“Not for one minute do I doubt it. Why else would they arrest Jewish doctors in this way?”
“My papa is trying to help.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know what your father is doing. Give me that other package, Asher. Yes. Thank you.”
“If we lived in Russia now, would they be sending my papa to Siberia?”
He held a package in midair and peered at me intently. “A strange question,” he murmured.
“Would they?”
“Not for one minute do I doubt it,” he said. “Or they would shoot him.”
I came out of the store a few minutes later and went home. It was dark and sharply cold. The naked trees moved brokenly in the icy wind.
“Would you like cold milk or hot cocoa?” Mrs. Rackover asked. “It is bitter outside.”
“Hot cocoa, please,” I said.
She did not say anything to me about Reb Yudel Krinsky.
My mother came home as I was finishing the cocoa. There was snow on her blue coat and blond wig.
“I did well on the test,” she said. “All our lives should be as easy as that test.”
“From your mouth into God’s ears,” said Mrs. Rackover in fervent Yiddish.
“We have to celebrate,” my mother said. “We’ll have a little wine with the fish. Oh, was that an easy test.”
“What was it a test in, Mama?”
“You know where Papa keeps the wine, Asher. Please bring a little bottle and put it in the refrigerator.”
“What was the test in, Mama?”
“Russian history,” my mother said.
About an hour after supper, it began to snow heavily. My mother and I stood at the living-room window, watching for my father.
“I hate this,” my mother murmured, staring out the window. “Oh, Ribbono Shel Olom, I hate this. Why do You do this? Tell me why. Who needs it?” Then she spoke in Yiddish. “Yaakov, please be an interceder for me with the Ribbono Shel Olom. Yaakov, do you hear? Yaakov?”
My father returned two hours later, exhausted, snow on his hat, snow on his coat, snow in his beard and eyes. My mother fed him supper and put him to bed. She was at the kitchen table with her books when I fell asleep.
The snow fell through most of the night, then began to freeze in a bitter wind. In the morning, there was ice on the bark of the trees and on the dark metal of the lampposts. The sun shone across the buildings like an exhausted light. I walked to school alone.
Sometime during that morning, the door to our class opened and the mashpia entered the room. We rose respectfully and stood in silence until he took the seat behind the front desk. Our teacher moved to the rear of the room and sat down near a window.
The mashpia spoke to us softly, his eyes half closed.
“Dear children. We spoke last time of the Rebbe’s grandfather, may his memory be blessed. We described his years in prison under the Czar. Now, the Rebbe’s father, may his memory be blessed, was also in prison, not under the Czar, but under the Bolsheviks. When the Rebbe’s grandfather was released from prison, he settled in Ladov. To Ladov came Jews from all over the world who had heard of his terrible suffering. Some of those Jews were great scholars who had opposed him before, but now became his followers. And from Ladov the Rebbe’s grandfather sent out emissaries throughout Russia to win Jews to Ladover Hasidus. These emissaries were the arms and legs, the mouth and eyes and ears of the Rebbe’s grandfather. Later, when the Rebbe’s grandfather, may his memory be a blessing, removed himself from this world, the Rebbe’s father also sent out emissaries. Some of those emissaries, dear children, were caught by the Bolsheviks and sent to Siberia, where they perished for the Sanctification of the Name. One of those emissaries was murdered by a Russian peasant the night before the goyische holiday called Easter. Another was caught by secret police teaching Hasidus and was taken to prison and shot. This happened in the Ukraine before the Second World War. Great were the hardships of these emissaries. But the Ribbono Shel Olom remembers their efforts and their suffering. And therefore great is their reward in the world to come.”
He talked a few minutes longer, telling us some more stories about past Ladover emissaries. Outside, it began to snow again.
Later, I walked in the snow to Yudel Krinsky’s store. I found him behind the counter, sorting paintbrushes. He was alone in the store and was surprised to see me.
“In such a storm you walk to the store? You should go straight home.”
I did not want to go home. It was warm in the store and there was that smell of new paper and pencils. I took off my coat and galoshes. Yudel Krinsky waved a brush at me.
“Outside is like Siberia. You are sure you should not go home?”
“I can stay a little while,” I said.
“Then help me with the brushes,” he said. “A Jew should not only talk, he should also do.”
I helped him sort the brushes. Then I helped him stack loose-leaf fillers and boxes of index cards. We talked as we worked. Somewhere in the talking, he began to tell me of his life in Russia. He had lived with his wife and children in a small city in the Ukraine. There were other Ladover Hasidim in the city, and they all worked in a hatpin factory that was managed by a man who had grown up in that city. He permitted them not to come in on Shabbos. Then a Russian was sent to take over the factory. This Russian discovered soon enough that the factory was a place of refuge for Jews who observed the Shabbos. He called a meeting of all the workers, Jews and Gentiles, and influenced the Gentiles to vote against having workers missing from the factory on Shabbos. The Ladover Jews remained with the factory but stayed away on Shabbos, when their places were taken by Russians. The management was satisfied with this arrangement. But in the eyes of the secret police those Jews became enemies of the Soviet state. After a while, ten of the Jewish workers were arrested and sent to Siberia. Yudel Krinsky was one of the ten.
He paused, blinked his large eyes, and scratched his beaklike nose. He glanced around nervously. Then he took a deep breath. He put down the ream of typing paper he held in his hands and without a word went through the curtained doorway to the small room in the back of the store. He was gone a while. I looked out the plate-glass window. It was snowing heavily. I began putting on my galoshes. Yudel Krinsky came out from the rear of the store. He stopped behind the counter and peered through the window at the snow blowing through the street. He shook his head again and began moving about the store, turning off lights.
A few minutes later, we stood outside in the snow. He closed and locked the door, fumbling nervously with the ring of keys.
“Sometimes in Siberia when it snowed, it was colder inside than outside.” He paused. “Your father should live and be well,” he said. “You and your mother should both live and be well. Be careful going home in the snow, Asher. Snow is an enemy.”
I watched him walk away up Kingston Avenue, a small man huddled inside a heavy dark coat and wearing a dark kaskett.
I went quickly along Kingston Avenue and turned in to the parkway. The snow was thick. I could feel the icy surface of last night’s snow beneath the snow now on the street. It was slippery and treacherous and I took a long time getting home. Coming up to the apartment house along the parkway, I raised my eyes and looked through the snow at our living-room window. I saw my mother framed in the window, staring down at me.
She met me at the door.
“Where were you?”
I told her.
“Do you know what time it is?”
We had talked about Russia and Siberia, I said. We had—
She wasn’t listening. She seemed in a frenzy of rage and panic. “Your father is in Detroit, and you come home almost an hour late. What do you want from me? What are you doing to me, Asher?” She was screaming. “I don’t understand. What did I do to you? Tell me, what did I do to you?”
I stared at her, feeling terrified, feeling a dark horror move over me.
“Didn’t you realize someone was at home waiting? Didn’t it occur to you wh
at it means to wait? I called the school ten minutes ago and there was no answer. Asher, do you know what those ten minutes of waiting were like?” Her voice broke. She took a trembling breath. “Ribbono Shel Olom,” she said. “What do You want from me?” She turned suddenly and went along the hallway. “What do You want from me?” I heard her say again. Then I heard the door to her bedroom slam shut.
In the sudden overwhelming silence that filled the apartment, I thought I could hear the sounds of the snow falling through the icy air outside.
I came into my room. I was trembling. I was shivering and trembling. I lay on my bed in my coat and galoshes and could not stop trembling. The snow made pebble sounds against the window of the dark room. Sometimes in Siberia when it snowed, it was colder inside than outside, I heard Yudel Krinsky say. Snow is an enemy, snow is an enemy. Your father should live and be well. You and your mother should both live and be well. I took a deep breath and held it a long time. I held my hands tightly together. I stiffened my body and legs. I could not stop trembling. The apartment was very dark. I heard the door to my parents’ bedroom open. Someone came through the hallway and into the living room, moving softly on slippered feet. Then I heard nothing. Then I heard my mother. I heard her voice; it seemed close by in the darkness. She was in the living room. I heard her chanting from the Book of Psalms. She chanted a long time. Then she stopped and there was a long silence. Then I heard her say clearly in the silence, “I cannot do it, Yaakov.” She spoke in Yiddish. “Do you hear me, my brother? How can I do it? I am only a little girl. What do you want from me? Ribbono Shel Olom, what does the world want from me?” Then there was another long silence. Then she began to chant again from the Book of Psalms. I lay there on my bed in my coat and galoshes, listening to my mother chant from the Book of Psalms.
A long while later, she went back into her room. We had no supper that night. I lay on my bed in the darkness; then I fell asleep, still wearing my coat and galoshes. Sometime in the night, I woke from a dream and felt myself smothering. I felt buried in snow and ice, and then woke fully and realized I had slid down into my coat and the lined hood was over my head. I got into pajamas and went to the bathroom. I heard the snow on the frosted window. My father was in Detroit in the snow. The snow blew against the window. I went to my room and got into bed. The darkness was alive with the sounds of the storm-filled night. I had known of my father’s trip and had forgotten it in the warmth of Yudel Krinsky’s store. I thought of the brushes I had helped Yudel Krinsky sort. Then I thought of the metal cabinet filled with tubes of oil color. I did not understand why I should be thinking of that cabinet. Then I fell asleep.
My mother said to me the next morning over breakfast, “Asher, if you want to continue going to Reb Yudel Krinsky’s store, you will have to remember to return at a reasonable time.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“And if it snows when you leave school, please come straight home.”
“Yes, Mama.”
She looked at me soberly. “I lost my temper last night.”
I was quiet.
“You frightened me, Asher. But I should not have lost my temper.”
“I apologize for what I did, Mama.”
“Yes. You frightened me. I’m trying very hard to get used to it, Asher. I’m really trying.” She looked at me through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “I wish I hadn’t lost my temper. I told myself that the next time it happened I wouldn’t be frightened. But I was a failure.” She put a napkin to her eyes. Then she said softly, “Drink your juice, my Asher. I’ll walk with you to your school.”
Later, we came out of the apartment house and walked along the snow-filled parkway and stopped at the path that led to the entrance doors of the school.
She kissed my forehead and said, “Have a good day in school, Asher. I hope you get a fine mark on your arithmetic test.”
“Thank you, Mama.” The test had been postponed from last week to today. But I had forgotten again to study for it. “Will Papa’s plane be able to land today?”
“If the Ribbono Shel Olom wants it to land, it will land.”
She turned and started along the parkway. I watched her walk up the street carrying her books.
I failed the arithmetic test.
Three
During supper on the first Monday in March, the phone rang and my father went to answer it. When he returned, he said in a choked voice, quoting in Hebrew, “‘When your enemy falls, do not rejoice,’” and he told us that Stalin had had a stroke, was paralyzed and unconscious, and was dying.
The following Wednesday, the story was in the newspapers. The official announcement had come out of Russia Tuesday midnight, Eastern Standard Time. I never asked my father how he had learned of Stalin’s illness more than a day before the official announcement. He would not have told me.
On my way home from school Thursday afternoon, I saw a car pull up in front of our headquarters building. Six men came out of the car. I recognized one of them; he was in his twenties and he had worked two offices down from my father when my father had been on the first floor of the building. The others looked to be in their fifties or sixties, men with gray beards, dark coats, and dark hats. They went up the steps of the building and disappeared inside.
My father did not come home that night. The next morning, my mother and I heard over the radio that Stalin had died the previous afternoon at 1:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
My mother turned off the radio as the announcer started a commercial. We sat in silence. The refrigerator hummed softly.
“‘So perish the enemies of God,’” my mother quoted softly in Hebrew.
I told my mother about the men I had seen come out of the car the day before.
“Who were they, Mama?”
“Ask your father,” she said quietly.
I asked my father later that day. “Ladover from Europe,” he said.
Early the next morning, my father went to the mikveh. He returned to the apartment, his hair wet; his sidecurls, which he had not tucked behind his ears, were dripping.
“You will catch pneumonia one day,” my mother said, bringing a bath towel into the kitchen. “Please dry yourself.”
“Simcha is out,” my father said to her. “He’s in London.”
My mother paled. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Thank God,” my mother said. “Thank God.”
“Who is Simcha?” I asked.
“A Jew,” my father said. “From Kiev.”
I did not ask anything else.
My father went out of the kitchen to put on his tallis, which he always wore under his coat as we walked to the synagogue. On our way to the synagogue, he asked, “Do you know where Vienna is, Asher?”
I did not even know what Vienna was.
“Vienna is the capital city of Austria.”
I did not know where Austria was.
“Geography you don’t know. Chumash and Rashi you don’t know. Mishnayes you don’t know. Sometimes I wonder whose son you are, Asher.”
“We didn’t study Austria, Papa. I don’t think we studied Austria.”
“And arithmetic you don’t know.”
“I don’t like arithmetic.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed you don’t like arithmetic.”
The morning service began a few minutes after we entered the synagogue. I saw my father at the table near the front of the synagogue, his head covered by his tallis. The tables were crowded. With very few exceptions, every adult inside that synagogue had experienced the tyranny of Stalin. People prayed loudly, fervently, swaying back and forth on the benches. There was a momentary pause when the service reached Borchu. Everyone stood, waiting. The narrow door in the corner to the right of the Ark opened slowly and the Rebbe stepped out. His head and face were covered by his tallis. The Rebbe stood near his chair and faced the Ark.
The old man who was leading the service chanted in a loud quavering voice, “Borchu es Adonoi hamevoroch.
”
The congregation responded almost in a shout, “Boruch Adonoi hamevoroch leolom voed.”
The old man repeated, “Boruch Adonoi hamevoroch leolom voed.”
The Rebbe turned and sat down in his chair. His movements were very slow. The tallis completely covered his head and face. The congregants took their seats. The service continued. A tremulous crescendo of sound began to fill the synagogue. Men swayed fervently back and forth. Arms gesticulated toward the ceiling and walls. I prayed loudly, swaying, caught up in the intensity of feeling that had taken possession of the service.
The Rebbe sat in his chair, praying. He sat very still, robed in his tallis. He held a prayer book in both hands. He held the prayer book rigidly and turned the pages with slow and deliberate movements of his right hand. He sat like that, very still, praying. His quiet presence began to move out toward the congregants and dominate the large synagogue. Slowly the outward intensity of the service began to diminish. The wild swaying ceased. The loud cries and gesticulations disappeared. A hushed thick tangible concentration of controlled fervor rose from the congregation. I was no longer swaying; I was concentrating on the words of the prayers. The words moved and danced in front of me. I felt the words inside me. “From Egypt you redeemed us, O Lord our God,” I prayed, “and from the house of slavery you ransomed us.” The words were alive. I felt them alive and moving inside me.
The Rebbe left after the Musaf Kedushoh. A few minutes later, the service ended. I came outside and saw Yudel Krinsky.
“A good Shabbos to you, Asher Lev,” he said. He still wore the kaskett. “I have not seen you all week.”
“I’ll come to see you Monday,” I said.
He seemed sad. “The dead do not return to life because a tyrant dies. The Ribbono Shel Olom was late. Stalin should have died thirty years ago.” He walked slowly away.
We sat at the Shabbos meal a long time that day. My father sang the zemiros slowly, his eyes closed, his body swaying faintly. My mother and I sang with him. From time to time, he stopped and sat in silence, his hand over his mouth. I saw him give me an occasional glance. After the meal, he left the house and went to the synagogue.