Beyond the Pale: A Novel by Elana Dykewomon Page A

worry. A strong smell is good. If there’s very little odor, or if you smell something different, like charcoal or anything that smells like metal, watch the mother carefully. In an hour, she should be washed with a tea made from comfrey and shepherd’s purse, especially over the lower parts. The gates of heaven are very close to women when they give birth, and who knows, maybe Lilith too, after all. I will teach you how to read all these things and save the mothers and children whenever you can. Sometimes of course—well, thank God, this is a strong woman and a beautiful girl.”
    “Flora will marry a tanner and have nine children, eight of them will live,” a voice spoke. Then I realized it was my own.
    “Sha,” Milcah said, as if I had made some terrible mistake.
    “You see, what did I tell you? Now it’s predictions.” Tsipora glared.
    “My little Flora?” Rivka said. She seemed pleased. “A tanner is respectable. Very good. She can see my grandchildren? A midwife who can see the future, what a thing!”
    “She just had a premonition, that’s all. She’s very excited—it’s her first time.”
    “Yes,” I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was saying. I must have been thinking about the new tannery on the cliffs. It doesn’t mean anything.” Milcah nodded at me.
    The sister, who wouldn’t look at me anymore, gave Milcah a loaf of bread and a cheese. “I’m sorry, it’s all there is to pay you with.” Milcah nodded graciously.
    Finally, when we were on our way home, Milcah wanted to know. “When did you see? As soon as I put the baby in your hands?”
    “Yes,” I said, “then. Is there something wrong with me?”
    “Oy, Gutke. Maybe you are part Gypsy, like they say. Or,” she considered, “you could be able to hear the bat kol. You know what that is? No, Pesah doesn’t teach you anything but the bathhouse and the table, am I right? The bat kol is a voice of God. Rabbis say they can hear whispers from God, sometimes talking, sometimes lamenting. But the bat kol doesn’t just speak to rabbis. Often it talks about the future, about birth. When I was a girl—,” she stopped and looked at me. “Well, bat kol or Gypsy, you are who you are. The sister is a gossip. If you don’t want people to say you’re a fortune teller, you must be very careful. It’s a thin line we walk. I heard that once all over Europe women were killed if anyone even suspected they were witches—and the Russians always like an excuse to kill a Jew. And Jews—it will be very hard for you to get a husband if this happens to you again and you tell anyone.” She pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders.
    “I don’t care about a husband,” I said. “But why does it happen to me? Doesn’t everyone sometimes see things that aren’t—that seem—” I felt cold on the back of my neck, though the day was warm. I didn’t understand why everyone thought it was so unusual to know things about people by looking into them. It wasn’t like I heard the voice of an angel, even if Milcah said that’s what it was. I didn’t know that when most people tried to do what I called ‘looking in’ they saw only a brick wall, and if they happened to see more, they immediately turned away.
    “Don’t trouble yourself so much, child. ‘The truth has many faces.’ You are good and honest, I know. What makes one hilltop green and another barren? Next time it happens, only tell me.”
     
    After I saw my first birth, I felt that I was a grown woman, separated from other children even more than I had been by having no father. I was allowed to go to the most private, important things that happened in Kishinev. Even Pesah treated me differently, not so much like a little girl. When I was home in the evenings, I still helped at the baths. On the weekday nights the baths were for old women and women who had no children to look after, the youngest wives and unmarried aunts, a few students from the very wealthiest families.