If a Tree Falls Read Online Free PDF Page B

spool out. The thin cord — twined with hay along the side of Malkie’s barn, muddied in a puddle along the river path, pulled taut by a snag in the stake of Golde’s herb stand — trails its way to the synagogue’s wooden Ark. Three times, Pearl’s father coils the string around the thick scrolled posts, making a graceful swag in front of the gold brocade curtain that conceals the Torah. Moshe drops to his knees, breathes in the cool stone and must of the shul, and beseeches God — blessed be He — to hear their prayers for the baby.
    Shimon’s wails stop late that afternoon. He is buried the next day. Pearl sits on the earthen floor, her womb still in cramps, her breasts aching, full, as tears drain from her eyes. Moshe sits beside her, his shirt collar ripped in mourning. For seven days, sitting, Moshe hardly looks at Pearl. His unfocused eyes are glazed over with the wash of death.

    Pearl fights to remember how Moshe’s eyes looked before Shimon. She hasn’t known him so very long; their marriage was arranged with a short engagement, the baby conceived quickly. They were just finding their place together, cramped in her parents’ house, establishing sweet rituals, new intimacies — her gentle fingers upon his thought-worn temples; a surprise of sweet, sliced apricots at her bedside table. A month after the burial, Moshe barely looks at her.
    But now he takes Pearl’s hand. It is Friday night, and her parents are still at the table, sipping hot tea through sugar cubes between their teeth. Moshe leads Pearl to his bed. He undresses her, slowly.
    Moshe’s eyes linger upon Pearl, not lustfully, but stubbornly, as if in a challenge to retrieve himself. His sunken jaw causes Pearl’s own sorrow to flare. Every one of her nerves twitches, firing to get up, to run. But she lies nearly still. Her eyes drop to appraise her belly, still slack from childbirth. Moshe lifts himself onto her, enters. Pearl does not so much as touch his shoulder. She stares at the ceiling, at a crack in the plaster wall. With each push, she tightens.
    Is he trying to hurt her? Is this how it is going to be — has she lost them both? Finally, Pearl rolls, toppling Moshe to his side, wet and cold outside of her. Moshe takes hold of a clump of Pearl’s hair. He winds it around his bent forefinger and brings
it to his lips. Sniffling, he clutches onto her, and together they fall, hollow, into sleep.

    Who knows how you find your steps after losing your footing? Life grinds on, and your feet teach you how to walk along. Pearl is pregnant again. Fear and hope clot, then thin her blood. Her mother spits left and right to keep trouble at bay. Moshe coils himself around Pearl’s growing figure, cradling her in the night.
    The night before she goes into labor, Pearl wakes to the pops and crackles of shattering glass. The smell of burnt straw. Bands of drunken peasants are running through the shtetl streets with flaming torches and rocks, screaming and breaking the windows of every Jewish shop and home. Pearl’s father hurtles into Pearl’s bedroom, grabs her by the arm, and shimmies her into the back hallway.
    At dawn’s light, while the men sweep shards of glass from the streets, a horde of women crowd into Pearl’s house. They rub her back, try to lessen the pain shooting down her legs. Pearl can’t help thinking about the tomorrow of her first labor — Shimon’s quivery form. Her womb cramps tight as if to hold the baby in. The women eye each other sideways, while headlong they blurt assurances.

    Pearl hasn’t slept all night because of the peasant attack. Perhaps a rest will help. She lies down for a minute — until the pain propels her up again. A little walk, a tight circle in the cramped room; a waft of light, a look out the window. Then her legs are spread, her belly wrenching in upon herself, her ears a-ring with shouting. “A head, I see a head!” “How much hair already!” Another breath, a searing rip, and finally the