for the Jews and Christians.”
“What are you going to do with the list of Christian names?” said Meisel.
“I’m going to give them to the sheriff.”
“And you think that will do any good?”
“It might or it might not.”
That left a hole in the conversation big enough to drive a team of oxen through, until Rabbi Gans said, “Then we’ll just have to believe that it might.”
“Yes, exactly,” I said, trying to sound convincing.
Meisel started with the Jews first, and Rabbi Gans copied down all the names in a single column:
B. Shtastny
I. Rabinowitz
M. Vinchevsky
L. Finkelstein
M. Pacovsky
J. Stein
F. Weiler
E. Bavli
K. Halpern
Rabbi Loew closed his eyes as if the mere sight of the list was too much for him, then he reopened them and said that a few of the names belonged to the people who had left the shul in protest during his sermon.
My ears filled with silence for a few seconds, and I thought of the Arab saying, Better a thousand enemies outside the gates than one enemy inside the gates.
“Now let’s get on with the list of Christian debtors,” I said.
“Should we include keyser Rudolf in the list?” asked Rabbi Gans, as we gathered around him. “I didn’t think so,” he said, answering his own question.
The list of Christians ran slightly longer:
L. Mutz
K. Obuvník
E. Feuermann
M. Dietrichstein
J. Kopecky
P. Grubner
A. Straka
J. Fenstermacher
L. Belickis
S. Jacobus
A. Hesse
P. Bleisch
L. Kompert
T. Wolff
None of the names meant anything to me, but Anya peered over my shoulder, put her finger on the fifth name and said, “Janoš Kopecky the butcher? How much does he owe you?”
“Around five thousand dalers,” said Meisel.
“Why would a butcher need that kind of money?” I asked.
Meisel said, “Kopecky may have started out as a butcher, but he always had plans to expand into other areas. So he borrowed the money to build a new slaughter house outside the city.”
“A slaughter house that makes deliveries every morning,” said Anya. “By boat and horse cart.”
A bright spot must have lit up in the middle of my brain, and I saw it all at once.
Anya read the look on my face and knew exactly what I was thinking. “The meat shipments come from the other side of the river,” she said.
I turned to Meisel. “Then I’m going to need a couple more dalers.”
THERE IS A PASSAGE IN Melokhim Beys, the Second Book of Kings, in which four lepers sit outside the gates of Samaria, a city abandoned to war and famine, and discuss their fate. Simply put, if they go to the enemy camp and beg for food, they will probably die, but if they stay where they are, they will surely die. So they decide they have nothing to lose and head for the camp of the Aramaeans.
And for the first time, I understood their situation completely. Maybe it was the spirit of my recently fallen comrade speaking through me, but I couldn’t stand around any longer and just wait for the Christians to come and get us. We had to go out there and learn what we could about the routes of the daily shipments of meat from Kopecky’s slaughter house.
I said, “We have to divide up the names on this list and question every one of these Jews to night. And then, one of us has to sneak out of the ghetto sometime before daybreak and go to the waterfront disguised as a Christian.”
“I nominate you,” said Rabbi Gans.
“Do I look like a Christian to you?”
“Why not use the real thing?” said Meisel, indicating Anya.
“I don’t think she’ll be able to show her face out there for quite a while,” I said.
“Oh. Right.”
“You’re the only one who can do it,” Rabbi Loew said to me.
“What about Shlomo Zinger?” I said. “He’s a good actor, he knows his way around the streets, and he has a trunkful of Christian clothing—”
“He also drinks like a fish, in case you haven’t noticed,” said Rabbi Gans.
“Besides, his face is too well known,” said Rabbi Loew. “But yours isn’t.”
“How can you say that? Half the people in the city saw me being led around Old Town Square by an armed escort. They’d recognize me in an instant—”
“Not after I get finished with you,” said Anya.
“You know the Christian ways better than any of us,” said Rabbi Loew.
“Not that well.”
“I heard you know the Psalms in Latin,” said Rabbi Gans.
“Is that true?” said Meisel.
“Only about twenty or thirty of them.” It even sounded lame to me.
“You know how they think. You know how to act like one of them. You’re