Things now happened very fast since Mother's stay was to be short, not quite two full days.
Accompanied by Esther, Mother now paid hasty visits to all seven donors of my "days." She thanked them with tears in her voice and expressed her belief that God will repay them handsomely in this and the future world for their kindness to her little son.
She then went to my teachers, to thank them for instructing me in God's ways, and told them that she was taking me home with her.
Could Mother have imagined that her plain desire, dictated by love for her only son, would encounter a barrage of learned resistance?
My teachers pointed out to her that my progress in learning was immense; that my grasp of complex religious problems was of the first order; that not only they, my instructors in the preparatory school, but also teachers from the yeshi've proper who had occasion to examine me, saw in me the certainty of a future in the world of sacred study. And would not—nay, should not—a good God-fearing Jewish woman be happy that, with God's help, her issue would one day brilliantly display his religious knowledge and become a teacher of God's ways? Would not this be her greatest reward in this world and in Kingdom come?
Thus my prodigious effort to excel in my studies so that I might deserve to be taken back home was turned against me, against my most fervent hope, my last wish, my only dream. Now I was too good to return home.
When Mother hesitated to accept my teachers' advice, they suggested that, before making a final decision, she consult the great Rabbi himself, the world-famous spiritual leader of the yeshi've. Mother agreed to the suggestion.
All morning mother went over in her mind what she would say to the famous man, maybe even rehearsing the very words, but when she was led into his presence, her tears broke loose, choking her voice and heart.
The great Rabbi knew from one of my teachers the purpose of Mother's visit. And before she could calm her heart and put into words her woes as a young widow and mother, he said to her: "Go in peace. Go home. God will help."
How will God help? When? These were questions not fit for a plain, unschooled woman to ask the great man.
Only when she was back in the street did it occur to her that what she really wanted to talk about was not even mentioned. She took his words, "Go home, God will help," as a blessed omen for her safe return. She was even inclined to think that in his immense wisdom the Rabbi conceivably knew of something boding ill to her five daughters she left home, and that he therefore urged her to go home. But the bewildering and perplexing dilemma in her heart, whether or not she should take me back home, was still unanswered.
Mother promptly went back to my "home," and apparently initiated conversations of a specific nature with my landlady. Mother knew that she could not stay longer. The peasant who brought her here threatened to go back by himself if she would not return that very day in the early evening. He had to travel again under cover of the night, and was himself anxious to return to his family.
After lunch, on my way back to school—I do not remember what "day" it was—I stopped to see Mother. As I entered, she and the other two women abruptly broke off their conversation.
I immediately sensed that Mother was leaving. Tears welled up inside me, but my learned mind told me to be stout of heart.
After a while Mother asked me in a hushed voice if I wanted to go back with her or stay.
What could my answer have been? Was there any other answer than—?
As I write these lines, my hand hesitates to put down the answer I gave her. I feel a pulsing in my head, and I can hear the pounding of my heart.
Did I vehemently resent Mother for even asking me if I wanted to go home with her? Did I resent it because a mother who bathes her ten-year-old-son like a baby should herself decide such matters? Did Mother's unhappiness convey itself to me with such intensity that I felt I had not yet acquired enough knowledge to lighten the burden of her life? Did I feel bound in duty and ready to gasp out my unlived life if it would, in a tiny measure, ease her life as a young widow, and by my so doing gain her love in return? . .
I did not then realize how much I needed Mother's presence in order to be strong in my resolve not to go home. Nor did I perceive the bitter and throughout-life regretted contradiction that while Mother was around I could decide to stay and continue my studies, but that the very minute she left, I was thrust back to the tightening vise within my anguished heart.
The conversations, interrupted but a while ago when I came in, were presently renewed in the kitchen. After some time Mother came back to the so-called dining-room, tears frozen in her eyes. She told me in a muffled voice that she would pay my landlady some extra money, in addition to what Esther paid her for my room, and from now on my landlady would look after me, after my laundry and clothes, and provide me every evening with a late snack.
As I listened, I made a desperate and supreme effort to remain calm. I commanded my heart to be firm, and my tear wells to stay dry.
I remained grown-up and manly, as Mother certainly wanted me to be.
I did not burst into tears.
About two hours later the peasant's horse-and-wagon was at the entrance of the house, on the very same spot from where the drayman, the neighbor downstairs, used to take off with his passengers to the faraway railroad station.
From this moment on, I remember very little of Mother's leave-taking. I do not remember if she said anything to me, and if she did, what were her words. I do not even remember whether she kissed me goodbye. Like a fire that devours a building and leaves but a few scarred remains, so did Mother's departure blot out forever most of her farewell.
Mother sat stonily on the wagon, facing straight ahead. She wore a heavy kerchief of faded purple. With burning eyes I tried to pierce it, so that Mother would turn her head and look at me, but to no avail.
There I stood, a bundle of rushing heart beats, my mind in feverish consultations with itself like a telegraph key gone mad.
For a fleeting second I thought that there was still a chance, that in some miraculous way my fate was not yet sealed. If only I could drop the mask of being an adult and let loose a torrent of tears, like the child that I still was! My tears would have told Mother how deeply I loved her and how desperately I wanted to go back with her, that this was my prayer and my dream every waking moment of my young life. And they would also have imparted my great and immeasurable wish to be back home, my own home, and not a little beggar every single day at the homes of strangers.
The onrush of my heartbeats was now like the crushing thud of breaking waves, and I felt a sharp and piercing pain in my head.
I could see the marketplace which the wagon would soon cross. It was almost dusk now. The day was drawing to a close.
Suddenly the heavy wooden wheels started turning and the wagon moved.
I wanted to scream: "Mother! Mother! Don't leave without me!" But my vocal chords, choked like my whole body in dread and panic, did not obey: I had no voice.
After a second or two, I wanted to run after the wagon, to cry, to beg, to throw myself on my knees, but I was unable to move, petrified in the awareness that my dream and hope during my long exile from home would in a moment be gone, forever lost; and that my fate, in crushing the longing of my young years, was closing, with angry finality, a chapter of my life.
For a fleeting instant all life seemed suspended, everything silenced by my pounding heart.
And then something within the innermost layers of my being shook violently. I paled. A terrifying burning wedge was vigorously hammered into the midst of my heart. And as the wedge set permanently, the red pain thundered within and around me, engulfing my heart and mind, my whole body.
In supreme despair my bleeding heart leaped out, rushed forward, threw itself before the horse and wagon, trying to stop it . . . and then jumped with its last strength as high as it could, hoping that Mother would see it—cleft and bleeding . . . But Mother did not see it, and the horse did not stop, and the heavy wheels rolled over it, leaving their marks on my heart like the tread signs of a tire in young snow . . .