The Night of the Burning (2 page)

“So, you’re telling me that the peasant girls in Domachevo have blue buttons for eyes?” Papa asked with a straight face.

“Oh, Papa, you know I mean the colors!” I giggled. Papa and I had the same dark wavy hair, while Nechama had Mama’s light brown curls. And Mama’s prettiness, too, I had to admit to myself. I knew Mama loved Nechama best sometimes, and I knew why: Nechama was so pretty and cuddly and small. So easy to love.

Mama smiled and offered Papa some lumps of sugar to hold in his mouth while he drank his tea with loud, comfortable slurps.

“How were things in Brest?” Mama asked. Brest Litovsk was a big town a full day’s journey from Domachevo. Papa went there by horse and cart to buy the goods he sold to peasants and Jews in nearby villages.

“A good trip, thank God,” Papa answered. “I bought a few tools and knives and some large leather skins. Linen was expensive, but I recognized an old, yellowed roll, which had not been sold since my last trip, and I purchased it for a low price. The peasant women are not particular about the color of their cloth as long as I have bright ribbons, and those I bought aplenty. Pennywhistles
for the children. And the foodstuffs.”

“May I help you divide the sugar and cinnamon?” I burst in, and Nechama chorused, “Me too!”

“Not only the sweet stuff,” Mama chided. “You will help tomorrow night with the salt scoops and the pepper in paper cones, also.”

Mama had never been to Brest, nor had many of the Jews in our village, and we were proud of our well-traveled papa. When he returned, his coat smelled different, with scents I didn’t recognize. At least one of the knobby-shaped packages swaddled in cloth that he brought home would contain a little surprise for Nechama and me. Although we were as poor as our neighbors, we felt we were the luckiest among our playmates because we had several toys each.

When we wanted to play with our precious dolls, we did not take them outside to the muddy yard, where the neighbor’s ducks left squishy green droppings and pecked at the wilted leaves of Mama’s potatoes. No, we took off our rough clogs and left them on the clean-swept earthen floor. Then we climbed up the little wooden step and onto Mama and Papa’s high bed. We pulled the heavy white cover over our shoulders, feeling the goose feathers shifting with soft whooshes. The cover made a dark cave where we could play house.

I lifted my doll’s skirt to see how the legs attached to the torso. Nechama giggled, but then she did the same thing.

“You don’t have to copy me all the time,” I said irritably. Nechama just giggled again. And actually I didn’t really want her to stop copying.

“Easter is coming,” Papa said to Mama one night about a year later. Mama nodded soberly.

“I’d better oil the locks on the shutters.”

On Friday morning, Papa did not go out with his cart, but closed all the shutters and secured them tightly. From the doorway, I watched the other Jewish families doing it, too. Only the Christian houses on the other side of the pond did not cover their windows.

“Devorah, I need to lock the door, too, mamaleh,” Papa said. “It’s not good for them to see you watching their procession.”

“But why not, Papa?” I asked.

With a sigh, he sat down heavily in the darkened house and took me on his knee. “The Christians believe God had a son called Jesus Christ. Today is the anniversary of his death,” he said. “It was the Romans who killed him, but the priest tells them it was the Jews. So they hate us today. Next week they will be good neighbors again.”

Papa’s face was dark, and I couldn’t ask him any more questions. But I wondered why the priest told the villagers we’d killed the son of their god, and also how the villagers could change back and forth between hating us and being good neighbors. Were there other days when they would hate us, also? I decided to observe the villagers more
closely, looking for a sign that would warn us that they were changing.

“Papa, here’s a hole!” Nechama exclaimed. “I can see them.”

Papa examined the chink in the shutters and said we could watch through it. Then he began reorganizing his boxes of wares while Mama lit a candle to do her sewing. Nechama and I took turns putting our eyes to the crack to watch the procession outside. The priest walked first, leading the way for a man carrying a huge cross, and the villagers followed, singing.

I didn’t explain to Nechama why we weren’t invited. Knowing that the marchers were busy hating Jews made me feel bad. But I did enjoy the sweet, somber singing. Was it all right to love the melody but not the words?

The man carrying the heavy wooden cross was neither young nor strong; he struggled as he stumbled up the hill. All the fit, healthy men had been taken to fight in the Great War. Papa was strong, but he hadn’t had to go because his brother, Uncle Pinchas, was already in the army.

I remembered exactly when Uncle Pinchas had been conscripted to fight for the Czar. Sometimes my mind found the memory in the night and I couldn’t stop myself from seeing his face, then Aunt Friedka’s. When I started thinking about the big soldiers’ faces, I rubbed my eyes with my knuckles to press the pictures away and huddled closer to Nechama’s easy, light snoring.

Uncle Pinchas was taken on a cool Saturday afternoon the previous fall. I was visiting my aunt and uncle, nibbling on dried cherries and being careful not to drop any pits on the floor. Aunt Friedka’s house was even tidier than our own. But it wasn’t fair to compare, because it was hard to keep everything neat when there were two children and a mother at home all day, whereas Aunt Friedka and Uncle Pinchas both worked away from home. Aunt Friedka was one of the few Jewish women I knew who did that. She was very good with figures and the butcher hired her to keep his accounts, because he was better with a sharp knife than a chalk slate. That also gave Aunt Friedka the opportunity to buy certain cuts of meat that Jewish people weren’t allowed to eat, and she would sell them to Christian villagers and make a little extra money. “Resourceful,” Papa once called her, with approval in his voice. I wanted to be resourceful, too.

That particular Saturday I was waiting for Papa to walk past on his way home from synagogue, so that I could go with him. I’d saved a few dried cherries for Nechama, and I was sucking on the sour pit of the last one I’d eaten. Uncle Pinchas had not gone to pray because he had a cold; he was drinking hot tea.

Suddenly there was shrieking outside. Mrs. Leib came running down the lane, sobbing and flapping her apron. “The army is taking men from the shul! God help us, the soldiers are dragging men into their cart!” she wailed as she stumbled past.

We all ran to the door, and as Aunt Friedka opened it, we heard the sound of shouting and crying coming from the synagogue.

“Papa’s at shul!” I exclaimed. The skin of my right eyelid started to jump up and down, and I pressed two fingers against it. “Who is taking men? What’s happening?”

Aunt Friedka had a different man on her mind. In an instant, she shoved her husband back inside. “Quick, Pinchas, you have to hide. Maybe they’ll go from door to door after the synagogue. Here! No, here, in the chest with the blankets. Hurry, Pinchas.”

It seemed only a minute or two until we heard the noise of cartwheels rattling along the alley. Jews wouldn’t be riding on the Sabbath, and none of the villagers would have reason to come this way, so it had to be the soldiers’ cart. I prayed fiercely, digging my nails into my hand. “Make it go past, God. Don’t let it stop.”

The cart stopped right outside. “Here?” I cried.

Aunt Friedka glared at me warningly and hissed, “Shh! Drink your tea.”

The sun was blocked out as big rough men pushed their way in through the low doorway and took up all the space. I shrank into my chair. They were so large, and there were three of them, all clad in greenish gray uniforms, stained and even ragged. The heaviest one seemed to be the leader. He brandished a grimy piece of paper and a stump of pencil.

“Move aside!” he shouted. “The Czar’s army needs one more strong man from this village and the other Jews got away.”

“My husband is not at home,” said Aunt Friedka firmly, and she stood up right in front of the soldier. I squeezed my mug of tea so tightly that my fingertips were white.

With one burly arm, the soldier thrust her into a corner and she fell. A scream slipped out of my mouth. “You Jews are either at home or at your synagogue on Saturdays. Search the house, men.”

I ran to Aunt Friedka as she got up from the floor, her mouth grim. She grasped my hand and we stood clutching each other while the men stomped around the room in their muddy boots. With loud crashes, they turned the bed and benches upside down. The house was small and it took only a few minutes until they noticed the chest.

“And what do the Jews keep in here?” one soldier shouted, throwing open the wooden lid with its heavy hinge. Aunt Friedka’s hand tightened around mine.

Another giant soldier, with cloth puttees wound around the calves of his massive legs, tossed aside the top blankets and let out a guffaw. Then he leaned down and grabbed the body bent double inside. Uncle Pinchas’s cap was knocked askew and his face was white with shock.

“Number seven,” the leader announced, and he licked his stub of pencil and laboriously scribbled something on his paper. “Move him out. Next village.”

With a shriek, Aunt Friedka snatched the blankets from the ground and ran after the soldiers. I ran right behind her.

“Pinchas, take the blankets. Pinchas, you will be cold.”

Uncle Pinchas twisted and managed to grab the blankets from her as he was shoved into the back of the cart with the other Jews. In a flash, I scanned every face of the six men sitting stunned on the wooden bench, dust from the scuffle streaking their black Shabbes coats. No Papa, no Papa; they didn’t have my papa.

Uncle Pinchas was the last in line, his face leaning anxiously toward his wife. “Friedka! I will be back! I will write as soon as I get there. Take care of yourself, Friedka!” Then we could no longer hear his voice as the cart rattled away from the village.

“Help! Mama, Papa, help!” I screamed as Aunt Friedka’s body sagged and she sat down hard on the ground. With all my strength, I supported her shoulders. I was shaking like a leaf, but I managed to hold her until the neighbors ran to us. They shouted for Papa, and then I was in his arms.

About six months after Uncle Pinchas was conscripted, there was a sudden banging on our own door one afternoon. Nechama and I rushed to Mama’s skirt and she pulled us behind her. Then she stood as if paralyzed. The knocking was repeated even more loudly; finally Mama stepped forward to open the door.

A stranger in a worn uniform thrust out an envelope. “Official business of the Czar,” he announced importantly. Reluctantly, Mama took the envelope from him. He turned and strode off.

I drew in a sharp breath. It really was from the Czar: there was a big stamp showing his close-bearded head. Nechama reached out her hand and fingered the thick red sealing wax anchoring a piece of red ribbon. “The Czar sticks a ribbon on his letters,” she said wonderingly.

“It’s a letter for Papa from the army,” Mama said dully. “Devorah, take Nechama outside and don’t bother me now.”

I didn’t want to leave Mama. I wanted to stay with her and help her. And I wanted her to promise me that Papa would never leave us. But I led Nechama out very slowly. “Come on, Nechama, we have to go.”

Outside everything felt different and strange. The forest nearby looked menacing, and the dried mud tracks worn by Papa’s cart seemed to lead only one way, away from us. Nechama played little games in the dust while I sat on a tree stump and kept my eyes on the open doorway to the house. I could see that Mama did little work. Finally she just sat very still on the doorstep and waited for Papa to come home. Nechama stopped playing. We all sat.

Papa must have caught sight of us from a short distance, because he abandoned his horse and peddler’s cart on the hill, and ran down. “Chanah! Chanah, what is it?” he shouted. She held out the letter silently. They
hurried inside together and shut the door without a word to us.

Nechama and I sat in silence. The wind moaned in the forest. Then there was the sound of slow hoofbeats as Papa’s old horse came clop-clopping steadily to our house and stopped.

“Soos!” I called out to him, grateful for any company. “You came home alone. Good boy, Soos.” The big animal looked directly at me for a moment and snorted loudly through the tunnels of his black nostrils. I clucked and smiled at him nervously. I had never taken care of the horse before, but I had watched Papa many times. “Be brave, Devorah,” I said aloud.

Walking to him slowly, I reached up high to take hold of the bridle. He snorted again, and I had to force the smile to stay on my face. What if he bites my hand? I thought. Or steps on my toes?

Soos didn’t seem interested in me. He snuffled disappointedly at the empty feed bag hanging on the fence post, and then slurped at some water at the bottom of his trough. I wasn’t quite seven yet, and I had to stretch up on my toes and strain to hook his reins over the fence post securely. Then I ran to the feed bin, pried up the heavy lid, and grabbed the tin cup lying inside. Filling it with grain, I carried it carefully over to the feed bag. I spilled only a little along the way, and some more when I poured it into the limp bag. By my third trip, the bag was bulging invitingly open and the horse lowered his head to push his big
soft lips into the feed. When I was sure he was busy, I lifted the loop of the feed bag and hooked it over Soos’s sweaty neck just as Papa did, keeping my fingers away from his huge teeth. I was spurred on by Nechama’s look of silent admiration.

It was beyond my strength to unhook the wooden cart, and I couldn’t manage to carry from the cart a pile of animal skins and two rolls of linen. But one by one I lifted out Papa’s lighter baskets and placed them neatly outside the closed door of the house. “What’s next?” I muttered. If I could find something else to do, I wouldn’t have to think about Papa and the army.

“I’m thirsty,” Nechama whined.

“That’s it! Help me with the pump, Nechama,” I ordered, and together we pulled on the handle and pumped and pumped until the small bucket was full. I knew I could carry just that small bucket and no more. I filled a dipper of cold water for Nechama, and then stumbled back and forth to the horse, pouring each bucketful as carefully as I could into his low trough. The horse drank gratefully, and I patted his steaming rough flank with new affection. “We did it, Soos,” I said.