The Collected Stories

the window. Birds were twittering. Akhsa examined her sheet. There was no blood. She had not given birth to a demon. For the first time in years, she recited the Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving.
    She got out of bed, washed at the basin, and covered her hair with a shawl. Ludwik and Gloria had robbed her of her inheritance, but she still possessed her grandmother’s jewelry. She wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it in a basket, together with a shirt and underwear. Ludwik had either stayed the night with one of his mistresses or he had left at dawn to hunt. Gloria lay sick in her boudoir. The maid brought Akhsa her breakfast, but she ate little. Then she left the estate. Dogs barked at her as if she were a stranger. The old servants looked in amazement as the squiress passed through the gates with a basket on her arm and a kerchief on her head like a peasant woman.
    Although Malkowski’s property was not far from Krasnobród, Akhsa spent most of the day on the road. She sat down to rest and washed her hands in a stream. She recited grace and ate the slice of bread she had brought with her.
    Near the Krasnobród cemetery stood the hut of Eber, the gravedigger. Outside, his wife was washing linen in a tub. Akhsa asked her, “Is this the way to Krasnobród?”
    “Yes, straight ahead.”
    “What’s the news from the village?”
    “Who are you?”
    “I’m a relative of Reb Naftali Holishitzer.”
    The woman wiped her hands on her apron. “Not a soul is left of that family.”
    “Where is Akhsa?”
    The old woman trembled. “She should have been buried head first, Father in Heaven.” And she told about Akhsa’s conversion. “She’s had her punishment already in this world.”
    “What became of the yeshiva boy she was betrothed to?”
    “Who knows? He isn’t from around here.”
    Akhsa asked about the graves of her grandparents, and the old woman pointed to two headstones bent one toward the other, overgrown with moss and weeds. Akhsa prostrated herself in front of them and lay there until nightfall.
    For three months, Akhsa wandered from yeshiva to yeshiva, but she did not find Zemach. She searched in community record books, questioned elders and rabbis—without result. Since not every town had an inn, she often slept in the poorhouse. She lay on a pallet of straw, covered with a mat, praying silently that her grandfather would appear and tell her where to find Zemach. He gave no sign. In the darkness, the old and the sick coughed and muttered. Children cried. Mothers cursed. Although Akhsa accepted this as part of her punishment, she could not overcome her sense of indignity. Community leaders scolded her. They made her wait for days to see them. Women were suspicious of her—why was she looking for a man who no doubt had a wife and children, or might even be in his grave? “Grandfather, why did you drive me to this?” Akhsa cried. “Either show me the way or send death to take me.”
    On a wintry afternoon, while Akhsa was sitting in an inn in Lublin, she asked the innkeeper if he had ever heard of a man called Zemach—small in stature, swarthy, a former yeshiva boy and scholar. One of the other guests said, “You mean Zemach, the teacher from Izbica?”
    He described Zemach, and Akhsa knew she had found the one she was looking for. “He was engaged to marry a girl in Krasnobród,” she said.
    “I know. The convert. Who are you?”
    “A relative.”
    “What do you want with him?” the guest asked. “He’s poor, and stubborn to boot. All his pupils have been taken away from him. He’s a wild and contrary man.”
    “Does he have a wife?”
    “He’s had two already. One he tortured to death and the other left him.”
    “Does he have children?”
    “No, he’s sterile.”
    The guest was about to say more, but a servant came to call for him.
    Akhsa’s eyes filled with tears. Her grandfather had not forsaken her. He had led her in the right direction. She went to arrange conveyance to Izbica, and in front of the inn stood a covered wagon ready to leave. “No, I am not alone,” she said to herself. “Every step is known in Heaven.”
    In the beginning, the roads were paved, but soon they became dirt trails full of holes and ditches. The night was wet and dark. Often the passengers had to climb down and help the coachman push the wagon out of the mud. The others scolded him, but Akhsa accepted her discomfort with grace. Wet snow was falling and a cold wind blew. Every time she got out