SEKURIANY, 1930 1. Rabbi Yitzakh Steinmacher said, "It's a sin to listen to gossips, but to hear them is as natural as to hear the sound of rain. "The noise itself means nothing, but to the sage gives cause to be quiet and to consider. "Once the sound of rain heralded the start of the Flood." Rabbi Yitzakh also said, "Never seek, lest you find. And what will you do then?" 2. When it is said of a man, "He lives with his mother," it could mean that his father has died or is out of town and the son still lives in the parents' house with his mother. The same words can mean that the son sleeps with his mother. As for the father, it doesn't matter if he is live or dead-- but better he should die. 3. She discovered the secret the month after she married. She woke in the morning and, finding her husband not in bed, arose in her long nighshirt, long, white, translucent, lace-trimmed, and saying nothing (why say nothing?), started to make her rounds as carefully as the mistress of the house does on Passover Eve in ritual search for leavened bread. Saying nothing (why say nothing?), she stood near the open door of her mother-in-law's bedroom listening to their breathing. All the muscles of his face were drawn, eyes shut tight, lips thrust out. As for the mother-in-law's face, her eyes were wide, going glassy. The morning breeze was coming through the open window barely rocking the sash, billowing the curtain in, carrying the cackle and cluck of chickens, the bleatings of goats, but closer-- much closer--the breathing, their breathing. 4. It was early in the morning and possibly no one saw how she walked in her long white nightshirt, long, translucent, lace-trimmed, in a shirt dissolved in the sun's rising rays, her body seemingly naked except for a slight covering haze-- walked all the way across town back to her father's house. No one asked her anything; no one in the family debated her returning. No one tried to interfere. Rabbi didn't say a word concerning reconciliation. In silence comes clarity. She was silent for more than a year. Saying nothing (Why say nothing?). 5. It is hard to place the boundary beyond which she went from being mute to being merely taciturn. During that time she learned to express her mind (no, not mind but soul) in mime, which became her life; each look, gesture or pose was filled with meaning like a ritual dance. To explain everything, she had merely to enter the room, sit down in an armchair, fold her hands in her lap and sit, waiting. She had a special power-- the closer you approached, the more there was to her. Within three months, David, betrothed to her younger sister, Bronya, cancelled their engagement. No need to say why. In no time she and David set off for America in pursuit of happiness, as if the happiness they found together was insufficient. 6. She often sobbed that God would punish her for her sin against her sister. David tried to console her, but he had the same fear, thinking the same thought. Bronya was certain that vengeance would be hers, so, when the family got news from San Francisco that the sister had died in childbirth, leaving a newborn daughter and an inconsolable husband, Bronya cried longer than anyone. Rabbi Yitzakh Steinmacher said, "Better a hundred enemies than the curse of a neighbor. From enemies you can hide, but where can you run from a curse?" Although, when the Nazis came, it became clear that there was nowhere to run from the enemy, either. Saying nothing, why. . . © 1996 Boris Khersonsky. All rights reserved. Translation by Ruth Kreuzer and Dale Hobson.