Page 88 - Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

ognized Yitzchak's voice. "I heard another story when
I was in Liansk buying poultry. There was a doctor, a
fine man, very educated. He was operating in the hos-
pital on a Christian woman. She trusted him more than
her own, you see. And right in the middle of the op-
eration, because her husband had called them in, the
soldiers came and dragged the doctor away and killed
him. With his own instruments. In front of his family."
"Did the woman die? The shikse he was operating
on?" another man asked.
"I hope"So," a light voice chorused.
"No," Yitzchak said. "She did not die. And she did
not deserve to die."
"Perhaps she did not," Gitl said. "But her husband
did. And the soldiers. Monsters."
"Hush," the woman near Hannah said again. "The
children will hear you."
The rabbi cleared his throat loudly. "These are just
rumors and gossip. The proverbs say 'He who harps on
a matter alienates his friend.' "
"Well, I heard"—a man's voice came from the back
of the car. He spoke so softly at first that the people
near him shushed the others so he might be heard. "I
heard, and reliably, too, that in a town on the border
of Poland, the entire population was locked in the syn-
agogue. And then the Nazis set fire to the building.
Anyone trying to jump out the windows was shot. Only
there was a Pole, a good man, the Shabbos goy, who
opened the back door, so a few of the villagers escaped
and were hidden by the Shabbos goy in his own house.

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