For a solid hour he taught, until the light in the balcony grew so thin that Kreindel’s nose nearly touched the paper as she wrote—and then at last the boys were dismissed, and she was left alone, her head spinning with rules and particles and suffixes.
She went back the next day, and the next, learning bit by bit. On Saturdays she listened to the Sabbath prayers with new concentration, unraveling them as they flew by. At night, on her pallet, she’d pull her notebook from inside her pillow and review her lessons while her father muttered behind the locked door, seemingly a world away.
It wasn’t long before she noticed the toll that her father’s secret work was taking. Dark circles appeared around his eyes, and hollows in his cheeks. Their suppers had always been small, mainly knishes and pickles from the pushcarts, but now he barely ate anything at all. One morning Kreindel found a scrap of leather in the garbage and recognized it as the end of his belt, trimmed away to disguise his growing emaciation. Alarmed, she stole a handful of pennies from the jar he kept in the kitchen cabinet and bought eggs and noodles, herring and potatoes. She’d never cooked before, knew only what she’d seen from the tenement mothers—but through trial and error, she taught herself to make simple meals for them both. Her father was surprised, and a touch abashed; yet he still had no appetite, and could only manage a few bites before excusing himself to the bedroom and locking the door behind him.
By the beginning of 1907, Kreindel had learned enough Hebrew to translate every word of the Sabbath service, and yet her father’s nighttime mutterings still eluded her. Sometimes she recognized the various names of God, or exhortations to the angels, or the words for different body parts, arm and head and finger; but often it sounded as though he was saying the words back to front, or scrambling their letters about. And there were other, stranger happenings. A strong, earthy smell had begun to permeate the apartment, reminding her of something she couldn’t quite place. One night, she woke in the dark to see her father standing before the bedroom door, a heavy coal-sack over his back. His sleeves and trouser-cuffs were dark with what looked like mud. He whispered something, and her eyes went heavy with sleep. In the morning, the memory had the tenuous, half-faded quality of a dream.
Seasons passed. At the synagogue her father struggled to conceal his ill health. One Saturday in autumn he seemed particularly affected; he rallied himself for his usual sermon, but after the final benediction his vigor left him, and he stood pale and wavering on the dais. The synagogue men seemed not to notice, gathering around him as always—but Kreindel, afraid that he might collapse, ran down from the balcony, pushed through the men, and grabbed his hand, saying, Papa, you promised to tell me a story this afternoon.
He looked down at her, eyes clouded with confusion, and in that moment she thought he’d forgotten who she was. But then his brow cleared. Of course, child, he said, smiling. Excuse me, gentlemen.
They left the sanctuary and walked across the street, his thin, dry hand in hers. Together they climbed the tenement stairs, and by the second floor he was leaning on her shoulder, gripping it tightly. At last they reached their apartment, where he collapsed upon the parlor sofa and was asleep within moments.
His counterpane was locked behind his bedroom door, so Kreindel tucked her own blanket over him, though it was too short to cover him completely. She sat down at his writing-desk—it felt presumptuous, but there was no room on the sofa—and listlessly thumbed through the Tsene-rene, casting occasional glances at the bookcase lined with Talmudic volumes. Finally she put the Tsene-rene aside, gathered her courage, and plucked one of her father’s books from its shelf.
At first, reading it was like listening to a group of people all shouting at one another. There were words she didn’t know, but she could guess at their meanings; she fetched a sheet of butcher paper, and wrote them down. Before long she was outlining, in Hebrew, her understanding of the competing schools of thought. She continued onto a second piece of paper, and then a third. She felt as though she were peering through a keyhole into a different world, one whose story could only be told in its own language—a language her father had handed her, piece by piece.
She stopped only when the room grew too dark to read. The sun had set; the Sabbath was over. Exhausted, exultant, she put her head down on her father’s desk, and fell asleep.
When she woke, her father was watching her from the couch. In his hands were the notes she’d written. His eyes held a look of fondness that Kreindel had never seen there before.
“I fear I haven’t been a good father to you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ve allowed you to become something that you weren’t meant to be. But I also wonder if the Almighty has given me another gift, one I never expected.”
From around his neck he removed the key to
