The Night of the Burning

by Linda Press Wulf

  The Night of the Burning

  LINDA PRESS WULF

  Contents

  The Orphanage in Pinsk, Poland

  A Village Called Domachevo

  From Pinsk to Warsaw

  Mama and Papa

  The Wait in Warsaw

  The Beginning of the Bad Time

  Goodbye to Eastern Europe

  There Was No Angel

  London Dream

  The Night of the Burning

  The Ship to Africa

  Home to the Orphanage

  Safe

  “How Can They Do This?”

  “I Have Some News for You”

  The Kagans

  “I Want My Mama”

  A Visit to Naomi’s House

  A Friend

  Mrs. Kagan in Charge

  “It’s My Home”

  Afterword

  Author’s Note

  Glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish Words

  Reading Group Guide

  For my husband’s mother, the Devorah Lehrman of this story, whom I never met

  For my own mother, who shared my love of old-fashioned books for children

  For my father, who taught me about crafting words

  For my siblings, whose support and critical direction were essential to this story

  For my Aunty Rhoda in the book-lined house on Avenue Normandie

  For my husband and sons, who make my life good

  THE ORPHANAGE IN PINSK, POLAND

  1921

  I didn’t giggle. Since the Night of the Burning, I hadn’t laughed. I knew I would never laugh again. The other children giggled behind their hands at the funny hat on the man who was visiting our orphanage. It was a firm brown felt hat that sailed on the top of his head like a boat, very different from the soft caps most men crammed down over their ears in our snowy Polish winters.

  I stared at the strange man as he sat with the orphanage director, Alexander Bobrow, at the head of the old table where we ate our breakfast. He looked friendly and clean and soft. He reminded me a little of Papa. Papa’s face had been soft before he became so thin.

  Maybe the strange man felt me staring at him through his skin, the way you feel the sun through your closed eyelids in the early morning, because suddenly he glanced up and smiled right at me.

  Quickly I looked down and pretended to be absorbed in spooning up my lumpy porridge. I knew that when the bowl was empty, I would still not feel satisfied; there was never enough to fill my belly all the way to the top.

  Sitting right next to me, Nechama was one of the children who giggled. Just like those other silly little girls. How dare she giggle; how dare she even smile? At nine years old, she was just a baby, so immature compared with me. I was twelve. I hated that she acted as if our lives had begun when the hay cart brought us here to the orphanage in Pinsk, less than a year before. There she sat, chattering brightly to two girls she called her “best friends.” I moved my chair firmly and loudly closer to hers. She was behaving as if she were actually happy. But whenever I talked about Mama and Papa, she squirmed away. I wanted so badly to talk about Mama and Papa. And I couldn’t talk to anyone else.

  Nechama had finished her breakfast. She was touching her own hair admiringly and she lifted her clear eyes to me, not even noticing that I was angry.

  “The big girls said that man will choose me. They said my curls are so pretty he’ll be sure to want me,” she said, twirling the soft wisps around her fingers.

  “Which man? Choose you for what?”

  “That man from Africa,” Nechama said, pointing at the stranger. “He’s taking children to Africa!” Then she caught sight of Malke leaving the room, jumped from her stool at the table, and ran off after her friend.

  Africa. I turned the word over slowly in my mouth. It was open and hot, a word that hung in the air—Africah-ah. Not like the quick, lip-pursed word Europe. What was Nechama running on about? Some wild gossip made up by her new friends? Not a serious thought in their heads; just play and laugh, play and laugh.

  I cleared both of our bowls from the table and wandered to the empty dormitory to sit on my straw mattress. Pulling my thick braid across my cheek, I chewed on the bristly end. There was a round black stove in the corner of the room, but the metal was icy cold. The grownups said we were short of coal. I wrapped my coat tightly around my chest and tried to pull the sleeves down farther, but the coat was meant for someone smaller. The skin on my fingers was cracked and red.

  Squeezing one hand into my pocket for warmth, I felt the stiff paper of a photograph. Papa had given it to me before he died, and I always kept it in my pocket. After the Night of the Burning, when Nechama and I left our village on the hay cart to Pinsk, it was all I had with me. I didn’t even need to glance at it to see it clearly. In the photo our whole family was together, as in a dream—Papa and Mama side by side, Nechama a tiny baby in Mama’s arms, me on Papa’s knee. We were all smiling.

  I must have drifted into sleep on my mattress. I was dreaming about Mama’s latkes. Usually Mama would cook the potato pancakes on the iron sheet on top of the stove, but at Chanukah she fried them in precious, expensive oil.

  “Ah, Mama,” Papa would sigh with satisfaction. “The pancakes are like angels singing.”

  “More, Mama, more, Mama, more!” I would chant, and of course Nechama copied me.

  Someone was shaking my shoulder gently. I groaned, trying to hold on to my dream. I was so happy being in my old life again. But the shaking continued and I opened my eyes a little. Mr. Bobrow’s face was looking down at me and his free hand was pushing his round spectacles back as they slipped down his nose. It was the director himself shaking my shoulder. I sat up immediately, wide awake. Where was the danger? Where was Nechama?

  “Come, sad one,” Mr. Bobrow said. “Mr. Isaac Ochberg wants to meet you. He noticed your big eyes looking at him at breakfast, and he wants to see if he can put a smile on that face. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Nechama?” I whispered.

  “Nechama’s fine; she’s playing with her friends,” Mr. Bobrow said reassuringly. He patted my shoulder again with that concerned look on his face. “It’s all right, Devorah. You don’t have to be so scared all the time.”

  I looked away so he wouldn’t see how angry that made me. Could he give his promise on the holy Torah that I didn’t have to be frightened? What if I stopped being on the watch for danger, and something happened again?

  I climbed off the mattress silently, pulled down my tight coat, and tied back my hair with shaking hands. Trailing behind Mr. Bobrow’s long legs, I followed him to the dining room. My anger had leaked away; now I was just plain scared. He pointed at the door, which was slightly ajar. He was sending me all alone into a room where a stranger waited.

  “Come in with me,” I managed to whisper.

  “You’ll be fine,” he replied. “You’re a lucky girl.” And then he walked off down the hallway. Me, lucky?

  I tiptoed to the door and peered through the opening. The man called Isaac Ochberg sat reading a stack of papers. He had no whiskers on his round clean face; his ears stood out from his wavy reddish hair. Except that he wears that hat and has no beard, he looks like people from home, I thought. But my right eyelid was twitching from nervousness. Should I go in? Should I run away and find Nechama? Should I knock? Or just wait?

  Suddenly Isaac Ochberg looked up and smiled at me the way he had at breakfast. There were big smile creases around his mouth. I slipped inside.

  “Come here, little one, little”—he consulted the top paper in his pile and continued—“Devorah Lehrman. And your younger sister is Nechama, am I right?”

  I nodded.

  The man patted the be
nch next to him, and I sat down warily. “I’ll explain why I am here,” he began. “I’ve come a long way, from a country called South Africa, down at the tip of Africa. There are Jewish people there, and they’re worried about all the children in Europe who have no fathers and mothers because of the Great War. And that craziness they call the Russian Revolution.”

  I knew about the Great War and the Russian Revolution, but they meant nothing to me. I only thought about the morning when we tucked Papa’s blankets in to try to keep him warm, when he was already dead. And I thought about Mama before she died, calling for more water, more water, as the typhoid burned her from inside. I thought about the flames galloping through our village, the synagogue glowing red against the night.

  I shook my head to get rid of those thoughts. I needed to concentrate on the strange things Mr. Ochberg was saying. “So they sent me to find two hundred children and bring them back to South Africa. It’s a beautiful country and a safe place for Jews. I’ll take you and your little sister. But only if you really want to go with me.”

  I frowned at him in amazement. What did he mean?

  “Do you want to come with me, Devorah—you and Nechama?”

  I heard a huge gasp coming from my chest. Move to another country? That place called Africa? With a man Nechama and I didn’t know? My lips were quivering and my whole body had begun to shake.

  The man looked at me closely. “Life will be better there, Devorah. You will have food and a warm, clean place to live. And you will go to school. You will even have toys and dolls. Have you ever seen a doll before, a really beautiful doll?”

  A really beautiful doll. I could see in my mind, feel in my hands, not one but two stuffed dolls in embroidered dresses, one for me and the other for Nechama. Papa had bought them one year when the potato harvest was good and the peasants had plenty of money to buy his wares. Never before had we seen such elegant creatures. We wrapped them in clean rags and played with them only inside, only after washing our hands. I felt a burning behind my eyes. I hadn’t cried for months; I knew if I cried, I would split into pieces. I pressed my fingers hard against my eyelids.

  The man moved closer and put his arm around me. “Mamaleh,” he murmured, “I know it has been terrible, mamaleh.”

  Another raw gasp shot out of me. With one scoop, the man cradled me against him as if I were a small child, as if I were Nechama. I felt a deep hum in his chest as he began to sing,

  “Inter yideles vigele

  Shtayt a klur-vas tsigele …

  Under the baby’s cradle,

  stands a little white goat …”

  I knew that lullaby. Papa and Mama had sung it to us many times. “It hurts,” I moaned. “Hurts.” The pain would tear me apart; I could not bear to let the pain out.

  The man tightened his arms around me and I found myself gripping his wool sleeve, burrowing my face into its warmth. Sobs scraped my throat, rough, ragged sobs. The wool grew wet as I cried for my heart that was broken and my family that was broken and my home that was broken and would never be whole again.

  My body was jerking, but the man held me strongly and went on singing,

  “… Rozhinkes mit mandlen;

  Shluf zhe, yidele, shluf.

  Raisins and almonds;

  Sleep, my little one, sleep.”

  A VILLAGE CALLED DOMACHEVO

  1915–16

  The dolls were not the first presents that Papa had bought for us, but they were by far the best. He took them slowly out of his pockets one night when I was almost six and Nechama almost three. We were sitting close to the glowing stove and feeling happy to have our papa home again after one of his longer trips.

  “Here is a very fine lady,” he announced dramatically, “who would like to meet my Devorahleh.” He waved a doll above my face as I gaped. Then Nechama yelped when Papa pulled out a companion doll.

  “May I introduce Nechama, too, O beautiful ladies?” he asked the dolls seriously.

  We shrieked and threw our arms around the warm hill that was Papa’s belly. Then we reached for his presents.

  “Look, Mama, see how tiny the embroidery stitches are on their aprons,” I said, running my fingers over the miniature red and green flowers.

  “They have real white stockings,” Nechama said, “and see the nice fat legs.”

  “They’re not Jewish girls,” I pointed out. “See, their eyes are blue buttons and their hair is yellow wool, just like the Christian villagers’ on the other side of the pond.”

  “So, you’re telling me that the peasant girls in Domachevo have blue buttons for eyes?” Papa asked with a straight face.

  “Oh, Papa, you know I mean the colors!” I giggled. Papa and I had the same dark wavy hair, while Nechama had Mama’s light brown curls. And Mama’s prettiness, too, I had to admit to myself. I knew Mama loved Nechama best sometimes, and I knew why: Nechama was so pretty and cuddly and small. So easy to love.

  Mama smiled and offered Papa some lumps of sugar to hold in his mouth while he drank his tea with loud, comfortable slurps.

  “How were things in Brest?” Mama asked. Brest Litovsk was a big town a full day’s journey from Domachevo. Papa went there by horse and cart to buy the goods he sold to peasants and Jews in nearby villages.

  “A good trip, thank God,” Papa answered. “I bought a few tools and knives and some large leather skins. Linen was expensive, but I recognized an old, yellowed roll, which had not been sold since my last trip, and I purchased it for a low price. The peasant women are not particular about the color of their cloth as long as I have bright ribbons, and those I bought aplenty. Pennywhistles for the children. And the foodstuffs.”

  “May I help you divide the sugar and cinnamon?” I burst in, and Nechama chorused, “Me too!”

  “Not only the sweet stuff,” Mama chided. “You will help tomorrow night with the salt scoops and the pepper in paper cones, also.”

  Mama had never been to Brest, nor had many of the Jews in our village, and we were proud of our well-traveled papa. When he returned, his coat smelled different, with scents I didn’t recognize. At least one of the knobby-shaped packages swaddled in cloth that he brought home would contain a little surprise for Nechama and me. Although we were as poor as our neighbors, we felt we were the luckiest among our playmates because we had several toys each.

  When we wanted to play with our precious dolls, we did not take them outside to the muddy yard, where the neighbor’s ducks left squishy green droppings and pecked at the wilted leaves of Mama’s potatoes. No, we took off our rough clogs and left them on the clean-swept earthen floor. Then we climbed up the little wooden step and onto Mama and Papa’s high bed. We pulled the heavy white cover over our shoulders, feeling the goose feathers shifting with soft whooshes. The cover made a dark cave where we could play house.

  I lifted my doll’s skirt to see how the legs attached to the torso. Nechama giggled, but then she did the same thing.

  “You don’t have to copy me all the time,” I said irritably. Nechama just giggled again. And actually I didn’t really want her to stop copying.

  “Easter is coming,” Papa said to Mama one night about a year later. Mama nodded soberly.

  “I’d better oil the locks on the shutters.”

  On Friday morning, Papa did not go out with his cart, but closed all the shutters and secured them tightly. From the doorway, I watched the other Jewish families doing it, too. Only the Christian houses on the other side of the pond did not cover their windows.

  “Devorah, I need to lock the door, too, mamaleh,” Papa said. “It’s not good for them to see you watching their procession.”

  “But why not, Papa?” I asked.

  With a sigh, he sat down heavily in the darkened house and took me on his knee. “The Christians believe God had a son called Jesus Christ. Today is the anniversary of his death,” he said. “It was the Romans who killed him, but the priest tells them it was the Jews. So they hate us today. Next week they will be good neighbo
rs again.”

  Papa’s face was dark, and I couldn’t ask him any more questions. But I wondered why the priest told the villagers we’d killed the son of their god, and also how the villagers could change back and forth between hating us and being good neighbors. Were there other days when they would hate us, also? I decided to observe the villagers more closely, looking for a sign that would warn us that they were changing.

  “Papa, here’s a hole!” Nechama exclaimed. “I can see them.”

  Papa examined the chink in the shutters and said we could watch through it. Then he began reorganizing his boxes of wares while Mama lit a candle to do her sewing. Nechama and I took turns putting our eyes to the crack to watch the procession outside. The priest walked first, leading the way for a man carrying a huge cross, and the villagers followed, singing.

  I didn’t explain to Nechama why we weren’t invited. Knowing that the marchers were busy hating Jews made me feel bad. But I did enjoy the sweet, somber singing. Was it all right to love the melody but not the words?

  The man carrying the heavy wooden cross was neither young nor strong; he struggled as he stumbled up the hill. All the fit, healthy men had been taken to fight in the Great War. Papa was strong, but he hadn’t had to go because his brother, Uncle Pinchas, was already in the army.

  I remembered exactly when Uncle Pinchas had been conscripted to fight for the Czar. Sometimes my mind found the memory in the night and I couldn’t stop myself from seeing his face, then Aunt Friedka’s. When I started thinking about the big soldiers’ faces, I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles to press the pictures away and huddled closer to Nechama’s easy, light snoring.

  Uncle Pinchas was taken on a cool Saturday afternoon the previous fall. I was visiting my aunt and uncle, nibbling on dried cherries and being careful not to drop any pits on the floor. Aunt Friedka’s house was even tidier than our own. But it wasn’t fair to compare, because it was hard to keep everything neat when there were two children and a mother at home all day, whereas Aunt Friedka and Uncle Pinchas both worked away from home. Aunt Friedka was one of the few Jewish women I knew who did that. She was very good with figures and the butcher hired her to keep his accounts, because he was better with a sharp knife than a chalk slate. That also gave Aunt Friedka the opportunity to buy certain cuts of meat that Jewish people weren’t allowed to eat, and she would sell them to Christian villagers and make a little extra money. “Resourceful,” Papa once called her, with approval in his voice. I wanted to be resourceful, too.