Letters From Rifka Read online

  She said, “Mr. and Mrs. Nebrot, you and your two sons should leave for America as planned. But, Rifka must stay until her ringworm heals.”

  “To leave a child of twelve?” Papa said. “How can we do such a thing?”

  “It is not so unusual,” the HIAS lady said. “We have handled many such cases.”

  Awful things are happening to me, Tovah. My hair is falling out, my long blond hair. I have a bald patch over one ear and another on the back of my head. I can cover it with the kerchief, but it itches and itches. I know I must be ugly because Mama’s eyes look away from me all the time now.

  “Can’t Mama stay with me?” I asked.

  The lady from the HIAS said, “If your mama goes to America, she can work and make money for the family. She can make a home for your father and your brothers. If your mama stays in Europe with you, she will cost the family money. Only you must stay, Rifka.”

  “I will not stay in Warsaw,” I told the lady from the HIAS. “If my family leaves me in Warsaw, I will find a way back to my home in Berdichev.”

  The lady from the HIAS said, “I want you to leave Warsaw also, but not for Berdichev. The cure for your illness awaits you in Belgium.”

  Mama said, “Belgium? What is Belgium? I have never heard of this place.”

  “It is the best place for Rifka now,” the HIAS lady said. “The people of Belgium open their arms and their homes to immigrants.”

  That is what I am, Tovah. That is what you are when you are wandering between two worlds. You are an immigrant.

  The HIAS lady said, “We can arrange for Rifka to stay with a family in Antwerp. She will go each day to a hospital and get treatment for her ringworm. When you are all better, Rifka, you can sail to America right from Antwerp and join your mama and papa and all your brothers.”

  “I don’t want to stay with a family I don’t know,” I said. I remembered the innkeeper’s daughter in Motziv, the one who ate my herring. What if the family I stay with in Belgium is like hers?

  I do not want to be anywhere without my family. Even Saul would be better than no one. If they would just let Saul stay with me.

  Saul does not want to stay. All Saul cares about is getting to America.

  The HIAS lady said, “In Antwerp there will be someone from my organization to look out for you, to monitor your care.”

  I said, “If I can’t go to America, please send me back to Berdichev.”

  Papa said, “Rifka, the Russians are angry at our family in Berdichev. We have cheated them of five strong boys. The army wanted your brothers, they wanted Isaac and Asher and Reuben and Nathan and Saul. I could not let them have my sons.”

  Nathan sat with his hands clasped in his lap. Saul stood with his back to me, staring out the little window of our room.

  “Rifka,” Papa said, “you cannot go back to our home in Berdichev. We have no more home in Berdichev. You, too, would meet your death if you returned now. Your coming back would put all the family remaining, Tovah and Bubbe Ruth and Aunt Anna and all the others, in greater danger.”

  I don’t want to put you in danger, Tovah. I must go to Belgium, I see that, but I feel so frightened. What will become of me?

  Tovah, I am like an orphan now.

  Shalom,

  Rifka

  … Sleep evades me, there’s no light:

  Darkness wraps the earth with slumber,

  Only weary tickings number

  The slow hours of the night … .

  —Pushkin

  February 25, 1920

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Dear Tovah,

  Saying good-bye to Mama and Papa hurt in my chest the way it hurt when Saul held me underwater too long. The night before, Mama had slipped off her gold locket. I had never seen Mama without her locket. It came from Papa, his wedding gift to her. Mama hung the gold chain around my neck. I wrapped my hand around it and felt Mama’s warmth in the etched metal.

  Papa gave me his tallis, his precious prayer shawl. He said a prayer over it first, kissed the fringe, then handed it to me.

  “Why should she have Papa’s tallis?” Saul muttered. “She is only a girl.”

  “Hush, Saul,” Nathan said. “Don’t make things worse.

  The HIAS lady in Warsaw put me on my train the same day Mama, Papa, Nathan, and Saul left. I waved good-bye to them until my arm ached, but too soon, crowds pushed between us, and they were gone.

  My train took me through Germany and into Belgium. So now I am in Antwerp. It has taken me a little while to get settled. The first room the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society found for me was dark and stuffy, like the inside of your wardrobe, Tovah. Now I am in a very nice room.

  The couple who own this house are older even than Mama and Papa. They tell me to call them Gaston and Marie. Can you imagine, Tovah? They have very nice things. A quilt of blue squares covers my bed and a little red desk sits under the window. I sit at the desk for hours, fitting perfectly because I am so short, and I look out the window at the park below or read our Pushkin. I have a pitcher and bowl decorated with tiny blue flowers and a chest to keep my clothes in.

  There is a painting on the wall over my bed. It shows a countryside covered with wildflowers. When I look at it, I think this is what it is like in America.

  I have a braided rug to warm my feet. The woman, Marie, made it herself. She has made many of the things here.

  This is the nicest place I have ever lived. My room is almost as fine as the rooms in your house, Tovah.

  But it is not home. It can never be home without Mama and Papa. I miss them so much.

  Papa wrote that they have settled in New York City. His letters tell about their trip across the ocean and their apartment. They have water right outside their door and a real indoor toilet just down the hall. It is odd to think of Mama and Papa living in such luxury.

  My thirteenth birthday came last week. I did not tell Marie and Gaston.

  I had hoped to celebrate this birthday in America.

  I remember my ninth birthday when you and Hannah gave me the doll. What a beautiful doll she was, with a china head. Every morning I would smear her face with herring, pretending she was eating breakfast too.

  Mama and Saul took that doll. I remember how they took her, along with the dress Aunt Rachel had made for me. I could never tell you this. Papa forbade us to speak to anyone about such matters. But Mama and Saul took my doll and my dress and traded them at the market for potatoes. I swore I would not eat those potatoes, but I got hungry and I ate.

  In America, no one will take my gifts from me.

  So I am thirteen now. For Nathan and Saul’s thirteenth birthdays, Mama and Papa did a mitzvah. I am just a girl. Still, girl or not, I think God would want me to do a mitzvah too.

  Early on the morning of my birthday, I crept down the stairs and took broken straws from the kitchen broom.

  Back in my room, I wove the straws into a Star of David, a fragile golden Star of David. It took patience and time to twine the straws so they would hold together. When I finished, I set my star on the red desk beside Mama’s locket and the sunlight fell on them both. I stood before the window, wrapped in Papa’s tallis, and recited all the Hebrew prayers I held in my memory. Maybe you would think me foolish, Tovah, but I did a mitzvah. I celebrated my becoming a woman, just like the boys do when they become men.

  Later, I placed my Star of David between the pages of our Pushkin, so I could keep it forever to remember this day.

  Before I went to sleep that night, I read over my letters to you. I ran out of blank pages in the book a long time ago. Now I write in the margins around the poetry. Someday I will get these letters to you, Tovah. I promise. When I reach America, Papa will show me how to send this properly and you will have your Pushkin back again. In America, I can buy my own Pushkin … and any other book I wish to read.

  My hair is gone. All gone. I am as bald as the rabbi of Berdichev. I cover my baldness with a kerchief, but still I look very ugly.

 
; I don’t ever leave my room. It is winter. Back in our village, I was always first out to skate on the pond. In Antwerp, I do not go outside, except for my treatments.

  The treatments are not so bad as I feared. I walk to the convent once a day. The nun in charge of my case is Sister Katrina. She washes my scalp with a green soap that makes my eyes water. Then she puts me under a violet light. The light warms my head.

  “You don’t mind the treatments, do you, Rifka?” Sister Katrina asks.

  I smile and shake my head. I do not mind. In Belgium, where I am neither held nor loved, it feels good when Sister Katrina touches me, even if she does so only to treat my ringworm.

  When my scalp is perfectly dry, Sister Katrina sprinkles it with powder. She gave me two new kerchiefs, pretty ones. She boils and dries them each time before I can wear them.

  “Cleanliness is important in curing your disease,” Sister Katrina says.

  She also makes me clean my nails. “You can make the disease worse by scratching the sores with your fingers,” she says.

  I tell her, “My nails are clean. See!”

  She says, “You can’t see the germs that make the ringworm, Rifka. Here, scrub your nails.”

  So I do.

  I don’t scratch my head that much anyway. Just sometimes I can’t help it. Sister Katrina is teaching me Flemish. She taught me a prayer to say in my head when I need to scratch. I think saying the prayer is supposed to keep my mind off the itching. I am not sure it is right, though, for a Jew to say Catholic prayers. I say a Hebrew prayer instead.

  The sister is nice. She has dimples even deeper than Nathan’s: so deep, I can see them even when she is not smiling. Papa sends me money in his letters. He writes that I must pay Sister Katrina for the care she gives me.

  I count out the money they send. I think Mama and Papa must be getting rich in America, working in the clothing factory. I think soon they will be as rich as Uncle Avrum.

  Then I worry that maybe they are going without food to send this money to me.

  Sister Katrina accepts nothing. “Keep it,” she says. “You need it more.”

  She talks with me during my treatment. At first we spoke only in Polish, but I am picking up Flemish quickly.

  After my treatments she makes tea. Sister Katrina tells me I am clever because I learn Flemish so easily. I thought you would like that, Tovah, that someone thinks I am clever.

  “Really it is not so clever,” I tell her. “It is nothing special. I just learn these things.”

  “You will learn even faster if you get out of your room,” Sister Katrina says. “Antwerp is a lovely city. Go out, enjoy yourself.”

  “I like my room,” I say. “It too is lovely. I am happy to stay there.” I can’t explain to her how I fear this city filled with strangers.

  “You do not get enough exercise,” Sister Katrina says. “You go from your room to the convent and back again. Explore more. Go on. It won’t hurt you. What you need, Rifka, is some fresh Belgian air.”

  It is not exercise and fresh air I need. It is Mama and Papa. How can I enjoy myself without Mama, without my family? I do not need exercise. All I need is to get better and to go to America.

  Walking to and from the convent, I pass many beautiful sights. There are gardens everywhere, and even in the winter I can see how fine they are. I pass a market filled with fruits and vegetables and buckets of flowers of every color. And smells that make my stomach always eager to eat.

  Right now I am sitting at the little desk in my room, looking out over the park. There are children who come every day. I’m beginning to recognize them. There is one girl, built so much like Hannah, slender with dark eyes and dark hair. Once or twice I have almost gone out only to be near her.

  I would like to play with her, to play with all of them, but what if it is like Russia and they hate me because I am a Jew? What if it is like Poland and they hate me because I am not a Pole? What if they hate me because I have no hair?

  I wish I could be back with you, Tovah, and with Hannah. Remember how Hannah would dress me up and coil my hair around her fingers? When I grew sleepy, she would set me on the warm shelf of the tiled stove and cover me in furs and sing to me.

  And you. You would talk, always talk.

  “Listen to this, Rifka,” you would say, and you would read me something from one of Uncle Avrum’s big books. Or you would open the Pushkin and sometimes your voice would go deep and husky. I could not understand why, but tears would stand in both our eyes. Tovah, I loved the words that sprang from your lips. It is you, my cousin, who made me want to learn.

  Hannah is like a fairy princess, so delicate and beautiful and sweet. You, Tovah, are like an old rabbi, clever and funny and brave.

  Is Hannah still taking piano lessons? Marie plays piano. She is playing now.

  Don’t tell this to Hannah, but I used to hate listening to her lessons. The teacher would scream and tears would roll down Hannah’s cheeks. She never got the notes right.

  It is you who can really play, Tovah, and never a lesson of your own. It amazed me how you could watch Hannah’s lesson and then sit down after and play the music yourself. I never understood why Uncle Avrum didn’t give you lessons.

  When I asked Mama, she said, “Uncle Avrum won’t give Tovah piano lessons because of her back.”

  “Well,” I told Mama, “just because Tovah’s back isn’t straight doesn’t mean she can’t play the piano. When she was a baby and fell from the table did she hurt anything else? Did she hurt her hands so she couldn’t play? No! So why can’t Tovah have piano lessons?”

  Mama said, “You couldn’t understand, Rifka.”

  “I can,” I insisted. “Explain to me.”

  Mama said, “Uncle Avrum gives Hannah piano lessons so she can catch a good husband.”

  “What about Tovah?” I asked. “Doesn’t Uncle Avrum want her to catch a good husband too?”

  Mama said, “Some girls aren’t meant to marry, Rifka.”

  “But Tovah is smart and funny!” I cried. “And so clever …” I thought everyone saw you as I did.

  Now that I am bald, I wonder. Maybe Mama would think I am one of those girls too. One of those girls not meant to marry.

  Sister Katrina says my hair will grow back. What if it doesn’t? I think you would still love me, just as I love you. Bubbe Ruth, my dear little grandmother, she would love me, even with a bald head. But you are both very far away.

  My own mama watched with such sorrow my hair falling out, and she left before it was done. What would she think if she saw me now? I have started praying for my hair to grow back. Sometimes I even say Sister Katrina’s prayer, even if it is for Catholics. I hope that does not make things worse for me.

  Shalom, dear Tovah,

  Rifka

  With freedom’s seed the desert sowing,

  I walked before the morning star …

  —Pushkin

  March 17, 1920

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Dear Tovah,

  Today I have met Antwerp. Even though it is still winter, the air blew soft and mild today. All along my walk back from the convent, windows were open. Sounds from the houses drifted out into the street.

  I took a different route home, turning down one new lane, then another and another. I passed millineries and bakeries and big department stores. I passed barbers and markets and tailor shops.

  I came to a cafe with heavy wooden doors flung wide open. Big green flowerpots sat on either side of the doorway and a wild strange music streamed out from the dark room. Most amazing of all, a giant man stood there, filling the doorway of the cafe. I had never seen such a man before. I thought my papa and my brothers were big, but they were nothing beside this man.

  I must have been staring.

  The giant looked down at me. He grinned—a grin so wide it was like the entrance to a tunnel. Inside that enormous mouth were teeth of pure gold!

  I know you will not think this very clever of me, Tovah, but when I
saw all those shining teeth in his huge dark mouth I was afraid. I turned and started running. I ran and ran until I could run no more. Leaning back against a low brick wall, I gasped for breath.

  I didn’t recognize anything.

  I tried to find my way back, but I couldn’t.

  The sun began to set and the warmth of the day vanished. A brisk wind blew through the streets, up the alleys, across the canals. I had not enough clothes on. I tried to keep myself from shaking, but the twilight chilled me. I was lost. I did not have the least idea how to get back to the house on King Street.

  A milkman steered his horse and cart up the narrow street in the twilight. The cart clinked softly with empty bottles. I followed him, remembering Uncle Zeb and his horse, Lotkeh, and how Uncle Zeb would take me for rides when he didn’t have business.

  I did not know what this milkman would do to me if I stopped him. Uncle Zeb would have helped a lost child. But in Berdichev, if a Jew stopped the wrong person, they might end up dead.

  I am not in Berdichev, I told myself. I am in Antwerp, and Sister Katrina and the lady from the HIAS have told me not to fear the people of Antwerp.

  Well, I thought, if I am to make it back to my room tonight, I had better ask someone. So I called to the milkman sitting tall on his cart.

  “Please,” I asked. “Can you show me the way to King Street?”

  He was tall and thin. He had a black mustache that hid his mouth altogether.

  “Please,” I said again, beginning in Flemish, finishing in Yiddish. “I am very … lost.”

  As he climbed down out of his cart he smiled at me. I could tell he smiled by the way his mustache lifted around his chin.

  He took my face in his long fingers and smiled down at me.

  “King Street?” he asked. “Come.” The milkman clicked softly to his horse.

  “My uncle drove a cart,” I said, jabbering nervously as he walked me through the streets of Antwerp. “His horse’s name was Lotkeh. I don’t know where Lotkeh is anymore. Bubbe Ruth sold him after my uncle’s death.”