The Story of a Life

57

The Village of Kobrin

We left Brest for the village of Kobrin. Pan Gronsky went with us in his scratched and battered Ford. Brest was in flames. They were blowing up the fortress. The sky was thick with pinkish smoke.

Outside Brest we picked up two children who had lost their mother. They had been standing on the side of the road, clinging to each other – a little boy in a torn school coat and a skinny girl of twelve. The boy had pulled down the peak of his cap to hide his tears. The girl held him tight, her arms around his shoulders. We made room for them in our wagons and covered them with old coats. A biting rain began to fall.

We arrived in Kobrin in the evening. The retreating army had trampled the coal-black earth into thick mud. The wet muck reached up to the doorsteps of the crooked little houses with their rotting, slanted roofs. Horses neighed in the darkness, lanterns cast a dim light, wobbling cartwheels clanked and rain poured from the roofs in noisy streams.

In Kobrin we saw how what they call a tsaddik, a Jewish holy man, was being taken from the village. Gronsky told us that there were several of these tsaddiks in the western borderlands and Poland. They always lived in small villages. Hundreds of people from all over the country came to consult with them about their troubles. The villages lived off these visitors.

A crowd of agitated women had gathered around a low-slung wooden house. A covered wagon, drawn by four emaciated horses, stood by the door. I had never seen such an ancient contraption. Several dragoons stood around smoking. They were apparently to accompany the tsaddik for protection along the way. Suddenly, the crowd let out a cry and ran towards the door. The door flew open, and an enormously tall Jew, bristling with black whiskers, stepped out carrying, like a baby in his arms, a completely withered-up old man with a snowy beard wrapped in a blue coverlet. A few old women in long cloaks and pale youths in caps and frock coats hurried after the tsaddik. He was laid in the wagon, the old women and youths climbed in, the commander ordered the dragoons to mount, and the wagon set in motion, swaying and creaking through the mud. The crowd of women ran behind it.

‘Did you know a tsaddik never leaves his home for his entire life?’ said Gronsky. ‘Honest to God! And he’s fed by hand with little spoons. On the word of a hakham!’

In Kobrin we were billeted in a damp, old synagogue. It was empty except for one man sitting in the dark and muttering what must have been either prayers or curses. We lit our lanterns and saw an elderly Jew with sad, suspicious eyes.

‘Oy, oy, oy, dear soldiers!’ he said. ‘What great happiness you’ve brought us poor people.’

We just stood there, sullen and silent. The orderlies had found a piece of sheet metal in the courtyard and dragged it inside. We lit a fire on it and put on a kettle to make tea. The two children sat in silence by the fire. Gronsky walked in, the leather straps of his uniform squeaking, and said: ‘My friends, unharness the horses. To hell with it! I’m not moving any farther until dawn. The whole army’s pushing through the village now – we’d be ground to dust. Find those children something to eat.’

He looked at the children for a long time, and the flames from the fire reflected in his eyes. Then he spoke to the girl in Polish. She answered him in a whisper, not raising her eyes.

‘When will this all be over?’ Gronsky asked, out of the blue. ‘When will we finally get our hands around the necks of the dogs who started this bloody mess?’

Gronsky swore. No one said a word. Then the old Jew stood up. He approached Gronsky, bowed and asked: ‘Dear sir, do you happen to know who benefits from this misfortune?’

‘I don’t. Nor do you, old man!’ replied Gronsky. ‘Nor do these children, nor any of these people here.’

Sparks flew in the darkness outside the windows; the field kitchens were driving past the synagogue. ‘To the kettles, all of you. Get some soup!’ said Gronsky. We went over to the kettles set up by the soldiers. The little boy came with us. Orderly Spolokh held him firmly by the hand.

A crowd of hungry refugees was trying to get to the kettles. The soldiers held them back. Torches swung in the dark and seemed to catch nothing but eyes – the glazed, bulging eyes of people who could see only the steaming kettles. This crowd was more desperate than the one back in Vyshnitsa.

‘Let me go!’ someone yelled.

The crowd lunged forward. It tore the little boy from Spolokh’s hand. He stumbled and fell under the feet of several hundred people hurling themselves towards the kettles. He didn’t even have a chance to cry out. Men tore the bowls from each other’s hands. Women hurriedly stuffed bits of hot, waxen pork into their starving babies’ mouths. Spolokh and I threw ourselves towards the boy, but the crowd thrust us back. I was unable to shout. A spasm gripped my throat. I pulled out my revolver and fired in the air. The crowd drew back. The boy lay in the mud. There were tears on his pale, dead cheeks. We picked him up and carried him to the synagogue.

Spolokh cursed. ‘Well, just wait … just wait. Give us a moment to draw our strength, and then we’ll make them pay for this,’ he said.

We brought him in and laid the body down on a greatcoat. The girl saw him and got up. She shook so hard we could hear her teeth chatter. ‘Mama!’ she whispered, backing towards the doors. ‘Oh, Mama!’ she cried and ran out into the street.

Convoys were rumbling by.

‘Mama!’ we heard her wail from outside.

We stood there frozen, until Gronsky shouted at us: ‘Go and get her, now! Move, damn you!’

Romanin and the orderlies dashed out into the street. I ran after them. The girl had vanished. I untethered my horse, jumped on and rode into the thick of the carts, whipping at the sweaty horses to clear a way through. I galloped down the street, then rode back and stopped some soldiers to ask whether they had seen a girl in a grey coat. They didn’t even bother to answer me.

Wooden shacks on the edge of town had been set on fire. The glow flickered in the puddles, intensifying the chaotic impression of carts, guns, horses and wagons, that confused mass of a nighttime retreat. I returned to the synagogue. The girl was not there. The boy lay on the coat as though asleep, his cheek pressed against the wet cloth. The fire was dying, and I didn’t find anyone in the damp, dark synagogue other than the elderly Jew who sat beside the boy and was still muttering his prayers or his curses.

‘Where is everyone?’ I asked him.

‘How should I know?’ he answered with a sigh. ‘Everyone wants some hot soup.’ He paused for a moment and then went on in a low, clear voice: ‘Sir, I am a saddle maker. My name is Josef Schifrin. I don’t know how to say what is in my heart. Sir, we Jews know from our Prophets that God punishes the wicked. But where is He, our God? Why did He not rip out the eyes of the men responsible for this misfortune? Why did He not smite them with fire?’

‘God? What’s God got to do with it?’ I said rudely. ‘You talk like a stupid old man.’

He gave me a sad smile. ‘Listen,’ he said and touched the sleeve of my coat. ‘Listen, you are intelligent and educated.’

He paused again. A steady glow shone through the synagogue’s dusty windows.

‘I’ve been sitting here, thinking. I don’t know as well as you who exactly is responsible for all this. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t even go to the cheder. But I’m not completely blind, and I do see a few things. And so, I ask you, sir, who will make them pay? Who will make them pay, and pay dearly, for this little boy? Or are you all so kind and good that you’ll pity and forgive them – those people who gave us this nice little present, who gave us this war? Oh, my God, when will people finally come together and make a decent life for themselves?’

He stretched his arms up towards the ceiling of the synagogue, closed his eyes and, swaying back and forth, let out a piercing cry. ‘Where is the man who will avenge us? I don’t see the man who will dry the tears of the suffering and give milk to the mothers whose babies suckle at their empty breasts. Where is he who will sow the fields with grain for the hungry? Where is he who will take the gold from the rich and give it to the poor? May those who stain men’s hands with blood and rob the poor be cursed until the end of the time! May they have no children, no grandchildren! May their seed rot and their own spittle turn to poison in their mouths. May the air they breathe turn to sulphur and the water they drink to boiling tar! May the blood of this child poison the bread of the rich and may they choke on it and die in anguish like tormented dogs!’

The old man was screaming. He held out his balled fists and shook them at the ceiling. His voice thundered through the synagogue.

I was terrified and went out. Leaning back against the wall of the synagogue, I lit a cigarette. It was drizzling, and the black of the night was slowly settling upon the ground. The darkness seemed to deliberately shut me in with my thoughts about the war. One thing was clear to me: no matter what, we had to put an end to it. We had to use all our strength and every last drop of our blood to bring peace and justice at long last to this desecrated, beggared earth.