Read Online Burning Twilight by Kenneth Wishnia - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kenneth Wishnia
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the tiny butter pan on a back burner. Then she took the residue-caked spoon and tapped it against the iron rim of the skillet a few times until the silvery paste slid into the pan.
“We need to ask you about the woman who visited your master’s room last night,” she said.
“I never saw her,” said Mrs. Gromatsky. “The master ordered me to bed, and he opened the door for her himself.”
“Was that unusual?” I asked.
“Do you have any idea what she might have wanted?” said Kassy.
“What they all want,” said Mrs. Gromatsky. “Love potions, or else they want their fortunes told.”
“Reb Schildsberg claimed he could tell their fortunes using the Kabbalah?” I asked.
Mrs. Gromatsky was too busy scrubbing a copper pot to answer me. The cook spooned some cheese filling onto three flat pancakes, then folded up the blintzes, pinched the flaps together, and laid them in the pan.
“Why? What does that mean?” said Kassy, spreading the silvery paste around the butter pan as casually if she were heating oil to fry blintzes.
“No true Kabbalist would ever claim to be able to predict the future,” I said. “It is not for us to know. The Mishnah teaches that whoever reflects upon such things would be better off if he had never been born.”
“Keynehore ,” said Mrs. Gromatsky, spitting on the floor between my boots. Well, most of it went between my boots.
“Damn it, this isn’t working.” Kassy grabbed a cloth and removed the pan from the fire. “Don’t you have anything smaller?”
“Well, there’s these . . . ” Mrs. Gromatsky removed a tiny key from the folds of her apron and unlocked a drawer that was practically hidden beneath the countertop. It was full of precision metalworking tools: long, thin files, delicate clippers and tongs, and a couple of three-inch-wide smelting pans.
“My my,” said Kassy. Her eyes met mine.
“Will that do?”
“Yes, this will do nicely,” said Kassy, removing one of the smelting pans from the drawer as the cook placed a couple of perfectly formed blintzes on a plate and sprinkled them with powdered sugar.
Kassy concentrated on transferring the half-melted paste to the special pan, while Mrs. Gromatsky set out a couple of plates of blintzes with sour cream for us.
Kassy questioned me with her eyes.
I told her that it is our custom to eat dairy foods on Shvues, even in a house of mourning, because when God first called to Moses in the wilderness of Midian, He said He would lead our people out of Egypt to “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
She took the smelting pan off the fire and studied its contents, which had separated. Part of it had burned to a crust, the rest was thin and watery.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s certainly not silver,” she said.
Mrs. Gromatsky and the cook nudged me aside to gawk at the strange half-burnt lumps, and I chose that moment to step out of the cramped kitchen and help myself to a foretaste of the Promised Land.
So I had a mouthful of cheese blintz when a heavy pounding shook the front door. For a brief, terrifying moment I thought they had come for me. My hand found the hilt of my short-bladed knife, but before I could unsheath it and get into more trouble than I could handle, Mrs. Gromatsky had unlocked the door to let in the houseboy. Instead, a captain of the guard stood framed in the archway with four armed pikemen.
“We’ve been looking for a woman who fits her description,” the captain announced, pointing at Kassy, then charging her with possession of illegal counterfeiting tools. Before I knew what was happening, the pikemen barreled in to seize her, knocking over the stack of pots in their haste and sending a few earthenware dishes crashing to the floor, even though Kassy offered no physical resistance. But she did use her tongue, castigating them for arresting her on such flimsy circumstantial evidence, while Mrs. Gromatsky yelled at them for ruining her dishes.
I swallowed hard and
“We need to ask you about the woman who visited your master’s room last night,” she said.
“I never saw her,” said Mrs. Gromatsky. “The master ordered me to bed, and he opened the door for her himself.”
“Was that unusual?” I asked.
“Do you have any idea what she might have wanted?” said Kassy.
“What they all want,” said Mrs. Gromatsky. “Love potions, or else they want their fortunes told.”
“Reb Schildsberg claimed he could tell their fortunes using the Kabbalah?” I asked.
Mrs. Gromatsky was too busy scrubbing a copper pot to answer me. The cook spooned some cheese filling onto three flat pancakes, then folded up the blintzes, pinched the flaps together, and laid them in the pan.
“Why? What does that mean?” said Kassy, spreading the silvery paste around the butter pan as casually if she were heating oil to fry blintzes.
“No true Kabbalist would ever claim to be able to predict the future,” I said. “It is not for us to know. The Mishnah teaches that whoever reflects upon such things would be better off if he had never been born.”
“Keynehore ,” said Mrs. Gromatsky, spitting on the floor between my boots. Well, most of it went between my boots.
“Damn it, this isn’t working.” Kassy grabbed a cloth and removed the pan from the fire. “Don’t you have anything smaller?”
“Well, there’s these . . . ” Mrs. Gromatsky removed a tiny key from the folds of her apron and unlocked a drawer that was practically hidden beneath the countertop. It was full of precision metalworking tools: long, thin files, delicate clippers and tongs, and a couple of three-inch-wide smelting pans.
“My my,” said Kassy. Her eyes met mine.
“Will that do?”
“Yes, this will do nicely,” said Kassy, removing one of the smelting pans from the drawer as the cook placed a couple of perfectly formed blintzes on a plate and sprinkled them with powdered sugar.
Kassy concentrated on transferring the half-melted paste to the special pan, while Mrs. Gromatsky set out a couple of plates of blintzes with sour cream for us.
Kassy questioned me with her eyes.
I told her that it is our custom to eat dairy foods on Shvues, even in a house of mourning, because when God first called to Moses in the wilderness of Midian, He said He would lead our people out of Egypt to “a land flowing with milk and honey.”
She took the smelting pan off the fire and studied its contents, which had separated. Part of it had burned to a crust, the rest was thin and watery.
“I don’t know what it is, but it’s certainly not silver,” she said.
Mrs. Gromatsky and the cook nudged me aside to gawk at the strange half-burnt lumps, and I chose that moment to step out of the cramped kitchen and help myself to a foretaste of the Promised Land.
So I had a mouthful of cheese blintz when a heavy pounding shook the front door. For a brief, terrifying moment I thought they had come for me. My hand found the hilt of my short-bladed knife, but before I could unsheath it and get into more trouble than I could handle, Mrs. Gromatsky had unlocked the door to let in the houseboy. Instead, a captain of the guard stood framed in the archway with four armed pikemen.
“We’ve been looking for a woman who fits her description,” the captain announced, pointing at Kassy, then charging her with possession of illegal counterfeiting tools. Before I knew what was happening, the pikemen barreled in to seize her, knocking over the stack of pots in their haste and sending a few earthenware dishes crashing to the floor, even though Kassy offered no physical resistance. But she did use her tongue, castigating them for arresting her on such flimsy circumstantial evidence, while Mrs. Gromatsky yelled at them for ruining her dishes.
I swallowed hard and
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