Rachel's Secret

by Shelly Sanders

  The boy reminded Sergei of Menahem, who had seen his own grandmother beaten, and Natalya, who was so close in age, so vulnerable. Suddenly, he needed to see his sister and his mother, to make sure they were safe. He took off toward upper Kishinev where the streets were cleaner, the violence less apparent. Police seemed to be everywhere. As he passed his school, he noticed clusters of students surrounding the limestone building, discussing the chaos they’d witnessed. Sergei nodded at boys he knew, many of whom looked exhausted and tense.

  “Sergei.” He heard his name and saw Nikolai striding toward him. “Have you seen the center of Kishinev? The whole city looks like it’s been in a war.”

  Sergei nodded. “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive my father. He did nothing to stop the fighting.”

  “My father saw him insulting a bunch of Jews.”

  “Damm! Where was your father at the time?”

  “He was watching the riots.”

  “Then he’s guilty too.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of not stopping the fighting.”

  “But there were hundreds of people, and he’s only one.” Nikolai glanced at the group of boys surrounding them. He spotted Petya and spoke to him. “What did your father do last night?”

  Petya came forward slowly, his face so pale that his freckles appeared darker than usual. “Well, we were, uh, having dinner… at a friend’s house. Then the windows were smashed so we rushed home where we found some peasants about to throw rocks at our windows. My father told them he was the mayor, that it was his house.” Petya swallowed. He looked as if he was going to be sick. “So…so they threw rocks at our neighbor’s house, the Grossmans. Almost every window was smashed. I could hear Mrs. Grossman scream. She had just brought over a big plate of pastries a day earlier.” His eyes were heavy with regret.

  Even Petya’s father, the mayor, thought Sergei, had been nothing more than a coward in the face of danger. Instead of standing up for what was right, for his own neighbors, he’d led a mob of angry people to their door for certain vandalism…and worse. Sergei now understood what Rachel had meant about trust. If he couldn’t depend on his father, or the mayor, or his friends, then who could he trust?

  Rachel’s neck was stiff and her head ached. She’d spent the night sitting on the floor of the outhouse, lapsing into brief periods of sleep, then waking suddenly with fear slicing her heart. Nucia’s head rested on her sister’s shoulder. Her mother sat beside them, dark shadows under her puffy eyes. On the opposite wall, Mrs. Grienschpoun stared blankly at Rachel. Her boys had their arms wrapped around her, and their small faces were stained with dry tears and dirt.

  Rachel touched her sister on the shoulder. “Nucia, are you awake?”

  “I guess so.” Nucia lifted her head and yawned.

  The two little boys began squirming when they heard Rachel and Nucia.

  “Nucia…Rachel…are you all right?” said their mother.

  “Yes,” answered Nucia.

  “What about Father? Why didn’t he come back?” asked Rachel.

  There were a few seconds of silence before her mother answered: “I wish I knew.”

  A chill ran through Rachel’s body when she recalled the previous night. The sound of hatred. The smell of death.

  “I think we should go outside now,” said her mother in a shaky voice. “There’s no sense in putting off what must come.”

  Mrs. Grienschpoun got to her feet, holding her boys close to her. Rachel could not look at the boys’ faces. She was afraid they would see her fear.

  Clinging tightly to her mother’s waist, Rachel opened the door and walked outside; the others followed.

  Their courtyard was filled with broken glass and furniture, ripped bedding, torn clothing, and enamel basins. The ground was tarnished with bloody spots that had darkened around the edges. Pages of scripture were scattered everywhere. Feathers from pillows and coverlets draped the trees and ground like a winter’s frost. Rachel turned in a full circle and gasped when she saw a man lying dead at the side of the outhouse. It was Mr. Grienschpoun. She could tell by his red hair. His face was unrecognizable, bashed in and covered in blood. His coat was torn, dirty, and stained crimson.

  “No!” Rachel screamed and pointed to Mr. Grienschpoun. “Help!”

  Mrs. Grienschpoun collapsed on the ground weeping. Her boys clutched at her and cried. Nucia and Rachel’s mother knelt down and put their arms around Mrs. Grienschpoun and her sons.

  Rachel burst into tears at the sight of the Grienschpouns mourning their dead husband and father. “Where’s Father?” she cried. “I want to see Father!” She ran toward her house. Ignoring the destruction, Rachel kept her eyes straight ahead as she ran, stopping only when she came to her house—what remained of her house. Feeling as if she were caught in the middle of one of her bad dreams, she rubbed her eyes to wake up and escape. But this was real, all of it: the terrifying night in the outhouse, Mr. Grienschpoun, and now her decimated home. Though she was trembling, afraid of what she might find, Rachel stepped forward to survey the damage. The window was smashed and the door was gone. Inside, the rioters had poured wine over everything. Furniture was broken, shutters were torn off the walls, ripped clothing was scattered all over the floor, and the remains of her father’s precious chess board looked like it had been pounded with a mallet. And Snegurochka was smashed into pieces—only the head was intact. Her journal had been ripped apart, the pages scattered on the ground, exposing her private thoughts for all to see. Although Rachel knew that the Russians who’d destroyed her diary couldn’t read Yiddish, she still felt as if she’d been beaten and stripped of her dignity; she knelt down to pick up the pages.

  “Who could do such a thing?” Rachel’s mother appeared in the doorway, tears sliding down her face. “Everything we owned is gone. We have nothing left. Nothing.” She moved to the middle of the room, her face leeched of color, her shoulders sagging with despair.

  Rachel had never seen her mother so defeated. This frightened her and made her world seem even more off-balance. She shivered and wondered if the worst was yet to come.

  Rachel led them past the other ruined houses in their courtyard, now unrecognizable. When they got to the end of the house and turned the corner toward the street, Rachel cried out a heart-wrenching scream that echoed in the stale air.

  On the trampled ground lay Mr. Macklin, the landlord of the house, and Mr. Berlatsky. Their bodies were broken, their limbs bent in impossible directions, and they were covered with mud. Feathers were scattered everywhere. A few feet to the right, Mrs. Berlatsky sat with Chaia’s head in her lap. Chaia’s eyes were closed but she was moving slightly and groaning, and her beautiful hair was matted with blood. The three other children sat at their mother’s feet weeping.

  Rachel couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t take her eyes of Chaia. She felt as if she were watching from afar, that none of this was happening. Chaia had done nothing to deserve this. Neither had Mr. Macklin or Mr. Berlatsky or Mr. Grienschpoun—or their children, now fatherless. Their only shortcoming was their faith, a crime in the eyes of gentiles. Rachel peered at Chaia’s listless face, and began to wonder if believing in something you couldn’t even see—faith—was worth all the trouble it brought.

  “We were hiding in the shed,” said Elena Berlatsky a few minutes later. Her voice quivered as she spoke. Nucia put her arms around the two smaller Berlatzky children while her mother and Mrs. Berlatsky sat with Chaia. “When we heard them coming after us, we climbed up to the attic, but it was too hard to move around all the rafters and chimney flues. We could hear them screaming at us, so we tore at the roof with our hands to make a hole to climb through.” She paused to sniff and wipe her eyes. “Luckily, the roof had already started to rot. All of us made it up there except for Mr. Macklin and Father. Someone grabbed Mr. Macklin’s legs and pulled him down from the atti
c. Then, when somebody grabbed Father’s legs, Chaia lay down on the roof, reached through the hole, and held onto his arms. She pulled as hard as she could to get him on top of the roof, but the person who had Father’s legs was much stronger.”

  Elena’s voice began to crack. “Before we knew what had happened, Father was pulled down from the attic with Chaia holding onto him. Then…” Elena looked at Rachel’s mother. “Then they dragged them out onto the ground and the crowd beat them with crowbars.”

  Rachel wept as she heard what Chaia had endured, and she began to panic at the thought of her father lying somewhere in pain, or worse. “I want to see Father,” she said in a quiet voice, feeling guilty for thinking about him after hearing about what the Berlatskys had been through.

  “Will you be…all right if I…leave for a few minutes?” Rachel’s mother asked Mrs. Berlatzky.

  Rachel was startled by her mother’s meek tone, and by the way her voice faltered. It was almost as if she were a different person.

  Mrs. Berlatzky nodded and brushed Chaia’s hair out of her face. “I need to get Chaia to the hospital. I couldn’t bear to lose—” She burst into tears.

  Rachel watched as her mother pressed her lips together but said nothing. Before, thought Rachel, Mother would have said something to make Mrs. Berlatsky feel better. Behind her mother’s severe demeanor was a woman who would do anything for the people she cared for. Looking back, Rachel remembered that when Mrs. Talansky died, her mother had cooked meals for Sacha and his father for weeks, and had even mended their clothes, until Mr. Talansky was able to cope on his own. And when Mr. Gervitz’s wife was ill, Rachel’s mother had gone over every afternoon to make tea and read to her. Now, when Mrs. Berlatsky was clearly in need of a friend, Rachel’s mother seemed incapable of knowing what to say or do; it was as if she was suddenly devoid of empathy.

  Leaving the Berlatskys in search of a wagon to take Chaia to the hospital, Rachel led her mother and Nucia toward another wooden outdoor shed. At one time it had been painted red, but most of the color had peeled off or faded. As they walked past, Rachel saw that the wooden door was broken and scattered across the ground. She let go of Nucia’s hand, examined the dim opening, and saw a foot clad in a familiar black felt boot. Rachel’s stomach lurched, and chills ran up and down her body as her eyes made their way from the foot to the head. It was her father, his body contorted and covered in blood. She fell backwards, her head spinning until everything went dark.

  Three

  Sergei barged through the heavy oak doors of the police station, past a group of officers huddled together smoking and speaking in solemn voices, to his father’s office in the back corner. He yanked the door open and saw his father sitting at his desk, facing three men—Petya’s father, Mayor Schmidt, who had copper-red hair like Petya, Governor von Raben, and another burly man Sergei didn’t know, in a military uniform with a red vest and gold epaulets.

  “You did nothing to stop the riots; you watched as innocent people were attacked!” Sergei’s voice rose with every word. “And I even heard that you insulted Jews while they were being beaten.” He paused, expecting his father to jump out of his seat and hit him across his face.

  “How dare you barge in here like this,” roared Sergei’s father, his eyes darting between his son and the three men in front of him.

  “If you had only believed me,” Sergei continued. “If you had questioned Mikhail’s uncle and cousin, you would have seen that they needed Mikhail out of the way, and this whole riot would have been avoided.” Sergei moved closer until he was at his father’s desk. “Children wouldn’t be orphans today if this pogrom hadn’t taken place; if the murderer had been found, none of this would have happened.” Sergei stared defiantly at his father and saw that his eyes were bloodshot; his pupils were blazing.

  “Is this true, Aleksandr?” asked Mayor Schmidt. “Is Sergei speaking the truth?”

  Sergei’s father’s face grew red and beads of sweat dripped from his hairline. “The boy told me that somebody had witnessed the murder, but I didn’t think there was any truth to it.” He glared at Sergei with contempt.

  “Your job is to take any information you receive seriously,” said Governor von Raben, leaning over the desk. “I can assure you that we will look into this matter thoroughly.”

  “And I can assure you that I acted responsibly,” Sergei’s father replied.

  “So that’s it, Papa?” said Sergei, clenching his fists and feeling every muscle in his body tighten. “You won’t even admit you were wrong?” He kicked his father’s desk. “Even if I end up working in a factory, or peddling food in the market, I’ll be more proud of myself than if I were police chief or the Imperial Police Director, because I’ll be doing honest work, and I won’t be hurting anybody.”

  Sergei turned and stomped out of his father’s office.

  “Wait a minute, Sergei,” called Governor von Raben. “Come back in here.”

  Sergei stopped; his heart was racing. He took a couple of deep breaths, and returned to his father’s office.

  “Tell us everything you know,” instructed the Governor.

  “Mikhail’s uncle and cousin killed him.”

  “You have no proof of this,” said Sergei’s father. He threw Sergei a dismissive look.

  “Let us hear what the boy has to say,” said Governor von Raben. “How did you get this information in the first place, Sergei?”

  “I have a friend who saw the whole thing.”

  “Why didn’t this friend come forward himself?” said Mayor Schmidt.

  “Because my friend is Jewish, and a girl,” he answered, aware that his father would be shocked by the fact that the witness was not only Jewish, but female as well.

  “Well of course she didn’t come forward,” said the man in the military uniform. “She was trying to throw people off the Jewish scent.”

  “That’s not true,” said Sergei. “She’s terrified that Mikhail’s uncle will come after her if she says anything. I’ve promised not to reveal her name.”

  “Mikhail’s uncle, Vasily Rybachenko, is a former police officer,” Sergei’s father continued, cutting off Sergei.

  “That’s not possible,” interrupted Mayor Schmidt. “A police officer would never stab a boy to death.”

  “Aleksandr, what do you know about this officer Rybachenko?” asked von Raben.

  Sergei’s father rubbed his whiskers before answering. “He was dismissed for threatening a fellow officer.”

  “When?” demanded Mayor Schmidt. Sergei’s father shuffled some papers around on his desk, pulled one from the pile, and squinted at it. “The seventh of February.”

  “Two days before Mikhail was killed,” said Sergei slowly. “His uncle probably wanted to inherit the family’s tobacco plant; Mikhail was supposed to take over for his grandfather one day.”

  The room grew silent. All eyes were on Sergei’s father.

  “I remember Mikhail telling me that his uncle had a gambling problem,” Sergei continued. “So Mikhail’s grandfather was going to leave everything to Mikhail.”

  “Surely the old man would leave Vasily something.” Governor von Raben twirled his mustache with his thumb and forefinger.

  Sergei shook his head. “Mikhail’s grandfather had cut Vasily off years ago, and with Mikhail’s parents gone, everything was going to go to Mikhail.”

  “What about the cousin?” asked Mayor Schmidt.

  “Philip,” said Sergei. “My friend heard Mikhail begging Philip to help him that day.”

  “How long have you had this information about Vasily and his son, Aleksandr?” asked Mayor Schmidt.

  Sergei’s father closed his eyes for a moment before answering. “A couple of weeks.”

  “We could have arrested Vasily and Philip, announced that the police had solved this murder, and put an
end to the idea of a pogrom,” said Governor von Raben. Sergei’s father hung his head. “I know. I put my prejudices ahead of justice, ahead of my own son. I will carry that shame for the rest of my years.”

  Sergei saw remorse in his father’s eyes, but then he recalled Mikhail’s blood on the river, Menahem’s small, tear-stained face, and the lifeless faces of the dead being carted off like animals, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forgive the defeated man who stood before him.

  Rachel watched Chaia being loaded onto a horse-drawn wagon. Chaia’s long blonde hair, streaked with dirt and blood, draped over the sides of the board that held her motionless body. The rest of the Berlatskys climbed onto the wagon and with a jolt were off to the hospital, along with hundreds of others with no place else to go.

  Rachel clutched Snegurochka’s wooden head as she followed the wagon with her mother and sister. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves was a comforting, familiar sound, the only normal part of the day. As they walked, they were joined by more people, all carrying their treasured belongings, their faces pale and despondent. Rachel reached into her blue muslin pouch, touched the six chess pieces, and then the pages from her journal. They were all she’d been able to salvage from her home, all she had to remind her of her father and her life before the riots.

  When she saw the crowd gathered at the Jewish Hospital, Rachel fought back tears. Being forced to take refuge in this large, imposing building made everything more real and painful. Lining up to get a place to sleep was almost too much to bear, and yet, there was no other choice.

  A tall, plain woman greeted them at the gate to the hospital’s courtyard. “I’m the matron,” she explained to Rachel’s mother. “Can I have your name and the number of people in your family?”

  Rachel waited for her mother or Nucia to speak, but they stared at the woman blankly, as if they hadn’t understood the question.