The Mystery of the Blackbird

Book dust hit Tara in the face. The girl waved it away.       Tara didn't find a title for the book. After turning two empty pages, she saw handwritten text. The task was further complicated by the fact that the author wrote in old English. Tara focused and began reading:       O my G-d, allow me to complete what has been started! Allow me to tell our history to human descendants, should his prophecy not come to pass, should our lineage be doomed to perish! Allow me to write our history to the last line, to the last word, and not to my last breath!       Madame, Mademoiselle, Monsieur, whatever your age or rank, whatever is happening now on our shared Earth, read my message to the end, to the last period. It is your right not to believe every word, but everything written here, every flourish of a letter, is the pure truth, and falsehood will take root in your soul if you disobey.       Tara was already impressed by such an introduction. A chill ran down her skin unlike any she could imagine: it seemed to pierce the skin with icy needles, rolled in a wave from her heels to the back of her head, then returned and dissolved; Tara's shoulders shuddered. Her vision blurred for a moment, but the girl just shook her head and delved back into deciphering the precious flourishes:       O Almighty G-d! Allow me to recount our history! I am your handmaiden, Margaret (Margalit) K*** [Tara couldn't decipher the surname for a long time], an English Jewess, twenty-two years of age, bearing a child under my heart, who by Your will is not destined to be born... Lord, have mercy on us all! Deliver us from the terrible sickness! My husband, David, perished recently, and the old woman wrote: 'Plague.' Now my decrepit house is under guard, and I count the days until my end…       A chill took hold of Tara, her hands trembled. Stopping, she realized what she had read. What horror this woman experienced, what fear she endured, left alone, pregnant, in the midst of a plague epidemic! Tara tore herself away from the book for about ten minutes to give a break, but to what—her eyes, her head, her soul?       ...In my life, I never had to work. Our family lived in plenty, and we almost never went hungry. I met David, and we lived soul to soul for seven years. We couldn't conceive a child for a long time, but as soon as I carried it, he fell ill, and died five months later. Now I don't know how to live... For now, there is enough, David earned much in his lifetime. But nothing can be bought—they don't let me out of the house…       Tara hadn't suspected she could read for so long. Time was approaching midnight, and the girl had only conquered one page. But what concerned her wasn't the time on the clock, but Margalit's fate.       But I narrate not about myself, but about our foremother, Abigail K*** [the surname defied decipherment]. Without her, there would be no meaning to this story, the story of Abigail and her successor—Esther. But will I have time to tell of them before the sickness defeats life and cuts off my tale?       The text became more and more difficult, Tara's eyes were closing, and if earlier curiosity and interest prevailed over fatigue, now it was completely different. The letters, written in a sweeping hand, blurred in Tara's eyes, and she firmly decided to continue tomorrow. This time, sleep did not keep her waiting.       The girl slept surprisingly soundly, which hadn't happened once since her parents' death. For the first time in twenty years, her mother didn't come to her in a dream to give needed advice. Tara looked at the clock, which showed half-past ten, and felt sleepy and exhausted.       Behind the wall, Esther was bustling. Tara couldn't lift her heavy head from the pillow and listened to the shuffling behind the wall, the clinking of dishes, the floor's creak; she examined the white, rough ceiling; thought about how her little girls would wake up without her. Then she made up her mind and sat up, lowering her feet to the cold floor. Tara dressed and made the bed. And only after that did she dare go out to Esther.       Esther sat half-turned at the table, her right hand on it, looking at the clock. Hearing footsteps, the woman shifted her gaze to her granddaughter. Miss Goldenberg looked so helpless and lonely, even abandoned, that Tara's heart ached.       "Good morning," the girl managed to say and smiled kindly.       "Good morning, kid," Esther said. Her voice sounded tired. "How did you sleep?"       "Great," Tara lied. "And you?"       "Oh, alright,: the woman sighed. "Go wash up, and I'll take care of your breakfast."       Esther leaned on the table with both hands and stood up. Tara headed towards another door, behind which, she understood, was the bathroom. The room wasn't as neat as the others; apparently, it was difficult for Esther to take care of it. The bathroom was lit by a flickering yellow bulb, but even in the poor light, McCartney made out the yellowed tile and black specks on the mirror, across which a crack ran like lightning across a night sky. It smelled damp. Tara decided to tackle the bathroom in the coming days.       When Tara came out of the bathroom, porridge was waiting for her on the table, and when the girl came closer, she understood it was oatmeal. Esther wasn't in the room. The girl sat down and began eating.       ...Something twisted in Tara's heart when she realized the porridge tasted exactly like her mother's. What could be so special about ordinary oatmeal? It defies explanation. Is it possible to describe any childhood feeling—a taste, a smell, a sensation on the fingers? So Tara couldn't explain or understand how she was transported twenty-two years back, becoming a little girl again, having breakfast under her mommy's watchful gaze.       Having emptied the plate, McCartney pondered something else. As if an aftertaste of the tender milk porridge, book dust remained on her palate. The girl tried to remember what she had done the previous evening. The answer came in a moment, and Tara jumped up from the chair to return to the room. But before she could approach the door, Esther appeared.       "Thank you, Esther, for the excellent breakfast!" Tara blurted out loudly.       "What excellent?" Miss Goldenberg answered somewhat sharply. "Just cooked what I had."       "Esther, don't be modest! The porridge turned out splendid!" Tara didn't recognize her own voice. "Should I go to the store?"       "In the evening." Esther still didn't thaw and didn't even smile at the compliment. "Right now, something is waiting for you in the room."       Tara almost blurted out that she had already started reading Margalit's diary yesterday but caught herself in time. The girl vanished into the room.       On the table, waiting for its reader, temptingly open at the left endpaper, lay the book. How old it was and what it wanted to tell her, Tara still had to discover.