Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [17]
roosters could be heard, mingled with the shouting of housewives and servant maids. Rarely did anyone glance in at the dying woman, for everyone was busy. Reb Zeydel Ber, her son-in-law, all smeared with blood, would dash into the anteroom from time to time, beard flying, red eyelids gleaming under bushy eye-brows. Drawing a goosefeather from his breast, he would hold it near the dying woman's nostrils to see whether she was still breathing, examine her expertly, and sigh: "Ah, well, it's a story without an end!" Uncle Reb Zeydel Ber was as usual before the high holy day, when he was slaughtering atonement roosters whilst the women burdened him with their haste and idle talk. Moreover, young Rechele was burning the meals she cooked for him, because she was tired. Apprehensively she kept the wick burning all night and sat until dawn on the bench enveloped in a shawl. The cricket behind the wall oven chirped even more demandingly than ever. Time and again, from the alcove Uncle would cry out in his sleep, as though he were conversing intermittently with some-one. Rechele was well aware that the room was crowded with evil things. The brooms and mops stirred; long shadows swept along the walls like apparitions from another world. Now and again the old woman raised her upper lip in a horrifying smile. She thrust out her waxen hand from under the feather bed, clutched at the air, and then clenched her fingers as though she had caught something. The old woman died in the early morning on the day before Yom Kippur. At once diligent women from the burial society arrived, wearing enormous aprons that encircled their bodies. They heated kettles of water for the ritual of purification, and the room was filled with thick steam, wet rags, and straw. One woman opened the chest and drew out a suit of full under- hose that had been sewed in a shroud stitch and a mitre, which the old woman had prepared in advance; another woman carried a black stretcher into the room. Rechele was sent off to a distant relation of Reb Zeydel Ber's. The funeral took place at once and Reb Zeydel Ber recited the mourner's prayer. Just before sundown Uncle sent for Rechele to be brought home. The wet floor had already been swept and spread with sand. Three candles in memory of Granny's soul were burning in a sand-filled box. Uncle stood in a white smock, wearing cloth shoes, his head covered by a white mitre that was embroidered with golden fringe. His black beard was combed and wet, his earlocks, as long as braids, were still dripping from the bath. He resembled one of those holy and God-fearing Masters of whom Rechele had read in her little books in Yiddish. He placed both hands on her head and said in a sorrowful voice, "May the Lord make thee as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Leah.... Be Blessed and of pure spirit, 0 child, and tend to the house... in God's Name!" Rechele opened her lips to answer, but Uncle violently thrust the door open, and rushed out, almost extinguishing the candles. Rechele remained standing in the middle of the room; she looked about in amazement, as though in a strange place. A blood-red fragment of the sky filled the small window near the rafters, and outside a great wailing was heard. Lublin's narrow streets, lighted by the setting sun, were now full of men wearing the white Yom Kippur robes; they looked like corpses in shrouds. The women wore white dresses with trains, and silk scarves; they were arrayed in pearls and heavy necklaces, pins and bracelets, brooches and long earrings which quivered like jelly. Those women who had been widowed or had lost children recently ran with outstretched arms, as though insane, hoarsely repeating the same phrase over and over. Neighbors who had been at each other's throats throughout the year embraced and clung swaying to and fro, as though nothing could separate them.... Young matrons walked proudly, holding in one hand the gold- trimmed prayer books while the other caught up the trains of their gowns. Laughing and crying they fell upon each other's necks. Four girls conveyed a paralyzed dowager some