It Stood at the Gate

Fear, like the scent of woodsmoke, hung over Zokrev.

It settled on the thatched roofs, seeped through splintered doorframes, and coiled beneath slumbering children in their groaning beds, choking the air. Women stifled their sobs while frightened children clutched their aprons. When those in the shtetl dared speak, their voices withered to whispers—brittle as dead leaves—lest they summon the Haidamacks' upon them.

Beyond the cottages ran a tributary of the Western Bug. Though it swelled from late summer rains, no shtetlyaner went to its banks alone. It was said that the water, once clear and fresh, ran black with blood. It was said a corpse from miles away floated past while children swam in its rapids. It was said reeds bent not with the wind but from marching feet. Perhaps Cossacks.

It was said, it was said.

Peasant talk, the rabbi assured them. But even he, at night, listened for the sounds of hooves in the distance as the hush of the world settled around him. Though his anxiety thinned his hair, grayed his beard, and arched his spine, he hid it from the shtetlyaners. If he said anything, he would alarm them, and they needed his calm.

But the Haidamacks closed in on the shtetl. They came without mercy and with fire and steel. They left ashes and silence behind them. It wasn't a matter of if, but when. Until then, no sleep would come to Zokrev. Shtetlyaner would not milk their cows, nor school their children, fearing that any moment these barbarian rebels would ride in and burn them to rubble. And no man would gather to finish the shul.

The gray shul tilted precariously atop the hill in the shtetl. Dust and broken timber littered the floor where the roof had collapsed months ago. The men ignored the rabbi's pleas, too terrified to attempt repairs. Without a roof, the shul was doomed; without the shul, so was the shtetl.

The shtetl erupted as more news traveled – someone claimed to have seen smoke from a village less than a day's journey away. The shtetl trembled with voices, some terrified, some in denial. While several claimed to have seen the smoke, others denied its existence. The men fought amongst themselves at the well.

"I saw nothing!" shouted some. "You are lying!"

"No! They ride toward us!" shouted another. "We will be dead by dawn!"

"But just because you saw smoke, doesn't mean the Haidamacks have attacked!"

"Is that the chance you wish to take? With your families?"

Under the dim glow of oil lamps, they wrung their hands raw with dread. They sought Reb Shmuel for comfort. Younger than the rabbi, he once shouldered burden with grace. Now terror gripped his heart, and he clawed at his chest until crimson streaks marked his flesh.

Unable to answer the shtetlyaner, he approached the rabbi with his begging hands trembling.

"What can we tell them, Rabbi?" he asked, "We cannot tell them to stay, for we will surely be attacked. We cannot tell them to flee, for the river has flooded the roads. We have prayed and prayed, and surely, God will protect us. But how can we comfort our people?"

The rabbi hunched at the head of the table with hands clasped together and face drawn in thought.

"What will become of the children? What will become of us?" Reb Shmuel asked him. "Rabbi, you must know something."

The rabbi shut his rheumy eyes. He knew one way. It is said there is a method only fools and nightmares had conjured, a dark figure shaped from the earth the way Hashem had fashioned Adam. It is said to do so required knowing the right words from the right passages in the right texts. It is said those words, those passages, those texts were forbidden, pulled from fragments of texts and scraps of lost knowledge passed to him from his betters before him.

It is said, it is said.

His aging mind brought forth the memories of his contemporaries, and they scolded him for even daring to consider this aggadah. But the sounds of horses loomed closer, and the Western Bug rose higher.

When the rabbi opened his eyes, they came to rest on a hidden text on his shelf. He removed it and turned the pages to a passage he had skimmed many times but never spoken aloud. A passage too powerful, too frightening to speak with open lips.

There were other ways, he supposed. They could continue praying, their arms spread and their voices hoarse while the women screamed, the children wept, and shtetl roared in flames around them. They could take only what they could carry, like their ancestors, and brave the dangers of the road ahead. But there were children and elderly to consider. Or they could send a hawk to Uman, begging for help before the next moon, and hope their letter finds a sympathetic eye. But just as they were not men of sword, the nobles were not men of action. They would not turn their hands for the shtetlyaners of Zokrev.

And yet.

The river ran cold that night, but the clay beneath it was rich. Waiting.

The rabbi whispered, "Follow me."

Outside, the wind howled through the trees, as if something unseen had heard—and answered.