THE JOURNEY THE JOURNEY Things were going well; I had said goodbye to my friends and was ready to leave, but my shoes were in bad condition and I went to the cobbler in our courtyard to get them resoled. The day was bright but the steps leading to his cellar room were dark, the corridor damp and moldy; I entered a tiny room littered with rags and shoes. The ceiling was crooked and the window small, the dirty panes patched with cardboard. I had thought that conditions were bad enough at home, but at least we had a spacious apartment with furniture and books. Here there were two beds full of soiled bedding and on one of them, in the midst of its own filth, lay a newborn baby, wrinkled, bald, and toothless, like a miniature hag. The mother fussed at a stove that kept smoking, and a young red-bearded man with sunken cheeks and a high forehead—yellowed like some of the leather about him—worked at the cobbler’s bench. Waiting while he resoled my shoes, I coughed from the dust and foul odors, and remembered what my brother had said about those who wore themselves out while idlers thrived. I was overcome with a sense of the injustice in the world, of young men going off to die or be wounded, of people whose constant work would not earn them a piece of bread, a shirt, or a baby crib. The cobbler, I knew, could not continue to struggle indefinitely. Sooner or later he would come down with typhus or consumption. And how could the baby flourish amid the smoke, dust, and stench? It was my brother’s opinion that there should be no rulers at all—that not only Nicholas, but Wilhelm, Karol, the English king, and all the rest should be ousted and replaced by republics; wars should be abolished in favor of popular rule. Why until now had this never been done, and why were monarchs despotic? When my shoes were repaired and I was once more in the sunlight, I felt guilty. Why should I be going on a wonderful trip while the cobbler was confined to his cellar? Today he still represents, in my mind, the ills of society. Although I was only a boy, I sympathized with the Russian revolutionaries. Nevertheless, I still pitied the Tsar, who was then being forced to chop wood. My brother Joshua accompanied us in a droshky to the Danzig Station, which was at that time called the Vistula Station. He bought tickets for us, and we walked to the platform to await the train. It seemed strange to be leaving all the familiar places and friends. But before long the huge locomotive, coughing and hissing steam, was ready for us, the awesome wheels dripping oil, a fire blazing within. Few people were traveling, and we found ourselves in an empty car. The German-Austrian border was only four hours away, at Ivangorod, or Deblin, as it was later called. With a screeching of whistles, the train began to move. On the platform, my brother Joshua seemed to grow smaller. Buildings, benches, and people moved backwards. It was thrilling to watch the world glide away, houses, trees, wagons, entire streets revolving and drifting apart as if the earth were a huge carousel. Buildings vibrated, chimneys rose out of the earth, wearing smoky bonnets. The towers of the Sobol, the famous Russian church, loomed over everything, its crosses glittering like gold in the sun. Flocks of pigeons, alternately black and gold, soared above the spinning, whirling city. Like a king or a great wizard, I rode through the world, no longer fearing every soldier, policeman, Gentile boy, or bum. What I had dreamed of for years was coming true. As we rode over a bridge I glimpsed tiny trolleys down below, and people resembling locusts, the way the spies during Moses’ time must have looked to the giants. Beneath us, on the Vistula, a ship sailed, and in the summer sky there were clouds resembling other ships, beasts, and piles of down. The train whistled again and again. Mother took cookies and a bottle of milk from a satchel. “Say the benediction …” Eating the cookies and drinking the milk, I forgot war, hunger, and illness. I was in a paradise on wheels. If only it would last forever! Even my friend Boruch-Dovid would not know about the existence of the parts of Warsaw and its environs that I now saw. I was amazed to find a trolley. If trolleys came this far, I could have gone there myself. But it was too late now. We passed a cemetery that seemed like a tombstone metropolis. I’d faint with fear, I thought, if I had to walk here at night … or even during the day. But why fear the dead when one is on a moving train? In Warsaw everyone was hungry, but the world we traveled through was beautiful and green. Mother kept pointing out the wheat, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, an apple orchard, a pear orchard—still unripe. She had been raised in a small town. Peasants mowed hay; women and girls, squatting among the furrows, dug out weeds, whose roots, Mother said, spoiled the grain. Suddenly I saw a phantom-like, faceless creature, with arms outstretched. “What’s that?” I asked. “A scarecrow to frighten the birds.” My brother wanted to know if he was alive. “No, silly.” I saw that he wasn’t alive, nevertheless he seemed to be laughing. In the midst of the field he stood, like an idol, while birds circled about him and screeched. At dusk, a conductor appeared, punched our tickets, exchanged a few words with Mother, and observed with fascination what to him was our strange, un-Gentile appearance—still bewildered, it seemed, despite the generations before him that had lived alongside the Jews. In the fading light, everything became more beautiful, blossoms seemed more distinct, everything was green, juice-filled, radiant with the light of the setting sun, and aromatic. I recollected the Pentateuch verse: “The odor of my son is like that of a field that the Lord has blessed.” It seemed to me that these fields, pastures, and marshes must resemble the land of Israel. The sons of Jacob were herding sheep nearby. Before Joseph’s stacks of grain, other stacks bowed down. The Ishmaelites would arrive soon, riding camels, their asses and mules loaded with almonds, cloves, figs, and dates. The Plains of Mamre were visible behind the trees. God was asking Abraham: “Wherefore did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return unto thee and Sarah shall have a son ….” Suddenly I saw something and asked Mother what it was. “A windmill.” Before we could get a good look, it vanished, as if by magic. But then it appeared again behind us, its blades spinning to grind flour … We saw a river, but Mother said it was not the Vistula. Then there were cows, red, black, spotted, grazing. We saw sheep. The world seemed like an open Pentateuch. The moon and the eleven stars came out, bowing before Joseph, the future ruler of Egypt. Evening came and lights were lit at the Ivangorod Station when we arrived. We were at the border, beside a kind of highway, and Mother said, “We’re in Austria.” The station was full of soldiers who were not as tall, erect, or stiff-backed as the Germans. Many were bearded and seemed Jewish; they wore shoes and puttees. The tumult reminded me of a second holiday night at the Radzymin study house. The men talked, smoked, and gesticulated, and I felt at home. “Let’s play chess,” I suggested to my brother. We did not know how long we would have to remain there. As soon as we had unpacked the chess set and sat down at a table to play, we were surrounded by soldiers and noncommissioned officers. Jewish soldiers asked us, “Where are you from?” “Warsaw.” “And where are you going?” “To Bilgoray. Grandfather is the Bilgoray Rabbi.” A bearded soldier said he had been to Bilgoray and knew the Bilgoray Rabbi. One soldier stood beside me and showed me where to move, while another soldier helped Moishe. Finally it was the soldiers who played while we moved the pieces. Mother watched us with anxious pride. The soldiers were Galician Jews who probably wore fur hats and mohair coats on the Sabbath. Their Yiddish had a somewhat flatter sound than what was spoken in Warsaw. One soldier allowed my brother to hold his sword and try on his cap. I do not remember how we spent that night, but the following day we rode to Rejowiec in another half-empty car. In Rejowiec, where there was a Russian prisoner-of-war camp, I saw unarmed Russians with unkempt hair and shabby uniforms digging under Austrian guard. Austrians and Russians crowded the depot commissary, which was kept by a Jew with a trimmed beard. Besides my mother, his young wife was the only woman there, and the men stared at her eagerly. Smiling and blushing, looking up slyly, she drew beer into mugs. Her husband seemed surly and dour and everyone knew what was bothering him: jealousy. Twisting their tongues to speak German, the Russians sounded as if they were speaking broken Yiddish. Certain Jewish soldiers among them did speak Yiddish. The Russian prisoners had built a new track from Rejowiec to Zwierzyniec, and continued working at it as we rode. While Nicholas chopped wood, Cossacks were learning Yiddish. For all anyone knew, the Messiah was on his way. BILGORAY BILGORAY