Stillness had descended over Tupik, as if it had stopped breathing in the night. The snow had broken off, the cloud had cleared, and the air was dense beneath the star-riddled sky.
And it was into this heavy hush that the soft tinkling of the bell fell.
Dingadingading. Dingadingading. Dingadingading.
Mottke’s eyes were wide. “Beh,” he said. “Beh.”
Yehuda Leib nodded.
Mottke leapt to his feet, dashing and sliding across the slick icy rocks on his way to the ferry. Down on the water, Yehuda Leib could hear him shatter a thin layer of ice; he could hear the clanking of the heavy chain, and the river beginning to buffet the edge of the ferry as it edged out into the current. The stars were bright overhead, and in the cold light the ferryman could be seen lunging forward and pulling back, lunging forward and pulling back, as he drew himself across the water.
Only when Mottke had finally reached the far shore did Yehuda Leib’s eyes fall on the dark stranger waiting on the opposite platform.
Without hurry, the stranger stepped onto Mottke’s ferry. There was a murmur of exchanged words, their sense lost in the susurrus of the flowing water. Before long, Mottke was pulling again.
Now the figure on the ferry was moving toward him.
Gradually, it occurred to Yehuda Leib to be afraid.
Yehuda Leib heard the ferry barge bump against the Tupik landing platform. The chain rattled as Mottke returned it to its place. Some further indistinct murmuring of voices.
And then footsteps in the snow.
Slowly, the dark stranger climbed up the riverbank. His coat was black—blacker than the night, blacker than the darkness hidden inside your eyes. On his head he wore a hat, tipped forward, also black, with a brim so wide that it hid nearly all of his face.