Hershel, “we spoke with Rabbi Warnitski this afternoon, and he agrees that your reputation won’t be shattered if we stay on here.” Hanna’s face registered disbelief, and then her eyes clouded over. “We know,” went on Hershel hastily to forestall the tears, “that it may be difficult, working, preparing meals, and all that, but we won’t mind pitching in.”
“I could kiss you both,” she said, overcome with emotion. Then she smiled. “But Jakob would be ruined for life.”
Jakob chuckled. It was good to see her smile. He had experienced a pang of resentment when Stephen had gone into the bedroom where Hanna was mourning and had closed the door behind him. It had not completely surprised him, this notion of displeasure, for he had the same feeling whenever Hanna occupied herself with the Russian, or even when she spoke with complete attention to Hershel. He enjoyed bantering with her, and having others about seemed to interrupt this pleasant game.
“I have to tell you,” he said with a straight face, “that I have kissed a girl not of the family.”
Hershel pretended shock. “No!” he exclaimed. He looked severely at the children hanging onto every word. “I want all of you to stick your fingers in your ears,” he ordered them. “Jakob may make a revelation that young people shouldn’t hear.”
They started laughing. “Tell us, Jakob,” said Gitel. “Who did you kiss?”
“A very pretty girl,” he said, nodding his head in deep memory. He stared at each one deliberately; his lips pursed; his eyes narrowed. “I did it as a bet,” he slowly added.
“A bet!” chortled Hershel. “Hurry up, Jakob. The suspense is driving me crazy. Who was she?”
Jakob took a deep breath. “A neighbor’s doll,” he burst out, his eyes sparkling. “I was five years old.” The children screeched with glee.
CHAPTER 13
Katrine stretched lazily in her seat. The train connection at Zlobin had amazingly been on time, and one of the car porters had promptly handed down her cases through a window to a leather aproned baggage handler, who placed them on a stout wooden cart with large iron wheels, and, armed with the car number and private compartment of the train to Kiev, sped ahead to pass the cases up to the waiting attendant there to be carefully stowed in her reserved room. Katrine tipped the conductor and car porter liberally, and was fussily handed down the train steps to the platform. With seeming indifference, she walked over to the waiting train, but from the moment the luggage was taken from her room, lazy appearing, but sharp glances had followed the movements of the cases to their new destination. Only when she had been graciously handed up the steps by the new conductor, led to her compartment by one of the car porters, and swiftly counted the number of pieces of luggage, did she let herself relax.
But the compartment! It was for only two people! She had ordered one for four. Her exasperation was promptly relayed to the car conductor, who rushed to her room, and apologetically explained that all compartments had been reserved before her request had been received, and that a very important chemical manufacturer and his wife had been removed to another car to make this one available.
To mollify her, he had asked if the Countess would please accept an espresso while she was getting settled. The conductor had personally supervised its making, dipping a finger into the brew and then to his lips to ascertain that it had the precise degree of sharpness that aficionados savored, then brought along a container of finely ground sugar kept only for those of Katrine’s rank and present disposition. He had thoughtfully placed on the tray two petits fours, baked by a French pastry cook in Zlobin.
Appeased by the coffee and the sweet cakes, she gave herself over to the unexpected developments with Hershel. The thought of marriage to him was consuming her every thought, and as hard as she tried, she could not bring herself down to solid earth. From the moment she realized that she was completely in love with him, almost six months ago, she knew one, unalterable fact; that marriage with Hershel would be for life. Among her peers, divorce was not uncommon, and many of her social order, if ardor waned and divorce was not practical, sought solace elsewhere, either in the arms of a lover or with a hobby or by having children. But that would not go with Hershel. He would work at the marriage as if it was the only thing that existed, and if it did not work out, he would not accept it like the others, for it would destroy him. In his eyes, the marriage would be sacred, and any woman who got him should light a candle each morning with thanksgiving.
Sharing Hershel’s life would not be a bed of roses, she acknowledged. Fortunately, there would be no financial problems. Her grandmother had left her a small fortune, which her father, a thick, tough, landholder of huge estates three days ride northeast of Moscow, had invested in properties in various cities outside of Russia.
Hershel had been cool to the idea of meeting her family. “Later,” he had said. This she also understood. His viewpoints on life would conflict harshly with those of her people; that is Judaism, socialism, philosophy.
“Reasoning,” he had once commented with conviction, as if it were a sore tooth that must be tongued constantly. “That’s the only thing that counts. There is an ocean of mental giants swirling about, who know every leaf that grows, and every shadow cast by a flying bird. But in most cases they are merely overloaded card files. Someday, one of their kind will invent a machine that has a card file larger than mankind itself and can come up with an answer more quickly than a Chinese abacus. We now know that a clock is part of a dimension visible only to the naked eye and that there might be other dimensions that our senses cannot perceive. Also that God Himself has a female counterpart.”
She suddenly began laughing, and he leaned back in bed and stared at her with pretended severity. “I’m beginning to suspect that you have a degenerate mind,” he observed.
She laughed harder. “I can’t help it,” she said. “All I can see is this female pumping away at God’s leg.” The glee abruptly fled, and she turned a worried face towards his. “I’ve said something awful, haven’t I?”, she said tightly.
Hershel exploded in mirth. “Lord, how did you ever conjure up such a picture.” He drew her closer and kissed the top of her head. “Certainly not. What you said was precisely what we were talking about. Male, female, man God, woman God, ergo love and gratification. It can all be reasoned. Science explains that everything in existence, perhaps even rocks, is male-female. Why is God different? Maybe God is a woman and Her counterpart is male.”
She snuggled closer, her body tingling with pleasure at being part of a union so full of values that it burnished the mere physical act of sex. Under different circumstances, she would have felt lust surging through her loins. But Hershel took you whirling past that to other fulfillments, like the subject at hand.
“You will probably be able to prove it,” she said.
“At the risk of being excommunicated by the Jewish authorities, I refer you to the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament, which contains a reference to a female with whom God found pleasure before making the universe.”
She sat up abruptly and looked at him with astonishment. “Is that really true?”
“The existence of the Septuagint and the reference is true. Whether God had a female companion is another matter.”
“That’s not reasoning,” she said carefully. “That is evidence.”
With another man, she would have expected a compliment for having responded in such fashion, but Hershel
