My Name Is Asher Lev (9 page)

“Mama, are you all right?”

She looked down at her books. Then she looked at the kitchen clock. “I fell asleep at the table.” Her eyes were puffed. The side of her face that had rested against her arm was blotched red. “I have to see how your father is.”

She rose unsteadily to her feet and went from the kitchen. A few minutes later, she returned. She had removed the wig, changed her clothes, and washed her face.

“How is Papa?”

“Your father is grouchy. He asks you to please go down and buy a
New York Times.
Will you do that?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Without going by way of Kingston Avenue?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“And please buy the Yiddish papers, too.”

“Yes, Mama. Will Papa be able to go to Washington tomorrow?”

She looked at me. “If the Ribbono Shel Olom wants your father to go to Washington tomorrow, he’ll go to Washington.”

She spent the day giving my father his medicine, bringing him tea and lemon and honey, studying for her exam, preparing meals, and answering the telephone. Finally, I volunteered to answer the telephone for her. If it was for my father, I said he was sick and could not come to the phone; if it was for my mother, I said she was studying and had asked not to be disturbed. Surprisingly, everyone I talked to about my mother seemed to understand; no one asked her to come to the phone. She was still at the kitchen table when I went to sleep that night.

The next morning, I came into the kitchen and found my mother squeezing orange juice.

“How is Papa feeling?”

“He left half an hour ago.”

I stared at her.

“The Ribbono Shel Olom wanted him to go,” she said. “Sit down and drink your juice.”

Later, she went with me to my school.

“Have a good day, Asher. Give Reb Yudel Krinsky my regards.”

“I hope you get a very good mark on your test, Mama.”

“Thank you, Asher.”

I watched her walk along the parkway, carrying her books.

    There were four people in the stationery store when I went there after school that day. I waited patiently. Just as Yudel Krinsky finished with the last customer, two more walked in. Then three more came in. I stood near the cabinet containing the tubes of oil colors and waited.

“Asher,” I heard Yudel Krinsky call.

I looked at him between the crowd of customers.

“Asher, in the cabinet next to you. Bring me, please, two tubes of cadmium red light and two tubes of cadmium yellow light. You see them? On the top row.”

I saw them. The tubes felt heavy and solid in my hands. I moved between the people and put the tubes on the counter.

“One number-ten bristle brush,” I heard the woman next to me say. She spoke in English and had a faint Russian accent.

I looked up. She was in her late fifties and had short gray hair and pale-blue eyes. She wore a light-brown coat and dark-brown galoshes with a fur trim.

Yudel Krinsky went to the glass showcase next to the metal cabinet and returned with a long-handled brush.

“What else?” he asked.

“Rectified turpentine,” the woman said.

He placed a white-and-red can on the counter.

“What else?”

“That’s all,” the woman said. “Thank you.”

A few minutes later, the store was empty.

“All day long, people people people,” Yudel Krinsky said. “In Russia, we did not use paper the way it is used in America. Here it is used like air.” He looked at me. “How is your father feeling?”

“My father flew to Washington.”

“He is finished with his bronchitis?”

“Yes.” I wondered how he knew my father had had bronchitis.

“When Reb Aryeh Lev is sick, people worry. Now, Asher Lev has a question for me today?”

“Yes.”

“Ask. But while you ask you can help me put these boxes on this shelf. Yes?”

“My mama says there will be a great persecution of Jews
in Russia now. Do you think the Russians will do that?”

“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 what 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.