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— her husband had
taken a saw to them whenever they began to rot, shortening them by a centimeter or
two — and left behind the dirt floor that was just the same as outside, her
granddaughter had scratched letters into it with a stick when she was little. Soon
the thatch roof would weigh down the now abandoned house, pressing it into the
ground, and covering it until it decomposed.
    Here in her daughter’s apartment, all the rugs, tablecloths,
and Chinese porcelain were sold long ago, after the goy ran off with her
granddaughter’s dowry, but her daughter has kept the apartment — the
floorboards are oak, worn to a shiny smoothness, the door handles are brass, and the
light slants in through glass windows. Every morning the old woman walks through all
the rooms with a goose feather, wiping away the dust gathering on the few pieces of
furniture, then she takes her apron off and sits down on the sofa to read the Torah.
Turn it, and again turn it; for the all is therein, and thy all is therein:
and swerve not therefrom, for thou canst have no greater excellency than
this
. The only dowry she and her husband had been able to give her daughter
when she married the prosperous merchant’s son was their passion for the study of
the Holy Books. For nights on end, the two young people, having put their daughter
to bed, would sit up with her and her husband, debating whether the realm of God
could truly be found here on Earth if one only knew how to look — whether, in
other words, the riddle of life was concealed here in the human realm, or whether it
existed only in the beyond. Whether as a matter of principle there were two
different worlds or just the one. Only through a life spent in holiness, her husband
said, could man succeed in uniting what had been sundered: the world to come and
earthly life. But what was a life spent in holiness, his son-in-law asked, adding
that all these matters depended on human interpretations of the Holy Scripture
— which meant that a man’s striving for the right life could be in error as
well. Yes, her daughter had responded, you ought to be looking at everything mankind
actually experiences on earth, it’s not just a matter of what Holy Scripture says.
The mother herself had believed in an eternal life existing on Earth, after all
that’s what she saw before her: She herself was there, and her old man, her daughter
with her husband, and the tiny newborn girl that was sleeping soundly, her head
thrust back. But after her daughter’s husband had been beaten to death, there were
no longer any conversations of this sort, her daughter had left the ghetto and when
her own daughter was grown, she’d married her to a goy. Now the goy had gone off,
her granddaughter was back to living with her mother as she had done in childhood,
and when the mother wasn’t there, the grandmother took care of her, just like
before. A human life, then, was long enough to foil an escape plan.
    When evening comes, the old woman sets aside her book,
putting on her apron again. If there is meat, she begins her cooking by going down
to the courtyard and cleaning her sharp knife by thrusting it into the ground, then
pulling it out again, because in this household you can’t count on anyone but her to
respect the prescribed separation of dishes and implements. The kid may not be
cooked in its mother’s milk, that’s all there is to it.
    15
    On Ellis Island, a tiny bit of land within eyeshot of Manhattan,
the new arrivals are inspected to determine their suitability for a life of freedom.
Their eyes are checked, their lungs, their throats, their hands, and finally their
entire exposed bodies, men and women separately, children separately from their
parents.
    When they check your eyes, watch out for the man with the hook!
    Why?
    When he comes to check you, he can make your eye fall out.
    No way.
    It’s true, a man told me about it, he said his eye fell right into his
jacket pocket.
    When it’s his turn, he’s