embedded high in a buttressed wall, a square shape only vaguely lighter than the surrounding blackness.
“I didn’t realize there were so many ways out of the ghetto,” I said.
Her eyes twinkled at me in the darkness.
“What about your parents?” I asked.
“It’s safer if we split up. My father has his own way of taking care of things.”
“I’ll bet he does. Then why do you have to leave?”
“You saw what they did to the Kaminskys’ print shop,” she said. “I’d rather be alive and penniless than die defending my wealth. But if God wills it, we’ll start over and build up the business again. Now, don’t just stand there gawking at me. The least you can do is help me out the window.”
I set down the trunk and shoved it closer to the wall.
“What about last night?”
“You needed a few hours’ rest,” she explained matter-of-factly. “Now I need you to go back out there and make the world safe for me and my people.”
So she thought of last night as nothing more than a noble sacrifice for the good of the community?
But after a while, there was nothing left to do but cup my hands for her dainty feet and raise her to the level of the window. She undid the rusty catch herself and pushed open the tiny windowpane.
“I need another boost.”
I raised her some more, till she could pull herself up and wriggle headfirst through the tiny opening to the dark alleyway above. Her legs danced in the air for a moment while she shifted her weight, then her long skirt vanished before my eyes.
Darkness. Then she thrust her head back in.
“My trunk, please.”
I picked up the trunk and handed it to her.
“I will never forget you, Reyzl.”
Her face was expressionless.
“Goodbye, Ben.”
I STOOD THERE THINKING ABOUT the time we saw the Bremen Town musicians, and danced the night away without feeling the time go by, fitting together so tightly in each other’s arms. Those were the days. But that was a long time ago, and getting further away by the minute.
SOMEONE WAS POUNDING ON the door.
I heard footsteps and heated voices. And as I felt my way back toward the stairs, one voice cut through the noise.
“What do you mean, he’s not here? He has to be here. We need his help.”
Anya’s voice.
I bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and came upon a scene straight out of a Roman tragedy. The landlady was blocking the doorway as Anya and her beloved Yankev stood on the threshold pleading their case. Like a pair of mirror opposites, Anya’s face was flushed and passionate, while Yankev’s was pale and trembling.
One look at Yankev’s face and I knew. We all knew.
He had shown weakness, and they had broken him. They had tortured and tormented him until he talked, and Yankev was now a moyser, the lowest form of human life in the world. In fact, in the eyes of the community, he was now subhuman.
Anya said, “We need to hire a boat to take us across the river before—”
Before they whip him, break his bones, stuff him in a barrel, and dump him in the river.
“Before it gets too light,” I said.
“Yes. And I’m afraid we’ll need some money,” she said, somewhat embarrassed to be asking for such things, and perhaps more than a little disappointed in the man she had chosen.
“Why are you taking up with this paskudne moyser?” said the landlady. “A man who is weaker than a couple of helpless women?”
“What can I say? I fell in love,” she said.
“You fell in something, all right,” said the landlady.
“What did you tell them?” I asked Yankev.
“We have to warn the rabbi,” he said, keeping his eyes on the ground. “The Inquisitors said they’d be coming for the whole community with something called a sub poena, what ever that means.”
“It means under the penalty of punishment, you putz,” said the landlady.
“There’s no need to get like that,” Anya said.
“What did you tell them?” I asked. I wanted to grab him by the neck and shake him till his head fell off.
“He’ll have to explain later—” said Anya.
“The Catholic authorities hold court sessions on Easter Sunday?” I said. “Even the Jews aren’t working today.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the second day of Pesach,” said Yankev, his voice shaking like a reed.
“I thought—” I stopped myself. I was going to say, I thought you people respected your own Sabbath.