You have to go through the Christian part of the village, pass the intersection that serves as a little market square where Sobla’s brother’s tavern is, and where tinctures made of local herbs are sold—as medicine, not alcohol. There is also a warehouse here, as well as a blacksmith’s. Next you have to go straight, pass the Christian church and the presbytery, then the Catholic cemetery, a dozen or so whitewashed Masurians’ houses (for that’s what people from Poland are called here), and farther on, a little Orthodox church, to then leave the village and finally reach the cave. The villagers are afraid to go there—the place is haunted, spring is autumn there, and autumn spring, time flows according to its own rhythm, which is different from down below. Actually, only a few people know how huge this cave is, but somehow everybody knows that it is in the shape of the letter alef; it is a great underground alef, a seal, the first letter upon which the world rests. Maybe somewhere far away in the world under the earth there are also other letters, a whole alphabet, made out of nothing, out of underground air, darkness, the plash of underground streams. Israel believes that it is a great stroke of luck to live so near the first letter and near the Jewish cemetery, with a view of the river. It always takes his breath away to look down from the hill above the village at the world. It is so beautiful and so cruel at the same time. A paradox that seems to be taken straight from the pages of the Zohar.
They take Yente in great secrecy, in the morning. They have placed her in a shroud and covered her in hay as well, in case of prying strangers’ eyes. Four men and Pesel. The men go down on ropes through the narrow entrance to the cave, taking the body, which is as light as a bundle of dry leaves. They disappear for a quarter of an hour and return without the body. They have laid it comfortably on skins in a niche in the rock, in the bowels of the earth, as they say. They also say that it was strange to carry a human body in that state, since it is no longer human, more like a bird’s. Sobla cries.
It is with relief that they emerge into the sun, which has just come up, and dust off their trousers and return to the village.
Yente’s gaze goes along with them for a while, to the road, counting their hats, but then she gets bored. On her way back, she strokes the tips of the growing grass and shakes the fluff from the dandelions.
The next day, Pesel goes down into the cave. She lights an oil lamp, and after a dozen meters, finds herself in a high chamber. The lamp’s flame lights up the strange walls, which look as though they’re made of onyx, covered in bulges and hanging icicles. To Pesel, it seems as though she has been transported onto one of those crystals that appeared on Yente’s skin. She sees her great-grandmother’s body lying on a natural platform, and it looks smaller than it did yesterday. But her skin is pink, and that same smile roves her face.
“Forgive us,” says Pesel. “This is just for a little while. We will take you away from here as soon as it is safe.” She sits for a spell and talks to Yente about her future husband, who—although he is a year older than Pesel—is really just a child.
17.
Scraps: My heart’s quandary
It is said in Berachot 54 that there are four who should give thanks to God: he who has emerged unscathed from a voyage at sea; he who has returned from a journey through the desert; the sick man who has been healed; and the prisoner freed from jail. I have lived through all of this, and for this I should thank God—which I do, every day. And as I have gazed upon the bizarre fragility of our lives, I thank God all the more that I am healthy and that I have recovered from the debility I suffered when Shorr and Nussen and I were beaten in the riots following the death of our protector. I have no real tolerance for violence, and I fear pain. I studied to be a rabbi, not to go to war.
As soon as I had regained my health completely (not counting the irreversible loss of two teeth), I began to help my father-and mother-in-law and my Leah to supply the inn with stocks of good vodka, potatoes, lard and cabbage, honey and butter, and warm clothing. Separately, I invested in products—in wax, to be exact—and along with Moshe of Podhajce, Hayim, and Yeruhim Lipmanowicz, with whom I had been keeping my meetings a secret from Leah for weeks, I determined to set off to find Jacob. I would not like to call this a flight, though this may be how Leah thinks of it, shrieking that I always preferred Jacob to her. She has never understood me or my mission.
At the same time, there was a painful split within our group of true believers: the Shorrs seemed to be forgetting about Jacob, or they lost their faith in him, and with it the hope that Jacob would lead them, and so they went, together with Krysa, on a mission to Salonika, to the disciples of Baruchiah, the very same who had so cruelly maltreated Jacob in their day.
I often have the same dream, and Reb Mordke always said to pay attention to dreams that frequently repeat, for they are our link with infinity. I dream that I am wandering around a large house that contains many rooms, doors, passages. I don’t know what I’m looking for. Everything is old and moldy, the upholstery on the walls, once lavish, is now faded and torn, and the floors are decayed.
This dream worries me, for I would prefer to dream like the Kabbalists about all the palaces, each containing and concealing the next, with their never-ending corridors that eventually end up at God’s throne. In my dream, there are only rotted labyrinths with no exit. When I told Jacob, expressing my concerns, he just laughed: “You’re lucky, I dream of cesspools and stables.”