The Singing Fire Read Online Free PDF

Nehameleh?
    But Nehama heard only the noise of the pub as she followed the stocky young woman with her solid walk to the Squire, who was knitting a scarf the color of the Spanish sky.
    “That’s the Squire’s friend, a smuggler,” Fay whispered.
    The smuggler was a small man, even for these streets, where men didn’t grow big, and he wore a Russian greatcoat, the collar around his ears. As he read his newspaper aloud, he took great bites of bangers and mash and swallows of beer, speaking up so the Squire could hear him above the accordion and the click of draughts and the toss of an iron ring at the hook on the back wall.
    “There were a row in Angel Alley what put two in the London Hospital. A drowned child found in the Thames. And an ointment from India what cures bad eyes.”
    “I could do with that,” the Squire said. “I smashed my spectacles yesterday. Go on.”
    “Ships stalled in the channel. An east wind. And one ship lost.”
    “Bloody wind. Naught you can do about it. Even the best knife won’t save a man from drowning in it.” The Squire took the watch from his pocket, rubbing the gold back against a piece of silk to shine it.
    “This is Mr. Blink’s new girl,” Fay said.
    So this was the man who was going to save her from the authorities because she wasn’t fit for the Newcomers’ Assistance Committee. The Squire looked her up and down as if he’d be glad to take his price out of her skin. Maybe he’d sell her to a factory. There were terrible factories in Plotsk, where girls breathed fumes all day long and coughed up black tar. “Tell him that I can sew,” she said to Fay. At least sewing wouldn’t kill her.
    “It’s not sewing he wants,” Fay said in Yiddish.
    The Squire nodded as if he understood. “You tell her she cost me ten pounds.”
    “What kind of work do I have to do?” Nehama asked. She looked directly at the Squire. Her grandmother used to say that if you don’t use your eyes while you’re taking the train from Pinsk to Minsk, your pockets will be picked clean and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself. His face was hard and his lips were soft. He smelled like poison. Later Nehama would find out that he made a special grease to keep his hands and lips from chapping.
    MINSK, 1875
    Moskovskaya Street
    The Rosenbergs lived in a stone house with a wrought-iron fence in front and an apple tree in back. The house was three stories, the garden behind it small and private. A doctor lived next door, and sometimes he had musical evenings, the sound of the piano and violin drifting into the garden, where the ghost of the first Mrs. Rosenberg sat in the apple tree. There were now three living Rosenbergs left in the house: the second wife, the husband, and their daughter.
    The first Mrs. Rosenberg had been a mousy woman who took to her bed after Father pointed out her many failings. When she died, he fetched his distant cousin, a widow from a fine family, to be his second wife and take care of his home and children. She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. He already had his sons.
    The girl was too beautiful, more like a shiksa than a Jew, so why should anyone think she was his child at all? In fact there was no evidence. Mr. Rosenberg was a notary and liked the word evidence . It made him feel more like a lawyer. Or even a judge. He’d have been one if he’d been born a generation later, when the czar was more liberal toward Jews and let a few into higher schooling. But as it was, all he was authorized to judge were the bricks made in his factory on the outskirts of Minsk, a town of little distinction.
    The apple tree was still heavy with fruit, though it was late in the season. Under the care of the first Mrs. Rosenberg, the tree in the garden bloomed early and bore fruit into the fall. Emilia sat on the bench under it, thinking of how she would live with Mother when they ran away. The ghost of the first wife could come, too. Emilia didn’t mind sharing a garden with the dead.