Authors: Karen Hesse

Tags: #Emigration and Immigration, #Jews, #Letters, #Juvenile Nonfiction, #Language Arts, #General

Letters From Rifka (8 page)

BOOK: Letters From Rifka

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… I’m lean and shaven, but alive; … And there is hope that I may thrive … .

—
Pushkin

October 9, 1920
Ellis Island

Dear Tovah,

At last, I have seen someone from the family. I had started believing they weren’t really here, that something terrible had happened to them and no one would tell me. I thought the Americans had stolen them away and imprisoned them and I would never see them again.

But Saul came. He skipped school and came to see me at the hospital.

“Mama and Papa and the others can’t get away,” he said in Yiddish. “They must all work. I thought I’d come.”

Tovah, when I saw him—he’s so big, so handsome—I almost cried.

But I wouldn’t let Saul see me cry. He walked
through the door and stood there, looking around the ward for me.

“Saul!” I called out. I ran to him and threw my arms around him.

He backed me away and looked down at me. “Rifka?”

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You don’t recognize your own sister?”

He swallowed. I saw the knob in his big neck go up and down.

“You look different,” Saul said.

I touched the kerchief covering my bald head.

“My hair,” I said. “It’s been gone a long time.”

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “I don’t remember your eyes being so big.”

“I have the same eyes, Saul.”

I took my brother by the hand and led him into the ward. I was glad to have a bed of my own when Saul came. It would embarrass me if he should learn I slept in a crib. He would never let me forget that.

“Here, I brought something for you.”

Saul reached into his pocket and brought out a banana. His eyes twinkled with mischief.

I took the banana and peeled it and started to bite into it. Then I remembered how he had shared with me in Motziv, and I offered him the first bite. He shook his head. The sparkle had gone from his eyes. He looked disappointed.

“What’s the matter, Saul?” I asked.

“How did you know to do that?” Saul asked. “How did you know to peel the banana? In Russia, we didn’t see bananas.”

I laughed. “Is that what’s worrying you? There are lots of bananas in Antwerp,” I told him. “And chocolates, and ice cream, too.”

“Humph,” Saul said. “I guess you’re not such a greenhorn.”

“What’s a greenhorn?” I asked.

“It’s when you come off the boat and you don’t know what a banana is,” Saul said.

“Well, I guess I’m not a greenhorn, then.”

Saul was dressed like a dandy. He wore knickers and a stiff shirt. A cap sat cocked on his head. He was showing off in front of me. He wanted me to say something nice about his clothes. But he had hoped to make a fool of me with that banana. I didn’t want him to know how handsome I thought he looked. My American brother.

When Doctor Askin came by on his rounds, I spoke English, introducing the doctor to Saul.

Doctor Askin said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man.”

Saul, my giant brother Saul, looked down at his big feet and said nothing. His ears turned red.

“Saul,” I said, kicking his shoe with my boot.

Still Saul said nothing.

“He is happy to meet you too, Doctor Askin,” I said. “Are you not, Saul?”

Saul nodded. Doctor Askin said good-bye and walked away.

“Doctor Askin is my friend,” I told Saul, still speaking in English. “Why did you not talk to him? He is a good man. He brings the comics here. We look at the pictures. I can read a little.”

“You
read
English too?” Saul asked.

“A little,” I said. “I am learning each day. Nurse Bowen helps. Doctor Askin helps too, before he and Mr. Fargate talk about patients.”

“Your English,” Saul said, “is very good. Where did you learn to speak this way, Rifka? You learned this in Antwerp too?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I learned much in Antwerp.”

Saul looked at me with his head tilted to one side. “My sister Rifka speaks like an American in one week?”

“Nine days,” I said. “I’ve been here nine days.”

“Smarty,” he said. He lifted his hand to tousle my hair, something he used to do when I had blond curls, back in Russia.

Saul pulled his hand back before he touched the kerchief hiding my bald head.

“What should I tell Mama about your hair?” he asked.

“Tell her the truth,” I said. “It’s not growing. Why should it grow now? It hasn’t grown in a year.”

Saul looked down at his feet. “So they will send you back?”

I didn’t know what to say.

Saul looked so big and healthy and uncomfortable in the busy hospital ward. I smiled at him. “If I have to go back, Saul, I’m sure I can stay with Bubbe Ruth. Or Uncle Avrum and Tovah and Hannah. It won’t be so bad for me.”

Saul and I both knew the truth. We’d left Berdichev to save his life. Because of this, I might very well lose mine.

Just then, Ilya appeared, wiggling his way under my arm. I introduced him to Saul in English. “This is my little friend,” I said. “He also comes from Russia.”

Saul noticed the book of Pushkin that Ilya pulled out from under my pillow. Ilya likes when I read Pushkin to him, especially in the afternoon when things quiet down for a little while around the ward.

“What have you got there?” Saul asked Ilya in Yiddish.

Ilya did not answer. He looked frightened of Saul.

Saul took the book from him.

Ilya’s eyes flashed with anger.

“Ilya,” I said in Russian. “This is my brother.”

Ilya looked from me to Saul, but he is a stubborn little boy. He tried to get the book back from Saul. Between the two pulling on it, Tovah, the Pushkin dropped and fell open. My Star of David, the one I had woven from broom straws in Antwerp, bounced off the floor and broke apart.

Ilya knew how precious the little straw star had been to me. Always, he had handled it with such care. He looked into my face, blinked his green eyes, and then ran out of the ward.

“He’s a nasty little peasant,” Saul said. “I don’t believe you, Rifka. What are you doing with a peasant? And this book. Throw it away. It’s a Russian book! And what is all this scribbling inside?”

“Leave it alone, Saul,” I said, grabbing the book and holding it tight to my chest. I was angry at him. He had broken my star. But I was angry at him for more than that. Inside, it felt like much more than that.

“You can’t tell me what I should throw away,” I said. It hurt deep in my heart, Tovah, but at this moment I loved Ilya more than I loved my own brother. “This book, it’s mine—”

Saul grabbed for the book again, but I stood my ground, squeezing the hard cover against my ribs.

“You’re different, Rifka,” Saul said.

“I am the same, Saul,” I cried. “Still, my life has gone on while we’ve been apart. I am older in many ways since you left me in Warsaw.”

“You’re still my little sister, though,” Saul said.

Saul’s dark eyes burned with anger, but something else burned there too. I remembered Pieter and what he’d said about my being a treasure to my brothers.

I put my hand on Saul’s sleeve. “Yes. I am still your little sister. Let’s not fight, Saul. I have been so lonely. You haven’t even told me anything about Mama or Papa or Nathan and the others. Please stay and talk with me.”

Saul looked as if he was still angry, but he sat back down. My cot groaned under his weight.

“Papa and Mama work all day at the clothing factory,” Saul said. “When they come home at night, they bring bags of trousers to hem. They work together until late. I help, but I can’t stay awake so long to finish.”

Mama and Papa—working so hard? They needed my help. Couldn’t the Americans see how much my family needed me?

“What about Nathan?” I asked.

“Nathan has a job in a bakery. He leaves before light and comes home after dark, his clothes always covered with flour.”

“And you?”

“I go to school,” Saul said. “Papa says I must get an education. I’d rather be working, but Papa says no. If you were with us, Rifka, maybe he would let me work. Maybe it would be enough for you to go to school. But …”

Saul didn’t finish. None of us had any say about whether I could come to join my family and go to an American school. I wanted nothing more than that.

But only Mr. Fargate could decide.

Saul said, “Isaac married a girl named Sadie. Sadie Chenowitz, of the Berdichev Chenowitzes.”

What a small world, Tovah. My oldest brother, Isaac, comes all the way from Russia and who does he pick to marry but a landsman, a girl from our own village, a Chenowitz girl.

“She’s very pretty,” Saul said.

He said Isaac and Sadie had a baby boy named Aaron.

“That makes me an aunt,” I said, clapping my hands. “Can you believe it? Me, Aunt Rifka.” I wanted to hold my brother Isaac’s baby, right that instant.

“Did Mama ever get new candlesticks?” I asked.

Saul said they could not afford to buy candlesticks. He said everything they earned they sent to me in Belgium. My dear family, how much they had given up for me.

“What do you do on the Sabbath?” I asked.

“We work on the Sabbath,” Saul said.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Mama, Papa, working on the Sabbath?

I opened my rucksack and took out my pouch of money.

“Where did you get all this, Rifka?” Saul asked.

“I saved it,” I said. “From the money Papa sent.”

“Papa sent that money for you to eat, Rifka. What did you eat?”

“I ate, Saul,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him
what
I ate.

“I want you to take this money, Saul,” I said. “I want you to take it and buy candlesticks for Mama. If there is any money left, tell Mama and Papa to use it so they do not have to work on the Sabbath. Do you hear me, Saul?”

Saul promised about the candlesticks. He apologized for breaking my star. Then he was gone. I had forgotten how lonely I’d been until he was gone.

Tovah, I have never seen my brother Isaac. He fled Russia before I was born. Now I wonder if I ever will see him, or his baby. Would they send me back, do you think, without ever holding my brother’s baby?

Shalom,

Rifka

… They say ill things of the last days of Autumn:
But I, friend reader, not a one will hear;
Her quiet beauty touches me as surely
As does a wistful child, to no one dear … .

—
Pushkin

October 11, 1920
Ellis Island

Dear Tovah,

Mama came today.

My wonderful, beautiful Mama. She hugged me and kissed me and I smelled onion on her and chicken and celery and yeast. I was so happy I thought my heart had broken open like an egg.

“Mama,” I kept repeating, afraid I would blink and she would no longer be sitting beside me on my cot.

Mama brought out a tiny honey cake. “For your thirteenth birthday,” she said in Yiddish.

She watched me eat it, the whole thing, as we
sat close together on the edge of my bed. I licked each finger. It tasted as good as I remembered, Mama’s honey cake.

“Tell me about Antwerp,” Mama said.

I told her about Sister Katrina and the lady from the HIAS and Gizelle in the park. I told her about the awful storm at sea, and how our ship needed towing to Ellis Island.

“What about your hair?” Mama asked. “Is it really so bad?”

Mama led me over to the window and took off my kerchief. She examined my scalp. I felt envy for the long black hair coiled around her ears.

She sighed and rested her hand on my naked head.

“Please,” I said, removing her hand.

I carefully tied the kerchief back on.

“I wish your bubbe were here,” Mama said. “Your bubbe would know what to do.”

“I wish she were here too, Mama,” I answered back.

I wish you were here too, Tovah, but now I don’t know if that is such a good idea. You have to be perfect to come to America. I have this bald head and you, you have a crooked back. We are not perfect. We are not welcome.

“These Americans,” I told Mama. “They don’t make any sense. They say they are holding me because
I am too contagious to come into their country, but they allow you to visit me. If I’m contagious, won’t I make you sick? And if I make you sick, won’t you make everyone else in America sick? What’s the difference if I go to New York or you come here? Either way, if I really am contagious, somebody is going to get sick. I’m wondering how clever these Americans really are.”

“Hush, Rifka,” Mama said. “Somebody could hear you.”

I looked around. Even if they did speak Yiddish, no one around us was listening.

“Why is such a great country like America afraid of a little Jewish girl just because she doesn’t have any hair on her head?” I said. “The truth, Mama, is that they’re afraid I will never find a husband. As if I need hair to get married.”

“Maybe we could rub something in to make your hair grow,” Mama said. “I wish Papa could come. He would have some ideas.”

“It’s no good, Mama,” I said. “Not even Papa can get my hair to grow. I am bald.”

“But Rifka,” Mama said.

Then she didn’t say anything more. What could she say? I am bald.

“Don’t worry, Mama.”

Mama never was very good with doctoring. Always Papa nursed us through sickness.

“Are you eating right?” Mama wanted to know.

“The food is very good here.”

I didn’t tell her about all the chocolate and ice cream I ate in Belgium.

Doctor Askin came and said hello to Mama. Then he joined Mr. Fargate for the case reviews.

I was telling Mama about the market in Antwerp when my little Polish baby began crying.

“Excuse me, please, Mama,” I said. I left Mama sitting on my bed. I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want to lose one precious second with her, but the baby needed me.

As soon as I settled the baby down, a fevered woman asked for water. Then there were other chores that needed doing, things I helped the nurses with every day. I kept looking over to Mama, afraid she would disappear.

She didn’t disappear. She sat and watched.

“Just like Papa,” she said when I finally got back to her. “And the way you speak English, Rifka. You’ve always been good with languages. You were talking before you could walk. But I never imagined you could learn English so quickly. I have been here a year. I hardly speak a word.”

“I could help you,” I told Mama, “if they allow me to stay.”

“Who is the baby?” Mama asked.

I took Mama’s hand and led her over to the crib.

I said. “She is Polish. Her mother died of the typhus. The baby has the typhus too. See.” I showed Mama the rash. “I help take care of her.”

Ilya, I noticed, kept his distance the whole of Mama’s visit. Usually he clung to me like a drop of sap. He was even jealous when I held the baby.

Maybe Ilya understood something about Mama.

Tovah, you would be accepting of my friendship with Ilya. Uncle Avrum has Russian friends, non-Jewish friends. But Mama and Papa, they wouldn’t like it at all.

Mama can be more accepting of the Polish baby. A baby that speaks no language. It could be a Jewish baby, after all. There are many Polish Jews. But Ilya is no Jew. He is a Russian peasant, and Mama and Papa have grown to hate everything Russian.

I have been thinking, Tovah. To turn my back on the part of me that is Russian is impossible. I am Jewish, yes, but I am Russian too. I am both Jewish and Russian. And I am also more. I am so much more.

When I read the poetry of Pushkin to Ilya and watch his face, I can see the words rocking him the way they do me. We both ache for something we have lost.

Yet he aches in a way that I cannot imagine. At least I still have family. In Russia and in America, I
have family who love me and want me. Even Saul wants me, in his own way.

For Ilya, there is no family. In America there is an uncle, an uncle who works three jobs and wants Ilya not because he loves him, but because of the money Ilya can earn. Not once since I’ve been here has the uncle come to visit Ilya. Not once. Is this the way family behaves?

Poor Ilya, he cannot get back his old life in Russia. Ilya’s mother became widowed when he was two. When she remarried, her new husband did not want Ilya. That is why she sent him to America. Ilya can’t go back. At least not to his own people. Maybe you and Hannah would take him in. Could you raise a little Russian boy?

No, of course not. You would tell me the wisest thing to do would be to help Ilya prepare for America. He has no choice but to come into America.

He’s a smart boy. He knows the poetry of Pushkin by heart. I have read to him so often that now he reads passages himself.

I tell him, “Ilya, you should be learning to read English, not Russian. You are going to be an American.”

He looks at me with those stormy eyes. Sometimes he looks so lost.

We are trapped between two worlds, Ilya and I.
Ilya wants to go back to Russia, to the only place he has ever known. I want to enter America. Yet neither of us can leave this island.

Ilya is eating and the circles lessen under his eyes, but still he is thin and frail. I think the doctors and Mr. Fargate are more concerned with his mind, though, than with his health.

They think Ilya is a simpleton—because he won’t take food for himself. I am still putting food on his plate. And he never talks to anyone else. He talks only to me, when no one is listening. But he is very smart, Tovah. Any seven-year-old who can read Pushkin is one clever boy. I must help him see that his life is here, in America, not back in Russia. How do I do that?

Tovah, you would know.

My dear cousin, I miss you like soup misses salt.

Shalom,

Rifka

BOOK: Letters From Rifka

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