Susan Sherman - The Little Russian

At the edge of town they passed bungalows with wide covered porches known by the names of the families who lived there: the Bronfstead house, the Kilbourn house, the Kempers’. Set back from the road was a large clapboard house hidden by a screen of bare branches. It needed paint and the widow’s walk was boarded up. This was the Leinenkugal house, husband and son killed in the war.

They drove on past the cemetery with its starched rows of white crosses. Here the farm boys of Barron County were laid to rest after the Great War. The war to end all wars. A few American flags had survived the snows of Armistice Day and were still stuck in the ground next to vases of dead flowers.

Since Hershel discovered that the power of the engine and the feel of the road could take him out of himself, he pressed down hard on the accelerator and kept his foot there, turning onto Highway 48 because it had just been graded and strewn with hay to keep down the dust. Soon they were doing nearly thirty on the straightaways, passing lines of mailboxes with Norwegian and Swedish names on them like Korvold, Vicklund, and Sjodahl. Occasionally, he glanced over at his son and was gratified to see how much he was enjoying the ride. He seemed to take everything in while he trailed a hand out the window, holding it stiff against the oncoming wind. For years Hershel dreamed of afternoons like this. Only he had thought there would be two children in the car.

To rid himself of this thought he stepped on the gas and they sped around a curve going too fast. He had to focus to bring the car back to equilibrium and that brought him out of his reverie, back to the road, to the day, to the rolling pasturelands and the puckered surface of a passing lake.

Eventually 48 got bad and Hershel had to slow down, but he was still content to ride along and listen to the drone of a well-tuned engine. They had the windows down and the split window shield open despite the gathering clouds. Soon there was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before and the smell of fresh earth and rain. Fat drops began to fall on the windshield, mixing with the dust and insect splatter. Hershel pulled over to close the windows and thought about turning around, but just then the sky opened up again and brilliant rays of sunshine shot through the layers of clouds. They seemed to illuminate a part of the landscape not too far off. He took it as a sign that the rain was moving on. That they could keep going.

“What should we do, Son? Should we turn around?”

Samuil shook his head. “Let’s keep going.” They spoke mostly English now. It had been more than a year since Samuil had come to Rice Lake and already he was fluent.

IT WASN’T unusual for Hershel to take his son out for a drive in the coupelet on Tuesday afternoons. They usually started out from the dealership on South Main and rode out of town on 53 to Haugen or 48 to Cumberland, depending on the condition of the roads. That day Samuil came over after school and Hershel told his partner, Marty Zelig, a fancy dresser from Lithuania, that he was going home early. Zelly made a face, but what could he do? Hershel was a full partner and could go home whenever he damn pleased.

When Hershel first arrived in Wisconsin, he lived with his sister, Rachel, in Cumberland. She and her husband ran a grocery and set him up with a cart and sundries to peddle to the local farmers. It didn’t take him long to see that, just like the muzhiki in Little Russia, the farmers didn’t want to buy from him; they wanted to sell. So he and his little mare traveled the countryside buying up rags for the paper mills and pelts for the furriers in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls. He was personable. He spoke English and told stories about the goings-on in town and on the neighboring farms. It wasn’t long before he had four carts working for him, a nice house on North Wilson Avenue, and a membership in the chamber of commerce. He wanted to join the Masons, but he was a Jew. Lines had to be drawn, even in Rice Lake.

One day he watched the Ford dealership go up on South Main Street. He had his eye on it even before it opened with balloons and flags on the Fourth of July. He knew the future when he saw it, but he also knew that the future was not easily abided in Rice Lake and that there would be stumbles and perhaps a fall before it finally took hold. He waited for the fall before approaching Martin Zelig with an offer to buy in as a full partner. Zelly put him off for a while, but in the end he took it because he had no choice. Since then they built it into a growing concern, and Zelly, who still complained that he had been cheated, never regretted his decision, not for a minute.

FOR A WHILE the rain stopped, but the sun didn’t come out. In fact the sky darkened again and the wind picked up and soon they were driving through a hail of white and pink blossoms from a stand of hawthorns. A heavy branch landed on the hood and careened off the windshield. It startled them so much that Hershel had to pull over and wait until his heart stopped hammering in his chest. Peering out through the windshield he saw a flash of lightning that shattered the sky and then a crack of thunder that seemed more like an explosion.

This time Hershel put her into gear and drove on, looking for a widening in the road so he could turn around. The branches in an aspen grove were thrashing about in the wind, and the grass on the verge was nearly flattened to the ground. When he came to a bend, he slowed, turned the wheel sharply, and gave her a little gas until he made the turn and was heading back the way they came. It started to rain, not splashes on the windshield, but a deluge so dense that they had to pull over and wait. Lightning streaked across the sky and Hershel sat there watching it, afraid to admit how nervous he was. The hair on his arms was standing on end from the static electricity. He wondered if the tires would ground them or if they would end up a blackened crisp for some farmer to find. He looked over at Samuil, who sat very still, his face a white mask.

Staring out at the sky, Samuil asked, “Will the tires ground us?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes,” he said, without hesitation.

WHEN THERE was a break in the storm, Hershel pulled out the carburetor choke and pressed the starter button: She coughed and sputtered, but didn’t catch. He reset the hand spark and the throttle lever and pressed the starter again. This time she started on two cylinders, coughing pitifully.

“Please God,” he whispered, giving her a little gas. She coughed again and then, as if sighing in relief, she caught and roared into life. He let out a breath that he didn’t even know he was holding. Then he touched the dashboard with two fingers and brought them to his lips as if he were kissing the Torah.

“Let’s go home, Papa.”

He gunned the engine a few times, threw her into gear, and eased her out into the roadway, avoiding potholes full of water and mud.

When they walked into the comfortable house on North Wilson Avenue, Hershel could hear the sound of an English language record drifting down from upstairs. He heard a precise voice on the gramophone saying I would like to go to the library.

Samuil shouted up the stairs. “Mama, we’re home.”

Berta appeared at the top of the stairs and leaned over the banister. “You’re home! Thank God!” Then as usual, whenever she was overcome by emotion, she lapsed into Yiddish. “Hershel, you took him out in this storm? Out on those roads?”

“English, Berta. Speak English.”

She sighed. It was frustrating having to put all her thoughts and emotions into a foreign tongue. “You want he should burn up? With all that…” Flicking her fingers in the air.

“Lightning, Mama.”

“Ya, lightning. What were you tinking ?”