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were strict observers of tradition. To the poor Jews, their religion was so completely engrained in them that it would have been just as impossible to extricate themselves from it as to live without their beating hearts. To the rich Jews, loyalty to the rites of their forefathers seemed in good taste, dignified, morally honourable, as much as – perhaps more than – true belief. Between these two classes, each observant in their own fashion, the lower middle classes lived in yet another way. They called upon God to bless their business dealings, heal a relative, a spouse, a child, then forgot about Him straight away, or, if they did think about Him, it was with a mixture of superstitious fear and contained resentment: God never fully granted anything that was asked of Him.
    Ada’s father went to Synagogue from time to time, in the same way someone might go and see an investor who could help you in business – that is, if he wanted to. He even had the power to drag you once and for all out of the poverty trap, except he had too many protégés, too many people asking favours, and was actually too rich, too great, too powerful to spare a thought for you, a humble earthly creature. But you could always turn up whereyou knew He would be . . . Why not? Perhaps He might notice you? Or when things were going badly, you could remind Him of your existence with a whisper, a sigh: ‘Ah! Bozhe , Bozhenka ! (Ah, my God, my dear sweet God!)’, with just a glimmer of hope, with a sad, resigned reproach: why have You abandoned me?
    But religious laws were really too complicated, too strict to be followed faithfully; you took your pick: some were observed and some weren’t. People fasted one day a year, and during Passover they ate unleavened bread – but with ordinary Russian bread on the same plate, which was a great sin. But they had done it once, by accident, and nothing had happened. God had not cast His wrath upon the family. Life had gone on. When she was very young, Ada had only ever seen adults in her family respect Yom Kippur, the day of fasting (and even that was forgotten later on). Her father had explained to her that it was a very serious day, fearful in the life of man, because God held in His hands a great book, ‘like the big accounting book your grandfather has for the shop’, and He wrote on one side your good deeds and on the other side your sins. Ada had understood that you had to fast to touch God, but she didn’t have to fast because she was too young and too thin and anyway, children didn’t have that many sins on their conscience. They would acquire them later. She never actually knew whether her father’s religious beliefs ended there or if he simply kept the rest to himself since she was too young to really understand.
    As for Aunt Raissa, her marriage had taken her into a social class that had evolved even further, one that was proud to distance itself as much as possible from the people they called (and with such scorn!) the simple Jews, the poor Jews.
    And so it was that in the Sinner family, Judaism no longer brought any joy, but continued to bring many problems. How they would have liked to leave their fellow Jews to rot in their filth, their poverty and their superstitions. Unfortunately, theycouldn’t completely forget them because of their horrible lodgings, the ground-floor shop, the street that wasn’t exactly the ghetto but was close enough to smell it and hear its screams, not to mention the other, more serious and sometimes tragic inconvenience: the pogroms.
    At eight, Ada had never experienced a pogrom, but just as everyone knows about death, she knew there were two dangers – dangers that didn’t threaten the rest of humanity, but were directed specifically towards the people of her town, her neighbourhood. Everything could come crashing down on her at any moment, but she might also be spared: this margin of error was enough to reassure her. And the grown-ups she knew talked about