Ukraine, 1898
“My heart to yours.”
His mother’s dismissal stung worse than the wind howling down from the Carpathians. Never before had the words of the traditional goodbye sounded so final. The sideboards on the mason’s wagon blocked all of his mother’s face except the black shawl atop her head, but they couldn’t blunt the message behind her words. For weeks his parents had talked of little else. Still, the sudden leave-taking caught Leonid unprepared: clothes stuffed into a burlap sack, hurried hugs, his sister crying.
Neither his older brother Karl nor Mason Levich were any comfort. Karl pushed him to the other side of the rocking wagon in a mock show of fraternal disgust. The mason, perched upright on the seat in his long, black coat, urged the old mare forward. It wasn’t the cold Ukrainian night making Leonid shiver. Karl’s handed-down sheepskin coat protected his skinny frame. News had come down the valley that the Cossacks were close. Leonid imagined what twenty-five years of conscription in the army meant, if he lasted that long. He knew the rumors. There were no secrets in their one room apartment.
The villagers, including his mother, planned to offer food and space in the stables to delay the Cossacks, but if they came more likely his family and neighbors would be sleeping in the stables, not the troops. If the soldiers pushed on, they’d overtake the mason’s wagon on this steep, hilly road on the other side of the Rov River.
“Walk!” said the mason.
Leonid hesitated. “What?”
“He’s right,” said Karl, clambering out the back. “The cart will go faster uphill with a lighter load.”
The mason was on his feet leading the horse. Leonid jumped down from the wagon and struggled to keep pace with his stronger brother. He forced his mind away from his mother’s goodbye and on to climbing this ridge, knowing the next village could be no closer than the valley ahead, and they were not yet at the top of the hill. Clouds shrouded the meek quarter moon, so they walked in darkness, looking back and listening as often as they studied the ground under their feet.
When they crested the hill, no lanterns, not even outlines of houses or barns, were visible in the valley below. Leonid walked beside the wagon, relying on the horse to pick out the twists and ruts in the dirt road as it wound down the hill. A break in the dense beech trees lining their route let the moon reveal a level clearing with a fork in the road and a sign pointing left to Zatoky.
“This way,” said the mason, getting back in the wagon and gesturing to the right fork, his rapidly blinking eyes making Leonid even more nervous.
They lurched along a narrower path for almost an hour, the creaks of the wagon obscuring the sounds of the night, the smell of the sweating horse overpowering the forest vegetation. Twice the mason stopped to read the name on a post sign by some dark farmhouse, shook his head, and returned to the wagon. The third stop was the place he wanted.
“Wait here,” he said, leaving the wagon near a small, well-kept barn and walking to the cabin door.
Karl and Leonid strained to watch and listen. A door opened. Lantern light and some indistinct conversation leaked out onto broken sod. Leonid looked at his brother for reassurance and explanation, but before Karl could respond, the mason unwound his heavy scarf and called to them.
“Come here, boys. Leonid, bring your sack.”
Inside, even with only one oil lamp, Leonid realized the cabin was bigger than his family’s apartment. And warm. In the middle was a huge stove, banked down but still giving off heat. Three beds stood off to the side. Leonid stared at a girl’s head poking out from beneath one of the covers. Mason Levich grabbed his collar and pulled him over to a tall man in a nightshirt, with a big head of curly hair topped by a too-small nightcap. Leonid felt tiny and scared beside this new mountain of a man, forgetting for a moment the strangeness of the room and the family he left behind.
“Leonid,” the mason said, “this is Alexander Rutenberg. From now on, you are no longer Leonid Rotman. You are Leonid Rutenberg. Always answer to that name, especially to the Cossacks. Alexander is now your father, and that’s what you call him. Do you understand? Always!”
Leonid nodded. He knew what to do. His parents had explained that he would be the son of another man. How much more of his family would he lose?
“What about Karl?”
“I’m taking Karl to another family without sons. You know why, don’t you Leonid?”
Leonid nodded again. He knew. When you were the only son, sometimes the Cossacks let you stay to help your family. But only sometimes. The Cossacks had a quota to fill.
“Right,” said Mason Levich, his eyes blinking as he held a comforting arm around Leonid’s shoulders. “Here at the Rutenbergs, you’ll be the only son and hopefully you won’t be conscripted. Your parents are aching. They didn’t want you to leave.”
“Are you sure?” asked Leonid timidly, for he certainly wasn’t.
“I’m sure. But even more, they don’t want you in the Russian army. They’d rather you were alive here than dead in the army.”
Leonid knew that part, too. Few Jews survived the twenty-five-year term of enlistment.
He looked up at the mason. “Will they come to see me here?”
“Maybe, but maybe not. People are watching. You are still a boy, just ten. Your parents, and I… we didn’t think it was fair for them to take someone so young.”
“And Karl? Leonid shot a panicked, scared look at his older brother listening intently from behind the mason. “Will I be able to see Karl?”
“We hope so. I’m taking him to another family in this same valley, closer to the Rov. Alexander will try to help you visit him. But he must be careful.”
Leonid fixed his eyes on Karl’s tortured expression. “I miss him already.”
“Of course you do. Always wear your lifestone to remind yourself of your family and The Community. There are fewer of us here.”
Leonid reflexively fingered the greenish-yellow stone on the leather cord around his neck. “Is my new family in The Community too?”
The mason bobbed his bearded head, his eyes still blinking. “Yes, and you’ll have your split ceremony on schedule.”
“Will my real family be there?” The quiver in his voice betrayed his anxiety.
“Probably not. Remember, you need to think of the Rutenbergs as your real family. Listen, it’s late. I need to take Karl to his new family. Say goodbye to your brother.”
Karl stepped closer and gave Leonid a tight hug.
“Be good, little brother. Be safe. We’ll find each other and be together again. I promise.”
“Are you sure?” asked Leonid, the worry spilling over his face like water sloshing from a full bucket.
“Yes, Leonid, I’m sure. I’ll find you. I promise. My heart to yours.”
The mason pried them apart and led Karl outside to the wagon. When the door shut, Alexander picked up Leonid and carried him to the straw pallet where his daughter lay watching. Untethered to the ground, in the arms of this giant, Leonid looked frantically at the door through which Karl and the mason had disappeared. Alexander’s kinky curls brushed against Leonid’s cheek, so different from his father’s slicked down hair. Before he could decide whether he liked the kinky hair, Alexander plopped him on the cabin floor.
“Vera, this is Leonid’s bed place now. He’s your new brother. You climb in with your sisters.”
The girl peeled back the quilt and slid out of her bed. Her curls were too big for her head and her nightshirt too long for her body, but she hitched up her nightshirt and climbed in with her sisters, not once taking her eyes off Leonid.
Alexander’s wife appeared from the back of the cabin and tucked Leonid into bed. Thin, with her long brown hair undone for the night, she presented such a contrast to his sturdier mother with her always braided hair. And she smelled different than his mother, too–a good smell, like baked apples. She wiped the tear streaks from his cheeks before tucking in her three daughters.
“The Cossacks could be here at any time,” Alexander told the girls as he extinguished the oil lamp. “We are all one family now, and Leonid has always been your brother. Rivka, you remember when he was born. Ida, if you are asked, you have memories of him watching you in your crib. Vera, he was born one year before you. You grew up together. The Cossacks must think he’s always been our son.”
Leonid suspected that Alexander was repeating what he had told the girls earlier, but he probably felt his daughters needed reminding. Not me, he thought. I know my new history. Surely Alexander and his wife had known the dangers when they agreed to take in a ‘son.’ Now, Leonid heard them questioning their decision as they lay in the bed next to his.
“He’s a good boy, I can tell,” his wife whispered.
Alexander sighed. “Good or bad, Vanya, it doesn’t matter if we’re found out.” He was silent for a while. Then, without conviction, he added, “Maybe the Cossacks will skip us. Maybe they won’t come.”
“We are prepared. We must do this. What if we had sons?”
“I pray you’re right.” Ready for sleep, Alexander pulled up the covers.
Leonid was doing the opposite, trying to stay awake and listen. Though only a cot, his bedding spread out like an empty field, the first time he had a bed to himself. Usually he slept with Karl. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned toward the girls’ bed. Vera held out her arm, reaching for him.
“Give me your hand,” she whispered.
Leonid rolled onto his back and stretched his arm toward her. She took his hand in hers. Their clasped hands hung in the space between his cot and her straw pallet.
“I like having you as my brother, even if you took my bed place.”
She squeezed his hand tightly. The warmth of her spread through him like hot milk and relaxed him, but he still held on. They fell asleep like that: their hands entwined, the cabin dark, the night cold, the world dangerous.