Chaim Grade’s ‘Sons and Daughters,’ Chapter Sixteen

On the way back home from Bialystok, Sholem Shachne stopped off at Lecheve to see his son-in-law. Guilt over having given his daughter as a wife to such a brilliant scholar plagued him—a wife who, out of pure capriciousness, up and left him with their child while she dashed off to her parents. Though perhaps she’d already come home to her husband?

It was before noon on a Friday when the rabbi disembarked at the Lecheve train station, in a snowstorm so severe he couldn’t see three paces ahead. But Sholem Shachne knew his way well to the nearby town, and he set off on foot. His shtreimel, collar, and beard instantly gained a film of snow. The wind roared in his ears; frost burned his forehead. The suitcase he carried grew as heavy as a sack of stones. Time and again he paused, switched the case from hand to hand, and plodded onward. Even with his knitted wool gloves, his fingers went numb. One moment he imagined the town was just up ahead, its homes close enough to touch. The next, it seemed he wasn’t in Lecheve at all, that he’d gotten off at the wrong station. A dizziness overcame him. He couldn’t say what was happening. Did he have a fever? It was easy enough to catch pneumonia, trudging around like this, and who knows? He might be greeting his dead ancestors any minute now. And well, maybe the time was right? After all, he couldn’t expect to draw any more joy from his children. And at least if he were to die now, Bentzion and Refael would still recite Kaddish; any later, who’s to say how far they’ll have strayed? Their older brother, evidently, had already severed his roots entirely.

Just then a sleigh came barreling at him, the coachman reining in his horse just in time. The coachman leaned out, saw a man on foot in a shtreimel and fur coat. “What’s a Jew doing traipsing about in a snowstorm like this?” he shouted, honking his horn.

“Is this Lecheve?” the pedestrian shouted back.

The coachman gaped at this lost soul, who resembled a rabbi and spoke as if in a daze. “Do you not know where you are? Of course this is Lecheve! What did you think it was, Warsaw? Who’re you looking for?”

Once he explained to the coachman that Lecheve’s rabbi and rosh yeshiva was his son-in-law, the coachman invited him up into his sleigh and drove him to the home of Yaakov Asher, where he, too, stepped inside.

Yaakov Asher’s eyes bulged out at the sight of his father-in-law. “In this weather?! Why didn’t you warn me you were coming?”

But before his father-in-law could respond, the coachman chimed in, “The rabbi was walking in the complete opposite direction of town. He might have been wandering a day and a night had I not been coming home from the village for Shabbos.”

Yaakov Asher grew more alarmed. For his father-in-law to have shown up unannounced, and in such weather, he must be bearing bad news. “How’s my wife, Tilza?”

“She’s well. In good health,” Sholem Shachne replied, peeved with himself for not having considered how much this unexpected visit might frighten his son-in-law. “I went to see my brother and son in Bialystok, so I stopped off here for Shabbos on the way back.”

Once the coachman had taken his leave, Sholem Shachne expected his son-in-law to start pouring his embittered heart out over the grief his wife had caused him. Sholem Shachne would then be forced to admit, “You’re right! You could have taken a wife from a family much more pious than mine and enjoyed your life.” But in fact, Yaakov Asher didn’t utter a single word against his wife. He didn’t have to, so acutely obvious was his sorrow and humiliation at her leaving. Besides shame, it seemed, he was ridden by fear that the people of Lecheve would discover his pregnant wife had run off to her parents because she didn’t want to have another child with him.

His son-in-law’s refusal to cast any blame only increased Sholem Shachne’s suffering; he was ready to rend his garment as if mourning over the dead. He recalled the story in the Talmud of a scholar who’d prayed for his own daughter’s death because her beauty caused pain to others. Sholem Shachne’s rage smoldered so fiercely inside him that it melted the ice in his bones. Earlier, he’d been afraid he’d collapse from pneumonia, convulse from fever and chills. But when he saw the quiet catastrophe at his son-in-law’s home, he told himself he must remain healthy and find a solution.

Yaakov Asher washed his face and changed into a fresh suit for Shabbos. He put on a clean shirt with a soft collar and no tie. With his fingers he combed through his rumpled beard, as if to purge it of any weekday worries, but he could not wipe the sorrow from his eyes. A sense of defeat enveloped him; even his clothes looked disparaged. Sholem Shachne watched as his son-in-law covered his eyes and said the blessing over the Shabbos candles, as if, God forbid, he were a widower. Afterward, he busied himself with his Heshe’le, a four-year-old, red-haired boy, sad just like his father. He changed the boy’s clothes in honor of Shabbos, tied the shoelaces of his little shoes, and said to him, “Heshe’le, do you recognize Grandfather? He brings you regards from Mommy.” Heshe’le looked at his grandfather and was silent. He understood what bringing a siddur meant, he understood that his father’s heavy, yellow-freckled hands were not his mother’s warm white ones. But how one brought regards from his mother he did not yet understand. His father placed a cap, instead of the yarmulke he wore in the house, on Heshe’le’s head, and took him to the neighbor’s house across the street, so that his father and grandfather could go daven.

Outside, the blizzard had calmed. The fine gold flames of the Shabbos candles winked from homes half-buried in snow. And it seemed to Sholem Shachne, as he walked with his son-in-law, that these flames were taunting him: In each Jewish home, an honorable woman awaited her husband’s return from davening. But not his daughter, who’d left her husband and child behind.

By the time the two rabbis entered the beis medrash, the young men sitting and studying had already heard from the coachman that the rosh yeshiva’s father-in-law was in town and the story of how he’d gotten lost. The students and their rosh yeshiva prayed in one room, the townspeople in another. Pacing around the students’ room were twenty or so young bachelors, their short black beards flecked with blond. Their faces radiated youth, their eyes sparkled with scholarly shrewdness and vivacity. Yaakov Asher, too, did his best to look lively, but he couldn’t help casting surreptitious, fear-filled glances over at his father-in-law, worried that his students might ask themselves: If Rebbetzin Tilza went to visit her parents, how is it that her father is here in Lecheve?

After Maariv, the young men jostled their way toward the guest to wish him a good Shabbos and ask whether he’d be giving them a Torah talk. The Morehdalye rabbi replied that he planned on staying in Lecheve for a week, so he hoped he’d have that chance. Once again, Yaakov Asher glanced at his father-in-law, alarmed. A full week! But Sholem Shachne’s expression was impenetrable, a warning against anyone who dared try to dissuade him.

At dinner, Yaakov Asher held Heshe’le on his knees and pleaded with him to eat. His voice and hands shook, as if he were embarrassed even before his child that his mother had left them. Afterward, he went to put Heshe’le to bed in the other room and Sholem Shachne remained alone at the table, gazing at his daughter’s candlesticks in thought: My Henna’le always excused Tilza, saying she’s a dreamer. But if she truly had a powerful imagination, she’d be able to envision the pain she was causing her husband. Could she be so ungenerous that despite understanding the depth of her husband’s suffering, she still didn’t care? Apparently, her fantasies revolved only around herself and her delusions, not the other people in her life, not even her own husband.

The same neighbor who watched over Heshe’le while Yaakov Asher went to daven also cooked for him. To ensure that Yaakov Asher wouldn’t have to divide his portion of fish and meat with his unexpected guest, the pious neighbor brought over some of her own food. But when she came back later to retrieve their plates, she saw that both men had eaten very little. The same thing happened the next day, at the cholent meal, where father-and son-in-law discussed the Torah, the yeshiva students, Heshe’le, but never brought up the subject of Tilza. Then, they both turned silent, and each knew what the other was thinking.

Saturday evening, Heshe’le stood on a chair between his father and his grandfather and helped hold the braided Havdalah candle. Sholem Shachne held the wine-filled goblet in his palm and hummed a sweetly melancholy niggun. The men sniffed the besamim cloves and examined their nails beneath the Havdalah flame as they recited the blessing, Blessed be Him who created the lights of fire. Darkness enveloped the room, dappled by the trembling red glow of the Havdalah candle. With eyes like a pious old man’s, Heshe’le stared at his tall, gray-bearded grandfather and his red-bearded father. High on the walls, thick shadows, like emissaries from another world, looked down upon the two men and the little boy. And much later, when Heshe’le was fast asleep, a murky silence lingered in the corners of the room.

The first to bring up Tilza was her father, who started in as if they’d been discussing her all through Shabbos. “It’s just not plausible that she wouldn’t have told you what she needs from you. A daughter who’s already a mother herself doesn’t tell her parents all that’s going on between her and her husband. But a husband should know what his wife requires of him.”

Rather than respond with anger, or spread his hands and give his usual “What do I know?” as he’d done repeatedly on his recent visit, Yaakov Asher looked down glumly at the floor, as if at his feet lay a heavy package he’d been forced to drop, its weight beyond his strength. After a long silence, he murmured: “You and my mother-in-law have said many times that Tilza doesn’t know what she wants. She’s to be pitied. It’s true she brings me suffering, great suffering, but she herself suffers, too.”

Once again, Sholem Shachne marveled at the even temper of his son-in-law, who continued to excuse his wife. But he himself did not want to excuse her. He ranted with the full force of the fury he’d choked down all Shabbos: “Tilza doesn’t really know what she wants, so her suffering holds no weight with me. She’s spoiled, and you spoil her even more. Tilza sees you falling all over yourself to please her, so she thinks she’s in the right. Every single day, and in every way possible, it is your duty to remind my daughter that she’s a mother and a wife, that you’re the Lecheve rabbi and rosh yeshiva, that you have no patience for her madness. But I see I can’t count on you, so I’ll have to do it myself. It’s a decision I made well before Shabbos, as soon as I arrived here and saw your situation. You’ll travel to Morehdalye, and on my behalf, you’ll tell my family that I won’t be returning home until Tilza comes back to Lecheve.”

“She’ll say I put you up to this,” Yaakov Asher groaned, panting.

“I wish my Tilza believed you had such strength! But unfortunately, she knows you’re spineless when it comes to her, forgive me, and she’ll realize you’re merely carrying out my orders. Tell my family that if they won’t persuade Tilza to return, I’ll never come back home. I don’t want to look at such a daughter! I’d rather drag myself from town to town and die among strangers.”

All of his brewing resentment disgorged, Sholem Shachne wiped the froth from his mouth and began speaking with a bit more composure, though still with firmness. “Tomorrow you’ll depart for Morehdalye. I’ll remain here to run the yeshiva in your place and look after Heshe’le. No need to take him along to Morehdalye! Why should a mother like Tilza have the pleasure of seeing her child? She certainly won’t want to come back if we send Heshe’le along.”

Yaakov Asher listened and squirmed as if under a whip, but he remained silent. How humiliating it would be, how emasculating, for his father-in-law to learn that he was afraid of even speaking to his wife.