Then Sings My Soul (6 page)

CHAPTER 8

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below,

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

The pipes of the old organ belted out the familiar refrain, but Jakob did not sing along. He knew why Catherine had chosen this hymn to conclude her funeral, and he did not wish to comply with her reasoning.

“Praise Him even when you don't feel like it. Always, always praise,” she'd said.

He figured she'd chuckle at his stubbornness, which transcended the fact that she'd passed. He was tired. Tired of funerals. Tired of watching everyone he knew and loved be buried while waiting for his own burial, which ever eluded him. Tired of the realization he'd had for some time now that life really was meaningless, as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes. God seemed to be everywhere around the dead, but Jakob had yet to find much evidence of Him around the living, besides on the countenance of his wife and a few other exceptions like Mattie. More than that, why sing if you don't feel like it?

He felt like hollering this question out loud, jolting Reverend Winslow and the rest of the mournful assemblage, disrupting the plangent vibratos of Catherine's octogenarian friends singing in the pew behind him.

When he got home, he'd put a note on the inside flap of his Bible telling people to read Ecclesiastes, the entire first chapter, at his funeral, about how none of the laboring, the sunrises and sunsets, mattered. How the generations are forgotten. How living long and getting old doesn't mean a hill of beans. And how faith, once you've seen folks slaughtered because of it, becomes something you lock tight deep inside.

As Reverend Winslow began the eulogy, Jakob flipped the pew Bible open to the eighteenth verse of the first chapter of Ecclesiastes.
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief,
1
he read in silence.

And with age, much pain. He couldn't understand why everyone in America was so fixated on living as long as possible. His body reminded him of an old car, three out of his four major leg joints replaced, three heart catheterizations to keep his blood flowing, uric acid collecting in his gouty feet like oil sludge. He'd consider himself lucky if his alternator went ahead and gave out.

More grief
, Solomon had written.

Indeed.

He rubbed a large age spot on his hand, which trembled as he shoved the pew Bible back under the seat and grasped the handle of his cane.

1908

Chicago, Illinois

CHAPTER 9

When Peter and Jakob had learned English as well as could be expected, the Stewarts enrolled them in Saint Stanislaus Catholic School with many other lost and language-challenged children from the neighboring Eastern European immigrant sections of Chicago. Many of the children were from the Ukrainian Village neighborhood bordering Wicker Park, as well as from the surrounding Polish neighborhoods. This thrilled Peter and Jakob and all the children because they could talk in their native languages at recess, in the halls, and whenever a teacher wasn't around to demand they use their English. No one cared whether they were Jewish or Orthodox or a combination either. Everyone honored whatever bits and pieces of faith—if any—had survived their journeys to the States.

Jakob was in the second grade and Peter in high school, a couple of years older than many of his classmates so he could catch up with the language. On a Friday evening as the sun was setting, Jakob walked into Peter's room to find him kneeling, holding the one frayed tassel from Papa's
tzitzit
1
in his hands.

“Do you remember when Papa made this and the others he wore on the four corners of his garment?” Peter asked.

Jakob nodded. He remembered. Papa wound the strings, teaching them both in what seemed a lifetime ago, what the pattern represented.

“Do you remember what the first seven windings are for?”

“Creation,” Jakob said without hesitation.

“Yes. And the second eight?”

Jakob shook his head. He couldn't recall.

“That one is harder,” Peter reassured him. “Eight is the number of days from when the Israelites left Egypt to when they sang their song of deliverance when they reached the Red Sea. And the reason for the four tassels?”

Jakob did remember this, but he wouldn't say.

“You don't remember?”

Jakob shook his head, unwilling rather than lying.

“Then I'll tell you.”

Jakob wished he wouldn't.

“We're supposed to look for Yahweh, to remember He is with us, on all sides of us. Helping us. Guiding us. Jehovah-Shammah.”

Jakob frowned.

“You don't think so?”

Jakob hesitated, then shook his head again. Where was Yahweh on the ship? Where was Yahweh in the woods? Where was he with the girl they'd found in the barn? And most of all, where was Yahweh in the horror that occurred in Chudniv? Yahweh had done nothing but abandon them.

“Papa believed it. He said El Shaddai is always watching over us.”

Jakob felt the sickness that always came deep from inside his belly whenever he remembered Papa. What he would give to see him again, to sink into his thick arms, to hear his laughter, his singing, his prayers. Yes, Papa had believed it. But if Papa had known everything that would happen to them, would he still have believed?

“You are mighty forever, my L-rd; You resurrect the dead; You are powerful to save …,”
Peter recited from the Amidah.

Jakob's sick feeling turned to anger. “Go on and believe the Amidah, the Shema, and all that old nonsense if you want to. But that's all it is. Nonsense.”

“Jakob—”

“God may be real, but He doesn't keep His promises. At least not to us.”

“You don't think there's a reason we made it here and have been blessed with a new family who loves us? Abraham had to leave his land, his people, too, and he became the father of our faith. You don't think perhaps Yahweh, even Yeshua, had reasons for delivering us?”

“No.” Jakob nearly spat his answer into Peter's face. “I wish Yahweh and Yeshua had delivered the rest of our family instead of me.”

Peter, exasperated with what had become nearly constant sulking from his little brother, shoved Jakob onto the bed.

“What's that for?” Jakob held his shoulder.

“Someone needs to put some sense into you. Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Don't you think I wish it were them instead of me too? But I can't. If I think that more than a second, I die inside. But I have to keep going. For you. And for them. They would want us to keep going too.”

Jakob pounced at his brother, but Peter pushed him onto the bed again, this time climbing on top of him, straddling him, pinning his arms against his sides. Jakob's chest felt as if it would explode.

“Get … off … me!”

“No. Not until you listen.”

“You can talk all you want, but I won't hear a thing,” Jakob gasped.

“Listen anyway,” Peter growled. “Don't you remember what Mama taught us about giving thanks, always giving thanks? Do you think I want to? No! But I do anyway. It's only because I say the prayers every morning and every night, whether I feel like it or not, that my heart has not hardened like granite.”

He crawled off Jakob and sat on the bed, and some of the patience that always comforted Jakob returned to his voice. “Don't you think Mama and Papa would be happy we are alive? It wasn't chance that made me turn around and come back the day after the raid. It wasn't chance that I found you in the cupboard. It wasn't chance that we made it through the mountains so many perish in before they ever reach the sea—”

“Why
did
you come back? Sometimes I wish you'd never found me.” Jakob pulled his knees up tight against his chest.

Peter fell silent. The only sounds for a long while were those of a mouse scuttling beneath the floorboards and of embers cracking and popping in the fireplace. When at last he spoke, he whispered. “I think about it sometimes too. About how much simpler it would've been if we could've either all died or all lived. But I can't let myself stay in those thoughts or I'd go mad.” He put his arm around Jakob and pulled him close. “You and I have the job now of making the most of this freedom. We have to live and live well. We have to keep seeking God's will, and somehow, in the midst of that, we have to keep thanking and praising Him. If we don't, we die along with them, and they along with us.”

Jakob knew Mama and Papa would be happy, yes, but he didn't wish to acknowledge this. Shame and anger overwhelmed him.

And grief.

He missed them all so much.

And for the first time since Chudniv, emotion overwhelmed him. Maybe he finally felt safe enough in the Stewarts' home, where they were surrounded by down comforters and glowing fires. Maybe he was old enough to finally understand what he felt. Maybe there was no reason at all except that it was time for him to cry. Whatever the reason, before he could stop himself, he was weeping. He wept until nothing was left inside him except for the one thing he thought he could never confess. And finally, the confession emptied itself too. “She would've lived if I'd stopped them.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter said as he scooted back on the bed to look at Jakob square on.

Jakob hesitated. “Faigy.”

Peter grasped his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Faigy? What about her?”

“Faigy and Papa's second stone, the one he'd saved for their passage. They're gone because of me.”

“That's crazy talk. You couldn't have stopped the
pogromshchik
. No one could have.”

“It was only one.”

“One man couldn't have done all I saw—”

“No. Later. After the many left, one came back. And Faigy was alive,” Jakob interrupted. He hadn't wanted to tell Peter, but since he'd started, he couldn't stop.

“Alive? What do you mean?”

Jakob began to cry again. He explained how after the group of maniacs left the house, after they'd killed everyone, he heard Faigy. He'd thought she was dead too, but they must've just knocked her out, because he found her standing next to Zahava, trying to get Zahava to wake up, but of course she wouldn't. Zahava would never wake up. “I found her doll and gave it to her, and it helped a little. She stopped crying. But there was nothing to give her to eat. The milk was spilled, the maniacs took all the food except a couple of potatoes. We both ate a little raw potato, but that's when I heard the sound of horses.”

“They came back?”

“I thought it was all of them coming back. I tried to get Faigy to come hide in the cupboard with me, but she wouldn't come. She was afraid of the dark, and she was afraid to move. She wouldn't hide.” He buried his face in his hands.

“Then what happened?”

“I hid anyway. I couldn't help it. I hid. And I saw the man through a crack in the cupboard door.” Jakob choked back tears. “I watched him … He grabbed Faigy and ransacked the cupboards and found Papa's stones, the rest of the scraps, and the other aquamarine Papa had hidden in the back of the cupboard … and … I … I could have screamed. If I'd screamed … then she wouldn't have been taken … or they would've taken me too … and at least she wouldn't have died alone.”

Peter sat back, face ashen, and studied his little brother.

Jakob was sure Peter would hate him.

“You were only four,” Peter said finally.

“But nearly five.” Jakob wiped his nose and face on the sleeve of his arm.

“Still, you were a baby too.” Peter pulled him close. “You did only what you knew to do. And if you hadn't—”

Jakob pushed away from him. “If I hadn't hidden, Faigy wouldn't have died.”

“If you hadn't hidden, you
both
would've died.”

Jakob was silent for a moment, considering this. “But I could've at least thought to grab Papa's stone before they came back.”

Peter stood and paced, exasperated. “So what if you had?”

“Then we'd have two.”

“Okay. Then we'd have two. But who cares about two stones? We have one, and we have each other. And that is enough.”

“It will never be enough,” Jakob said. Tears continued to run down his face, but he had stopped sobbing. He curled himself into a ball and lay down on Peter's bed facing the window, the darkening sky outside the leaded glass a blur to his stinging, weep-worn eyes.

Jakob recalled the day they'd buried their grandfather Dedus shortly before Easter the spring before they left Chudniv. That same evening, candlelight had flickered across the room as his sisters Zahava, Ilana, and Tova hunched over fragile eggs and used
kystkas
2
to drip melted beeswax onto the shells. He remembered the way the kitchen smelled as if he were there, honey from the wax, boiled bark and berries, sunflower-seed husks, cochineal, and elderberry, all used to make the dye for the
pysanky
.
3

Jakob had been sitting on his mama's lap watching. “Why do you make pysanky? We just buried Dedus.”

“We don't have to honor the shivah anymore, Jakob, not since we became Christian, right, Mama?” Ilana vaunted, then turned back to her egg, upon which she carefully dripped wax along predrawn lines curled into the shape of a flower.

“No, Ilana. That's not right. Not exactly.” Mama raised an eyebrow, a warning against Ilana's prideful tone. “We believe Yeshua is Messiah, yes, but we honor God the Father as we always have.” Mama nodded to the Bible Sasha the priest had given Papa at Christmas, in its place on the fireplace mantel. She and Papa had been requiring the children to read aloud from it as often as they could, especially the New Testament. Papa had been adamant that they all—even his daughters—know it as well as they knew the Torah. Sasha the priest came often to visit their shtetl. Father always invited him in, and Mama prepared and gave him the best of their food and drink. The tall, round, black hat he wore made his graying beard more prominent, especially against the rest of his dark clothing. Sasha and Papa and sometimes Peter, too, sat at the table in the kitchen talking about the Talmud and the Torah, arguing and laughing and arguing again, their conversations stretching deep into the night as they burned many candles to their nubs.

“Mama, are you sad Dedus is gone?” Jakob had whispered into her ear to avoid the teasing of his sisters.

“Yes, I am, very much. He was my Tato. And he loved to tickle me as I like to tickle you, my sweet boy.”

Jakob giggled as Mama's fingers played against his ribs, her whisper back to him tickling his ear too. When she stopped, he wrapped his small arms around her neck.

“Time for you to go to bed.” Mama hoisted Jakob until his head rested cozily on her shoulder, and she carried him to his bed. His was a small cot next to where Peter lay reading by candlelight. Her breath had always felt warm and soft against Jakob's ear. “Do you remember the Kaddish the rabbi said today at Dedus's funeral?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“My brothers, my sisters, and I must say it every day now for eleven months, and also a year from now, on the day Dedus died.”

“Why?”

“It's easy when something bad happens, especially when someone you love very much dies, to become bitter and angry at God. The rabbis believe saying the Kaddish can help us remember that God is good, that He is just and righteous, even when bad things happen. Because God does not cause the bad. Man causes the bad. God is always good. And so we are always to praise Him.”