ROBERTA. ROSENSTONE
397
in the family? No, not a
muhjik.
A horseback warrior is better, is
fine. On horse you are always going somewhere. On foot I am going
somewhere, only it takes longer.
The road goes on through nights and days. Blanket roll in a
cornfield, part of a moon asking questions that are not answered by
the stars. Moving towards a horizon always blue . One step at a time
through dust of endless afternoons. Gulp cold water at a stream,
sneak from the road to pick grapes, snatch unripe corn and gobble it
uncooked, raw white. At twilight, frogs sing in ditches; at night,
crickets; in the pale hours before dawn, birds whose names he did
not know. Sometimes the thought : this has been done before. I am
doing it , me walking, but it is someone else with blue eyes and a red
goatee. It is a strange feeling , standing by the side of a road in a dust
cloud raised by an ox-pulled cart, choking a little, tickling in the
nose , to feel it is someone else standing there, holding a finger to the
nose to keep from sneezing. At night it is strange in a bedroll in a
vineyard, crickets cheering a moon higher into the sky, to feel you
are not alone. He knew this had been done before. He knew it would
be done again . On foot , on horseback, in a train. Some other way
that was no different, always the same. In each generation there was
one son with blue eyes. In each generation there was one son with an
itch .
It
had to be someone on horseback, from Asia or the lands be–
yond. One pair of blue eyes, one horse and one itch . That was the
thought he held onto every night when the moon sang him to sleep .
•
•
•
It is a little noted fact of history that the rivers of Eastern
Europe were jammed with swimmers in the last quarter of the nine–
teenth century . Not one grandfather but a whole generation of grand–
fathers sidling, walking, waddling, hurrying, moseying, lurching,
striding, flinging, leaping, jumping, tiptoeing, plunging, screaming,
and stretching themselves into previously empty waters. They were
not yet grandfathers, but somehow the image is of aged men, dressed
fully in black,
yarmulkes
affixed firmly to their scalps, long white beards
floating miraculously and gently on the surface as they flash towards
far-off shores . Are they not praying as they swim,
talluthes
around
their shoulders, voices raised to the lord drowning the fearful beating
of hearts . Remarkably, none of these grandfathers were ever known
to go near the water again. None ever could teach his son, let alone
grandsons, how to swim, any more than they could teach how to play
baseball, steal a bagel or make love to a woman, all skills more ap-
