Forever Torn

C1: Whatever will be, will be (3/3)

The Ural Mountains, Russia.

Over a dozen years from this moment, Smeras Atlas would be standing at the London Docks waiting for his grandchildren to disembark from the S.S. Baltannic. Right here, right now, the families' fate had brought them to Ufa, a small city in the Urals region of Russia bordering on Siberia which was on the other side of the mountain range.

Presently in his fifties, Smeras' long journey which would see him and his wife Frade end their days in London's East End, had started in the land of his birth Latvia, where he had been born Smeras Fuchs.

On immigrating to the town of Linkuva in Lithuania as a young man, the deeply religious Smeras had for reasons known only to himself, changed his last name to Atlas. He had married Frade and fathered six children.

By the time the First World War had begun, his two sons and two of his daughters had spread their wings and flown far from the family nest to England, to America and to South Africa. Smeras himself had never imagined fate would also remove him from thirty years of comfortable settled life in Lithuania, but that was exactly what had happened when the Russian army had arrived and forcibly removed the Jews of Linkuva to this far off place.

Smeras hoped one day to see his children again but for now it was just him and Frade with their two youngest daughters Etel and Golde, along with Etel's husband Abraham.

His need for solitude and introspection over, Smeras put out his cigarillo and let the remainder fall to the snowy ground, where acting from force of habit, he stamped it out with his boot despite the fact that the glowing embers were already being covered by the wetness of the ground.

This done, he trod his slow weary way back to the stedtel (village) and then up the tiny black ice and slush covered thoroughfare that passed for a street and home. Home was a cramped cabin occupied by Smeras, his wife and their youngest and unmarried daughter Golde. A few feet away stood a similar shack, one which housed his other daughter Ete and her husband Abraham.

As he entered, removing his gloves and easing the frost from his whitening beard, Frade looked up from where she was doing her needlework and smiled affectionately at him 'Come,' she said, leading him to the small table by the fire 'Sit down husband, eat,' she told him, simultaneously turning to the pot that simmered over the yellow and orange fire and ladling thin stew into one of the three wooden bowls.

Smeras sat and also took a mugful of wine. He began to quietly recite the prayer for food; Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam shehakol niyah bidvaro. (Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, at whose word all came to be.).

As he finished praying, he noticed that his womenfolk had already eaten as he had asked them to do earlier, saying he would most probably be late. Frade had returned to her needlework and Golde was sitting in a corner writing her diary by candlelight.

He felt a surge of warmth as he watched her industriously writing, his Golde ... his golden girl. She was dark haired and ever so pale, entering her twenties now but still she looked so young, so fragile ... a delicate flower trying to bloom here in these harsh lands so far from home.

Life had been hard enough back in Linkuva but there at least Smeras had made sure his children ate, poor but plentiful though the food had been; Golde had been plumper then although never fat... now she looked so thin.

Golde's Diary:

'Yesterday Dovid called upon us and Mama used the good plates ... the ones my sister Shana bought us when we were still at home. When the soldiers came and told us we must go on the train to this place, I remember Mama saying we must take the plates; it was one of the first things we packed.

Papa has worked harder this week than before, going to all our neighbours and even to the surrounding countryside asking people if they want their boots mended and all so we could afford between us (Mama and Papa, Ete and Abraham and the family Bartov) a good sized chicken which we shared in three equal parts and Mama cooked it especially using the last of our potatoes (we shall have to work or trade for more) and other tasty things she somehow found.

It is important, she says, to feed the men well but I do not think Dovid comes here for that; I've seen the way he looks at me.

At first Papa did not like Dovid Gilevic – he thought him too secretive and perhaps not good enough for me but then no man who has shown an interest has ever been good enough according to Papa but this man is different to all the other men I have known and now I know him, I know I do not want to know another man.

It is true I know little of Dovid beyond the fact that like us he is a Jew of Lithuania and that he was a soldier. Inside he bears a pain and I see this when I look into his dark brown eyes. With others he can be sharp and hard like a jagged rock but with me he is gentle and kind; his voice becomes softer and sweet.

Sometimes we can talk for hours.

I have known Dovid Gilevic three months but my heart has known him forever.

Papa tries to protect me always and at first he told me Dovid was too rough a man for me, but lately they have come to an understanding. Dovid told me that in war, faith is always with a man, but in the army it is not good to show that you are a Jew and so he lost the habit of prayer and keeping kosher and all outward signs except in the privacy of his soul.

For me though and since he has arrived here in Ufa, he has attended the Shul we built here when we first arrived and were told to settle this inhospitable land; he has prayed alongside my father.

First they prayed only and Papa would talk with him only of the Torah but Dovid was persistent and they began to talk of other things and now Papa says Dovid Gilevic is a man who is respectful and proper.

Three times he has taken supper with the family and many more times we have spoken together, always quietly and under the watchful eye of my chaperone, sometimes Mama and sometimes my older sister Ete. Some things about his past, he will not tell me because he does not want to burden me, but these things he has told Papa so Papa might judge the truth of the man and if he is of good family and background.

Of these things I care not because I can see truth in Dovid's eyes and if there are some things too painful to recount, I respect his wishes and will not ask. The important things, I know; my Dovid was wounded in the war and when the governments changed (he attempted to explain but I know nothing of politics and it confuses me – all I know is the old Tsar sent soldiers all through my childhood and sometimes they killed Jews and sometimes uprooted us.

The new government fights for the people, Dovid says and now there are two armies. This is all I know.) he left the army of the Whites because the war in the west was no longer Russia's war.

Dovid returned home to Lithuania after many years and found that his wife had betrayed him and had him declared dead. She sounds a wicked woman but I am glad she did this thing because now legally, Dovid is a single man who may take a new wife. I asked him if he were very sure this was so and he showed me papers from a Magistrate which had declared him legally alive but granted him a divorce from that woman because of what she did.

He stayed in Lithuania just as long as it took to make things right and then sought out an old friend from the army. After that he will not say but some months ago his travels ended and Dovid Gilevic came to Ufa and by the grace of G-d we were brought together and yesterday after dinner he told me something wonderful ... soon he will ask Papa for my hand and we shall be married!

After that ... well he has plans, plans he must keep secret until the right time but on our engagement, Dovid will tell me and I am sure they will be wonderful, as wonderful as he. For now I am left to wonder ... wonder what the future will bring.'

***

Thank you so much for reading. In the first chapter we've seen the characters (my family) in three different time periods. How does it all come together?

Chapter Two: War and Peace takes us back to the time of the first world war and the Russian Revolution to follow Dovid and his friend towards their destinies, which for at least one of them includes a great love and family.

If, as I hope, you've enjoyed the story so far, please vote and I would love to hear your comments. See you next time! New parts every Tuesday and Friday and look for other books by me, coming soon.