The World That We Knew(6)

“We are all neighbors in God’s eyes,” Ettie responded.

Her mother nodded, a smile on her lips despite herself. Truly, she had never seen a more intelligent girl, one she loved beyond all reason.

Mother and daughter were so focused on one another, they seemed to have forgotten Hanni entirely. Without waiting any longer, she went directly to the rabbi’s wife and sank to her knees. What she wanted, she must ask for now.

“I have no one else to ask for help, so I am here. I beg of you, please don’t turn me away.”

Embarrassed, the rabbi’s wife pulled Hanni to her feet. “I am nothing more than a woman. Get up!”

But it was precisely because she was a woman that she took pity on Hanni. What would make a woman venture out when breaking the curfew could mean prison or death? There was only one cause. This woman was someone’s mother. The rabbi’s wife understood this. Her gaze lingered on her own daughter, who was watching her with shining eyes. For no reason other than her fierce love for her own child, she gave in and signaled Hanni to join her at an old table that was riddled with indentations left in the wood by cleavers and knives used for preparing meals. Women came here when it was time to give birth, and it was here that life came into the world. Countless children had been born on her table, while the rabbi slept or studied in his chambers. Afterward, the wood was always cleaned with salt and prayers were said. No child was safe during the eight days after birth, and circumcision and naming could not occur before that time. Birth was the ultimate gift and the ultimate sacrifice, the time when malevolent forces in the natural and supernatural worlds conspired to claim both the baby’s life and the mother’s. To suffer so for another, from the moment of existence, marked a person forever. In The Book of Light it had been written that true compassion and true love existed only among children and for children.

“I want to send my daughter to France. I have a cousin there.”

“France!” The rabbi’s wife was contemptuous. “The Nazis are eating France in one bite.”

“When they do, she’ll move on to someplace safer.”

“Are you a fool?” the rabbi’s wife said. “Those safe places won’t take in Jews.”

Boats of refugees were being turned away, in New York and Cuba and England. Still, there were people who managed to forge papers, and those with relatives in another country had a better chance of finding asylum.

“It’s a beginning,” Hanni insisted. “What would you have me do? Let my child stay here, where she will certainly perish?”

The rabbi’s wife and daughter exchanged a look. When the rabbi left Russia, he had decided he would never run again. Their people were being arrested every day; still he had not changed his mind. Half of the Jews in their village in Russia had been murdered in a single day, and the survivors continued to dream of crimson-streaked snow and children who would never grow up to be men and women. The rabbi vowed never again to be chased from his home by tyrants. He refused to leave Berlin despite his wife’s pleas.

“This is not a discussion for us to have,” the rabbi’s wife declared, though she herself had begged her husband to take them to Eretz Israel. Did he not see that soon there would be no escape other than to be raised up into the World to Come? Did she herself not have children whose lives were in danger?

In another room the youngest son whimpered in his sleep. After that the women lowered their voices. Sound echoed here, and should the rabbi wake to see them he would be furious. If their visitor called attention to them, the entire congregation would be in danger.

“Be quick. What is it that you want?” The rabbi’s wife observed Hanni, carefully taking in her wide expressive mouth and black liquid eyes. Her clothes were plain and worn. A brown cotton dress, black stockings, a shawl that covered her hair. She had been beautiful, but she no longer cared about her appearance.

“I need protection for my daughter when she travels.”

“Go with her if you want to protect her,” the rabbi’s wife suggested.

“My mother is too ill to go and I can’t leave her behind.” Surely, everyone understood the commandment to honor one’s parent. Hanni took the rabbi’s wife’s hand in her own, and for a moment the room seemed to float. “My daughter is too beautiful and innocent to be on her own. I need someone who will never leave her side and will fight every enemy on her behalf.” She took a breath so that she would have the courage to ask for what she wanted. “Someone that is created.”

“Created?” The rabbi’s wife pulled her hand away. Her voice was brittle. Now she understood what the stranger wanted. Magic and darkness that could only lead to tragedy. “You’re a fool to think such things can be done easily, and to satisfy a mother’s whim! Do you think you’re the only one with a beautiful daughter? All over this city daughters are being murdered. What of my children? What of the children next door?”

“I would do what I could for them, had I the means.”

“What you want, you cannot have,” the rabbi’s wife said. “If it can be done at all, and I’m not saying it can be, educated scholars must do the deed, men of God who know the mysteries of life, not a woman who knows only how to bring babies into the world.” She stood, smacking her palms on the table. “This conversation is over. It is likely a sin to speak of these matters! You are asking for a creature that is little more than an animal, a beast one step above the world of demons and spirits. We have no business with such things!”