What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories by Nathan Englander Read Free Book Online

my evil. This child, alone out here, utterly pure.”
    “And you think selling your baby will break a fever that hot.”
    “If she were not my child anymore,” Yehudit said, “if she meant so little to me that I’d sell her for a pittance. If she belonged, in earnest, to another mother, then maybe those forces that take interest would see that it is not worth the bother. And if she is truly no longer my child,” Yehudit said, owning whatever dark cloud hovered over her, “maybe whatever’s coming won’t even know where to look.”
    Rena nodded, accepting. She rummaged through a vegetable crate full of books for the one in which she and Hanan hid their money. She took out a stack of bills. This she offered to Yehudit, who took one worthless note off the top. “ Shtei prutot ,”Yehudit said. “I won’t take more money for her than I would for a loaf a bread.” Yehudit then gave that bill back to Rena and straightened herself, preparing for the exchange.
    “I declare this child to be a daughter of this house,” Yehudit said. “I make no claim to her anymore.” She passed that boiling baby over to Rena, and in return took that single bill in her hand. “I ask only,” Yehudit said, “that you consider one humble request.”
    “Yes?” Rena said, her eyes wet with the seriousness of the exchange.
    “In making this deal binding, I ask that you let me spare you the burden of raising your daughter until she is a woman. I will watch over her as if I were her mother—though I am not. I will raise her with love and school her in the ways of Israel, and put her life before mine, if you grant me the right. Do you accept these terms?”
    “I don’t ,” Rena said. And a terror washed over Yehudit’s face. “I will loan you my daughter until she is grown,” Rena said, “but only if you both sleep here tonight. No daughter of mine can leave me so sick and head out into such a dark, cold night.”
    “Of course, of course,” Yehudit said, stepping forward. “A deal’s a deal.” And here, Yehudit hugged Rena, with that burning baby between them—too sick to cry. Into Rena’s ear, Yehudit whispered, “Let God protect our husbands in battle. And protect our country at war. Let God save this little daughter, and let God bless this house, and protect you always. And may He bless our new city, though it is now only two hovels on sister hills.”
    “Amen,” Rena said. “Thank you,” she said, and kissed her friend on the cheek.
    Yehudit stepped back and wiped the tears from her face. “A silly superstition you may think,” she said, “but I believe in the power of the word.”
    Rena looked in the corner at all the milk bottles full of water. “When my boys used to get those terrible fevers, I would give them ice baths to cool them down.”
    “If I had ice,” Yehudit said, “I’d have done it myself.”
    “There’s always a way to make do.” Rena took up her gun and walked out to the northern edge of her property, where there was a high boulder that caught the wind. She climbed the boulder in the darkness—already familiar with its every crag. She took up a jerry can she kept there to cool when the temperature dropped, one she’d tuck in the shade each morning, her refreshment as she worked the land. Rena stood on that rock and screwed off the cap. She hoisted the container in the crook of an elbow, looking for any signs of fighting from Jordan. She tipped the can back and took a long swig. And she was comforted as the water sent a chill to her bones.
     
    · · ·
     
    When Rena opened her eyes, she found herself in the chair, the gun in her lap, the psalms at her side, and her front door already open, letting in the morning. She went outside and discovered Yehudit sitting under a tree at the western edge of the hill, rocking the baby in her arms, a small machine pistol at her feet. Yehudit turned at Rena’s step and smiled up at her friend, and Rena knew from this that the baby had improved in