A Day of Small Beginnings (29 page)

Nathan felt lost. “How do you expect me to believe it could make any difference if my father or I prayed for her?”

Rafael laid his hand on the table. “Because to pray is to understand and to understand is to heal.”

Platitudes made Nathan impatient. “That’s a very nice statement,” he said. “But with all due respect, that’s the kind of thing
I hear from my students who fancy themselves Buddhists.”

“Then let me explain it like this. The night when I first moved into this house, it was the eve of Tisha Bov—the ninth day
in the Hebrew month of
Av.
Freidl said we must read. Lamentations. This I explained to you before.”

Nathan nodded.

“I could not refuse her. In the beginning, as we davened, for me, it was just
narrishkeit
—nonsense. Empty words. Two thousand years ago the Second Temple was destroyed. What was that to me, after what I’d been through?
But I was glad for her company, you understand?”

“Yes.”

“But from repetition, all through the night, I began to listen. This prayer said what was in my heart. Without Freidl, I would
not have found it—my way back from the dead.
‘Yahweh, remember what has happened to us; look on us and see our degradation. Our inheritance has passed to aliens, our homes
to barbarians.’
” He had closed his eyes and begun to sway as he said the words, first in Hebrew, then in English.
“‘We are orphans, we are fatherless; our mothers are like widows. We drink our own water—at a price; we have to pay for what
is our own firewood.’”

He opened his eyes. “She helped me to heal what could be healed. That is what I prayed for. Now, you ask why I stayed here,
Leiber? For her, I stayed. Because of her, I became observant. The way I thought about it was this: whether God thinks we
are His chosen people does not matter anymore. I choose to be a Jew, like her. Let the world think what it likes. It’s nothing
to do with me. I grew payess, put on the long coat and the yarmulke, and this comforts me. In time, the people in town began
to call me ‘our little Jew.’ I don’t mind.” He took a sip of his tea and wiped a few droplets from his mustache.

Nathan looked at him incredulously. “You would have left Zokof and lived a secular life if not for her?”

“Maybe. Yeh. Probably I would have gone to Warsaw. There, at least, there were other Jews. Maybe I would have left Poland,
gone to Israel. I had a cousin there, may he rest in peace. Who knows what might have been? It doesn’t matter. I lived my
life here, with her, almost a full life, if you understand me, and I’ll die here.”

Nathan shifted in his chair. Even if Freidl was a creature of Rafael’s imagination, he thought, a ruse to reconnect him with
his life after the war, he lived with her. They had a world. He actually felt calmer about her now, less alarmed at how Rafael
knew details about Pop’s life that could not be explained without her—Pesha Goldman’s photographs; Hillel saying, “the synagogue
is a place where weak men run to hide”; Hindeleh and the red ribbon; the light in Pop’s handkerchief last night.

He looked around the room and noticed that a fair number of Rafael’s books on Judaica were in English, which explained the
ease with which he spoke the language. What would happen to these books when he passed on? He imagined the neighbors turning
from the deathbed, eyeing the contents of this house. They’d want the wardrobe, the samovar, the meager furniture. But who
would care for the books, the photographs, the artifacts of Jewish life in Zokof?

For a painful moment he thought that perhaps he should offer to do something about this. Part of him dreaded the thought of
such an entanglement, but part of him almost hoped to be asked. In the end he decided that if Rafael wanted him to do something
for him, he wouldn’t be shy.

Rafael took another sip of tea. “What tormented me, through the years, was that I could do nothing for her. Can you understand
what that was for me? For her, there was only the blocked grave and the broken stone.”

He looked down at his lap and sighed. “Last night Freidl came to me, happy. Happy! She told me you brought back Itzik’s handkerchief.”
He looked hopefully at Nathan. “All these years we waited. And now, my prayers for her are answered. You are here, and this
business will be finished at last. Look at me, Leiber. I am an old man. I can’t last much longer.”

Nathan was ready. “What would you like me to do?” he said.

“I want you to help return her soul to rest with her body, as it was the night Itzik disturbed her.”

Nathan, who had already formulated a plan to donate Rafael’s books to worthy institutions and to erect some sort of memorial
in the cemetery, had no idea how to respond to this request or even what it meant. His nervous fingers searched for the scar
at the back of his head. He took a breath. “How would I do that?”

“Wait here.” Rafael almost jumped from his chair, then crossed the room and disappeared into the entry hall. Nathan heard
the creak of the metal ladder against the wooden ceiling as it was being mounted. He rushed to the foyer. “Let me help you!”

“I go up and down this ladder all the time, Leiber. It’s nothing. Go sit. I will be down soon.” By then, Rafael was already
at the top rung.

Reluctantly, Nathan returned to his chair. He stared at the floor. The linoleum had worn through, exposing wide, uneven planks
of rough wood. He heard footsteps along the attic floor. A chair squawked as it was being dragged. It creaked, as if bearing
weight. Not long after, Rafael descended.

He paused for a moment in the doorway, clutching to his chest an odd shaped object about two feet long and a foot and a half
wide. It was wrapped in cloth. In the muted light, Nathan thought Rafael looked like a prophet, like Moses descended from
Mount Sinai with the tablets.

Rafael brought the object to the table and gently laid it down. “For almost forty years I have this,” he said, slowly unwinding
the long strips of cloth that bound it. They came off in layers of different colors and textures. First, a rough cotton, then
some blue muslin, under this a bit of lace with a blotch of brocade peeking through. Nathan watched the unveiling with fascination.
A piece of green-and-orange silk fell away.

Rafael loosened the last piece of fabric, a black-and-white striped prayer shawl. Its soft weave gripped the object beneath
it and relinquished its hold with pops and tearing sounds. He lifted a fold of the cloth and revealed an irregular piece of
stone, about two inches thick, rounded at the top, broken off at the bottom.

Nathan leaned over it and saw two Hebrew letters at the top. Below them, inside a half circle, was a bas relief of a bird
in a tree, its wings spread as if ready to take flight. The rest of the stone was covered in block-shaped Hebrew letters,
bordered on each side by a candlestick with candles. “It’s Freidl’s
matzevah,
her gravestone, Leiber. The top piece that your father, Itzik, broke off. It was in the riverbed.”

The two men stood side by side before the stone. Nathan trembled at the thought that Pop might once have held this object
in his hands, might even have been responsible for its having been broken. “My God,” he whispered. He bent to look at it more
closely. “What does it say?”

Rafael pointed to the two letters at the top. “This is the
peh
and
nun,
that represents the words
here rests.
” He touched the letters below, from the right side. “It begins with a verse from Lamentations.
‘My eyes are in tears. Far from me is any comforter who could revive my spirit.’
Then it says, here,
‘The pious Freidl, daughter of Rebbe Eliezer, of blessed memory, master of the Torah, scholar of the holy community of Lublin,
and dutiful wife of Berel the Butcher, of blessed memory, of our holy community of Zokof.’
”

Nathan dared to put out his hand and trace the candlestick along the left side of the stone.

“Candlesticks show a pious woman, who lights the Sabbath candles, who brings God’s spark into the home,” Rafael explained.

“And the bird in the tree, here on top?” Nathan pointed.

“The bird is, for us, the soul. The birds are on many stones, especially for the women. But here, when you see a bird with
wings spread, like this, making ready to fly,” he said, pointing to the carving, “this is not so usual. This is a sad thing.
It comes from the psalm, ‘I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.’ That she was alone in death, without children
or family. That is what it means.”

“W what are you going to do with it?” Nathan stammered.

Rafael smiled. “Still playing the Wicked Son, yeh? Well, Leiber, I’m giving this stone to you. Take it to America.”

Nathan’s throat tightened. When he swallowed, his glasses slipped down his nose, blurring his view of the letters. He pushed
the frames back into place. “Rafael,” he whispered, “how can I take this last remnant of her away from you?”

But as he passed his hands over the stone’s rough inscription, he realized he wanted to take it home. He even started to worry
how he was going to get it through customs. Hell, it must be against the law to take an old gravestone out of the country
without permission. He could imagine the humiliating scene, an eminent constitutional law scholar caught stealing property
of the Polish Republic. He could imagine Professor Załuski’s smug amusement at having to come to his rescue. But then he saw
Rafael, gazing at him with a tenderness sons long for from their fathers.

“Leiber,” Rafael said softly, “understand this. There is nothing left of us from Zokof but bones and remnants.”

Nathan felt weak. “Where is the other part of the stone?”

“The bottom half is at Wladek Glٯwacki’s farm. Freidl saw the cham steal it from the street in town. It was there, facedown,
since after the war. They made pavement from our stones, where people should walk. Ach! Take this part and pray for her eternal
rest.”

Nathan stepped back from the table. “You want me to pray over it? I’m still not a believer, Rafael. How can I pray without
being a hypocrite?”

“You don’t have to believe to pray, Leiber. You think even now, I don’t have my doubts about God?” He shrugged. “It comes
with being a Jew. But, you repeat the words. You try to understand them. Meaning comes. It will come. It’s like a
cholent.
It needs cooking. A lot of cooking.” He smiled.

Nathan smiled back, but he was tense. “What would you want me to do with the stone?”

“That, I don’t know. It is Freidl who wants that you should have it. Pray, and you will know what to do. Maybe not now. Someday.”
He nodded encouragingly. “You will know. Besides, after I go, there is no one left to take care of it.”

Nathan felt sick. He looked at the stone and remembered how Rafael had described its shielding Pop from harm. How could he
leave it behind? This was a thing to be cherished. And even if it turned out that Freidl was only a story, it was one that
belonged to Pop.

He lifted the stone to his chest. It was lighter than he’d expected, as light as Ellen had been, he thought, when she was
ten or eleven months old. He closed his eyes and, overcoming a moment of acute embarrassment, hugged it tightly, as if it
were Pop himself.

Rafael folded his hands before him. “Freidl says this stone is our witness. May God watch between us when we are out of sight
of each other.
Farshtaist?
”

Nathan nodded, his eyes still closed. “
Farshtaist,
” he said. “I understand.”

It was my hope that the scholar in him would drive Nathan to learn to read the words of my stone, and with that beginning,
he might develop a taste for Torah and a prayer for me. As it is said, if the world is to be redeemed, it will be through
the merit of children. But it is also said, fruits take after their roots. When Nathan left for America the next day, only
God knew which would prevail, the scholar or the son of a man with a soul like a potato.

ELLEN

Although my eyes cannot now see you,

Knowing your house—and the trees of the garden, and the flowers,

My mind’s eye knows where to paint your eyes and figure,

Between which trees to look for your white cloak.

From “Separation,” by Juliusz Słowacki, 1809-1849

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