The Collected Stories

too, helped with the refreshments. My father drew up the engagement papers. He asked Leibush, “What is your full name?”
    “Leibush Motl.”
    “Aryeh Mordecai.” My father translated the name into Hebrew.
    “What are you?” my father asked. “A Cohen, a Levi, or an Israelite?”
    “Who knows what I am.”
    “Don’t you attend synagogue? Aren’t you called up to the reading of the Torah?”
    “Once in a while.”
    “Here you will have to attend the synagogue. In a small town you must behave,” Feigel interrupted.
    “Well …”
    Feigel’s father, Leizer, appeared peeved, impatient, and barely able to wait until he could return to his hammers, saws, files, and screws. To everything that was said, he nodded in silence. Feigel smiled, joked, and even winked at me. She shrugged. “Marriage and death are unavoidable.”
    “What makes you say such things?” my mother asked. “You’re still young and you will live till 120.”
    “Not so young. No one knows what the next day will bring.”
    “Exactly my words,” Leibush agreed. “Last week as I sat drinking a mug of beer with my friend, his head suddenly fell to one side and he was a goner.”
    “God forbid the misfortunes that can happen.”
    “People creep right under the wheels.”
    The wedding date was set for a month later. Leizer and Leah wanted the wedding to be a quiet one, but Feigel demanded a ceremony with musicians and a jester. I heard her say to my mother, “What does a girl get out of life? A dance and a hop.”
    At the wedding, Feigel danced with her sister Rachel and then with another girl. She looked lovely in the bridal gown she had made herself. The gown opened out like an umbrella as she whirled around and I saw her lace-trimmed panties. After the virtue dance, two women led Feigel into a darkened bedroom. A few minutes later Leizer and one of the other men escorted Leibush to his bride.
    Leah came to the wedding dressed in her Sabbath dress and high-heeled shoes. Under her heavy, masculine brows her black eyes were sad and resentful. When my mother went to wish Rachel
mazel tov,
she replied, “Whoever heard of serving the dessert before the main dish?”
    “You and Leah will also bring joy to the father one day.”
    “Maybe.”
    The morning after the wedding, the whispering began. A boy who had hidden behind the window of the bridal chamber announced that Feigel and Leibush quarreled half the night. There was scolding, and blows were struck. In order to reach the window he had crept through the swamp, and he showed the mud and moss that still clung to his pants and boots. Feigel soon called on my mother to unburden herself. I was most eager to listen to Feigel’s secret but she dismissed me. “Do me a favor,” she said, “and leave the room. It’s not for your ears.”
    From the other side of the door I heard muttering and stifled crying. When Feigel left, my mother’s face had red blotches. I inquired as to what was wrong with the couple, and my mother said, “God spare us, how many madmen there are.”
    “They don’t get along?”
    “She has bad luck.”
    But the boys in the study house spoke clear words: “Feigel does not allow her husband into her bed.”
    Leibush came to my uncle Jekhiel to press charges, and they locked themselves in the study. Just as Leibush had previously maligned Warsaw and praised Shebrin, he now reversed himself. He stood in the marketplace surrounded by boys and men and kept repeating, “How can anyone live in this godforsaken village? One can lose one’s mind just from seeing so much mud. Whatever else can be said about Warsaw, at least it’s lively.”
    “For money you can get everything here also,” called out a newly married young man.
    “What can you get? There’s not even a place to drink a decent glass of beer.”
    People tried to make peace between Feigel and Leibush. Horse dealers offered to sell Leibush a team of horses for a song. Merchants promised they would hire him to carry their merchandise to Lublin and Lemberg. But Leibush shook his head. Feigel didn’t show herself. A girl who went to her shop to be fitted for a dress found the door locked. My aunt Yentl came to talk it over with my mother. They murmured and the ribbons of Yentl’s bonnet shook. “I’m afraid there’ll be no bread from this dough,” Yentl said.
    “A crazy ignoramus,” my mother agreed.
    The marriage was quickly dissolved. Divorce in Shebrin was not permitted because the river had