The Sisters of the Winter Wood

1

Liba

If you want to know the history of a town, read the gravestones in its cemetery. That’s what my Tati always says. Instead of praying in the synagogue like all the other men of our town, my father goes to the cemetery to pray. I like to go there with him every morning.

The oldest gravestone in our cemetery dates back to 1666. It’s the grave I like to visit most. The names on the stone have long since been eroded by time. It is said in our shtetl that it marks the final resting place of a bride and a groom who died together on their wedding day. We don’t know anything else about them, but we know that they were buried, arms embracing, in one grave. I like to put a stone on their grave when I go there, to make sure their souls stay down where they belong, and when I do, I say a prayer that I too will someday find a love like that.

That grave is the reason we know that there were Jews in Dubossary as far back as 1666. Mami always said that this town was founded in love and that’s why my parents chose to live here. I think it means something else—that our town was founded in tragedy. The death of those young lovers has been a pall hanging over Dubossary since its inception. Death lives here. Death will always live here.

2

Laya

I see Liba going

to the cemetery with Tati.

I don’t know

what she sees

in all those cold stones.

But I watch,

and wonder,

why he never takes me.

When we were little,

Liba and I went to

the Talmud Torah.

For Liba, the black letters

were like something

only she could decipher.

I never understood

what she searched for,

in those black

scratches of ink.

I would watch

the window,

study the forest

and the sky.

When we walked home,

Liba would watch the boys

come out of the cheder

down the road.

I know that when she looked

at Dovid, Lazer and Nachman,

she wondered

what was taught

behind the walls

the girls were not

allowed to enter.

After her Bat Mitzvah,

Tati taught her Torah.

He tried to teach me too,

when my turn came,

but all I felt was

distraction,

disinterest.

Chanoch l’naar al pi darko,

Tati would say,

teach every child

in his own way,

and sigh,

and get up

and open the door.

Gey, gezinte heit—

I accept that you’re different, go.

And while I was grateful,

I always wondered

why he gave up

without a fight.

3

Liba

As I follow the large steps my father’s boots make in the snow, I revel in the solitude. This is why I cherish our morning walks. They give me time to talk to Tati, but also time to think. “In silence you can hear God,” Tati says to me as we walk. But I don’t hear God in the silence—I hear myself. I come here to get away from the noises of the town and the chatter of the townsfolk. It’s where I can be fully me.

“What does God sound like?” I ask him. When I walk with Tati, I feel like I’m supposed to think about important things, like prayer and faith.

“Sometimes the voice of God is referred to as a bat kol,” he says.

I translate the Hebrew out loud: “The daughter of a voice? That doesn’t make any sense.”

He chuckles. “Some say that bat kol means an echo, but others say it means a hum or a reverberation, something you sense in the air that’s caused by the motion of the universe—part of the human voice, but also part of every other sound in the world, even the sounds that our ears can’t hear. It means that sometimes even the smallest voice can have a big opinion.” He grins, and I know that he means me, his daughter; that my opinion matters. I wish it were true. Not everybody in our town sees things the way my father does. Most women and girls do not study Torah; they don’t learn or ask questions like I do. For the most part, our voices don’t matter. I know I’m lucky that Tati is my father.

Although I love Tati’s stories and his answers, I wonder why a small voice is a daughter’s voice. Sometimes I wish my voice could be loud—like a roar. But that is not a modest way to think. The older I get, the more immodest my thoughts become.

I feel my cheeks flush as my mind wanders to all the things I shouldn’t be thinking about—what it would feel like to hold the hand of a man, what it might feel like to kiss someone, what it’s like when you finally find the man you’re meant to marry and you get to be alone together, in bed … I swallow and shake my head to clear my thoughts.

If I shared the fact that this is all I think about lately, Mami and Tati would say it means it’s time for me to get married. But I’m not sure I want to get married yet. I want to marry for love, not convenience. These thoughts feel like sacrilege. I know that I will marry a man my father chooses. That’s the way it’s done in our town and among Tati’s people. Mami and Tati married for love, and it has not been an easy path for them.

I take a deep breath and shake my head from all my thoughts. This morning, everything looks clean from the snow that fell last night and I imagine the icy frost coating the insides of my lungs and mind, making my thoughts white and pure. I love being outside in our forest more than anything at times like these, because the white feels like it hides all our flaws.

Perhaps that’s why I often see Tati in the dark forest that surrounds our home praying to God or—as he would say—the Ribbono Shel Oylam, the Master of the Universe, by himself, eyes shut, arms outstretched to the sky. Maybe he comes out here to feel new again too.

Tati comes from the town of Kupel, a few days’ walk from here. He came here and joined a small group of Chassidim in the town—the followers of the late Reb Mendele, who was a disciple of the great and holy Ba’al Shem Tov. There is a small shtiebl where the men pray, in what used to be the home of Urka the Coachman. It is said that the Ba’al Shem Tov himself used to sit under the tree in Urka’s courtyard. The Chassidim here accepted my father with open arms, but nobody accepted my mother.

Sometimes I wonder if Reb Mendele and the Ba’al Shem Tov (zichrono livracha) were still with us, would the community treat Mami differently? Would they see how hard she tries to be a good Jew, and how wrong the other Jews in town are for not treating her with love and respect. It makes me angry how quickly rumors spread, that Mami’s kitchen isn’t kosher (it is!) just because she doesn’t cover her hair like the other married Jewish women in our town.

That’s why Tati built our home, sturdy and warm like he is, outside our town in the forest. It’s what Mami wanted: not to be under constant scrutiny, and to have plenty of room to plant fruit trees and make honey and keep chickens and goats. We have a small barn with a cow and a goat, and a bee glade out back and an orchard that leads all the way down to the river. Tati works in town as a builder and a laborer in the fields. But he is also a scholar, worthy of the title Rebbe, though none of the men in town call him that.

Sometimes I think my father knows more than the other Chassidim in our town, even more than Rabbi Borowitz who leads our tiny kehilla, and the bare bones prayer minyan of ten men that Tati sometimes helps complete. There are many things my father likes to keep secret, like his morning dips in the Dniester River that I never see, but know about, his prayer at the graveside of Reb Mendele, and our library. Our walls are covered in holy books—his sforim, and I often fall asleep to the sound of him reading from the Talmud, the Midrash, and the many mystical books of the Chassidim. The stories he reads sound like fairy tales to me, about magical places like Babel and Jerusalem.

In these places, there are scholarly men. Father would be respected there, a king among men. And there are learned boys of marriageable age—the kind of boys Tati would like me to marry someday. In my daydreams, they line up at the door, waiting to get a glimpse of me—the learned, pious daughter of the Rebbe. And my Tati would only pick the wisest and kindest for me.

I shake my head. In my heart of hearts, that’s not really what I want. When Laya and I sleep in our loft, I look out the skylight above our heads and pretend that someone will someday find his way to our cabin, climb up onto the roof, and look in from above. He will see me and fall instantly in love.

Because lately I feel like time is running out. The older I get, the harder it will be to find someone. And when I think about that, I wonder why Tati insists that Laya and I wait until we are at least eighteen.

I would ask Mami, but she isn’t a scholar like Tati, and she doesn’t like to talk about these things. She worries about what people say and how they see us. It makes her angry, but she wrings dough instead of her hands. Tati says her hands are baker’s hands, that she makes magic with dough. Mami can make something out of nothing. She makes cheese and gathers honey; she mixes bits of bark and roots and leaves for tea. She bakes the tastiest challahs and cakes, rugelach and mandelbrot, but it’s her babka she’s famous for. She sells her baked goods in town.

When she’s not in the kitchen, Mami likes to go out through the skylight above our bed and onto the little deck on our roof to soak up the sun. Laya likes to sit up there with her. From the roof, you can see down to the village and the forest all around. I wonder if it’s not just the sun that Mami seeks up there. While Tati’s head is always in a book, Mami’s eyes are always looking at the sky. Laya says she dreams of somewhere other than here. Somewhere far away, like America.

4

Laya

I always thought

that if I worshipped God,

dressed modestly,

and walked in His path,

that nothing bad

would happen

to my family.

We would find

our path to Zion,

our own piece of heaven

on the banks

of the Dniester River.

But now that I’m fifteen

I see what a life

of pious devotion

has brought Mami,

who converted

to our faith—

disapproval.

The life we lead

out here is a life apart.

I wish I could go to Onyshkivtsi.

Mami always tells me stories

about her town

and Saint Anna of the Swans

who lived there.

Saint Anna

didn’t walk with God—

she knew she wasn’t made

for perfection;

she never tried

to fit a pattern

that didn’t fit her.

She didn’t waste her time

trying to smooth herself

into something

she wasn’t.

She was powerful

because she forged

her own path.

The Christians

in Onyshkivtsi

built a shrine

to honor her.

The shrine marks a spring

whose temperature

is forty-three degrees

all year,

rain or shine.

Even in the snow.

It is said

that it was once home

to hundreds of swans.

Righteous Anna used to

feed and care for them.

But Mami says the swans

don’t go there anymore.

There is rot

in the old growth—

the Kodari forest

senses these things.

I sense things too.

The rot in our community.

Sometimes it’s not enough

to be good,

if you treat others

with disdain.

Sometimes there’s nothing

you can do

but fly away,

like Anna did.

5

Liba

When we get back from our morning walk, Mami is in the kitchen making breakfast and starting the doughs for the day. Tati shakes the snow off his boots as he walks in. “Gut morgen,” he says gruffly as he pecks a kiss on Mami’s cheek. She pins her white-gold hair up and says, “Dubroho ranku. Liba, close the door quickly—you’re letting all the cold in.”

I let the hood of my coat drop down. “Where’s Laya?”

“Getting some eggs from the coop,” Mami sings. She and Laya love mornings, not like me, but I’d wake up early every morning if it meant I got time alone with Tati.

I shrug my coat off and hang it on a hook by the door as Mami pours tea at the table. “Nu? Come in, warm up,” she says to me.

I shake the chill off and start braiding my hair, which is the color of river rocks. Long and thick. I can’t pin it up at all. “Your hair is beautiful like moonstone, dochka,” Mami says. “Leave it down.”

“More like oil on fur,” I say, because it’s sleek and shiny and I never feel like I can tame it. It will never be white and light like hers and Laya’s.

“Do you want me to braid it for you?” Mami asks.

I shake my head.

“Come here, my zaftig one,” Tati says. “Your hair is fine; leave it be.”

I cringe: I don’t like it when he calls me plump, even though it’s a term of endearment, and anyway, I know what comes next. Laya walks in and he says, “Oh, the shayna meidel has decided to join us.” The pretty one. I concentrate on braiding my hair.

Laya grins. “Gut morgen. How was your walk?” She looks at me.

I shrug my shoulders and finish braiding my hair, then sit at the table and lift a cup of tea to my mouth. “Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech haolam, shehakol nih’ye bidvaro—Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, by whose word all things came to be.” I make sure to say every word of the blessing with meaning.

“Oymen!” Tati says with a smile.

Instead of trying to be something I will never be, I do everything I can to be a good Jew.

6

Laya

7

Liba

Night falls and Tati comes home from work. It’s well past eleven. Laya is already asleep beside me. She was restless all day, I could sense that—and I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I never got the chance. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door.

And another.

The knocks are so loud, they feel as if they could wake the dead. I can’t imagine how Laya sleeps through it. I creep to the top rung of the ladder to our loft, where I can just barely see the door. Tati goes to open it. Mami baked all day and into the night—babka for matters of the heart—and I wonder if she knew that this was coming.

Is it the Tsar’s army? Have they come for Tati? So many men from our town have been conscripted recently. Their absence in the village is felt—lights in windows have gone out all over town.

I know, we all know, that something as small as a knock—the rap of knuckles on wood—could change our lives forever. If the Tsar’s army comes for you, they take you for twenty-five years. And we know it means some people might never return.

I wait for the world I’ve known to crumble, with the scent of chocolate in the air.

“Who is it?”

There’s a muffled answer and Tati unbars the door.

A man I’ve never seen before steps inside. He bows before my father and I see Tati put a hand over his mouth and cry out.

“Yankl?”

But the man doesn’t rise until Tati places his hands upon his head and blesses him.

“Ye’varech’echa Adonai ve’yish’merecha—May God bless you and keep you …” I don’t understand why my father says the priestly blessing. He normally only says it on Friday nights with his hands on Laya’s head and mine—just after we sing “Shalom Aleichem” inviting the angels into our home and before he blesses the wine.

The man lifts up his head and kisses my father’s knuckles.

“Yankl!” my father says again. The men embrace. “What brings you here?” Tati asks. “How did you …?”

“It wasn’t easy to find you, Rebbe, I’ll tell you that much.”

Mami takes a step forward and bows her head in his direction. “Can I offer you something hot to drink? I just made babka.”

“This is Adel, my wife,” Tati says to the strange man. And to my surprise, the man looks at her and says, “I remember.”

He wears a large cloak that looks like a bearskin, and underneath it, a satin overcoat with white stockings that end in large black boots.

“Please—take a seat.” Mami beckons the men to the table as she goes to the kitchen. I can hear her fill the kettle and put it on the fire.

The man sits down at the table and stares at Tati. “It’s good to see you, Berman.”

Tati grunts. “What brings you all this way, my brother?”

Tati has a brother?

The man starts to sway back and forth at the table as if in prayer. “Oh-yoy oh-yo-yoy, oh-yoy,” he chants. “The Rebbe is sick, Reb Berman. He doesn’t have long to live.”

I see Tati’s face go slack, white almost, like he’s seen a ghost.

“Here, have a tipple of something.” Mami takes out the schnapps and offers both men a glassful.

The man—my uncle?—takes a healthy gulp, shudders, and continues. “We need you to come home. The Rebbe needs you, Berman … we all need you. Please come back before it’s too late.” He takes another gulp of schnapps, then picks up the mug of tea.

Tati shakes his head. “I have to speak to my wife.”

“There isn’t much time,” Yankl pleads. “It may be too late already.”

“Then what are you doing here? Leave,” Tati growls, and slams his glass on the table.

“Berman …” Mami goes to put her arms on Tati’s shoulders.

“I said I’d never go back, Adel. You know that.”

“You can’t send Yankl back out into the cold.”

Tati grunts and says, “Will you stay the night?”

Yankl stands up. “No. You’re right. I should head back right away. I gave you the message.” He shrugs. “What you do with it is on your conscience.”

“Get out of my house!” Tati yells.

“Berman!” Mami scolds.

I hear Laya turn over in bed.

Tati grumbles, “Es tut mir bahng—sorry,” and looks up at his brother. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

Yankl walks to the door.

“Yankl, I didn’t mean it. You can stay the night. You are always welcome in our home,” Tati says.