“I guess we should go, Menahem.” Sergei turned his head to the door to avoid the children’s hopeful gazes and left with Menahem clinging tightly to his hand. “Does anybody ever come to visit those other children?” Sergei asked as they headed to Chuflinskii Square. “Were they all orphaned after the riots?”
Menahem put his finger to his lip as he pondered this question. “I don’t know.”
Sergei’s eyes searched Menahem’s face to make sure he wasn’t upset talking about the massacre.
“Sometimes at night, I hear them cry out for their mothers and fathers.”
“What about you?” asked Sergei. “Are things getting better now?”
“I still miss my grandmother. She used to make special latkes for me, even if it wasn’t Hanukkah, and every night she told me a story before I went to sleep. She couldn’t read but she had all kinds of stories in her head.” Menahem’s voice grew faint.
They arrived at the square, but Sergei wanted to keep talking. Holding Menahem’s hand, he guided him to the walkway around the perimeter of the square. “You’ve never told me what happened to your parents.”
“They died when I was a baby. It was a fever that killed a lot of people. My grandmother’s always taken care of me.”
“Sergei!” Petya ran up to them from across the square. “Sergei… we’re getting teams together for a game of gorodki. We’re one short. Come and join us.”
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m with… I’m with my friend Menahem.”
Petya spied Menahem hiding behind Sergei’s back. “He can come too. The two of you can share the spot.”
“I don’t know how to play,” Menahem said quietly.
“I can teach you, Menahem. It’s a great game,” said Sergei, thinking this would take Menahem’s mind off his troubles.
“You throw a wooden baton at a town made up of towers of blocks,” added Petya. “If you knock them down, you win.”
Menahem backed away from them with round, frightened eyes.
“Oh no!” Sergei said, hitting his forehead as he realized what he’d done. “I can’t believe we just asked him to play gorodki.”
“What do you mean? What’s wrong with gorodki?” asked Petya.
“Menahem’s home was destroyed in the massacre here. By us.”
“Wait a minute… I didn’t destroy anybody’s house,” said Petya.
“We didn’t exactly try to stop people either. And then what do we do? Ask him to play a game where we destroy a town.” Sergei saw Menahem running back the way they’d come and started to chase him, overtaking him on the sidewalk. “Menahem, wait! I’m sorry. We were idiots. We weren’t thinking. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
Menahem’s face was streaked with dirty tears, which he tried to erase with the back of his hand. He was breathing heavily.
“Please. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“You’re just like the rest of them,” said Menahem.
“No, no, I’m not. I really hate the people who destroyed your house and the rest of the town. And I really like you. I come to visit you because I want to, not because I have to. You know that, don’t you?” Sergei knelt down and took Menahem’s hands.
Menahem nodded slowly. “I guess so.”
Sergei smiled and hugged the boy. “If I had a brother, I’d want him to be just like you.”
Sergei opened the door and saw his mother on the sofa weeping and his father passed out at the table. An empty vodka bottle lay on its side near his head. Carlotta and Natalya were nowhere to be seen. He bent over his mother and spoke to her quietly. “Mama… what happened?”
She looked up at him. “Your father, he lost his position today.” She started to cry again. Sergei put his arms around her, which only made her cry harder. “What are we going to do?”
“If he had done his job and not let those rioters ruin so many people’s lives, this never would have happened.” He pulled away from his mother.
“Sergei, don’t talk that way about your father.”
“You don’t understand, do you? You don’t see that he could have prevented the riots if only he’d arrested Mikhail’s uncle and cousin. Instead, he let everyone in Kishinev think the murderer was Jewish. He let the hatred build and then stood back and did nothing while innocent people were beaten to death. I was there! I saw the police ignoring the rioters. Forty-nine Jews were killed and more than five hundred were injured. How can you defend him?” Sergei raised his voice louder than he intended, but saw from the corner of his eye that his father was still passed out.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Sergei.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. There was even an article in the newspaper—about a document advising police to let the riots take place and not to help the Jews.”
His mother gasped. “No, this can’t be true. You’re wrong.”
Sergei shook his head. “It was written by the Russian Minister of the Interior, and it was called ‘Perfectly Secret.’ Papa says he was following orders, but if he was a good person, he would have ignored the stupid orders and helped the Jews.”
Sergei’s mother continued weeping into her hands.
He put his arm around her shoulder and held her until her crying subsided. “I’m sorry, Mama. I just thought you should know the truth.”
Hearing the rhythmic sound of his father’s deep breathing punctuated by powerful snores, Sergei crept out of bed into the kitchen. He stopped when the floor creaked. Convinced that nobody in his house was awake, he walked gingerly to the shelf near the window. He picked up the birch-bark-and-iron coffer that sat there. The moon provided just enough light to see. Sergei lifted the lid and peered inside.
The coffer was filled with rubles and kopecks. He shoved half of the money into the leather pouch he wore around his waist, then put the coffer back in its place and quietly returned to bed.
MAY
Local Jews are doing their utmost to relieve the suffering. Young Jewesses are attending the sick in the hospitals and money is pouring in from all the Jewish communities in Russia. Twelve thousand persons are receiving two pounds of bread a day, and 2,500 portions are distributed at the soup kitchen daily, but this is a drop in the ocean.
One
Rachel ran into the room where Nucia and her mother sat with three other women at a long table sewing.
“It’s here! A letter. An answer from Zeyde and Bubbe! Mother, Nucia!” Rachel held the letter up excitedly.
Nucia stopped working and stared at Rachel. Her mother looked up at her with a puzzled expression. The other three women glanced at Rachel and went back to their needles and thread.
“See!” Rachel said, waving the small white envelope in the air. “Rena just handed it to me.”
“You wrote to them?” asked her mother. “When did you write this letter?”
“A few weeks ago.” Rachel’s fingers fumbled as she ripped apart the envelope. “I didn’t tell you—in case they didn’t write back.”
“I can’t believe they actually responded,” said Nucia. She set her sewing down and looked eagerly at Rachel. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
Her fingers shook as she pulled the note out of the envelope and lifted her eyes to her mother and Nucia.
“What is it?” asked her mother.
“There… there are tickets in here!”