Stories and Pictures Part 14

I am healthy; I have lived with Reb Zeinwill five years.

_How?_ Perhaps I shall tell another time.

VI

THE SEVENTH CANDLE OF BLESSING

The thirteen-year-old brow is puckered with anguish, the child-face pale with dread, tear after tear falls from the innocent eyes. Only last Friday, just a week ago, she was so happy, so full of glee. It was the "short Friday."[17] Grandmother had woke her a little earlier than usual, she had spent the day in preparation for the Sabbath.

In the late afternoon she had washed herself, plaited her long hair, singing and dancing the while, dressed, and gone with grandmother to the synagogue--and they had lighted each her candles. Bashe's first candle--G.o.d bless grandmother! Her second--G.o.d bless Tatishe,[18] and let him find lots of work and make heaps of money, and not sigh any more and say that the times are bad. Her third--G.o.d bless Mamishe, and make her strong.

And then--for the little sisters and the little brothers, a candle each.

It lasted till people began to come in for the prayers.

How she loves the synagogue! how she loves candle-blessing.

She has lived with grandmother two whole years.

She does not want to go home (there is no candle-blessing there, it is not the custom), unless it were just to see her mother, to clasp her father once round the neck and play awhile with his black, silky beard, and to have a game with the little ones.

Grandmother must not be left alone. She is always so good to her; she has taught her to bless the candles.

Bashe loves grandmother, and blessing the candles, too. She longs for it the whole week through, she counts the days. But this is a miserable Friday.

In the morning everything was the same as usual.

She had "made Sabbath"; grandmother had sat there and watched her happily. They had dressed themselves, and grandmother had taken her stick. Then, as ill-luck would have it, there came the postman.

Grandmother read the letter, threw herself on the bed, and there she has lain for two hours with her face to the wall.

She is black as a coal, her eyes are shut; one hand holds the letter; she foams at the mouth.

No one is to come near her; no one is to be sent for.

Bashe is pushed away, and whenever she tries to open the door, grandmother hears and screams "No!"

Bashe stands by the bed and cannot make it out. Her heart beats wildly.

G.o.d only knows what they have written from home. Perhaps--perhaps....

She cannot think what has happened. She drops on to her knees and clutches convulsively at grandmother's hand:

"Granny, granny, what is it? Speak to me! Tell me--what is it? Granny, I think I shall die of fright!" She spoke involuntarily.

Grandmother has turned toward her; she moves her lips, opens her eyes, gives her one look, and

"Die!" she says in a hard voice, and turns her face once more to the wall. "And there wasn't his like!" she adds. "Die, Bashe, die!"

Bashe is silent. A blackness pa.s.ses before her eyes, and her head falls on grandmother's feet. Within her all is dark and cold. She has ceased to puzzle herself, she is nearly unconscious.

And in this way another half-hour goes by.

She hears her grandmother's voice:

"Get up!"

Bashe obeys.

Grandmother has risen to her feet and taken up the stick which she previously had flung away.

"How many candles have you?" she asks.

"Why, eight," is the trembling reply.

"Leave one out!"

Bashe does not move.

"Put one away!" screams grandmother, angrily.

Bashe trembles like a leaf, but does not move.

The old woman has gone to the table herself, undone the packet of candles, taken out one, and tied the rest together again. She pushes them into Bashe's hands:

"Come along!"

Bashe follows her automatically; neither has thought to fasten the door behind her. Bashe does not know herself how she reached the platform with her candles.

"Light them one at a time, for whom I shall tell you. Repeat my words.

Say: G.o.d bless Mamishe and grant her long life!"

Bashe shakes as with ague: the first candle has always been father's.

"Repeat!" screams grandmother.

Bashe does so.

"The second: G.o.d make Chamle a good Jew!"

Little Bashe shakes more and more--her limbs are giving way beneath her--she does not hear her father's name. Her heart thumps, her temples throb, her eyes burn.

Grandmother has no pity on her--she screams louder every time:

"Repeat, repeat what I say!"