We followed the sheriff as he led us through the square, until we passed directly in front of the public pillory. Whether he did this as part of his rounds or simply to intimidate us once more with the spectacle of all those rebellious women chained to the pillory posts, I can’t say. Either way, it was an effective demonstration, because some of them were writhing and gesturing madly at us while fending off wet chunks of horse manure, much to the delight and merriment of the spectators. But the other women stood by and stoically accepted their punishment, with every feature but their sorry eyes obscured by the grotesque masks.
Anya averted her eyes from the disturbing sight. Then after waiting long enough for it to seem accidental, she fell into step beside me and asked me how I came to know so much about the ways of Christians.
“By living among them, the same as you.”
“And you were able to get along?”
“Most of the time.”
A couple of guards glared at her, but she deflected their steel-eyed glances by assuming the role of a disinterested interpreter inquiring about Yiddish vocabulary.
“Tell me, Jew, how do you say brother in your language?”
“We say bruder.”
“So it’s just like German. And what about sister?”
“Shvester. But I wouldn’t go around saying that it’s ‘just like’ German.”
“And how do you say war?”
“Milkhome.”
“Now that’s different. Is it Hebrew?”
“Yes, but you could also say krig if you really wanted to.”
“Which is just like German. What about peace?”
“Sholem. What’s your word for it?”
“Mír.”
“Oh. Same as in Russian.”
“Yes. And how do you say that something’s cheap, or not of much value?”
“You mean, in the sense of poor quality?”
“No, I mean in the sense of someone making promises they don’t intend to keep, and leaving you empty-handed.”
“I’d say, they promised me the moon and the stars, but I ended up with bubkes.”
An unlikely tinkle of laughter spilled from her mouth and brightened the gray air around me.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, but she waved me off. “Come on, tell me. I could use a good laugh.”
She drew a breath and held it long enough to smother the ticklish urge, then she let it out and told me, “Bobkes is our word for a goat’s turd.”
“Then I guess the two words must be related.”
The guards lost interest. Anya and I managed to find a few other words that our mother tongues had in common, words like nudnik, tshaynik, and pupik, then she lowered her voice, and as casually as if she were commenting about the weather, she asked me, “Do you believe that you can be mysteriously drawn to somebody you’ve only just met?”
“Sure. They say it happens when you meet someone whose essence was formed next to yours inside the massive cloud of primordial energy that preceded the creation of man.”
“Who says that?”
“One of the Kabbalists. I don’t remember which one—”
“So you mean, that person is like your heavenly soul mate?”
“I suppose you could put it that way—”
“And what happens if you get separated from your soul mate?”
“Then I’d say you have your work cut out for you. It’s like digging for buried treasure. The Talmud says you have to go out and find it, since the treasure isn’t going to come looking for you.”
“So this famous Talmud offers the same old seek and ye shall find that I get from the Sunday sermons?”
She looked a little disappointed.
“Well, it’s a little more active than that. It’s also a lot easier when you have the right tools. And you have the right tools in abundance.”
“How do you mean?”
“Do you really need me to explain it?”
“I guess I do.”
“Fine, fine. We have a saying, Eyn hor fun a meydls kop shlept shtarker fun tsen oksn.” One hair from a girl’s head pulls stronger than ten oxen.
“Meaning—?”
“Meaning love can move mountains.”
“Who said anything about love?”
She was pretending that she wasn’t involved in something, but she couldn’t control the flush of pink rising to her face.
She asked, “And do the rabbis have a saying about women like me?”
The rabbis had plenty to say about women like her, but I just chose the good ones: “They say that even the daughter of your enemy can be righteous, and that the righteous of all nations have a share in the World-to-Come. Didn’t the priests teach you that Pharaoh’s own daughter defied his wishes and saved Moses from the river even though she knew that he was one of