Letters From Rifka Read online

  “Please,” I said, removing her hand.

  I carefully tied the kerchief back on.

  “I wish your bubbe were here,” Mama said. “Your bubbe would know what to do.”

  “I wish she were here too, Mama,” I answered back.

  I wish you were here too, Tovah, but now I don’t know if that is such a good idea. You have to be perfect to come to America. I have this bald head and you, you have a crooked back. We are not perfect. We are not welcome.

  “These Americans,” I told Mama. “They don’t make any sense. They say they are holding me because I am too contagious to come into their country, but they allow you to visit me. If I’m contagious, won’t I make you sick? And if I make you sick, won’t you make everyone else in America sick? What’s the difference if I go to New York or you come here? Either way, if I really am contagious, somebody is going to get sick. I’m wondering how clever these Americans really are.”

  “Hush, Rifka,” Mama said. “Somebody could hear you.”

  I looked around. Even if they did speak Yiddish, no one around us was listening.

  “Why is such a great country like America afraid of a little Jewish girl just because she doesn’t have any hair on her head?” I said. “The truth, Mama, is that they’re afraid I will never find a husband. As if I need hair to get married.”

  “Maybe we could rub something in to make your hair grow,” Mama said. “I wish Papa could come. He would have some ideas.”

  “It’s no good, Mama,” I said. “Not even Papa can get my hair to grow. I am bald.”

  “But Rifka,” Mama said.

  Then she didn’t say anything more. What could she say? I am bald.

  “Don’t worry, Mama.”

  Mama never was very good with doctoring. Always Papa nursed us through sickness.

  “Are you eating right?” Mama wanted to know.

  “The food is very good here.”

  I didn’t tell her about all the chocolate and ice cream I ate in Belgium.

  Doctor Askin came and said hello to Mama. Then he joined Mr. Fargate for the case reviews.

  I was telling Mama about the market in Antwerp when my little Polish baby began crying.

  “Excuse me, please, Mama,” I said. I left Mama sitting on my bed. I didn’t want to leave her. I didn’t want to lose one precious second with her, but the baby needed me.

  As soon as I settled the baby down, a fevered woman asked for water. Then there were other chores that needed doing, things I helped the nurses with every day. I kept looking over to Mama, afraid she would disappear.

  She didn’t disappear. She sat and watched.

  “Just like Papa,” she said when I finally got back to her. “And the way you speak English, Rifka. You’ve always been good with languages. You were talking before you could walk. But I never imagined you could learn English so quickly. I have been here a year. I hardly speak a word.”

  “I could help you,” I told Mama, “if they allow me to stay.”

  “Who is the baby?” Mama asked.

  I took Mama’s hand and led her over to the crib.

  I said. “She is Polish. Her mother died of the typhus. The baby has the typhus too. See.” I showed Mama the rash. “I help take care of her.”

  Ilya, I noticed, kept his distance the whole of Mama’s visit. Usually he clung to me like a drop of sap. He was even jealous when I held the baby.

  Maybe Ilya understood something about Mama.

  Tovah, you would be accepting of my friendship with Ilya. Uncle Avrum has Russian friends, non-Jewish friends. But Mama and Papa, they wouldn’t like it at all.

  Mama can be more accepting of the Polish baby. A baby that speaks no language. It could be a Jewish baby, after all. There are many Polish Jews. But Ilya is no Jew. He is a Russian peasant, and Mama and Papa have grown to hate everything Russian.

  I have been thinking, Tovah. To turn my back on the part of me that is Russian is impossible. I am Jewish, yes, but I am Russian too. I am both Jewish and Russian. And I am also more. I am so much more.

  When I read the poetry of Pushkin to Ilya and watch his face, I can see the words rocking him the way they do me. We both ache for something we have lost.

  Yet he aches in a way that I cannot imagine. At least I still have family. In Russia and in America, I have family who love me and want me. Even Saul wants me, in his own way.

  For Ilya, there is no family. In America there is an uncle, an uncle who works three jobs and wants Ilya not because he loves him, but because of the money Ilya can earn. Not once since I’ve been here has the uncle come to visit Ilya. Not once. Is this the way family behaves?

  Poor Ilya, he cannot get back his old life in Russia. Ilya’s mother became widowed when he was two. When she remarried, her new husband did not want Ilya. That is why she sent him to America. Ilya can’t go back. At least not to his own people. Maybe you and Hannah would take him in. Could you raise a little Russian boy?

  No, of course not. You would tell me the wisest thing to do would be to help Ilya prepare for America. He has no choice but to come into America.

  He’s a smart boy. He knows the poetry of Pushkin by heart. I have read to him so often that now he reads passages himself.

  I tell him, “Ilya, you should be learning to read English, not Russian. You are going to be an American.”

  He looks at me with those stormy eyes. Sometimes he looks so lost.

  We are trapped between two worlds, Ilya and I. Ilya wants to go back to Russia, to the only place he has ever known. I want to enter America. Yet neither of us can leave this island.

  Ilya is eating and the circles lessen under his eyes, but still he is thin and frail. I think the doctors and Mr. Fargate are more concerned with his mind, though, than with his health.

  They think Ilya is a simpleton—because he won’t take food for himself. I am still putting food on his plate. And he never talks to anyone else. He talks only to me, when no one is listening. But he is very smart, Tovah. Any seven-year-old who can read Pushkin is one clever boy. I must help him see that his life is here, in America, not back in Russia. How do I do that?

  Tovah, you would know.

  My dear cousin, I miss you like soup misses salt.

  Shalom,

  Rifka

  … Oh, mournful season that delights the eyes,

  Your farewell beauty captivates my spirit.

  I love the pomp of Nature’s fading dyes,

  The forests, garmented in gold and purple,

  The rush of noisy wind, and the pale skies

  Half-hidden by the clouds in darkling billows,

  And the rare sun-ray and the early frost,

  And threats of grizzled Winter, heard and lost … .

  —Pushkin

  October 14, 1920

  Ellis Island

  Dear Tovah,

  Ilya got me into such trouble today. We were walking through a part of the hospital we didn’t know very well. We heard the d-d-d-d of a machine. Ilya loves machines. He dragged me over to the place where some men were working on a balcony overlooking the harbor.

  I stepped closer to the workmen. One of them used English words I hadn’t heard before. I don’t think they were words Mama would want me to learn, but still I was curious.

  All of a sudden I realized Ilya was missing. He is never more than a step or two away from me. Now for the first time in weeks he had disappeared from my sight.

  I rushed toward the balcony, calling for him. A little boy could easily fall over the edge into the water. I ran from the balcony to the hallway, then back again, fretting in Russian. The workmen stopped their hammers to stare at me.

  It took a moment for the sound of their machines to stop inside my head, but then, in the silence, I heard Ilya’s high voice, crying out.

  I turned toward the sound. There stood a row of metal toilet stalls. It was from the stalls that Ilya’s voice came. Inside one I found him. He had his back to me, and clouds of white paper flew over h
is head as if some great white bird were descending on him.

  But it was no bird. Ilya was unrolling toilet paper, an endless ribbon of it. As he unwound it, he laughed wildly. He cried, “Paper! Paper!”

  I scolded him in Russian. I yelled for him to stop.

  “Look what you are doing, Ilya. You are going to get us killed. Look how you are wasting the paper.”

  I grabbed his arm, holding it away, while frantically I started rolling the paper back. I was trying to wind it up so no one would punish us and I was yelling at him in Russian.

  One of the workers started toward us. He pushed his big arm into the stall past me and Ilya. The worker ripped out the roll of toilet paper, throwing it over the rail and into the harbor. The white tail of Ilya’s unravelings sailed over our heads and disappeared beyond the balcony.

  The worker looked as though he would next pitch us into the harbor.

  Well, I grabbed Ilya and I ran with him so fast he cracked his shoulder against a wall. I didn’t stop to comfort him.

  “We’re going to get killed!” I cried, pulling him, checking over my shoulder every few seconds to see if the man was chasing us.

  “Don’t you ever do that again,” I told Ilya, trying to catch my breath. We collapsed on my cot.

  Nurse Bowen came over. Ilya held his shoulder and wept.

  “What happened?” the nurse asked, examining Ilya’s shoulder.

  “Promise you won’t tell Mr. Fargate?” I asked. “Promise you won’t let him send us back to Russia.”

  “Tell me, Rifka,” the nurse said.

  “Ilya unrolled toilet paper,” I said, believing Ilya had committed one of the worst offenses he could ever commit here.

  “Toilet paper?” the nurse asked. “What are you talking about, Rifka?”

  I told her about the stalls and the workmen.

  Nurse Bowen started laughing.

  “This is not funny,” I told her. “In Russia, to waste paper is a terrible crime.”

  “Well, in America it’s not, Rifka,” Nurse Bowen said. “There is plenty of paper. Toilet paper, newspaper, every kind of paper. Don’t worry. We’re not going to send you back to Russia over a roll of toilet paper.”

  She told me to tell Ilya that his shoulder would be fine. Already he had stopped crying.

  Nurse Bowen went away, still laughing.

  I felt a little insulted that she should laugh at me. But if paper was not so precious here, maybe it was a little funny. Maybe. And maybe I could get some of that plentiful paper Nurse Bowen talked about to write on.

  Ilya slid the Pushkin out from under my pillow. He handed it to me to read to him.

  I said, “No, no Pushkin. I’m going to write a poem of my own.”

  Remember, Tovah, when I said I might try? Well, I’ve been writing a little at the back of our book. There is hardly any room left between my letters to you and my poetry, but still I keep writing. Sometimes even in English. It is not very good poetry. Mostly, it doesn’t rhyme, but I write anyway. I write poems about Russia and Bubbe Ruth and you and Hannah and coming to America and Ellis Island.

  I asked Nurse Bowen for some of that paper she was talking about. She gave me a handful.

  A handful of paper, Tovah. The paper alone is enough to draw the words from inside me. I took the paper and our Pushkin outside. Ilya, of course, followed behind me like a shadow.

  It is pretty here on the island. Across the harbor, tall buildings stand like giant guards, blocking my way to Mama and Papa. I fear those guards will never let me pass. Yet even in my fear I cannot deny the beauty of this place.

  The leaves change color just as they do in Berdichev. Geese fly overhead, honking, forming and reforming in the blue sky above Miss Liberty. The sun feels warm on my shoulders and the smell of autumn tickles my nose.

  My writing maybe is not as beautiful as Pushkin’s, but it comforts me. Ilya likes it too. He makes me read my poems over and over to him. It is nice to have an audience.

  You didn’t know I would turn out to be a poet, did you, Tovah? Is that being clever?

  Shalom, my cousin,

  Rifka

  … This heart its leave of you has taken;

  Accept, my distant dear, love’s close,

  As does the wife death leaves forsaken,

  As does the exile’s comrade, shaken

  And mute, who clasps him once, and

  goes.

  —Pushkin

  October 21, 1920

  Ellis Island

  Dear Tovah,

  The baby with the typhus, the baby I have taken care of since I got here three weeks ago, I found her in her crib this morning, Tovah. I found her dead.

  She died during the night, alone. I remember how her dark eyes would look straight inside me. She would hold on to my finger with her tiny fist and squeeze as if she could squeeze my strength into her. I gave her my strength, gladly, all that I could give her. It wasn’t enough. I loved that little baby, Tovah.

  Now Mr. Fargate comes in. He says he has let my family know that tomorrow he will decide about my case. So tomorrow I learn what will become of me. Mr. Fargate has called Ilya’s uncle too.

  I’m so frightened, Tovah. More than an ocean separates me from Berdichev now. Inside me, something has changed. I can’t go back.

  Worst of all, my head has begun itching again. It started a day or so ago. I am afraid to lift off my scarf and look at it. I couldn’t bear to see sores covering my scalp again.

  So the ringworm isn’t gone after all. If they check, they will send me back for sure.

  I should have just remained in Russia as you did, Tovah. That would have been the wisest thing of all. The thought of going back across the ocean, across Europe, through Poland, back to Berdichev … it is too much for me to bear.

  To leave America without ever having a chance at it, to leave Mama and Papa and all my big brothers when I know how much they need me, I can’t let myself think of it.

  Even if I could travel all those miles, even if I managed to find my way back, even if the Russians did not kill me, I couldn’t live in Berdichev again. I have lived too much in this big world to go back to Berdichev.

  Shalom, Tovah,

  Rifka

  … The heavy-hanging chains will

  fall,

  The walls will crumble at a word;

  And Freedom greet you in the light,

  And brothers give you hack the

  sword.

  —Pushkin

  October 22, 1920

  Ellis Island

  Dear Tovah,

  This is the last letter I will ever write you from Ellis Island. It is almost impossible to believe what has happened today. I don’t know where to start.

  I woke up feeling like a lump of wool had caught in my throat. I let Ilya sleep in bed beside me last night. I knew it was probably our last night together, whatever happened.

  We whispered for a long time in the dark. I told him not to be afraid of America. That he would make friends here. That his uncle would love him and take care of him.

  I told him that in Russia, he would always be a peasant. That would never change. He would die young just as his father had and maybe leave a little boy just as his father had left him. I told him in America, he could grow up to be anything he wanted. He could have a wife and children and live to be an old man and see his grandchildren born.

  He said he would stay, if he could marry me.

  That made me smile. I’m glad it was dark so he couldn’t see. I didn’t want him to think I was making fun.

  I have learned so much about America in these three weeks. It is hard to believe I got so upset over Ilya and the toilet paper just a few days ago. I laugh about it now. I understand so much more.

  Yet as I woke this morning, with Ilya curled up beside me, I wondered what good would come from my understanding. What chance did I have of staying? Not only did I have no hair, but the ringworm had returned. Every second I had to remind myself not to scratch a
t the ringworm.

  Ilya had America within his grasp, but me, I held nothing. I held only Russia.

  Mr. Fargate, the man who makes these decisions, came into the little office beside the ward. He called Ilya in first.

  Ilya gripped my hand and pulled me into the office with him. Mr. Fargate and Doctor Askin discussed Ilya, examined him. Mr. Fargate noticed that Ilya had gained weight.

  Ilya’s uncle sat in a chair nearby. He was such a little man, with thin blond hair and stormy eyes, just like Ilya’s.

  My family, my whole beautiful family, Papa and Mama and Saul, and Nathan and Asher and Reuben, and Isaac and Sadie and the little baby, Aaron, they were all there too. How I longed to be with them. I looked at each of them, memorizing their faces. My brothers Reuben and Asher and Isaac, I would have known them anywhere. Isaac and Asher look just like Papa, and Reuben, he looks like me. When they first arrived, I hugged and kissed them all.

  I whispered to Saul, “Did you get the candlesticks?”

  He said, “Yes, Rifka. But I have not given them to Mama yet.”

  “What are you waiting for?” I asked.

  Saul shrugged.

  Now I could only look at my family from a distance. Ilya needed me.

  Ilya’s uncle cowered under the giant shadow of my family. When Nurse Bowen passed him, his hair lifted off his high forehead in the little breeze that she made. He held his hat in his hand, his fingers inching around the brim over and over again, his shoulders hunched. It looked to me like he needed Ilya as much as Ilya needed him.

  Mr. Fargate said, “This boy shows minimal intelligence. He doesn’t feed himself, he doesn’t speak. Has there been any change since his last review, Doctor Askin?”

  The doctor said many things, but the more he talked the more clear it became he didn’t know Ilya at all.

  He believed Ilya was a simpleton.

  Ilya could read Pushkin. He was smart enough to figure out if he starved himself, he’d get shipped back home. That’s not a simpleton. They couldn’t send him back for being a simpleton.