Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [66]
As they waited for the water to heat up, Momma opened the icebox and gave each of them a slice of apple. Momma bought old fruit that was about to spoil from the pushcart vendor and could often pick up a half-dozen pieces for a nickel or a dime.
Gideon ate shivering. They heard the slow, familiar steps of Nathan agonizing his way up the stairs. Nathan was Gideon’s daddy, but not Molly’s. She did not remember her own father.
Nathan entered and, without greeting, set his dilapidated briefcase on the table. He was a small man, barely five feet tall. His long, thin face was permanently etched in a pinch of dismay.
Gideon slipped off his chair and stood in front of his father and stared up at him until Nathan had to become aware of his son’s presence.
“Daddy, I’m cold,” the boy said.
For that moment, Nathan set aside his own misery, picked up his son, and held him on his lap. He rubbed warmth into the boy’s fingers and toes and wrapped his arms about him and rocked him back and forth tenderly.
Nathan sang the words of a lullaby in Yiddish. The child was a little bird and should not be frightened, for his mother and father were guarding the nest.
Gideon smiled and laid his head on his daddy’s chest and lingered. It was to be the lone memory of physical contact and affection from his father.
PART TWO
SHTETL BOY
WHITE RUSSIA
Wolkowysk, 1906
SOPHIE ZADOK stopped kneading dough for a moment, wiped her hands on her apron, and rocked the cradle to soothe her screaming infant.
“You’re a beautiful thing, little Reuben,” she said, pinching his cheek. She sang in a sweet voice a lullaby about the parent birds guarding the nest. A change of diapers and a tit and Reuben was content.
It had been a good cradle, holding all seven of her children, four boys and three girls. Miracle of miracles, all of them survived. The cradle was permanently at stoveside during the day for warmth and because it was where Sophie spent most of her waking hours.
Nathan, the eldest, who had just turned ten, stood by the door for a moment and listened. He had heard his momma sing that song to six of his brothers and sisters. He didn’t remember her ever singing to him. Maybe he was too young to remember. More likely, he thought, she never sang to him.
Nathan was a small, frail child, often sick and endowed with a nature that was perpetually surly. He never seemed to engage in laughter. Not that there was that much for Jews to laugh about.
Yet, there was relief from the misery, ecstatic outbreaks of pure joy. Not a week passed without a wedding or bris or bar mitzvah. There were the holidays and the Sabbath as well, for happiness. But happiness eluded Nathan.
Although his father, Yehuda, was considered part of the clergy, the family was not nearly as fanatic in their observances as the ultra-Orthodox and sects of Hasidim. Sophie had adamantly refused to shave her head and wear the traditional married woman’s wig when she wed her husband. Her defiance was considered a serious matter for a time, one that tested the wisdom of the rabbi and the elders.
Wolkowysk was a small city, partly modernized and industrialized and not so isolated and therefore a bit more advanced in its thinking. Other girls, too, were rebelling against the iron dictates of rabbinical tyranny.
Nathan was happy his mother had won because she had beautiful hair which she twisted into a large bun in the back of her head. When times became desperate, she would cut off some of her hair and braid it into a switch and sell it to the wig shop. It always grew back, but each time it was a little grayer.
In Wolkowysk the younger boys and girls were now allowed to dance with one another at celebrations. This was a very modern innovation. Nathan tried it a few times but he felt awkward and ashamed because the girls were always taller. He was afraid to touch them because he