he say such a thing so carelessly?
She swept the floor with renewed furor, thinking about the way the Catholics had been sweeping through Bohemia, reclaiming the land for the one true faith. One powerful sweep sent the pile of dust swirling into the gutter.
She was putting the broom away when a fragment of a faraway plea floated past her ears:
“…ertaaaaah…!”
Anya stopped what she was doing.
“Anya, let me—”
She shushed him, but the cry was not repeated.
“Anya, I didn’t mean…”
To what? Accuse her of heresy?
Her father brought in a tray of meat from the newly killed pig.
She said, “Excuse me, I have a customer.”
She had several customers. An old woman bought a slice of beef liver so thin you could almost see through it. A kitchen maid named Erika, on her way back from the fish market with a basket full of eels, selected the best cuts of pork for her master, Janoš Kopecky, one of the richest burghers in the neighborhood. A couple of old beggars came for a handout while Janoshik stood and watched silently. A tipsy cavalryman picked out a couple of eggs and counted the coins into her hand so slowly Anya thought he was going to pass out on the street, until she realized that he was taking his time so he could look her over with an expert eye. Fine. Let him look.
She even gave a coquettish swish of her behind as she walked to the back of the shop to get some fresh pork.
A Jesuit priest in a long black cassock stopped and stared.
When she came back carry ing a side of ribs, the priest raised an accusing finger. “Aren’t you supposed to be closed today?”
“Protestants buy meat, too, Father.”
The priest stepped up to the counter. He was relatively young, but Anya saw that he was as stone-faced and humorless as any fossilized Church elder.
“I suppose you have a dispensation to sell to Hussites and Utraquists?”
What did he want? Money?
“What is it, Anya?” Her father stepped into the shop, wiping more pig’s blood on a rag.
“I’d like to know why you are open for business on the most somber day of the year.”
“People like to buy for the next day, Father.”
“That’s not what she just said.”
Anya lowered her eyes from her father’s sideways glance.
Janoshik cleared his throat. “Say, father, isn’t there a law that says Jews can’t have Christian servants working for them?”
Anya felt a cold needle prick her heart.
The priest looked at Janoshik.
“Yes, my son. The Holy Fathers have issued more than one decree condemning that absurd practice. But we all know it still goes on,” he said, looking around the shop with renewed suspicion.
Benesh tried to assure the priest. “Father, we are simple Christians. We close at midday, then we’ll go to Mass, do the stations of the Cross, and have fish knedlícky after sundown.”
The neighbor’s door burst open. Josef Kromy was still yelling at his wife. Something about his breakfast not being hot enough. Then he slammed the door and stormed off.
Anya used this momentary distraction to step into the back and slip off her butcher’s apron.
Benesh poked his head in the back room.
He said, “If there’s any of that meat the Jews want to get rid of because the animals aren’t quite kosher enough…”
“Yes, father. I know.”
She hurried down Haštalská Street toward the Jewish Town, thinking about the mess she had left behind and how much of it would still be waiting for her when she got back at the end of the day. Then she heard it again, a howling like a trapped animal:
“Gertaaaaaah—!”
CHAPTER 3
AND SHE KEPT ON SCREAMING, whoever she was, shrill screams rippling through the air, shredding the brief moment of peace on this gray morning. My feet sprang to life, carry ing me toward the disturbance.
Zinger grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go, mate. It’s bad stuff.”
But I had to go. The uproar was at a Jewish shop, and as the only shammes at the scene, it was my duty to respond, preferably before too many Christians got there.
I just wished I had some beeswax to stuff in my ears, because that woman was screaming like one of Homer’s own high-pitched sirens. I sprinted back down the block, dodging all the whores and mercenaries who turned to gape at the wide-open doorway. She kept screaming as a swarm of rats spilled over the stone lip of the doorsill, fleeing discovery. She kept screaming, drawing the night-weary street people and the early morning house wives together in a strange consortium