The Empire of the Senses (21 page)

Otto shook the metal bedpost, which momentarily dissipated the image of Zalman’s bloodthirsty smile. “Lev—are you listening? If we stay here, we’ll only get slaughtered by the Reds.” Then he added, “The Bolsheviks have begun their advance, attacking our positions at Narva, northeast of here.”

“Yes, I heard that,” Lev said, rubbing his eyes.

“Where did you hear this? I thought it was only a rumor.”

Lev tensed at the uncharacteristic alarm in Otto’s voice. “Yesterday, in the officers’ mess hall.” He waited for Otto to ask what he’d been doing there—and he would probably tell him the truth. He’d been stealing provisions for Leah and her family because they were slowly starving. All the locals were, whereas the officers let food rot and crops go bad while they drank their coffee and cognac, the surplus evident on their well-fed faces and in their wide girths.

Otto stubbed out his cigarette against the bottom of Lev’s boot. He came closer to Lev, and Lev noticed the sweat on his brow, the ingrown hairs of his beard, how his eyes narrowed. Again, Lev was reminded of Zalman. He shook his head, as if to shake off the menacing apparition of this imaginary face that he himself had created.

Otto whispered, “Officers are deserting their troops in the north,
fleeing for Germany. And men are burning their uniforms, selling off military horses, selling anything they can get their hands on.”

Lev inhaled the strong scent of schnapps from Otto’s breath, debating whether or not he should tell him about Reval, the German base on the Gulf of Finland. The soldiers there had sold off nearly all the seaplanes and gasoline they had been guarding.

Otto palmed Lev a few damp cigarettes, and before departing, he again galloped two fingers along the edge of Lev’s cot.

Lev tried to sleep to the sound of other men’s breathing and tried to concern himself with what they would do if the treaty was annulled and the Reds returned or if they were transported west, but he only thought of Leah. He wanted to know what she was thinking at every moment, what she was doing now. He imagined she might be washing her feet in the kitchen, in the bucket filled with hot water and mint leaves, or she might be helping her sister with the wedding preparations, taking preserves out of the cellar and choosing the best ones for the feast. Or she might be braiding her wet hair into a thick plait, as she often did after a bath, so it didn’t get in the way, only to wait for Lev to unravel it. The dampness of her hair through his fingers, the smell of bark in the strands, the feel of her cool neck under his palm—it had been five days since they’d met at the barn. Five eternal days! Yesterday he waited for her behind the abandoned farmhouse, but she never came, too upset, he assumed, by the recent news. But because of the red ribbon fluttering in the warm wind, he waited in the dusty heat, smoking, unable to tear himself away from the post lest she arrive at the last minute, out of breath, full of apologies. The agony of the wait would make their reunion even sweeter as he anticipated the run of his tongue through her mouth, the way she clung to him and whispered affectionate nicknames into his neck. He turned onto his side, his face to the wall, moving his hand under his drawers. Another man, a few cots over, sighed and grunted an ejaculatory grunt. Someone else swore in his sleep, banging his leg against the iron cot rail. Lev closed his eyes, seeing the shape and swell of her breasts, tasting the taste of her—a mix of sweat and wheat.

That night Lev suffered from dark swirling dreams. Zalman returned to Mitau in the form of a satyr; his red beard flowed down to his groin, and he pranced the cobblestoned streets on hooved feet, the sound of which echoed through each and every house. When Zalman found Leah, he dragged her by the hair through the apple orchards. He dragged her and she screamed and screamed, crying for Lev. When Lev heard her screams, he followed the distant sounds, but he could not find her. Every street abruptly ended in a stone wall littered with garbage. Every forest empty of Leah. He could only hear her cries and follow them, as if Zalman demonically led him into some dark trap. When Lev woke, sweat soaked the front of his shirt. He rubbed his eyes and touched the thin sheet and felt his arms. The reassurance that he was physically here, in his army cot among sleeping comrades, did nothing to smooth out the sharp terror spreading through him, as if someone had injected the remnants of that poisonous dream into his veins.

The following Thursday, Leah’s sister, Altke, got married—the marriage had to take place on a Thursday because widows always remarried on Thursdays. Her husband had been dead more than seven years, and everyone agreed she was still a young woman, despite her limp. Zlotnik, short, with a patchy beard, and lacking in Talmudic scholarship, had courted her not only because she came from a respected family, but because she had already borne a son, Geza, her fertility proven. Lev’s presence at the wedding went unquestioned. He had become part son, part brother, and in terms of Leah, part husband to the family, and they accepted him without ever saying so. They invited him to Sabbath meals, asked after his health, mended his clothes, and overlooked the fact that Leah had fallen in love with him. Lev had often taken Geza shooting for birds, and on these long walks, Geza told him about leaving Mitau, about the girls he liked, about how he couldn’t care less for his studies because none of it would matter soon, despite what his grandfather thought. When Lev asked him about Leah’s husband, Geza would shrug and politely say he did not remember much. Leah’s mother would even go so far as to criticize Zalman. She complained that he had picked his teeth after meals, having the manners of a farm
animal, and that he did not bathe properly, until Leah would interrupt and say, “Do not speak ill of the dead.” To Lev, these were wonderful words, the way she had assumed his death so easily, as if he had been dead many years when now he might return any day.

Lev walked behind the groom’s party as they made their way to the bride’s home, trailed by musicians playing a mournful waltz. The sun sat low and heavy in the trees. People had locked up early. A few stragglers hurried out of the public bathhouse, their cheeks rosy from the steam. Candles blazed in the windows overlooking the alleys, lanes, and streets leading to the
schulhof
, where the wedding canopy stood, draped in white muslin that rose and fell with the breeze. Water carriers and the poor stationed themselves along the road for the wedding procession. Zlotnik, nervous and dazed, sported a smudge of black ash on his forehead, a reminder of the Temple’s destruction. Lev blended into the families that poured out of houses, dressed in their finest clothing, and yet he imagined he was the one getting married, anticipating the sight of Leah veiled in white. The pressing throng irritated him; a man stepped on his heel and a small child clung to his pant leg, peering up at him with a runny nose before realizing Lev was not his father. An old woman said something to him he didn’t understand. She smiled, toothless.

Last night Otto had told him they would be transported west in two days, but no one knew for sure. Lev tried to imagine telling Leah this, but all the possible combinations of words and sentences sounded callous.

The melody of the
klezmorim
swelled to a frenzied pitch as the procession neared Leah’s house, and in front of the house, Altke awkwardly sat on an elaborately decorated chair positioned on top of an upside-down trough covered with a brightly woven rug. Lev heard a woman whisper, “She looks like a horse.” Another woman agreed, and added that her jaw was too big for her face, her hair had the same coarseness as a horse’s tail. Altke gazed out at the crowd, her liquid eyes listless and uncomprehending. “She has a limp,” someone added, his hot breath sweeping over Lev’s neck. “I saw her walking fine,” a man countered.
Lev strained to see Leah, who stood with a group of women behind the trough. He only saw her dark hair catching the sun and the green silk scarf fluttering around her face. The man added, “Her sister’s the real beauty.”

The rabbi’s voice rose above the din. He placed his hands on Altke’s head. “May God make thee as Sarah, Rachel, Leah, and Rebecca who built the House of Israel.” Then Zlotnik stumbled forward, pushed from the crowd, and lowered the veil over Altke’s face. A few people snickered. Leah’s eyes laughed, chastising the clumsy Zlotnik, and her gaze drifted over to Lev. He still caught the laughter on her face, but when their eyes met, her smile faded into a more serious and meaningful look. He knew what she was thinking: that he should be the one lowering the veil over her face, and then they would walk at the head of the procession toward the shul with men carrying burning torches and women holding lit candles trailing them across the sprawling market square, past the beggars and the water carriers with their buckets ready to receive the good luck coins people tossed into the water. As he held Leah’s hand, they would feel the gentle pelting of wheat kernels women threw at bridal couples for fertility and health. And the old and the sick, too weak to walk, would stand on stoops as they passed, holding a pair of doves, ready for release.

Someone handed Lev a torch. He held it away from his chest, and the flickering heat made his eyes sting. Following the procession to the shul, he saw Leah’s head bobbing up and down. She spoke with a woman he did not recognize, a woman who seemed coarse and matronly. These minutes she spent with someone superfluous, when here he was, only a few paces away. But this is her life, he thought, rooted in many things that did not depend upon his presence. And didn’t he want her to still have these things after he left? Yes, of course. And no, not at all. He wanted her to pine for him and cling to his memory so furiously that no man would come near her—not even Zalman. Especially not Zalman.

“Fools, they still believe in this kind of nonsense!”

Lev looked up, jolted by the crowing of an ancient woman perched on a stoop. She glanced at him, her eyes sharp and bright as if she’d
overheard his selfish thoughts. After the wedding couple passed by, and she’d guffawed about the price of lace and silk, all that finery for foolish love, she muttered, “May God bless them.”

Leah, suddenly at his side, touched his sleeve. Her hair was dangerously close to the flame of his torch. “Watch out,” he said, more forcefully than he’d intended.

She laughed, infected by the general mood of the procession. People were talking all around them about Zlotnik, who now stood under the canopy waiting for the bride. He was a forlorn figure in his heavy gray suit, his eyes trained on his shiny shoes. Leah pointed to the fluttering of Altke’s veil. Her parents led her to the canopy.

“She’s almost married.”

“Almost,” Lev said, squeezing Leah’s hand.

The rabbi intoned blessings. The red sun dipped behind the apple trees, the same apple trees where Lev had first seen Leah, among the same little huts constructed for Sukkot. It was September again, and the huts were up, just as he remembered them, fruit dangling from the thatched roofs, makeshift rugs over dirt floors, the feeling of coolness and reprieve inside. Leah’s breath tunneled into his ear:
Ich liebe dich
. The glass smashed under Zlotnik’s shoe. Everyone cheered and the music started, a demonic swirl. He touched his ear, unsure. It could have been the wind or her breath playing tricks, but his chest contracted. He looked at her. She was smiling and laughing again, the music humming through her body as she led him toward the stable attached to the shul where the main celebration took place. He marveled at her show of happiness, transforming her face into a mask of gaiety, erasing, for this one night, the circular discussions they’d had over the last few weeks about the return of Zalman and Lev’s departure, the future foreboding and miserable to them both. She had cried so often she had trouble opening her eyes in the morning from the swelling. While Leah fixated on whether Zalman would really return and if he was really alive, Lev fixated on when Zalman would return and take her back as his wife. They quarreled over this. Lev wanted her to realize that most likely the
letter from the pharmacist’s cousin was true so she would be prepared for Zalman, whereas Leah still clung to the belief that somehow there had been a mistake, some misunderstanding, and in fact Zalman had died in the Carpathians.

Oddly, Leah reminded him of Josephine tonight, deceptive in her sparkle, adept at making others feel comfortable when she herself felt the most uncomfortable. But with Josephine, such a display of careless ease had irritated him because after the party ended and the guests left, she would continue the facade with such precise determination, such unbending resolution, he wanted to shake her.

Leah, even as she laughed and cajoled, gave Lev quick glances full of clouded doubt, and he would nod, because they were in this together. Even in her distressed state, Lev found her sadly luminous. Dark shadows hung around her eyes and her lips were dry and cracked, but it was a side of her, this fragility, he had rarely seen, and he felt a protective desire to fold away her troubles, to fold away the past and the future so they only knew the present. But he could only hold her smooth white hand and impress upon her, through their shared touch, that he loved her.

The stable had been cleaned for the wedding with yellow sand strewn on the floor. Strings of paper lanterns hung from the rafters, long tables were covered in coarse muslin, and on the tables waiting to be served: jellied calves feet, carrots with prunes, sauerkraut with red berries and pickles, cooked apples, tea and beer. Against the far wall, wooden planks on top of barrels served as a stage. Leah turned her head this way and that to talk to relatives who passed by while she held Lev’s hand. She was his and also not his. He studied her face, the way her eyes lit up when her aunt said she looked beautiful. Leah frowned and said she had no use for beauty, but her aunt disagreed, saying beauty is never useless.

Lev thought about telling her what Otto had said, about leaving in two days, but why ruin this blessed night? He wanted her to have the chance to feel beautiful, even with her protestations, to dance and sing and laugh without the encroaching dread of their separation. He stood next to her warm light body and she almost made him forget, with her
fluttering movements, how time was passing. How he would soon see Josephine, if he made it home. How he would resume his old life.