The Promised Land | Page 4

the rest of the world was not, as I had
supposed, a physical barrier, like the fence which divided our garden
from the street. The world went like this now: Polotzk--more
Polotzk--more Polotzk--Vitebsk! And Vitebsk was not so different,
only bigger and brighter and more crowded. And Vitebsk was not the
end. The Dvina, and the railroad, went on beyond Vitebsk,--went on to
Russia. Then was Russia more Polotzk? Was here also no dividing
fence? How I wanted to see Russia! But very few people went there.
When people went to Russia it was a sign of trouble; either they could
not make a living at home, or they were drafted for the army, or they
had a lawsuit. No, nobody went to Russia for pleasure. Why, in Russia
lived the Czar, and a great many cruel people; and in Russia were the
dreadful prisons from which people never came back.
Polotzk and Vitebsk were now bound together by the continuity of the
earth, but between them and Russia a formidable barrier still interposed.
I learned, as I grew older, that much as Polotzk disliked to go to Russia,
even more did Russia object to letting Polotzk come. People from
Polotzk were sometimes turned back before they had finished their
business, and often they were cruelly treated on the way. It seemed
there were certain places in Russia--St. Petersburg, and Moscow, and
Kiev--where my father or my uncle or my neighbor must never come at
all, no matter what important things invited them. The police would
seize them and send them back to Polotzk, like wicked criminals,
although they had never done any wrong.
It was strange enough that my relatives should be treated like this, but
at least there was this excuse for sending them back to Polotzk, that
they belonged there. For what reason were people driven out of St.
Petersburg and Moscow who had their homes in those cities, and had
no other place to go to? Ever so many people, men and women and
even children, came to Polotzk, where they had no friends, with stories
of cruel treatment in Russia; and although they were nobody's relatives,
they were taken in, and helped, and set up in business, like unfortunates
after a fire.

It was very strange that the Czar and the police should want all Russia
for themselves. It was a very big country; it took many days for a letter
to reach one's father in Russia. Why might not everybody be there who
wanted to?
I do not know when I became old enough to understand. The truth was
borne in on me a dozen times a day, from the time I began to
distinguish words from empty noises. My grandmother told me about it,
when she put me to bed at night. My parents told me about it, when
they gave me presents on holidays. My playmates told me, when they
drew me back into a corner of the gateway, to let a policeman pass.
Vanka, the little white-haired boy, told me all about it, when he ran out
of his mother's laundry on purpose to throw mud after me when I
happened to pass. I heard about it during prayers, and when women
quarrelled in the market place; and sometimes, waking in the night, I
heard my parents whisper it in the dark. There was no time in my life
when I did not hear and see and feel the truth--the reason why Polotzk
was cut off from the rest of Russia. It was the first lesson a little girl in
Polotzk had to learn. But for a long while I did not understand. Then
there came a time when I knew that Polotzk and Vitebsk and Vilna and
some other places were grouped together as the "Pale of Settlement,"
and within this area the Czar commanded me to stay, with my father
and mother and friends, and all other people like us. We must not be
found outside the Pale, because we were Jews.
So there was a fence around Polotzk, after all. The world was divided
into Jews and Gentiles. This knowledge came so gradually that it could
not shock me. It trickled into my consciousness drop by drop. By the
time I fully understood that I was a prisoner, the shackles had grown
familiar to my flesh.
The first time Vanka threw mud at me, I ran home and complained to
my mother, who brushed off my dress and said, quite resignedly, "How
can I help you, my poor child? Vanka is a Gentile. The Gentiles do as
they like with us Jews." The next time Vanka abused me, I did not cry,
but ran for shelter, saying to myself, "Vanka is a Gentile." The third
time, when Vanka spat