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the old woman was waiting for. After that she spoke to Tzili like a stray mongrel dog.
    It was the middle of winter and the days darkened. The snow piled up in the doorway and barred their way out. Tzili sat for hours in the stable with the cows. Shesensed the thin pipes joining her to these dumb worlds. She did not know what one said to cows, but she felt the warmth emanating from their bodies seeping into her. Sometimes she saw her mother in the shop struggling with hooligans. A woman without fear. In this dark stable everything seemed so remote—was more like a previous incarnation than her own life.
    Between one darkness and the next the old woman would beat Tzili. The bastard had to be beaten so that she would know who she was and what she had to do to mend her ways. The woman would beat her fervently, as if she were performing some secret religious duty.
    When spring comes I’ll run away, Tzili would say to herself on her bed at night. Or: Why did I ever leave Katerina? She was good to me. Now she felt a secret affection for Katerina’s hut, as if it were not a miserable cottage but an enchanted palace.
    Sometimes she would hear her voice saying, “The Jews are weak, but they’re gentle too. A Jew would never strike a woman.” This mystery seemed to melt into Tzili’s body and flood it with sweetness. At times like these her mind would shrink to next to nothing and she would be given over entirely to sensations. When she heard Katerina’s voice she would curl up and listen as if to music.
    But the old man could not rest, and every now and then he would dart out of bed and try to reach her. And once, in his avidity, he bit her leg, but the old womanwas too quick for him and dragged him off before he could go any further. “Adulterer!” she cried.
    Sometimes he would put on an expression of injured innocence and say: “What harm have I done?”
    “Your evil thoughts are driving you out of your mind.”
    “What have I done?”
    “You can still ask!”
    “I swear to you …” The old man would try to justify himself.
    “Don’t swear. You’ll roast in hell!”
    “Me?”
    “You, you rascal.”
    The winter stretched out long and cold, and the grayness changed from one shade to another. There was nowhere to hide. It seemed that the whole universe was about to sink beneath the weight of the black snow. Once the old woman asked her: “How long is it since you saw your mother?”
    “Many years.”
    “It was from her that you learned your wicked ways. Why are you silent? You can tell us. We know your mother only too well. Her and all her scandals. Even I had to watch my old man day and night. Not that it did me any good. Men are born adulterers. They’d find a way to cheat on their wives in hell itself.”
    Toward the end of winter the old woman lost control of herself. She beat Tzili indiscriminately. “If Idon’t make her mend her ways, who will?” She beat her devoutly with a wet rope so that the strokes would leave their mark on her back. Tzili screamed with pain, but her screams did not help her. The old woman beat her with extraordinary strength. And once, when the old man tried to intervene, she said: “You’d better shut up or I’ll beat you too. You old lecher. God will thank me for it.” And the old man, who usually gave back as good as he got, kept quiet. As if he had heard a warning voice from on high.

11
    W HEN THE SNOW began to thaw she fled. The old woman guessed that she was about to escape and kept muttering to herself: “As long as she’s here I’m going to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. Who knows what she’s still capable of?”
    Now Tzili was like a prisoner freed from chains. She ran. The heads of the mountains were still capped with snow, but in the black valleys below, the rivers flowed loud and torrential as waterfalls.
    Her body was bruised and swollen. In the last days the old woman had whipped her mercilessly. She had whipped her as if it were her solemn