No Time for Tears Read Free Page B

His grief was so consuming that Chavala could barely watch as he sat, mute, with the children at supper. He had eaten so little that his clothes clung to his emaciated body and the furrows of his face had deepened so that he was almost unrecognizable. It seemed that almost overnight his hair had turned completely white. His shoulders were bent. His eyes were vague, and the little he said was mostly beyond comprehension.
    It was difficult for Chavala to work at her sewing this particular morning. Her mind was a confusion. She stopped pedaling and stared out of the window. The first snow had fallen during the night, and the sight depressed her, as did her thoughts. Papa, it seemed, would never recover from his loss, never again would be a father the children could look to for protection and to provide even the meager living he had made for them before. His only comfort seemed to be the time he spent praying in his lonely room. His days were passed in the synagogue—praying to atone for all his sins—and when he returned at night he seemed oblivious to everything. Nothing Chavala could say helped. But they needed a father, not a shadowy figure who lived in grief.
    Chavala knew what had to be done. Without further thought she got up and went to the kitchen.
    The children were studying. Moishe looked up from his book as he saw Chavala putting on her shawl. “Where are you going?”
    “I have to attend to something,” she answered quietly and left without another word. Slowly she made her way across the road to Dovid’s house. Shivering in the cold, she stood until he opened the door. For a moment he could not speak, then recovered enough to say, “Come in , sit down, I’ll get you a hot cup of tea.”
    “No, thank you,” she answered between chattering teeth. “I didn’t come to visit.”
    “What then?”
    Taking a deep breath, she said, “This Saturday after Shabbes we’re getting married.” That having been said, she turned and started toward the door. With her hand poised on the knob she turned again and faced Dovid, who stood, not surprisingly, in a state of shock.
    “Be ready. I’ll make all the arrangements.”
    He merely shook his head as he watched the door close behind her.
    As she made her way through the snow she cursed the Russian winter. It wasn’t enough, the way they suffered. God even subjected them to this kind of white hell. Out of breath, she knocked at Manya’s door. She needed so badly to see the baby.
    “Come in, come in. You’ll freeze to death out there,” Manya said.
    Chavala blew her warm breath on her freezing-cold hands, then rubbed them together.
    “Sit down, Chavala, I’ll get some tea.”
    As she did so Chavala’s stomach turned over. The house was so silent. Since her mother had died everything seemed to take on a sense of foreboding. “Where are your children, Manya?”
    “I sent them to my sister’s. Mendel is sick with a very bad cold and the children get on his nerves with all the shouting and fighting.”
    “If the Russians don’t kill us, the winter will.”
    Manya sighed. “What can we do? They say we were born to suffer.”
    Again, the acceptance, the stoicism, the capitulation. We were born to suffer. Why? Chavala asked herself. By what divine rule? “Could I see the baby?”
    “Yes, I’ll go.” Manya walked into the disheveled bedroom. In one corner were two makeshift cribs made from wooden crates, in the other corner Manya’s husband lay on a mattress of straw. Going to her husband’s side she bent down and felt his forehead. It was like fire to the touch. She wiped his forehead with a damp cloth and then lay another coat over him. “Rest,” she told him, “rest. I’ll bring you some chicken soup in a while. You’ll see, the nourishment will make you strong in no time at all.”
    The man’s eyes were glassy, he scarcely heard. Shaking her head, she got up from her knees and walked to where the cribs stood. First she looked down at her own