He remembered his father, though his mother thought this was impossible.
The memory was warm, almost hot, and it smelled of wax and wood and sweat and wool.
It was a very good memory.
He had been a small boy, and his father had held him with one arm. It had been Yom Kippur, he thought, the holiest day of the year, because all around him he remembered clean white garments. His father’s garment had been white, and over it he had worn his striped prayer shawl. Yehuda Leib remembered looking up at the raucous, colorful ceiling of the synagogue, painted with vines and figs, eagles, lions, and unicorns, red and blue and tawny and white, and then his father had pulled his attention down to the front of the room, and someone had blown the ram’s horn, and there had been a great riot of supplication from the congregation, and he’d looked up, and there had been tears in his father’s eyes, and he’d reached out and taken the edges of his father’s beard softly in his fat little fists, and his father had smiled, and the tears had fallen onto his cheeks.
That was all he remembered.
Sometimes he thought the memory felt holy because of the synagogue, and sometimes he thought maybe it was the other way around.
He would have given anything to see his father’s face again. He would’ve given the right eye out of his own head.
But it was impossible. Whenever he asked about him, his mother told Yehuda Leib that his father had died, and then she became very sad for a day or two.
After a while, Yehuda Leib learned to stop asking.
But he never learned to stop wondering.
“Rabbi!”
Instinctively, Yehuda Leib lay flat against the slope of the roof below.
He knew that voice. That was Moshe Dovid Frumkin. The last person Yehuda Leib wanted to see was Issur’s father, the butcher, a man who wore blood as comfortably as others wore clothes.
“Rabbi,” called Reb Frumkin again, and now Yehuda Leib heard the soft, round voice of the rabbi reaching out in response.
“Moshe Dovid,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
Moshe Dovid Frumkin let out an aggrieved sigh, and Yehuda Leib wriggled around to see the two men talking in the street below.
“I trust you heard?” said Frumkin.
“About the fight?”
Moshe Dovid scoffed. “The attack, more like. Issur tells me that wild beast of a boy jumped on him out of nowhere. My fine new hat is ruined, my son’s nose broken….”
Yehuda Leib’s guts squirmed at the injustice of Issur’s story, but at the same time, he was pleased he’d managed to break Issur’s nose.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Moshe Dovid,” said the rabbi.
“You’re always sorry,” Frumkin said.
“Yes,” said the rabbi. “I suppose I am.”
The butcher stepped closer. “But the situation isn’t getting any better, Rabbi. Something needs to be done.”
The rabbi nodded. “And what do you suggest?”
“Well,” said Moshe Dovid. “I caught up with that schlepper Yankl, and I asked him about Avimelekh.”
Avimelekh. There was that name again. Yehuda Leib had almost forgotten it in all the excitement.
“He says,” continued Frumkin, “that Avimelekh has racked up some heavy gambling debts. He’s set on coming to Tupik today or tomorrow—before the Rebbe’s wedding. Says he can get a good amount of money finding conscripts for the Tsar’s army. Now, would it be such a terrible thing if we just let him have the boy?”
The rabbi tugged at his beard and nodded again slowly. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I think it would be.”
Moshe Dovid sighed again, so loudly it was almost a word. “You can’t keep protecting him like this.”
“I don’t see why not,” said the rabbi.
“Because,” said Frumkin, “it’s just a matter of time. It’s in his blood.”
“What is?”
“You know what, Rabbi. And it’s going to come out. Let Avimelekh take him off our hands.”
“I think,” said the rabbi, with a sigh of his own, “that it would be best for you to look to your own house, Moshe Dovid. The way I heard it told, it was your little wild beast who did the attacking. Good evening.”
Yehuda Leib grinned.
At least someone was on his side.
But something was still bothering him.
Let Avimelekh take him off our hands.
It was growing dark. He should be getting home.
Shulamis was bent over the fire when Yehuda Leib pushed through the front door, and she turned at the sound of his voice.
“Mama?”
Shulamis stood, consternation gathered around her shoulders like a heavy shawl.
“I heard what happened this morning.”
She opened her mouth to scold, but there was a question burning in Yehuda Leib, and he blurted it out before she could begin.
“Mama,” he said. “Who’s Avimelekh?”
Shulamis stiffened.
Yehuda Leib did not know what he’d expected, but this was not it. Despite the popping of the fire and the rolling boil of the potato water, it felt as if all the sounds in their little house had fled in fear of the word he’d just pronounced.
“Where did you hear that name?”
Yehuda Leib swallowed hard. “From Yankl the schlepper. He said Avimelekh was in Zubinsk and then everyone—”
“In Zubinsk?”
“Yes,” said Yehuda Leib. “And then Moshe Dovid Frumkin said—”
“Moshe Dovid?” said Shulamis. “Does he know?”
“Yes,” said Yehuda Leib. “I overheard him saying that Avimelekh was coming here to Tupik because—”
“This isn’t funny, Yehuda Leib,” said Shulamis. “Who put you up to this?” She had begun to crack her knuckles, which was never a good sign.
“What?” said Yehuda Leib. “No one. Moshe Dovid said that this Avimelekh was going to be here today or tomorrow, because—”
“Today or tomorrow?”
“Mama,” said Yehuda Leib with a lurch in his chest. “You’re scaring me.”
Shulamis stepped forward as if to take hold of her son, but whether to comfort or to warn never became clear.