Red Chameleon Page 17

  “‘We’ll wait here,’ I said. We were at the side of a road leading north from the town, and we sat in the woods about five hundred yards from the last house.

  “‘I can go no further, Mikhail,’ Abraham said.

  “‘We’ll go no further,’ I said, pulling my mother’s brass candlestick from his sack. I probably looked mad as the falling sun hit my face. Abraham backed away in fear and sat in silence.

  “A few carts and wagons, and even an automobile, went by, away from the town, followed by a few people on foot, and then a rather elegant carriage went into the town. From behind a bush we watched them all as I held the brass candlestick tightly in the dark, dirty palm of my right hand. We looked at each other, two wild men, creatures of darkness, and in the midst of this meaninglessness I felt a power of nothing to lose.

  “When the sun had almost disappeared across the wide field opposite us, a carriage clattered slowly from the town.

  “‘Now,’ I said, rising, and Abraham rose, knowing what we would do without being told, transforming the deed into a ritual to allow us to do it, a pagan act born of despair as we two dark figures hurried forward, a brass candlestick in my hand, a stick in his.

  “‘On the road,’ I said. ‘Stop the carriage. Even if you have to kill the horse. Stop the carriage.’ And I disappeared behind a ridge of low rocks.

  “Abraham hurried forward, lumbered on legs turned stiff from sitting for hours, blood pumping to his throbbing head, probably thinking he might die before the deed was done, but he did not die. When the carriage with one horse turned the bend in the road, Abraham, a dark, spindly mantis, as much animal as man, stood in the road and frightened the gray horse. Had the driver urged him on, the horse would have run Abraham down and hurried into the coming night, but the driver, like the horse, was startled and stopped.

  “The driver, a middle-aged man with a fine black coat and glasses, stood up and shouted something at Abraham, who reached up for the horse and held its muzzle. The angry man seemed frightened. I could see Abraham simply watch and wait as the man reached for something under the seat. Abraham strained his neck over the horse’s head as he petted it to see what the man was doing. When the gun came out, Abraham did not look afraid, only curious. He was not even afraid when the man raised the weapon in his direction and sputtered something. He did not become afraid even when he saw me work my way around from behind the carriage. The bullet and my swing of the candlestick came at the same time. The bullet leaped into the darkness above Abraham’s head, and he turned to watch it but saw nothing as the sudden night swallowed it. He had to pet and talk softly to the horse, whose eyes opened wide with fear at the sound of the struggle behind him.

  “There was a rocking of the carriage and a terrible sound of something hard hitting bone, then a cry, not a cry really but a gasp that sounded like a child saying, ‘Why?’

  “‘Hurry,’ I whispered. ‘Before someone comes by. Hurry.’

  “Abraham hurried to the carriage and moved his head close to see the man, who lay slumped forward. Perhaps he expected blood, but could make nothing out in the darkness.

  “‘Quick,’ I said, breathing quickly. ‘Let’s get him into the woods. Quick.’

  “We lifted the man, and we could feel that he was still alive, though his right arm, the one that had held the gun, hung at an impossible angle, and we knew it was broken. When we had moved behind some rocks, we leaned over to listen to the man’s chest.

  “‘He breathes,’ I said softly.

  “‘A little,’ said Abraham.

  “‘A little.’

  “We hurried back to the carriage and drove into the night with me at the reins, feeling confidence returning for the first time since we had left Yekteraslav. I turned to share my feeling with Abraham, but he was slumped forward, his face in his hands.

  “‘You think he’s dead?’ asked Abraham, squinting into the darkness.

  “‘No,’ I replied. ‘He’s not dead.’

  “‘How do you know?’

  “‘I don’t know,’ I cried. ‘Stop talking.’

  “We rode in silence and opened the cloth purse of the man we had robbed to find money, both paper and coin. It seemed like a lot.

  “‘We had to do it,’ said Abraham.

  “I nodded in the darkness, the wind and the smell of the sweating horse overwhelming me as I pushed the money in my pocket and flung the purse and the gun into the night. I did not want to know more about the man.

  “‘If they find him, when they find him, they will come looking for this carriage,’ I said. ‘We’ll give ourselves a day with it. No more.’

  “‘It’s a fine carriage and a fine horse,’ said Abraham, sounding well to me for the first time since we left Yekteraslav.

  “‘Maybe we can sell it,’ I said as I climbed into the back seat and lay down to rest. ‘Do not stop in any town or village. I’ll sleep an hour, and then we’ll rest the horse and I’ll drive.’

  “Abraham agreed, though I knew he would have liked to drive the carriage forever, never stopping or thinking, just feeling the reins and the jogs in the road.

  “I slept for four hours. When I awoke, the carriage had stopped. Abraham had unharnessed the horse and was letting it eat dry grass off the road. Across a marshy field, I could see a town that looked large, but it was much too soon for Riga.

  “‘Stay here with the horse,’ I told Abraham. ‘I’ll go into the town and buy some clothes. Two ragged Jews riding a fine carriage is not going to be overlooked.’

  “‘So we will become two fine Jews with a carriage,’ Abraham said with a smile.

  “I nodded and looked at my friend, whose cap had slipped forward over his eyes, making him look like a village fool as he urged the horse to eat.

  “‘Talk to no one and stay here,’ I said.

  “‘I will.’

  “The town was Gomel, and the streets were cobbled, but there were still huge puddles from the thawing snow and rain. There were many Jews in their beards and hats. I could see the tips of their prayer shawls under their coats, but I needed no signs of clothing to recognize other Jews, with their dark, frightened look that marked them even if their features did not.

  “A small boy with fingers sticking through ragged gloves sold me two hard bagels in the street from a woven straw basket. I ate one and put the other in my pocket for Abraham.

  “‘Where can I buy some clothes?” I asked the boy in Yiddish.

  “The boy looked at me without looking, for to look openly might earn a blow, might imply that the stranger was too ragged to be looking for decent clothing. The boy could not have been more than nine, but he had learned much, perhaps all of what he would need for life in Gomel.

  “‘Nothing expensive, mind you,’ I said. I knew a coin to the boy would get me a quick answer, but I was reluctant to part with the money. My plan was forming: we would spend no more than we had to, because I didn’t know how much it might cost to get on a boat to England or America. In the near sleep of the night before I had decided that we had to get by on the money we had taken from the man with the gun, that if we did make it on the money, then the man would have made a contribution to our survival. The attack would have been necessary and meaningful, a sacrifice. Anything less than that and what we had done would be an act of brutality, meaningless animal brutality. The man would recover, get more money, buy another carriage. In fact, I had reasoned, this might turn out to be the best deed the man had ever done, to help two desperate young men.

  “‘… dead,’ said the boy with the bagels.

  “‘Dead?’ I cried, looking around.

  “‘I said,’ continued the boy, ‘that Menahcan the tailor is dead, but his son, Yigdol, has clothes. I’ll take you.’

  “I followed the boy for a few streets to a two-story brick building with a wooden door the boy pointed to and waited. I impulsively took out a coin and gave it to him.

  “‘Shalom,’ said the boy.

  “‘Shalom,’ I said
, and knocked at the door.

  “Yigdol the tailor proved to be a few years older than I, a few inches taller. There were no words or questions, just guarded looks of curiosity through the young tailor’s thick glasses. Yigdol’s one-room home and shop was small, one wall lined with cheap thin books, the other with heaps of clothing.

  “‘I need a suit,’ I said.

  “‘Desperately,’ said Yigdol, looking over his glasses. I wondered why he kept the room so dark, for it seemed obvious that a man who sews and reads in the dark would soon go blind, and Yigdol seemed well on the way to it.

  “‘You have something, something good, not work clothes but not too expensive? I have some money. Not much, but some.’

  “Yigdol looked at me, put aside the dark cloth he was sewing, and went to a black pile in the corner near a dirty window. Outside a child was screaming at another child.

  “In ten minutes, we had negotiated for a reworked suit and a white shirt, and only when the negotiation was completed did I mention the suit for Abraham, a suit that would have to be chosen without the wearer present. Yigdol acted as if he understood, and a second suit was selected.

  “In preparation, I had shifted a small amount of money from one pocket to the next and took out a few crumpled rubles to pay the tailor, who looked at them and at me.

  “‘Is there something wrong with my money?’

  “‘No,’ said Yigdol, ‘and there’s nothing wrong with my brain, though my eyes are failing, but even failing, they see too much and ask too many questions, which may be why the Almighty is taking them back. They ask, where did this young man come from, why is he frightened, why does he buy two suits, and why does he keep so much money in his side pocket and pretend to be so little?’

  “‘I’m a tailor,’ explained Yigdol. ‘I notice bulges, tears, and faces. Don’t fold your bills and don’t keep them in your pants pocket. That is what peasants do. One might wonder why a peasant has so much money. These clothes may make you look like a shopkeeper, but you must act to fit the clothes.’

  “‘What do you want of me?’ I said with my eyes on the man at the same time I sought a weapon in the corners or on the table. The scissors and knife were within reach. ‘I’ll pay no more than we agreed on.’

  “Yigdol laughed. ‘I want the promised land,’ he said. ‘I want it now. Can you pay me that? I want no more of your money than we agreed upon. You have nothing to fear from me.’

  “‘You think I’m funny,’ I said in some confusion.

  “Yigdol shook his head no and pushed the glasses up on his ample nose.

  “‘No, I think you are afraid and could use some help. You are running from the Revolution. You are from the south. You have the accent. You are heading north, for Riga, the sea?’

  “‘Yes, for Riga.’

  “Yigdol smiled proudly at the confirmation of his deduction. “‘Go to Palestine,’ he said.

  “‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ I said it as if I were really considering it, but I was not. Yigdol, with his failing eyes, saw through me and gave an amused look that shook my confidence.

  “‘I have a carriage to sell,’ I said.

  “‘A carriage? A good carriage such as a well-to-do shopkeeper might have?’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, clutching the two suits to my chest.

  “‘If you drive your fine carriage down this street as far as the street goes, you will find a market. In the market you will see a wagon. The wagon has no wheels. It is a store from which a fat man sells geese. Say to that fat man that Yigdol suggested you see him about your fine carriage. But you would do well to put on your new suit before you do so.’

  “I reached in my pocket for more money.

  “‘No more money,’ said Yigdol, raising his hand, a needle pressed tightly between thumb and finger, a filament of thread swaying against the dusty light. ‘I don’t know what you are or what you are doing. I am simply a man helping another man.’

  “Yigdol smiled, and I tried to smile back, but I had no idea of why we were smiling. I escaped quickly through the door and hurried through the town with my bundle in hand, circling the puddles the children played in.

  “I found Abraham talking to the horse and threw him his new clothes. Twenty minutes later we drove into Gomel in our fine carriage and new clothes, with Abraham smiling proudly and me feeling like a fool in disguise. The market was easy to find in an uncrowded, open, uncobbled area with a ring of carts and crates, squawking chickens and geese, and a few goats. The people in the market, sellers and buyers, all stopped to watch the two well-dressed young men in the carriage. I considered telling Abraham to drive straight through quickly, but he held back and played his part. The fat man near the broken wagon sat like a rock, watching me as I got down and moved toward him. An old woman and a young girl stood next to him, the girl no more than eight or nine, keeping her hand in the old woman’s as if I or someone else might steal her.

  “‘Yigdol the tailor said you might be interested in buying a carriage?’“

  “‘I am interested in buying what I can sell,’ said the fat man in an incredibly high voice that belied his body as he pulled his jacket tight around him. ‘I’m interested in staying alive. I’m interested in keeping my mother here and my son’s daughter alive.’

  “‘What can you give me for the carriage?’

  “‘I can give you a little money for the carriage and the horse and a little advice. The advice will be worth more than the money. The carriage is not yours, and you’d best get rid of it quickly before you are asked questions you can’t answer. That’s a good horse, but it will have to be slaughtered for its meat. A chance can’t be taken that it will be recognized. This is the money I’ll give with that advice, and I’ll tell you how to get on a train that will take you to …’ He waited.

  “‘Riga,’ I said.

  “‘Of course, Riga. I’ll have someone take you to the train in Minsk and buy your tickets for a slight price. The ticket man is a half Jew. He’ll put you in a car where no one will ask you questions until you get to Riga. For this you will pay me. Subtracted from what I will pay you for the horse and carriage, which can be my death, you owe me thirty rubles.’

  “‘The Jews of Gomel are very clever,’ I said.

  “‘The Jews of Gomel have to be very clever or there would soon be no Jews of Gomel. Isn’t it that way in your village?’

  “‘It is.’

  “‘We have a bargain?’

  “‘Yes,’ I said, and paid the man. The little girl looked at me and backed away.

  “‘Her father, my son, left her last year and went to America,’ explained the fat man, counting the money I gave him and nodding to a thin young man, who moved forward to take the horse and carriage from Abraham. I nodded to Abraham to let the young man take them, and he reluctantly got down and watched the horse and cart being led into a large barnlike door in a stone building behind the broken wagon.

  “‘He’s going to send for her?’ I said.

  “The fat man shrugged.

  “The thin young man came back with an older, heavier horse and a wagon, not a carriage. The fat man made a pushing move with his hand to indicate that we should climb in the wagon. We did, and the fat man immediately turned to his business of negotiating with a sagging woman over the price of a goose.

  “There was straw in the wagon and a few blankets. We gave the driver some money to buy food for the trip, and I lay back with his sack for a pillow and tried to sleep, my head rolling against the brass candlestick.

  “We spent two days in the wagon, getting out only to relieve ourselves, sitting up only to eat the food brought by the young driver, who said nothing, did not even give his name.

  “Minsk began almost an hour before we reached the train station, first with farms and then a few inns and small factories, followed by a few blacksmiths and clusters of homes and shops. When we reached the cobbled streets, buildings began to rise on both sides, some four stories tall. A platoon of f
iremen lounged in front of a fire station, their uniforms military and their hats shined metal.

  “From the wagon we could see that most of the men we passed were unshaven and not Jewish. There were carriages going past with finely dressed women with wide hats, and then we passed a synagogue, the largest I had ever seen.

  “Without thinking, I moved closer to the young driver, resenting him but dependent. At the train station, the young man went in and purchased the tickets while we got down from the wagon and stretched our legs.

  “‘There is a train for Riga in five hours. Sit on a bench and pretend you are sleeping till the train comes. Then get on the train and go to the third class, next to the last car. Eat the food you have with you and stay away from the front of the train and the Russians.’

  “It was all the young man said to us, and he was gone without looking back. We found a space on a bench next to a tree stump of a father and fat son in clean work clothes. The father and son ate garlic sausage and talked. For five hours we pretended to sleep. The train was another hour late, and we pretended to sleep some more. I needed a toilet but was afraid to leave the bench.

  “The platform was filled with passengers, many of them Russian soldiers, one of whom bumped into me when a few of them playfully pushed each other. The man fell momentarily in my lap, but I pretended to sleep through the incident. I didn’t even know which side of the Revolution the soldiers were on.

  “When the train arrived, we got to the next to last car. People were sitting on all the benches, but we found space on the floor near the window wall. There were pockets of conversations, including a low conversation about something called Zionism held between two shabbily dressed men. When I could stand it no longer, I asked someone where the toilet was. To get to it, I would have to move to the front of the train through the Russian soldiers. Instead, I made my way to the space between the two cars and urinated into the night.

  “In two days and many stops the word ‘Riga’ spread through the car. People began to check their cloth sacks and thin suitcases, to prepare, though the word was we were still many hours away. Abraham smiled, and I nodded, touching the flattened roll of bills in my jacket.