Then Sings My Soul (19 page)

CHAPTER 34

The postman had tucked the shoebox-sized package between the door and one of the two matching pedestals of geraniums blooming crimson on the front porch. Nel almost didn't see it in the shadows as she and David walked up to the front door later that evening.

“David, look.” Nel picked up the box and wiped away bits of potting soil stuck to the bottom. The penmanship of the address appeared stiff, as if the sender struggled to make each letter, compared to the return address written in flowing Cyrillic.

“It's gotta be from them, don't you think?”

“Maybe …” She hugged the box to her chest as if to quell the excitement rising inside her. “But I'm afraid to get my hopes up.”

They found Mattie sleeping on the couch with a
Midwest Living
magazine across her lap, and Jakob in his recliner snoring heavily.

“Shhhh.” Nel raised a finger to her lips as she and David tiptoed to the kitchen. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the junk drawer and cut through the taped edges of the box.

On top of the contents was a rag doll, pieced together with embroidered fabric, with ribbons on her skirt and shirt and a scarf around her head. The plain face was probably white once but was now yellowed and stained from age. She picked it up and startled.

“Where did you get that?”

Nel and David both jumped at the sound of Jakob's voice. His eyes were locked on the doll, and his face was nearly as pale as the flat, empty cloth face.

“Jakob, what on earth are you doing? How'd you get past me?” Mattie tumbled into the kitchen behind him, bleary-eyed and pale herself, appearing frightened that she'd slept through Jakob scooting by her. She came alongside Nel and David.

“Dad, I … this box came in the mail today.”

He appeared more lucid than she'd seen him since his fall as he scooted toward her. He reached out and took the doll from her hands, then ran his fingers along the red cross-stitching of the blouse; the tiny, red, beaded necklace around the neck; and the tassels and stitching on the skirt; then he gently adjusted the scarf on the doll's head. “Faigy,” he whispered.

“What, Dad?”

His eyes, puddled with tears, met Nel's. “Faigy had a doll like this. And the sisters. All my sisters had dolls like this. But this one … Faigy's was just like this.”

Nel pulled a stack of old and fragile photographs, several papers, an old bound book, and a large, white cloth with blue stripes and fringe on the edges out of the box, along with a note addressed to her.

Mattie picked up the cloth. “This is a tallis.”

“A tallis?” Nel asked.

“A Jewish prayer shawl,” she replied.

“Where'd this come from?” Jakob asked again, shifting his weight and approaching the box on the table.

“I know about as much as you do—that's what we're trying to find out, what this all means.” Nel unfolded the note and began to read. “Dad, I think you'd better sit down.”

Jakob waved away David's hand as he offered an arm to steady him and instead fell heavily into one of the dining room chairs.

“What's the note say?” David prodded.

She hesitated. “Dad … do you remember I told you Mom had been researching your past?”

He nodded, not moving his eyes from the doll, still running his fingers across every detail.

“Well …” She hadn't told him about her research and letters to the church in Ukraine. She truly didn't think at that point anything would come of it, or that they would ever hear anything back; it had been so many months. Besides that, so much weight had visibly lifted from his shoulders when he told her about his past, she hadn't thought it mattered anymore. “I did a little more of my own research.”

Jakob did look up then, and the emotion in his eyes overwhelmed her. Was he angry?
Please, Lord, don't let him be angry with me. Let this be something good. Let this be something that will help Dad see that You work all things together for good.

Mattie nudged her. “Maybe it will help if you read the note.”

“Okay. Yes. I think it might.” She cleared her throat and began to read:

Dear Miss Stewart,

My name is Ira Levchenko. I run orphanage near Chudniv, and receive your letters. I knew your aunt, Faigy. She started this orphanage with help from the church. The things in box will explain how we know she your aunt. The diagram and photo of the stone you sent matches Faigy's stone. And we found records of Josef and all your brothers and sisters, and your father, Jakob, in our church records. Copies of these papers are in the box, along with pictures of Faigy and Sasha and the orphans. We did not know what to do with her things when she die. She thought all her family die in pogrom. But now we know. And now you know too.

Maybe you visit us sometime? See where your father from. See the children in orphanage.

(Forgive my English is not so good. I had help of translator.)

With love,

Ira Levchenko

By the time Nel finished, Jakob had started sifting through the stack of photographs.

“Sasha,” he gasped.

“Sasha? The priest you told me about?”

Jakob nodded, his eyes fixed on a photo of a bearded man in black robes with a little girl standing beside him.

Nel knelt beside Jakob, put her arm around him, and searched every detail of the photo he held. The girl appeared to be three or four. She had the plump little wrists of a toddler, round cheeks, and dark braids in her hair. The man stood tall and appeared stiff, but a kindness in his eyes softened his whole countenance. His robes appeared thick and heavy, except for a white collar at his neck. “Dad, you said a man in black robes took her—could it have been Sasha and not the pogromshchik?

He set the photo on the table and began to sob, years of shame pouring out of him. His shoulders shook as he buried his face in his hands. “Faigy. My baby bird. Forgive me.”

Nel embraced her dad with both arms. “Dad, it looks to me like there was nothing ever to forgive.”

He sobbed harder, and Mattie joined in the embrace.

“Guys …,” David said gently. “Sorry, but I think there's something else here you need to see.”

Jakob pulled a handkerchief out of his pajama shirt pocket and blew his nose, then wiped his face as David handed him a wooden box painted shiny black and detailed with exquisite, colorful flowers. He opened the lid and the facets of a large aquamarine beamed from within, reflections dancing across the room.

Nel hurried to retrieve the aquamarine in the old kiddush cup on their worktable, by then, her own tears falling as she compared the Star of David pattern on the crowns of both gemstones. “Look, David, Mattie … Dad, they're same.”

CHAPTER 35

Jakob woke early the next morning, still smiling from the images of Faigy and Sasha in the old photographs, how she'd grown strong and beautiful. Jakob thought Faigy resembled their mother when she'd become an adult, especially in photographs of her playing with the orphans she so clearly adored.

The four of them had stayed up until the early hours of the morning sorting through the photos, flipping through the journal (although none of them could read Cyrillic—they would have to find someone to translate that), and laughing as he told more stories of Sasha the priest's visits and all he could remember about his family.

Sasha had come back.

Faigy had lived.

And she had lived well, saving the lives of children who had no homes, who'd lost parents and brothers and sisters, just as she had. Of course, she would have assumed he and Peter died. In hindsight, they should have, two boys wandering without so much as a compass through across the Carpathian Mountains and Eastern Europe. He thought again about all of the people who'd helped him and Peter. Of all the times Yahweh never let them go.

Who are You, indeed, Abba, that You've been mindful of me all these years?
The springs and components of the hospital bed cracked and groaned almost as much as his joints as he rose and made his way to the bathroom. He shuffled to the kitchen, where he scooped heaping tablespoons of coffee into the filter and held the open can to his nose to smell the earthy, bittersweet grounds. The morning paper thudded against the front door and silenced the songbirds for a moment, as did the squeak of the screen door as he scooted himself out to retrieve the paper, then took it to his recliner, where he ran his fingers along the brown-and-orange, matted-down plaid fabric of the arms. He'd worn the right side down markedly more than the left from all the evenings he'd reached across it to the couch to hold Catherine's hand as they watched TV. How many times had they watched
Ed Sullivan
,
Father Knows Best
,
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
,
I Love Lucy
, and later
Lassie
,
Perry Mason
, and
Andy Griffith
as they took turns letting Nel fall asleep on their shoulders? And who could forget Rod Serling's
Twilight Zone
and Ronald Reagan Westerns? TV had to be the best invention of the century, he thought.

He opened the paper to the weather, then the op-eds, then the obituary section. Used to be a time when he recognized at least one name every day of someone who'd kicked the bucket. After he turned eighty-five or so, familiar names didn't show up so often. And now he rarely recognized a name, except an occasional adult child of an old friend or neighbor. Even so, Catherine and Mattie had always kept him from feeling lonely, as had the comfort of filling the bird feeders; tending to the squirrels; soaking in the subtle changes in buds and leaves, trees and grass; watching the shift of the tides and the patterns in the sand as the lake resculpted it every night.

He wondered if his grandfather Dedus had felt the same way as he plodded through the billowing wheat fields of Chudniv with a cow's lead in one hand and a scythe in the other, his deeply creased, sunburned face worn like leather. He could taste the thick milk Dedus had ladled out of the bucket for him on hot summer days, even as he pulled gently on the great beast's teat.

Thank you, El Shaddai.

Thank you, Messiah Yeshua.

Jehovah-Shammah.

Jakob shuffled to the kitchen and plunked a couple ears of corn and a bag of suet and sunflower seeds, and another bag of thistle seed, in the pouch of his walker. Outside, a black squirrel and her three babies ran across the yard as he lumbered toward the feeders. They were placed close, but not too close, to the house, so Jakob could see them all from the windows, except for three bluebird houses on high poles on the southwest corner of the property. The bluebirds took care of themselves and preferred to be left alone.

One black squirrel, in particular, had been coming to the feeders for corn so often, he didn't scurry away from the tree as Jakob approached. Nel had helped him mount the stands decades ago, and a long, rusty nail held the cob in place. Another one of their father-daughter projects, Jakob had suggested they build the stands one summer when she, sullen and distant, was home from college. Seemed like nothing at the time, looking back to that summer, but well, maybe those feeders had meant a lot to her. Maybe that's why she always kept them full since she'd been home. It's a grand shame most of us don't know the impact of what we're doing with a person until it's too long past or too painful to revisit, Jakob thought. Then again, maybe it's better not knowing and having done the thing anyway.

The black squirrel chattered as Jakob moved between the feeders. He sprinkled sunflower seeds on the seat of a flat feeder that hung from the old sweet-gum tree. Then he filled two more hanging feeders on the pole nearby with thistle. The back of his head began to throb, but he tried to ignore it as he poured the fine seed, then glanced up at the window where Catherine used to watch him and wave while she washed dishes at the kitchen sink.

“Peace and a song” is what Catherine had said about the birds. That's why she'd wanted them close to the house too. Sometimes she sang to the mourning doves, and she'd laugh and laugh as they sang back.

One of them cooed as darkness seeped across the field of vision in Jakob's left eye. He figured it'd pass like all the other times. But instead, his left leg buckled. He lost his grip on the walker. Felt himself crumple to the ground. The world felt blazingly hot and icy cold all at the same time. He tried to holler for help, but all that came out was a weak cry.

Adonai, help me.

Jakob tried to cry out again, but no sound came from his thickened throat. Not even a movement from his lips.

The rest of the world grew black.

Jakob smelled familiar chemicals and heard beeps of the IV and hissing of oxygen in the hospital room.

“Slova zalyshylysya u Vashomu sertsi, Yakob, tak?”
*
Peter sat at the foot of his bed.

“Yes. Yes, they did. But it took me a while to believe them.”

“Vy zavzhdy viryly. Vy til'ky tikaly. Vin znaye, chomu vy tak dovho tikaly.”
†

“I don't want to run anymore. Will you forgive me? Will Yeshua, will Adonai forgive me?”

“Dad, I'm here. It's Nel. Can you hear me?”

“Nel?”

“Yes, Dad. It's me. Please don't leave me.” She tried and failed to stifle a sob. “I need you.”

“No.” Jakob's tongue hardly budged and felt thick and dry as an old rag in his mouth. “You don't … you … need to love … love and let … yourself … be loved.”

“No, Dad.”

He felt her wet cheek pressing against his.

The thick scent of honeysuckle overwhelmed him, and he found himself walking on a dirt road he'd seen long, long ago. Beside him, fat carpenter bees and wide-winged butterflies bobbed along a vine-covered fence, fields of sunflowers billowing as far as he could see below the sapphire sky. A family with four young children passed by him, the father pulling an oxcart, and the mother smiling hello.

Beyond them where the road began to bend, a man waved, and Jakob could hardly wait to greet him. The man's eyes enraptured Jakob. And when they at last reached each other, the man's embrace, swift and fierce, intoxicated Jakob with joy.

“Welcome home, My child. All is grace. All is forgiven. Welcome home.”

“Yeshua.” Jakob sobbed and laughed at once, soaking the shoulder of his Savior's shirt.

“Laskavo prosymo dodomu, brat.”
‡
Peter came up beside Yeshua, and Jakob clung to their hands as together they crossed a great river, the light of the place shining, reflecting against the ripples of the water like millions of diamonds stretching to the opposite shore. As the three men crossed over, thousands of people along the riverbank waved and sang hymns. And in front of them all, waiting for him, stood Catherine and Mama, Papa and Zahava, Tova, Ilana, and Sasha the priest.

And next to them stood his sister Faigy.

Jakob stood on the golden shore in the arms of Yeshua and his loved ones, and he sang.

He sang, and he sang, and he sang.