Threads and Flames (2 page)

“Glukel, whose grave? Who died?” Raisa used what little strength she had to sit upright and throw her arms around the older woman's shoulders. Her embrace accidentally pulled off the faded blue kerchief covering Glukel's hair. Raisa was shocked to see that it was all an icy white instead of the brown streaked with gray that she remembered. “Don't cry. Oh, please, don't cry!”

Glukel drew back, the tears still wet on her deeply lined face. “It's Nathan, my sweet one. Nathan is gone.”

Raisa gritted her teeth in spite of herself and Glukel noticed. “Is this how you act when you hear my nephew is dead? Such a look, so full of hate! He wasn't the easiest man to get along with, may he rest in peace, but I don't remember him ever treating you that badly.”

It wasn't
me
he treated badly.
Bitterness flooded Raisa's thoughts.
It was Henda. Your nephew made my sister's life a torment. He's the reason she ran off to America four years ago, when she was only sixteen. America! Henda used to tell me stories she'd heard about that rich, rich land, wonderful stories! We talked about going there together—crossing the ocean, making an easy living, sending money back to you, and one day even bringing you over to live with us there, in comfort. Then Nathan ruined all our plans. He wouldn't leave her alone. Henda had to escape him, and she couldn't take me with her because I was too young to travel as fast as she needed to go. Do you know how much I miss her? But he left her no choice. He was going to force her to marry him, and he would have succeeded. Who was going to stop him? You, Glukel?
Unbidden tears slid down her cheeks.

He called himself the man of this house, the “scholar,” hiding behind his books, while every bite of food we ate came from
your
hard work. You were always bent over your dressmaker's needle, ruining your eyesight so we could survive. I fetched and carried the orders from the time I was three. Henda and I both worked hard mending and making clothes, and what did Nathan do? Nothing. And you never said a word.

“Altehleh, what's the matter?” Glukel's voice was low and soothing. “Are you angry with me? All right, maybe you and Nathan didn't get along—what do I know? I can't be everywhere—but he's gone now. If you have any hard feelings against him, let them be buried, too.”

Raisa shook her head emphatically and regretted it at once; the action set the room whirling around her. She collapsed back against her pillows and groaned. Glukel gave a little cry of alarm and dabbed at Raisa's brow with the damp cloth, her words of concern turning into unintelligible noises that faded away in a rising pool of darkness.

 

 

When Raisa awoke again, she felt much better. Daylight was streaming into the room through a half-shaded window.
I must have slept through another night,
she thought. And then she wondered,
How many nights have I lain here, so sick?
Even with the window shade lowered, she could still glimpse the young oak outside her bedroom window. Its branches were thick with summer greenery. The last time she'd seen that tree, those leaves had been nothing more than fat springtime buds. The idea of so much time lost forever saddened her. The bedside lamp was out, and the sound of many voices wafted up through the floorboards from the kitchen below. She took a deep breath and smelled fresh cake. Her mouth watered.

She sat up in bed and was happy to discover that her dizziness was gone. Casting a glance around the room, she saw Glukel's green shawl with the red flowers draped over the back of a chair. Carefully she swung her feet out of bed and stood up, leaning on the bedside table until she was sure that she could master the shakiness in her legs.

“Come on, I can do this,” she muttered. She took a few tentative steps to the chair, picked up the big shawl, and draped it around her. Feeling light-headed, she reached up to cradle the side of her face.

“Ah!” A gasp of shock escaped her lips. Instead of the long braids she always wore crisscrossed, encircling her head like a crown, Raisa's fingers brushed against the bristly remnants of her dark copper-colored hair. “What did she do to me?” she whispered. “Why?” Slowly she made her way out the bedroom door, seeking Glukel.

She heard the voices more distinctly when she was halfway down the stairs. Yossel's deep, gravelly tones, so surprising coming from a man only in his twenties, set him apart from the other villagers. So did his hulking body, the muscles hardened by his labor as a blacksmith. His new wife Sarah's piping voice played over, under, and through his words, like a sparrow hopping everywhere, pecking at whatever it found. When Yossel was away from the forge, the two of them were almost never apart, and as a result he never got to finish a sentence without his adored little wife interrupting him. When a third voice said, “Sarahleh, let the man speak,” Raisa knew Reb Avner had come to call, as well. There was no mistaking the calm, fatherly way the shtetl rabbi spoke. Even when he scolded, it sounded comforting.

“Let him speak? Who's not letting him speak?” Sarah's voice skirled high as a tin-whistle tune. “I let him talk as long as he likes, Reb Avner. Are you saying I'm a bad wife? Yossel, have you been complaining about me behind my back? For you to run and tell the rabbi that I don't let you—”

“Sarah, Sarahleh, sweetheart, I never—” Yossel began.

“—get a single word in . . . ?” Sarah concluded just as Raisa entered the kitchen.

Her appearance made Sarah go suddenly silent, her dark eyes as wide as if she'd seen a monster or a marvel. Glukel's three guests were seated at the kitchen table, thick-sided glasses of hot tea before them, a plate of sliced poppy seed cake within easy reach. Yossel's huge hand was just reaching for a piece, but the instant that his eyes met Raisa's, he froze. Reb Avner sucked his breath in sharply and released it in a softly murmured prayer. At least, Raisa presumed it was a prayer: it was in Hebrew, the language of the synagogue and the scholarly men and boys who studied Torah there; she couldn't imagine anyone using it for something besides worship, pleas, or blessing.

“Sweetheart, what are you doing up?” Glukel was out of her chair and across the room in a heartbeat, her arms enfolding Raisa tenderly.

“Glukel, why—why?” Raisa pushed the older woman away and gestured helplessly at her shorn head.

“Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry. I had to cut off all your beautiful hair. Too much hair drains away a sick person's strength and sometimes you thrashed your head so much when the fever was on you, your hair fell out of its braids and got all tangled. Don't worry, it will grow back.”

“I know, but—”

“Never mind, never mind. Come, sit. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Let me give you some tea. Sarah brought you her special vegetable soup with barley and mushrooms. No one makes it better.” The blacksmith's wife giggled at the compliment. “I'll fill you a bowl. Here, rest.”

Glukel steered Raisa across the floor as if it were a wolf-haunted forest path fraught with perils, and settled her into her own just-abandoned chair. Raisa blinked in amazement at how quickly the promised tea and soup appeared in front of her, along with a small piece of dark rye bread. She was used to taking care of herself, not being treated like a pampered child, and it made her feel uneasy.

“Soak that in the soup before you try to eat it,” Glukel counseled. “It will be easier to digest.” The steam rising from the heavy blue bowl smelled wonderful. Raisa picked up her spoon and began to eat, but after the first few mouthfuls she found herself gobbling it down like one of the local peasants' pigs at a trough.

“Alteh, slow down a little.” Yossel's powerful hand closed gently on her wrist. “You'll hurt your stomach. It's not used to so much after so long going without. Put down the spoon, have a nice sip of tea, rest. No one will take the food away from you.”

Raisa smiled at the big man, with his thick, badly groomed black beard. “Maybe not the food,” she said. A mischievous spark kindled in her eyes as she turned bold and added, “But my hair, yes. And worse, my name.”

Yossel looked bewildered. Glukel spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “She refuses to be called Alteh, even though that's what saved her life,” she explained to the company. “What can I do?”

“But no, that's a terrible thing!” Sarah cried. “The Angel of—the angel came looking for Raisa and left empty-handed, thank God, but if you keep that name, you think he won't remember? You think he won't return to collect what he first came looking for? Where's your common sense? Burned up with the fever? If you haven't got the brains to save your own life, I'll do it for you. Your sister Henda was my dearest friend. What kind of a person would I be if I didn't look out for you when she's not here to do it herself? Not one soul in this village will call you any name but Alteh; I'll see to that, believe me! It's for your own good.”

The rabbi laughed. “Ah, Sarah, what shall we do with you? Less than a year ago you and Raisa were like sisters, but now you're married, you're trying to be her mother? Better have children of your own, my dear.” Sarah blushed and fell silent. Reb Avner then turned his mild gaze on Raisa.

“So, you don't want your new name?” he said. “I don't blame you. We live in a new world now, a new century, even if it is less than ten years old. Moving pictures, flying machines—so many marvels, so many changes! But changing your name to change your fortune? That is one marvel I find hard to believe. Live and be well and keep your name, Raisaleh. You were named after your father's grandmother, a wonderful woman, strong and brave. She simply showed up here one day and said that she'd come from a Russian shtetl no one ever heard of. There was a pogrom, a dreadful massacre—half the village destroyed by fire, all of her family slaughtered. God alone knows why she didn't settle in any of the other villages she passed through on her way here. She wouldn't say, and no one could ever get it out of her, not even your great-grandfather. She wasn't much older than you are now, and she was just as strong willed. I think that was what preserved her.”

“Henda and Glukel told me how much Mama used to talk about her,” Raisa said very softly. “I wish I could have known her.”

“If you'd known her, you couldn't have been named for her,” the rabbi replied. “You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you that she, too, faced down the Angel of Death in her life. I was only a child, still clinging to my mother's apron, but I still see her, so young, coming to our shtetl with little more than the clothes on her back and the one family treasure she saved from the pogrom, a pair of candlesticks.”

Glukel smiled fondly over the memory. “Silver ones! They were so beautiful. Mine are only brass. When Henda turned twelve, I remember how we used to welcome Shabbos together, and how lovely it was to have two pairs of flames light our home.” She sighed. “Now there's only one.”

“Those candlesticks travel more than some people,” Sarah remarked a little enviously. “From here to Warsaw, from Warsaw back to here, and then back to Warsaw again!”

“Back to
here
?” Raisa looked up sharply.

“Isn't it strange how such things happen?” Sarah chattered on. “You know that merchant who used to live down by the cattle market, the one nobody here can stop talking about because he did so well that he moved to Warsaw, what, twenty years ago?”

“Pan Menachem Laski,” the rabbi said.

“Pan?” Glukel echoed. “Don't you mean
Reb
Laski? Pan's what you call a Pole, not a Jew.”

“And yet, that's what the Poles call that Jew,” the rabbi replied. “The ones who want to do business with him. It's a mark of respect.”

“I trust their ‘respect' like I'd trust a cat with a pitcher of cream,” Yossel grumbled.

“Who cares about cats?” Raisa piped up. “I know Reb Laski. He's the one who helped Henda get to America. She sent us a letter telling how she gave him those candlesticks and Mama's jewelry for ship passage and travel money. How did they get back here?”

Sarah sniffed. “How do you think? They walked? Reb High-and-Mighty Laski sent a messenger with them.”

“But
why
?” Raisa felt her heart begin to beat faster.

“Maybe Reb Laski realized you're all grown up now, a young woman,” Yossel said a little too quickly. “He's rich; maybe he felt he could afford to give the candlesticks back to you without waiting for Henda to redeem them.”

“Why didn't the messenger leave them here, then?” Raisa cried, drowning in unanswered questions. “Why did he just turn around and go back to Warsaw? Why?”

Glukel grasped Raisa's wildly gesturing hands. “Yossel, she's not a little girl anymore. Don't try to shield her from everything. Tell her the truth.”

Raisa looked from her guardian to the blacksmith. Yossel only shook his head. It was Reb Avner who responded. “The messenger came with the candlesticks while you were still so sick. It was just a little while after Nathan died.” A murmured “May he rest in peace” went up from Glukel, Sarah, and Yossel. Even Raisa joined in, reluctantly. “I think Reb Laski never wanted to hold on to them or your mother's jewelry in the first place. He was a good friend of your father's family. If I know him, he probably tried to give Henda the money for her passage, and if I know Henda, she refused to take charity. In any case, the man he sent here was born and raised in Warsaw. He didn't know our shtetl. He had no notion of where to find Glukel's house, so he stopped by the inn to ask. The only one around at the time was the innkeeper's son, Lemel.” Reb Avner took a deep breath. “He's a good boy, but . . . not quickwitted. His mind is a jumble. He forgets, confuses things. He confused you and Nathan—both living under the same roof, both stricken with typhus, and so”—he paused and looked at her, his eyes sorrowful—“he told the messenger you were dead—”