Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack

Author:Sofiya Pasternack
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358157311
Publisher: HMH Books
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The entire congregation didn’t stay for dinner. There were about a hundred handshakes and head nods and declarations of “Shabbat shalom” as the room emptied. Misha’s little cousins tackled Misha’s legs, and he waded to the door with them after their parents, who collected them and waved goodbye. Soon it was just Misha and his family, plus three of Dvorah’s friends, and two men who were likely friends of Rabbi Galanos.

And Anya.

Dvorah sat on Anya’s right, and Ilana slipped into the seat at her left. Misha sat by his father, across from Anya, and Nava sat on Misha’s other side. Misha smiled at Anya, and Nava tried to stare a hole into her forehead.

To distract herself from Nava’s glare, Anya studied the food. The two challah loaves were passed around and pieces torn off. A long, deep dish held fried fish that had been cooked in what appeared to be onions and . . . other things Anya had never seen before. Small, wrinkly, dark purple nuts? Nuts, perhaps, if nuts were squishy. They smelled sweet and tangy, and the dish was colored rich gold in places and olive green in others. Beside the fish was a smaller bowl with red jam inside it. The fragrance out of that bowl was heavenly—that was where the fruity and flowery scent was coming from. It smelled too good to eat. In the last bowl, dark green leaves mixed with cooked onions and the wrinkly purple things and some smallish white things. It smelled wonderful too, and as Anya struggled to keep herself from openly drooling over the food, she found herself realizing they might be celebrating something she had intruded upon. Besides Shabbat, of course.

She counted on her fingers under the table. If it was Friday, that meant Sukkot was in two days. Would she be done in Kiev and back to Zmeyreka in time for Sukkot with her own family? Was her sukkah even still intact? She assumed that without her supervision, Zvezda had eaten most of it by now.

From the table’s other side, Rabbi Galanos smiled and said, “Anya. So. Where did you come here from?”

Her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth. Where had she come from? Not a shtetl, whatever that was. Not Kiev. Just Zmeyreka, a tiny village with a grand total of four Jews in it—three, with Papa gone—who all prayed differently than this community she sat with.

The raised eyebrows around her told her she’d been quiet for too long. She blurted, “Mologa.”

Rabbi Galanos nodded slowly. “Where is that?”

“North.” She answered faster that time. “By Ingria.”

“I’m not familiar with that area,” the rabbi said. “How long did it take you to travel?”

Anya didn’t know. Again, she couldn’t say a few minutes, so she guessed. “Ten days on the road.”

Rabbi Galanos’s eyes widened, and Dvorah’s head snapped toward Anya.

“Ten days?” Dvorah gasped.

Maybe that was too long. But Anya was sold to the lie now. She nodded.

“All by yourself ?” Dvorah said.

“No,” Anya said. “Two of my friends came.

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