Mitla Pass (27 page)

The fate of the boys disturbed him the most. The three oldest had all strayed from what he had envisioned for them. Yehuda couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud, but Mordechai was a bitter disappointment. By the time he was ready to graduate from yeshiva in Vilna, Mordechai had drifted away from the religious life his father had so carefully guided him into. Not exactly a rebellion, not exactly a rejection, but a definite decision not to go into the rabbinate. Mordechai had chosen instead to become a teacher and writer, of sorts.

Vilna was one of the heartland cities of the
shtetl
a little Warsaw abounding with Jewish heritage and culture. Mordechai was appointed to an instructor’s position in a secular gymnasium; he wrote a weekly column in one of the local newspapers and was otherwise immersed in the scholarly activities of Vilna’s Jewish community.

Vilna was particularly bad for the Jews these days. The city had been ceded by treaty to the Poles and this set off vicious fighting between Poland and Lithuania, with both armies exercising their ritual of murdering Jews who were blamed by both sides for their troubles.

The final realization of Mordechai’s independence came with letters that he was interested in a girl from an affluent but nonobservant family. What had it come to when a father could no longer arrange his child’s marriage?

Yehuda concluded that times had changed. Perhaps his efforts to have Mordechai remain a
shtetl
boy would come to nothing. So, what did it matter as long as his son was happy? If he would take a bride without Poppa’s personal stamp of approval the sun wouldn’t fall from the sky.

T
HERE WAS ANOTHER
surprise in the Zadok family. Matthias, who had just turned seventeen, had been an enigma in the family—quiet, intense, the dreamer. He was also a different Zadok physically—taller, stronger, very steady and reliable. At the end of the war when Nathan failed to pick up the banner of Poale Zion, which was starting up chapters again all over the Pale, Matthias, to everyone’s surprise, became the Zionist of the family. He organized thirty young people in Wolkowysk and undertook the arduous task of raising funds, obtaining visas, and cutting through red tape which was essential for the trip to Palestine. It was Matthias who was now being asked to speak in the regional conferences and Matthias who was the delegate to the major congress in Warsaw.

One day when Yehuda and Sophie returned from the cemetery, Matthias was waiting for them. The boy dreaded those hours after their graveside visits but what was happening needed an immediate decision.

“Good
shabbas,
Poppa, Momma.”

“Good
shabbas,
Matti. I thought you were overnight at a meeting in Slonim. You didn’t travel home by train on the Sabbath?”

“Of course not. I got home last evening before sundown. I’m sorry I didn’t go to
shul
last night. There was an urgent meeting at Lufka’s house.”

“So tell me what’s on your mind before you jump out of your skin.”

“I’ll make first a glass tea,” Sophie said. The fire in the stove was down to a whisper. She stirred it and reached into the wood basket for a small log.

“Woman! It is still the Sabbath. Since when do you cook on the Sabbath?”

“I need a glass tea,” she repeated. “You can pray for my soul all week; I’m having a glass tea.”

“So, I’ll have a glass tea too,” Yehuda agreed. “
Nu
, Matti, what world-shaking decisions required a meeting last night at Lufka’s?”

“The district received a special grant from Baron von Epstein in Geneva to send another of our members to Palestine. I was voted the one to go.”

“Nathan was at the meeting?”

“Yes. He doesn’t attend often, but he was at this meeting.”

“He likewise voted in favor of you?”

“No, Poppa. He screamed at us that the decision was unfair. He raged out of Lufka’s. When I ran him down he called me ten thousand dirty names. Poppa, I swear to you, I had no idea Nathan even wanted to go to Palestine anymore.”

Yehuda Zadok emitted a groan that had taken the Jews of the Pale a thousand years to develop. Matthias leaned against the window frame and touched the curtains, very fragile from age and too many washings.

“It’s all right,” Matti said. “Nathan deserves to go first. So what if it takes me a little more time? I’ll get to Eretz Israel.”

“You are certain you want to give Nathan your place?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Yehuda patted his son’s shoulder affectionately.

“I told the comrades we’d meet again tonight. I’m sure they’ll honor my wishes and send Nathan.”

Sophie peered into the boys’ bedroom. Nathan’s bed had not been slept in. “I wonder where he is?” she said.

“In the woodshed,” Matthias said.

“In the woodshed,” his father repeated with an ironic laugh. “Nathan is in the woodshed.”

“I’ll try to talk to him again,” Matthias said.

“No, no, Matti, take for a walk your girlfriend. I’ll talk to him.”

When Matthias left, Sophie and Yehuda stared at their untouched glasses of tea. “You see what happens when you cook on the Sabbath,” Yehuda managed to say.

“For me personally,” Sophie said, “I’m glad he’s going if only to make him stop listening to this Bolshevik
dreck.
More and more he listens.”

“Lenin has decreed that there is no longer a Pale of Settlement for Jews. We can travel anywhere in Russia, even Moscow. Who knows, times may be changing.”

“Yehuda, you’re a first-rate crazy. Do you think one scratch of the pen will change a thousand years of Russian history? Russia will be a good place for the Jews to live when it stops snowing in Siberia. Lenin may be able to convince the Ukrainians they’re Russian, but he’ll never convince the Jews.”

“So what do you want, woman?”

“I want you should encourage Nathan to go to Palestine before he gets too mixed up in this Bolshevik business. What does he think? If he goes to Moscow they’ll throw flowers at his feet? The Russians are the biggest liars in the world.”

“So what are you breaking your head on, Sophie?”

“What? What? Look in every direction, Yehuda. Everyone wants the honor to destroy us. This place will end up being one big graveyard. The sooner the children leave, the better.”

“Sophie, you don’t understand nothing at all.”

“I understand what I understand and I understand it perfectly.”

“You’re speaking cows, I’m speaking horses. Sophie, our son Nathan doesn’t know what he wants. He never has. He probably never will. If he goes to Palestine, I tell you he is going to fail. If he goes to America, he will fail.”

She blinked at him, not understanding.

“I say the following with a stone in my heart,” Yehuda continued, “but Nathan is a
shtetl
Jew. He knows how to survive in this atmosphere, but put him in another place and he’ll create a misery. Some people are meant to be born, live, and die in the
shtetl,
just like you and me.”

Tears came to Sophie Zadok’s eyes. “Let him go to Palestine. I cannot go on living if another of my children is in the Wolkowysk cemetery.”

TO PALESTINE

Warsaw, 1920

T
HE NEWLY RE-CREATED
state of Poland was actively and openly anti-Semitic by national policy, a policy endorsed by the vast majority of its citizenry and its Roman Catholic Church. But Warsaw held nearly four hundred thousand Jews and mere numbers afforded an illusion of safety.

In Warsaw, Judaism was vibrantly alive in a variety of forms. There were dynasties of black-bearded Hasidim in long black coats. There were street-corner philosophers of every stripe and pushcart vendors of every product. Every philosophical branch of Zionism had its publications, speakers, cultural venues. There were socialists, now locking horns with Communists. There was Yiddish and Hebrew publishing and a vibrant theater. There was an aggressive labor movement, courting tens of thousands of nonunion workers. There were a few wealthy Jews, but mostly they were a population on the edges of poverty. There was a smattering of Jewish gangsters and prostitutes.

Warsaw had swelled to its current Jewish population by a constant influx of refugees from around the former Pale and Poland. Thousands came on the heels of every new pogrom.

Nathan Zadok liked Warsaw. Here he could be swallowed up in a sea of his own people all speaking Yiddish. Over three hundred synagogues, ranging from one-room affairs to the great Tlomotskie Temple, held a constant flow of worshippers; the stages of forty theaters rang with restless prose; a dozen newspapers cried their protests, and a hundred schools bulged with students of every subject.

The Poale Zion staging center was an old building, a former leather factory on Mila Street in the poorest section of the town. Poale Zion conducted a bare-bones operation in a cavernous main hall, a communal kitchen, and some small side offices. The influx of youngsters making the aliyah to Palestine had swamped their facilities.

Those who had friends or relatives in Warsaw or enough money for a hotel room were in luck. The majority slept on tables, benches, and the floor and ate the worst meals of their lives.

When a group of three hundred had assembled and been processed, a train was organized to take them to Bratislava on the Czech border. They sang all the way. Even Nathan sang. It was his first train ride without fear.

Nathan, also, for the first time, set eyes on Rosie Gittleman. There were only forty girls among the three hundred pioneers. With all of the boys bigger and better-looking than he was, Nathan was certain he could not possibly form a personal friendship with a girl.

Rosie Gittleman would not turn anybody’s head. She was not precisely an ugly, but somewhat beyond plain. Her appearance was thin and drab. How could such a girl be a pioneer? Nathan wondered.

At first, Rosie and Nathan exchanged a few glances. Nathan could not believe he was being singled out. With a bit of foxy maneuvering, he arranged to sit next to her.

Nathan had the skill to dazzle anyone for the first few hours of an acquaintance. Rosie didn’t know much about literature, so there was his opening. She was definitely impressed.

He was surprised to learn that a year and a half earlier she had been sent to the TB resort of Zakopane in the Carpathian Mountains. Being a Jewess, she was unable to get a room in a regular sanatorium and had to stay in a pension for six months.

Her strict Orthodox family was certain they had a spinster on their hands for the rest of their lives. She first surprised them by surviving her illness and being declared healthy. Having won that battle, she found the wherewithal to stand up to a tyrannical father and declare her intentions of making aliyah to Palestine.

By the time the train had left Krakow and wormed through the passes of the Little Carpathian Mountains, Nathan and Rosie had become adept at brushing against each other and otherwise touching, while pretending not to.

Bratislava

M
OST EVERYONE
had dozed off when a sudden electricity of excitement flashed through the cars. They had crossed the border out of Poland! Cheering was mixed with farewell curses. Yet, there had to be sorrow as the image of a mother or brother passed through their minds. Nathan felt a twinge of hurt he had not expected.

Lord only knew what was up ahead. Perhaps he should have stayed in Warsaw. No matter how bad things would get, Warsaw always offered a measure of safety. Perhaps if he had met Rosie earlier, they could have talked about it and stayed together. Perhaps ...perhaps ...

The train sped across Czechoslovakia, another of those states put together at the end of the war, this one from the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Toward morning, the train halted on the Danube River at Bratislava, a gateway city between three nations and now the capital of Slovakia. The pioneers disembarked to stretch and milled about until a new train arrived to take them across the river.

The early arriving yard workers were in a state of half-awakeness, certainly angry over their cup of watery coffee and loading up with resentment over another “Jew train.”

“Dirty yid” remarks grew louder and more profane. The pioneers, warned to stay out of trouble, huddled together in a tight circle. This encouraged the rail workers and some pushing and shoving began.

Among the pioneers were a few dozen husky young men not so inclined to grovel. Misha Polokov, who had been gaining leadership since Warsaw, grabbed the shovel from the hands of the Slav ringleader and nearly tore his head off with it.

In the melee that followed, the Slavs took an unusual beating. Nathan made himself scarce, going through the motions of setting up a defense picket around the girls. He had never seen a Jew hit a
goy
before, much less knock one down and even kick him on the ground. It was a nice thing to watch, but also quite terrifying. What would happen if word reached the city and a mob came out and massacred them? He was numb with fear when troops arrived.

The pioneers were quickly hustled aboard a line of cars and soldiers were deployed to protect them as the cars rolled onto a train ferry and scooted over the Danube.

Nathan sulked. He should have done better during the fight. He now wanted very much to earn the respect of Rosie Gittleman.

Vienna

V
IENNA
, once a mecca for the best in mankind, lay gasping in the backwash of war. The city of dreams was boarded up and hunger gnawed at its people.

The pioneers were put up in a public bathhouse and deloused, as a precaution against the typhus epidemic. Clothing was boiled in a cauldron of carbolic acid and came out wrinkled, discolored, and foul-smelling.

Rations consisted of a single slice of bread and a bowl of suspicious-looking dark liquid, with a few leaves floating on the top, three times a day. By the end of the third day, everyone had become lightheaded with hunger. Nathan made a sacrificial gesture of giving Rosie most of his ration.

Misha Polokov, whose accordion had scarcely stopped playing since they left Warsaw, had emerged as their uncontested leader when he covered himself with glory in the brawl in Bratislava. Misha got a group together, including his sister Bertha and Nathan, and scouted the city for some kind of pickings. He located a thriving black market in a corner of Prater Park, where peasants gouged the less fortunate city people out of everything from jewelry to antiques. Money, in currency form, was worthless.