The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen Page B

or . . .” Her voice was hoarse.
    â€œShe has been this way ever since she arrived, Fayge,” Shmuel said, shaking his head. “Sometimes she is lucid, other times she talks of Rochelles and needles and snakes.” He tapped his finger to his forehead. “It is the sickness, I think. And the loss of her parents. Now she talks of the future.”
    Reb Boruch cleared his throat. “I think the child means
loytn kristlichen luach
, according to the Christian calendar.”
    â€œThey do not know from the Jewish calendar in Lublin?” Fayge asked.
    â€œ1942. It is several days before Passover,” the
badchan
said.
    â€œ
Before
Passover?” Hannah drew in a deep breath. And then, all of a sudden, she knew. She knew beyond any doubt where she was. She was not Hannah Stern of New Rochelle, at least not anymore, though she still had Hannah’s memories. Those memories, at least, might serve as a warning.
    â€œThe men down there,” she cried out desperately, “they’re not wedding guests. They’re Nazis. Nazis! Do you understand? They kill people. They killed—kill—will kill Jews. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Six million of them! I know. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. We have to turn the wagons around. We have to run!”
    Reb Boruch shook his head. “There are not six million Jews in all of Poland, my child.”
    â€œNo, Rabbi, six million in Poland and Germany and Holland and France and . . .”
    â€œMy child,
such
a number.” He shook his head and smiled, but the corners of his mouth turned down instead of up. “And as for running—where would we run to? God is everywhere. There will always be Nazis among us. No, my child, do not tremble before mere men. It is God before whom we must tremble. Only God. We will go ahead, just as we have planned. After all, this is our shtetl, not theirs, and there is still a wedding to be made.” He lifted his hand. On his signal, the wagons started up again across the last few yards to the market. As they moved closer, more men in dark uniforms got out of the cars and truck cabs. They made a perfect half circle in front of the synagogue doors, like a steel trap with gaping jaws ready to be sprung.

9
    THE VILLAGERS GATHERED UNEASILY WITHIN THE HALF-CIRCLE of soldiers and waited to be let into the
shul
. There was hardly any talking, but Yitzchak’s young son, Reuven, began to whimper. To quiet him, Yitzchak lifted the boy onto his shoulders.
    Rabbi Boruch, Shmuel, and another man Hannah did not know conferred hastily with the Nazi chief, the one with all the medals. They spoke in swift, hurried bursts of words that Hannah could not distinguish, but she could see Shmuel’s fists clenching and unclenching behind his back. They were a violent punctuation to all those undistinguishable sentences, as if Shmuel wanted to shake his fist in the Nazi’s face but didn’t dare. At last the argument was done and Shmuel came over to them.
    He spoke gently. “They insist that we go with them in those trucks.”
    â€œNo!” Hannah protested in a whisper.
    â€œTheir argument is persuasive,” Shmuel answered, his thumb and forefinger pointed at her like a gun. “They say all Jews are being resettled. It is government policy.”
    â€œI heard that too,” Yitzchak added. “Government policy. They have been settling villages closer to the big cities. I thought out here they would leave us alone.”
    Another man argued, “What does a goyish government have to do with us?”
    â€œA kick in the face and a hand in the pocket,” said another.
    â€œWait, wait,” Shmuel said. His voice was soft but his face was grim. “Remember those guns.”
    Fayge moved silently into the protection of his arms. “What about our wedding?” She meant it for his ears alone but Hannah was close enough to him to hear every