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of the Western Wall hung above the two beds separated by a night table—my father revealed his plan:
    “We have five or six hours—let’s put them to good use. The main thing is to remain cool. God willing, we shall get through the ordeal safe and sound.”
    “What will you do, Reb Gershon?” asked Masha’s future husband. “Put up barricades? Do you really think, Reb Gershon, that bolted doors will stop the murderers?”
    “Let’s prepare to die like good Jews,” cried his friend Senderl, a thin, intense-looking adolescent. “Let’s be worthy of our ancestors!”
    “Have you a plan?” asked the third student. “A plan to stop the murderers?”
    My father listened patiently, stroking his beard, whichhe wore trimmed short, and thought for a long moment before answering:
    “My friends, God alone can and will stop the murderers. Or disarm them. Or strike them with blindness and deafness. As in Egypt long ago. Who are we to give Him advice? He knows what to do. As for us, listen. With God’s help, here’s what we’re going to do.…”
    We opened all the drawers, all the closets; we scattered dishes, silver and clothing all over the floor in order to give the impression that we had taken to our heels in the grip of panic. Having thus set the stage, we went out into the courtyard surreptitiously and one by one filed into the barn. My father lifted a floorboard and made us descend a narrow ladder. After joining us, he carefully put the board back in place. In the semi-darkness I saw spiderwebbed beams and old furniture. Perspiring, my father pushed everything together to block the opening; we helped as best we could. He wiped his face.
    “God willing, the enemy won’t find us; we must have faith.”
    The enemy, the enemy. I tried to visualize him. Egyptians in the time of Pharaoh. Looters in the time of Haman. Crusaders in the shadow of icons, their faces twisted by hate. The enemy never changes. Nor does the Jew. Nor does God Himself, thank God.
    A few sunbeams made their way into our shelter. Instinctively we drew away: if the sun could get to us, so too might the enemy. If only we could make ourselves invisible …
    God willing, everything is possible—God willing. Those were the only words my father had on his lips. He had faith; he was convinced that the Divine Will would prevail. But how determine what God wants or doesn’t want? If the enemy were to discover us, would that mean God wanted him to? Endless questions swarmed in my childishhead, but I had no right to ask them. I had to keep quiet, breathe without a sound, enveloped by silence, my senses on the alert. At that time I still didn’t know, Citizen Magistrate, that silence too could turn into torture. I thought of that in this very place a few weeks, or a few months, or a few eternities ago, when you deemed it useful and profitable to lock me up in the “isolator.” Silence as a source and harborer of hostility and danger: the density of silence, its pressure, its violence—all seemed familiar to me. Except that in that dusty hideaway in Barassy, now Krasnograd, I was not alone, and that the enemy back there was an enemy of long standing.
    I remember the silence towering like a wall, separating the two sides. I remember the silence going beyond its own limits and becoming omnipresent, becoming God.
    Desolate streets. Closed shutters. Drawn curtains. Night in full daylight. Here and there a cat walked lazily about, followed by a thousand invisible eyes. A horse whinnied, and a thousand ears listened. A board creaked, and a thousand throats went dry. As did mine.
    The hours went by, slowly, heavily, unnerving. Waiting for danger, anticipating disaster—do you know what that is like, Citizen Magistrate? Do you know what it is to wait for the massacre, you who never wait?
    My mother distributed some small rolls she had managed to prepare, I don’t know when. The three students ate heartily. My father didn’t. Nor did I or my sisters.
    Later,