was putting away the cleaning materials she had used upstairs. “I thought the orthodox did not believe in killing.” she said.
His eyes rested on her with that same probing look. “I am a Hasid,” he finally said.
“You are orthodox, are you not?”
“Yes. But we see the laws a little differently.”
Hanna was not sure whether he was speaking down to her. It was not in his voice, for he was polite, nor was it in his manner, for he had given her all his attention. It was not definable. Maybe it was his air of total confidence.
“My father says that the law is the law,” she went on.
“He is absolutely correct,” said Jakob. “There is only Torah. But while the orthodox walk the line, we Hasidim stay within the line.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Jakob drew Zelek upon his knee, and the boy leaned his head against the man’s chest. “Torah says thou shalt not kill. It also demands an eye for an eye. Your people accept each of those pronouncements exactly as it is written, even though it may conflict when measured against another judgment. We place all of them in a circle, knowing that there is a time for killing and a time for martyrdom, a time for vengeance or for mercy, and even a time for a new eye to be given to some who have lost the first.” He placed an arm around Zelek. “I feel that this boy will one day be a soldier and that he will kill his Cossacks, and that the Lord will find favor with him.” He drained the remainder of his tea, lowered the boy to the floor, and stood up. “Do you have a hook?” he asked Zelek.
“I have one,” said Hanna. She took a hook from the storage area and held it out to him.
“Get it, Zelek,” he said. Once the hook was passed over, Jakob took his hand. “Come. Let us look over the river. I will show you how to fish.” With a nod at those in the room, he began leading the boy out of the house.
Hanna and Motlie stared at him stepping through the doorway, then at each other.
“What a queer one he is,” said Hanna.
Motlie shook her head. “I don’t know what to make of him. But did you see how Zelek took to him? I didn’t believe my eyes.”
I took to him, too, said Hanna to herself. She searched hard for an explanation, then it came to her. It was a kinship. She was strangely linked to him. As if her life had been programmed to occur with him in mind. It was not love, for she could never love another more than Stephen. It was also not passion, since the thought of making love with him as she did with Stephen was completely out of the question. There was something beyond all this.
She shook herself hard to stop the train of thought. Whatever it was, she really did not want any part of it. He was here to rest, to put a few needed kilos on his frame, then he was to go back to the world he belonged to, while she would remain in hers. And she was having enough problems with her world without having to worry about someone else’s.
Her main concern was that Stephen had left for a few days, and she missed him terribly. He and his family were off to the funeral of his mother’s brother halfway to St. Petersburg, and the world seemed empty without him. The nights were the worst. In the darkness of the room, lying flat on her back, with the stillness that releases the mind to dwell fully on her lover, the pang of being without him became almost unbearable. She could feel his weight upon her, his lips pressed tightly to hers, and him deep inside, thrusting at her heart. She could scarcely breathe. She tried to recapture the ecstasy of him flooding within her, and her like response, but all she could feel was intense happiness at loving him and being loved in return. Thank heavens he should be home soon, perhaps even today.
Israel came walking into the house, his face bright with hope. He had exchanged his crutch for a cane only that week, and after a couple of days of discomfort, he had adapted himself to putting a little more pressure on his hip and walking somewhat straighter.
“He’s here,” said Motlie. “The Hasid.” Israel lowered himself gingerly onto a chair. “Some tea?”
“Is there hot water?”
“Is there never hot water?” asked Motlie, placing a small amount of tea in a glass.
“All right. If there’s hot water.” He arched his back slightly. “Look, I can move my back a little.”
Motlie’s eyes grew soft as she nodded fondly at him. “Maybe, God willing, someday you’ll throw away even that cane.”
Israel made a face. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But you know…” he turned to Hanna, “…the Lord works in funny ways. It was my Great Uncle Schlemy, a bull of a man. He used to cut down trees in Minsk Gebemia. He didn’t go to shul, he went with a shiksa for…God knows how long…maybe four, five years, and he was as much of a Jew as the seniunas. Well, one day he’s cutting this tree, and when it starts falling, he stands back and trips on something. He lands right on his axe and cuts the muscles and the tendons and everything else in his left leg. Another man, the doctor would have cut off the leg, but Uncle Schlemy is such a bull that he sews him up and sends him home. He says that Uncle Schlemy will never use that leg again. Then, all of a sudden, after a year of doing nothing, he gets rid of the shiksa, finds a nice Jewish girl, and starts going to the shul every other day.” Israel sipped at the glass of tea Motlie placed in front of him. “Everybody said he was trying to bribe the Lord. You know, I’ll do this if you’ll do that. But the Lord looks at things different from you and I. Whatever the reason, the Lord doesn’t count it a bribe. He’s just so happy that you come to Him–like a father when a child asks for help–that the reason isn’t important. Well, you won’t believe it, but six months to the day that Uncle Schlemy turns to the Lord, he gets feeling in that leg. Not much. A tingling maybe, but it starts. And six months later, he’s back cutting trees again. Until the day he died, may God rest his soul, he blessed the name of the Lord.” He bit down on a sugar cube, took a sip of tea, and leaned back into his chair. “I want to walk again, like everybody else, and I hope the Lord will help me. But what is important, for me, and…” he pointed at Hanna and Motlie, “…to both of you, is that you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and whatever He decides, so be it.”
Hanna’s heart almost stopped beating. He knows about Stephen and me, went pounding in her mind. She eyed him closely, but Israel was finishing up his tea and gave no indication the story was for her.
He got up from the chair, hobbled to the sink, and rinsed his glass. “What’s he like?” he asked Motlie.
“So thin you can see the bones.” She took the glass and dried it. “A queer one, though. Zelek took to him like you never saw before.”
“Where are they? I’ll be going to shul pretty soon.”
“They went down to the river,” said Hanna, wiping off the table. She slipped out of her apron. “I will go after Zelek and tell him to come home.
CHAPTER 8
About half an hour before sunset, Israel, Jakob, and Zelek went to the synagogue. Inside the small building, in the center of the room, was the bimah, a raised platform from which the services took place. About three-quarters of the men and boys in the village were in attendance, each of them wearing his best clothing, and, under his shirt,
