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waiting on customers, trying to keep her mind far away from Moscow. But there was always something to trigger the memories, a word, a phrase, or a picture of a sled on a can of chestnuts, and she’d be back riding in an open sleigh down Petrovka Street. It was just before dawn and she was bundled up in furs and leather blankets, coming home from a party at the Kokorevs’. Standing there in one of the aisles of the market she could just about smell the signal bonfires at the intersections and hear the sleigh bells and the whoosh of the runners on the hard-packed track. She remembered the way icicles bearded the birdbaths on Leontievsky Street and how it felt to look up to the sky, close her eyes, and let the snow fall on her face, icy and wet, thudding down on her cheeks and lips with the softness of goose down.
    “Berta!”
    “What?” she asked in annoyance, wrenched from her daydream.
    “I am talking to you.”
    “I know, Mameh. I can hear you. I’m not deaf.”
    “But you weren’t listening. You get that faraway look on your face and a whole mountain could fall on your head.”
    “What is it?”
    “I want you should go over and watch that woman by the ribbons. I think she’s about to steal something.” Mameh had been born into the grocery business and had a second sight for thieves. At one time her family owned two shops in Mosny, but had to sell the hardware store to pay the bribes that were necessary to keep her brother out of the army. In those days, there was a quota that had to be filled for each townlet. Every year so many Jewish boys were chosen for a twenty-five-year stint in the military. Fortunately, deferments were easy to come by for the right price, but they were expensive. For a time her parents considered dressing their son as a girl for six years and saving the store. But he was skinny and had a prominent Adam’s apple, and they were afraid of getting caught. So they sold the hardware store, paid the bribes, and kept the grocery. Eventually Mameh’s brother
went to the yeshiva and became a popular rabbi though an indifferent scholar. When her parents grew too old to mind the store they gave it to Mameh and Tateh.
    Berta spotted the woman her mother was pointing out and had to admit she did look suspicious. She kept fingering the lace and glancing up at the counter where they were standing. So Berta kept an eye on her while edging past the customers and as a result she nearly collided with a young man who was just coming in the door. Their near collision startled her and she swore in French, calling him an imbecile.
    “ Je suis si désolé, mademoiselle. J’ai été tout à fait un idiot et prie votre remission ,” he replied hastily, giving her a little bow.
    A prick of surprise. She had never heard a word of French spoken in Mosny that she didn’t utter herself. In one sweep she took him in. He was Jewish, though not devout, because his hair was cut short and he was clean-shaven except for a dark moustache. He was young, younger than she. His eyes were small like a Tartar ’s but intelligent. His clothes were shabby; his vest and jacket had come from different suits. Maybe he had learned a bit of French along the way, a few words here and there, but it was clear that he was just another inhabitant of the Pale, unschooled except in the Talmud and the Torah, stolid, unchanging, and ultimately uninteresting.
    She went back to the thief and stood there until the woman was shamed into leaving the store. Then she returned to the counter and waited on a young mother with a fussy baby in her arms. When his turn came, the young man stepped up and, after giving her a quick smile, glanced behind her to the shelves where the factory-made cigarettes were kept. “You have Kollis?” he asked in Yiddish, requesting the most expensive brand.
    She nodded, got a package down, and laid it on the counter. “Ninety kopecks.” It was a ridiculous sum even for readymade cigarettes. She half expected him to