Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [18]
hundred years old on a red-up-holstered chair. The old woman's golden dress blazed in the sunset and her high bonnet set with beads and precious stones glittered, its satin ribbons fluttering in the wind. A blind old man, with a white windblown beard, stood leaning on his crutches, his blue hands groping to bless all who passed by. The street leading to the prayer house was filled with low tables on which stood alms bowls. The crooked, the dumb, the lame sat on footstools and counted the silver and copper coins with which the crowd redeemed their souls for the holy day. Yerucham, the Lublin Penitent, stood as he did every year, at the door of the prayer house barefoot, his clothes unfastened. Wringing his hands, he wept for his sins. "Jews, have mercy, Jew-ws!... Compassion.. Compassion!..." But here, in this lonely street, inside the thick walls, Rechele heard only an echo. She stood there, ears cocked and eyes wide. This was her first time alone on Yom Kippur eve. In the past Granny had invited girls in to sit with her, and they would pass the evening braiding each other's hair and talking in hushed voices while huddled at the table. The night before Yom Kippur is a frightening time. Often, on that night, lords would fall upon Jewish homes and ravish the young, unprotected girls. Sometimes the candles would droop, and the children alone in the house would have to run outside to find a gentile to straighten them. Fires in which small children perished were frequent. Everyone remembered the catastrophe in the great synagogue when someone had called out that the city was on fire and in the panic many men and women had been trampled on and crushed. Moreover, it was common knowledge that on this, the holiest of nights, when the awesome prayer of Kol Nidre was chanted, the air was full of those ghosts that could find no resting place in the Hereafter. Rechele and her friends had once seen with their own eyes such a ghost pass by the candle and disappear in the hearth.... The candle flame smoked and sputtered for a long time after-ward. Now Rechele was alone in the house on the night before Yom Kippur, and only a few hours previously a corpse had been taken away. Rechele wanted to go out into the street and call people to her, but she was afraid to open the door in the dark passageway. She pursed her lips to shout, but the cry would not leave her throat. Terrified, she threw herself on the bench-bed, rolled up into a ball, shut her eyes, and covered herself with the comforter. From somewhere a low mutter reached her ears. The sound seemed to come from beneath the earth, and it appeared to Rechele that it was the chanting of Kol Nidre. But then it dawned on her that it was the dead who were chanting, and she knew that whosoever hears the Kol Nidre of the dead would not live out the year. She fell asleep and in her dreams Granny came to her--her clothes in tatters, disheveled and haggard. The kerchief about her head was soaked with blood. "Rechele! Rechele!" she screamed and rubbed the girl's face with a straw whisk. Rechele's whole body shuddered. She awoke, drenched with sweat. There was a ringing in her ear, and she felt a sharp stab in her breast. She tried to cry but could not. Gradually, the terror subsided. She heard footsteps in the house, fragmentary phrases. The pots on the oven and on the benches moved and were suspended in air. The candle box turned around and did a jig. There was a scarlet glow on the walls. Everything seethed, burst, crackled, as though the whole house were aflame.... Late that night, when Uncle came home, he found Rechele lying with her knees pulled to her chest, her eyes glazed and her teeth clenched. Reb Zeydel Ber screamed and people came running. They forced open the girl's mouth and poured sour wine down her throat. A woman skilled in such things scratched Rechele's face with her nails and tore from her head patches of hair. At length Rechele began to groan, but from that evening on she was never the same. In the beginning Rechele could not speak at all. Later she regained her speech, but she