River

by Shira Nayman

  How must Sarah’s parents feel—leaving their young son here, perhaps never to see him again? No, not perhaps. I had to remind myself: I knew how this would all turn out. After tonight, Sarah and her parents would, in fact, never see any of these family members again: not Yossele; not the other six older siblings I’d met this evening—which felt like weeks ago, not mere hours; not their cousins and uncles and aunts and everyone else remaining behind.

  Something seemed to be happening; a murmur passed through the crowd, and then the strange, silent feel of motion, as if we were all giant particles heating up. Now, we were moving again, more slowly, this time, as if we were governed by a single force—as a herd moves: many creatures, one mind.

  But where was Sarah? A moment earlier, we were together.

  “Sarah?” I scanned about me. “Sarah!”

  A sharp pain erupted in my left temple, as if someone had landed a blow with an iron rod. Then, the same pain in my right temple. Panic engulfed me, the signal, yes, that had preceded each of my tumblings back through time. I’m not ready to leave Sarah! I wailed within. And with no chance of at least some sort of farewell?

  But then, a rustle beside me and there she was—her eyes feverish.

  “Hadassah! I mustn’t forget to give you these!”

  “What?” I said, disturbed by the agitated sound of her voice, by the mysterious, unreadable look on her face.

  “These!” And she reached her hand out—we were being parted by the crowd, people swarming, moving more quickly now, coming between us. Her arm stretched and was knocked aside, then reached back out toward me. I stretched my own arm out too, felt the warmth of others brushing up against me, pushing Sarah and me apart. My head was now throbbing with alarming intensity, the pain clouding my vision.

  “Yossele—he asked me to give them to you! I don’t know why—but it seemed important to him!”

  I couldn’t speak; my throat was dry as sand. I reached for Sarah, but the distance between us was growing.

  “And it’s important, also, to me!” Sarah said. “Here!”

  Through the crowd, around and between, our fingers touched—our hands slid together in a fervent, quick clasp.

  Two hard, round, smooth little balls—the oddly polished walnuts Yossele had chosen with such pleasure, knowing they’d bring him victory at palantes. I curled my fingers around them; they felt solid and reassuring against my palm. For an instant, I was overcome by an unexpected calm, here, in the midst of all this chaos.

  And then, Sarah was being pulled away from me by the crowd, a startled look on her face; in my ears, the faint echo of her voice, whispering my name—lyrically, the Yiddish sounds stretching, sounding the way they had looked to me above the shop windows of Dusiat, with their unusual angles and beautiful arcs: “Hadassah—remember me. And I will remember you!”

  I opened my mouth to speak—to say But I am here—with you! You don’t need to tell me to remember you! Don’t leave—Stay—

  But she wasn’t staying, she was moving away, away, out of sight, joined with the moving crowd, as if she were floating down a swiftly moving river whose tide rumbled suddenly within me, a churning, roiling desperation, threatening to engulf me, overwhelm me, swallow me down, and crush the breath from my lungs—

  The pain in my head ballooned, swallowing all thoughts, and then, the tumble into pelting rain and dreadful hurling through tempestuous darkness. Gone the bright stars, the danger of fleeing and flames, the thunder of running in a human herd, the feverish look in Sarah’s eyes.

  And then, a violent slapping—water so cold it stung. And salt spray, burning my eyes. Everything was in complete darkness; I remembered, suddenly, the story of Odysseus that my father had read to me when I was young. And as I tumbled deeper into the storm, I thought of the squall in that story that lasted nine days and nine nights. Of how Odysseus and his men had tied themselves to the masts to keep from being flung into the raging, wine-dark sea.

  I had no twine, no anchoring mast; in the face of the violent seething, I felt helpless and unprotected. My body twisted and ached as the stinging rain lashed me. I closed my eyes against the salt spray and balled up my fists, as if to battle the tempest with my hands. I kicked and thrashed and screamed with all my might, though the sound was swallowed to nothing by the roar in my ears.

  I found myself doing something I never did back home, in my real life, in Brooklyn.

  Praying.

  I prayed I might again squeeze Billy’s hand: look again into those gleaming, impish, smiling eyes.

  I prayed that I would see my parents, that we would be a family again. That my mama would recover and go back to being the mama I knew.

  I did not see how I could survive. I don’t know how long I struggled. I was clinging to the slimmest thread of hope as time catapulted me farther back.

  “Em—i—ly.” It sounded like the voice of a small child, trying to speak through tears. No, not a small child—Billy! I was sure of it! Billy’s voice, coming to me from—where? Desperately, I tried to open my eyes, but they were glued shut.

  The touch of a cool hand on my forehead, the sound of a soothing voice.

  “My darling … ”

  The light intensified; even through my closed eyelids, I cringed with the intensifying pain it brought on. More voices, a man, a woman, the sound of people moving and talking, not close by but farther away, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. A soft clanking, and rustling, the distant sound of mechanical beeps. Now, a quick, sharp pain on the inside of my elbow. And then, the pain crushing my skull and shooting down my neck peeled away, the light disappeared, and the voices and sounds drifted off into the ether.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN I CAME TO, I was face down in fine, silky sand. Immediately, I felt the scorching heat; the hair on the back of my head burned from the sun. Through my loosely fitted garments, I could feel an intense warmth. I did not, however, feel hot. The air was dry, and a brisk wind rose and fell, whooshing with hollowness.

  Rising to my feet, I looked around. Everywhere were fields of sand and above me, a vast blue sky without cloud, a bright orange sun directly overhead. I felt as if I were the only person alive; for a moment, I wondered with alarm whether I’d been catapulted far forward in time, rather than backward, to beyond the end of the human race.

  Now I knew why the wind sounded strange: there was nothing to break its movement, no trees or houses or any living thing around which it might swirl and nestle. Only desert sands that shifted with the gust’s whims, sliding with sluggish grace into new flattened curves. But wait—what was that up ahead, in the distance? Shielding my eyes with my hand, I thought I could make out an astonishing sight: a massive city with buildings reaching upward, high into the sky. And all around it, glinting waters that wavered in and out of view. I squinted and the fantastic image vibrated, seemed to vanish, then leapt back to view. Could it be a mirage? My throat was parched, hot tears sprang to my eyes.

  I had the feeling I was being watched. I turned to see a young woman walking toward me, draped in white linen, her head wrapped in a turban, a sheer veil covering her face. Behind her I could see camels: some resting on the sand, others beginning to heave themselves up, their enormous bodies lunging with awkward, fluid motions.

  As she came closer, she raised her arm in a wave, and then, she was upon me. She slid the veil from her face.

  “No, it’s not a mirage. Though it always seems that way when it first appears,” she said. “Don’t worry, Shoshana. It looks farther away than it is. We’ll be there soon.”

  The girl’s dark eyes gleamed with warmth; her voice was deep and honeyed, and it took me a moment to register the guttural-sounding language. I flashed once more on my mother, singing me to sleep with the concoction of Jewish prayers recalled from her childhood. It definitely sounded like the Hebrew of my mother’s sleepy prayer singing. Now, I remembered what Sarah had said—that the Jews spoke Aramaic in ancient times. Was it possible that this was the
language I was hearing? As I’d come to expect, I understood every word and knew that as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I would have command of the same language.

  “Before you know it,” she said, “we’ll be able to see the river. How beautiful the tower looks from here! You can even see the hanging gardens. One can almost forget …” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head, as if to dislodge an unpleasant thought, and then smiled, revealing a set of pristine white teeth; a dimple creased one cheek. It was a distinct, radiant smile, which made me think at once of my grandmother back in Australia. I felt a sharp pang of homesickness.

  That unbearable feeling that had plagued me before now overcame me again. I couldn’t imagine what Grandma was thinking, so far away in place and time. What had happened to everyone? Where were they? A new thought derailed me … what if I was still there but also here? I’d heard of parallel universes, but never thought they could actually be real. What if—what if—but I was distracted from the thought by my new companion, who was looking at me quizzically, awaiting a reply.

  “The tower, the hanging gardens, the river …” I echoed what she had just said, rolling the unfamiliar new words around in my mouth.

  “I do love the Euphrates,” the girl said, as if reminding herself of something. “I go down to her banks, outside of the city, where the grass grows so thickly, and I tell her my thoughts and dreams.” She paused, then said, “In my own mind, I call her Mother Euphrates. There! That’s a secret I’ve never told anyone!”

  The Euphrates. I flashed on Jimmy, so far away—another universe, another time—patting the earth and calling it his mother.

  A massive tower … the hanging gardens … the Euphrates River …

  Could it be? Had I landed in—Babylon?

  “It’s so exciting, isn’t it?” the young woman asked. “We’d had hopes when King Cyrus ascended, but for it all to happen so quickly!” She grabbed my shoulders and gave me a quick, impetuous hug. “I can hardly wait to read the edict to Father. It was certainly worth the trip to the royal scribes to get a copy, don’t you think?”

  “Can I hear it, now?” I asked.

  “That’s a fine idea,” she said. “Funny—I must have read the papyrus to myself ten times, and yet the words still feel like a surprise.”

  She reached into her garment and pulled out a piece of rolled papyrus tied with twine. After removing the twine, she unfurled the page and began reading in a ceremonial voice:

  The Edict of Restoration.

  Let it be known to all, the edict of Cyrus, King of Persia, at the end of his first year on the throne:

  Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits, with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Also let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; and you shall put them in the house of God.

  “There,” she said. “Undeniable. We’re to be allowed to return home!”

  Why did what she read sound familiar? The name of the king—Cyrus—and the reference to Nebuchadnezzar and the temple. Someone had mentioned these things to me, and recently—even yesterday. Yesterday? What did the days mean, anymore? When was yesterday in this strange, new world? Back in Lithuania? Yes! That was it! Sarah had talked about this very period when we were down by the Sventoji River! Her favorite period in Jewish history—the return of the Jews from their exile in Babylon back to Jerusalem, where they would rebuild the destroyed temple, inaugurating the period of the Second Temple. Sarah’s recitation of the last passage in the Torah that filled her with such hope rang in my ears—let him ascend!

  I’d been flung back in time exactly to that period, Sarah’s favorite! It was as if all the girls I was meeting—my maternal forebears—were scripting my journey as it unfolded! How was I ever going to make sense of any of this?

  Now, this girl who, like my other recent companions—Talia, Darlene, Sarah—seemed to know me, and whose name had not yet been revealed, re-rolled the papyrus and slipped it back inside her robe.

  “How long has your family been here?” I asked.

  “Why, the same as yours!” she said, a furrow forming in her brow. “Since the expulsion.”

  “Yes, of course, I know that,” I said, a little flustered. “I guess I mean I was just thinking …”

  The girl nodded. “Oh, I see,” she said, as if intuiting some meaning in my words that was beyond my own reach. “The memories of home—they’ve faded. After almost fifty years, well, in some ways, they’re not really our memories, but in other ways, they are.”

  Every time she said the word home, I felt an awful pang.

  “Our great-grandparents hold some memories of our home, though I suppose they were still young children when they were forced to flee. But for their parents—home was alive in their hearts. Some of the elders still live—”

  She was studying my face in that uncanny way. “Shoshana, have you doubt?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About the return? Do you not feel the pull—of our ancestral home?”

  My heart certainly ached with longing—for my family, for my own time and place. Was it possible that this girl felt those same feelings for Jerusalem?

  She seemed suddenly to remember something, and gently took my hand. “We really must hurry. Deborah will have some sharp words for us, no doubt.”

  We headed back to where a few camels were still heaving themselves to their feet. I found myself gliding lightly across the dunes. The leather sandals I was wearing seemed ingeniously constructed for this terrain: the smooth soles skimmed over the surface, preventing sand from getting into the shoe.

  We reached the camels and the group of people attending to them—about fifteen men and women, all dressed the way we were, busying themselves with the animals, attending to the goods and supplies draping over them every which way, adjusting the heavy, beautifully embroidered materials that served as padding and saddles and headgear designed to keep sand from the camels’ eyes. A slender woman approached, drawing away her veil to address us. She was middle-aged, with refined features and gentle eyes.

  “Rachel, I told you girls not to run off,” she said, sounding like a mother indulging a young child. So, my new companion—certainly one of my ancestors—was named Rachel.

  Rachel kissed Deborah on both cheeks. “All those hours on a camel—you know how restless I get!”

  The older woman received Rachel’s kisses with delight and then turned to me. “Here, Shoshana, you must be thirsty.” She handed me an animal-skin container, which looked exactly like the kind I’d seen in movies set in ancient times.

  I knew my name here was Shoshana, since Rachel had already called me that. A vague memory rustled up from one of our many trips to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where a little nametag labeled each plant, tree and bush. We’d read somewhere that in the Bible, Shoshana meant lily, and Mama had explained that in modern times, the name was understood to mean rose.

  I tipped the animal skin and drank greedily. As the water poured through me, I could feel my strength returning.

  “The sun makes fools of us all. The city looks so far away—” Deborah said. “Come, your camel’s ready.”

  She led me to a camel folded down on its knees; it gave me a funny look, half serious, half amused. Even sitting, it looked enormous, like a large hill I was now supposed to climb. The embroidered crimson cloth on its back was stiffer than it looked; I noticed ridges up one side and realized they were little steps I could climb to reach the saddle. In a matter of minutes, I was perched on top, surveying the desert landscape around me. I held on tight as the camel loped to its feet.

  And then we were on our way. I felt a surge of excitement as we sailed along;
suspended in mid-air, dipping widely and yet smoothly, up and down, I was overcome by an astonishing sense of freedom. The pale-yellow sand stretched out to a horizon that hovered in the distance like the lip of an all-encompassing sea.

  After a time, the city that had wavered far away like a mirage solidified in the near distance, a glittering conglomeration of fantastic shapes: buildings of smooth stone, others that looked like temples, their gold and silver surfaces refracting the sun’s rays. Rising to an impossible height was a massive structure of stepped terraces covered in a profusion of greenery, dotted all over with colored flowers. Could this be the famed Hanging Gardens of Babylon—a long-lost great wonder of the world? To the west of the gardens, a slim tower rose into the sky, reflecting multicolored beams of light, its tip buried in cloud. It appeared to be encrusted with jewels, glinting in broad swatches with gold-flecked blue, breaking the sunlight into bright flashing spears. Encircling the thin tower, a thousand steps snaked in an evenly described spiral. I only vaguely remembered the Tower of Babel from my Bible stories—recalled that the tower was called “Babel” because after it was built, God imposed a gaggle of languages on the people, who could no longer understand each other. The opposite, in a way, to what was happening to me—being miraculously granted the ability to speak and understand whatever language came my way!

  My tongue felt suddenly sticky with all the languages that had come to me on this journey, as if from the tower itself before me—Afrikaans and Yiddish, and now most likely Aramaic, the language of parts of the Old Testament. I felt as if I were a vessel through which history was pouring itself—and yet at the same time, I also sensed a new stirring within that I was somehow getting closer to a mystery that had everything to do with me.