“Who could do such a thing?” Rachel’s mother appeared in the doorway, tears sliding down her face. “Everything we owned is gone. We have nothing left. Nothing.” She moved to the middle of the room, her face leeched of color, her shoulders sagging with despair.
Rachel had never seen her mother so defeated. This frightened her and made her world seem even more off-balance. She shivered and wondered if the worst was yet to come.
Rachel led them past the other ruined houses in their courtyard, now unrecognizable. When they got to the end of the house and turned the corner toward the street, Rachel cried out a heart-wrenching scream that echoed in the stale air.
On the trampled ground lay Mr. Macklin, the landlord of the house, and Mr. Berlatsky. Their bodies were broken, their limbs bent in impossible directions, and they were covered with mud. Feathers were scattered everywhere. A few feet to the right, Mrs. Berlatsky sat with Chaia’s head in her lap. Chaia’s eyes were closed but she was moving slightly and groaning, and her beautiful hair was matted with blood. The three other children sat at their mother’s feet weeping.
Rachel couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t take her eyes of Chaia. She felt as if she were watching from afar, that none of this was happening. Chaia had done nothing to deserve this. Neither had Mr. Macklin or Mr. Berlatsky or Mr. Grienschpoun—or their children, now fatherless. Their only shortcoming was their faith, a crime in the eyes of gentiles. Rachel peered at Chaia’s listless face, and began to wonder if believing in something you couldn’t even see—faith—was worth all the trouble it brought.
“We were hiding in the shed,” said Elena Berlatsky a few minutes later. Her voice quivered as she spoke. Nucia put her arms around the two smaller Berlatzky children while her mother and Mrs. Berlatsky sat with Chaia. “When we heard them coming after us, we climbed up to the attic, but it was too hard to move around all the rafters and chimney flues. We could hear them screaming at us, so we tore at the roof with our hands to make a hole to climb through.” She paused to sniff and wipe her eyes. “Luckily, the roof had already started to rot. All of us made it up there except for Mr. Macklin and Father. Someone grabbed Mr. Macklin’s legs and pulled him down from the attic. Then, when somebody grabbed Father’s legs, Chaia lay down on the roof, reached through the hole, and held onto his arms. She pulled as hard as she could to get him on top of the roof, but the person who had Father’s legs was much stronger.”
Elena’s voice began to crack. “Before we knew what had happened, Father was pulled down from the attic with Chaia holding onto him. Then…” Elena looked at Rachel’s mother. “Then they dragged them out onto the ground and the crowd beat them with crowbars.”
Rachel wept as she heard what Chaia had endured, and she began to panic at the thought of her father lying somewhere in pain, or worse. “I want to see Father,” she said in a quiet voice, feeling guilty for thinking about him after hearing about what the Berlatskys had been through.
“Will you be… all right if I… leave for a few minutes?” Rachel’s mother asked Mrs. Berlatzky.
Rachel was startled by her mother’s meek tone, and by the way her voice faltered. It was almost as if she were a different person.
Mrs. Berlatzky nodded and brushed Chaia’s hair out of her face. “I need to get Chaia to the hospital. I couldn’t bear to lose—” She burst into tears.
Rachel watched as her mother pressed her lips together but said nothing. Before, thought Rachel, Mother would have said something to make Mrs. Berlatsky feel better. Behind her mother’s severe demeanor was a woman who would do anything for the people she cared for. Looking back, Rachel remembered that when Mrs. Talansky died, her mother had cooked meals for Sacha and his father for weeks, and had even mended their clothes, until Mr. Talansky was able to cope on his own. And when Mr. Gervitz’s wife was ill, Rachel’s mother had gone over every afternoon to make tea and read to her. Now, when Mrs. Berlatsky was clearly in need of a friend, Rachel’s mother seemed incapable of knowing what to say or do; it was as if she was suddenly devoid of empathy.
Leaving the Berlatskys in search of a wagon to take Chaia to the hospital, Rachel led her mother and Nucia toward another wooden outdoor shed. At one time it had been painted red, but most of the color had peeled off or faded. As they walked past, Rachel saw that the wooden door was broken and scattered across the ground. She let go of Nucia’s hand, examined the dim opening, and saw a foot clad in a familiar black felt boot. Rachel’s stomach lurched, and chills ran up and down her body as her eyes made their way from the foot to the head. It was her father, his body contorted and covered in blood. She fell backwards, her head spinning until everything went dark.
Three
Sergei barged through the heavy oak doors of the police station, past a group of officers huddled together smoking and speaking in solemn voices, to his father’s office in the back corner. He yanked the door open and saw his father sitting at his desk, facing three men—Petya’s father, Mayor Schmidt, who had copper-red hair like Petya, Governor von Raben, and another burly man Sergei didn’t know, in a military uniform with a red vest and gold epaulets.
“You did nothing to stop the riots; you watched as innocent people were attacked!” Sergei’s voice rose with every word. “And I even heard that you insulted Jews while they were being beaten.” He paused, expecting his father to jump out of his seat and hit him across his face.
“How dare you barge in here like this,” roared Sergei’s father, his eyes darting between his son and the three men in front of him.
“If you had only believed me,” Sergei continued. “If you had questioned Mikhail’s uncle and cousin, you would have seen that they needed Mikhail out of the way, and this whole riot would have been avoided.” Sergei moved closer until he was at his father’s desk. “Children wouldn’t be orphans today if this pogrom hadn’t taken place; if the murderer had been found, none of this would have happened.” Sergei stared defiantly at his father and saw that his eyes were bloodshot; his pupils were blazing.
“Is this true, Aleksandr?” asked Mayor Schmidt. “Is Sergei speaking the truth?”
Sergei’s father’s face grew red and beads of sweat dripped from his hairline. “The boy told me that somebody had witnessed the murder, but I didn’t think there was any truth to it.” He glared at Sergei with contempt.
“Your job is to take any information you receive seriously,” said Governor von Raben, leaning over the desk. “I can assure you that we will look into this matter thoroughly.”
“And I can assure you that I acted responsibly,” Sergei’s father replied.
“So that’s it, Papa?” said Sergei, clenching his fists and feeling every muscle in his body tighten. “You won’t even admit you were wrong?” He kicked his father’s desk. “Even if I end up working in a factory, or peddling food in the market, I’ll be more proud of myself than if I were police chief or the Imperial Police Director, because I’ll be doing honest work, and I won’t be hurting anybody.”
Sergei turned and stomped out of his father’s office.
“Wait a minute, Sergei,” called Governor von Raben. “Come back in here.”
Sergei stopped; his heart was racing. He took a couple of deep breaths, and returned to his father’s office.
“Tell us everything you know,” instructed the Governor.