Page 120 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

father and brother have gone there." She pointed to
the far smokestack. "My mother because she was
coughing too badly to work, my sisters—three younger
than me—because they would not leave her side. My
father and my brother Saul because they were too angry,
too strong, too outspoken. Now my brother Wolfe is
left, but he is a Sonderkommando, one of the walking
dead. He might as well be with them. We all have such
stories. It is a brutal arithmetic. But I—I am alive. You
are alive. As long as we breathe, we can see and hear.
As long as we can remember, all those gone before are
alive inside us."
Esther started to turn away, but Rivka caught her
arm. "Listen to me. Please. You must listen if you wish
to stay alive. I know the things you need to know in
this place. There is the malach ha-mavis, the Angel of
Death, hovering overhead. But we can fool him if we
follow the rules."
"Who are you to tell us anything?" Shifre asked.
"What makes you an authority?"
"This is my authority," Rivka said sternly, holding
up her arm so that the number showed. J18202., "/
because I am—like you—a Jew. The 1 is for me because
I am alone. The 8 is for my family because there were
eight of us when we lived in our village. And the 2
because that is all that are left now, me and Wolfe, who
believes himself to be a 0. But I love him no matter
what he is forced to do. And when we are free and this
is over, we will be 2 again. God will allow it."
"God is not here," Hannah said. "The badchan was
right. This is the Devil's place."

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