The Devil's Arithmetic (4 page)

Shmuel reached out and pinched his sister on the cheek. “Do you adore me, too, Gitl?” he asked, laughing fondly.

Annoyed, she drew back from his touch and a pin
shook loose from her hair. Making a wry mouth, she removed her kerchief and drew out the other two pins. Her thick black hair cascaded down to the small of her back. “I adore any of my brothers the day before they get married,” she said. Then with a swift movement, she wrapped the hair around her hand into a bun, which she pinned on top of her head again. She put the kerchief back over the hair and knotted it securely.

Hannah watched silently, trying to take it all in. How could she be both Hannah and this Chaya whose parents had died of a mysterious disease? She
knew
she was Hannah. She knew because she remembered. She remembered her mother and her father and her brother Aaron with his big blue eyes and great smile. She remembered her house with the junglegym in the backyard and the seventeen stuffed dogs on her bed. She remembered her best friend Rosemary, who'd had braces the year before she did and had showed her how to eat jelly beans with them on, even though you weren't supposed to. She remembered her school in New Rochelle. As she remembered, she forgot to be a good sport and her eyes began to fill with tears.

But the man Shmuel and the woman Gitl didn't seem to notice. They were too involved in their own conversation.

“If you would accept Yitzchak the butcher's offer, you could be married, and living in a fine new house in the center of the shtetl,” Shmuel said. “Then you would not have to share your kitchen with Fayge or anyone else.” He turned and winked at Hannah.

“Yitzchak the butcher is a monster. All he wants is a nurse for his children.”

“All butchers are monsters to someone who refuses meat,” Shmuel said. “And he only has the two children, not an army. They are young enough so you could be a real mother to them and you are young enough so you could give him even more.”

“Hah!”

Shmuel turned and smiled at Hannah, signaling her closer to his side. She was hesitant to go. What if by moving closer to him she became more Chaya and less Hannah? What if by accepting the reality of the dream, she lost her memories of her actual past? She wouldn't move. No one could make her. But Shmuel's smile was so genuine. It reminded her of Aaron's. He held out a hand.

“Come, Chaya, or do you think me a monster like Yitzchak?”

She moved.

Close up she could see there was a band of paler skin around his forehead, which his cap must have kept shaded from the sun. And he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen, bluer even than Aaron's.

In a loud conspiratorial whisper, Shmuel said, “She is still waiting to hear from Avrom Morowitz, who went three years ago to America, promising to send for her. But why should he send for her when he has not bothered to send even so much as a letter . . .”

“I would not go to America for Avrom Morowitz even if he sent a thousand letters. I will live and die in
this shtetl, as did our parents and as did their parents before them. That is how it should be.” Gitl's mouth was set in a firm line, and she shook her finger at her brother.

Shmuel began to laugh, letting it start deep down in his belly and then rise higher and higher. After a bit, Gitl joined in. At the last, the two of them were laughing so loudly they were almost paralyzed by their own silliness.

Poker-faced, Hannah stared at them. Nothing they had said seemed at all funny, but that she'd understood them at all seemed miraculous. For the more they talked, the more she realized they were
not
talking in English. They were speaking Yiddish. And yet she could understand it, every word. Perhaps of all the strange things in the dream, this was the strangest.

She suddenly remembered going to the United Nations with her fifth-grade class and sitting in the big council room. The different representatives had all spoken their own languages—French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese. And she'd listened with earphones that carried translations of each speech. With one earphone off, she could hear both languages going at once. It had fascinated her. This was a lot like that, except that the English translations were going on simultaneously in her head. It was totally illogical. But dreams, it seemed, had their own logic.

She must have made a noise, some small whimpering, because suddenly both Gitl and Shmuel stopped laughing and looked at her with concern.

“What is it, child?” Gitl asked. “Are you all right? Does anything hurt?” And when Hannah managed to shake her head, Gitl turned to her brother. “I swear, Shmuel, city living does damage to the soul. When our brother Moishe and his wife—may they rest in peace—left for Lublin, they had happy souls. And their little Chaya, so they wrote, laughed all the time. But this grave little whimpering bird is out of a sorrowing nest. Look at her. Look.”

Shmuel put a protective arm around Hannah. “She has been through a lot, Gitl. And remember how you and I and Moishe were when our parents died, and we so much older at the time, too. Besides, she is still not recovered in her strength. Do not worry. She'll smell the good country spring and eat new-laid eggs. She'll help you with the housework and me with the plow. We'll put weight on her and color in her cheeks. The laughter will return.”

“From your lips to God's ears,” Gitl said. “For He certainly knows there's enough sorrow in the world. In the countryside as well as the city. Especially these days when laughter is our only weapon.”

Shmuel laughed. “Do not let Fayge's father hear you say that. He insists only studying the Torah will do.”

“I hear Reb Boruch is a solemn man,” Gitl said carefully.

“Solemn! He would make a donkey look like a joker,” said Shmuel.

“Shmuel, that is your father-in-law you are talking about. The good rabbi of Viosk.” But she laughed, and
turned to Hannah. “Come, Chaya, help me set the table. We must eat and get to bed early. Tomorrow there is much to do.”

Hannah was silent through the dinner, fully expecting the food to fade away at her touch. She was surprised when it tasted real, not like dream food should have tasted, but she ate little of it, much to Gitl's annoyance.

“And how, my brother, do we put weight on those bones when she doesn't eat?”

Shmuel shrugged and didn't answer.

Hannah was silent as well when they led her into the room she apparently shared with Gitl. The whole household seemed so reasonable, she had to keep reminding herself it was all a stage setting in some kind of elaborate dream. Again and again she tried to pinch herself awake. All she got for it were sore spots on her arm.

At last, when she climbed into the hard little bed they insisted was hers, wearing a cotton nightshift that was, also, somehow her own, and Gitl had drawn up the puffy goosedown comforter over her, Hannah let out a long sigh. It was a lot like one of her mother's sighs, and she bit her lip remembering. If she tried hard, she thought she might even remember her mother's smell, a combination of face powder and Chanel Number Five.

“Poor little bird,” Gitl said, smoothing Hannah's hair and touching her cheek.
She
smelled of soap with an underlining of onion. “Do you miss them still so much?”

Hannah nodded. “My mother,” she said. “And my
father and . . .” The rest of the words didn't seem to come. Her head began to spin.

“Never mind, little Chaya, never mind,” Gitl said. “Shmuel and I—we are your family now.”

HANNAH WOKE EARLY AND THE HOUSE WAS STILL PITCH
black and silent. Fearfully, she felt her way through the unfamiliar rooms in her nightgown and bare feet. The floor was cold underfoot. When she found the front door, she let out her breath slowly.
Now
, she thought, she'd open it and be back home.
Please. Please
.

Cautiously she pulled on the door and stared out.

Dawn was just beginning beyond the rim of the field. A thin strand of light spun out along the horizon between earth and sky. A rooster crowed his wake-up call into the clear air.
A-doo, a-doo
echoed back.

That was when she remembered the dream: she had been at a Seder, surrounded by familiar faces, and for some reason she hated being there. The sweet wine, the bitter herbs, she could almost taste them. She heard her aunt's voice singing the “Dayenu” as if from miles away. Suddenly a terrible longing for all the people in the dream overcame her and she moaned softly.

“So—you could not sleep either.” Shmuel's voice, deep and rumbling, came from the dark behind her. “Getting married is the most frightening thing in the world, I think. But surely my marriage is not what kept you awake. Did you have another bad dream, Chaya? I worry about you and your dreams. A girl's dreams, like her life, should be sweet and filled with honey.”

She nodded slowly, then turned. She could see nothing in the black room. As if sensing that, Shmuel came over to stand by her side in the doorway. He was fully dressed and smoking a pipe. The curls of smoke feathered out into the open air, spreading themselves thinner and thinner, until at last they were gone.

“Do you think it strange, little Chaya, that I—Shmuel Abramowicz—with an arm like a tree and, as Gitl says, a head like a stone, should be afraid of getting married?” He flexed his left arm at her and grinned, but above the grin his eyes seemed troubled.

“Being married might be scary,” Hannah agreed tentatively.

“
Being
married does not bother me,” Shmuel said. “But
getting
married—that frightens me!”

Not sure she understood the difference, Hannah hesitated. “Maybe . . .” She took a deep breath and hurried on. “Maybe there's something everyone is afraid of. With you it's getting married. With me it's shots.”

“Shots?”

“Shots. You know. Needles?” She jabbed her right finger into her left arm to demonstrate.

He smiled and nodded. “You were very sick. I understand.”

“
Chaya
was sick, not me.”

He continued smiling, as if humoring her.

Hannah drew in a deep breath and sighed. “My mother is afraid of snakes,” she said at last.

“There are not many snakes in Lublin!” Shmuel chuckled.

“I'm not from Lublin,” Hannah said. “I'm from New Rochelle. And I'm not Chaya, I'm Hannah.” When Shmuel's eyebrows rose up and lines furrowed his brow, he looked so fierce Hannah moved back a step. “Of course,” she said quickly, “there aren't many snakes in New Rochelle either. And Chaya
is
my Hebrew name, not Chanah, because of a friend of Aunt Eva's. And . . .”

“Lublin is a big place, I am sure,” Shmuel said, scratching his beard, with a gathering urgency. “And surely I am not familiar with every avenue and street, having been there only twice in my life.”

“New Rochelle is not in Lublin, wherever that is. It's a city all its own,” Hannah cried.

“Since when is a street a city?”

Hannah could feel her voice getting louder, like Aaron's when he was scared, and a panic feeling was gripping her chest. “New Rochelle is, too, a city. It's in New York.”

“Nu?”

Suddenly remembering Gitl's boyfriend Avrom, she shouted, “In America!”

“And Krakow is in Siberia. I get it. A joke to help me forget about my marriage fears.” He laughed. “Lublin in America and Krakow in Siberia. Though dear Gitl would say it most certainly is that far to both of
them.” He reached out and patted Hannah on the head. “What a strange little bird you are indeed, who has found her way into our nest. Gitl is right. But come, my little Americanisher, whose Yiddish is pure Lublinese, let us feed Hopel and Popel and discuss world geography some other time. Lublin in America, Krakow in Siberia.” He chuckled again as he held out a cloak for her and a pair of ugly black tie shoes.

Seeing that he was not taking her seriously, Hannah decided there was nothing else to do but go along. She took the clothes. The ugly shoes fit perfectly.
Too
perfectly. She shivered, then followed him out to the barn, where they fed hay to the work horses, Popel and Hopel, in companionable silence.