Free The Little Russian by Susan Sherman Page B

up, and dropped his chin on his hand.
    “I knew Esther Churgin when I was a girl,” Mameh said, picking up her mending. The light behind her threw a halo around her untidy hair and softened the lines around her mouth. The lighting and her eager anticipation made her look almost like a girl. “She married my cousin’s half brother. I heard they went to live in Kiev. But then he died and I haven’t heard another thing about her.”
    “Then this should interest you.”
    He told her a story about a pauper who had come to Esther Churgin begging for a place to stay. She let him have the shed in the back and even gave him a few sticks of wood for the stove. “Apparently, his heart gave out during the night, for when she went out to get him for breakfast, she found him dead on the straw.”
    Mameh tsked as she continued to sew.
    “But that’s not the end of it. When the porters came to take him away, guess what they found in his pockets . . .” Here his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “A big pile of rubles.”
    She looked up. “Big? How big?”
    “More than you ever saw in your whole life.”
    “Was she allowed to keep them?”
    “Of course. It was her shed, wasn’t it? And her pauper. The man had no family. No one to leave them to. It was only right and proper that she should get the money, especially when you consider that she was kind enough to give him a place to die. In fact, to this day, they say that because of her generosity she is now the richest woman on Slavyanskaya.”
    “I had no idea.”

    After that there was a story about a witch who turned babies into bats and more stories about angels, magic, and mayhem, a sudden turn of fortune, and a miraculous healing. Soon Mameh was looking forward to his visits and making the dishes he liked best. If he didn’t come, which often happened for two or three weeks at a time, she’d ask Tateh if he had heard from Reb Alshonsky, was he held up by business, would he be coming soon? She often said that she was worried about him, but really she was worried about missing the news .
     
    “I WAS THINKING, maybe I could come live with you once you’re married?” Lhaye asked. She was stretched out the bed next to Berta. It was late and they had blown out the candle to save the wax. Outside the night was still and the square was deserted. A mockingbird was protesting some disturbance, running through his repertoire of songs in hopes of attracting a mate even at this late hour.
    “Who says I’m getting married,” Berta said.
    “Don’t be silly. You’re getting married.” Lhaye propped her head up on her palm and looked over at Berta. “Do you think his house is large? Do you think it’s a mansion?”
    “How would I know?” Berta rolled over and closed her eyes.
    “I think it’s a mansion. I think it has a turret and lots of servants.” Usually Berta enjoyed talking about these things, girlish dreams of weddings, of her escape from Mosny and the life that awaited her once she and Hershel were married. Yet even in the happiest times these dreams were tempered by niggling doubts. After all, there hadn’t even been a proposal. Hershel hadn’t talked to Tateh and nothing definite had been said, although much had been hinted at. “You’re going to like Cherkast,” he had said to her on more than one occasion. Sometimes he talked about traveling together and how he wanted to show her Petersburg and Paris. Once, out of the blue, he asked her if she liked rubies. When she said she did, he nodded with satisfaction and fell silent as if he were filing it away for future use.
    While he was in Mosny it all seemed possible. He was attentive and affectionate, brushing the hair out of her eyes when she worked at the sink, nibbling the back of her neck, stealing kisses even when her parents were in the house. But when he was gone and she didn’t know
where he was or when he was coming back, the doubts would begin to surface, making it increasingly hard for