Israel Book Shop presents Chapter 11 of a new online serial novel, Nine A.M., by Esther Rapaport. Check back for a new chapter every week. Click here for previous chapters.
Copyright © Israel Bookshop Publications.
Yaakov began and said, “Ribbono Shel Olam, did I not withstand twenty years in Lavan’s home? And when I left his home, the wicked Eisav tried to kill my children, and I was ready to die for them after I raised them like chicks of a hen, and I suffered the pain of raising children over them. And now, will You not remember this for me, and have mercy on my children?”
There was silence in the back room of the hut that housed the shul, as Babbe Sara Liba raised her eyes from the page in front of her. “We all try to advocate good for Am Yisrael in their difficult time,” she said, her low voice echoing off the walls. “A time of galus, of churban, when we don’t know who will survive and how. So Avraham Avinu came to defend Klal Yisrael, and he mentioned the merit of Akeidas Yitzchak. Then Yitzchak came, and he also mentioned the merit of the Akeidah. And which merit did Yaakov bring with him, that was equal to the Akeidah? His mesirus nefesh for his children, and the fact that he agreed to give up his life for his young ‘chicks.’ The pain of raising the twelve Shivtei Kah…” She fell silent for a moment and looked around. The women and girls of the community all sat listening attentively. Naomi was also sitting in the audience, listening closely to her grandmother.
“Being zocheh to raise and educate the Shivtei Kah is not simple, and never has been. But if the holy Avos knew that it is equal to the act of the Akeidah, then we can only estimate the magnitude of the reward expected for someone who provides chinuch with love and dedication to the next generation, with all the pain and mesirus nefesh that are involved…”
Naomi continued to stare ahead, her expression blank. She didn’t even look to her mother, sitting on the opposite side. Had Mamme asked Babbe to speak about this subject in her weekly address? She found that hard to believe.
“You did it for me, Babbe,” she whispered afterward, when the women gathered, as they did each Motza’ei Shabbos, near the table on which a large platter of cake rested.
“I didn’t do it for you.” Babbe’s voice was also quiet, but much calmer. “I did it for our children. Everyone here has to understand that work in the preschool should not be looked at with derision. Someone has to step up and take the open position of assistant, before it falls into the hands of Leo Sherer’s group.”
“Naomi!” Someone tapped her on the shoulder. It was her aunt, Chani. “I know Babbe was speaking also to the mothers among us, but of course we noticed that she was giving you a special mention about your new job! So please accept my brachos to you for it; it’s really a great zechus.”
Naomi smiled with effort.
“Don’t make light of it!” a young mother named Shaindy Gottlieb said. She was holding the hand of her two-year-old, who was trying to leap in Naomi’s direction. “I think Naomi is really something special.” She glanced backward to make sure that Bilhah’s daughters were not in earshot. “If you would hear how my Esther’ke tries to say Birchas Hamazon… Naomi, how did you get this into them in just three days?”
Another few women gathered around, and they all nodded, praised, and complimented. Naomi continued to smile, and smile some more, thanking them and nodding, wondering all the while how many of the well-wishers were fervently hoping that their own daughters would not follow her path.
She slipped out of the shul as fast as she could. Her aunt Chani noticed and hurried after her. “Listen, Naomi,” she said seriously, when she caught up. “Everyone knows that Katarina likes your mother and will probably agree at the end to switch you to a better job. But I think that until then, you can use the opportunity.”
“That’s the problem: that everyone knows. That’s why they are all afraid to come and work in the preschool now, because maybe I’ll leave and one of them, at the age of sixteen, might have to become the permanent teacher.”
“What about Mila? She is not even trying out other jobs.”
“First of all, if there was a risk that she would become the teacher, I certainly wouldn’t leave. But none of us—including Mila herself—are afraid of that happening, because we all know that when she turns sixteen, she’ll go work at the dairy, with her father. They promised them that long ago.” They walked together, the residential huts and big patches of grass on one side of them, and the deep forest on the other side. The aroma of Shabbos foods still hung in the air, and Naomi breathed deeply.
“What about Shaindy Herzlich? Baily Landau? Chay’ke Shmuelson? They are more or less the right age, aren’t they?”
“I guess so. We really should speak to them.” Naomi’s voice was flat, lifeless.
“I hope that they and their mothers really heard Babbe now. If they did, she may have done half the work for you. When I heard her speaking, I felt bad for a moment that I wasn’t a teacher myself. You have the talents for it, no?”
“Sure, talents.” Naomi was bitter without meaning to be. “A soft heart and dreamy expressions. Anything else?”
“Why are you being cynical?” Chani asked. She sat on the tree stump, a remnant of the major storm last winter.
Naomi remained standing, her arms folded. “I’m not being cynical. Those are the exact attributes that landed me this job. If I would have done an outstanding job at the sewing workshop, they would have placed me there, with my mother.”
“And your amazing ability to work with little children?”
“You know very well that Katarina and her friends did not take that into account.”
“But Hashem does take it into account, you little nudnik!” Chani stood up and patted Naomi’s shoulder warmly. “You’ll do great things in that preschool, until you go out to work in…do you want to help me in the kitchen?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t even thought about what I do want.”
“You’re so funny. I wasn’t talking about my job on the estate. I meant to ask if you want to come with me now to Babbe’s kitchen to prepare something for melaveh malkah. By the way, how’s Binyamin? He looked a bit preoccupied to me at the Friday night meal. Is he worried about something? Your mother told me he worked really hard last week.”
“But just imagine…” Naomi said suddenly, her eyes dreamy, proving that she hadn’t heard a word that Chani had said. “Imagine if we lived in a world where being a preschool teacher for Jewish children would be considered a dignified profession, and those in the workforce would fight to work at the kindergarten and prove that they had the talents for it. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?”
***
On Sunday morning, Binyamin’s breakfast was hasty, as it always was since he’d begun a morning learning seder. He hurriedly recited Birchas Hamazon and then dashed back to shul. Rabbi Schwartzbrod, Menachem, Daniel, and he were learning the halachos of treifus of the lungs. They had exactly twenty-five minutes until the bell at the factory would ring, signaling the start of the work day. That meant they had eighteen minutes to learn. But they’d use those minutes to the fullest, like they always did.
But the elderly rav didn’t open his sefer right away. Instead, he looked at his three students and said, “Our learning today will be in memory of Binyamin’s father, Reb Asher Yosef ben Reb Binyamin, whose yahrtzeit is today. He was a very special person, truly special… Okay, should we begin?”
At the end of the eighteenth minute, he closed his sefer and said, “You don’t remember him, Binyamin, do you? How many years is it?”
“Almost fifteen. I was three when he passed away.”
“That’s a long time…” the rav said as he walked the young men outside. He continued walking next to Binyamin, who forced himself to slow his regular fast pace, as his friends hurried on ahead. “It’s hard to believe that fifteen years have passed. The first baby who came here to the land of the living…”
“And the first who departed,” Binyamin couldn’t help but say.
“No, he was not the first. You’ve seen our little cemetery near the wall, right? Your father, zichrono livrachah, was perhaps the first of the young generation.” He sighed. “A head injury is dangerous at any age… But before him, we had other victims.
“We came here on a train, musselmen who had gathered from nowhere, and we were sure we were being taken to our end. Two of the men didn’t survive the journey. And those were the first graves we dug here, thrilled at the privilege we had suddenly been granted. We weren’t able to understand what was happening to us. We were thrown here after a long trip and told to build structures, restore the abandoned manor house, dig a bunker, start working… So that’s what we did…and we realized the differences right away.”
Rabbi Schwartzbrod shook himself out of his thoughts. “You should run, Binyamin; I don’t want you to be late to work because of me. Is it because of the yahrtzeit that you seem preoccupied?”
“No,” Binyamin said. “I mean, of course I’m sad that I hardly remember my father, but…”
“Come when you have time, maybe after Ma’ariv today. I need to tell you about your father.”
Did Rabbi Schwartzbrod know that Mamme never told them anything about Tatte?
Binyamin ran breathlessly up the steep path, his two friends barely specks in the distance. Yes, he had what to speak to the rav about.
The bell began to ring the second he reached the door of the factory.
“Good morning!” Leo Sherer snapped critically, holding his open pad in one hand and twiddling his pen in his left hand. “I’m considering whether or not to mark you down as late. What do you think, young Herr Schvirtz?”
“I don’t think I was late,” Binyamin replied politely, trying to speak above the ringing bell.
“Coming at the last minute is not good either,” someone said hoarsely behind him.
Binyamin tried to keep his facial muscles firm and calm, as he turned around and said submissively. “You’re right, Herr Bernard.”
Since Wednesday night, when he’d hidden in the factory, he hadn’t seen or heard him. It was rare for Bernard to visit the Samson Lager, and it was even rarer for him to come to the factory during work hours, on one of his visits. But on that frightening Wednesday night, Bernard had mentioned the “J1000 gene” and the grades that he received because of the workers here. Was all of that babble somehow connected to his current visit to the factory?
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