A Storm in the Blood
A Novel
Jon Stephen Fink
To Lisa, from beginning to end
Be it Russian or Pole, Lithuanian or JewI care not but take it for granted,That the island of Britain can readily doWith the notice: No Alien Wanted.
Will Workman, writing in The People, 1909
Those who live and labor in the great East End feel hot and angry at the sight of faces so un-English and the sound of speech so foreign. In face, instinct, language and character their children are aliens, and still exiles.
from a Whitechapel clergymans letter, 1906
Who are these fiends in human shape, who do not hesitate to turn their weapons on innocent little boys and harmless women?
article in The Daily Mirror, 1909
Contents Inhuman CriminalsIN THEIR VILLAGE, the Bermansfelt family had a reputation. MordechaisFOR MOST OF THE NEXT DAY Rivka tore through theBEHIND HIS BACK, friends and strangers alike called her escortUNDER A CANALSIDE STRETCH of the Parisian sky, shadowed byWITH THE PAVEMENT of Montparnasse under his boots, Peters tensionWITH THE LAN of a stage magician, Charles Perelman swirledTRUE TO HIS WORD, Yoska collected Rivka at Perelmans houseWHILE RIVKA POURED COFFEE AND TEA, served plates of friedYOU CAN BE MORE generous with him, the voice wasTHE CLEAN BROWN PAPER hed found on the pavement, blownPETERS UNCLE, a colonel in Tsar Nicholass army, had madeRIVKA COULDNT AFFORD to be tugged off-balance, pulled backward byLUBA KEPT HER GAZE ON FRITZ, who stood on theWHERE WAS THE BEST PLACE to approach Shineblooms singing waitress?UP ON THE BALLS OF HIS FEET, the Mayor shookWITHOUT LOOKING UP from his newspaper, the assistant stage managerIN CLOTHES THAT were not hers, in a part ofThe CrimeFRIENDS ON EVERY SIDE, Karls words, Gardsteins guarantee in thatRIVKA CARRIED HERSELF ON QUIET, not stealthy, but careful footstepsTHAT SCHVANTZ CHANGED HIS MIND, said meet him here, thoughtFRITZ RIPPED THE DOOR BACK with such a burst ofNOT THE FEAR of being found or found out, andTO MR. WEIL, he looked young for a police constable,BUSINESS-BRISK, the officer asked him, Have you been working orWHAT SUBSTANCE OF HIS LIFE does a man own? HisPOOR NETTIE PERELMAN, rousted out of bed by her fatherDO SOMETHING. When they cant do anything else, people go.KARLS EYES STAYED OPEN; he lacked the strength to closeSTORY OF HOUNDSDITCH MURDERS.The SiegeTO PUSH AGAINST OPPOSITION, even when oblivion itself is theRIVKA IMAGINED PETERS VOICE in her earshe had the feelingNOT IN HIS seven MONTHS IN ENGLAND, and never inFOR PETER, it wasnt a week in this flat withIN HER DREAM, Rivka walked alone, in bare feet andTO SAY THAT NOTHING IS KNOWN about the life Peter
INHUMAN C RIMINALSIN THEIR VILLAGE, the Bermansfelt family had a
reputation. Mordechais branch of the Bermansfelt line was crazy in its own way, but everyone agreed that the whole squabbling lot of them, going back generations, was crazy in the blood. And so it was that no neighbor in Sasmacken over the age of seven was surprised, one autumn midnight on the Talsen road, when events turned Mordechai Bermansfelt from a clockmaker into a condemned man and his teenage daughter Rivka into a fugitive.In a locality that took a hard attitude toward Jews, the Bermansfelt familys reputation for unpredictable behavior had one advantage: it shielded them by obscuring their motives beneath a fuzz of gossip. Once, a young Russian army private approached the Bermansfelts youngest daughter in the street. Miss, please, he said, a few steps in front of her, bashful in a way that hinted that things might turn nasty if shyness didnt get him what he was after. That night, a lifetime ago, he was after fifteen-year-old Rivka. Miss? My friendstheyre laughing at me. They say Im a coward if I dont talk to you. Will you stop for a minute?Rivka smiled, offered him a trace of her own shyness, and kept her pretty mouth closed. She didnt look down. She didnt look side to side for help. This encouraged the trooper. Please, miss, tell me your name, he begged soulfully. From a nearby doorway, his uniformed pals egged him on with catcalls, gestures, insults to his manhood. Rivka stepped backward into the street, holding her smile. When the Russian private made a move to follow her, Rivka flashed him the flat of her hand at the end of her stiff arm. And then she started to sing.Her eyes playful and ferocious above a disconnected smile, she sang:
Nokh eyn tants, beyt ikh itst bay dirLibster her, ikh bay dir shenk zhe mir nokh eyn tants mirIkh hob dik gezukht mayn gants lebn langIsts farlir ikh dikh tut mir azoy bangBist ge-kummen tsu shpeyt in meyn glikIz shoyn oys, libster herOne dance more, I beg of you,
Dearest sir, I beg you grant me
One dance more
I searched for you all my life,
Now Im losing you and Im so sad.
My joy lasted only an hour.
You came too late,
Its over, dearest sir
Balodis the grocer, who did regular business with the garrison, kept an eye on things from the doorway of his store. Now he stepped in to salvage the teenage soldiers dignity. Dont get your hands dirty for nothing, Balodis advised him in Russian. Shes crazier than the limp prick who dribbled her out.There were times when prejudice worked in the familys favor.ANOTHER MEMORY of village life would survive in Rivka like an ancient catfish in murky river water: the face of Sasmackens local garrison commander, Colonel Y. M. Orlov, a minor aristocrat who showed genuine creativity when it came to malice and abuse. In this, he followed the proud example of Peter the Great, who had kicked the Swedes out of Latvia a hundred years before and flooded the country with Russian colonists. Where they couldnt outbreed the natives, the Russians stripped them of their language, laws, and social freedoms. When the Letts objected, they were killed in their thousands, cut down in the streets, chased into freezing rivers, slung into prisons, exiled. Latvian Jews received all this, with the added benefit of not having to leave their houses.Normally, it was beneath the dignity of a Russian officer to pay Jews on time or the agreed price for their work. Or at all. It was a principle of authority, and Orlov was a tower of principle. Unless you could dodge his summons with an attack of hysterical blindness, the smart choice was to accept the offer that glowed like a hot coal inside it.Too flustered to fake blindness, Rivkas father accepted Colonel Orlovs commission to build him a mantel clock, in the Louis Quatorze style, as a decoration for his master bedroom. For five months, Mordechai dedicated himself to the job night and day. The finished clock married use to beauty in a stately ceremony of glass, enamel, brass, and wood. He delivered it himself, trudging miles out to the manor house for the satisfactionthe physical proofthat he had, thank God, made it to the end in one piece. His payment? That night Orlov burst in on the Bermansfelts dinner, swinging the clock in a burlap bag, like a litter of kittens he was going to beat to death. On the floor in front of them, he took his rifle butt to the gilded wood and the enamel face and smashed Mordechais work to splinters, shouting, This pile of junk ticks so loud it even keeps the maid awake!Helpless, ashamed, unhinged, Mordechai retreated to the woodshed after Orlov thundered away on his horse. He stayed there for the rest of the night and late into the next day. After enduring the Russians assault, he needed solitude to remember who he was, to give him strength for the next onslaught. When he finally came inside, his wife, Rebekah, set a cup of tea on the table for him. He sipped some through a sugar cube and asked for a piece of dry toast. After another cup of tea, his family keenly silent around him at the table, Mordechai spoke. The words, like solid things, had formed in his mouth overnight. Out they tumbled: I know what to do.That was all, and Rebekah let the remark go. She was delighted that her husband wasnt lying dead in the street or in a jail cell in Riga with his back flayed to raw strips. Her suspicious daughter, though, tried every trick she knew to get him to tell her moreto tell her what he was going to do. Mordechai answered Rivka the same way each time, by touching his finger to his lips, with a little tilt of his head and a sour frown that said,
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