The Fugu Plan by Marvin Tokayer

Author:Marvin Tokayer [Tokayer, Marvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gefen Publishing House
Published: 2011-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

9

YANKEL GILBEWITZ awoke with the dawn, before any of the other boys who shared the large tatami-ma.t room in the yeshiva's heim. Quietly whispering the prayer of thanks that God had restored his soul to him after the night, he slid back the shoji door that led to the corridor. A few remaining nocturnal bugs skittered out of his way as he washed in the long communal tin sink. Donning the black pants, tie and jacket, the white shirt and narrow-brimmed black hat customarily worn at the yeshiva, he slipped into his slightly damp overcoat, took his prayer book and a small embroidered bag containing the leather phylacteries needed for morning prayers and stepped through another sliding door into the narrow street.

Yesterday, the weather had been absolutely foul. A freezing rain had fallen practically all day, not only coming down, but seeming to creep up from below as well. Until two weeks ago Yankel would have been quite content to stay indoors wrestling with Talmudic intricacies and arguing philosophical convolutions with his study partner. But, intrigued by what he'd seen of Kobe and anxious to see more, Yankel had volunteered to walk the few blocks from the yeshiva's newly established heim to Jewcom to pick up the bread ration for his section. The consequences of the simple act of volunteering turned out to be not insignif1cant.

The second day he made the trip, Yankel was returning to the yeshiva heim by a roundabout route when he passed a particularly well-stocked fruit stand. He had smiled shyly at the storekeeper - a magnificently wrinkled old lady dressed in a traditional long-sleeved white apron - and, in a moment of enthusiasm, exclaimed with gestures over the magnificence of all her produce. She had grinned gold false teeth gleaming in the sunlight - and bowed in appreciation of his interest. The next day, Yankel found himself taking the same route, with a strange idea working its way through his mind. Finding the old lady alone, he tentatively broke off a chunk of one of the loaves he had under his arm and offered it to her. Surprised but pleased, she in turn offered him an apple. Yankel ate it on the way home and told his classmates he himself had eaten the bread. The principle having been established, it was a short step to a steady barter arrangement: every day Yankel offered the lady a loaf of bread - two if he thought it wouldn't be missed - and she gave him in return half a kilo of apples, half a dozen of a heart-shaped very sweet orange fruit she called a kaki, or whatever he liked. This was not, however, anything he wished to share with his schoolfellows, so Yankel would leave his gains in the back corner of the store to be collected later.

It was, he thought, a fine arrangement: the old woman was happy, his yeshiva section never seemed to miss the extra bread and, best of all, the fruit not

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