The Night of the Burning

by Linda Press Wulf

  I began to stammer with shyness, but I held up my basket and said what I’d come to say. “Hot potatoes, Rabbi. From my mama, Chanah Lehrman. For those who are studying.”

  The rabbi smiled. “A good woman,” he said. “You should grow up to be like your mama.” Then he patted my cheek, looking quietly into my eyes. “A sheyn ponim,” he murmured.

  I blushed and looked down. Not too many people said I had a pretty face. Certainly not when I was with Nechama.

  The rabbi shuffled away, smoothing his beard again and again with a shaky hand, and I slipped silently through the open door into the sanctuary. In that solemn place, I stared at the painted murals on the walls. There were marvelous scenes from the Torah and pictures of vines and fantastical animals and birds. No pictures of God, but mountains and clouds where I thought He might be hidden. I lingered as long as I dared.

  Mama’s dream was for Papa to study here in the synagogue all day. “Or at least to say your morning prayers with the other men,” she would say wistfully.

  But Papa said he needed to begin his traveling while it was still dark. “I say my morning prayers as I walk next to the cart. God is also awake early,” he said, smiling at me.

  Mama shook her head. “With your brain, Bzalel … If you just had more time to study the Torah.”

  Silly Mama, I thought. Papa knows all the stories in the Torah already. There isn’t a better storyteller than Papa.

  The best day for stories was Shabbes. On Shabbes, Papa didn’t have to work and Mama also rested. Shabbes was a whole night and a whole day long, from Friday evening at dusk until Saturday evening at dusk. Preparations began on Friday morning, when Nechama and I woke to the sight of Mama braiding bread—not the huge quantity of rough, brown wheat and rye bread that she baked on Sundays to last the whole week, but two loaves of fine white challah.

  The cholent for Saturday lunch, with its beans and potatoes, was also cooked on Friday, and then it was sent over to the home of Panya Truda, our nearest Christian neighbor. Panya Truda kept it warm for us because Jews are not supposed to light a fire on Shabbes.

  At Friday night dinner, dressed in my embroidered blouse with my wavy hair allowed to fall freely instead of being pulled back tightly from my face, I felt like a princess. And how handsome Papa looked as he sat at the head of the kitchen table. The table wore a white linen cloth, and Papa wore his black Shabbes coat. He sang the blessing over the sweet red wine and the challah in his deep voice. Mama was queen for the night, sitting calmly on the bench instead of rushing around to serve us. She wore her best black dress and the pearl necklace that had been her marriage dowry and was her only jewelry.

  When we returned home from synagogue on Saturdays at noon, Mama sent us to Panya Truda to fetch the cholent for our lunch. One Saturday I heard some Christian children shout Polish words that Nechama didn’t understand yet. The next week I decided to go alone.

  “Say hello nicely to Panya Truda and give her this ribbon with my thanks,” Mama instructed me.

  Silently I took the ribbon.

  “Let’s go,” Nechama said.

  “No,” I said firmly, turning away. “I’ll go alone.” Then I hurried out the door before there was time for questions.

  Slowly I walked down the road and around the village pond. Only about twenty-five houses in Domachevo were owned by Christians, and they were clustered together away from the Jews. So far, so good: no little blond boys or girls played in the mud at the edge of the pond.

  I knocked at the first door on the other side of the pond. Panya Truda, who washed laundry for my mama each week, opened it with a little child in her arms. She always seemed tired and busy, but she greeted me kindly.

  “My thanks to your mother for the pretty ribbon,” she said. “It is no trouble for us to keep your Sabbath meal warm.”

  “We thank you, Panya Truda,” I said very politely.

  I placed the pot of cholent into my cloth-lined basket and turned to hurry home, quickly, before— Too late. The children were gathering at the pond, waiting for me to pass by. I breathed more shallowly.

  “What you got?” a big boy shouted, pointing at my basket. “Give us a little. You Jews have got a lot.”

  “I don’t want any of her stew. Jew stew smells bad!” a girl yelled in return.

  Head up, head up, I told myself as jeers of laughter cracked around me. Just keep going. I kept walking.

  Suddenly the big boy somersaulted right across my path. His face flashed past mine and for a moment it was the face of the soldier who had dragged out Uncle Pinchas. “Aai!” I cried out in panic.

  “Scared her!” he boasted.

  My heart was sore from pounding. Look straight ahead. Just look straight ahead. Anger started to mingle with my fear.

  “Jew girl, stew girl, smelly Jew-and-stew girl,” someone sang, and the others joined in.

  I squeezed the handle of the basket until the straw bit into my skin, but I didn’t start crying. Stupid, ignorant peasants! I yelled at them in my head. You don’t even know how to read. I would never cry in front of you.

  The jeers and shouts followed me around the curve of the pond. “She’s getting away!” “Grab her basket!” “We’ll get you next time!”

  They wouldn’t dare touch me now. Forty more steps, I told myself through clenched teeth. Thirty more steps; just twenty now; ten …

  And I reached the safe encampment of Jewish houses. A glance behind told me the children had lost interest. They were grouped together throwing stones into the pond. I muffled a sob. Putting the cholent down for a moment, I bent over at the pump and scrubbed my face and hands vigorously. That would explain my burning cheeks. Then I went inside. Mama and Papa never knew how frightened I was to collect the cholent, and I never took Nechama with me again.

  Every Saturday after lunch, Papa gave me a short lesson. He was teaching me to read the Hebrew letters used for both Yiddish and Hebrew. Mama knew the morning and evening prayers by heart, but she could barely read Hebrew. “I want you to know more than your mother,” Mama told me. “Here are some gooseberries to give you strength to learn.” I enjoyed the berries, but I didn’t really need them. I loved learning with Papa.

  Then, after the lesson, Papa took Nechama and me for a walk through the forests. Domachevo was surrounded by pine forests on the banks of the long Bug River. We often wandered through the thickly wooded cemetery on the outskirts of the town, looking at the wooden grave markers carved and painted with pictures. Each painting had a meaning, and Papa could decipher most of the stories for us. The saddest painting was my favorite. It was a picture of a Shabbes table, laid with bread and wine and ready for the mother to bless the lights. But there were only two candles in the five-branched candlestick, and they were unlit.

  “Tell us the story again, Papa. Where are the other candles?” we asked as we all settled down in the long grass.

  “This woman buried here had five children,” Papa explained, “but only two survived. And then the mother died. But her spirit still lives, especially on Shabbes.”

  The painting was starting to blister, worn by rain and wind. I traced the colors gently with my fingertips.

  “These pictures are getting fainter, Devorahleh,” Papa remarked.

  “Yes, see, the table is wearing away on one side. What will happen when we can’t see them anymore?” I asked.

  “People forget,” Papa answered. “That’s the way the world is. One day the stories of these people of Domachevo will be forgotten.”

  I felt a cold shiver rake my back. How could stories be forgotten? How could people and their lives be forgotten?

  “No, Papa!” I cried. “I will remember even when I can’t see the paintings.” I didn’t know whether Papa believed me. I stood up so that he would know this was important. “I want to make a vow, Papa.”

  “A vow is a serious matter, Devorahleh,” Papa said, without a hint of a smile. “Are you sure you want to make a vow?”

  “Yes, Papa, I am sure.
” My voice sounded unnaturally loud. Nechama glanced up at me for a moment, then skipped off to pick wild poppies.

  I pulled myself up tall. “I vow,” I said slowly. “I vow before God and before my papa that I will always remember our stories.”

  There was silence in the cemetery. Then Papa stood up with a sigh. He put an arm around me and held me close.

  “Your papa is very proud of you, Devorah,” he said seriously. “My heart is full of pride. But my head worries about you. Now that you have vowed, you must remember. But there are different ways of remembering, my child. Hard ways and easier ways. I hope you will find an easier way.”

  I didn’t understand. How could there be hard and easy ways of remembering? Either you remembered, and that was good—or you didn’t, and that was bad.

  But Papa had turned toward my sister. “Nechamaleh,” he called to the little girl moving lightheartedly among the graves. “It is time for us to leave.”

  THE WAIT IN WARSAW

  1921

  I woke up from a dream of home to find that the long journey from Pinsk was over: our train was pulling into the huge, bustling railway station in Warsaw. The ornate ceiling was so high above the noisy crowds that pigeons nested confidently in its eaves, swooping down to exit through the great doors. I followed Mr. Ochberg and Mr. Bobrow in a daze as they led us in pairs through the cobblestone streets to the only shelter Mr. Ochberg had been able to rent, a battered old schoolhouse at 28 Sliska Street.

  There Nechama and I were assigned iron cots next to each other, with old mattresses leaking straw.

  “I’m cold. The wind is coming right through those broken windows,” Nechama complained.

  “Well, at least we don’t have to lie on the ground,” I said, pointing at some mattresses that were placed on the floor.

  Over the next few weeks, the rooms became more and more crowded as children arrived in small groups. We gathered around each time to see the arrivals. I scanned the faces for someone from the past, even though I knew there was no one left. Nechama hoped to find new friends.

  “Welcome, welcome.” Mr. Ochberg beamed. He sounded relieved, even though he looked exhausted. “Here you will be safe until the entire group of two hundred children has gathered, and then we can all travel on to South Africa.”

  There wasn’t much more than this simple welcome to offer the newcomers. There was very little food, hardly any coal to heat the rooms, and no clothing. Medicine for Laya’s and Pesha’s eyes had to be bought on the black market. After years of war, famine, and sickness, the city of Warsaw was depleted.

  On one of our daily walks through the city streets, Mr. Bobrow stopped to commiserate with a man wearing a yarmulke on his head who was boarding up his small bakery.

  “No flour means no bread for my customers,” the baker said sadly. “We’re going to live with my wife’s family until my brother sends money from America for us to move to the New World. Who can survive in Poland these days?”

  I peered into the bakery as I listened to the men talk. In a huge basket on the floor were stacks of empty flour bags made out of strong, white cloth. Neatly folded, they reminded me of something. Yes, they looked almost like the linen Papa used to sell. Could we use them?

  I tugged at Mr. Bobrow’s sleeve. “What is it, sad one?” he asked. I couldn’t talk aloud in front of the stranger, so I reached up to whisper into Mr. Bobrow’s ear. His face brightened as he listened and he gave me a soft pat on my cheek before turning back to the baker.

  When we returned to the schoolhouse a little while later, the bigger boys were carrying large bundles tied with string. Their faces and arms were ghostly, coated with white powder.

  “What do you have there?” asked Mr. Ochberg when they dropped their load to the ground and clouds of white swirled around us. Suddenly I pictured the drifts of white feathers on the Night of the Burning. Feathers expelled and scattered, drifting and lost. I shuddered.

  “Flour sacks!” Mr. Bobrow answered triumphantly. “There is so little flour that the bakery nearby no longer needs its flour sacks. The owner gave them to us for free.” He pushed up his spectacles and left a white smudge on the glass.

  “And how will empty flour sacks help us?” asked Mr. Ochberg. “We need the flour that should be inside them.”

  With a dramatic gesture, Mr. Bobrow flourished one of the sacks in the air and then wrapped it around his middle like a skirt. “Voilà!” he cried. “An apron!”

  “We’re going to make clothes!” a big boy called Zeidel said, snatching up a bag and pressing it against his body. “Shirts! Skirts! Blouses!”

  Another boy took mincing steps in an imaginary skirt, flicking a bag flirtatiously. Little Yankel was slotted into a bag by Zeidel and Shlayma and swung high as he squealed in excitement. Mr. Ochberg needed two big sacks to stretch all the way around his middle. Flour flew in the air, coating us all in a layer of white.

  Something twitched at the corners of my lips, the memory of a smile.

  “Enough, enough! Children, we have work to do,” Mr. Bobrow called finally. He divided us into work groups: to shake out the flour sacks, sweep the floor, and find strong needles and thick thread.

  As I hurried past the two men, Mr. Bobrow pulled me over for a moment and turned me to face Mr. Ochberg. “It was Devorah’s idea. She realized we could make clothes out of them. Wasn’t that resourceful?”

  Resourceful. That’s what Papa had called Aunt Friedka. My chest stretched with pride.

  That evening we cut and sewed in the biggest classroom. I edged as close to the adults as I could. It made me uneasy to see Mr. Ochberg sitting still with his eyes closed and his face pale. Mr. Bobrow must have noticed, too. He handed Mr. Ochberg a glass of tea, which he stirred silently for a while.

  “Thank you, Alexander,” Mr. Ochberg said. “I’m worn out from the endless trips to the consulate to have the travel documents stamped. And every day I worry about finding enough food for these children. If you weren’t here, I don’t think I could do this.”

  Mr. Bobrow laughed gently. “You would manage, Isaac,” he replied.

  I nodded to myself. Mr. Ochberg could do anything; of course he would manage.

  Mr. Bobrow continued. “When I was sent to Pinsk to help the Jewish war orphans, I thought my head would burst. Before the war, my life had been so well organized. As a chemist in the sugar factory, I had a quiet office with all my equipment lined up neatly and my hours set from eight to five.” He let out a little sigh.

  “Then I was in hell. War, revolution, typhus, pogroms—they raged outside our three orphanages. And all I could think about was how to buy some milk to add to the children’s diet of potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. But occasionally a box with tins of cocoa and condensed milk arrived from America. Enough to make weak chocolate milk for everyone. The children’s chocolate smiles lit up the dining room. Then I wasn’t tired anymore.”

  My fingers sewed familiar stitches while I wondered about “condensed milk.” What could that be? Did it come from goats or cows or some other animal altogether?

  I snipped off my last thread and stood up to tie the apron around my waist. There was a large piece of mirror propped up in the front hall, and I slipped out to stand in front of it. Well, you couldn’t tell that it used to be a couple of flour bags—it was clean and very white and the folds hung well. Mama would have been proud of my sewing. I twirled around, stopping as I saw Itzik watching me with a smile.

  “You look just fine, Devorah.”

  I blushed furiously; even my ears felt aflame. “Thank you,” I muttered, and hurried back to the classroom. In case he was still watching, I pulled out an old slate board and scribbled a few English words over and over again, as if I were really concentrating on our homework.

  Mr. Bobrow spoke nine languages, including English. Every day he found time to give us English lessons. Big and small children were at the same level: we squeezed into the old school desks and repeated the strange words together.

 
; In the evenings before we went to sleep, Mr. Bobrow displayed yet another talent: he played the ukulele. One song was serious rather than lilting and merry. Mr. Bobrow told us it was the English anthem and we should always stand at attention when we sang it. I couldn’t make any sense of the words, but I sang it softly over and over to myself until I knew it by heart.

  “God sayr our gracious King …

  Long to ray ober us

  God sayr our King.”

  One day I heard a tremendous knocking on the front door. I looked around wildly for help. I’d heard that kind of knocking before. When the man in the uniform delivered Papa’s letter from the Czar, the letter that caused such fear in our house, he had knocked just like that. “Mr. Bobrow! Mr. Ochberg!” I shouted.

  But the delivery was a happy occasion this time: two big cases and then two more. They kept coming, until sixteen large boxes blocked the entrance. Nechama and her friends leapfrogged from case to case.

  “Open them, open them! They must be for us.”

  They really were for us, packed with secondhand clothing by the Jews in South Africa. We burrowed into the heaps of clothes, fighting to grab the warmest coats and the prettiest skirts.

  “Look, Nechama,” I marveled. “Instead of buttons up the back, this dress has a metal thing that goes up and down.”

  “It’s like a tiny train …” Nechama began.

  “Racing along tiny greased tracks,” Itzik exclaimed.

  “That, children, is a new device called a zip,” Isaac Ochberg explained, laughing at our amazement. But I also saw him wiping away tears as he read to Mr. Bobrow the letters of support he found inside the boxes.

  The next time a man came to our door with a big box was different again. The small children watched him with puzzlement, but I just smiled quietly. I know what he’s carrying, I thought. They don’t know, but I do. I fingered the photograph in my pocket, remembering the day long ago in my village when a man carrying a box had pulled out a smaller black box. He had handled the small box very, very carefully. From it had come a photograph.