Shlomo looks at her with tenderness, as at a child.
“You’re thinking in the old way—it’s almost as though you haven’t understood any of what’s happened here. There is no sin, and that’s that—husband or no husband. The time of salvation is upon us. The notion of sin no longer applies. He is working hard for us, and he wants you. You are the most beautiful.”
Wittel frowns.
“I’m not the most beautiful, come on. Even you ogle all the girls here.” She pauses. “What would you do?”
“Me? If I were in your place, Wittel, I wouldn’t be asking questions. I’d go straightaway.”
Truth be told, Wittel receives this permission with relief. She has not been able to think about anything else for days on end. The women who have been intimate with him say that Jacob has two members. More precisely, that whenever he wants to, he has two members, and when he doesn’t, he takes his pleasure with one. Soon it will be within Wittel’s power to confirm or deny this assertion.
In late February, Jacob sends a carriage for Hana, and Wittel no longer goes to him every night. Hana is called “Highness.” A feast is given in honor of Her Highness. For days the women bake, drowning in goose fat, delivering their dinner rolls to Hava’s chamber once they’re done.
Wittel wishes it were an accident, but unfortunately, it’s not: she purposely eavesdrops on Jacob and Hana making love. She feels her stomach get twisted up. She can’t understand what they’re talking about because they speak in Turkish. It excites her to hear Jacob speaking in Turkish, and she thinks that next time she will ask him to talk Turkish to her, too. She won’t have to wait too long for next time: after only a month, Hana, gloomy, disappointed, will return to Turkey.
Already in December, the Lord had ordered all the adults to gather together.
They stood in a circle and remained for a very long time in complete silence, for the Lord had forbidden conversation, and no one had the courage to speak up. Then he had the men move over to stand along the right-hand wall. Of the women, he chose seven, as was done by the First, Sabbatai.
First he took Wittel’s hand and named her Eva. Wittel, who had no idea what was going on, immediately flushed all over and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, nervously; she had completely lost all self-confidence. She stood aflame, obedient as a hen. Jacob set her to his right. Then he took Wajge?e, Nahman of Busk’s very young new wife, and named her Sarah. She went as though to a beheading, in despair, with her head bowed, glancing at her husband, resigned to her fate. Jacob placed her behind Wittel. And behind her he placed Eva, Jacob Mayor’s wife, whom he named Rebecca. Then he spent a long time looking at the women, who lowered their eyes; finally he reached out for lovely Spryne?e, aged thirteen, daughter-in-law of Elisha Shorr, wife of his youngest son, Wolf; her he named Bershava. Now he started to line them up on his left side—the first was Isaac Shorr’s wife, whom he named Rachel, and then Hayim of Nadwórna’s wife, whom he named Leah. He put Uhla Lanckorońska on the end and named her Afisha Sulamitka.
All the names were the names of the wives of the patriarchs, and the chosen women stood there overwhelmed, in silence. Their husbands also kept quiet. Suddenly Wajge?e, Nahman’s new wife, started to cry. This was not the time to cry, although everyone understood why she was doing it.
Hana’s gloomy gaze notes these details of Ivanie
The people in the shacks sleep all in a row on rickety, rotting frames, or on the ground, with simple bundles of hay for bedding. Their beds are not beds, but pallets. Only a few have real beds with linen sheets. The Shorrs have the best beds.
They are dirty and lice-ridden. Even Jacob has lice, which is because he keeps company with the town filth. Or so Hana assumes. Although, in fact, she knows for certain.
This is no community. It’s an ordinary rabble, just a muddled crowd. Some can’t even communicate, like those who use Turkish or Ladino on a day-to-day basis, like Hana, and don’t know the local Jewish tongues.
There are sick and crippled people whom no one is treating. The laying on of hands does not help everyone. On her first day in Ivanie, Hana witnessed the death of yet another child, who died from a cough, simply suffocating.
Many among them are loose women, be they widows, agunot, or whatever else. Some of the women aren’t even Jews, that’s what Hana thinks. They’ll give it up for some morsel of food and because doing so allows them to stay here. She shuts her eyes to the fact that in Ivanie everyone sleeps with everyone, even attaching great meaning to it. Hana does not understand why men place such importance on intercourse. There’s nothing so amazing about it. Since her second child, she’s lost all interest. She is bothered by the scent of other women on her husband’s skin.
Jacob seems completely changed to Hana. At first, he was happy she had come, but then they only slept together twice. Jacob has something else on his mind now, or maybe it’s some other woman. That Wittel hangs around him and glares at Hana. Jacob chooses them all over Hana. He barely listens to her; he’s more interested in Avacha, whom he carries around with him wherever he goes. He sits her up on his shoulders; their daughter likes to pretend she is riding a camel. Hana stays at home and breastfeeds the baby. She worries about their son, worries he will catch some disease here. Little Immanuel is still ailing, after all. Ivanie’s winds haven’t helped him, and neither has the extended, seemingly endless winter. The Turkish wet nurse reminds Hana every day that she does not want to be here, either, that she is repulsed by it, and that she’ll lose her milk soon as a result.
Back at home in Nikopol it’s spring already, while here the first fresh blades of grass have barely forced their way through the old layer of rotted vegetation.
Hana misses her father and his peace and equilibrium. She also misses her mother, who died last year, and when she thinks of her mother, she is beset by premonitions of her own death, and she feels scared.
Of Moliwda’s visit to Ivanie