Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [16]
you off!" Rechele was a stubborn and contrary child; she would not let Granny delouse her, and the old woman had to beat her with a block of wood. In the trough that held the wash water there was always a switch soaking with which the old woman would flog the girl for her wantonness. Every Friday afternoon the old woman would force Rechele to put her head into the trough, now filled with hot water, and Rechele would scream until she was hoarse. To persuade Rechele to remain at home and not go wandering off, the old woman took to terrifying the child. She persuaded Rechele that there were graves in the yard where ghosts flew about ceaselessly, seeking bodies to enter. She put a great apron on Rechele as a charm, so that no unholy spirit might possess her, and hung a linen sack with a wolf's tooth in it around her neck. Whenever Granny went away she latched the door from the outside with a wooden peg. Little light entered through the small, dust-covered window near the rafters, and an oil-dipped wick burned constantly in a clay shard. Mice were forever scratching in the narrow, crowded bedroom, and there were other small sounds as though a hand groped its way through the darkness. There was an opening high above the anteroom hearth. Whenever it smoked a chimney sweep would be summoned, who would scramble up and shout down at the old woman as he worked. His eyes all white as though the eyeballs were turned up, he would grimace blackly, like a devil. Granny would stand below him and shake her small fist. "Higher!" she would screech. "Higher! Higher!" Rechele would hide under the bed when the chimney sweep came, burying herself under a pile of clothing. She feared the broom he pulled out of an iron bucket, was terrified of the heavy smoke-covered ropes he uncoiled, would pale when she heard the stranger stumble over the oven. Often there would be two chimney sweeps: the taller had a bristling mustache, like an insect's. One of the sweeps would crawl out on the roof and the other would thrust his head into the hearth opening and cry up to his partner in a muffled voice as though from a cavern. After they had left, the black prints of their bare feet remained on the floor. The slaughterer would come into the room, a knife in a corner of his mouth. His blood- stiff coat covered with feathers would creak as he bent to go through the low door. He would grumble: "How much did you give the dogs?" "A half penny and a handful of chaff," the old woman would respond, thrusting out her chin. There was not a tooth in her shrunken mouth. It was terrifying at night when Rechele had to lie down in the bench-bed to sleep with the old woman. Uncle snored loudly in the bedroom, wheezing as though he choked and groaning in his sleep, and the old woman dallied over her prayers, as she turned restlessly from side to side. She smelled of burned feathers and mice. Sometimes she would lift the child's shift and run her dead hands over the girl's hot body, cackling with impure delight: "Fire! Fire! The girl's burning up!" As they lay under the feather bed, in the pitch dark, the old woman would tell Rechele stories of wild beasts and goblins; of robbers that lived in caves with witches; of man-eaters that roasted children on spits; and of a wild one-eyed monster that stalked about with a fir tree in its hand looking for a lost princess. Sometimes from her sleep Granny would cry out wildly and incoherently. The roots of Rechele's hair would tingle with terror, and, her whole body a-quiver, she would wake up the old woman with the cry: "Granny? What are you saying? Granny? "Granny, I'm afraid!"
8
Rechele in Lublin
When Rechele was twelve years old the old woman died. For three days she lay on a bench bed in the anteroom, gasping her last. Her small head was. bound with a red kerchief, her wrinkled face was stiff as a corpse, her chin pointed up, and her open eyes, with the eyeballs turned back, appeared entirely white. That happened during the Ten Days of Penitence between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. From the slaughter but in the yard the cackling of