Threads and Flames (3 page)

“God forbid it!” Glukel cried out.

“—and the messenger left with the candlesticks before anyone could tell him the truth,” the rabbi finished.

“But if that's so ...” Suddenly, Raisa gasped. The full meaning of what had happened hit her like a blow. “If the messenger believed I was dead, he told Reb Laski, and then
he
would have sent a letter to Henda saying—” She leaped up from her chair and stood there, swaying dizzily. “Henda!
Henda!
Oh my God, my sister thinks I'm dead!” The room spun around her, and she fell into Glukel's waiting arms.

LETTING GO

Y
ossel carried Raisa back upstairs, where Glukel tucked her into bed and Sarah fluttered around, fussing. Last of all, Reb Avner came in to speak with her. The others left the two of them alone.

The rabbi sat by Raisa's bedside. “A terrible thing,” he said. “A terrible, terrible thing, to think about what a shock your sister must have suffered. But let us thank God that at least we have the power to set this right.”

Raisa sat up in bed and gazed steadily at the rabbi. “Today,” she said. “Promise me that you'll send a message to Warsaw
today,
so that as soon as possible Reb Laski will let Henda know I'm alive. Please.”

“I'll do that and more,” the rabbi reassured her. “But you must promise
me
you won't fret about this. An unquiet mind doesn't let a sick body heal properly. Put aside your worries and your anger. Concentrate on regaining your strength.”

“Anger?” Raisa repeated. “I'm not angry at anyone.”

The rabbi raised one silvery eyebrow. “Not even at the inn-keeper's son for what he told Reb Laski's messenger?”

Raisa shook her head. “How could I be mad at him for that? Lemel's almost thirty, but he acts like a boy of nine. He tries so hard to help his parents, to do the right thing, and he takes it to heart badly when he fails.” She touched the rabbi's hand. “Does he know what he did? Please tell him not to be upset. He couldn't help what happened.”

“True, true.” Reb Avner nodded. “You were so sick, that—let me be frank, Raisa—Lemel wasn't the only person in this town who was sure we'd lost you, God forbid. But sometimes the same hammer that breaks a chair to pieces builds a better one in its place. As soon as Glukel knew you would live, she told Sarah. No better way to make sure the whole village found out in a hurry, eh?” He chuckled.

“Of course Sarah ran to tell her husband. Yossel was at the inn, checking their horses for loose shoes and sore feet, Lemel helping him out by making the beasts stand still. Yossel told me that the poor lad heard your name from Sarah's lips and thought she'd seen a ghost! He was terrified, until his father calmed him down and explained you were as alive as he was. That was when a light kindled in his eyes and he blurted everything he recalled about Reb Laski's messenger. So you see, none of us might have heard one word about the man from Warsaw if not for Lemel!”

He stood up slowly, groaning a little. “Ah, old bones, old bones . . . I could never make the journey that's waiting for you. Lie down, now, and rest well. If you don't get your strength back, how can you travel to Warsaw, let alone America?”

“America?” Instead of lying down, Raisa sat up even straighter in bed.

“My dear, do you think I don't know?” He gave her a gentle, kindly look. “These past four years, your sister has been sending Reb Laski money to keep until there'd be enough to bring you to her.”

“How did you find out?” she asked, thunderstruck. The arrangement had been a secret between the sisters. Raisa still remembered how Henda had held her close the night she stole out of the house and took the road to Warsaw.
“Once I reach America, I'll get work, Raisaleh,”
she'd whispered in the dark of their shared bed.
“I'll work hard, and I'll send back everything I can so you can join me. But remember, you mustn't tell anyone about this until there's enough money for your ticket.”

“Not even Glukel?”
Raisa had whispered back.

Raisa remembered being puzzled by her sister's vehemence.
“Do you really think he'd do something like that, Henda?”

Her sister's face had hardened.
“You don't know what he's already tried to do to me. Do you think I'd leave you like this, go so far away over nothing? I love you, Raisaleh, and if you love me, you can't tell anyone about the ticket money—no one at all!”

The memory faded, but Raisa's question remained. “Who told you, Reb Avner?”

The rabbi rubbed the small of his back. “My good friend Menachem—Reb Laski—is not a young man. He wanted to make sure that someone else knew about the money from America so that you would get it if, God forbid, anything happened to him. As soon as he received his first letter from Henda, saying she'd arrived safely in New York City, he wrote to me, insisting that I was the only man he could trust with something so important.”

“And you, Rabbi . . . you've told no one else?”

Reb Avner gave her a sad smile. “Why don't you ask me what you really want to know, Raisaleh?”

Raisa looked down at her hands, folded atop the feather-stuffed quilt. “Does Glukel know?” she asked softly.

“Not yet.” He stood up. “And from my mouth, never. Reb Laski explained to me about your sister's fears. Poor Nathan.”

“Poor
Nathan
?”

“He's dead, may he rest in peace, and while he lived, he lived unwisely. All the days of our lives, we are given the choice to do good or to do wrong. How can I help but feel pity for a soul that made so many bad choices? He could never see anything beyond the immediate satisfaction of his own desires. He never spared a moment to imagine how other people might feel, how his actions might hurt them.”

“I hope ...” Raisa began, her voice very low. “I hope I can remember that when I tell Glukel I'm going away.” She looked up into Reb Avner's sympathetic eyes. “Can you help me? Can you tell me what to say?”

He shook his head. “There are some things you will have to do for yourself. More, now that you're going into the world on your own. Be careful of how you choose to do them. I'm going to write to Menachem. He didn't send a man all this way just to return a pair of candlesticks. Unless I miss my guess, that messenger's true purpose was to let you know that Henda's finally sent him enough money to pay for your passage. If it was just to return the candlesticks, he'd have done so long ago. He wanted to give your sister the money for her passage without taking anything as a pledge except her promise to repay him. The only reason he accepted the candlesticks and your mother's jewelry was because Henda insisted—
ach,
Henda!” He clapped a hand to his cheek. “Menachem must send her word at once, letting her know you're well!”

“I wish you could write to her yourself,” Raisa said. “It would be faster.”

“You know as well as I do why I can't. I don't know where to address the letter. We've done much in these past four years to make sure Nathan never learned where your sister was living.”

“Do you think he would have followed her to America?” Raisa couldn't believe it, though she was ready to believe almost anything else of him.

“He was a very . . .
determined
young man. Do you remember when Henda's first letter arrived?”

“Of course. You brought it to our house. I wondered why she sent it to you and not to us.”

“She didn't send it to me, but to Menachem, who put it into a different envelope,” Reb Avner said. “He wrote to me separately, saying he thought that the whole complicated hide-and-seek business was silly, but he soon learned better. The moment I finished reading you all Henda's letter, Nathan snatched it out of my hands.”

“Ah! I remember that,” Raisa said.

“And do you also remember how he vanished for at least a week afterward? The letter didn't give him any hint of where Henda was living in New York City, but the envelope had Menachem's address in Warsaw.”

“He went there?”

“Like a wild man. He arrived uninvited, barged into the house, and demanded to know where Henda was.
Demanded!
Menachem stood firm against all of Nathan's bluster and bullying, until the servants threw him out the door.”

Raisa grinned. “I wish I could've seen that.”

“The only reason Menachem didn't have him arrested was to spare Glukel the shame,” Reb Avner went on. “After that, there was no question about the wisdom of hiding Henda's address.” He clicked his tongue. “And now, when it would make things so much simpler to write to her directly, we can't do it. Well, with luck, she may get the good news about you before the bad. When a letter has so far to go, who can say when it's going to arrive? We can only do so much. Be well, dear Raisa.” He left the room and after a little while, she slept.

 

 

When Raisa woke up, the sunlight had faded from the sky and the flowered lamp was lit. She turned her head and saw Glukel sitting in the chair beside the bed. Raisa reached out and gently laid one hand over the older woman's work-worn fingers.

“I have something to tell you.”

Glukel never once interrupted while the girl spoke about Henda, Reb Laski, and the plans for her own journey to America. Even after the whole story had come out, she remained silent for such a long time that Raisa's heart began to beat fast with alarm. “Are you mad at me? I don't want to leave you, but I need—”

“You need to be with your sister,” Glukel concluded. She nodded slowly. “And you're right; you should be with Henda. How can I be mad at you for something so natural? You need your family.”

“You're my family, too, Glukel!” Raisa exclaimed. “If not for you ...” She couldn't finish the sentence. Memories of her mother's death choked her. “I won't go! You're our second mother. I can't leave you behind.”

The older woman freed her hands from Raisa's grasp and stroked the girl's closely shorn hair. “I'm not asking you to stay. Haven't we all heard the stories about America? So many opportunities! What would become of the little birds if their mama didn't push them out of the nest? They'd never learn how high they could fly.” She forced a smile. “A good mother wants her child to have a better life than hers. If that means saying good-bye ...” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Not forever,” Raisa said, throwing herself into Glukel's arms. “When I join Henda, we'll both work hard and we'll save every coin we can so that the three of us can be together again. We'll bring you to America. We'll take care of you the way you always took care of us, and you'll never have to work another day in your life. It will happen before you know it; wait and see. I'll
make
it happen; I swear it!”

“Of course you will, my darling,” Glukel murmured, but her voice was sad.

 

 

By the time Raisa was well enough to travel, it seemed as if the whole village, Jews and gentiles alike, had come to see her. Having one of their own on the brink of making the journey to the Golden Land was a great event. The parade of visitors became such a daily occurrence that Glukel finally had Raisa come downstairs every morning and spend the day in an armchair, cradled in a nest of pillows with her feet up on a cushioned stool.

“Forgive me, dear one, but some of these people are like family to us and others are my best customers,” Glukel explained while she fluffed Raisa's pillows after the fifth day of visitors. “I can't turn them away.”

“Even if you tried, they wouldn't listen,” Raisa said, smiling.

“Well, may God bless them, no one's come empty-handed. A coin here, a coin there; it adds up! I can rest easy knowing you won't be traveling in poverty. Plus there's the money that Reb Laski sent to the rabbi, to pay your way to Warsaw. He insisted on adding some of his own funds to what Henda sent.”

It was a special joy for Raisa the first time her friends came to see her. She'd grown up with Yitta and Avigal. They overwhelmed her with armloads of wildflowers gathered from the fields and baskets full of sweet treats they'd baked themselves. Yitta also brought her little sister Dina. As soon as the toddler saw Raisa, she let out a squeal of joy and clambered onto her lap.

“Dina, no!” Yitta exclaimed. “Get down. Raisa is too tired to play with you now.”

“Too tired for my special girl?” Raisa hugged the child close. “Never! Did you miss me, my sweet one? Did you miss our games? Do you still have the rag doll I made for you?”

“She won't go to sleep without it.” Yitta lowered her voice and added, “She loves you, Raisa. Even our mama calls you Dina's little mother. What's she going to do when you go?”

“What are
we
going to do?” Avigal put in. “Oh, Raisa, isn't it odd to remember how we all used to talk about how exciting it was, imagining Henda's new life in America? And now you're going there, too! Do you know when you're supposed to leave?”

“Not yet,” Raisa replied. “When the doctor says I can, I guess.”

“Will you send us letters?”

“If I can find someone to write them for me.”

Yitta clicked her tongue. “It will be enough if she sends letters to Glukel and puts in a word or two for us. It costs money to send mail from America.”