Daniel Yarosh - The Death of Hercules - A DocuNovel

“I don’t know,” Deena replied. “He was tired and worried about money. He didn’t want this business with Altmann.” Now she sat rigid, hands in her lap over her belly, facing forward. She was much more worried about this than Max. Deena knew from talking with mid-wives in Moscow that influenza was especially dangerous for pregnant women. During the winter of 1918, more than a quarter of pregnant women with flu aborted, and pneumonia doubled the problem. But her mind went back with pride to Zalmund’s decisive action in Katowice. He had taken on a huge injustice, to a woman, tried to diffuse it, but in the end acted boldly. The New Man of the Revolution, the Übermensch , had not waited for justice from the ruling class, but had struck down criminals where they stood. She was overwhelmed with pride. It was a feeling she had in Koszuty, and again in Moscow, and she knew it would soon pass. He had saved her then, but at what cost? He had saved Reichmann, whom they did not even know, but at the cost of a dozen men they did not know, some young and who themselves did not know what they had done. It started to feel not like justice but arrogance. It frightened her. She did not think that Zalmund belonged to her, but that he thought he belonged to history. Love for her could be kind, compassionate and forgiving. But love for history was cold, unyielding, cruel and deadly. He did not really love her, she thought, but loved her witness to his grand actions. She dreaded their next confrontation with fate.

Max said “maybe his actions were because he is…” his pause hung in the air “…sick. He wasn’t thinking clearly?” He turned to look her in the eye. She turned and his earnestness engaged her. Sick, how? she thought. But looking at him, she knew he meant more than the flu. She didn’t answer.

“Have you ever seen him like this, before?” Max continued.

“I have known Zalmund for a few years,” she sighed. She began to talk so that Max would stop asking questions. She said she had known him as the son of Isaac Hofitz, the Koszuty estate manager. “My father worked the land owned by General Kosiński, but he was old and rarely came around. Isaac managed his property, collecting the rents and such.”

“Did your family know Mr. Hofitz?” Max asked. He was asking to keep the conversation going smoothly, but he really did not want to know more about Zalmund’s old life. He had a knot in his stomach, and a pressure on his heart. He really wanted to know more about her and how she really felt. He could not take his eyes away from hers.

“Oh, they knew him but did not like him. He was the boss, after all, but he wasn’t the lord. He was looked at with scorn. Nothing he did was right. My mother would spit when she said his name. I was told” she went on “that when Zalmund was young he lived at home, about the time when I was born, but I don’t remember. Then he was sent away to school right after he turned 13.”

“What school?” Max asked.

“A school for Jews,” she said.

“A yeshiva ?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. He didn’t like it very much. Lots of prayers and discipline. He missed his mother.” She went on to say that she remembers him coming home when she was about 7 years old. He was a handsome 18-year-old, exotic looking with long dark hair, a short beard and fierce eyes. He drank in the taverns in town and dressed like the Bohemian radicals, not like the other Jews of Poznan. She especially remembered that he was rebellious, and disrespectful to his father Isaac. He espoused leftist views and revolution against the landowners. This was a terrible time for politics. The Black Hundreds, a movement of right-wing extremists, retired military and landowners, were terrorizing towns, assassinating reformers and leading pogroms against Jews. One night over 80 Jews were murdered in Bialystok. Even in Poznan Jews were publicly humiliated and beaten in the streets by gangs of young toughs under the umbrella of the Black Hundreds. Zalmund was outraged and wanted the community to defend itself. But Isaac, who owed everything to a landowner sympathetic to the Black Hundreds, was silent. He did not want any scrutiny that might uncover his redirection of rent and tax receipts from Kosiński to his own account in Amsterdam.

“Oh, Zalmund, he was gallant. We heard stories of his defiance. He challenged some of them when they were alone and got in fights. I didn’t know much, and my family hardly opposed the Black Hundreds, but Zalmund was a glorious rebel and spoke against his father. Everyone enjoyed that!” It didn’t last long, though, Deena said. Zalmund was sent away by his father to rabbinical school. He was not invited back home for seven years.

“When I was 14, I was brought into the house of Mr. Hofitz as a maid.” She explained that Maria Kosiński, the daughter of Napoleon Rekowski who first owned Koszuty Mansion, died without children a few years before. Witold Kosiński was elderly and gave more responsibility for managing Koszuty Estate to Isaac, who “did not know his place” as her mother said. When the first widow maid died, Mrs. Hofitz needed a new maid. Deena’s family needed the money and reluctantly agreed. Isaac Hofitz was kind to Deena’s family, but he was still a Jew, and it grated on them that she worked as a servant for Jews. Deena was obedient and careful as a maid and tried hard not to become too attached to the family.

Then Zalmund came home in 1913 at age 25. He was a rabbi in name only.

His schooling away did nothing to make him conform. He took a special interest in her, Deena said, teaching her about politics and telling her about his conversations in town. He was her portal to the upheavals around the world. She was flattered by his attention and hungry for his words.

One day he looked at her differently, she told him. She knew then that he saw her in a romantic way. She was carried away by the attention, the whiff of danger, the modern gallantry and dedication to a cause. Soon they were together more, usually on Saturday afternoon when his father was away, sometimes just to talk under the stars behind the barn, sometimes to kiss. Their parents learned, too, and did not approve.

“They each made it more and more difficult for us to be together,” Deena said. “After Christmas, Mr. Hofitz sent me home to my parents. He said it was safer for me, but I knew he wanted me out of the sight of Zalmund.”

Deena folded her hands in her lap, her a nervous habit, looked at them and continued in a low voice. “Finally, this last March, Zalmund cornered me in town and told me he was going away to join the revolution. There was such a spark in his eye, and he made it sound like a big adventure. He had it all planned, he had people waiting for him. He asked me to go away with him.”

Max leaned forward and turned to her to catch her eye. “Why would you even think of such a thing?” Max pleaded. He hurt for her having to make a choice, to put herself at risk. He wanted to protect her from the danger.

Deena read his eyes. “That is how I got here, to sit next to you,” she said, with a smirking grin. “Anyway, my parents were searching for a husband for me, anyone, to get me out of that house. They wanted to marry me off to an old fart widower, who would make me a proper peasant wife, with lots of children instantly and no life, no freedom, no wonder. I would have run away into the sea to avoid that.”

“So you left?”

“In a vegetable wagon. Without saying good-bye to my family. Not even a note. They probably looked for me for a few days, until they learned Zalmund was gone too and realized what I had done.”

“Are you ready to spend the rest of your life with him?” Max blurted out.

“The rest of my life, or his?” she answered.