Then Sings My Soul (16 page)

CHAPTER 28

Jakob lay on his side, his hip aching from the commotion of the day. He decided he didn't mind having a bed in the den, surrounded by his beloved books. The moon reflected off the dogwood blossoms—the most vibrant show the tree had put on in years—outside the window. He and Catherine had planted the tree when Nel was born, after Catherine had read in Genesis about Abraham planting a tree shortly after Isaac was born. Jakob's mind drifted to the old stories of Abraham and Isaac, his namesake Jacob, the wandering of the Israelites, and the things Mattie had said about hanging on to pain.

What if she was right?

She probably was right.

She was always right.

But that would mean he'd wasted his life, wouldn't it?

He hadn't though, not completely. After all, he'd provided for Catherine. He'd loved her deeply. He loved Nel. He loved his brother, the Stewarts, and his family.

And yet, he'd loved conveniently, and with boundaries—walls so tall and so reinforced with pain and fear that whatever he allowed himself to feel was more contentment than passion. More resignation than peace.

His eyelids grew heavy as the argument continued within him, and the shimmering moonbeams shifted, illuminating another landscape …

“M
y
zna
ў
demo sposib.”
*

Peter's confidence did not convince little Jakob, who ached for Mama and Papa. He longed to sit at Papa's feet, for the warmth of the fire, for the soft hammer of Papa's voice as he spoke and bantered with Sasha the priest late into the night, and the way he whispered into Mama's ear and made her giggle when he came in from the fields. Jakob's heart throbbed, and the journey since they left the shtetl had become only more horrifying the farther west they raced toward Austria-Hungary.

Peter said evil men wanted them dead because they were Jewish—even though they had accepted Messiah Yeshua. Their conversion didn't matter to the pogromshchik. Nothing mattered to those madmen. They made up stories about the Jews being set against the tsar, when all the people—any people—wanted was to live in peace in the beautiful countryside. The land of Ukraine was like a Siamese twin, pulled between its own independence and Great Mother Russia. Young men in their twenties caught on fire with zeal from propaganda leaflets thrown in the streets, telling them to put down anyone who resisted. What they resisted did not matter. And so they picked the Jews, whose differences were most obvious. None of it made sense to Jakob.

“Like the cloud and pillar of fire for the Israelites, God goes before us, and He comes behind, Jakob.”

The sky hung above the two boys as they traveled, a curse of clear-blue cold biting through their fur and sheepskin coats. Jakob thought Peter referred to the story of Moses leading the Israelites, that God had led them with the clouds and fire of which Peter spoke, one of many stories he recited to help distract them from the freezing air. Even Galya seemed to long for warmth and a place to stay and rest. He had quit fighting the bit and reins. Around his muzzle, frozen breath formed a ring of snow, and frozen spittle dripped into icicles.

Tears froze on Jakob's face even as they rolled out of his eyes, so fierce was the wind and so brutal was the cold. He could not have guessed how long Peter had been racing Galya across the flat and snowy fields, only that the moon rose higher and higher as they rode. The moon and stars shone on the snow and ice, which shimmered and glowed, making everything—trees, shrubs, abandoned oxcarts, and plows—along the horizon look like ghosts chasing them. If Jakob had to run from them, he knew he couldn't; his legs were numb and nearly frozen stiff.

Crack!

Galya bucked at the sudden burst of sound, and Peter, who had jumped as well, pulled hard on the horse's reins. “Shhh, shhh, now, Galya. There now. Hush.” Peter guided Galya toward a patch of naked birch trees. He reached forward and ran his hand along the gray horse's neck, Galya's frenzied eyes nearly popping out of his head.

More cracks of gunfire pierced the air. Jakob felt fear hastening his brother's breathing, and for the thousandth time, he prayed Papa was right—that whoever held the guns would see they were just boys and in no way a threat to the tsar … that they might not assume they were Jews, but simply orphans, like so many others in the land, all running from something, starving flesh stretched tight over their ribs.

It was a wonder they survived that night—or any of the others—when Peter had done his best to carve a shelter out of the several feet of snow on the ground. They dared not light a fire. The sounds of gunfire mixed with memories of the guttural screams of his mother and sisters that would not leave Jakob's ears, and as he crawled into the little cave in the snow, he was once again stuck in the cupboard, hiding and too afraid to help or cry out or even try to defend his family. Screams and cries and shotgun blasts. On and on and on it went.

Until finally the night fell silent.

Silence thicker than the several feet of snow around them.

Silence darker than the sky above.

And Jakob knew then that if there were a hell, it would be full of silence.

When Peter and Jakob awoke in the morning, they ate the last of the near-rancid beef and raw beets they'd found in the cupboards of the homes of the last abandoned shtetl they'd passed through. Peter set Jakob on Galya's sagging back, and they set off again, staying far from where they thought the gunfire had come from the night before. But then they stumbled upon it, the snowy road, trampled flat by what must've been hundreds of human feet. Peter stopped Galya, who whinnied and stamped his hoof as though he was annoyed to have another crazed ride cut short. Peter walked closer to the newly trampled path, following it into the dense groves of pine, where it disappeared.

Jakob tugged on his brother's coat, pulling at him, begging him wordlessly not to go on.

“Shhhhh—wait here.”

Jakob was too afraid to wait alone, and the gap in the trees swallowed them, the thickness of the evergreens darkening with each step they took. The snow-packed path narrowed as the ground inclined heavenward, where a half-dozen hawks, wings as wide as ship sails, floated on the sky above. The muffled moan of an infant echoed the bitter cry of a mourning dove overhead. Part of Jakob wanted to run back to Galya, but the better part of him stayed close to Peter as he kept walking toward the sounds. Finally they came upon a steep ravine, and the sight below caused everything in Peter's belly to come rushing out of him, splatting against the crushed snow at their feet.

Jakob peered over the edge as Peter heaved behind him, and he was greeted by the stare of an unmoving girl, about the age of their sister Ilana. Her jaw was slack, and a trickle of blood ran down the side of her ashen face. Next to her lay a dead infant, and under the infant, a man and a woman, still clutching each other, half their heads blown off.

There were hundreds of them.

All naked, dead. Twisted and unmoving.

The gaping hole steamed with the warmth of their lifeblood rising and disappearing into the cruel, clear sky.

Was this the pillar of clouds Peter had meant?

The boys didn't stay to find which infant still made sounds, but ran, as they had run from their parents and sisters, back to Galya.

Jakob ran, but his legs wouldn't work. He fell and lost sight of Peter. Arms and hands reached up out of the ravine for him, and he screamed at his legs, begging them to move, but still his legs lay limp beneath him.

“Peter! Help me! Peter!”

“Dad! Wake up. It's a dream. It's just a dream.”

Jakob trembled, still fighting the darkness and the feel of blackness, of voiceless corpses reaching for him. He pushed against whoever held his arms down.

“Dad, it's me, Nel. It's a dream. You're having a dream.”

He heard a click and light filled the room, nearly blinding him. He squinted as the face before him came into focus, then he grabbed at the person. “Help me … my legs, they won't work—”

“Dad,” the face said. “Wake up, Dad. You're home. You're safe. You're home.”

“Catherine?”

“No. Nel. It's me. It's your daughter.”

He felt the arms around him, rocking him as if he were a child, wiping the sweat off his face and neck. Then he burst into tears. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay, Dad. You're safe. Let it go now. It was just a dream. Let it go.”

CHAPTER 29

“Mind if I watch?”

Nel grinned at her dad's question as she leaned over the worktable and used pliers to twist the heavy silver wire. “That's usually my question, isn't it?”

“Used to be.”

She didn't take her eyes off the wire as she bent and wrapped, twisted and turned it around the newly shined and tumbled piece of jade. At the same time, she listened to the thump, drag, and shuffle of her dad and his walker as he hobbled into the workroom. It'd been a good couple of weeks since he'd had the night terror, and both of them were feeling more at ease, even in a routine. Nel took to sleeping late, as had Jakob, whom she knew had been relieved to be away from Lakeview's strict rehabilitation schedule. Up at 6:30. Breakfast at 6:45. First round of physical therapy at 7:15, then occupational therapy at 8:00. There might've been time for a nap between occupational therapy and community exercise hour at 9:30, but that had been rare. Though the Lakeside staff tried to cluster their tasks, especially at night, to allow residents regular sleep schedules, she'd learned from the memory-care doctors how even a couple of unnatural interruptions were too much for the fragile rhythms of a geriatric, causing exhaustion, adding to confusion, and compounding tendencies toward anxiety and depression. So much of that heaviness had lifted off her father after he'd come home, and Nel knew this was one reason for what everyone—she, Mattie, and even David—felt was a new brightness, even an extension, of his life.

“Do you remember all I taught you about reflection and refraction?” His question applied to faceting, which he preferred to talk about over cabochons, tumbled rocks, and metalworking. Those subjects were too easy for him intellectually, although he had enjoyed doing some of that work too. He simply preferred the intricate calculations of angles and measurements, the exactness required to bring out the most brilliance in a gemstone.

Nel didn't have to think hard to answer Jakob's question. Everything she'd watched him do and listened to him say had stuck with her. “The angles on the outside reflect the light. When the light bounces off the angles on the back of the stone, that's called refraction. It's what gives the stone its brilliance and shimmer.”

“That's my girl.”

Nel paused her work on the bracelet and glanced at the rock Jakob had poked around his containers for and now held in his hand.

“I always liked this tourmaline,” he said. One end of the stone was a pale green, which blended gracefully into the other end, which was pink. When heated, it would turn any number of solid colors, depending on the time and temperature used.

“Prettier heated, I think.”

“Me too,” Jakob said as he poked around some more in a box of old agate.

“I remember those.” She referred to the oval pencil marks on the surface of the agate where Jakob had long ago identified where to make the first cuts to the stone. If he made cabochons, agate was especially fun to work with, vignettes and scenes hidden within the striations and patterns of the stone. She pointed to the image isolated by one penciled-in oval in particular. “That one looks like little blackbirds, or eagles, maybe, soaring over snowcapped mountains.”

“I thought the pattern on this one looked like the outline of sea grass on the shore.” He pointed to another.

“The storyteller's stone, you always called it.” Nel turned off the brightest light glaring on the worktable and set her wire and tools aside. If she was ever going to talk to him about his past, this was as good a time as any. But she'd start with Mom. “I miss her.”

Jakob appeared startled by the mention of Catherine. They didn't avoid talking about Catherine, necessarily. It had simply become easier to let the days go by without bringing her up. He sat down heavily on the chair across from her and rubbed his knees.

Nel continued. “I miss her cooking. The way she smelled like lilacs and night cream.”

Jakob inhaled deeply. “The way she sang when she folded and ironed the laundry.”

“To Pat Boone,” they said in unison, laughing.

“Yeah—and that time she tried to teach me to sew,” Nel said. “And when I wore the skirt to the market, it fell apart.”

“Homemade fried chicken on the beach. Homemade gingerbread men at Christmas.”

“Gingerbread girls. She always made girls, not men … for me, she said.”

“Only the good die young,” Jakob said, joy on his face falling as he nudged his bifocals farther up on his nose.

“That's not true, Dad.” Emotion welled up in her. “You're good, Dad. And you're all I have.”

Jakob responded by reaching out and patting her hand.

She squeezed his back, then reached across the table to the box where she kept the kiddush cup and aquamarine since she'd found them, as well as Catherine's research. “Speaking of Mom, I found this when I was going through some things.”

She pulled each item out of the box, and the moment Jakob saw the aquamarine, his whole countenance changed, filled with emotion she didn't recognize. She handed the stone to him, and he sank back into the chair and turned it in his hands.

“Does any of this have anything to do with your brother? With Peter?” The only way she was going to find out anything was if she came right out and asked him. She'd heard nothing from the correspondence she sent to Ukraine and had resigned herself to never hearing from them. “Dad, I don't want to upset you, but I'd love to know more about him, and about your past. Where you—where we—came from. Peter must've been important to you, for you to keep these things all these years.”

She watched as her dad struggled with a response, opening his mouth to speak, then closing it again as if having a silent argument with himself about what he would and would not say.

He held the stone up to the sunlight coming in the window, and the facets caught the light, sending dappled bursts of reflections across the walls of the room.

“I will tell you my story.”