JEWS IN SHUSHAN
[Footnote: Copyright, 1981, by Macmillan & Co.]
My newly purchased house furniture was, at the least, insecure; the legsparted from the chairs, and the tops from the tables, on the slightestprovocation. But such as it was, it was to be paid for, and Ephraim,agent and collector for the local auctioneer, waited in the verandahwith the receipt. He was announced by the Mahomedan servant as 'Ephraim,Yahudi'--Ephraim the Jew. He who believes in the Brotherhood of Manshould hear my Elahi Bukhsh grinding the second word through his whiteteeth with all the scorn he dare show before his master. Ephraim was,personally, meek in manner--so meek indeed that one could not understandhow he had fallen into the profession of bill-collecting. He resembledan over-fed sheep, and his voice suited his figure. There was a fixed,unvarying mask of childish wonder upon his face. If you paid him, hewas as one marvelling at your wealth; if you sent him away, he seemedpuzzled at your hard-heartedness. Never was Jew more unlike hisdread breed. Ephraim wore list slippers and coats of duster-cloth, sopreposterously patterned that the most brazen of British subalternswould have shied from them in fear. Very slow and deliberate was hisspeech, and carefully guarded to give offence to no one. After manyweeks, Ephraim was induced to speak to me of his friends.
'There be eight of us in Shushan, and we are waiting till there are ten.Then we shall apply for a synagogue, and get leave from Calcutta.To-day we have no synagogue; and I, only I, am Priest and Butcher toour people. I am of the tribe of Judah--I think, but I am not sure. Myfather was of the tribe of Judah, and we wish much to get our synagogue.I shall be a priest of that synagogue.'
Shushan is a big city in the North of India, counting its dwellers bythe ten thousand; and these eight of the Chosen People were shut upin its midst, waiting till time or chance sent them their fullcongregation.
Miriam the wife of Ephraim, two little children, an orphan boy of theirpeople, Epraim's uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wifeHester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest andButcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in onehouse, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre,rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by theincessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the eveningthe children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, andEphraim's sons held aloof, watching the sport from the roof, but neverdescending to take part in them. At the back of the house stood a smallbrick enclosure, in which Ephraim prepared the daily meat for his peopleafter the custom of the Jews. Once the rude door of the square wassuddenly smashed open by a struggle from inside, and showed the meekbill-collector at his work, nostrils dilated, lips drawn back overhis teeth, and his hands upon a half-maddened sheep. He was attired instrange raiment, having no relation whatever to duster coats or listslippers, and a knife was in his mouth. As he struggled with the animalbetween the walls, the breath came from him in thick sobs, and thenature of the man seemed changed. When the ordained slaughter was ended,he saw that the door was open and shut it hastily, his hand leavinga red mark on the timber, while his children from the neighbouringhouse-top looked down awe-stricken and open-eyed. A glimpse of Ephraimbusied in one of his religious capacities was no thing to be desiredtwice.
Summer came upon Shushan, turning the trodden waste-ground to iron, andbringing sickness to the city.
'It will not touch us,' said Ephraim confidently. 'Before the winterwe shall have our synagogue. My brother and his wife and childrenare coming up from Calcutta, and THEN I shall be the priest of thesynagogue.'
Jackrael Israel, the old man, would crawl out in the stifling eveningsto sit on the rubbish-heap and watch the corpses being borne down to theriver.
'It will not come near us,' said Jackrael Israel feebly, 'for we are thePeople of God, and my nephew will be priest of our synagogue. Let themdie.' He crept back to his house again and barred the door to shuthimself off from the world of the Gentile.
But Miriam, the wife of Ephraim, looked out of the window at the deadas the biers passed and said that she was afraid. Ephraim comfortedher with hopes of the synagogue to be, and collected bills as was hiscustom.
In one night, the two children died and were buried early in the morningby Ephraim. The deaths never appeared in the City returns. 'The sorrowis my sorrow,' said Ephraim; and this to him seemed a sufficient reasonfor setting at naught the sanitary regulations of a large, flourishing,and remarkably well-governed Empire.
The orphan boy, dependent on the charity of Ephraim and his wife, couldhave felt no gratitude, and must have been a ruffian. He begged forwhatever money his protectors would give him, and with that fleddown-country for his life. A week after the death of her children Miriamleft her bed at night and wandered over the country to find them. Sheheard them crying behind every bush, or drowning in every pool of waterin the fields, and she begged the cartmen on the Grand Trunk Road notto steal her little ones from her. In the morning the sun rose and beatupon her bare head, and she turned into the cool wet crops to lie downand never came back; though Hyem Benjamin and Ephraim sought her for twonights.
The look of patient wonder on Ephraim's face deepened, but he presentlyfound an explanation. 'There are so few of us here, and these people areso many,' said he, 'that, it may be, our God has forgotten us.'
In the house on the outskirts of the city old Jackrael Israel and Hestergrumbled that there was no one to wait on them, and that Miriam had beenuntrue to her race. Ephraim went out and collected bills, and in theevenings smoked with Hyem Benjamin till, one dawning, Hyem Benjamindied, having first paid all his debts to Ephraim. Jackrael Israel andHester sat alone in the empty house all day, and, when Ephraim returned,wept the easy tears of age till they cried themselves asleep.
A week later Ephraim, staggering under a huge bundle of clothes andcooking-pots, led the old man and woman to the railway station, wherethe bustle and confusion made them whimper.
'We are going back to Calcutta,' said Ephraim, to whose sleeve Hesterwas clinging. 'There are more of us there, and here my house is empty.'
He helped Hester into the carriage and, turning back, said to me, 'Ishould have been priest of the synagogue if there had been ten of us.Surely we must have been forgotten by our God.'
The remnant of the broken colony passed out of the station on theirjourney south; while a subaltern, turning over the books on thebookstall, was whistling to himself 'The Ten Little Nigger Boys.'
But the tune sounded as solemn as the Dead March.
It was the dirge of the Jews in Shushan.