The Collected Stories

scientist, greater than a professor.”
    It took but a minute and the daughter came up. She stood in the open door and looked on half mockingly at the way her parents fussed over me. After a while she said, “If I have insulted you, excuse me. My father brought us here to the wasteland. We have no car and his horse is half dead. Suddenly a man with a valise drops from the sky and wants to know why the heifer is yelling. Really funny.”
    Sam clasped his hands together with the look of a man about to announce something which will astound everyone. His eyes filled with laughter. “If you have so much pity on animals, I am going to give back the heifer. We can do without her. Let her go back to her mother, for whom she pines.”
    Bessie tilted her head to one side. “John Parker won’t give you back the money.”
    “If he won’t return the whole amount, he will return ten dollars less. It’s a healthy heifer.”
    “I will make up the difference,” I said, astonished at my own words.
    “What? We will not go to court,” the farmer said. “I want this man in my house all summer. He won’t have to pay me. For me it will be an honor and a joy.”
    “Really, the man is crazy. We needed the heifer like a hole in the head.”
    I could see that husband and wife were making peace because of me.
    “If you really want to do it, why wait?” I asked. “The animal may die from yearning and then—”
    “He’s right,” the farmer called. “I’m going to take the heifer back right now. This very minute.”
    Everyone became silent. As if the heifer knew that her fate was being decided this minute, she let out a howl which made me shudder. This wasn’t a yearning heifer but a dybbuk.
    III

    The moment Sam entered the stable the heifer became quiet. It was a black heifer with large ears and huge black eyes that expressed a wisdom which only animals possess. There was no sign that she had just gone through so many hours of agony. Sam tied a rope around her neck and she followed him willingly. I followed behind with Bessie near me. The daughter stood in front of the house and said, “Really, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
    We walked along and the heifer did not utter a sound. She seemed to know the way back because she tried to run and Sam had to restrain her. Meanwhile, husband and wife argued before me the way couples used to argue when they came to my father’s court for a Din Torah. Bessie was saying, “The ruin stood empty for years and nobody even looked at it. I don’t think someone would have taken it for nothing. Suddenly my husband appears and gets the bargain. How does the saying go? ‘When a fool comes to the market, the merchants are happy.’ ”
    “What did you have on Orchard Street? The air stank. As soon as daylight began, the crash and noise started. Our apartment was broken into. Here you don’t have to lock the door. We can leave for days and weeks and no one will steal anything.”
    “What thief would come to such a desert?” Bessie asked. “And what could he take? American thieves are choosy. They want either money or diamonds.”
    “Believe me, Bessie, here you will live twenty years longer.”
    “Who wants to live so long? When a day is over, I thank God.”
    After about an hour and a half I saw John Parker’s farm—the house, the granary. The heifer again tried to run and Sam had to hold her back with all his strength. John Parker was cutting grass with a crooked scythe. He was tall, blond, lean, Anglo-Saxon. He raised his eyes, amazed, but with the quiet of a person who is not easily astounded. I even imagined I saw him smiling. We had approached the pasture where the other cows were grazing and the heifer became wild and tore herself out of Sam’s hands. She began to run and jump with the rope still around her neck, and a few cows slowly raised their heads and looked at her, while the others continued to rip the grass as if nothing had happened. In less than a minute the heifer, too, began to graze. I had expected, after this terrible longing, a dramatic encounter between the heifer and her mother: much nuzzling, fondling, or whatever cows do to show affection to a daughter who was lost. But it seemed that cattle didn’t greet one another that way. Sam began to explain to John Parker what had happened and Bessie too chimed in. Sam was saying, “This young man is a writer. I read his articles every week and he is going to be our guest. Like