“On either side it was still frozen, the arched ice rearing up above the water like opened jaws. But in the centre channel the current flowed furiously, and borne along on it, jostling and crashing, turning over and over, grating together with long harsh screams, were innumerable blocks of ice. As the river flowed its strong swirling tongue licked furiously at the icy margins, and undermined them, and with a shudder and a roar of defeat another fragment would break away and be swept downstream. It was like a battle. It was like a victory. The rigid winter could stand no longer, it was breaking up, its howls and vanquished threats swept past me, its strongholds fell and were broken one against another, it was routed at last.
“I wept with excitement, and my mother comforted me, thinking I was afraid. But I could not explain what I felt, though I knew it was not fear. For then I knew only the wintry words of my race, such words as exile, and captivity, and bondage. I had never heard the word Liberty. But it was Liberty I acclaimed, seeing the river sweeping away its fetters, tossing its free neck under the ruined yoke.”
She stopped abruptly, like the player lifting the bow from the strings with a flourish. Murmurs of admiration arose. She seemed to listen to them as the concerto player listens to the strains of the orchestra he has quitted, half relaxing from the stanza completed, half intent upon what lies before. This is all quite right, her expression said; presently I shall go on again. For she had raised her head, and now Sophia could see her face. It was ugly, uglier than one could have believed, hearing that voice. A discordant face, Sophia’s mind continued, analysing while it could, before the voice went on again; for the features with their Jewish baroque, the hooked nose, the crescent eyebrows and heavy eyelids, the large full-lipped mouth, are florid, or should be; but the hollow cheeks forbid them, and she is at once a heavy voluptuous cat and a starved one. Meanwhile she had omitted to look for Frederick. But it was too late, for Minna had begun to speak again.
“When the next spring came, I remembered the river. Another child had been born, my mother was busy, I seemed likely to beg in vain. And this spring, too, was not like the other. A weeping mist covered the land, a mist that brought pestilence. From the village, where I was not allowed to go, came the sound of the Christian church bell, tolling for the dead. Noemi, our neighbour, came to our house and told my mother that the Gentile women said that the pestilence had been seen on the heath, a troop of riders with lances, moving in the mist. My father looked up from his work. ‘Such tales are idolatrous,’ said he. ‘Do you, a good Jewess, believe them?’ ‘I do not believe them, Reb,’ she answered. ‘They sicken for their sins and their swine’s flesh. But let them believe it, if they will. It is better than if they said we poisoned their wells.’
“This story of the pestilence riding over the heath made me think better of my resolve that if my mother would not take me to the river I would find my way there alone. I began to pester my father, saying that though I was only a girl, I was the first-born. And at last he consented. But with him it was a different journey, for he walked fast, talking sometimes to himself but never to me. The air was raw and sunless, my feet hurt me and I almost wished that we had never come, until reaching the birch-wood I heard again those thunders and crashings. I ran on ahead, towards the sound, and came by myself to the river bank. A mist hung over the water, flowing with the river, the glory of the year before was not there. Then, as I looked, I saw that on the hurried ice-blocks there were shapes, men and horses, half frozen into the ice, half trailing in the water. And in the ice were stains of blood. Last year, I remembered, it had seemed like a battle, like a victory. Had there been blood and corpses then, and had I forgotten them? The full river seemed to flow more heavily, when ice-block struck against ice-block they clanged like iron bells. My father, coming up behind me, spoke to himself in Hebrew, and groaned. ‘Who are they, Father?’ ‘The wrathful, child, the proud, and the enemies of God ... So let thine enemies perish, O Lord!’ He cried this out in a voice that rang above the tumult of the river. Then he was silent for a long time, shuddering and sighing like an animal. At last he told me that there must have been a battle, perhaps a war, where, who could tell? — and that the bodies of the slain, caught in the frost, may have been locked up winter-long, that now with the thaw were being hurried to the sea.
“All the way home, and for long after, I pondered over this thought, so new to me, that there were other people in the world, people living so far off that they might fight and perish and no word of it come to us, no splash of their blood. I knew from the Book, and from stories, that there had been peoples and nations; but I thought they were all dead. I was forbidden to go to the village, lest the children should throw stones at me. Our household, and Noemi’s and old Baruch’s, was Jewry, and the village the Gentiles. But now these dead men had come into my world.
“Soon came more living. For that summer, staggering over the heath and staring about them as if afraid, came a troop of strangers, men, women and children. They carried bundles and bits of household stuff, pots and pans flashing in the sun, wicker baskets with hens in them: some led goats, or a cow, and an old white horse drew a hooded cart that rocked and jolted on the moorland track. I was picking strawberries when I looked up and saw them; and spilling the fruit I leaped up and ran home, to tell this strange news. ‘They are gipsies,’ my mother said. ‘Run, child, and fetch in the washing.’ Somehow I had heard of gipsies, for I said, ‘No, they are not gipsies. These people could never dance.’ My father went a little way to where he could see them, my mother following him. I saw her start, and wring her hands as if in pity, and then they hastened forward towards the strangers. My father embraced the foremost, an old man whose bald head glistened with sweat, my mother hurried to and fro among the women. I could hear her voice, loud with excitement, exclaiming and condoling.
“For they were a settlement of Jews, who had been driven out of their homes, and had come over the heath looking for some place where they might live unmolested. That night, and for many nights to come, they camped on our meadow, and my mother fed them, and beat up herbs to put on their blistered feet. Their goats quarrelled with ours, their children played and quarrelled with us. In fancy, remembering their coming across the heath, I told myself that they had come like Eliezer’s embassy, with servants and camels, to ask for me in marriage. In fact, since their poverty was even more abject than ours, I lorded it over the new-come children, and discovered the sweets of tyranny.”
She paused again, but this time gently, and with a sly smile.
And you must still savour them, thought Sophia, seeing that mournful dark glance flicker slowly over the listeners, as though numbering so many well-tied money-bags. Our ears are your ducats. You are exactly like a Jewish shopkeeper, the Jew who kept the antique shop at Mayence, staring, gloating round his shelves, with a joy in possession so absorbing that it was almost a kind of innocence. In a moment you should rub your hands, the shopkeeper’s gesture.
At that moment the slowly flickering glance touched her, and rested. It showed no curiosity, only a kind of pondering attention. Then, as though in compliance, Minna’s large supple hands gently caressed themselves together in the very gesture of her thought. Sophia started slightly. The glance, mournfully numbering, moved on. But answering Sophia’s infinitesimal start of surprise there had been a smile — small, meek, and satisfied, the smile of a dutiful child. And again there had been no time to look for Frederick.
“My position among these children was the stronger, since my father, by his learning and orthodoxy, was looked up to by all the newcomers. He led them in prayer, he exhorted them to cherish our faith, he comforted and advised them. By the end of the summer many of the immigrants had built themselves huts out of the forest, and settled near us. I was delighted with this, seeing that it gave us company and consequence. I blamed my poor mother for narrow-heartedness, since she did not rejoice as much as I did. Bending over the loom she would sigh and shake her head; and among the clatter of the pedals I o
verheard such words as these: ‘One or two they will suffer. But not a multitude.’ And then she would weep, her tears falling on the growing web. But for all these doubts, which I could see but not understand, she did what she could for our neighbours, our neighbours who were even poorer than ourselves.
“Perhaps because they had opened their hands, my parents began to grow more prosperous. My father started a little shop, selling such things as seed and candles and household gear. Because the wares were good and cheap, people from the village came to buy, saying always that they were cheated and overcharged, but coming again. My mother baked cakes for their Christian feast-days, cakes flavoured with caraways or wild anise, and I, instead of gathering wood strawberries, cherries, and cranberries for myself, gathered them to make into jams, and the money from this little commerce was put by for my wedding dowry. One day my father came back from a journey to the town with a coloured bandbox containing a wig for my mother. For when they had married they had been too poor to buy such a thing, and my mother, shaving her head as Jewish women must do on marriage, had ever afterwards worn only a kerchief. Now she had a wig, a grand, an honourable wig. It was of horsehair, dyed chestnut colour, very voluminous and towering, and when she had put it on all her friends came in to congratulate and admire. My father, too, looked at her as though she were beautiful and stately as Queen Esther. His face was full of pride and love. But I hung back, awkward and alarmed; for to me this wig seemed ugly and, worse still, baleful and unlucky.
“Under these glaring tresses I saw for the first time how pale and careworn my mother’s face had grown since the coming of these other Jews and our riches, so that I had lost all sight, now, of the mother who had walked singing over the heath and suckled her baby in the birch-wood.
“But these thoughts I kept to myself, only saying among those of my own age that the wig was ugly, and that when I married I would wear a kerchief or perhaps keep my long hair. When I said such things as these my playmates tittered and pretended to be shocked. I made them long speeches, saying that Jewry must be freed, and that when I was older I would lead them all back to Jerusalem. Some of the boys jeered at me, saying that I did not know where Jerusalem was (indeed, I did not), and that anyhow I was only a woman and could do nothing but obey my husband. But mostly they followed me, and when my speeches were too much for them I wooed them back with a story. All my stories were of freedom and the overthrowing of tyrants, and so led to my speeches again. And when I tired of their listening faces I would give them the slip, and go over the heath to the river (for it was an easy walk now); and sitting on the river bank I used to say, over and over again, David’s words: Turn our captivity, O Lord, as the rivers in the south. For I had never forgotten my first sight of the river, so proud and turbulent, bearing away its broken fetters. The river would understand me when I spoke of Liberty.
“Eleven times since I was born the ice had crept over the running river and thickened there. And now it was winter again, midwinter, and a winter’s evening dusk. Not since the winter of the pestilence had there been such ruthless cold, such famine and distress. The wolves came out in broad daylight, at night they fought among themselves, ravening for each other’s flesh. Unknown birds flew over us in bands, driven even out of their north by the cold. Whenever they flew over, a storm followed.
“I was just coming across the yard from the outhouse, where I had gone to carry our goats their feed, when I heard footsteps, a man running and staggering along the frozen path. The running man was my father. He had torn off his mittens as though their weight would encumber him, I saw his red hands flapping against the dusky white of the snow. His mouth was open, he fetched his breath with groaning. He fell down on the icy track, and was up again, and came running on with his face bloodied. He did not see me where I stood motionless in the dusk of the yard, but ran past me and burst open the house door and staggered in. Before he had spoken I heard my mother cry out, a wild despairing cry that yet seemed to have a note of exultation in it, as though it were recognising and embracing some terror long foreseen. I went in after him, very slowly and quietly, as though in this sweep of terror I must move as noiselessly as possible. He was leaning over the table, his hands clenching it, and trembling. He trembled, his back heaved up and down with his struggles for breath, with every gasp he groaned with the anguish of breathing. Mixed in with his groans were words. Always the same words. ‘They’re coming!’ he said. ‘They’re coming!’”
“Wolves!” exclaimed Frederick.
“Christians.
“My mother with averted eyes as though she dared not look at him was hurrying the younger children into their coats and wrappings. The baby began to cry. ‘Hush!’ she whispered. I could scarcely hear the word, but it was spoken with such vehemence that the child, a child at the breast, understood, and lay still as a corpse. With arms that seemed to have stretched into the wings of a vast bird she gathered us together. ‘Come! Come quickly and softly! We must hide in the forest.’ ‘The Book,’ said my father. ‘The candlesticks. The holy things of Israel.’ There was no expression on her face as she stood waiting, while trembling and fumbling he collected these together, and wrapped them carefully in a cloth. When this was done she laid her hand on his arm, persuading him towards the door. He stopped. ‘The others,’ he said. ‘They must be warned. I will go to them.’ For a moment her set face seemed to fall apart in an explosion of rage and despair. But she said no word, standing by the door with her baby in her arms and her children about her. ‘I will go,’ I said. ‘Send me!’
“Through the heavy dusk I ran from house to house. Many houses were closed and shuttered, I had to bang and shout to be admitted. I stopped only to say, ‘The Christians are coming.’ It was all I knew. In every house it was the same. A cry, a lamentation! And then the same desperate haste, and smooth making ready to fly, as though, waking and sleeping, winter and summer, a life-long, a nation-long, this had been expected and rehearsed. I had reached the last house when I saw the darkness suddenly changed to a pattern of ruddy white and leaping black shadows; and turning, I saw torches, flaring pine-knots, and a throng of people, black and hurrying, and heard shouts, and laughter, and curses. No need, at this last door, to cry that the Christians were coming.
“I heard them calling out my father’s name, saying that he was a usurer, and my mother a witch. Then there was a scream. It was one of our goats, I thought; but Dinah, the woman of the last house, thrust a shawl over my head, pressing her hands over my ears, and some one took me by the arm and began to run with me. My head was muffled in the shawl, I could not untie the knot, I could only run, dragged on by this hand on my arm. Sometimes a bundle with sharp edges banged against my legs, I was jostled against, I lost my footing and stumbled, and was hauled up again, blinded and half smothered in the shawl. All round were people running. I heard their feet striving in the snow, the thud of large feet and the patter of small. And behind us came the pursuers, shouting and jeering like cattle-drivers. Suddenly at my side there was a scream like a flash of lightning, and the hand that dragged me forward let go, and I ran on alone, tearing at the knotted shawl.
“Something cold and rigid stopped my flight, and at the same moment I felt a stab in my arm, and the blood running. I thought it was the pike of the Christians, and I fell on the ground and lay still, waiting for the death-stroke. But nothing happened. The flying and the pursuing feet went past, but no one touched me; and presently, feeling about, I found that it was a bush that I had run against, wounding myself against a broken bough, sharp with ice. My hands were too numbed to unfasten the knot, but with my teeth I bit a hole in the shawl, and tore it open and thrust out my head.
“I was at the edge of the forest, all alone. I thought it would be dark, but there was still a faint cringing daylight. The voices and the footsteps were gone far off, the screaming and shouting almost done. At longer and longer intervals there would sound a long wavering cry, or a yelp of anguish; and as I listened I remembered how after a summ
er thunderstorm I had often sat at the edge of the forest, watching the world flash out in its new revived green, and hearing the last drops of rain fall, splash, splash, here and there, till at last they ceased altogether, or I had tired of counting them. Summer or winter, then or now ... both were equally real or unreal to me, as I sat under the bush, waiting, since slaughter had passed me by, for wolves or cold to make an end of me. There was a smell of woodsmoke in the air, and through my stupor this comforted me. My wits were so scattered that even when I saw the flames rising on the sky, and knew that it was our houses that burned, the scented smoke was still my comfort. I moved, to settle myself deeper under the bush where I should die. With the agony of that movement I was driven alive again, crying out with pain, struggling to my feet, and felled by the weight of my stiffened blood. Like an animal gone mad I darted over the snow, shaking myself and whining, and running hither and thither. Presently, near the edge of the forest, I came on the body of a woman — dead; and further on the body of an old man — dead, too; and the bloodied tracks led me from there to something that might have been man or woman or child — but was only blood and a heap of trampled flesh. Like a mad dog I ran from corpse to corpse, snuffing at them and starting away. Darkness had fallen, but the blazing houses gave me light — light enough to find at last a round thing like a fallen bird’s-nest, cold and stiff with frost, and rocking lightly in the wind. It was my mother’s wig. There was a body near by, but not hers; and searching over the trampled snow I found at last the track of my father’s feet, his by the print of the broken heel. The tracks led back towards the hamlet. He had turned, and gone back for me, his first-born.
Summer Will Show Page 12