The Burial-Attendant’s Wife
Published in Issue #34 Translated from Yiddish by Joseph Reisberg subscribe to unlock the full storyThe scrubbed samovar was set on the small table with the drinking glasses; the house was swept already, and cleaned and tidied all around. She had finished praying a moment before, had just stood through the eighteen blessings. As she thanked God, her tears praised his benevolence, his great mercy with her, sinful woman.
“Master of the Universe, thank you for everything!”
Her eyes are meek, satisfied; from them shines a soft, luminous fire. She looks outside.
To her left she can see a crooked alleyway rising up a hill, and small houses standing atop one another, like steps on a staircase — standing and leaning and bending as if bowed at the knee. She sees the new and old roofs, the mossy roofs and broken roofs, their deformed chimneys made of tin or clay. From others, blue smoke rises to the hilltop.
To her right, in a valley, she sees a fence and a large yard of neighbors going here and there, from one little house to the next. There’s that coarse woman in the red dress walking past her small white gate for the third time today. There’s the short young wife with her child in her arms appearing in her window again. A farmer drives a wagon with wood. Little children are playing by the shed. “Oh, good health to the little children! My Altinker will have someone to play with.”
“Thank you, God, for everything!” she whispers and sits down to drink some tea.
“Altinker,...
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