“Who is there?”
Albert rubbed his eyes. The voice sounded as if it were coming through a
tunnel, muffled yet rumbling. There were other noises in his ears,
stamping and pounding and shuffling of feet. And there was darkness
around him, the darkness of black night.
“A traveler,” called another voice.
This voice was familiar to him. He remembered the voice of Bandy-legged
Schultz—the name by which the coachman was best known in Gunsdorf—and
that brought to his mind the memory of his departure from his native
town, the long tedious journey, the stops at various taverns. He felt
weary and every muscle ached. He wished he were at the end of the
journey. And what dreams he had had since he left Schmallgasse!
“_Verdammte Juden!_ You are too late. The gates are closed.”
A shudder ran through the lad’s frame. He was now sure he was dreaming
and buried his face into the cushion in the corner of the coach.
“Here, Schultz!”
It was his father who was speaking. He saw through half-closed eyes his
father handing the coachman a silver coin. The driver jumped off the box
and approached a high wall in front of him. Albert could not make out
what the barrier was except that it was high and it cast a great black
shadow, revealing in the foreground a little house, and beyond it a
gleam of the moon, half hidden, as if balancing itself on the high wall.
Schultz knocked on the pane of a tiny window. He used the silver coin as
a knocker. Then silence—ominous silence. Albert felt that his father
was holding his breath and he, too, caught his breath and sensed the
mystery around him.
“The lazy louts are asleep,” the coachman murmured.
David Zorn passed his hand over his head and emitted a grim grunt.
The coachman knocked again with the silver coin.
“Open the door—a traveler wants admittance!” he bellowed angrily.
There was a stirring inside the little house and a thud as of one
rolling off a bench.
“The devil take the Jews! _Tausend Donner Sakrament!_ They don’t give a
fellow a moment’s rest even on Easter Eve!”
A gruff voice was heard within, a clatter of a bolt—of a heavy iron
hasp—the clanking of chains—the grating of a key in a lock, the
creaking of hinges, two tall gates swinging open slowly, and Albert
beheld a bit of sky above the horses’ heads. The sky appeared narrow and
high, as if seen from a deep trench.
A short, heavy-set man, with a mustache the color of dry sand and the
stiffness of bristle, appeared at the opening; between the swinging
gates. He held a lantern in his hand, the yellow glare of the tallow
candle inside fell grotesquely over his patched jerkin and
saffron-colored hose.
Schultz put the silver coin into the hand of the man with the lantern.
The man put the money into his pocket and mumbled, “Don’t you know any
better than to come so long after the gates closed!”
He was stretching his arms and yawning. His jaws opened and closed
sleepily as he spoke.
“We are coming a long way,” the driver explained. “Couldn’t figure on
the exact hour.”
“How many Jews have you?”
“Just one.”
The guard walked up to the wagon, raised his lantern, and strained his
eyes.
“Huh! What do you call this, a suckling?” pointing at Albert, who stared
around him in bewilderment.
“He is the gentleman’s son,” explained the coachman.
“You didn’t bring his cradle along—Huh! When a Jew reaches the age of
twelve he is just as much of one for poll tax as he will be at
seventy-five. We call it two Jews—huh! One Jew, he says! You can’t fool
me!”
“How much is it?” Zorn opened his purse, the guard holding the lantern
to help him see the contents.
“One Jew one _Thaler_, two Jews two _Thalers_—simple arithmetic,”
snickered the guard.
Zorn paid the price in silence.
“How about a few _Pfennige_ for _Trinkgeld_—what do you say? I could
have kept you waiting here all night. And tomorrow is Easter.”
Zorn handed him a few more coins and cleared his throat as if something
was choking him.
Schultz led the horses by the bridles a few steps. There was another
guardhouse inside the gates.
“Dovidle, stick your nose out—a couple of Jews for Easter,” the guard
called in a piping, mimicking, sneering voice, and pounded on the
casement.
A door opened and out came a little man.
The little man greeted Zorn kindly, extending his hand. “You must have
come a great distance or you would have known better than to come so
late.”
“Since when have they re-established the Ghetto?” asked Zorn
tremblingly.
“As soon as they chased the French out,” replied Dovidle in a saddened,
low voice. “Yes, they have hemmed us in again;” the little man sighed.
“They are at their old tricks again, fleecing and torturing our poor
people. Oh, God, will there ever be an end?”
Albert trembled in every limb, a piercing pain shot through his head. He
had read of the miserable Ghettoes, which were abolished as soon as
Napoleon’s troops occupied the Rhenish provinces, but he had never
thought of himself as belonging to a segregated people. He had long
forgotten the taunts of Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz. In his native city
he had never thought, and was never reminded, of his ancestry. His
parents’ indifference to creed had made him almost forget it himself.
The driver soon mounted the box, clacked his tongue, and moved on.
They proceeded slowly through a long, narrow street —it seemed to
Albert interminably long and exceedingly narrow—the buildings on either
side high and close together. It was dark—depressingly dark—with an
occasional candle light peeping through a window. Not infrequently there
was the sound of footsteps which was quickly drowned by the heavier
tread of the horses. A door opened now and then—dabs of yellow against
a black curtain—a slam, and silence again . . .