The Devil's Arithmetic Read online

  “Even today?” Hannah asked, not sure when today was.

  “Even today,” they all said together.

  Hannah turned to look at the man Rachel had pointed out as the badchan. She wondered who he was. The word seemed to have no easy translation in her head. As she watched, the tall, skinny man circulated from group to group. Each knot of people he left was laughing uproariously. Maybe he was some sort of comedian.

  When the badchan got to the girls, he squatted down in front of them. He was so tall, even squatting, he towered a full head above Rachel, who was the smallest of them. Then he began in a sing-song manner to rhyme about each one in turn. When he got to Hannah, he pointed his finger at her and sang:

  Pretty girl, with faraway eyes,

  Why do you look with such surprise?

  How did you get to be so wise,

  Old girl in young-girl disguise.

  “That is you, Chaya!” Gitl cried out from behind them. “What a fine badchan.”

  Without taking his eyes off Hannah, the badchan said, “So, your name is Chaya, which is to say, life. A strong name for a strange time, child. Be good life and long life to your friends, young-old Chaya.” He stood up slowly, unfolding like some kind of long-legged bird, and danced away to the next group of villagers.

  “Strange,” Hannah remarked to no one in particular.

  “Well, that is what he is hired to be,” Rachel said. “Strange and mysterious and to make up rhymes, sing songs, tell fortunes. He said I looked startled by life, Chaya. Do you think so?” She put her arm through Hannah’s.

  Hannah shrugged, but she wasn’t really thinking about what Rachel said. She was watching the badchan. He reminded her of something or someone, but she couldn’t think what. Then, when he tipped his hat to one of the old women on the wagons, it came to her. He was like a court jester. Only instead of wearing one of those colorful caps with bells, he wore a black hat like the other men, and the bottom of his coat danced along with his every move.

  The idea of a Jewish jester so tickled her, she began to laugh out loud. Without even knowing the joke, the other girls joined in.

  8

  THE FOREST WAS NOW BOILING WITH PEOPLE, FOR THE VIOSK villagers had come behind the klezmer to greet Shmuel and his friends. Hannah hung back. More people meant more greetings and more excuses. It was worse than any family party at home.

  At home! The skin on her face suddenly felt stretched tight across her cheekbones and her eyes began to prickle with tears. Where was her home? She forced herself to recall the house in New Rochelle with its borders of flowers and the flagstone walk. But the image seemed to be fading, especially when compared with the forest full of villagers and the tiny house and horse barn she’d left just hours before.

  A hand on her arm riveted her to the moment.

  “Come, Chaya,” Gitl said. “Come and meet your new aunt-to-be.” Pulling Hannah past the noisy celebrants, Gitl led her to the one wagon facing the rest, where the men were busy at work encouraging the two strong workhorses to turn around.

  On that wagon sat two people, one an older man dressed all in black, with a white prayer shawl across his shoulders, a book in his lap. The other was one of the most beautiful women Hannah had ever seen, like a movie star. She was all in white, with an elegantly beaded headdress capping her hair. That hair was jet black, so black that it didn’t even have lighter highlights, and electric with curls spilling over her shoulders. There were gold rings on her fingers and gold dangling from her ears. She had a strong nose and a fierce, piercing look, like a bird of prey.

  “Fayge,” Gitl said, “this is my niece, Chaya.”

  Hannah wondered how, with all the noise and excitement, Fayge even heard Gitl’s introduction. But she looked down from the wagon, those eagle eyes staring. Then she smiled, not at all fiercely, but even shyly.

  “The Lubliner. Come, you must be exhausted, walking all this way after having been so sick. Shmuel would never forgive me if I did not let you ride. And what a pretty dress. You put us all to shame.” She leaned down and offered her hand.

  “I will not say I told you so,” Gitl whispered into Hannah’s ear, “but I did.”

  As if in a dream, Hannah reached up for Fayge’s hand. She expected a princess’s hand, small, fine-boned, soft. But Fayge’s hand was large and strong, with calluses in the palm. When she was up by Fayge’s side, she could smell a scent on her hair and dress, like roses and wood shavings after a long rain.

  “Now,” Fayge said, turning toward her and smiling broadly. “Tell me all about Lublin.”

  The bride’s wagon was turned around at last, and the procession started up again. This time the klezmer was behind, far back at the end of the line of villagers. Hannah’s new friends danced by the wagon’s side, hands joined, singing:

  Who asked you to get married?

  Who asked you to be buried alive?

  You know that no one forced you,

  You took this madness on yourself.

  “I always hated the ‘Sherele,’” Fayge said. “Such a gloomy song for so glorious an event.”

  “What’s the ‘Sherele’?” Hannah asked.

  “The wedding dance your friends are doing. You do not play such games in Lublin? Perhaps you are smarter than we.”

  Hannah looked down at the girls. Some younger girls had joined them and the line was twisting and turning to the rhythm of the song. “New Rochelle,” she murmured, though this time it was more a prayer than a statement.

  Fayge didn’t seem to hear. “Oh, Chaya, never mind the ‘Sherele.’ We will sing and dance other things all night long. The grandmothers will dance the ‘Bobbe Tants’—well, Shmuel’s grandmother is gone, may she rest in peace. But Gitl can dance with my grandmother. You should see my grandmother, so light and quick. And you, too, Chaya, you will dance. Oh, only if you are feeling well enough. We will have great fun. You will see.” She patted Hannah’s hand.

  The wagon bumped along the road, swaying from side to side. Hannah wished she could get down and looked longingly at the ground.

  “What is it, Chayaleh?” Fayge asked.

  “Is it much longer?”

  “Around one more big bend and we will be there. At my village. At Viosk. Would you believe it? My village for but a few more hours and then my village no more. And would you guess that as excited as I am about marrying my beloved Shmuel, a part of me is also afraid?”

  Hannah laughed out loud. “Shmuel said the same thing this morning.”

  “Did he? Did he?” Fayge’s eyes lit up and suddenly she looked very young, not that much older than Hannah. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

  Hannah closed her eyes, trying to remember. “He said . . . he said . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “He said he wasn’t afraid of being married, only of getting married.”

  Reb Boruch cleared his throat loudly.

  “Oh, Chaya,” Fayge said, ignoring her father, “thank you for telling me that.” She gave Hannah a hug. “We are going to be such friends, you and I. Best friends. Life will be good to us forever and ever, I know.”

  The wagon made a wide turn around the bend in the path, the horses straining mightily. One blew out its nostrils, a loud huffing. Ahead, where the path widened out, was a meadow and beyond it a town.

  Hannah called over her shoulder to the dancing girls, “We’re here,” the words springing easily to her mouth. The girls dropped hands and stared down the path.

  When Hannah looked up again, she could see Viosk laid out at the far end of the meadow, picture-postcard pretty. Small houses nestled in a line, and the larger buildings, none higher than three stories, stood behind, like mothers with their children.

  As the horses pulled them closer, Hannah could distinguish a central open market with stalls, surrounded by stores. There was a pharmacy topped by a large black sign, a barbershop with its familiar peppermint stick, a glass-fronted tavern, and a dozen other shops. In the middle of the market, a tall wooden pole
supported a bell. Behind the open market was a towering wooden building with four separate roofed sections and fenced-in courtyards. The dominant color was brown: brown wooden buildings, brown sandy streets, as if it were a faded photograph. Yet it was real.

  “Papa,” Fayge said, turning to him, “what are those automobiles and trucks doing in front of the shul?” She pointed to one of the big buildings. “Is it another surprise for the wedding? Oh, Papa!” She gave him a hug, and his normally dour face lit up.

  Hannah looked where Fayge was pointing. In the middle of the brown landscape, like a dark stain, were three black old-fashioned cars and twelve army trucks strung out behind. She gave an involuntary shudder. They reminded her of something; she couldn’t think what.

  Fayge’s father cleared his throat and closed the book on his lap. “I do not make surprises,” he said gruffly. “Only my children make surprises.”

  “Then what are those automobiles and trucks doing in front of our shul?” Fayge asked.

  The wagon continued its slow side-to-side pace toward the town, but behind it the villagers grew silent as one by one they noticed what sat in front of the synagogue.

  Shmuel hurried forward. Putting his hand on the wagon, close to Fayge’s hand but not quite touching it, he addressed her father formally.

  “Reb Boruch, excuse me,” Shmuel said, “but do you know just what it is that lies ahead?”

  “I am not a fortune teller nor yet a badchan,” Reb Boruch said. “It is to God you must address such questions.”

  Just then the door of the first car opened and a man in a black uniform with high black boots stepped out. He turned and opened the car’s back door. Another man, similarly dressed, unfolded himself from the seat. The medals on his chest caught the light from the spring sun, sending undecipherable signals across the market to them.

  Somehow the badchan materialized in front of the wagon. He pointed to the man with the medals and cried out, “I see the malach ha-mavis. I see the Angel of Death.”

  Hannah felt the breath catch in her throat. Malach ha-mavis. That was her grandfather’s phrase, the one he had shouted at her when she drew the long number on her arm. Angel of death. Slowly, carefully, she turned to Shmuel, afraid to move too quickly, afraid she might not be quick enough. “Please, Shmuel, what year is it? Please.”

  He laughed, but there was little brightness in it. “They do not have the same year in Lublin?”

  “Please.”

  Fayge put her hand on Hannah’s. “Silly child,” she said, her voice curiously hushed, “it is 5701.”

  “5701? But this can’t be the future,” Hannah said. “It doesn’t look like the future. You don’t have movies or new cars or . . .” Her voice was hoarse.

  “She has been this way ever since she arrived, Fayge,” Shmuel said, shaking his head. “Sometimes she is lucid, other times she talks of Rochelles and needles and snakes.” He tapped his finger to his forehead. “It is the sickness, I think. And the loss of her parents. Now she talks of the future.”

  Reb Boruch cleared his throat. “I think the child means loytn kristlichen luach, according to the Christian calendar.”

  “They do not know from the Jewish calendar in Lublin?” Fayge asked.

  “1942. It is several days before Passover,” the badchan said.

  “Before Passover?” Hannah drew in a deep breath. And then, all of a sudden, she knew. She knew beyond any doubt where she was. She was not Hannah Stern of New Rochelle, at least not anymore, though she still had Hannah’s memories. Those memories, at least, might serve as a warning.

  “The men down there,” she cried out desperately, “they’re not wedding guests. They’re Nazis. Nazis! Do you understand? They kill people. They killed—kill—will kill Jews. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Six million of them! I know. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. We have to turn the wagons around. We have to run!”

  Reb Boruch shook his head. “There are not six million Jews in all of Poland, my child.”

  “No, Rabbi, six million in Poland and Germany and Holland and France and . . .”

  “My child, such a number.” He shook his head and smiled, but the corners of his mouth turned down instead of up. “And as for running—where would we run to? God is everywhere. There will always be Nazis among us. No, my child, do not tremble before mere men. It is God before whom we must tremble. Only God. We will go ahead, just as we have planned. After all, this is our shtetl, not theirs, and there is still a wedding to be made.” He lifted his hand. On his signal, the wagons started up again across the last few yards to the market. As they moved closer, more men in dark uniforms got out of the cars and truck cabs. They made a perfect half circle in front of the synagogue doors, like a steel trap with gaping jaws ready to be sprung.

  9

  THE VILLAGERS GATHERED UNEASILY WITHIN THE HALF-CIRCLE of soldiers and waited to be let into the shul. There was hardly any talking, but Yitzchak’s young son, Reuven, began to whimper. To quiet him, Yitzchak lifted the boy onto his shoulders.

  Rabbi Boruch, Shmuel, and another man Hannah did not know conferred hastily with the Nazi chief, the one with all the medals. They spoke in swift, hurried bursts of words that Hannah could not distinguish, but she could see Shmuel’s fists clenching and unclenching behind his back. They were a violent punctuation to all those undistinguishable sentences, as if Shmuel wanted to shake his fist in the Nazi’s face but didn’t dare. At last the argument was done and Shmuel came over to them.

  He spoke gently. “They insist that we go with them in those trucks.”

  “No!” Hannah protested in a whisper.

  “Their argument is persuasive,” Shmuel answered, his thumb and forefinger pointed at her like a gun. “They say all Jews are being resettled. It is government policy.”

  “I heard that too,” Yitzchak added. “Government policy. They have been settling villages closer to the big cities. I thought out here they would leave us alone.”

  Another man argued, “What does a goyish government have to do with us?”

  “A kick in the face and a hand in the pocket,” said another.

  “Wait, wait,” Shmuel said. His voice was soft but his face was grim. “Remember those guns.”

  Fayge moved silently into the protection of his arms. “What about our wedding?” She meant it for his ears alone but Hannah was close enough to him to hear every plaintive syllable.

  “We will be married, Fayge. Your father will marry us. Maybe not here, in your shul. Maybe not even under a wedding canopy.”

  “Not under a canopy?” Fayge was shocked.

  “We will be married, in God’s sight,” Shmuel said adamantly. “I promise you that nothing will keep us apart.”

  “The Nazis will,” Hannah said suddenly. She could feel the rapid thudding of her heart as she spoke. “They’ll take you from here and put you in a concentration camp. Then they’ll put you in gas ovens and kill you.” She could hear her voice rise in pitch; its intensity frightened her.

  “Chaya!” Gitl said sharply, putting her fingers up to Hannah’s lips and whispering hoarsely at her. “Hush! The soldiers will hear.”

  Turning in Shmuel’s arms, Fayge stared at Hannah, her beautiful face sharp, her eyes nearly all pupil. “How can you talk like that? Your words will fly up to heaven and call down the Angel of Death, Lilith’s bridegroom, with his poisoned sword.”

  Gitl shook her finger at Fayge. “Nonsense! You talk like one of the old women in the village—angels and poisoned swords. Why not flying chariots and the finger of the Lord? Chaya does no such thing. How could she? She is only a child, as you are no longer. She is a child with too much imagination and stories filling her head. She has just been recalled by a miracle from the doors of death. Shame, shame, Fayge, to make her into some kind of monster.”

  Rachel interrupted. “Tante Gitl, I think I know what Chaya is talking about. She told us a story this morning. About two children named . . .” She thought a moment. “Yes, Hansel and
Gitl.”

  “Gretel,” Hannah corrected automatically.

  “Yes, Gretel,” Rachel said. “And there is a witch who shoves little boys into ovens and eats them.” She shuddered and drew a deep breath. “A fairy tale.”

  “The gas ovens I mean are no fairy tale,” Hannah said.

  Gitl raised her chin, squinted her eyes and, ignoring Hannah, addressed Fayge directly. “See, my almost-sister-in-law, the child was just reciting a story. And surely we have more important things to worry about than bobbe meinses, tall tales.” Her hands went up and then back down to her skirt, where she wiped them twice.

  “And what could be more important than such a curse,” Fayge asked, adding slowly, “my sister Gitl?”

  Gitl smiled. “Are your mother and grandmother not important? Where are they? Why have they not come out to greet us?”

  Fayge looked around. “Gitl, you are right. Where are they? And where is Tante Sarah and Tante Devorah and . . .” Her voice trailed off and she turned back to look at Shmuel. “And all the rest, where are they?” Her hand twisted and twisted one gold earbob nervously.

  Stony-faced, Shmuel wouldn’t look down to meet her eyes. In a flat voice he said, “The colonel informed us that they have been sent for resettlement already. We will meet them there.”

  “You can’t believe that!” Hannah cried.

  “What else can we believe?” Shmuel asked. “Gas ovens? Lilith’s bridegroom? Poisoned swords? The Angel of Death?”

  Just then Reb Boruch cleared his throat loudly and all the little knots of people who had been talking fell silent.

  “My friends, my neighbors, my children,” he began, “it seems we have no choice in this matter. The government has decreed that we are to be relocated for the duration of this war. This war in which we Jews take no part. So it is with governments.”

  There was a murmur of assent from the men.