Jacob's Way (5 page)

Wheeling, she climbed back upstairs. She spotted a fresh-faced young man, a passenger, for he was wearing no uniform. He leaned on the rail, gazing down at the activity on the dock below.

“Excuse me,” Reisa said. “Could you help me?”

The young man turned, and his eyes brightened at the young woman. He said at once, “Yes. What is it?”

Reisa introduced herself, and in exchange the young man said, “My name is Petya.”

“I've just come on board, Petya, my grandfather and I. We have two trunks. Could you help us get them down below?”

“Yes. Of course,” Petya said eagerly. He followed her, and when they reached Jacob, Reisa introduced him. The young man pulled his cap off at once and nodded. “Good day, sir. Let me help you with this luggage.”

Jacob smiled with relief and said, “May the good God bless you, my boy.”

Petya picked up one of the trunks and left, then came back for the second. “Plenty of room,” he said cheerfully. “Come along now.”

Jacob followed the young man with Reisa holding onto his arm. He was taken aback by the smell and the noise in the steerage compartment, for everyone seemed to be talking at the top of their lungs. Petya, however, had found them a place where their trunks could be stored against the side. There were bunks going from the floor to the ceiling. Petya said, “You'd better stake these out at once. They'll all be full before the ship leaves.”

This proved to be true, for passengers kept coming on. Men and women and children, whole families all bound for the New World, filled the compartment.

Jacob lay down and went to sleep at once. He slept all afternoon, but Reisa stayed awake getting acquainted with her neighbors.

Finally Jacob awakened, and Reisa said, “The ship is leaving soon. Would you like to go up on deck?”

“Yes. I think so.”

The two moved up the ladder holding on carefully. On deck, the sailors were busy with the sails. Neither Reisa nor Jacob understood a thing about seamanship, but they watched with interest as the sails began to drop, and they heard one of the officers crying out something about the anchor.

“We're moving,” Reisa said. And sure enough, they felt the stirring of the ship as the winds caught the sails. Overhead the sky was gray, and marked only by the flight of noisy gulls circling the vessel.

As the ship picked up speed, both Reisa and Jacob watched the shore as it receded. Others were there, and the rail was lined with passengers, their eyes fixed upon the land. There was something magnetic about the sight, and every head was turned toward the disappearing line of flat land which represented their old home.

As the land grew fainter and fainter, and as the night began to come on, Jacob said, “Reisa, I know you're sad. But remember Abraham must have felt like we do at this moment.” He smiled despite the discomfort of the sharp wind and his weakness. “He had to leave everything—family, friends—all that had been dear to him, but he knew that God was commanding him. And so he went out from his home into a strange country.”

Reisa held onto the rail, ignoring the piercing cold. “Do you think God is sending us, Grandfather—as he sent Abraham?”

“Yes. I know he is, Granddaughter!”

Jacob Dimitri found out on the first day of the voyage that he was no sailor. Almost at once, as soon as they reached the deep rolling bellows and the ship began to dip, to fall, and to rise, Jacob felt his stomach lurch.

Reisa saw his face grow pale. “You'd better go lie down, Grandfather.”

Jacob obeyed without comment, but even lying down the motion of the ship was terrible for him. He began to vomit, but he was not alone. Reisa was there to help, to bathe his face, to be sure he was as comfortable as possible. But there was actually little that she could do. The passengers were all huddled together almost like cattle, and the narrow bunks were not enough to take care of the overload. Many had to sleep on the hard deck wrapped in blankets.

For those first few days, it was all Reisa could do to care for her grandfather. She had to force him to eat, but the food that was prepared and served out twice a day was not fit in her mind for a sick man.

The dark filthy compartments in the steerage were filled with people with vomiting fits, and a confusion of cries became almost unbearable.

“I wish we had never left home,” Jacob moaned one day.

“It's all right, Grandfather,” Reisa said, moistening his lips with a damp cloth. She herself hated the ship. Now glancing around, she saw people jammed like rabbits in a warren into the ill-smelling bunks. The odors of scattered orange peelings, tobacco, garlic, and even worse blended together to form a horrible stench.

The next day she decided to try to wash some of their clothes, but it was a miserable failure. There was no fresh water available for washing. The best she could do was to rinse out a few of their clothes in salt water.

The young man, Petya, helped her a great deal. He was a cheerful young man convinced that he would become a millionaire in America. As they were on the deck washing as best they could, his face glowed as he said, “You just wait, Reisa. I'll get rich in America.”

“Is that very important to you, Petya?”

“Important! Of course it's important!” Astonishment swept across the young man's face. “Everybody wants to be rich.”

“I don't.”

“Well, you're a woman. But you'll want to marry a rich man.”

Reisa smiled and looked over at Boris, for she had brought him on deck with her. No one had made any complaints about him, and he seemed to be quite a seagoing cat. “You don't want to be rich, do you, Boris?”

Hearing his name, Boris grinned broadly and said, “Yow!”

“See? He wants to be rich,” Petya laughed.

“I don't think it's going to be as easy as you think.”

“Oh, there's lots of money to be made in America.”

Reisa was not at all sure about this. She finished the washing and went downstairs.

After she had made her grandfather as comfortable as possible, Reisa turned to one of her new acquaintances, Ivana Chapaev. “Are you feeling better, Ivana?”

Ivana was not feeling better. She was a middle-aged woman not in the best of health. She and her husband, Ilya, were traveling with their three children. Both of the adults were very ill and seasick to an incredible degree, and it had been Reisa who had taken over the care of their three children.

She took care of them now, seeing that they were fed and washed as much as was possible. The food was dished out of large kettles into dinner pails provided by the ship. They all ate like starved wolves, and Reisa herself had never had a better appetite.

As the days passed, Jacob grew better, and the weather seemed to improve. The ship still plunged on, and sometimes waves came crashing over the top of the deck, filtering down to steerage below. Ship life was hard, but it was endurable.

Reisa was busy and had found ways to make herself useful to many of the passengers. One thing troubled her, however, but she never mentioned it to her grandfather.

She had gone to stand in the bow of the ship often during the voyage, especially late in the afternoon or early in the morning. It gave her, somehow, a feeling of exultation to stand there watching the boundless ocean before her, knowing somewhere ahead was America. But she had become aware that a man was often there watching her. She had seen him first early one morning, and had been somewhat frightened. There were few sailors on deck, and it was quiet except for the hissing of the water along the side, and the ropes trilling with the pressure of the wind. She had turned and seen this huge figure of a man, and a start of fear had taken her. He had not spoken and neither had she, but his eyes, almost hidden by the wild tangle of his beard, were steadfast as they watched her.

Reisa had slipped away, but it had happened more than once. And even worse, she noticed him when she went to get food and at other times. He never spoke, but she feared him and determined never to be caught alone.

Jacob got better each day, but the rough food was not doing him much good. Reisa finally went to the galley where she spoke to the cook, a German named Schultz.

“Herr Schultz,” she said. “Could I heat some soup and make some tea for my grandfather?”

Schultz, a thin man who always dressed as if it were summer due to the heat of the galley, agreed at once. “Yah,” he nodded. “I like some tea myself once in a while.”

As the cook prepared the tea, Reisa spoke with him freely. He seemed to be an approachable man, and she finally asked him, “Who is that big man with the bushy black beard?”

“Oh, you've seen him? His name is Dov. That means ‘bear.'”

“What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. He never says anything.” Schultz turned to her suddenly, his eyes narrowing. “Why? Has he bothered you?”

“No,” Reisa admitted. “Not really. But he watches me sometimes.”

“Stay away from him. He looks like a bad one. And he's not the only one on this ship.”

Reisa took the soup and the tea down, and it took some expertise to manage the ladder. But when she got there she found her grandfather talking with Ilya Chapaev. “I brought some tea and some soup,
Zaideh
.”

“Oh, that smells good! But there's not enough to go around.”

“Oh, that's all right. We've had plenty,” Ilya said. He was a large man, though somewhat shrunken by work. His face was worn and his hands were hard, the typical peasant. “What would you think, Rabbi? Will you do it?”

Reisa looked up quickly and saw her grandfather shake his head. “I am not a rabbi. You must not call me that.”

“Well,” Ilya said rather stubbornly, “you are the closest thing there is to a rabbi on this boat. Will you do it?”

“What do you want him to do?” Reisa asked as she dished out some soup for her grandfather.

“He thinks we should have a service—all of the Jews on the boat,” Jacob said.

“I know you're not a rabbi, but you're a teacher—a learned man. We don't need a rabbi to have a service, do we?” Ilya asked.

Jacob blinked, and as he took the bowl of soup, Reisa saw that he was thinking hard. “It might not be a bad thing,” he said. “I will do what I can.”

“Good. I will tell the others. When would we have it?”

“Whenever you say, but it will not be like being in a synagogue.”

“Abraham was not in a synagogue,” Ilya said. “A synagogue is wherever the chosen people meet.”

Jacob suddenly smiled. It was the first time Reisa had seen him smile since they had gotten on board the ship.

“I think it would be good,” she said, pouring tea into a tin cup. “Here. Drink this.”

“I think it may be,” Jacob mused. “I will have to ask permission though.”

“They don't care what we do down here,” Reisa said.

“You're right enough about that. So, right here will be the synagogue.”

The crowd that gathered for the worship was surprisingly large, at least fifteen men—and since ten men were necessary for any sort of service, that was sufficient. All of them were wearing something that resembled a yarmulke—although some were obviously rigged for the moment. The small caps on the head of every man seemed to bring some sort of pleasure to Jacob, and he noted that many of them were wearing the tallis or prayer robe. His own tallis was made of fine silk, and for the service he had bound a small black leather box to his forehead and another to his arm. They contained small pieces of parchment with quotations from Scripture.