“Yigdol shook his head no and pushed the glasses up on his ample nose.
“‘No, I think you are afraid and could use some help. You are running from the Revolution. You are from the south. You have the accent. You are heading north, for Riga, the sea?’
“‘Yes, for Riga.’
“Yigdol smiled proudly at the confirmation of his deduction. “‘Go to Palestine,’ he said.
“‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ I said it as if I were really considering it, but I was not. Yigdol, with his failing eyes, saw through me and gave an amused look that shook my confidence.
“‘I have a carriage to sell,’ I said.
“‘A carriage? A good carriage such as a well-to-do shopkeeper might have?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, clutching the two suits to my chest.
“‘If you drive your fine carriage down this street as far as the street goes, you will find a market. In the market you will see a wagon. The wagon has no wheels. It is a store from which a fat man sells geese. Say to that fat man that Yigdol suggested you see him about your fine carriage. But you would do well to put on your new suit before you do so.’
“I reached in my pocket for more money.
“‘No more money,’ said Yigdol, raising his hand, a needle pressed tightly between thumb and finger, a filament of thread swaying against the dusty light. ‘I don’t know what you are or what you are doing. I am simply a man helping another man.’
“Yigdol smiled, and I tried to smile back, but I had no idea of why we were smiling. I escaped quickly through the door and hurried through the town with my bundle in hand, circling the puddles the children played in.
“I found Abraham talking to the horse and threw him his new clothes. Twenty minutes later we drove into Gomel in our fine carriage and new clothes, with Abraham smiling proudly and me feeling like a fool in disguise. The market was easy to find in an uncrowded, open, uncobbled area with a ring of carts and crates, squawking chickens and geese, and a few goats. The people in the market, sellers and buyers, all stopped to watch the two well-dressed young men in the carriage. I considered telling Abraham to drive straight through quickly, but he held back and played his part. The fat man near the broken wagon sat like a rock, watching me as I got down and moved toward him. An old woman and a young girl stood next to him, the girl no more than eight or nine, keeping her hand in the old woman’s as if I or someone else might steal her.
“‘Yigdol the tailor said you might be interested in buying a carriage?’“
“‘I am interested in buying what I can sell,’ said the fat man in an incredibly high voice that belied his body as he pulled his jacket tight around him. ‘I’m interested in staying alive. I’m interested in keeping my mother here and my son’s daughter alive.’
“‘What can you give me for the carriage?’
“‘I can give you a little money for the carriage and the horse and a little advice. The advice will be worth more than the money. The carriage is not yours, and you’d best get rid of it quickly before you are asked questions you can’t answer. That’s a good horse, but it will have to be slaughtered for its meat. A chance can’t be taken that it will be recognized. This is the money I’ll give with that advice, and I’ll tell you how to get on a train that will take you to …’ He waited.
“‘Riga,’ I said.
“‘Of course, Riga. I’ll have someone take you to the train in Minsk and buy your tickets for a slight price. The ticket man is a half Jew. He’ll put you in a car where no one will ask you questions until you get to Riga. For this you will pay me. Subtracted from what I will pay you for the horse and carriage, which can be my death, you owe me thirty rubles.’
“‘The Jews of Gomel are very clever,’ I said.
“‘The Jews of Gomel have to be very clever or there would soon be no Jews of Gomel. Isn’t it that way in your village?’
“‘It is.’
“‘We have a bargain?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, and paid the man. The little girl looked at me and backed away.
“‘Her father, my son, left her last year and went to America,’ explained the fat man, counting the money I gave him and nodding to a thin young man, who moved forward to take the horse and carriage from Abraham. I nodded to Abraham to let the young man take them, and he reluctantly got down and watched the horse and cart being led into a large barnlike door in a stone building behind the broken wagon.
“‘He’s going to send for her?’ I said.
“The fat man shrugged.
“The thin young man came back with an older, heavier horse and a wagon, not a carriage. The fat man made a pushing move with his hand to indicate that we should climb in the wagon. We did, and the fat man immediately turned to his business of negotiating with a sagging woman over the price of a goose.
“There was straw in the wagon and a few blankets. We gave the driver some money to buy food for the trip, and I lay back with his sack for a pillow and tried to sleep, my head rolling against the brass candlestick.
“We spent two days in the wagon, getting out only to relieve ourselves, sitting up only to eat the food brought by the young driver, who said nothing, did not even give his name.
“Minsk began almost an hour before we reached the train station, first with farms and then a few inns and small factories, followed by a few blacksmiths and clusters of homes and shops. When we reached the cobbled streets, buildings began to rise on both sides, some four stories tall. A platoon of firemen lounged in front of a fire station, their uniforms military and their hats shined metal.
“From the wagon we could see that most of the men we passed were unshaven and not Jewish. There were carriages going past with finely dressed women with wide hats, and then we passed a synagogue, the largest I had ever seen.
“Without thinking, I moved closer to the young driver, resenting him but dependent. At the train station, the young man went in and purchased the tickets while we got down from the wagon and stretched our legs.
“‘There is a train for Riga in five hours. Sit on a bench and pretend you are sleeping till the train comes. Then get on the train and go to the third class, next to the last car. Eat the food you have with you and stay away from the front of the train and the Russians.’
“It was all the young man said to us, and he was gone without looking back. We found a space on a bench next to a tree stump of a father and fat son in clean work clothes. The father and son ate garlic sausage and talked. For five hours we pretended to sleep. The train was another hour late, and we pretended to sleep some more. I needed a toilet but was afraid to leave the bench.
“The platform was filled with passengers, many of them Russian soldiers, one of whom bumped into me when a few of them playfully pushed each other. The man fell momentarily in my lap, but I pretended to sleep through the incident. I didn’t even know which side of the Revolution the soldiers were on.
“When the train arrived, we got to the next to last car. People were sitting on all the benches, but we found space on the floor near the window wall. There were pockets of conversations, including a low conversation about something called Zionism held between two shabbily dressed men. When I could stand it no longer, I asked someone where the toilet was. To get to it, I would have to move to the front of the train through the Russian soldiers. Instead, I made my way to the space between the two cars and urinated into the night.
“In two days and many stops the word ‘Riga’ spread through the car. People began to check their cloth sacks and thin suitcases, to prepare, though the word was we were still many hours away. Abraham smiled, and I nodded, touching the flattened roll of bills in my jacket.
“When the train jerked into Riga, the people spewed forth as if they were already in America or England. We tried to stay in the middle of the crowd. The Russian soldiers got off, joking about the smell of the people still pushing each other and the crowd.