The Fifth Servant Read Free Page B

Cossacks.”
                The other Christian said, “Is that true?”
                “Well, no,” I said. Actually, I had talked my way out of that one, but as a newcomer to this town, I figured I could use the reputation.
                “It was only five Cossacks. And two of them were kind of scrawny.”
                The two Christians looked genuinely disappointed.
                “Listen,” I said. “Do you know anything about—”
                Zinger nudged me as a young woman with long black tresses and broad Slavonic features walked up to the East Gate carry ing a basket.
                “That’s the little mouse’s Shabbes goye .”
                “The who—?”
                “Mordecai Meisel’s sabbath maid. The big makher who built the hospital, the orphanage, the mikveh . He paved the streets. Pretty much owns your ass, too, Mr. Benyamin from Slonim.”
                “Oh. Listen—”
                “You want to come in and see our costumes for Sunday’s feast at the Rožmberks?”
                “No, I need to get back in time for the Amidah prayer—”
                And just at the moment when I should have been somewhere else, a woman’s scream pierced the morning air.

    CHAPTER 2
                ANYA HATED KILLING PIGS, especially when it took a couple of tries to hit the main artery. Cows and sheep were finished in a moment, if you did it right. But pigs knew . They knew you were trying to slit their throats and they didn’t understand what they’d done wrong, or why they deserved it. She felt their animal incomprehension when they struggled to get away from the glistening knife, and heard it in their plaintive squeals. Sometimes she swore she could even see it in their faces.
                She hated it even more when her father asked her to help do it when it was still dark outside.
                “Let me finish doing my braids first,” she said.
                “No time now. Do it after.”
                So she tied her hair back with a kerchief and ran downstairs. The pig was tied up in the courtyard, and her father Benesh was sharpening the long knife. She pushed up her sleeves, and tied a butcher’s apron around her waist.
                When he was ready, she gently wrapped her arms around the animal’s shoulders, took hold of its front legs and hugged it tightly, bracing herself.
                “Why so early?” she asked.
                “The cart came through early.”
                He closed his fist around the pig’s ears and prepared to cut its throat. The animal bucked and squealed, but Anya held tight.
                She couldn’t help thinking of the shoykhet ’s blessing before the sh’khiteh —the swift cut to the neck meant to minimize the animal’s suffering.
                Borukh atoh Adinoy, eloyheynu melekh ha-oylem…
                When it was over, Benesh wiped the bloody knife with a rag. Not like the crude men who wiped the blood on their sleeves and spent the day surrounded by swarms of buzzing flies. He took some pride in his appearance.
                Anya wiped her hands with the rag, and helped her father lift the carcass onto a slotted table so he could gut it. But first they had to carry a fresh side of beef into the shop. Benesh grunted from the effort.
                He said, “We need you to marry someone quick. I’m getting too old to haul a side of beef onto the slab by myself.”
                He was half-joking, but the joke had been going on for a few months now. Still, she tolerated it.
                She said, “Yes, father,” tossed the bloody apron into the washtub, and went into the kitchen to wash her hands before they got too