He knew that there were billions of people crowded into this world, which was becoming smaller by the minute. He knew that somewhere people were packed into rattling subway cars on the way to their jobs in the great metropolis, others standing chest to chest in foul-smelling cars meant for cattle. He knew in this world there were lines of elaborately coiffed ladies wearing ermine-lined coats, waiting to be served at fancy department stores; others, bare skinned, faces striped with fear, waiting for the executioner’s ax. He knew these things, but as Zalman stood under a smiling sky, taking the smoke deep into his lungs, he tried to forget all that. In those few moments there was no one else in the world but him and the now-pink sky and the gentle touch of a breeze as miles of grass swayed as far as the eye could see. Zalman was at peace.
He stamped the dirt from his feet before entering the house and took his place at the table to the right of the farmer and his two sons just as the older man was reaching for a second helping of the oatmeal, which sat in two big bowls at the center of the table. He gave Zalman a nod as the young man took up his fork.
Rabbi Isaac Rozenstein, the dairy and chicken farmer who’d purchased the land with loans obtained from the Jewish Agricultural Society in 1940, had a round face framed by a dark beard that disguised an amiable smile. The rabbi, his wife, Golda, and their four children had arrived from Poland prior to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, thanks to the sponsorship of an American-born cousin living in Illinois. With only the clothes on his back and a few meager pennies in his pocket, Isaac had listened attentively in the tiny apartment of the Chicago tenement where his cousin and their family of five lived, as he learned of a man, a German-Jewish philanthropist, Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who was helping the Jews from Eastern Europe escape their oppressive history of antisemitism and worse, and settle them on farms throughout New Jersey, Delaware, Florida, and other states. Although the cousin himself asserted that he was too tired and disinterested for such a venture, perhaps Isaac could find his fortune through the generosity of Hirsch’s society? Even though he had no experience running a farm, having never so much as seen a cow in his lifetime, Isaac jumped at the chance. And when he professed a desire to get as far away from the metropolis with its smog, crowded tenements, and general indifference, he soon found himself on more open fields, where not car horns or rattling dump trucks but the call of a rooster at daybreak and the melodic lowing of cows could be heard penetrating the air.
Since Jacob already had a sponsor living in Brooklyn, Zalman knew he would have to make his own way. So, at the suggestion of a fellow survivor he had met in a displacement camp, he became one of eighty thousand Jewish immigrants who entered the United States. Like Isaac, his benefactor, Zalman eschewed the cities and opted for the place closest to earth and sky. And although farming was as antithetical to Jewish mentality as viewing stars in the middle of the day, Zalman believed that this was a place where he would be needed. He discovered that there was a demand for farmwork in the States since large amounts of economic aid were being used to subsidize desperately needed exports to Europe. Yes, that was where he would begin his new life as an American.
During their months together in a displacement camp, and later as they shared an apartment in Berlin, Jacob had tried persuading, cajoling, and even begging his friend to join him in New York, but his pleas had had no effect. Even then, Jacob had helped Zalman get a job working next to him stacking boxes in one of several groceries that had been established after the war. Each knew that they would never make their fortune in a city filled only with the dust of memories. And it was Jacob, the more ambitious of the two, who would tell Zalman about the uncle he had living in New York, and the promise of America. Still, Zalman was determined to forge his own path, and even though he owed Jacob his life, he knew that since the war’s end, he had relied on him for too long. Instead, the cold vast lands of Minnesota would be where he would plow his own future.
“I hope this is to your liking, Zalman.” The voice was soft, the words spoken in Yiddish.
He turned from his plate, his eyes meeting the blue knit sweater, the tear at the neck neatly patched, held up proudly by Miriam, the farmer’s eldest daughter. He swallowed the last bit of toast and surveyed the garment, casting his eyes from neck to hem, lingering at the place where a barely distinguishable patch in just the exact shade of cornflower blue to match the rest of the wool had been sewn. His eyes rested finally on her face, where two dots of red were slowly materializing on the pale cheeks.