Rachel's Promise by Shelly Sanders

Rachel's Promise is the second book in Shelly Sander's historical fiction trilogy about a young Jewish girl in the early 20th century. The story is set against the backdrop of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904 to 1905. It follows Rachel Paskar, a Jew, and Sergei Khanzhenkov,  a Christian, as separately,  they leave their home town of Kishinev after the Jewish pogrom has destroyed the Jewish sector, leaving hundreds of Jewish people dead, homeless and without a means of livelihood.

Kishinev was established by Tsar Catherine II in 1791 in a region of Russia called the Jewish Pale of Settlement. The purpose of the town was to move all Jews in Russia to this area, "...to rid the rest of Russia from Jewish competition and influence."

The novel opens with Rachel, her sister Nucia and their mother Ita on their way to Shanghai, China via the Trans-Siberia Railway. Rachel's father was killed during the pogrom.  They are fleeing Kishinev, Russia hoping to eventually travel to America. At the urging of Sergei, Rachel and her family have taken seven-year-old Menahem with them from the Kishinev Orphanage. Rachel has made a promise to her Christian friend, Sergei to look after the homeless boy. They must travel by train to the very eastern border of Russia, to Vladivostok where they will catch a steamer to Shanghai.

Their journey by train takes two weeks and is mostly uneventful except for the frequent searches by the Cossacks who are soldiers who work for the Russian emperor, the Tsar. Rachel is filled with fear for the journey but she also misses Sergei whom she cares very much for. However, because he is Russian and not Jewish, any relationship between them is strictly forbidden. Rachel meets a young couple, Isaac and Shprintze, who are also traveling to Shanghai. When it comes time to buy tickets for passage to Shanghai, Rachel elicits the help of Shprintze and another young man to buy an extra ticket for her mother Ita who has been refused due to her health. 

On the journey to Shanghai, Ita is diagnosed with consumption and placed into quarantine on the ship. When they arrive in Shanghai, Rachel is told that her mother will remain in quarantine and if she does not improve, will be sent back to Russia. After being examined and fed, Rachel, Menahem, Isaac and Shprintze are told to go to the British Concession on the west side of the Huangpu River. There Rachel and Shprintze find work in a laundry on Bubbling Well Road, while Nucia works as a seamstress. One day Rachel walks down to the hospital by the harbour and is able to talk to a doctor who tells her that her mother is very ill, will not recover, but will not be sent back to Russia as she is too sick to travel. 

Five months into their stay at the hostel, Rachel learns that Shprintze is expecting a baby. While happy at this prospect, Shprintze also realizes that any money they have will go towards the doctor and the baby. Then Rachel discovers that Mr. Neb Ezra, publisher of the newspaper, Israel's Messenger has published her first article, although without crediting her. He writes her a letter attesting that she is the author of the article and pays her. At an evening meal, she notices that Nucia has been spending time with Jacob, a boy from a shtetl in Kiev. 

Shprintze gives birth to a daughter, Zelda with the assistance of Rachel and Dr. Goldszmit. After a week of rain, Rachel visits her mother in the hospital by sneaking in through the laundry chute. Her mother tells her she is ready for death, and four nights later, Ita passes away. The doctor kindly arranges for Rachel and Nucia's mother to be buried according to Jewish custom. Rachel authors a second article on the Russian-Japanese War and how Russian Jews are fighting for a country that doesn't want them. Mr. Ezra is impressed with her writing and publishes the article. Although her name is not attached, the payment is good.  

Then Nucia tells Rachel that Jacob has asked her to marry him and has accepted his offer. Because he has saved enough money for his and Nucia's passage to America, Nucia offers Rachel her savings so that they can travel to America together. Nucia and Jacob are married a week later by Suzhou Creek. By January 1, 1905, Rachel, Nucia, Jacob and Menahem have received their papers to travel to America and have booked passage on the S.S. Mongolia. They will travel to San Francisco. Rachel reveals to Nucia and Shprintze that she loves Sergei but they tell her it is best she is going to America. After four weeks in the steerage hold, they arrive in San Francisco. Rachel has kept her promise - to bring Menahem to America.

Meanwhile, Sergei is still in Russia but preparing to leave Kishinev and his family consisting of his mother and father and his eight-year-old sister, Natalya. His father, Aleksandr, had been Chief of Police until he lost his job after the pogrom. He is a drunkard who did nothing to help the Jews during the pogrom. He accuses Sergei of being a coward for leaving. As he leaves home, Sergei thinks back on the pogrom. It began because of stories printed in the anti-Jewish newspaper, Bessarabetz, which blamed Jews for the deaths of Christians. For three days the rioting continued, as the police were ordered by Viacheslav von Plehve, the Interior Minister in charge of the police in Russia, not to intervene. Sergei wants to get rid of Plehve, who he believes hates the Jewish people. 

On the train to Saint Petersburg, Sergei reminisces about how he first met Rachel, saving her from being beaten by Russian girls. He is impressed by the beauty of the city with its Summer Garden, the beautiful Neva River, the elegant hotels and "stunning cathedrals topped with golden onion-shaped domes...". But when Sergei tries to find a place to stay, the reality of his situation becomes apparent to him. He ends up in a dirty hostel and is soon robbed of all his money. Unable to support himself and find work, he lands a job in one of Saint Petersburg's many dirty factories where the work is dangerous. Sergei is forced, due to circumstances, to live in the factory barracks and losing most of his wages to pay for this.

Working in the Putilov factory testing the couplings for trains, Sergei witnesses the workers suffering terrible workplace accidents with no compensation from factory management. Sergei meets Lev, a twenty-one year old man who works next to him at the factory. Incensed at the terrible working conditions and the poor treatment of injured workers, Sergei learns from Lev about the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, an organization working towards rights for Russian workers. The party organizes strikes and demonstrations outside factories to try to force the government to enact laws protecting workers and providing better wages.

At first Sergei decides against joining the party because it is anti-government and does not support the Tsar, whom Russians have been taught to love. The strikes are mostly ineffective; organizers are exiled to Siberia and strikers fired. However, in January 1904, Sergei's right hand is mangled in an accident at the factory. Despite being injured at work, he receives no pay. The injustice of his situation and that of the many injured workers makes him decide to participate in his first strike at the Ekaterinoslav factory. The strike is an eye-opener for Sergei, who witnesses the Cossacks intervening, whipping strikers, shooting and trampling them to death.

All of this leads to Sergei becoming more radicalized. When his injured right hand heals, he struggles to draw but one of the workers tells him, he can draw posters for the Revolutionary Party. On February 9, on a walk to the Winter Palace before work, Sergei realizes he has been in Petersburg for ten months but has saved no money for university. He is struck by the intense devotion of people who have gathered at the Palace for the Tsar who is leading his people into a war with Japan.

He has a chance encounter with Boris Savinkov, head of the Combat Organization known for assassinating government officials. Two weeks later, Sergei is eventually invited to a secret meeting and he joins the Combat Organization. He switches to the night shift at the factory pretending to be a newsboy during the day. Eventually the target for assassination is Interior Minister Viacheslav von Plehve who has imprisoned innocent people in the dungeons of Peter and Paul, and has encouraged the Kishinev and Gomel pogroms.   Dora, who will make a bomb from nitroglycerin warns that although this is the most effective way to assassinate him, there will be innocent casualties. This revelation makes Sergei nauseous. Although he wants Plehve dead for what he did to Rachel's family, he knows that his death will not bring him back nor restore the other victims. Although the assassination is successful, Sergei feels no triumph.  It is at this point that Sergei begins to question the path he has set out upon. But when he attempts to leave the Combat Organization, Savinkov refuses to allow him to do so. 

Eventually Sergei attends a meeting run by Father George Gapon who leads the  Assembly of Russian Workers which "defends workers rights through peaceful means." On a cold Sunday morning, January 22, 1905, Sergei joins Father Gapon and thousands of Russians on a peaceful march along Dvortsovaya Street to the Winter Palace. Father Gapon who is leading the procession carries with him a petition of one hundred fifty thousands names demanding better working conditions including a shorter work day and better wages, and an end to the Russian-Japanese War. Along with Sergei is his friend Pavel who believes that the Tsar doesn't know how bad things are for the working class. At the Narva Gate leading to the Winter Palace, a thick line of Cossack and Hussars suddenly began firing into the crowd. Pavel dies saving a woman and child and Sergei is shot in the arm but escapes.

When the Combat Organization is betrayed and Sergei's name is listed among those involved, he loses his job at the factory and is forced to flee into the forest to save his life. At the Vitebsk train station, Sergei jumps onto a train bound for Vladivostok. Sergei has enough money from drawing posters to bribe his way out of Russia to finally meet up with Rachel and Menahem in America. During all this time he has been writing to Rachel in China and he still desires to travel there and meet up with her and Menahem. But then he thinks about all those who have sacrificed so much to try to better conditions in Russia and he knows he needs to stay for now. Some day he will go to America, just not now. 

Discussion

Rachel's Promise was inspired by the author's maternal grandmother, Rachel Talan Geary and her sister Anna "Nucia" Rodkin who fled to Shanghai, China from Russia. In the early 1900's, Shanghai was a safe haven for many people but especially Jews who fled from pogroms in Russia. The story alternates between Rachel and Sergei's narratives, with the book broken into four parts Summer 1903, Fall 1903, Winter/Spring 1904 and Summer/Fall 1904. Although the novel is titled Rachel's Promise, the book is more about Sergei's life and struggles in Russia. 

This novel is well written and filled with interesting details about the hardships in Russia over a decade before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Sanders attention to historical detail is evident throughout the novel, especially in Sergei's narrative. For example, the plight of workers in Tsarist Russia is portrayed through the character of Sergei, as he becomes one of Russia's millions of working poor. He finds accommodation in a dirty hostel and is quickly robbed.  Sergei's experiences spotlight the plight of workers in Tsarist Russia. He is hired on by a metal works factory in Saint Petersburg where he is paid three hundred kopeks for working seventy-one hours a week but ends up with only sixty kopeks after paying the factory for a room and meals. The factory barracks are dirty and crowded. Sergei notes that he is only ",,, a few miles from the center of Petersburg, where lavish buildings and statues adorned streets and gardens." Even more disturbing is how this harsh life affects the men. Sergei meets a worker, Lev, whose hunched posture and lined face makes him look like he is thirty years old. He is shocked to learn Lev has been there for only five years and is only twenty-one-years old. Even worse is the plight of workers who if they survive, receive nothing for life altering injuries. Workers who organize strikes are exiled to Siberia and workers who strike are fired. 

There's plenty of information about historical events from the turn of the century that young readers may not know much about, in particular the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05. For example, Sanders explains how Russia and Japan are fighting over Port Arthur, on the southern tip of Manchuria, which does not freeze over in the winter and is a vital harbor and therefore desired by both countries. The author also provides information on the massacre of workers and Russian citizens on "Bloody Sunday" in Saint Petersburg on January 22, 1905.

Life in Shanghai in the early 1900's is portrayed in Rachel's narrative. Shanghai is filled with Jews from Russia. She finds the smells and the heat and humidity overwhelming, the food strange. Life in Shanghai is difficult, and the work backbreakingly hard. However, Sanders does convey the sense of community that the Jews have in their little area.

Rachel and Nucia struggle with maintaining their Jewish identity. Nucia admonishes Rachel for writing a letter on the Sabbath. When Rachel notes that Nucia never complained about breaking many Sabbath customs while traveling to Shanghai, Nucia tells her, "...Writing is not necessary for survival. You need to observe the Sabbath, to pray that our lives will be filled with divine blessings." But Rachel tells her that she's tired of praying for things that never happen as it did not save their parents. "We have to make choices and do things that will improve our lives, instead of hoping for divine help that will  never come." However she tells Menahem that "Though it's hard for me to have faith all the time, I'm still proud to be a Jew."

Sanders has created well-rounded characters that keep her readers fully engaged. Many of the characters in the novel were real people: Edward Ezra. Father Gapon, Interior Minister Viacheslav von Plehve, Dora Brilliant and Boris Savinkov. Rachel is intelligent, determined and hard-working, a devoted daughter to their mother who is dying of consumption in a hospital in Shanghai. She stands up to Mr. Ezra who publishes her article in his newspaper without crediting her and perseveres to write articles that result in her making enough money to travel to America. 

Sergei is open minded, kind, and is accepting of his Jewish neighbours. The pogrom horrifies him. Like Rachel, he is hardworking and has a keen sense of justice to the point where he becomes motivated to work for change in his beloved Russia. This results in him repeatedly deferring his plans to leave Russia and meet up with Rachel. His extreme poverty suggests he likely never makes it out of Russia to America. Sergei's experiences demonstrate how Russia ends up on the path to revolution years later in 1917. 

Rounding out this wonderful novel, is a map at the front showing Rachel's journey to Shanghai, a Glossary as well as a detailed Historical Note. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction. The final book in the trilogy, Rachel's Hope will be published in 2014.

Book Details:
Rachel's Promise by Shelly Sanders
Toronto: Second Story Press   2013
273 pp.