Audacity Read online

  a well-educated girl need know no more

  than how to sign her name,

  read the women’s prayer book,

  do a few simple sums,

  write a letter to the parents

  of her betrothed.

  Mama says,

  Fifteen is not too young

  to be thinking of such things.

  But to me

  that word

  [wife]

  is barred and barbed

  threatening

  to hold me down

  when all I want

  is to stretch my wings

  to ride the fickle currents

  beyond the reach

  of any cage.

  not one bit

  Miriam says I can borrow

  her father’s copy of The Cossacks

  if I teach her to sing Kalinka.

  I am not supposed to know the words

  to Russian songs—

  even silly ones

  about little pine trees.

  So we hide

  behind a kalyna bush

  and I bruise my palms

  beating the rhythm slowly

  then faster and faster

  while she rolls

  shushing syllables

  around in her mouth

  like a hot gulp of broth.

  The rhythm gallops

  out of control

  and we are left

  giggling

  gasping for breath

  before we begin

  all over

  again.

  At the end of it

  I hold Tolstoy in my hands.

  Back home,

  I tuck the book

  beneath my shawl.

  A lie

  in the shape

  of pointy corners

  hard edges

  against my skin.

  A lie I have become

  all too comfortable

  living with.

  A lie

  I cannot live without.

  Kneeling beside the kitchen stove,

  I stretch out my hands

  as if to warm them

  by the banked fire.

  (they only quiver

  a little)

  When Mama looks away

  I slip the book

  under the stove

  under the meat pan.

  Hanna said

  she will trade a book of short stories

  by Ivan Turgenev

  if I teach the song to her tomorrow.

  I do not mind

  a scratchy throat,

  sore palms for a day or two.

  I do not mind one bit.

  yarid

  Twice a week

  I walk with Mama

  to the market in the center of town

  to buy fresh goods

  for the store.

  She wraps a scarf around her head

  settles a basket

  in the crook of her arm,

  strides from stall to stall

  stepping around the leavings

  of horses, goats

  and milking cows.

  Her voice cuts across the clamor

  of clucking chickens

  and squealing pigs,

  above the babble

  of peasants pushing carts

  pushing a sale

  on anyone

  who will listen.

  Though Mama would never say

  she regrets her life

  I can see in the confident

  cast of her voice

  on market day

  she relishes

  this

  her one

  place

  of power.

  The cold crop

  of vegetables

  are stringy, the hens stingy

  with their laying

  but spring is here;

  the air around the market quivers

  with the white-knuckled grip

  of peasants grasping

  to last a few more weeks

  when starvation

  fades to the shadows

  for a few

  sun-kissed months.

  While Mama barters with a man

  unloading a wagon

  of canned goods from Kiev,

  I lift a corner of my scarf

  to cover my nose

  to block the stench of so many animals

  crammed into one space.

  With a glance over my shoulder

  and a sidle between stalls,

  I make my way to the wool cart,

  greet Anushka

  in Russian

  in a quiet undertone;

  I conduct a trade of my own.

  Behind the cover

  of our huddled shoulders

  she unfolds a page

  flowing with words

  like water

  rippling

  over hummocks

  and small boulders:

  a poem.

  A whole poem for me today.

  Anushka whispers,

  I scribble translations

  in the margin,

  hand over my kopeck

  with a smile.

  If it would not draw

  too much attention

  I would kiss her on the cheek

  for this lovely

  lovely gift.

  secrets

  Miriam’s family has a farm

  with chickens and goats

  and a big draft horse

  with delicate

  white-tufted hooves.

  If I stand on my tiptoes

  wrap my arms

  around his neck

  if I stretch—

  reach for my

  fingertips

  they still do not touch.

  Sometimes

  when I am done

  with all my chores

  at the grocery store

  Mama lets me walk

  down the dirt road to the farm.

  Miriam leads the gelding

  out into the fallow pasture

  we take turns

  hefting each other up

  onto his high, wide back.

  He trots obligingly

  though he has already worked a long day

  clearing fields,

  dragging

  the heavy plow behind.

  I whisper secrets

  into his mane,

  things I tell

  no one else.

  shul

  The Yiddish word for synagogue

  means school.

  There is little we hold

  in greater esteem

  than learning

  (of course,

  just for men)

  than study

  (of course,

  just the holy books).

  I learned to read

  and write Yiddish

  by lingering

  in the kitchen to polish

  the samovar

  the kiddush cup

  the candlesticks,

  to wipe

  the grease

  from the cast-iron stove

  when the tutor came

  for my brothers.

  When I was young I wished

  I had been born a boy

  so I could study, too.

  Now I wish instead

  that I was born into a family

  where a
girl’s yearning for stories

  for learning

  for understanding

  is not driven out

  like a foreign body

  excised from the skin.

  In our home

  only Yiddish is permitted.

  No Russian.

  Papa forbids it.

  It is the only way he has

  to protest.

  But, Papa,

  I say,

  all there is to learn, all those books

  —philosophy, medicine, history—

  they are all in Russian!

  Enough, Clara,

  Mama says.

  You are a young woman now.

  It is enough.

  Papa says,

  Politics are not for girls.

  In an idle conversation, he hears

  the shouts of the mob

  in a simple poem he sees

  the blood frenzy

  the way a word

  can twist

  slur

  cut.

  I know this,

  yet I could not hold back

  my need to learn

  things

  if I tried.

  At the kitchen table

  covered with prayer books

  Marcus leans in

  nodding

  smug

  Benjamin flushes

  flinching away

  from the same

  tired fight.

  I want to yell

  rail

  rant

  but I know

  it will do me

  no good.

  I learned long ago

  to douse these angry flames

  to make the coals burn

  low

  but steady.

  lies

  In this life,

  lies

  take the shape of words

  printed on ivory paper

  stitched into neat bundles

  wrapped in linen casings.

  It has taken years

  of stolen moments

  whispered conversations

  borrowed books stashed

  like contraband—

  years of lies

  but I am nearly fluent in Russian.

  When life offers me

  something

  beyond

  this

  I am ready.

  preparation

  Friday mornings

  the store floods

  with women.

  They come from all over the shtetl

  clutching the kopecks

  they have saved all week

  to buy something extra for Shabbos dinner

  a jar of honey

  a potato to thicken the soup

  a tin of oil to crisp the fish.

  Mama bolts the door

  when the last of her customers has gone.

  We are both tired

  from scrubbing the house

  the night before.

  Tomorrow,

  we can rest.

  I follow Mama through the curtain

  at the back

  into the kitchen.

  She hums

  as she stokes the fire,

  the furrows in her brow

  smoothing,

  her hands settling

  into the rhythm

  of ritual.

  She cinches her apron

  around her round waist;

  through a long, deep breath

  a thread of song

  escapes her lips.

  I crack an egg

  knead the dough

  set it aside

  to rise

  in a warm nook

  above the stove.

  I clear the table

  spread our best cloth

  over pocked wood

  arrange the dishes

  the kiddush cup

  the candlesticks,

  snip a bouquet of twigs

  from the bushes

  surrounding the house.

  I walk to meet Benjamin and Nathan

  they run through the meadow

  a brace of trout dangling

  from their bobbing

  fishing poles.

  I clean the fish myself

  behind the coal shed

  so Mama’s sacred space

  will not be disturbed by the fuss

  and rush

  of carefree boys.

  When I was young

  I fished for slippery trout in the stream

  on Friday afternoons, too.

  I had a pole of my own;

  I ran through the meadow

  free as a bird

  swinging a string of fish

  behind me

  before all this business

  of being a woman

  took over.

  dance

  Hanna and I

  would never have been friends

  if we did not both

  love to dance.

  Though we are confined

  to the same shtetl,

  her family is infinitely wealthier

  than mine.

  Hanna was sent away to school

  when she was a girl.

  She knew three languages

  by the time she returned to us.

  But she was generous

  in her friendships

  not too great

  to dance

  with the daughter

  of a poor scholar

  and an even poorer farmer.

  Hanna shares her books

  Miriam shares the debates

  she and her father wage

  well into the night

  over politics

  the coming revolution

  the attacks

  against the Jews.

  Miriam and Hanna and I

  meet in the woods on Saturdays

  to dance under the trees

  to trace the pattern of

  budding branches

  drawing shadows against the sky.

  When the weather warms

  we will dangle our feet in streams filled

  with long grasses

  lying down

  like ribbons rippling in the water.

  We go our separate ways

  when the sun begins to fade;

  at night

  I wait until the house is silent,

  light a stubby candle

  creep out of bed

  my heart high

  in my throat

  my breath short

  and quick.

  I tuck into a quiet corner

  read my Tolstoy

  in the yawning shadows.

  herbs

  In the meadow

  behind the shtetl

  pale shoots have begun to sprout

  from the skeletons

  of wild sage bushes.

  I worry a downy leaf

  between my fingers.

  When Nathan was only three,

  his lungs filled

  his throat constricted

  his pale face sweated with fever.

  I sat at the foot of his bed

  while the doctor

  dug through his kit of instruments

  listened to my brother’s wheezing breath

  spoke in hushed

  foreboding tones.

  I had not yet seen a book

  on physiology
r />   pathology

  or medicine

  but the Russian folk songs

  I had learned in secret

  held instructions—

  which herb to seek

  for a cough

  which bark to boil

  for a fever

  which berry to crush

  to soothe the skin.

  I searched the meadow

  for sage

  wild thyme

  and mint

  to make a compress

  for Nathan’s chest,

  gathered the splayed white petals

  of the kalyna flower

  dried them in the shade

  brewed an infusion

  to quiet his cough.

  I do not know

  if it was the doctor

  and his instruments

  Papa’s prayers

  or my poultices

  that pulled Nathan through

  the worst of it,

  but my fingers

  have never forgotten that feeling

  of being so very

  necessary.

  Though the sickness

  has shown no sign of returning,

  Nathan has always been pale.

  Pink splotches bloom

  high on his cheeks;

  Mama tests the heat of his brow

  every morning

  just in case

  thyme and mint and sage grow

  in the kitchen garden,

  bunches of dried herbs

  hang from the attic rafters

  just in case

  my book of medicine

  hides with the rest

  just in case.

  lost

  I heft the bundle of clothes

  ready for washing

  in the river

  swing it over my shoulder,

  step slowly through

  the hastily thawing ground

  on the path past the outhouse;

  careful not to slip,

  tip the bundle

  into the mud.

  The door to the kitchen

  bangs open

  Papa fills the frame,

  his beard blunt

  as an ax

  my books raised high

  over his head

  in a hand

  shaking with rage.

  My hands rise up

  on their own,

  the laundry tumbles

  out of its neat bundle,

  wet shadows spreading

  on threadbare cloth

  like bloodstains on a bound wound.

  I run inside.

  Please, Papa,

  please!

  The kitchen stove

  squeals

  as he pries open the door,

  hurls

  my books

  one

  by

  one

  into the fire.

  I sink to my knees

  in front of the flames—