Letters From Rifka Read online

  The milkman led his horse with one hand. He offered me his other. I hesitated for a moment, then took it.

  “My uncle used to take me for rides in his cart when he had no customers,” I chattered in a mixture of Flemish and Yiddish, gripping the milkman’s hand tightly. “Not that I don’t like walking. I don’t mind walking at all.”

  The milkman nodded, even though he could not understand all I said to him.

  “It is very nice of you to help me,” I said. “My uncle was nice too. I think maybe you are a lot like him. My uncle was a very patient man.”

  The milkman glanced down at me. His mustache hairs tickled his bottom lip. His eyes were two warm coals in his long face. It felt good to be talking to him, holding his hand like I would hold Papa’s, or Uncle Avrum’s, or Uncle Zeb’s.

  The milkman not only took me back to King Street, which I can only think was well out of his way. He took me to my very own door on King Street.

  Tovah, he did not look like Uncle Zeb, except for the kindness in his eyes, but still, while I was with him, I felt Uncle Zeb near me. Outside the door of my house in Antwerp, the milkman bowed to me in parting.

  I would not let go of his hand. There were hairs along the back of it, stiff dark hairs. I do not know why, Tovah, but I took that long hand of the milkman and pressed it to my lips. I kissed the strong, leathery hand of the milkman, right out in front of the house on King Street.

  I never had a chance to say good-bye to Uncle Zeb. The soldiers shot him as he came out of his house. That was that. Kissing the hand of the milkman, I felt at last I could say good-bye to Uncle Zeb too.

  The milkman bowed to me once again. Then he lifted his long legs into his cart and he drove away.

  It is late now. My candle burns low. I wonder, Tovah. How do you thank people for such kindness? I never knew strangers could be so kind. Do you think my brothers Asher and Reuben and Isaac would have done as much? I hope so.

  Shalom, my dear cousin,

  Rifka

  … And I shall know some savor of elation Amidst the cares, the woes, and the vexation …

  —Pushkin

  July 29, 1920

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Dear Tovah,

  Antwerp is a wonderful city. The people are so kind and generous, even the children.

  I play with them in the park outside my room. Gizelle is the name of the girl who reminds me of Hannah. She really isn’t like Hannah at all, now that I’ve come to know her. She is more practical and solid than Hannah. She brings her ball to the park and we play catch. I have learned many bouncing rhymes though I don’t always understand what I am singing. The children laugh at my accent, but not in a cruel way.

  It seems I have lived in Antwerp always. The old couple I board with, Marie and Gaston, are kind to me. They enjoy when I speak with them in Flemish. Gaston laughs and claps his hands when I tell him a story about my day. “Listen to her, Marie,” he crows. “Is she not wonderful?”

  I can hardly believe that it ever felt strange to me here. The bridges over the canals, the market at the Grunaplatz, the beautiful carriages and horses trotting along the streets, the cabarets and the hula dancers, they are all so familiar to me now. I wish Mama and Papa were here. The boys, too. And you, Tovah, and Hannah and Uncle Avrum and Bubbe Ruth, everyone, I wish you were all here. How I would love to share this wonderful city with you.

  Not only are the people kind in Belgium, but the food is splendid. Sister Katrina and the lady from the HIAS have introduced me to so many new tastes. Almost always, I eat in the market. It costs very little, so I am saving Papa’s money, and the food, Tovah, you wouldn’t believe. There is a fruit called a banana, colored yellow like a June sun and curved. You peel the skin off and underneath is a white fruit so sweet and creamy, it makes even Frusileh’s milk seem thin by comparison.

  And ice cream! If the people in Berdichev could taste ice cream, they would give up eating everything else. In the afternoon, the ice cream man comes down King Street with a giant dog pulling his cart.

  He rings a little bell as he walks and we crowd around him. The dog wags its tail and stands very still. I never knew such a dog and such a man.

  And there is chocolate. This food I found without anyone’s help. Belgian chocolate. It is like biting off a little corner of heaven—even better than Mama’s pastry, may she never hear me say that.

  I told Sister Katrina how much I like the chocolate. Now she always has a piece for me to eat with the tea she serves after my treatment.

  “You must eat foods that are good for you, too, Rifka,” she says. “Not just chocolate.”

  “I know,” I answer, but often I eat nothing but ice cream, and chocolate, and bananas. See, Tovah, I am a little clever. I have found one advantage to being on my own. I eat exactly as I please.

  Sister Katrina says the ringworm is beginning to heal. She is happy with my progress, but I can tell she worries that there is no hair yet.

  In Antwerp, it doesn’t seem to matter that I have no hair. When I first arrived, the lady from the HIAS took me shopping. She took me to a department store and helped me choose some dresses.

  I needed new clothes. The Belgians fumigate all your belongings before they let you enter their country, just as the Polish do. Of course the Belgians are far more kind in the way they treat you. But after two fumigations, my old clothes were falling to pieces.

  While I was shopping with the lady from the HIAS that first week, I saw a hat that I wanted, a hat that would cover my baldness. I thought if I only owned such a hat, it would not matter so much that I was bald … but I did not have the money.

  So I started saving, and as soon as I could, I returned to the department store. I would have that hat. With that hat I would not be ashamed of the way I look. With that hat I could hold my head up anywhere. But when I got to the store, the hat was gone. Sold to someone else.

  “We can make you another,” said the salesclerk. She took my measurements without saying a word about the scabs on my head. A new hat was made, just for me.

  It is black velvet with shirring. The brim has light blue velvet underneath. Now that the ringworm is clearing up, I don’t have to wear kerchiefs all the time. I don’t have to sterilize every stitch of cloth that comes near my head. I don’t have to look like a poor, needy immigrant Jew from Berdichev.

  I’m hoping I can go to America soon. Sometimes I think I will lose my mind longing for Mama, her yeasty hands, her red-cheeked face. And Papa, wrapped in his tallis, davening, his knees bent slightly, his body bobbing forward and back, praying in the gray light of dawn. I ache to smell the kindled Sabbath candles and to hear Papa and Mama’s voices raised in prayer. Just to hold them and be held by them once more. I miss them so much. And the way Nathan brushed my hair. How he smoothed my tangled curls more gently than Mama ever did. I miss even Saul, and his big feet and his teasing.

  I wonder if I can learn to make ice cream when I get to America. I know it has something to do with the milk from a cow. Maybe Bubbe Ruth and Frusileh can go into business. The Russians don’t forbid Jews to make ice cream, yet. At least not that I know. Maybe Bubbe Ruth can earn enough money making ice cream; she can be as well-to-do as you and Hannah and Uncle Avrum.

  If I can’t get you and Bubbe out of the Old World, maybe I can at least give to you something from the new.

  Shalom, my cousin,

  Rifka

  … The sister of misfortune, Hope,

  In the under-darkness dumb

  Speaks joyful courage to your heart:

  The day desired will come … .

  —Pushkin

  September 14, 1920

  Antwerp, Belgium

  Dear Tovah,

  I am going to America! The nun, Sister Katrina, says my ringworm is completely cured, and the doctor signed my papers. “Godspeed,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  At last I am free to go to America, to join Mama and Papa and all my giant brothers. It has been an entire year since lea
ving Berdichev. Such a year!

  My hair still has not started growing. Sister Katrina says perhaps it never will. I can’t imagine going through life with no hair on my head. There are wigs, perukes, but a short, ugly peruke on my head? What a thought!

  My hair was the only nice thing about me. Still, I am trying to remember your advice, Tovah, to rely on my wits and not my looks. I don’t look so bad in a hat or with my kerchief, not really, once you get used to it. I hope Mama can get used to it. As for my being clever … even with what Sister Katrina and the lady from the HIAS say about me and languages, I’m still not so sure.

  The lady from the HIAS helped me to buy my ticket. She looks very much like the HIAS lady in Warsaw: little and energetic, with an unruly silver bun on top of her head. Maybe they must all look like this to work for the HIAS. Maybe I should also work for the HIAS when I grow up. I am certainly the right height. Though I might have difficulty with the bun if my hair does not grow.

  The HIAS lady took me around to the steamship company as soon as the doctor gave me permission to leave. She advised me to buy a ticket on a small ship leaving Antwerp tomorrow. I could wait for two more weeks and sail on a big ship, but I don’t want to wait. Besides, if I sailed on the big ship, I would have to sail to America in steerage. Steerage is what they call it when all the poor people crowd together down in the belly of the ship. People in steerage have no privacy, not an inch of space to turn from their left to their right. That is how Mama and Papa went across the ocean, and from the way they described it in their letter, I wouldn’t like it very much at all. The rich people on such boats travel in first class or second class, but the poor people travel in steerage.

  So I bought my ticket on a ship that has no classes. All the people traveling to America on this ship are equal. It is very democratic. “Democratic” is one of the words the lady from the HIAS has taught me.

  I have been learning English. The HIAS lady brings me books and tutors me. Once she took me to an American movie about Tom Mix. Tom Mix is a cowboy, Tovah. Do you know what that is? He rides around on a horse all the time and shoots at bad people. I think Tom Mix loves his horse as much as Uncle Zeb loved Lotkeh.

  I remember Uncle Zeb now like he was in a dream. So many new things fill my life, Tovah. I need to remind myself of how we struggled in Berdichev.

  If it were not for the Pushkin, and for these letters to you, I would sometimes think I had dreamed all the terrible things about Russia. But when I read the Pushkin, I know my memories are real.

  This morning I said good-bye to my friends in the park, especially Gizelle. I have decided to bring a present to Sister Katrina, to thank her for all she has done. She loves flowers. I will go to the market at the Grunaplatz and buy her the most beautiful bouquet I can find. I have money. Papa has been sending it to me all along, and except for some food and clothes, I have spent very little. Tonight, Marie and Gaston have planned for me a little party.

  Tovah, when I get to America, an entire ocean will stand between us. Until now I could have come back to Berdichev, not safely, but still, I could have come back. Only land separated us.

  Now there will be this great ocean between us. I can’t swim across an ocean to get back to Berdichev. And you know something, Tovah? I don’t want to.

  I will work in America and find a way to do everything, everything, just as I told the Polish girl on the train from Motziv.

  Maybe when I write and tell you how wonderful America is, you will change your mind and come too, bringing the rest of our family with you out of Russia. Then we will all be together again. Aunt Anna, Uncle Avrum, Hannah, Bubbe Ruth, everyone. But especially you, Tovah.

  Tovah and Rifka. Imagine it. Two clever girls in the United States of America.

  Shalom, my dear cousin,

  Rifka

  We numbered many in the ship,

  Some spread the sails, some pulled, together,

  The mighty oars; ’twas placid weather.

  The rudder in his steady grip,

  Our helmsman silently was steering

  The heavy galley through the sea,

  While I, from doubts and sorrows free,

  Sang to the crew …

  —Pushkin

  September 16, 1920

  Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean

  Dear Tovah,

  The ship is excellent. I have a little room with a bed bolted to the floor and a table that folds out. A small round window looks out over the sea.

  But who wants to stay shut up in a cabin when there is so much to do? Such a lounge there is, with a player piano and polished wooden counters. The lounge reminds me of your salon back in Berdichev, only much larger.

  There are dances at night and the passengers whirl about on the parquet floor. During the day, a young sailor named Pieter puts brushes on his feet and he dances all alone, polishing and waxing. As he works, he sings and tells jokes to me.

  Out on the deck are chairs for days of reading. They are bolted down like my bed so they won’t shift in heavy seas. Of course we’ve had nothing like heavy seas since we boarded. Just clear skies and a gentle breeze.

  “Sometimes,” Pieter says, “there are storms so fierce I think the ship will break apart.”

  Pieter is such a joker. I am never certain whether to believe him or not.

  We trade songs and Pieter teaches me little dances when he is not on watch. He is like another brother to me. Only he is better somehow than a brother, though he teases every bit as much as Saul does. But it doesn’t annoy me when Pieter teases. I like it.

  If I sit down in one of these chairs with our Pushkin, Pieter rushes over and tucks a blanket around my legs.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Rifka?” he asks.

  He treats me like a little czarina. Me, Rifka Nebrot. Sometimes I pinch myself. Only in Hannah’s games did I feel so special. How Hannah would love this. Tovah, you would too.

  The ocean is so big; everywhere you look in every direction swells this dark, billowing water. It rises and falls as if it were breathing, and the ship skates over the surface.

  I worried that perhaps I would feel seasick. I heard so many stories, and some others on the ship complain, but I do not feel the least bit ill. I feel healthier than I have ever felt in my entire life—even if I don’t have any hair on my head.

  Today I had the most interesting conversation with Pieter. He had a few minutes before he went on duty and we walked around the deck, talking. He told me he had nine brothers.

  “No sisters?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Mama kept looking for a girl, but we kept coming out boys.”

  I told him about Isaac and Asher and Reuben and Nathan and Saul.

  “And then there is me,” I said.

  “All those sons and then a daughter,” Pieter said. “You are a treasure to your mama and papa. And to your brothers.”

  “I’ve never met my brothers Isaac and Asher and Reuben,” I told Pieter. “They left for America before I was born. So I don’t know if I am a treasure to them. But I assure you I am no treasure to my brother Saul. To Nathan maybe, but not to Saul.”

  Can you imagine, Tovah? Me, a treasure? I told Pieter, “Really, I don’t believe anyone in my family thinks of me as a treasure.”

  Pieter said, “If this is true, then your family is blind.”

  I lowered my eyes for modesty’s sake, but I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips, Tovah.

  Pieter said, “You are such a brave girl, Rifka. And so clever to have managed on your own.”

  I had told him about our escape from Berdichev, and about the typhus, and how Mama and Papa had to leave me behind.

  “I would not be so clever,” Pieter said. “To learn so many languages. You speak Flemish better than I do and I have lived in Belgium all seventeen years of my life.”

  Again with the languages, Tovah. Why do people always make such a to-do?

  “Pieter,” I said. “You are full of nice wor
ds, but I am not certain I deserve them. You call me brave, but I will tell you what is brave. My aunt Anna is brave, and my little grandmother. They are brave to stay in Russia and live with the hatred for the Jews. They are clever, too, so much more clever. In Berdichev, you must be clever simply to stay alive.

  “For me, since I’ve left Berdichev, life has been easy, except that I have been apart from Mama and Papa. I have met with such kindness. No, I am not so brave, Pieter. If I were brave, I would have stayed in Russia.”

  “Maybe,” Pieter said, “maybe they are very brave, the ones you have left behind in your homeland. But are they clever?”

  “My cousin Tovah is very clever,” I told Pieter. “She has chosen to stay.”

  “I’m a simple boy,” Pieter said. “I can’t learn the speech of other countries the way you can. I only travel back and forth across this big ocean. I do not know much. But to me, Rifka, you seem very brave and very clever indeed.”

  Then Pieter bent over and kissed me! Right on my lips, Tovah. A warm kiss, with the soft blond hairs of his mustache tickling me.

  Just for a moment I hoped the ship would never arrive in America and I could go on sailing with Pieter across this wide green ocean forever.

  But when I looked up, Pieter’s face was red. “I have work to do,” he said, stammering. He hurried away, leaving me standing on the deck.

  I don’t understand. What did I do that Pieter should run away? How clever can I be, Tovah? The more I know, the more confused I get.

  I returned to my cabin and opened our Pushkin. I tried to find a poem that said what I was feeling. Sometimes, when I read Pushkin’s poems, I want to write poems of my own. I wonder if I dare to do such a thing. Saul always said I talked and talked without anything to say. But sometimes I do have something to say, and I feel as if I will explode if I don’t write down what is in my head and in my heart.