The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross

Author:Max Gross [Gross, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062991140
Google: xKvJDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperVia
Published: 2020-10-12T23:00:00+00:00

The episode—ephemeral and seemingly benign as it was—was a grave crisis for Leonid Spektor.

He failed to show up at school the next day, and when a boy, Zindel Schumacher, was sent to check on him, the boy believed at first he had left town.

“Reb Spektor?” the boy called, banging on his door to no response.

Just as Zindel was about to return to the yeshiva, a wan, feeble Spektor opened the door still dressed in his nightshirt.

“What do you want?”

The question was posed rudely; there was no attempt to mask his irritation. And Zindel was taken aback. He might have turned around and fled if he hadn’t been instructed to find out what Spektor was up to by the schoolmaster himself.

“Are you feeling all right?” Zindel asked.

Spektor looked more annoyed than before.

“Goodbye, Schumacher.”

Spektor began to close the door.

“Wait, wait!” Zindel shrieked, a little louder than he intended, and his voice echoed in the nearby woods. Spektor stopped.

“What?”

“Well,” the boy started, “everybody wants to know how you are.” Realizing that the word “everybody” was vague enough that it might enflame Spektor more, he corrected himself. “The schoolmaster sent me.”

Spektor considered this for a moment, wondering just how short he could afford to be with a proxy of his employer.

“You can tell him I don’t feel well,” Spektor finally said, and moved to close the door again.

Spektor didn’t show up at school the next day. Or the day after. On the third day, the schoolmaster decided to take matters into his own hands. He arrived at Spektor’s hovel near sunset, but when he knocked all he heard was stillness and silence. He went around back to see if Spektor was, perhaps, in the outhouse. But the premises appeared to be deserted.

The schoolmaster wondered if the man was too sick to answer (or, god forbid, worse) and if he shouldn’t break down the door. But just as he was sizing up the slab of oak in front of him and his chances of knocking it down without injury, the man in question appeared out of the forest.

“Nu?”

While Spektor was never the embodiment of good health, the ashen, sickly figure that Zindel Schumacher reported seeing two days earlier had undergone a miraculous transformation. His face was pink and his hair was damp with sweat. His trousers were muddy and his hands caked with dirt. Most peculiar, he carried a pickaxe and shovel in his hands.

“Reb Spektor?”

Leonid turned hangdog.

“Reb Bernstein,” Leonid replied with embarrassment. “It was very good of you to check up on me.”

The schoolmaster didn’t speak.

“Why don’t you come inside?” Spektor moved to open the door.

“No,” the schoolmaster said. “I just came to see if you were ill. But it appears that you are very much all right. I presume I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Spektor looked surprised—as if he had expected the lashing to be much, much worse.

“Yes, of course.” And then, as if he wanted to make the man feel better about treating him forgivingly, Spektor added: “I wasn’t feeling so good this morning.”

However, this was such an obvious falsehood that it only served to infuriate the schoolmaster.

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