At the same hour that Rabbi Aaron had been checked by the Gepau’s electrician, his son Raphael (=God will cure, in Hebrew) was lying in a litlle Orphanage Boarding School, not far from Minsk. It had been once a district high school for Pravoslav monks, and confiscated for social-pedagogical purposes after the revolution. The Pomdat woman Davidovna had been called by the orphanage manager for consultation about three other orphans, easier-to-deal-with, whom she had also delivered to that boarding school.
When she arrived there, she heard about Raphael’s worsening condition. He had high temperature, refused to eat, and wanted back home, though at the first two days he behaved quite well. Davidovna rushed to the boy and stayed at his bed. She talked to an old woman, who used to feed the boys daily. Most of them were blind or severly limping, being victims of childhood paralysis.
“I have a sense of responsibility regarding that boy,” Davidovna told the woman Anastasia Grinwald, a mixed-up offspring of a German General in the days of Tsaritsa Yekaterina( who had been herself German).
Though Davidovna and Anastasia had known - that even if the boy dies- nobody would blame them personally, they were anxious: it would not add to their good records for future employment. They had not pitied the poor boy too much, as we will see.
Davidovna had read in Raphael’s file, that a physician named Doctor Issakov - was the kid’s permanent doctor since his childhood. So she had sent a telegram to the Minsk healthcare Office: “Please make arrangements for Issakov’s arrival in the orphanage.”
She requested Anastasia to let her know by phone- in case that the doctor would not arrive at that day, and left the orphanage.
The good doctor loved the kid. He came there in the same evening, checked the boy very carefully, and diagnosed pneumonia. So the boy was given to swallow Sulfa white juice, in order to overcome the severe sickness. Nobody could know if that would cure him, but at that time Sulfa was the best remedy, and it had really helped him. His caretaker Anastichka, liked his demonstrated strive for life. She told him that soon his parents would visit him, and he waited for that. A week after his kidnap he had been really visited by Natalya, who told him that his papa had become very sick, and hospitalized. He would not come back soon home. But “God’s help would not be delayed, and we should hope for it.”
Every day the boy was driven by his caretakers to a classroom nearby. He was seated in a special kid’s wagon, like he had had at home, listening to the woman teacher, who tried to make the pupils understand what the Kyril Russian letters mean. He was allowed to raise his leg (while his body was harnessed) as a sign that he would like to ask questions. He told the teacher, that he had no knowledge in math, and she ordered two limping invalids, in his age, to teach him daily how he can count by using his feet’s fingers or storm his imagination. The limping little teachers knew how to do that, as in a previous year they had attended a special class for paralysed kids…
Most difficult for the boy was his excerta problem. The children were preventing his society, as he was permanently stinking. Anastasia complained that she could not take care of five invalids at the same time, while one of them- Raphael, could not wipe his ass. Davidovna heard about that in her next visit, and clasped her head : ‘How didn’t I pay attention to that?’ she said to herself, ‘Natalya, the Rabbi’s wife, has to be blamed. She had lied to me, telling that the boy was used to excrete once in two days, and that he had no stomach problems. Now I cannot request to return this orphan to her, his stepmother. Everybody will laugh at me in our Welfare department, and Gepau’s people will shoot me. ..I really can’t take care of all the sick orphans, Jesus. Now Raphael’s father is the most vile person ever seen: He had found a most comfortable solution to his problems - becoming mad. If the boy will die, sooner or later- maybe his father would refresh himself and get out of his insanity’. poor Natalya, on one hand she should thank me, Raaisa Davidovna, that I have taken the boy from her responsibility. On the other hand - she has now a big problem with the mad Rabbi, her husband. That creates for her a chain of difficulties: She can’t get rid of him, untill he is absolutely declared insane, which would takes years through our beaurocratic system…I am also sure, that she is not so pretty and good looking as in the past. So she can hardly find love with another man…Recently our leader Stalin had declared, that official marriage is the preferred type of living for mature couples. Adultery is no more sympathized by our authorities...
Anastasia told Davidovna that she would put Raphael in an enclosure. They found a place for that: a small horse stable near the Boarding School’s fence. It had been used in the far past by the Nobleman Briansky, who was the owner of that place. Anastasia would visit the boy twice a day. If she would have time enough for changing his undewears – and wash him, she would take him to some of the lessons at school. If not- he would continue to lie there, creep out and play with mamals or call the cats and dogs.
‘Had the mad Rabbi been a really smart man,’ reflected Anastasia – ‘he would have killed the deformed boy long ago. Rabbi’ss first wife had been cleverer than him. My sister had studied with her in the obsterics school. She could have been a famous doctor today. To what failures may a human-being bring himself. Unimaginable!’
CHAPTER 39