MIRKIN WALKED HOME together with Geverman. They trooped along in silence, both greatly affected by the discussion about conversion.
“You know,” Mirkin began all of a sudden in a very serious tone of voice. “I’ve been thinking about this question and have reached the conclusion that you’re making a big mistake. The question of conversion . . .”
“Oh. Leave it alone! Let’s not talk about that!” cried Geverman.
“No, hear me out. I want you to listen to me. When you say that it’s easy to convert and it’s even right to do so, you’re completely forgetting . . .”
“About others? About my mother? That she wouldn’t survive it?” Geverman interrupted him with irritation.
“No! I’m not talking about your mother, even though, of course, I feel sorry for her. . . . I wanted to say that by converting, you cut yourself off from other Jews. . . .”
“Well, that’s just splendid! To hell with them!”
“But if all freethinkers converted, who would work among our young people to open their eyes? It’d be impossible to sneak into the yeshiva, impossible to . . .”
“Leave it alone! Leave it! I don’t want to talk about this any more!” cried Geverman with anguish.
He suddenly stopped and stated nervously, “I don’t want to go to bed. Let’s go somewhere else!”
“Where?”
“It doesn’t matter! Let’s go to Tsiporin or Zelingovich—wherever you want. . . .”
“You know what? Let’s go to Genesina!” Mirkin proposed. “You’re acquainted with her, aren’t you? A fine girl. I ran into her today. She asked me to stop by. She lives not far from here.”
“Let’s go!” Geverman agreed.
The comrades turned into a narrow, muddy lane and approached a small house. They could hear strange noises and shouts coming from inside. Through the loosely fastened shutters it was possible to see some strange activity occurring.
“What’s this? Are they dancing or fighting?” Geverman asked in surprise.
They entered the house without knocking.
They were presented with a strange sight. In the large room, scarcely lit by a tin lamp, sat several girls they didn’t know, apparently workers, and Genesina’s eleven-year-old sister. They all looked as if they’d been crying; their faces showed great concern, without, however, any expression of grief or despair. From the next room came the sound of hysterical wailing.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” asked Mirkin and Geverman in fright.
“Nothing! Shendel felt faint!” replied the younger Genesina sister hastily, as she carried a cup of water into the bedroom.
“It’s nothing! It’ll pass!” repeated the other girls reassuringly.
“What exactly happened?” Mirkin insisted.
“Ay, it’s too silly to repeat!” replied one of the girls, smiling awkwardly.
The elder Genesina, Leah, emerged from the other room; her face showed that she’d been crying, too.
“Oh, what guests!” she exclaimed, extending her arms in greeting. “You’ve come in the middle of such commotion! Shendele!”1 she cried through the door. “Just look at who’s come to visit us! The teacher and Geverman!”
A slender girl, still somewhat immature, emerged; she was pale with a delicate, nervous face; her eyes were swollen from weeping. Behind her, hardly moving her feet came the Genesinas’ mother; her eyes were also moist with tears.
“What’s happened here?” Mirkin asked them in astonishment, but without fear, even with a smile on his face.
“Ask them, these crazy girls!” replied the mother. “They were reading a story and began wailing, as if it were Yom Kippur.2 How do you like that?”
“All right, that’s enough,” her elder daughter stopped her with a gentle reproach. “She should talk! What about you? Weren’t you crying?”
“Well, what of it? I’m just as foolish as you are! There was something to cry about! It’s just a tale!”
“It wasn’t a tale, it was the absolute truth!” Shendel replied in a tone of suffering.
“What were you reading?” Mirkin asked with curiosity.
“Der shvartser yunger-mantshik.”3
“It’s the third evening we’ve been reading it,” replied the old woman. “At the beginning, everything was fine; but today, as we neared the conclusion, everyone started crying. One girl was reading and weeping; then others began wailing together, and this one (pointing at Shendel) wept and wept—till she fainted! A fine one, she is—there’s nothing more to say!” she concluded with a loving reproach.
“Oy, I assure you, if you read it, you’d also cry! It’s impossible not to!” Leah said, addressing Mirkin and Geverman.
“Earlier, when we read about the torments and sufferings that this black brigand inflicts on Shneer,” Shendel began in a broken voice, “I was able to control myself, but when we came to the part about the fire—I couldn’t hold back any longer. . . . This Shneer was such a fine man—with a heart of gold!” she said with deep suffering in her voice, turning to Mirkin. “When the house where his beloved lived caught fire, he raced in to save her. At that moment the ‘black bandit’ was up above . . . and doused him with a pail . . . of cold water . . . and then he . . . caught a cold . . . and got so sick. . . .”
She began crying again.
“What a silly girl!” shouted her mother. “I’ve told you twenty times that it’s all make-believe! Nothing like that ever happened! It’s simply that someone thought it all up from beginning to end. And she, the fool, weeps!”
“Of course, it’s all made-up!” Leah confirmed insincerely.
And leaning over to Mirkin, she whispered to him quietly and glumly, “It’s a true story! It all happened in Mogilev.4 Everyone there knows this ‘black brigand.’ He’s still living there.”
“This story isn’t made-up at all!” Geverman spoke up suddenly in a confident, earnest tone of voice; he stepped gently on Mirkin’s foot under the table, urging him to remain silent. “I have an aunt in Mogilev and she knows all of them very well. The only thing is, it really didn’t happen as it says here. . . .”
Everyone pricked up their ears.
“Tell us! Tell us!”
“Oy! Maybe he’s alive!” Shendel exclaimed with fear and hope.
“He is still alive!” Geverman confirmed with self-assurance. “After the great fire, when the ‘black brigand’ doused him with water, he caught a terrible cold and, as a matter of fact, was very close to death. But then he recovered and married his sweetheart. . . . Now they have two children, a boy and a girl. . . . They live very well. . . .”
“Oy! Thank God!” Shendel cried, beaming.
The other girls also grew more animated. Happiness was evident even on the old woman’s wrinkled face.
“So, was there anything to cry about?” she asked mockingly.
“Well, and what about the ‘black brigand’?” Shendel continued her interrogation.
“He got just what he deserved!” cried Geverman with malice. “He was all worn out; he went bankrupt and became a pauper. Then he began to deal in counterfeit money—they caught him and threw him in prison! They sent him away two months ago. There was a big celebration in Mogilev when they threw him in jail. So help me God!”
“Very good! So they should!” Genesina’s mother rejoiced.
“Why is it so different in the book?” Shendel asked in anxiety.
“The person who wrote it wasn’t in Mogilev at that time and didn’t know anything. Now that he’s discovered the truth, he’s tearing his hair out!” Geverman came up with a quick answer.
He carried out this mystification so seriously that it didn’t occur to anyone to question the accuracy of his words. One of the women workers hastily tossed her shawl over her shoulders and began to take her leave.
“Where are you off to?” Leah asked her.
“I’m going to tell Khasa! It’ll make her so happy!”
Everyone’s mood improved. Geverman also became livelier; growing into the role, he continued to improvise on the theme of the novel, conveying to his trusting listeners even more wonderful news about their favorite heroes. Mirkin tried to stop him, but nothing helped.
After about an hour or more, the comrades departed Genesina’s house, leaving the family in the happiest mood.
As they left, Geverman burst into mirthful laughter.
“The most curious part of it is that I haven’t even read the novel!” he cried. “Did you see how I managed to get the content from them?”
“You’re a real actor!” Mirkin replied. “At first I also almost believed that you were telling the truth. . . .”
Arriving home, the comrades found a small bundle on the table containing a clean shirt, a pair of socks, and a large piece of puff pastry wrapped in paper.
“Your mother sent this to you. . . . She said your socks had holes,” Mirkin explained.
Geverman’s face immediately darkened and he exclaimed with irritation, “What does she want from me? I don’t need her socks! Nor this pastry!”
He made an abrupt movement to throw the pastry away. All of a sudden, remembering his own joke at Genesina’s house, he cried merrily, “To hell with it! Let’s eat the pastry and toast the health of the rescued hero and the downfall of the ‘black brigand.’ Let’s have some tea!”
Mirkin took the samovar and started into the kitchen, but suddenly turned around and exclaimed, “What a terrible memory I have! I have to go to the Shifrins right now!”
“Why do you have to go there?”
“To collect money for the subscription. . . . Shifrina asked that I stop by this evening! Maybe you’ll come, too?”
“I might, but I think she’s a flirt. . . . But her brother, I can’t stand! I can’t bear his aristocratic airs!”
“I don’t like Shifrin much either,” replied Mirkin. “But there’s nothing I can do: I have to turn to them. . . .”
1. (Yiddish) A diminutive form of the name.
2. On the Day of Atonement some believers choose to express their repentance in a very emotional manner.
3. (Yiddish) Ha-Ne’ehavim veha-ne’imim, oder Der shvartser yunger-mantshik [The Beloved and the Pleasant, or The Dark Young Man] (1877), a novel by the writer Jakob Dinesohn (1852–1919) that enjoyed enormous popularity as a best seller.
4. A city in Ukraine (Mohyliv-Podilskyi) that had a significant Jewish population.