The Comrade

By Tobie Finkelstein

                              
    Regina knew he wasn’t her father, but he was the male figure that dominated her youth, the foggy image of his face curling around every memory of Provincial Moscow’s metamorphosis into a modern city.  He was notorious in the Ukraine for having caused the famine that brought Regina and her mother to Russia in the first place.  But there was something about the way he always stroked his thick, dark moustache, as if having facial hair were an accomplishment in itself.  The bristly mass would bob up and down as he spoke.  He told Regina silly Russian tales in an awkward effort to amuse her.  Then some sugar cubes would appear from his pants pocket. Her mother, Rosa, would tell her to take them outside where she’d sit on the steps of their apartment building, the sweet slush dissolving on her tongue.  And Regina would contemplate how she could command her mother’s attention the way he had.  Rosa truly loved Comrade Stalin, and he loved her as well. 

 

They came to Moscow when Regina was ten.  Before that, in a Jewish community in the Ukraine, they survived for months off meager government potato rations.  On the verge of starvation, her husband long dead from a factory accident, Rosa gathered a few of their belongings and the two of them jumped a night train headed north to live with their Aunt Sara. 

“We’re on our way to a better life, Regina,” her mother whispered, the train rumbling beneath them.  “This I promise you. You will be taken care of.” 

Rocked by the train, Regina drifted off, straw from the floor pricking into her legs, not knowing at the time what her mother meant by this.  Yet she sensed it was something she wanted too.

Regina arrived at the train station in Moscow on a humid spring evening.  Smells of dead grass and burning train fuel mingled on the arrival platform.  She held fast to her mother’s hand while they waited in line to retrieve their one suitcase.  There was a young girl about her age sitting on a bench further down the platform.  She couldn’t take her eyes off the girl’s gauzy pink dress with eyelet trimming and little yellow flowers encircling the empire waist.  The girl wore a yellow and pink sun hat that reminded Regina of a movie star’s.  When she caught Regina staring, she tilted the hat over her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look at the strange girl dressed in rags.  Regina looked down at her filthy dress and stuck her pinky finger through the little hole at the armpit. 

Aunt Sara was waiting for them on the street. Rosa tried to pull Regina along as she struggled to get one last look at the dreamy, pink ensemble. 

They left the station and headed toward Aunt Sara’s apartment.  The three of them walked along the Vodootvodny canal, watching ducks and pigeons touch down.  The sidewalks were dirty, the buildings monstrous, some of them colorful, almost like giant toy castles.  Regina imagined a candy house with a green frosted dome on top.  She would break it off and lick the sugary coating.

“Almost there,” Aunt Sara smiled at Regina.

Aunt Sara was a religious woman, but not publicly.  They too learned this was the safest way to practice Judaism in mid-1930’s Moscow.  So in the privacy of their simple apartment, they salted their meat in the bathtub to make it Kosher, lit the Shabbos candles, and said their daily prayers.  But when they walked the streets, they took careful measures to blend with the masses.

There were other family members in the area as well.  They reconnected with cousins and a couple of great uncles that Rosa hadn’t seen since her childhood.  Uncle Lazar was one in particular she had heard about over the years.  He was known for coining the term “Stalinist” and was a high ranking government deputy.  He and his immediate family actually lived in the Kremlin.  He had arranged for Aunt Sara and her late husband, as well as other family members, to live in one of the new modern apartment buildings recently built at the time.  Though Sara said they almost never saw these family members, very much a part of high society, they had at least taken care to look after their local extended family. 

Aunt Sara’s apartment was small for the three of them.  It was a tiny kitchen, a sparsely furnished living room, a bathroom (they were only allowed to flush every other time), and one bedroom.  Rosa and Aunt Sara slept in the twin beds and Regina slept on a thin mattress on the floor. Rosa had agreed to help with the living costs, though Aunt Sara, a childless widow of 45, just seemed glad to have the company.  The nostrils at the end of her beaked nose would flare as she said things like, “Thank G-d we found each other,” or “Our belief in G-d will get us through anything.”

Rosa was a talented painter.  To buy supplies, she borrowed money from Aunt Sara and set up a display in the city square alongside other artists and craftsmen.  Rosa would rush out of their apartment early every morning to exhibit her work at the market in Red Square, in the hopes of attracting passersby.

Shortly after Rosa had started this venture, word spread quickly of her talent and she began to sell paintings.  One day after school, Regina decided to visit her mother at the market. Her shoes clacked over the stone sidewalks and her long blond hair swished against her wool jacket.  The early fall chill filtered through her ragged tights and Regina hugged her school books to her chest.

As she approached the market, chickens squawked and men shouted prices for things like fish and leather.  People moved quickly, as if their lives depended on reaching their destinations.  The crowd had thickened ahead and Regina couldn’t move forward.  There was some kind of bustle.  Several police cars barricaded the area and uniformed men up ahead seemed to have blocked off a section of the market. 

Small for her age, Regina managed to duck down and crawl under many people’s legs to get closer to the commotion.  It was Comrade Stalin and his entourage of guardsmen.  Then a guard shifted his weight and Rose’s smiling face came into view.  Her cobalt eyes shone behind dark, fluttering lashes.  She was conversing with the Comrade, showing him one of her paintings.  As Regina edged her way in further, she heard them talking about Uncle Lazar.      “Yes, as you likely know, he’s my associate and director of the Moscow reconstruction plan,” the Comrade said in a deep, friendly voice.  “He’s in the process of preparing a special test model of Red Square.”

The conversation continued and more people gathered to get a peek at Comrade Stalin.  Regina thought about pushing her way up to the front until her mother could rescue her from the crowd, but she looked down at her tattered outfit and decided it might embarrass her mother.  She headed back out of the square toward Gorky Park.

Regina had started coming to the Park after school on most days.  She loved the large stone buildings surrounded by baby trees and the placid banks of the Moscow River.  She would lie down on a bench in one of the clearings and remain perfectly still, to see if she could convince the crows and vultures she was dead.  She knew lots of birds of prey flew into the city from the nearby farms looking for dead rats, pigeons, and other delights.  Once a vulture had circled twice overhead.  But then it disappeared.  Usually they just passed her by.  And when the sun began to set she would head home, trying to think of other ways to trick these birds into believing she was a carcass.

 

Rosa burst through the door a few hours after Regina, startling her Aunt who sent two raw eggs plunging to an early death. 

“You won’t believe what happened today,” Rosa started, the purple veins under her delicate skin pulsing in and out with each breath.

Regina decided to remain silent.  Aunt Sara closed the door behind her, took some paintings from her arms and set them on the floor.  Regina knew her mother was excited.  She could always tell this by the way her bottom lip twitched.

“Josef Stalin came to the market.  He and his guards approached my display.  What a handsome man he is up close.”  She paused and her eyes went out of focus.

“May I remind you that you’re a Jew,” Aunt Sara interjected, backpedaling towards the kitchen to wipe up the eggs.  Rosa was still catching her breath. Aunt Sara reappeared and shook her head, eyes closed, their judgment hidden behind the thick hedge of her lashes.

“Well, he’s our friend now,” Rosa said, smoothing her hands down the side of her tiny waist.  She pulled off her bright pink shawl and hung it on the door knob.

“What do you mean?” Regina asked eagerly.  Aunt Sara once again came back in to the living room from the kitchen.

“He purchased two of my paintings!  And he stayed to chat for a while after that.  We spoke about Uncle Lazar who knew he was in the market for some artwork and referred him to me.  The Comrade said he’d be back again when I have more selection.”  She opened up her little cloth purse and handed a huge wad of bills to Aunt Sara. “That should cover the loan you gave me and all of our expenses so far. Did I mention how handsome he is up close?”  Rosa clicked her tongue cheerfully and went to wash up in the kitchen.

“Rosa, this is wonderful,” Aunt Sara hesitated, “but I hope your involvement with Comrade Stalin will remain strictly business.”

Rosa turned off the water and sat down with a drink.  She stared at one of her paintings on the wall, a self-portrait she had painted a few months before to try out her new paints.

The impending moonlight shone through the window and cast Aunt Sara in its glow.  “Rosa, the Comrade’s wife just committed suicide less than two months ago.  I don’t think a social involvement is wise at this time.” 

Regina almost nodded in agreement with her Aunt, but didn’t want to show any opposition against her mother.  Walking over to the front door, Regina took her mother’s pink shawl, and when no one was paying attention, rolled it up tightly and stuck it into her school bag.  She had an idea.

After that, Rosa spent all her time painting.  She was stocking up for her display at the city square.  “I wonder if he’d like this one,” she’d mumble, barely comprehendible from the paintbrush between her lips. 

“It’s very nice, Mother.  How come you’ve never painted a picture for me?” It seemed at that moment that there was no filter between Regina’s thoughts and speech.  But her mother was already focused on her next strokes and Regina knew that meant she wouldn’t be getting a response.

Comrade Stalin bought a few more of Rosa’s paintings at a premium price, and within six months, they had enough funds to buy their own apartment.  Cousin Lazar had told Rosa there was a two bedroom opening up in Aunt Sarah’s building.  This was perfect because Rosa didn’t come home until after dark on most nights, so Regina could still go to Aunt Sarah’s after school.

Their new apartment was simple.  Rosa put up some old paintings of hers that had never sold.  Regina would have a bedroom to herself for the first time.     

After school, on her usual bench at Gorky Park, Regina didn’t give up.  She opened her school bag and pulled out her mother’s pink shawl, stretching it over her body like a blanket as she lay flat on the bench.

“The color of raw flesh,” Regina whispered to herself as she laid her head down onto her bag.  She held her breath and waited.  She let herself take slow, barely perceptible breaths, and thought about animals that “played dead.”  They had recently learned about this concept in her science class at school.  It came from an instinct for self-preservation.  If an animal were discovered already dead, it would usually be left alone.  What Regina was doing was quite the opposite.  She played dead to attract the predator. Imagine a concept where she had to remain still and quiet to attract attention.  So far the shawl wasn’t helping.  She was willing to try anything.

 

Rosa was hanging pink linen curtains in Regina’s new room while humming the Georgian love song “Suliko” to herself.  Regina stood in the doorway, wondering where they got the money for such nice curtains.

“Mother, I don’t need a whole bedroom all to myself.  We could share a room and….and the second bedroom could be your art studio,” Regina finished with excitement, proud of herself for coming up with such a perfect solution.

“You need your privacy now and so do I.  And Regina, I have some very exciting news.  The Comrade has invited us to join him for dinner in his home in the Kremlin!”  For the first time, she put down the curtain and looked up.

The first thing that crossed Regina’s mind was that the food they’d be eating wouldn’t be Kosher.  But the thought of such an experience made the fine downy on the back of her neck stand up like brush bristles.  How would she act? But what came out of her mouth was, “I don’t have anything proper to wear.”

“Well then we’ll just have to buy you something,” her mother replied, brushing some dark wisps of hair out of her eyes.  The smell of roasted pork drifted up through the open window from the butcher below.  Rosa laughed nervously as she quickly closed the window to shut out the rich, smoky scent.

This was the first of many meals with the Comrade.  Rosa had told the cooking staff that they were strict vegetarians.  Somehow, the Comrade admired this and he seemed to find Rosa even more intriguing, unique.  Both Rosa and the Comrade avoided issues of Rosa’s Jewishness.  When Regina would join them for meals on occasion, the Comrade tried to entertain her with little stories or jokes.  Once he told her the story of Ilya the Murom.

“Ilya of Murom was born near the town of Murom into a family of poor peasants,” the Comrade started in a booming voice. “His father and mother chopped wood in the forest for a living and farmed a small plot of land.  They served and fed Illya who had weak legs and could not walk.”  And as the story progressed, he became more and more animated. 

After every tale, Comrade Stalin would turn to Regina and ask, “Now what can we learn from this, my dear?”

Regina’s answers were always precise and succinct.  Then, a sugar cube would appear from the Comrade’s pocket and his moustache would turn up at the ends as if he had just saved the world.  Regina wondered if he knew she was nearly thirteen.

  But it was clear that Rosa was his priority.  Though he usually didn’t risk visits to their apartment, once, after staying overnight at her Aunts, Regina noticed a few things upon her return home the next morning to an empty apartment. The place smelled faintly of sweet pipe tobacco.  And a sweaty bottle of vodka was left out on the kitchen counter. Regina put the vodka bottle back in the freezer and slammed it shut, hard, not sure for whose benefit she had done so.  No one else was home.

While Regina was at school, Rosa would often join Comrade Stalin and his expansive family for their daily brunches.  They even got invited to his holiday home in Sochi, on the Black Sea.  Regina never wanted to go.  Rosa hardly had time to paint anymore and Regina spent many nights at Aunt Sara’s while her mother travelled around the country with friends and family of the Comrade.

About a year after Rosa had started seeing the Comrade, when Regina was finally old enough to come home from school and be alone in their apartment, she went into her mother’s room to sit by the window.  From there you could see a band of russet, gray mountains in the distance, a backdrop for the many green-domed buildings. 

Regina glanced over at Rosa’s closet.  The doors were left wide open, in an unusual fashion.  She got up to close them when her eyes were drawn to a glossy white garment towards the back.  She pushed aside all the expensive outfits that had been showered upon her mother over the past year, and reached out to stroke the smooth satin and lace.  A wedding dress!  Regina’s head felt foggy.  She wondered if her mother was planning a wedding.  Maybe she had planned to tell Regina about it the following day when she returned from her trip to the country. 

But then Regina saw it.  On the back of the sleeve, by the elbow.  A mere trace of a crimson swirl. It was the bleeding dot of a red wine stain.  The wedding had already taken place.  There was no other explanation.  Why would she buy a dress with a wine stain already on it?  It must have been a secret wedding.

Regina felt like she had to sit. A roar raged in her head. She went back to her place by the window.  Looking up at the hateful gray skies above, she desperately tried to sort through the anger and hurt whirling through her.  Little dashes of rain began to accumulate on the window, the steady tapping underscoring the quiet in the rest of the apartment.

Regina ran out of the apartment.  Her clothes, soaked with rain began to cling to her back.  Barely able to see through the downpour, she ran furiously through the streets until Gorky Park became visible.  As she approached City Hospital, just before her favorite entrance, she tripped over her own feet. Her head lashed back and she flew to the wet ground.  Regina remained on all fours for a moment, staring down at the sidewalk.  Rain trickled from her nose and eyelashes.  A large hole on the knee of her tights revealed a gushing cut.  She got up and limped into the park.

The rain slowed as she approached her favorite bench.  She sat down and looked at the blood pooling on her knee. She swiped at it with her hand and proceeded to wipe the blood on her cheek.  She squeezed the cut until a fair amount of blood had replenished what was wiped off, and swiped again, smearing her other cheek and nose.  Then she lay down, and waited.

 

Regina decided against telling Aunt Sarah about the wedding dress.  It might upset her too much.  Or maybe she knew.  Finding that out would be too unbearable.  But that night, she wanted to sleep over in Aunt Sara’s apartment, which was always welcomed.  The two sat on the couch, chatting into the wee hours.

“Will things always be the way they are now?” Regina asked her Aunt.

“How do you mean, Regina? Politically?  Economically?”

“I mean with Mother gone so much.  It’s too quiet around here.”

“We’re taken care of more than we ever could have hoped for, dear.  Do you remember your life in the Ukraine?”

“I remember a little.” Regina paused and looked toward the window.  “I remember a one room apartment.  No running water.  Mother crying all the time.”

Aunt Sara nodded and put her arm around her great-niece.  “There’s nothing more to say on the matter.  Don’t expect something that’s not realistic.  Your Mother needs to be out running around all the time. She’s just that type. Don’t wait for something that’s not the way G-d intended…something unnatural.”

 

When Rosa burst through the door the next night, dropped her bag, and headed straight for her bed, Regina knew something was wrong.

“I caught something,” she managed to whisper through cobwebby breaths.  She climbed into her bed fully clothed, her dark hair pasted across her unusually pallid neck.  “Don’t come too close.”  Her calloused artist’s hands were shaking.  Regina stood there in the doorway until she saw her mother’s body relax and felt sure she was in a deep sleep.

Rosa’s illness worsened.  She was weak and feverish, coming only briefly into consciousness.  Aunt Sara and Regina would take turns mopping her brow and feeding her a special poultice.  They read psalms by her bedside and prayed constantly.  Though he never came to pay a visit himself, they assumed for fear of catching the strange illness, the Comrade had sent his top doctor to check on Rosa.  The doctor said it was a terrible virus and he didn’t think she would pull through. 

 

At her mother’s funeral, Regina heard a shuffle of people toward the back of the small group huddled around the gravesite.  It was Comrade Stalin and his entourage.  He gave her a nod and a look of pity.  When the ceremony was over, she turned around and he was gone.  Just like her mother.

A small handful of close friends and family came back to Aunt Sara’s where they were sitting Shiva for Rosa.  All the mirrors in the house were covered and Regina had made a small rip in her blouse, the Jewish sign of mourning.  They sat around in silence eating hard boiled eggs and cold salads. 

 

In some ways it felt to Regina like she had never moved out of Aunt Sara’s apartment to begin with.  After all, she had spent so many afternoons and nights with her when her mother was away.  They were like a team with the cooking and household chores. Her aunt filled a void Regina never realized she had.  But they weren’t sure for how long they could support themselves financially.  Rosa had been helping Aunt Sara for over a year.Something strange came in the mail one day.

“Regina, what’s this?  It’s from The Russian Federation.  Are we in some kind of trouble?”  Aunt Sarah asked waving a white envelope in the air.  Regina took it from her and opened it.

“Oh! Huh? It’s a check.  Must be some kind of condolence gift from the Comrade.  But it’s a pretty big check.”  Aunt Sarah looked relieved. They squeezed each other’s hands.

A check from the Russian Federation began to arrive in the mail on a monthly basis.  It was always more than enough to cover their expenses. 

Aunt Sara’s health began to deteriorate and she died a few years later.  Inspired by her Aunt’s encouragement and the monthly checks born out of her mother’s relationship with Stalin, Regina had the confidence and the means to come to America and begin a new life. 

As a resident of New York City, Regina began a degree program in speech therapy. She would take her study materials to the park near her West Side apartment and sit on the benches, studying her material and listening to the birds.  She began to see a man about her age who was there whenever she was.  He had a yarmulke on his head and seemed to be studying for something as well.  He never seemed to notice her, until one day she sat down on the bench right beside his.  As she unpacked her bag, books and papers slid off her lap all at once, falling with a thud and flying everywhere.  The man with a thick mustache and bright blue eyes helped gather up the mess. 

“Huh,” he said in a friendly voice, “Speech therapy?  That’s an up-and-coming field, no?”

“Yeah, so they say,” Regina responded quickly.  She gestured over at the books he had stacked on his bench.  “What are you studying?”

“Oh, boring stuff.  I’m in Business School.  I’m Boruch Finkelstein,” he said through a smile, gathering up the last of her papers.

There was no more studying accomplished by either party for the rest of that day.  A tumble of books and papers at the park grew into a noisy home on East 4th Street with five kids and a spousal love that must have been at least as strong as Rosa and Stalin’s.  This was a comparison Regina couldn’t help but linger on. It would always be in the back of her mind, in her dreams, her nightmares. 

The monthly checks from the Comrade had followed her to America and helped both Regina and Boruch get through school.  Regina knew Comrade Stalin had truly loved her mother and all that belonged to her.  And with each new month for the rest of her life, Regina would be reminded of this love.

The Scribe and the Fly

By Ahron Dovid Rubin

 

 

The scribe, glasses half-way down his nose, his loosely curled payos brushing against an uncombed greying beard, lent gingerly over the half written scroll, dipped his quill into the jet-black ink and, as heavens and earth held their breath, made adoring contact with the fresh, iridescent parchment. His long, thin fingers guided the pen, it responding to his touch as if it were an extension of himself, describing tenderly the perfect form of ancient calligraphy, the scribe, in an hypnotic reverie, mouthing each word with love, his warm breath forming wisps of delicate vapour, that hung over the lucid script, like the hallowed smoke of fragrant incense that hovered over the glowing coals in the Holy of Holies; letter followed letter, line followed line, under his purposeful gaze and utter intent.

 

A solitary house-fly buzzed around the lone bulb whose glaring luminance provided a disk of yellow light, illuminating the otherwise dark and dingy room. The fly, blinded by the light, circled the bulb with an almost palpable irritation, like a seasoned drunkard in pursuit of his provoker, colliding several times with the boiling source of its perplexing attraction. Suddenly impatient for cooler territory, the fly flew off at a wild tangent, and orbited the room distractedly. Round and round it went, tracing halos with its wings, as our scribe continued to write, head down, oblivious to any other company.

 

Scanning the region from its aerial vantage, the fly’s compound vision spied the lush lay of the velvet cream vellum below. With aerodynamic accuracy, it landed, silently, just outside the scribe’s sphere of vision. Like native warriors wading through reeds and bulrushes in the amazon, the fly’s thin, feathery legs engaged the natural fibres and hairs of the parchment, deftly forging onwards, its hollow tongue acquainting itself with the rough texture and peculiar quality of its latest surroundings.

 

Detecting from afar the delectable fragrance of the freshly formed letters, the fly moved surely towards the wet ink. Black met black and the fly fairly danced in ecstasy and rapture. Its’ tongue licked the mouth-watering moisture, its legs formed figures of eight, weaving in and out of the crisp new letters, forming novel but ungraceful marks, like an ice-rink skater learning his first steps. Slowly a new landscape was formed. Short letters were lengthened and open letters closed, as the fly moved forward on its mission of chaos.

 

Finishing the last word on the column, the scribe gently placed the quill on his inlaid leather desk and, breathing a breath of fulfilment, closed his eyes in meditative thought, sinking into a sweet trance known to those of pure heart, who toil honestly with perseverance, fulfilling the bidding of their Creator. Minutes passed, and our scribe drifted on waves of blissful slumber.

 

At last his eyes opened. Catching sight of the fly on the holy scroll, the scribe waved his arm with an air of intolerance but the arm froze in mid-air. A gasp escaped our scribe’s lips. Bending forward, he became aware of the irreparable damage.

 

He stood up slowly. He pondered the cause, the effect and the mysteries of the workings of Heaven. With deliberate movements, he silently rolled the scroll, and eyes moist and glistening, he rested the scroll momentarily on his lips, like a father kissing his sleeping child, and slowly, devotedly placed it aside.

Reaching up, he pulled out a new, uncharted sheet of best, white parchment and, sitting down at his oak desk, rolled up his sleeve, dipped his ivory-coloured quill into the jet-black ink and made adoring contact with the fresh iridescence. 

Ahron Dovid Rubin is a Sofer in Manchester England. He is married, with three children and descens from a long line of illustrious Rabbis.  He's the author of a non-fictional book "Eye to the Infinite" on Jewish meditation.