Page 61 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

around it. Yitzchak followed him, big hands clapping
in rhythm. Other men soon joined them. Laughing and
shouting encouragement, the women watched from the
side. Then they began to sing.
"Sing, Chaya!" Shmuel called as he danced by her.
"Sing!"
"I don't know the words," she called back. But even
as she said it, she found herself singing, the words stum-
bling out as if her month remembered what her mind
did not, as if her mouth belonged to Chaya, her head
to Hannah. She began to clap madly in rhythm until
the tune came to an abrupt end.
"Look," Rachel cried above the noise, the breathi-
ness back in her voice, "they have even brought a bad-
chart. Fayge's father must have a lot of money."
"Or an only daughter," Esther added.
"Then why is she marrying Shmuel?" Shifre blurted
out. Looking at Hannah apologetically, she added, "I
mean he is handsome but he is not so rich or so learned.
.
And you know about Rabbi Boruch . . "
"They say . . . ," Rachel began, and the girls bent
closer to her as her breath gave out, ". . , they say that
Fayge is his favorite and always gets her way. They say
she saw Shmuel and fell in love."
"In love." The girls breathed the words in rhythm.
"So?" Hannah was puzzled. "So they fell in love."
"So—it may happen in Lublin that a Jewish girl mar-
ries for love," said Shifre. "But here in the country, we
still marry the one our parents pick out with the shad-
chan, the marriage broker."

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