Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

In the first decade of the century, when he was twelve years old, my father, his parents, and his cousin Yecheil all lived in a little shop on Mila Street in Warsaw where my grandfather made carriage whips. Just across the way was the entrance to a Russian military barracks, a huge grey stone building with an iron gate that was always guarded by two armed sentries whose hobnailed boots rang out on the cobblestones as they paced up and down at their posts. Every morning, just after dawn, the boy peered breathlessly through the cellar window in order to be able to give Yecheil the signal that the soldiers were at the opposite end of the street and it was safe for him .to leave the shop and peddle the whips all over the city.

     ‘Now, David?’

     ‘Not yet,’ said the boy and Yecheil yawned, slipped the pack off his back, and rubbed his narrow shoulders where the straps had already begun to cut into them. ‘Did they hurt you very much yesterday?’

     ‘No, no.’

     ‘I’ll never understand it.’

     ‘What?’

     ‘If the soldiers keep pulling your beard, why don’t you shave it off?’

     There was no answer. The boy knew that he might as well have saved his breath. For as long as he had known him, Yecheil had made no concession to modernity. He dressed in a gaberdine and skullcap, his ritual locks curled behind his ears, and a razor had never touched his beard. But with a beard like that the boy couldn’t see the difference. It looked as if Yecheil had shaved anyway, or worse — begun without finishing the job. For some reason he was unable to grow any hair on his cheeks. It grew in black tufts on his lower jaws, and beneath his chin, accentuating his sharp cheekbones, and long naked face.

     ‘I have to go toward the Prospect this morning. Tell me — the one on the right, what does he look like?’

     ‘I think it’s the same one as yesterday,’ said the boy.

     ‘Are you sure?’

     ‘Yes,’ said David, but it was a lie. He was never able to tell one of the soldiers from the other. From that distance, and looking up as he did from just above the level of the street, their features were always indistinct and somehow generalized into bristling black moustaches and shaven chins. They wore long black coats with flaring skirts belted at the waist, and their lambskin caps made them seem even taller than they were, not men at all, as far as the boy was concerned, but giants left over from that time recorded in the Bible when giants roamed the face of the earth and loved the daughters of men.

     ‘The same one,’ said Yecheil. ‘Is that so? He’s not too bad. A Ukrainian by his accent. What’s the matter?’

     ‘He’s stopped,’ said David. ‘No, he’s started again. He’s almost passed the butcher’s. Why does he keep looking over here?’

     ‘The Ukrainian, eh?’ Yecheil muttered.

     ‘How can I be sure?’

     ‘No matter, it can’t be helped,’ said Yecheil, slipping on his pack. The tips of the long whips grazed the ceiling. ‘Come, smile, why don’t you? It makes no difference. God be praised. God provides. There’s always the groom on Zlota Street.’

     ‘The who?’

     ‘Did you say your prayers this morning? We must thank Him for that.’

     ‘For what?’

But muttering under his breath, Yecheil was already halfway up the creaking stairs. The boy pressed his cheek against the cold glass and listened to the voices coming faintly from above; his father, giving last-minute instructions, perhaps, or just saying goodbye; his mother, calling out from the kitchen — ‘ooo’ — the last, attenuated syllable of some inaudible phrase. Then, to the clatter of the cracked tin bell, the front door was opened and closed, and David peered up and to the right to catch a glimpse of Yecheil hesitating in the doorway of the shop. With his hands thrust under his armpits, he stamped his feet up and down. The icy wind off the river blowing in gusts from the east, caught at his scraggly beard. ‘What’s he waiting for? Go on. Go now,’ thought the boy. It was either now or never. Across the narrow street the sentry was coming toward him. The thin bayonet fixed to the end of his rifle glinted in the sun. ‘O now,’ David prayed. ‘Please now,’ and as if in answer, Yecheil turned toward the right and began to walk, a little sideways, keeping as close as he could to the front of the shops. He passed the cobbler’s, and Jacobson the hatter’s, whose red-lettered sign hung on one hinge and swung in the wind. The butcher’s was next. Then he was lost to sight, and all that the boy could see of him was his shadow gliding obliquely across the ground. Then that too was gone. He had passed the tailor shop. David raised his eyes to the sentry. The man had stopped.

     ‘But it might be all right. It might be the Ukrainian after all,’ he thought. ‘I must go up.’ With one last glance, aware that he had shouted aloud, he backed away from the window and stumbled up the stairs into the kitchen. Facing the tailor shop, with his legs spread, the sentry had taken the rifle from his shoulder and was holding it in his hands.

     ‘But it’s nothing,’ said his father.

     ‘Papa, let me go.’

     ‘It’s nothing, I tell you; David, be still.’

     ‘Let go of my arm.’

     ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

     ‘What are they doing to him?’

     ‘Nothing.’

     ‘Then let me see.’

     ‘Be still.’

     ‘Mama!’ the boy cried out. ‘Mama, make Papa let me go.’

     His mother was standing by the wooden tub, her arms wet to the elbow from washing the breakfast dishes.

     ‘Listen to your father. Be quiet. Hush,’ she said, drying her hands on her apron, and going to the curtained window to peer out.

     ‘Are they hurting him? Mama? What’s happened?’

     ‘They’ve finished with him,’ she said. ‘Ah, there, you see? There he goes. He’s gotten away. He’s running toward the Prospect.’

     ‘Let me see.’

     ‘Abba, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘They’ve let him go. Let him go.’

     ‘Yes, let go,’ said the boy, wrenching himself free and losing his balance.

     ‘Be careful. The tub!’ his mother cried.

     ‘Are you all right?’ asked his father. ‘David?’

     ‘I banged my funny bone.’

     ‘Stand up.’

     ‘Did they hurt him?’

     ‘Sipra,’ said his father, ‘come away from the window. Let me see the arm, David. Stand up. Stand by me.’

They went to work in the other room where long strips of rawhide hung from wooden dowels on the walls. The boy had been taught to curry the strips with a sharp, curved knife, scraping them as clean as he could in preparation for his father who attached them as lashes to the end of a bundle of birch rods. There was no stove in the room. In the morning, they moved their bench to be warmed by the sunlight that streamed through the single oval window over the door. In the afternoon, it grew so cold that they could see their own breath. The boy suffered from chilblains. His fingers became red and puffy. It was awkward and painful to handle the knife and he often cut himself. His father worked opposite him, holding the rod between his knees and one end of the lash taut between his strong white teeth. He was a handsome man with wide dark eyes and a curly black beard with streaks of auburn in it — the colour of David’s hair. My beard will be like that, a little redder, maybe, but thick too, the boy thought to himself with a twinge of shame for feeling grateful that he didn’t take after Yecheil, his mother’s side of the family.

     ‘Papa?’

     ‘Unhh?’

     ‘Just for a minute. Take it out of your mouth.’

     ‘How’s the elbow?’

     ‘Better, thank you. Papa, I’ve been thinking. Maybe Yecheil ought to speak to the rabbi.’

     ‘What for?’

     ‘I don’t know. If he explained, maybe the rabbi would give him permission to shave off his beard.’

     ‘Are you finished with that strip?’

     ‘Papa?’

     ‘What is it now?’

     ‘Nothing. I’m finished,’ said the boy. He should have known better than to even mention it. How could a Jew shave off his beard? Still — no, the boy decided, and in any case, the less said about Yecheil in his father’s presence the better. He sensed that his father suffered from the shame of giving in to his wife’s fears and, to calm her, swearing on his life never to accompany her nephew to the end of the street in the morning no matter what the soldiers did to him. She was convinced that they would murder her husband as he returned to the shop alone.

     At five o’clock they heard the bells of St Stephan’s, the church on the next street, calling the Christians of the neighbourhood to Mass. The room was getting dark. It was time to quit. Soon the sun would set and most of the Jewish men on the block would gather in the wooden synagogue on the corner to say their evening prayers. There were fifteen or twenty of them. The Russian sentries who had begun their night watch an hour before rarely dared to molest them in a group.

     ‘Don’t look so worried,’ his father said as he left for the synagogue. ‘Yecheil will be there. We’ll bring him safely home.’

     In the kitchen, a pan of fat was cooking on the stove.

     ‘What’s for dinner?’ David asked his mother.

     ‘Your prayers first,’ she said, putting his skullcap on the back of his head.

     ‘What is it? Tell me. Not potato pancakes again! That’s the third time this week. Is there any jam?’

     But with her head covered by a cotton scarf, and her eyes closed, his mother was already absorbed in prayers of her own. David bowed his head, rocked back and forth on his heels and the balls of his feet, listening to the sputtering fat. The heat of the stove swelled his reddened fingers and made them ache worse than before. He rubbed them together.

     ‘Mama?’

     ‘Finished so soon?’

     He hadn’t even been able to begin. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. Her lips twitched. For the first time, the boy realized that it had become habitual. Aware all at once of his astonished, stricken glance, she coughed nervously, concealing her mouth behind her hand.

     ‘Oh, Mama.’

     She blamed herself. He was sure of it. It had never been so clear to him. Rather than blame God, she took the whole thing on herself — not only her husband’s shame, but Yecheil’s suffering as well. And in a way the horror was that she was right. It had all begun with an act of kindness on her part, a promise that she had made to her dying sister to provide a home for her unmarried son. Originally from Vilna, left all alone after he had lost his mother in a spotted fever epidemic some six months before, Yecheil had only come to Warsaw at his aunt’s invitation. The trouble was that the shop on Mila Street could barely support three as it was. Peddling the whips, submitting to the soldiers, was the only thing that could be found for Yecheil to do.

     ‘Mama, listen to me.’

     ‘Wash your hands and come and sit down.’

     ‘Listen for a minute. You’re not to blame.’

     ‘There’s a fresh piece of soap in the cupboard.’

     ‘You did your best. How can you think it’s your fault?’

     ‘No, no. To the left. That’s it. Behind the cups.’

     ‘Are you listening?’

     ‘What is it?’

     ‘Nobody’s to blame because there’s nothing else we can do.’

     ‘Can you reach it?’

     ‘No.’

     ‘Stand on the chair.’

     ‘Anyway, if Yecheil doesn’t mind so much, why should I? Did he ever tell you about the groom on Zlota Street?’

     ‘Be careful.’

     ‘Ask him about that, why don’t you?’ said David. ‘We have to be thankful for what we can.’

But later, as usual, she ate her supper in silence. No one said anything until Yecheil took a huge bite from the last brown cake on the plate, wiped his greasy fingers on his beard, and turned to her husband.

     ‘There’s a new stable on Iron Street, did I tell you? I was there for over an hour this morning, talking to the groom. He comes from Vilna too.’

     ‘Is that so? Did he buy anything?’

     ‘He will. He will, absolutely, I’m sure of it. He told me to come back and see him sometime next week.’

     ‘Who bought something today?’

     ‘Tomorrow,’ said Yecheil, blowing into his steaming glass of tea. ‘Tomorrow will be a good day.’

     ‘Really?’ asked David. ‘How many whips will he buy?’

     ‘Who?’

     ‘Why, the groom on Zlota Street. Isn’t that where you’re going?’

     ‘Who told you about him?’

     ‘You did. Don’t you remember? This morning.’

     ‘Did I?’ said Yecheil. ‘Ah, if I want, the groom on Zlota Street would buy them all.’

     ‘What did I tell you? Mama, did you hear?’ asked the boy.

     He was unable to sleep. For half the night, tossing and turning on the narrow bed he shared with Yecheil in the closet next to the workroom, he lay awake while the mice scampered across the floor and gnawed the scraps of leather under the bench. Tomorrow was Friday, Sabbath eve, when Yecheil usually came home early to go to the mikveh, the bathhouse just off Marshalkovska Street, for his ritual bath. ‘Dear God,’ the boy prayed, ‘my Father in Heaven, if it’s really true, then let him go to Zlota Street first, and sell all of his whips.’ He blessed the groom, and the stable, and the man’s wife, if he was married, and all of their children. ‘It’s not for me that I ask, I swear it. If the groom buys all the whips, that’ll mean five or six roubles at least, maybe more. Think what that will mean to Mama. It will be a sign to her, a miracle to celebrate the Sabbath.’ He shut his eyes and tried to imagine his mother’s joy at being able to prepare and bless a full Sabbath meal for the family, a real dinner with fish and wine, chopped herring for an appetizer, garlic and chicken fat spread on thin slices of white bread, potato kugel and a roast chicken. ‘Why, there’ll even be enough money left over for Mama to buy flour and bake a cake. A nut cake, mmm, with almonds and raisins . . . Lord, God of my Fathers, do I have to tell You? You know how much it would mean to her — to all of them . . . Thou art just. I ask You — no matter what happens, do we ever question that? Be Thou merciful too . . .’

     He had involuntarily spoken aloud. Yecheil stirred, snorted once through his nose, and again lay still, with his face to the wall. The mice squeaked. It was bitterly cold. The boy repeated the prayer over and over. Outside, it had begun to rain, and the hollow drumming on the kitchen window filled the whole house.

‘Awake? Good morning,’ said his father, standing at the door. A diffused, dirty light flooded the room. David sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was alone in bed.

     ‘What happened? Is he gone?’

     ‘You overslept.’

     ‘When did Yecheil go?’

     ‘Almost an hour ago . . . No, no, it’s all right. You needn’t look like that. Nothing happened. It’s snowing. The soldiers have built a fire by the gate. Would you believe it? They were too busy warming themselves. They didn’t even look at him as he went by.’

     The boy jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen window. It was true. His heart leapt. A bonfire blazed in front of the gate, hissing and smoking in the falling snow. The two sentries, with their caps pulled down over their ears, had leaned their rifles against the wall, and were warming their hands.

     ‘They really didn’t touch him?’

     ‘Not so much as a glance.’

     Again David parted the curtain and gazed out of the window. He could hardly believe it. For the first time in over a week the soldiers hadn’t molested Yecheil, and on today of all days. He was afraid to think. Was it a good omen, or what?’

     ‘Did Yecheil say when he’d be back?’

     ‘It’s Friday. Early, I suppose,’ said his father, and the boy scrutinized his face. He was nibbling on his moustache, his expression a blank. Perhaps Yecheil had said nothing to his parents, intending to surprise them, and then again — the boy shook his head. All through the morning he could hardly keep his mind on his work. Again and again, he pictured the Sabbath table, lit by candles, with its loaf of bread covered by a linen napkin, ready to be blessed. He saw his father, dressed in a clean kaftan, with his beard combed, raise his wine glass, and his mother’s smiling face. The roast chicken, simmering in the pan, rose before his eyes. His mouth watered, and then all at once, seized by fear, he raised his eyes to the worm-eaten beams of the ceiling over his head.

     ‘How could I? God forgive me,’ he prayed. In his weakness, he knew he had jeopardized everything, revealing to God that he had prayed the whole night through not for the relief of his parents, or the sanctification of the Sabbath, but for the gratification of his own desire. The image of the chicken tormented him. He felt the crisp skin melt on his tongue, the bones crunch beneath his teeth. Try as he would, it was impossible to think of anything else. By noon, he felt exhausted by the effort, and the lack of sleep, and his heart shrank as he heard his mother in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor, already at work on her hands and knees to prepare the house for the Day of Rest. He went in to help her.

     ‘Shall I make a fire?’

     ‘Take off your dirty shoes and move the table out of the way.

     Yes. It seemed to him appropriate to walk on his bare feet, as though on holy ground. He moved the table, and piled all the chairs in the corner and went down on his hands and knees himself to scrub the soapy floor. ‘Strength. Give me strength,’ he prayed, resisting the temptation to ask his mother what they were going to eat. He fed the fire, and took down the cups to dust the cupboard and slowly but surely, as always just before the Sabbath, the immaculate kitchen calmed his nerves. He could see his face reflected from the pots and pans, the spoons in the drawer. The wooden floor shone. Everything seemed to glow with an inner radiance of its own, setting him at peace.

     ‘Is there anything else?’

     His mother shook her head. ‘You look tired. Why don’t you rest?’

     ‘What time is it?’

     ‘I don’t know.’

     ‘Yecheil will be home soon, don’t you think?’

     ‘Rest.’

     He sat by the stove with his eyes closed, warming his toes, and at first, when the kiss brushed his cheek, and he awoke with the narrow, bearded face almost touching his own, he was sure it was all a dream.

     ‘You’re back!’ he cried, throwing his arms about his cousin’s neck and kissing him on the mouth. ‘Is it really you? What time is it? Have I been sleeping again? Where’s Mama?’

     ‘She’s gone.’

     ‘Shopping?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘Papa too?’

     Yecheil nodded, drawing up a chair, and the boy smiled. ‘How wonderful! Were they surprised? What will they buy, did they say?’

     ‘A whitefish.’

     ‘No herring?’

     ‘Not that I know of. Just a whitefish. Why?’

     ‘But that’s just the appetizer. What else?’

     ‘The usual. Potatoes.’

     ‘That’s probably for the kugel.’ He clapped his hands with excitement. ‘And?’

     ‘That’s all.’

     ‘You can tell me now. What is it? I know anyway. A chicken. Isn’t that it? . . . No? What, then? Of course! A brisket. I forgot. Papa likes a brisket better than a chicken any day. Not a brisket either? Then what? . . . Why do you keep shaking your head?’

     ‘Because I don’t understand. Where do you think we’d get the money to buy a brisket or a chicken?’

     ‘Then how much money did you get?’

     ‘A rouble.’

     ‘For all of the whips?’

     ‘All of them?’ Yecheil laughed. ‘Ah, I see. You had a dream. No.’ He took the boy’s hand. ‘I was lucky to be able to sell two. It took me all morning to sell two to the stable on Kruvelska Street for fifty kopeks apiece.’

     The boy stared at him without comprehending. ‘And that’s the only place you went?’

     ‘No.’

     ‘Then where else?’

     ‘Let’s see. Ah. Danilovichevska. The stable on the corner.’

     ‘But they bought nothing either.’

     ‘They were closed.’

     ‘And that’s all.’

     ‘That’s all.’

     ‘And Zlota Street?’ asked the boy.

     ‘Is that what you thought?’

     ‘It’s only what you said you were going to do.’

     ‘No.’

     ‘You did so. Ask Mama. Last night you said the groom on Zlota Street would buy all of your whips.’

     ‘And he would, if I say so, yes.

     ‘Then why didn’t you go?’

     ‘Because,’ said Yecheil, ‘when I do, the money makes no difference. It . . . he hesitated, tugging at his beard. ‘How can I explain?’

     ‘No, there’s no need. I understand.’

     ‘What’s this? Before the Sabbath? Tears?’

     ‘No tears. No.’

     ‘Where are you going?’

     ‘Just inside. It’s late. If you don’t want to be late at the mikveh, you ought to go.’

     ‘Wait.’

     ‘For what? I told you. I understand. It’s all right. It was childish of me. You had to say something.’

     ‘I told the truth.’

     ‘No. But what’s so terrible? I don’t mind. I know it’s not your fault.’

     ‘Blow your nose.’

     ‘You mustn’t speak to me as a child any more. I told you. I understand. It took me a long time, but I do. Yesterday, it was just what I told Mama. It isn’t anybody’s fault. There’s just nothing else that any of us can do.’

     ‘No.’

     ‘Then what?’

     ‘Get your coat,’ said Yecheil.

     ‘Why?’

     ‘Here. Button up. Button up. That’s it. Haven’t you got any gloves? Your hands are red. Where did I leave my whips?’

     ‘Where are we going?’

     ‘For the love of heaven. Will you please wipe your nose?’

     In front of the tailor shop, the boy stumbled in the ankle-deep snow. ‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’ Yecheil shouted, catching him up under the arm, but he stumbled again. Warming himself by the fire, one of the sentries laughed and shouted something, but the words were carried away by the wind that drove the falling snow down the length of the street. The soldier yelled again and shook his fist, but they had reached the corner. With the low, grey sky and the air filled with swirling flakes, the Prospect was almost in darkness, as though the sun had already set. Here and there a yellow oil lamp burned in a frosted window. They crossed the wide street and headed west. Ghostly figures, sheeted in snow, glided silently by them; a peasant in a fur cap, bent under a load of wood, a man in a military overcoat, with his head shrouded in a hood. As far as the boy could judge, they went west again, along a narrow maze of streets that he had never seen before, between red brick factory buildings whose smoking chimneys blackened the snow with soot. It began to snow even harder, in thick wet flakes that clung to the eyelashes and stuck to their clothes. Yecheil held the boy by the hand. The wind howled in his ears. Half-blinded, unable to see anything but the dim, white shape before him, his thoughts became confused.

     ‘West, or east? Near the river? . . . Who is he?’ he wondered. ‘Is that the river? Where is he taking me?’ He lost all sense of time.

     They struggled on until the boy’s body was numb and it required all of his will to put one foot in front of the other, and it wasn’t until the wind had abruptly died away that he realized that they had entered an enclosed court of a block of flats, and halted once and for all. He wiped his face. There was an outside stairway, with a row of dripping icicles hanging from the iron rail, and to his right, almost directly before him, he could see a double wooden door.

     ‘Your honour!’ cried Yecheil, in Polish, but using the Russian form of address. ‘Your honour, let us in!’

     ‘Who is it?’ came a muffled voice.

     ‘Your honour, open the door!’ said Yecheil, pounding on it with his fist.

     The door slid back, throwing the gleam of a lantern on the drifted snow.

     ‘Who is it?’ repeated a man in a leather apron. The falling snow obscured his face.’ . . . The Jew! Don’t tell me. The Jew has changed his mind.’ He gave a short, delighted laugh. ‘Who’s that?’

     ‘Only my cousin,’ said Yecheil. ‘Won’t your honour let us in?’

     ‘Come in. Come in, by all means.’

     ‘Thank his honour for his kindness,’ said Yecheil.

     ‘I thank your honour,’ said the boy.

     The huge room, echoing to his voice, smelled of rotting hay and manure. When his eyes became accustomed to the flickering light of a lantern hanging on the wall, he could see a shadowy row of wooden stalls in the rear, with horses in them. The man before him, thick-set and round-faced, with wide nostrils and watery blue eyes, scratched the shaven nape of his neck with an iron curry comb and grinned.

     ‘What’d I tell you? Didn’t I say you’d be back? You don’t get an offer like mine every day.’

     ‘It’s true,’ said Yecheil. ‘Your honour is very kind.’ The snow in his beard and eyebrows was beginning to melt in huge glistening drops.

     ‘Eh? Well? Then you agree? How many is it to be? How many whips have you got there? Ten? Twelve? I tell you what. I’ll take them all. What do you want for all of them?’ He jingled the coins in the pocket of his apron. ‘Six roubles? Seven?’

     ‘Seven roubles?’ asked David in astonishment.

     ‘Look at him, will you? Will you just have a look at that boy!’ laughed the groom, jingling the coins again. ‘You like the sound of that, eh? Eh? . . . Why, he’s positively watering at the mouth . . . Tsk. Tsk. A real Jew. So young, imagine that, and already a Jew.’ He held his sides and roared with laughter. In the rear, one of the horses stomped its hooves.

     ‘I thought — to celebrate the Sabbath,’ stammered David, feeling himself flush to the roots of his hair.

     ‘Of course. Of course. What’s it to be? You can tell me, after all. What are you going to buy with all that money? . . . I know! A suckling, eh? Eh? Isn’t that it? A roast suckling, brown and tender, with an apple in its mouth . . .’

     ‘Oh. No . . . that is . . . no, no suckling, your honour,’ said the boy. ‘We’re not allowed . . .’

     The man threw back his head and roared again. It seemed to David that a full minute had passed before the echo of the laughter had died away. The restless horse brushed its flanks against the stall. The wall shook and the swinging lanterns made their shadows on the floor sway one way and the other in a slowly diminishing arc.

     ‘Well, what do you say?’ said the groom, turning to Yecheil.

     ‘. . . Ten whips.’

     ‘As many as you like.’

     ‘That’s ten pulls.’

     ‘You know the offer,’ he said, shifting the comb from hand to hand. ‘Take it or leave it. Well?’

     ‘Pulls?’ asked David.

     ‘Make up your mind. I haven’t got all day.’

     ‘Pulls? I don’t understand,’ repeated the boy.

     ‘His honour has been kind enough to offer to buy a whip for every time I allow him to pull my beard,’ said Yecheil.

It was some kind of a joke. The boy was sure of it. He looked from one to the other. The groom, grinning, cleared his throat with a curious, embarrassed air, and Yecheil was smiling too, with his mouth twisted to one side.

     ‘Yes or no?’ asked the groom. ‘I’ve got work to do. You’re wasting my time.’

     ‘I know. I apologize, and if I may, I must again express my thanks to your honour,’ said Yecheil, bowing low from the waist.

     The man took a step forward. ‘Then it’s yes?’

     ‘Ah, I must . . . I . . . no,’ said Yecheil. ‘No. Perhaps . . . No, not today.’

     ‘No, eh?’ said the groom.

     Still bent, without raising his eyes, and with a wave of his arm, a gesture for the boy to follow him, Yecheil began to turn towards the partly opened door.

     ‘No?’

     The turn was completed. He had reached the threshold and straightened up, but it was too late. The curry comb clanged to the floor and the thick, muscled arm of the groom shot out, all in one motion, one sound, as though an iron bolt had been shot to bar the door. The boy heard the horse snort and stomp again in the stall, and a quick, sharp intake of breath, a little grunt. Crouching down, with his back against the wall and his arms in front of his face, he saw only part of what happened. He only caught a glimpse of the groom’s face, the flaring nostrils and watery eyes. There was no malice in them, or even amusement, or delight; a certain dullness, rather, a matter of factness that frightened him even more. It was though he were beating a horse. Holding Yecheil’s face up by the beard, his right fist rose and fell. ‘No, eh? No, eh? No?’ The horse was growing more excited. Again the lantern swayed and the shadows moved back and forth. A whinny filled the air, and the sound of splintering wood.

     ‘Yes, yes,’ the groom muttered under his breath. ‘In a minute, damn you. One minute more.’ David shut his eyes. ‘No, eh?’ Then there was a silence. He was aware that the groom had grabbed him by the left arm, wrenching his shoulder. Then he was being dragged across the floor toward the door.

They sat for a time in the court, underneath the stairway. The icicles were beginning to melt. It had stopped snowing at last and the darkening sky was beginning to clear, showing ragged patches of yellow and blue in the east, and an occasional ray of the declining sun. From the street came the creak of an ungreased axle as a horse-drawn cart went by.

     ‘You heard him,’ said Yecheil. ‘Seven roubles for a few pulls of the beard . . .’ He spoke with difficulty. His lower lip was slit at the corner. His cheek was bruised and his left eye swollen almost shut. ‘Ah, I can see it . . . You still don’t understand.’

     ‘You refused,’ said David. ‘If you refuse, then why do you come?’

     ‘Because he gives me a choice . . . Yes . . . Don’t you see?’ He dabbed at his lip and spat blood.

     ‘Sit down.’

     ‘No, no, it’s nothing . . . And why? For that very reason . . . because I have a choice. I refuse . . . it . . . how shall I say it? I . . . och!’

     ‘Sit down and put some snow on your face.’

     ‘Listen to me!’ The shut eye, as though he were winking, gave his face a peculiar, sly expression. ‘Listen . . . You see, you were wrong . . . There’s always a choice to be made.’ Again he spat blood and began to cough violently. ‘Remember that,’ he said, gasping for breath. ‘Remember that and rejoice . . . Rejoice . . . Praise Him . . . God provides.’