The Collected Stories

village. He would say, “You will collapse and they won’t even know what to write on your headstone.”
    IX

    Late one night when Hinde Shevach slept, she was awakened by steps in the corridor. Who creeps around in the middle of the night, Hinde Shevach wondered. Since her brother had left, it was as silent in the house as in a ruin. Hinde Shevach got up, put on a house coat and slippers. She opened a crack in the door and noticed a light in her brother’s room. She walked over and saw the rabbi. His gaberdine was torn, his shirt was unbuttoned, his skullcap was crumpled. The expression on his face was entirely altered. He was bent like an old man. In the middle of the room stood a satchel.
    Hinde Shevach wrung her hands. “Are my eyes deceiving me?”
    “No.”
    “Father in Heaven, they’re searching for you all over. May the thoughts that I had be scattered over the wastelands. They’re already writing about you in the newspapers.”
    “So, well.”
    “Where were you? Why did you leave? Why did you hide?”
    The rabbi didn’t reply.
    “Why didn’t you say you were leaving?” Hinde Shevach asked despondently.
    The rabbi dropped his head and didn’t answer.
    “We thought you were dead, God forbid. I telegraphed Simcha David but no answer came. I wanted to sit the seven days of mourning for you. Heaven save me! The whole town is in an uproar. They invented the most gruesome things. They even informed the police. A policeman came to ask me for your description and all the rest of it.”
    “Too bad.”
    “Did you see Simcha David?” Hinde Shevach asked after a hesitation.
    “Yes. No.”
    “How is he making out?”
    “Eh.”
    Hinde Shevach gulped. “You’re as white as chalk, all in tatters. They dreamed up such stories that I was ashamed to show my face. Letters and telegrams came.”
    “Well …”
    “You can’t just get rid of me like this.” Hinde Shevach changed her tone. “Speak clearly. Why did you do it? You’re not just a street urchin, you’re the rabbi of Bechev.”
    “No more rabbi.”
    “God have mercy. There will be bedlam. Wait, I’ll bring you a glass of milk.”
    Hinde Shevach withdrew. The rabbi heard her go down the steps. He seized his beard and swayed. A huge shadow wavered along the wall and ceiling. After a while Hinde Shevach returned. “There is no milk.”
    “Nu.”
    “I won’t go until you tell me why you left,” Hinde Shevach said.
    “I wanted to know what the heretics say.”
    “What do they say?”
    “There are no heretics.”
    “Is that so?”
    “The whole world worships idols,” the rabbi muttered. “They invent gods and they serve them.”
    “The Jews also?”
    “Everybody.”
    “Well, you’ve lost your mind.” Hinde Shevach remained standing for a while and stared, then she walked back to her bedroom.
    The rabbi lay down on his bed fully clothed. He felt his strength leaving him—not ebbing away but all at once, rapidly. A light he never knew was there flickered in his brain. His hands and feet grew numb.
    His head lay heavy on the pillow. After a time, the rabbi lifted an eyelid. The candle had burned out. A pre-dawn moon, jagged and dimmed by fog, shone through the window. In the east, the sky reddened. “Something is there,” the rabbi murmured.
    The war between the rabbi of Bechev and God had come to an end.
    Translated by the author and Rosanna Gerber

A Crown of Feathers

    R EB N AFTALI H OLISHITZER , the community leader in Krasnobród, was left in his old age with no children. One daughter had died in childbirth and the other in a cholera epidemic. A son had drowned when he tried to cross the San River on horseback. Reb Naftali had only one grandchild—a girl, Akhsa, an orphan. It was not the custom for a female to study at a yeshiva, because “the King’s daughter is all glorious within” and Jewish daughters are all the daughters of kings. But Akhsa studied at home. She dazzled everyone with her beauty, wisdom, and diligence. She had white skin and black hair; her eyes were blue.
    Reb Naftali managed an estate that had belonged to the Prince Czartoryski. Since he owed Reb Naftali twenty thousand guldens, the prince’s property was a permanent pawn, and Reb Naftali had built for himself a water mill and a brewery and had sown hundreds of acres with hops. His wife, Nesha, came from a wealthy family in Prague. They could afford to hire the finest tutors for Akhsa. One taught her the Bible, another French, still another