had told her, all right, that it was enough, he had heard enough. If she opened her mouth about it again he wouldn’t be responsible. He didn’t care what she said to Ralph. And finally, when she had ventured to suggest in not such a shrewish voice that perhaps he should not upset himself like this, perhaps she should call George, their son-in-law the doctor, and he had said, “No!” because he was carried away by the unfamiliar sensation of being the despot in his own home, she had not insisted. She had even looked almost a little afraid. Well, she deserved to be afraid. After nearly sixty years, to suggest that he too might be making secret visits, as though she didn’t – With what?

  To compare him with a murderer! His own wife! It was true that he could not yet himself quite equate the Avrom he had known with the murderer he now knew about. But if all those things that they said were true – and he had not had time, and had not been well enough, and had not even felt able to sort them out in his mind for himself – if they were all true, then Chaim didn’t know what to think. But he had frightened even himself when he had burst out at Bassieh that way, and so he had scrambled out of bed and into his clothes and had come to seek the peace of his old haven.

  “Well, Chaim,” said Dreiman, “what do you think?”

  Chaim sighed.

  “I mean,” said Dreiman, “what do you think of your friend now?”

  “I know what you mean, my friend,” said Chaim softly, though for a moment he was tempted to pretend he didn’t, because beyond the feeling of horror and revulsion he didn’t know what he thought.