Ghetto Comedies Part 55

'Guard your tongue!' he murmured, terror-stricken.

David laughed on. 'You, my friend, shall be my first pupil.'

'G.o.d forbid! And I must beg you to find other lodgings.'

David smiled grimly at this first response to his mission. 'I dare say I shall find another stove,' he said cheerfully--at which the landlord, who had never in his life taken such a decisive step, began to think he had gone too far. 'You will take the advice of a man who knows the world,' he said in a tone of compromise, 'and throw all those crazy notions into the river where you cast your sins at New Year. A young, fine-looking man like you! Why, I can find you a _Shidduch_ (marriage) that will keep you in clover the rest of your life.'

'Ha! ha! ha! How do you know I'm not married?'

'Married men don't go shooting so lightheartedly. Come, let me take you in hand; my commission is a very small percentage of the dowry.'

'Ah, so you're a regular _Shadchan_' (marriage-broker).

'And how else should I live? Do you think I get fat on this inn? But people stay here from all towns around; I get to know a great circle of marriageable parties. I can show you a much larger stock than the ordinary _Shadchan_.'

'But I am so _link_' (irreligious).

'_Nu!_ Let your ear-locks grow--the dowry grows with them.' Mine host had quite recovered his greasy familiarity.

'I can't wait for my locks to grow,' said David, with a sudden thought. 'But if you care to introduce me to Tinowitz, you will not fail to profit by it, if the thing turns out well.'

The landlord rubbed his hands. 'Now you speak like a sage.'

III

Tinowitz read the landlord's Hebrew note, and surveyed the suitor disapprovingly. And disapproval did not improve his face--a face in whose grotesque features David read a possible explanation of his surplus stock of daughters.

'I cannot say I am very taken with you,' the corn-factor said. 'Nor is it possible to give you my youngest daughter. I have other plans. Even the eldest----'

David waved his hand. 'I told my landlord as much. Am I a Talmud-sage that I should thus aspire? Forgive and forget my _Chutzpah_ (impudence)!'

'But the eldest--perhaps--with a smaller dowry----'

'To tell the truth, _Panie_ Tinowitz, it was the landlord who turned my head with false hopes. I came here not to promote marriages, but to prevent funerals!'

The corn-factor gasped, 'Funerals!'

'A _pogrom_ is threatened----'

'Open not your mouth to Satan!' reprimanded Tinowitz, growing livid.

'If you prefer silence and slaughter----' said David, with a shrug.

'It is impossible--here!'

'And why not here, as well as in the six hundred and thirty-eight other towns?'

'In those towns there must have been bad blood; here Jew and Russian live together like brothers.'

'Cain and Abel were brothers. There were many peaceful years while Cain tilled the ground and Abel pastured his sheep.'

The Biblical reference was more convincing to Tinowitz than a wilderness of arguments.

'Then, what do you propose?' came from his white lips.

'To form a branch of the _Samooborona_. You must first summon a meeting of householders.'

'What for?'

'For a general committee--and for the expenses.'

'But how can we hold a meeting? The police----'

'There's the synagogue.'

'Profane the synagogue!'

'Did not the Jews always fly to the synagogue when there was danger?'

'Yes, but to pray.'

'We will pray by pistol.'

'Guard your tongue!'

'Guard your daughters.'

'The Uppermost will guard them.'

'The Uppermost guards them through me, as He feeds them through you.

For the last time I ask you, will you or will you not summon me a meeting of householders?'

'You rush like a wild horse. I thank Heaven you will _not_ be my son-in-law.'

Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call the next day.

When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt.

IV

The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls, David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart.

Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka, and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly prevailed upon to a.s.semble in the bedroom on a business declared important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting.

Each member strolled in casually, ordered a gla.s.s of tea, and drifted upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair, gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed, scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the forces of law and order.

He had come to Milovka, he explained, to warn them that the Black Hundreds were soon to be loosed upon the Jewish quarter. But no longer must the Jew go like a lamb to the shambles. Too long, when smitten, had he turned the other cheek, only to get it smitten too. They must defend themselves. He was there to form a branch of the _Samooborona_.

Browning revolvers must be purchased. The wood-choppers must be organized as a column of axe-bearers. There would be needed also an ambulance corps, with bandages, dressings, etc.