Rachel Korn | Short Stories

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RACHEL KORN - SHORT STORIES / BLUMA ZELINGER

Bluma Zelinger

Translated by Abraham Boyarsky

The wheels of the train clattered with relentless monotony as if to dispel the gloom of the dilapidated limestone huts which lay scattered along the empty late autumn fields. At night the cold wind blew through the broken windows, carrying with it from time to time smoke from the panting engine. The biting wind swept across the steppes, heralding another Russian winter, the third winter for those who had survived the exile in the labor camps of Siberia.

They had been traveling for five weeks and still no one knew where and when the train would stop. There was relief in every face to be heading further and further away from the cursed camps where so many corpses had been left. More than one of those who now thirstily gulped the air from the surrounding fields, and with childish joy read the signs of the unfamiliar train stations, bore the symptoms of disease which would soon consume them.

They only knew that each passing station marked their progress south where the sun would melt away the memories of the long Siberian winters. And perhaps, in the confusion of war, one would be lucky enough to escape to the free world across the border which was so close to here.

But Bluma wasn’t bothered by the long journey. She considered herself to be the most fortunate passenger on the train: not one member of her family was missing. She held her four smaller children in her arms and continually checked their foreheads to see if they had caught a chill from the broken windows. Her gaze wandered from them to her older daughter Gitelle, to Chaim, the Yeshiva student, and to her husband Hersh-Leib, who had once been the ritual slaughterer of Christinapol. For the first time since they had been torn from their home, Bluma experienced a sense of calm and security.

Hersh-Leib was oblivious to everything around him; he was either absorbed in a holy book or reciting psalms, almost as if her were still in his little eastern Galician town. Meanwhile the train moved on through the dusty wasteland. A full day might pass before one saw a hut. Here and there rust-colored splotches lay on the broken ground, and beyond them ran white lines, tracing and ancient sea.

The children gathered around the broken windows and gazed somberly out at the desolate plain. There was no real vegetation, only the low prickly bushes that appeared from time to time. The children, who had grown accustomed to the Siberian climate and the howling of hungry wolves in the night, absorbed it all with a sense of discovery and fear. When for the first time they saw camels munching the hard desert brambles their eyes widened with astonishment.

“Mummy, Mummy, what are those?” They shouted, tugging at her dress. Bluma didn’t know the name herself, so she tapped her brow as though it were a box from which the word would spring out magically.

“It’s a kind of work horse with a hump. It had to pull heavy loads for such a long time that two mausoleums grew out on its back.”

Chaiml, who tried to emulate his pious father, was perusing a holy book the entire time, but now and then he couldn’t contain himself and threw a glance at the window. This time his glance lingered on the strange creature, which he had only seen in pictures.

“Dummies!” he called to his sisters and brothers. “That’s a came!”

“A camel! A Camel!” the children’s voices rang out. “We’ll tell everyone at home that we saw a camel!”

“Don’t shout so loud – you’re not alone here.” The word home touched her. She murmured to herself: “Let it be G-d’s will to return us safely to our home.”

On the train was a certain Itzik Radamer, who had escaped from the Germans to Lemberg. From there the Russians had sent him away with other Polish citizens to a labor camp in Siberia. Itzik used to wander through the cars entertaining the passengers with gossip.

“It’s rumored that they’re going to let us all out through Persia,” he said one day to a group huddled around him. “We’re being sent to a gathering point so that we’ll be in one place when General Sikonski gives the command. You all probably know that the headquarters of the Polish Army is in Buzolok, which is not far from here.”

“What does Sikorski need Jews for?” Bluma asked, a worried expression on her face.

“Go play with Sokiorski! My dear auntie, you’ll see what kind of soldiers he’ll make out of us. Even the Russian Army needs Sikorski; when he grew stubborn and demanded that his army be transferred to England, they gave in to him.”

“How do you know all this?”

"Such questions are better not asked,” retorted Itzik, offended that his credibility was being questioned. “If one lives, one sees!” He terminated the discussion abruptly.

Itzik was very friendly with the conductor and knew in advance where and for how long the train would stop. He was the first to jump down from the high cars when the train drew in at a a station and the first in the queue for boiling water, clutching his big patched kettle which everyone admired and coveted. He enjoyed trading with peasants who lined up coarse salt and poured it into the knotted sleeve of his jacket. Further on, where salt was more expensive, he exchanged it for rice, tomatoes and eggs. The profits were shared with the Uzbek conductor. They spoke in broken Russian, but when it came to commerce they both understood at a glance.

Itzik used to roam through the cars holding his kettle and distributing candy to the children. Now and again he would force a tomato or a dried fish into someone’s hand and hurry away. He was fond of boasting about his finely furnished home in Radam, where he had a big business, but he never mentioned his wife or children who had remained there. In the evenings, when his memories festered like a badly healed wound, he walked around more talkative than ever, as if trying to convince himself and others that nothing affected him.

“Now we’re heading for Tashkent and from there to Fergana,” Itzik informed the passengers one evening.

“Where is Fergana?” Bluma asked.

“You mean you never heard about the Fergana Canal which the Russians had built through the wilderness? I even read about it in the Polish newspapers. The snow that lies in the Pamir Mountains melts in the summer and is passed through the canal to irrigate the desert. It was a great idea. What I didn’t know though was that it had been built by exiles like us, like you and me.”

Itzik didn’t make it to Fergana. While the train was stopped in Tashkent, he slipped through the lines of security officers and disappeared.

All night Bluma sat on the hard seat thinking about the strange name Fergana. She had never heard of it before. If in her little town someone had told her that one day she and her family would be on their way there, she would have spat three times to the left and three times to the rights, as her grandmother – long live her memory – used to do.

In Christinapol Bluma had virtually forgotten that she had a name. The children called her mummy; the village housewives, who had great respect for piety, used to refer to her as the ritual slaughterer’s wife, and Hersh-Leib addressed her as a stranger, indirectly. He used to say: “Maybe the food should be served first?” or “Tomorrow morning it shouldn’t be forgotten that I need a clean shirt and underwear because I’m going to Beltz for the Sabbath.”

In Christinapol, Hersh-Leib was renowned as a scholar and a man of great piety. He was a ritual slaughterer who enforced the laws of kashruth far more rigorously than the other slaughterers. As a result, the butcher disliked him. “He’s going to make paupers out of us,” they whispered among themselves, because they knew that Hersh-Leib was capable of finding a blemish even in the most flawless cattle. They therefore drove their cattle stealthily, at night, to the neighboring villages where the ritual slaughterers understood that a Jewish butcher also had a right to earn a living.

Hersh-Leib was never a big breadwinner. To make ends meet Bluma was compelled to open a kiosk where she sold soda water and candy to the Gentiles. During the summer she used to chase away the Polish youths who enjoyed stealing from right under her nose, and in the winter her hands were always blistered from the cold. On the Sabbath and holidays she walked to the synagogue in her beautiful dowry dress, her head high, in her bearing generations of pride and dignity. One of her children carried the thick, worn prayer book. In the synagogue, mothers sat their daughters down beside her and asked her to keep an eye on them, so that they wouldn’t lose their place during the services.

All that was until the third day after the New Year in 1939 when the Russian Army occupied Christinapol. The Jews breathed a sigh of relief during the first few weeks: as bad as it was with the Bolsheviks, it was certainly better than living under the Germans. At least one was assured of one’s life. At first, little changed in the town. Only the shelves of the shops became emptier with each passing day – the soldiers and officers of the Russian Army took the liberty of sending home huge bundles of clothing and food. Before blond, bread, sugar and other staples became scarce.

Since it was prohibited to slaughter cattle privately, Hersh-Leib spent the whole day in the synagogue. Besides, most of the cattle and fowl were requisitioned by the Army. The horses were sent to the collective farms in Russia.

Around Chanukah time, a rumor spread through the shtetl that former Polish officers, priests, wealthy industrialists and even ordinary law-abiding citizens were being transported out of Lemberg, a city not far from Christinapol. Nobody knew where the Russians were sending them. A few weeks later, the cobbled streets of Christinapol rumbled under the heavy wheels of army trucks. People ran to their windows and cleaned the frosty panes to see what was happening.

The crash of a rifle butt resounded through Hersh-Leib’s house and the pungent odor of leather boots burst through the front door as the officers of the NKVD, the Russian Secret Police, entered and searched every corner and every crack in the house. The family stood gaping in shock. Bluma was the first one to shake off the numbing paralysis.

“It must be a mistake,” she mumbled in her broken Ukrainian. “There are no rich people here – we’re only poor workers.”

“WE have your name on this paper. Your husband is not a useful member of society; he serves the reactionary forces by feeding the poison of religious fanaticism to the naïve masses. Get your things and let’s go!”

They traveled for weeks in closed cars to the middle of a forest somewhere in Siberia. Each morning Hersh-Leib and Chaim went out with axe and saw to work. The guards howled with laughter when they saw Hersh-Leib’s axe dance in his weak arms and instead of striking the tree spring into the air. Having laughed their fill, they warned him:

“If you don’t produce the required quota, you won’t get your portion of bread!”

Hersh-Leib was never able to fill his quota. AS a result, Bluma was obliged to go into the surrounding villages to exchange a shirt or some other piece of clothing for a little porridge and a few potatoes. Then she would go to the common kitchen and transfer to one of her own pots the doled-out cabbage soup/ She mixed porridge and potatoes into the soup so Hersh-Leib wouldn’t suspect that it wasn’t kosher – she knew that he’s sooner starve than bring non-kosher food to his lips. Bluma took the sin upon herself. “Let G-d punish me, she whispered to herself in the heavy darkness of night. “But let them not get sick or waste away from hunger.”

III

The sharp screech of iron cut through the train. The wagons shook and sighed to a stop.

“Where are we?”

“Can’t you see? It’s written there: Gor-Tsakava.”

“How long will we be here?”

“The conductor said not less than three hours. A military transport has to pass.”

The passengers who headed for the doors in the hope of getting hot water or doing a little shopping were stopped by the conductor. The Army commander had ordered that no one leave the train. Outside, the station militia didn’t allow anyone near the train. Uzbek peasants stood about with pots of milk on their heads and baskets over their arms, ready to exchange their foodstuffs for a shirt or a pair of pants.

Bluma approached the conductor and pleaded with him to allow her to buy milk for her small children.

“I won’t run away. Can’t you see, my family is staying on the train,” she pleaded, but the conductor looked at her angrily and walked away.

“Give me the bottle, Mummy,” said eight-year-old Rivelle. “I’ll get some milk for us. Don’t worry, nobody will see me.”

Bluma couldn’t make up her mind.

“You can rely on Rivelle,” said Gitelle. “She won’t get lost – she speaks Russian as if she had been born here.”

Just then little Joseph began to cry:

“Mummy, Mummy, I want a drink! I want a drink!’

Bluma pressed ten rubles into Rivelle’s hand.

“But don’t go far,” she cautioned her. “Buy from the first one you see and don’t haggle with him, do you hear?” Rivelle was already out of earshot, and in a moment she was on the far side of the fence separating the train from the station. Bluma watched her hold out her bottle while a veiled Uzbek measured off the milk with a glass.

Suddenly a shudder rippled through the cars; they swayed forward then backward, as if resisting the force that was pulling them away from their brief respite.

“What’s happening?” came the sounds of frightened people.

“We’re moving! We’re moving!”

“It can’t be!” Bluma screamed, falling against a window. “We’re supposed to be here for two hours. In a moment, the cars yielded to the inexorable tug of the engine and the wheels turned faster and faster. The station was already out of sight, the stands and the peasants, everything. Bluma covered her eyes with both hands. “But my Rivelle is still there!” she moaned in shock.

A tumult rose in the car. Each person had a different suggestion for Bluma. Someone said that Rivelle had certainly jumped onto the last car and would soon make her way back through the packed cars.

“What are we going to do?” Bluma turned to her husband, complaint in her voice for the first time in her life.

“We must have faith,” he answered quietly, avoiding her eyes.

Meanwhile Gitelle and Chaim had searched all the cars. When they returned, sweating, faces lowered and smudged, Bluma understood poignantly that the child was not on the train. She ran to the door to jump off; she’d make her way back to Gor-Tsakava on foot. But the door was bolted from the outside. When the conductor arrived she implored him to let her off.

“Do you want me to lose my job for you?” he shouted at her. “Go to the commander if you want!” She went back to her family in despair.

In the evening the train stopped at a small station. Bluma jumped up and ran to the front cars to find the commander.

“Don’t you have other children?” the commander asked. “Be happy with that. The world doesn’t come to an end because of one child. It’s war-time. Families are being torn apart everywhere. But it’s not as bad as all that – remember you’re in the Soviet Union, not Poland. We have homes for children here. Your child will be found and sent to such a home. You have nothing to cry about.” Bluma continued crying, inconsolable. At length, the commander agreed to let her off at the station.

“Where is the train going?” she asked him, wiping her eyes. “I want to find my family afterwards.”

“I can’t tell you that, citizen. It’s a military secret – there are spies milling about everywhere.”

Bluma remained standing, helpless, her arms lowered as if no longer needed, her eyes gazing up at the commander’s raw, suntanned face with its short broad nose and narrow, watery eyes, shaded by the visor of his military cap. The face seemed so familiar to her. Then she recalled that that was how the peasants looked when they came to Christinapol on market day. A flurry of old memories erased her fear of the commander’s uniform.

“Don’t you have a wife and children waiting for you at home?” she said quietly, staring straight into his eye. The twilight was deepening around them.

“Citizen, I warn you no to repeat a word of this to anyone. It’s war time. This train is heading for Namongan. From there the passengers will be sent to the surrounding collective farms.”

Bluma ran back to her car. Without waiting a moment she packed a few things and parted with her family.

“Gitelle, take care of everyone,” she said to her eldest daughter.

“Most of all, look after Yoselle and your father. With G-d’s help, we’ll all be together again soon.”

Three days and three nights Bluma waited for a train heading back to Gor-Tsakava. She spent the day on a bench, and at night she stretched herself out on the floor with the others who were waiting for the train. There were Uzbeks with tanned chests and faces, a few Russian women with children, and a Polish Jew who had become ill on the way and had been left here by the commander to avoid contaminating the passengers. He lay in a corner, moaning quietly. No one dared approach him.

Bluma stepped up to the shrunken body.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’m dying,” he whispered tremulously, “and my bones, my bones won’t be brought to Israel.”

“Can’t you see he’s dying?” Bluma shouted at the people around her. “Why isn’t he taken to a hospital?”

The Uzbeks sat silently, munching their bread-cakes. One of the Russian women called out bitterly:

“Let him die, who’s stopping him? We have our own troubles. We can’t be bothered with every stranger who turns up here. We don’t know where our own men are and we have to feed our hungry children! What do you want from us?”

Bluma wiped her eyes. She was full of pity for the dying Jew and the people around whom suffering and hunger had so debased. She wondered if she would become like them, and shuddered at the thought. She poured water into the small pot she had taken with her and brought the rim to the parched, parted lips of the Jew. He sipped the water with great pain. He stopped moaning, but now a hoarse grumble seeped out from between his clenched teeth.

In the middle of the night, a cleaning woman entered with a pail of water and a mop. She forced everyone out of the station, then waddled up to the Jew and poked him with the broom.

“Can’t you see I’m cleaning here?” she shouted. “It’s filthy as a barn and the Polack pretends not to see!” A militiaman passed near the window. “Hey, comrade!” she called to him. “Come help me get rid of this tramp.” The militiaman came in and pulled the Jew by the foot.

“Dead?” she whispered, moving away from the body. “The devil take them, these damned strangers – you never know if they’re faking or if they’ve really dropped dead.”

Two day later a cart drawn by a donkey pulled up at the station. A militiaman and an Uzbek dragged the corpse outside and flung it into the cart.

The following day a tall, pockmarked Russian peasant arrived at the station with an open jacket and a sack over his back. A skinny boy limped after him, dragging a wooden leg. The peasant sat down on the floor, threw off his sack, and lit a cigarette wrapped in a newspaper. The boy sat down near the door, his wooden leg stretched out across the doorway.

“Where from?” one of the women asked him.

“From far, very far, auntie.” He paused for a moment, then went on: “The hail destroyed the wheat on our collective farm. My woman and the two young children came down with typhoid, and left me with him, that cripple over there.” He waved his hand at the boy, who didn’t remove his gaze from his father for an instant. “We drag ourselves from place to place in search of food and work.”

“Bread!” interjected another woman. “We’ve been waiting here three days for the train and the children are faint with hunger.”

“What a terrible punishment for the Russian people,” said the peasant, glancing around to make sure that no one overheard him. “We have no choice but to bite into a plank. It’s too much for the Russian people to endure. If it weren’t for that cripple I could find a place for a while, but he drags after me everywhere. So many young women have been left alone, their men at the fronts. Don’t you think one of them would want to take a healthy man under her blanket?” he asked through his blackened teeth, and laughed gratingly. “But who wants to feed a useless body, a cripple?”

“So that’s what you’re like? Searching for easy bread, eh?” one of the women exclaimed while another smiled and still another straightened her kerchief and buttoned her blouse.

“The train still isn’t coming, eh?” said the peasant to change the subject.

Suddenly on of the women who was standing near the window cried out:

“There’s an Uzbek coming with a full wagon! Maybe we can buy some bread from him.” She ran outside, leaving her crying children. Through the window she shouted: “Zaya! Zaya! Take care of the children!”

The tall peasant strode to the door. His son jumped up as though he had been bitten by a snake.

“And you, where do you think you’re going?” snapped his father, looking at him with bitter, narrowed eyes.

“I’m going with you, Father.”

The peasant’s face twisted into a strange smile.

“It’s a pity you’re so stupid. Can’t you see I’m going to buy something to eat – I haven’t eaten since yesterday. If you don’t believe me, take my sack. You know I won’t run away without it. But make sure no one steals it.”

The boy gazed with strained eyes through the window as the women returned to the station with their aprons full of dried wheat-pancakes. Before long the Uzbek whipped the small donkey and the cart rolled away on it two huge wooden wheels, leaving behind deep tracks in the thick gray dust. The spot where they had stood outside was suddenly deserted. The boy gave a start and yelled: “My father’s not there!” He ran out, as if possessed, to the spot where the cart had stood. He found the tracks of his father’s boots in the dust and darted off in one direction, then in another, but soon returned to the same spot. An idea occurred to him: he ran into the station and began searching through his father’s sack on the floor. The smell of sweat filled the station. The boy shoved the clothes aside with his wooden leg and sobbed: “He left me, he left me.”

Bluma took a few dry biscuits from her sack and forced them into the boy’s clenched fist.

“Here, take it and eat, you’re hungry. Don’t cry, your father will be back soon.

The boy looked at her, his eyes filled with animal fear then pushed her hand away and hobbled out toward the empty fields. The quickly thickening twilight gathered him into itself.

The boy’s desperate call was heard in the distance: “Father, Father, don’t leave me.”

All at once there was a commotion in the station. Bundles were quickly tied and children swept up from the floor, which rumbled beneath their feet. Running outside, the waiting people saw the red flames of the approaching train.

Eventually Bluma arrived at Gor-Tsakava. She asked everyone she saw about her daughter, but no one knew anything. The stationmaster explained:

“Refugees from all over come here. It’s not like it used to be when we had to wait for weeks to see a new face. If someone had found the child, the militia would have been informed. If the child is alive, you’ll find her.”

Bluma made her way to all the surrounding Uzbek settlements and collective farms. The Uzbeks eyed her suspiciously as she stopped near the playing children and spoke to them in sign language, showing with her hands the height of one of the little girls. Before long, the dogs came barking at Bluma’s feet, and she returned to the station. Her little bag of biscuits was empty and she had only thirty rubles left. But she was determined to stay on. Bluma sensed the child’s breath in the air, and she believed with all her heart that any day now her daughter’s curly red hair would appear before her eyes.

Each passing day fell like a rock into a deep well, never to return, not even to her memory. Bluma remained at the station, waiting for each day to separate itself from the white mist over the endless plains. Perhaps this day would be the carrier of good news, a guarded hope flickered at dawn. But each day rolled to the western horizon and became a traitor in Bluma’s eyes, a deceiver which had to be erased form her memory.

One evening a man wearing a military cap walked up to Bluma and tore her away from her contemplations with a tug on the sleeve.

“Come with me,” he said gruffly. She followed him to the hut near the station which housed the local NKVD office.

“Let’s see your documents,” said the commanding officer. She handed him a document which declared that the Zelinger family was freed from duty labor camps. The small room grew silent; and then the piece of paper rustled in the officer’s hand.

“Where’s your family?”

“They’re all in Namongan,” Bluma said, and was immediately interrupted by the officer.

“We don’t want to hear your stories,” he said. You’ll have to leave Gor-Tsakava. You can’t stay here any longer.” He called to one of the adjutants: “Fyodor Stepanovitch, put her on the first train to Namongan.”

In Namongan, Bluma ran from one official to another, inquiring about her family. But neither the city office nor the regional office, where the list of all the workers in the local collective farms was kept, had any information about the Zelinger family. She continued going to the offices day after day, and grew progressively more dejected and desperate.

One afternoon she stopped in the middle of a street and leaned forlornly against a wall. She saw people walking with quick sure steps, children with mothers, and children chasing others. But Bluma didn’t belong to anyone and no one belonged to her. Should she fall from hunger and exhaustion no one would stop to help her. And might it not in fact be better if she never moved from this spot? There was nowhere to go. Again she’d have to spend the night outside, huddled up under a bench like an animal, and in the morning she’d have to drag herself from one place to another in search of a piece of stale bread. She slumped the ground and, covering the head with her shawl, whispered to herself: “G-d of the Universe, why do I deserve this? Have I really sinned as much as all that?” Then she wept, and her whole body shook with deep sobs.

She felt drained; her head fell to her raised knees like a fruit on a stalk that is too thin to support it. Suddenly she felt her chin pressing, something hard into her breast. She touched the object with her fingertips, she had completely forgotten about the tiny linen sack that contained the diamond earring. A warm wave of memory rippled through her, but she was afraid to follow it because she knew that sooner or later she’d have to wake up. Nevertheless she was too weary to fend off the old scenes, and in a moment she was slinking up to her old home like a thief. The Sabbath had settled on the little town, and Bluma was walking to the synagogue in her holiday attire, the diamond earrings – her grandmother’s wedding gift to her – dangling almost to her shoulders. The streets were serenely quiet and all the stores closed, the hustle and bustle of the week locked away behind the doors. Suddenly Bluma stopped. One of her earrings had opened – she had felt it at once. She closed the loop and recalled her grandmother’s words: “wear them in good health, Blumelle. I received them from my grandmother, may she rest in peace. Wear them when you accompany your children and grandchildren to the wedding canopy.”

Circumstances had forced Bluma to sell one of the earrings; with the money she bought bread and potatoes for her hungry children. She resolved never to part with the second earring.

“Forgive me for not having guarded your precious gift, Granny. I’m not worthy enough to see my children married.”

Suddenly Bluma heard her grandmother’s voice speaking the words she had spoken to Bluma’s mother when her husband, the old woman’s only son had died: “Stop weeping and grieving. It’s a terrible sin to lose faith in G-d. He gives in order to judge us, and He takes away ion order to test us.” Bluma’s mother wrung her hands: “Mother-in-law, what will I do with my little children?” The old woman embraced the children with her eyes as they clung to their mother’s knees: “A Jewish daughter has faith. He who sustains the lowliest worm will not abandon you and your children.

Bluma used her hands to raise herself – her limbs felt as if they had grown into the ground. Her knees shook with the first steps. She gazed at some distant, indistinct point. Creases appeared around the corners of her mouth, but in her eyes lingered the glow of her grandmother’s words.

Bluma sold her shawl in the market to help defray the expense of the trip back to Gor-Tsakava. When she arrived there, she slipped quickly out of the station to avoid being noticed by the NKVD, and took the road leading to the city. It was more than eight miles to Fergana.

In the city she met many Jews who had been released from prisons and labor camps. Half-starved, haggard, they ran from office to office begging for work. They spent their nights on benches in public squares and under the steps of buildings. The days were still hot in late October, but at night a bitter cold numbed their thin, poorly clad bodies. Those who still possessed a whole garment sold it and rented a room for a few nights.

Then, early in November, after eight months of drought, the rains came. The walls of the houses were still warm when the sun fell into the purple fog, as into an open bag. The trees in the field lowered their languid branches to the earth in deference to the black clouds that were forming overhead. Then lightning streaked the air and a whistling wind burst into the city. Heavy drops of rain burrowed into the parched sand, followed by the long=feared outburst from the angry sky.

Wearing her only clothes, a summer dress and a thin blouse, Bluma stood huddled against a veranda trying in vain to over her head with a bag. Suddenly the door of a nearby house opened. A woman with a man’s coat thrown over he head pulled Bluma by the arm.

“Why are you standing in the rain? Come in.”

Bluma remained in that house for two weeks. It was shared by two women, Maria Zilberzweig and Lola Gilbert. The housing authority had given them this house because their husbands, former Communist Party members in Poland had been mobilized by the Russian Army and sent to the front. Sacks and bags belonging to the many people who spent the nights in the house were strewn all over. Often one had to crawl between bodies to find a sweater or a coat. Maria’s two-year-old daughter loved to crawl on the cluttered floor; inevitably, she would get tangled up, then would cry and scream as if lost in a forest. The two women had no idea how many people they were giving shelter to. When there was no room in the house, some of the guests moved onto the veranda.

In the evening, as she sat on a knapsack, Bluma was overcome by memories. When, at last, roused from them she gave a sigh and wondered: “Is it really possible that I’ll ever see my home again?”

The only ones who never spoke about returning home were Maria and Lola. When the Germans approached their city, they ran away to the country they had dreamt about for so long. They were good-hearted women, but nevertheless the guests rarely spoke in their presence.

Bluma left the house early in the morning to avoid getting in anyone’s way. Half the day she spent in a queue waiting for her four hundred grams of bread. Then she wandered through the streets until nightfall in the hope of running into someone who might have somehow met her family.

One evening she returned earlier than usual. She stood for a moment in front of the door, then entered the house. Her feet were ice cold. The sticky mud which had seeped through the holes in her shoes squelched with each step. During the previous night a blizzard had struck the city, leaving behind wet snow; only mud remained, covering the unpaved streets. Bluma felt a pulling in the loins and sharp pains under her left shoulder blade. “I must not get sick!” she murmured through clenched teeth. “ must live to see my children and Hersh-Leib again.”

Sitting around a small rickety table, Maria and Lola raised their eyes in surprise, interrupting their discussion with a Russian woman.

“How come so early today?” Lola asked. “Any good news?”

“No, no news at all,” Bluma answered, shaking her head. “My legs are numb from the cold.”

While Bluma was removing her torn shoes, she overheard the Russian woman say:

“I don’t lack anything. I can even have more money then when my husband used to work as a civil servant. I can afford to take someone in to do the heavy housework, but I can’t find anyone suitable. Sonia has her mother with her; the old lady plays with the children, cooks and cleans, while Sonia sits around with folded arms or goes dancing in the cultural park.” She stood up to leave.

“Some again, Sonia Grigorievna,” Lola said.

“Keep well,” said Maria, accompanying her to the door. Bluma sat thoughtfully for a while, then asked Maria:

“What do you think, would she hire me?”

“You would do such work?”

“Why not? Am I better off doing nothing?” she asked, pointing to her cold, dirty legs.

“Speak to her,” suggested Lola. “She lives close by, on Kalinina Avenue.

The next day Bluma began to work for Sonia Grigorievna, a generally amiable but nervous woman who tried hard to forget her peasant background and now wanted to show her neighbors that she too could afford to hire a person for the heavy housework.

A week later Bluma moved into a house in the Uzbek quarter of the city. With her earnings she bought a half-broken iron bed at the market. A sack of leaves served as a mattress. There was one shelf on the grimy wall: she placed her bowl on it and a patched-up pot which she had purchased with the hope of cooking the first meal for her family in it.

VII

Rumors began to spread that the Provisional Polish Government, which now made its home in London, was about to open offices in Central Asia for the purpose of registering its citizens and assisting them with food and clothing. About two weeks later, crowds of barefoot Poles and Jews in tattered clothes were encamped in front of a house on one of the side streets of Fergana to which trucks were hauling closed boxes and huge bales. Cans of condensed milk and old clothing were distributed, and for the Jews there was a special present: Matzoh for Passover from the Jewish communities of America.

Bluma received a velvet coat with baggy sleeves, adorned with spangles, which some American socialite had probably worn to the theater years ago. She went to work in the homes of the Russian commanders wearing this coat. People were accustomed to shabby clothes, torn shoes and bare feet, but the sight of this velvet theater-coat evoked smiles and laughter on the streets of Fergana. It didn’t bother her; the more they gaped at her and laughed the prouder she became of the gift from America, whose smell of worn-out velvet reminded her of her home and imbued her with faith. She reasoned that her children and her husband would appear before her eyes as unexpectedly as the coat had come into her possession.

Day after day she continued going to the Regional Office to inquire about her family. One morning, out of desperation, she tried to hand some money to the clerk who worked at the main desk, in the hope that he would inform her at once if he heard anything. The clerk, a short man with short arms and a greenish-pale face like an unripe fruit, shoved her money aside and grumbled nastily. He gazed sternly at her; his eyes were unnaturally large behind the thick lenses of his glasses and seemed poised to swallow up his surroundings.

From the day she heard that some people had received news of the location of their families, an unremitting relentlessness beset Bluma.. It was particularly bad in the evenings when she was alone in her room and listened intently to every rustle from outside. The sudden arrival of spring, as though it wanted in those few short days of blossoming to dupe t he world, upset her even more. The fragrant scent of almond trees burst through her small window, taunting her in her misery. It was two weeks before Purim and the air was already very stuffy. The Uzbeks brought their beds outside for summer, and the small famished cows quickly began plucking away at the fresh grass while the wistful protracted cries of camels wafted over roofs and fences, like the sobs of abandoned children.

VIII

Bluma had been working all day cleaning Sonia Grigorievna’s house in preparation for the First of May holiday. She finished work much later than usual. By the time she arrived at the regional office, it was closed. The next day, because of May First, it would also be closed. Two wasted days she though. There was nothing to do now but to drag herself home. On the way she felt a deep weariness in her limbs and an emptiness inside. Her strength suddenly gave way, abandoning her in the noisy holiday street. People were standing in long queues in front of shops where ration cards could get a half-pound of sugar and two dried fish. Men, holding cups and glasses, were streaming towards a booth at the end of Lenin Avenue, where beer was being sold in honor if the holiday. The general mood of excitement and joyous expectation bore down on Bluma like an enormous weight.

The following morning she was roused by the voices of Uzbek children calling to each other over the clay walls. She felt nauseous and anxious. The nightmarish dream she had experienced sickened her, notable the image of it male protagonist, an Uzbek with a short gray beard and a tanned, ploughed-up face. Bluma was sitting next to him, atop a donkey-drawn cart. She felt as though she were in a cage; the hard planks pressed into her flesh as the cart rattled and shook over the desert sands hour after hour without pause. Bluma had no idea where she was being taken. Suddenly the donkey began to falter and sway from side to side. Bluma pulled the Uzbek’s sleeve and alerted him to the situation with gestures. But he ignored her and continued to drive the animal, that was now crying with a human voice. The Uzbek lashed the animal across the back and the donkey lurched forward, pulling the cart to a ridge where the desert ended. A rocky slope descended into a dark abyss. On the other side hung a blazing sun; it came closer and closer to the gaping mouth, flames sprouting in all directions, a massive wall of fire. The donkey vanished into the blazing wall, dragging the wagon behind it. A moment later, Bluma felt the heat on her eyebrows and smelled the odor of singed hair. The Uzbek turned his head, with slanting eyes, to her and brandished the whip at the flaming curtain. At that point Bluma awoke with a scream she touched her head and face and the bed – only then did she realize that it was a dream.

She sat with folded arms on the bed and stared blankly across the room at the crannied wall. There was a knock at the door. Her knees were trembling as she went to open it.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Good morning, Mrs. Zelinger. You didn’t expect a guest so early, did you?”

Bluma didn’t remove her gaze from the man who stood on the doorstep, his hat in his hands; she studied his blue, slightly protruding eyes and the firm lips between the two sharp vertical creases. She had seen him a number of times at the Polish government office. No one knew whether or not he was an employee there, because he seemed to come and go as he pleased, but one was certain: Leon Wasserberg had a great deal of influence. If someone was mistreated in the distribution of food and clothing, he immediately went to Leon’s home to complain. Without a moment’s hesitation, Leon Wasserberg took his walking stick and went find out if the complaints were justified. He did not care about himself; he walked around with torn shoes and a worn-out jacket patched at the elbows. When the clerks, who were the first to snatch the American suits, suggested that too take a suit because it simply wasn’t proper for such an important official as he to go about in ragged clothes, he flatly refused. There were people who didn’t even have ragged clothes, he answered them. Those who had known Leon Wasserberg before the war in Poland said that he was an outstanding lawyer as well as a city councilor and an indefatigable worker for the Socialist Labour Party. He was exiled by the Russians for his opposition the Communist Party, and sent with his family to a labor camp neat Archangelsk. There, under the most severe conditions, he comforted and encouraged everyone he came in contact with. All this Bluma had overheard during the long hours on the benches of the Polish government office. And now he was standing in her room while she rubbed her hands on her apron, lacking the courage to ask him what had brought him here. At length, she blurted out something quite irrelevant:

“How did you find out where I live?”

“Your address can be found at the office. Yesterday while I was going through the mail I came upon a letter which will interest you. It’s a reply to your inquiries concerning your family.”

Bluma’s mouth fell open. Leon Wasserberg stepped up to her and smilingly put his hand on her shoulder. “There’s no longer anything to worry about. Here is your family’s address.”

Bluma held the paper in her hands for a long time after Leon Wasserberg had left, drinking in with her eyes each letter, examining each stroke separately.

And so began the vigil for news from Hersh-Leib and the children. Bluma awaited restlessly the day when they would arrive in Fergana. How she would pamper them. She took pleasure in opening the little sacks of flour, rice and beans which she accumulated little by little from the Russian families where she worked. She couldn’t pull herself away from her treasure. How happy she was that hadn’t used any of it for herself – her heart had told her all along that she would find them.

Now she began to worry about Rivelle. What would she tell Hersh-Leib and the children? It was because of her that she had left them, and now how knew if the child was still alive. Secure in the knowledge that her family was well, she concentrated all her thoughts on the lost child. In her sleep as in her waking hours she tried to imagine the places where she might be, how she looked and how she spoke.

Although it was only the end of May, it was so hot that one could have cooked an egg in the sand. The grass reddened, then darkened like the shabby skin of a diseased animal. Four weeks had passed since Bluma had sent off the first letter to her family and still there was no reply. In the Polish government office, which she still visited regularly for more information, fewer and fewer people were to be found. Some had died of typhoid, others of malaria, and still other from exhaustion and grief. The hope that they would soon be able to return to Poland darkened under the new reports from the fronts. No one stopped any longer near the radio speakers on Lenin Avenue. They were tired of hearing the names of cities and regions that had fallen to the mercilessly advancing German armies. The rumors that all Polish citizens would be evacuated to Iran were confirmed. But the Jews, even the ones who had been officers in the Polish Army, were refused permission to emigrate. A bitter certainty settled upon them: one way or another – on the earth or beneath it – they would have to remain in this miserable land.

One evening Bluma heard the barking of the neighbor’s dogs and the screaming of Uzbek children.

“The Polish woman liver over there!” they shouted.

Before Bluma had time to walk down the steps, Gitelle, her eldest daughter, fell weeping into her arms.

“Mummy, Mummy!” she sobbed.

“Gitelle, it’s you. Don’t cry, my child, don’t cry. We’ll never part again, Gitelle – do you hear? – never!” Gitelle hugged her mother, burying her face in her shoulder. “Why did you come alone, Gitelle? Where’s Father and the children?”

The child clung desperately to her, her emaciated body trembling, as if afraid of falling. Bluma led her slowly to the bed and covered her shaking body. She caressed the child’s legs; how thin her body had become and how loose the skin. Under Gitelle’s half-closed eyes lay reddish bags of swollen flesh.,

“You’ll have something to ear,” said Bluma.

“Don’t go, Mummy. I can’t eat.”

Bluma felt a stab in her heart at the sound of these words.

Gitelle avoided her mother’s eyes.

“Mummy, there’s no one left,” she murmured through lips which barely moved. “I alone survived. G-d punished me: he let me live so I’d have to bring you this terrible news.” The room grew still.

Bluma didn’t leave the room for days at a stretch. She stood like an animal over her child, muscles taut, ready to leap at anyone who threatened her. Her mind was clear, occupied with only one thought: she had to save Gitelle, at least her.

The Jewish doctor Izgur came every day. He took Gitelle’s temperature and repeatedly advised Bluma to give her a lot of milk and cheese, and most importantly to let her rest. But the shrunken body could no longer digest the food which Bluma purchased in the market with her meager savings. The swelling in Gitelle’s legs spread constantly upward. The child no longer had control over her body. A greenish fluid oozed from her skin.

One night Gitelle sat up in bed, leaned her head against Bluma’s knee and began to speak very quickly, as though she were being chased:

“I have to tell you everything, Mummy. They all died of hunger. Father refused to eat non-kosher food, Chaiml also. Nothing grew in the fields that we could eat. We got only a little bit of bread and had to work all day. The sun burned and there was no shade. Once I brought home a little soup from the kitchen, like you used to do. But father didn’t trust me; he looked in the pot and found out right away. He took the pot and poured out all the soup. Yossele died first, then Chaiml, right after him. Father, Itta, and Zelda died in one week. I had to bury them alone, Mummy. Alone.”

Gitelle grew weaker with each passing day. The swelling had reached her heart and rashes broke out around her wrists and neck. Dr. Izgur could not do anything for her. Nevertheless, he continued coming, if only to calm Bluma.

A week later Bluma was mourning her eldest daughter. With glazed eyes she stared at the disordered bed, where only a day earlier her daughter had lain. Bluma was utterly alone in the world, and now she had to endure the greatest punishment of all – her own life.

The letter was brought to her in the morning. Bluma didn’t notice who had entered the open door and placed the brown envelope on the chair at her side. In the evening, when she accidentally pushed the chair, she noticed it. The white neatly folded sheet of paper opened before her with words that seared her hear. Rivelle’s name leapt forth from the paper. Bluma read every line slowly, after a pause, afraid of the lines that followed. The letter stated that Rivelle had been located. A Russian couple had found the abandoned child and later turned her over to an orphanage, where she had remained until now. When the Polish citizens in that region were registered, on the of the registrars was told that a young Polish girl was living in the orphanage. The last sentence of the letter said that the child would be brought to Fergana as soon as possible.

Blum sat all night with the letter in her hands. When she heard the first crowing of roosters, she went outside. In the distance, beyond the rows of huts and fields, the clouds slanted down to the earth like a veil. To the west, a granite sky reigned, interwoven with tired starts and a pale moon. All at once, the eastern horizon was ripped open and a red sun broke through the narrow fissure like a ripe fruit, the surrounding mists gradually becoming more transparent. In the distance the Pamir Mountains were unfolding, standing like guards in a semicircle, surrounding the gray wasteland, their snow-covered peaks shimmering with a pinkish hue.

Beyond those mountains was a free world. She would take her child there, Bluma decided. No one would take this child from her. She would toil night and day for her. Rivelle would lack nothing. Bluma closed her eyes and saw herself tying her grandmother’s ear-ring around Rivelle’s neck – it would serve as an amulet against all that is cruel and evil in the world.

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