Free Job by Joseph Roth Page B

voice.
    â€œMonday morning at five.”
    â€œMonday morning at five.”
    Sameshkin turns at his farm, and Deborah walks slowly home.
    The sun has set. The wind is coming from the west, on the horizon violet clouds are piling up, tomorrow it will rain. Deborah thinks, tomorrow it will rain, and feels a rheumatic pain in her knee, she greets it, her old faithful enemy. A person grows old! she thinks. Women age faster than men, Sameshkin is just as old as she and still older. Miriam is young, she’s going with a Cossack.
    The word “Cossack,” which she had said aloud, frightened Deborah. It was as if only the sound had made her aware of the dreadfulness of the situation. At home she saw her daughter Miriam and her husband Mendel. They sat at the table, father and daughter, and were stubbornly silent, so that Deborah knew as soon as she entered that it was already an old silence, a domestic, firmly settled silence.
    â€œI’ve spoken with Sameshkin,” Deborah began. “Monday morning at five I’m going to Dubno for the documents. He wants thirty-five kopecks.” And because she had been seized by the devil of vanity, she added: “He takes only me so cheaply.”
    â€œYou can’t go alone anyway,” said, weariness in his voice and dread in his heart, Mendel Singer. “I’ve spoken with many Jewswho know all about it. They say I must appear before the
uriadnik
myself.”
    â€œYou before the
uriadnik
?”
    It was indeed not easy to imagine Mendel Singer in an office. Never in his life had he spoken with an
uriadnik.
Never had he been able to encounter a police officer without trembling. Uniformed men, horses and dogs he carefully avoided. Mendel was going to speak with an
uriadnik
?
    â€œDon’t concern yourself, Mendel,” said Deborah, “with things that you can only ruin. I’ll sort everything out on my own.”
    â€œAll the Jews,” Mendel objected, “have told me that I must appear personally.”
    â€œThen we’ll go together on Monday!”
    â€œAnd where will Menuchim be?”
    â€œMiriam will stay with him!”
    Mendel looked at his wife. He tried with his glance to meet her eyes, which she hid fearfully under her lids. Miriam, who was gazing from a corner at the table, could see her father’s glance, her heart quickened. Monday she had a rendezvous. Monday she had a rendezvous. The whole hot period of late summer she had a rendezvous. Her love blossomed late, among the high grain, Miriam was afraid of the harvest. She already sometimes heard the peasants preparing, sharpening the sickles on the blue whetstones. Where would she go when the fields were bare? She had to go to America. A vague idea of the freedom of love in America, among the tall buildings, which concealed still better than the grain inthe field, consoled her about the approach of the harvest. It was already coming. Miriam had no time to lose. She loved Stepan. He would stay behind. She loved all men, storms broke from them, their powerful hands nonetheless gently lit flames in the heart. The men were named Stepan, Ivan and Vsevolod. In America there were many more men. “I’m not staying home alone,” said Miriam, “I’m afraid!”
    â€œWe should,” Mendel blurted out, “put a Cossack in the house for her. To guard her.”
    Miriam turned red. She believed that her father saw her redness, even though she stood in the corner, in the shadow. Her redness must be shining through the darkness, Miriam’s face was inflamed like a red lamp. She covered it with her hands and burst into tears.
    â€œGo out!” said Deborah, “it’s late, close the shutters!”
    She felt her way out, carefully, her hands still before her eyes. Outside she stopped for a moment. All the stars of the sky stood there, near and alive, as if they had been waiting for Miriam outside the house. Their clear golden splendor