Satan in Goray - Isaac Bashevis Singer [8]
the old slaughterer had been killed, and no new one had settled in Goray. Anyone who wanted to slaughter a beast had to drive it to a slaughterhouse miles away. The old Jewish town of Goray was unrecognizable. Once upon a time everything had proceeded in an orderly fashion. Masters had labored alongside their apprentices, and merchants had traded; fathers-in- law had provided board and lodging, and sons-in-law had studied the holy teachings; boys had gone off to school, and school mistresses had visited the girls at home. Reb Eleazar Babad and the seven town elders had kept a sharp watch on all town affairs. Those who sinned were brought to court; those who did not obey the court's ruling were flogged, or pilloried in the prayer-house anteroom. On Thursdays and Fridays the needy went from house to house carrying beggars' bags, collecting food for the Sabbath; on the Sabbath itself the good women of the town collected white bread and meat, fish and fruit for the needy. If a poor man had a daughter over fifteen years old who was still unwed, the community contrived to arrange a trousseau, and give her in marriage to an orphan youth or an elderly widower. The money that the groom received at the wedding sufficed to support them for months. After that, the man worked at something or other, or went about the countryside with a writ from the community certifying that he was a pauper. Of course, all sorts of misfortunes occurred. At times man and wife fell to quarreling, and they would have to journey to Yanov for a divorce--for the Goray stream had two names, and no one knew which was the proper one to use in locating Goray in the bill of divorcement according to the strict letter of the law. ("The town of Goray, on the banks of the River thus-and-thus.") Sometimes a man would go off, leaving his wife behind him, or be drowned somewhere in some body of endless waters whence his corpse might never be recovered. In such a case the widow could not marry again. Every year before Passover there would be a great furor in Goray over the paschal wheat, which the community would give as a concession to some man of influence--who would eventually always be accused of mixing the meal with chaff before selling it. As a rule, he would be roundly cursed and would not live out the year. Nevertheless, the next year another man was always found to profit from the Passover wheat. Every year on the day of the Rejoicing of the Law, there would be a fight in the tailors' prayer house concerning who was to have the honor of being the first to carry the Torah scroll around the lectern. Afterward the burial society would get drunk at the feast and break dishes. Several times a year there would be an epidemic, and Mendel the Gravedigger would end up with a few extra guilders. But such, after all, is the way of the world. The Jews of Goray dwelled in peace with the village Christians; in the town itself there lived only a few gentiles: a Sabbath gentile, to do the necessary work forbidden Jews on the Sabbath, a bath attendant, and a few others who lived in side streets, their houses surrounded by high picket fences so as not to flaunt their presence. Before the Christian holidays, when large numbers of gentiles passed through Goray on the way to a shrine, young boys were everywhere industriously selling the pilgrims barrelsful of sweetened water. The Goray fairs were famous throughout the countryside. Peasants from all the nearby villages would come riding for the fair. Horses neighed, cows mooed, goats bleated. Horse traders--powerful Jews dressed in heavy jackets and sheepskin hats summer and winter--leaped to grab kicking stallions. They shouted as coarsely as any of the peasants. Bloody-handed butchers, with sharp knives thrust in their belts, would drag by the horn bound oxen who were no longer fit for the plow. In those days the grain merchants' bins were always full, and fat, white-bellied mice dined there; country whiskey at the taverns was mixed with whole buckets of water. All during the fair the children of Ham rejoiced in their own way. They