Read Online For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories by Nathan Englander - Free Book Online

Chelm. It was this efficiency, Mendel knew, that would catch up with them.
    “It’s like we are in the bowels of the earth,” Raizel said, motioning to the catwalk and the sandbags and the endless ropes and pegs.
    “Which one to pull for rain?” Feitel said. “And which for a good harvest?”
    “And which for redemption?” the Rebbe said—his tone forlorn and as close as he came to despair.
    “You did a wonderful job,” Mendel said. He, against all they had been taught, put a hand to Raizel’s cheek. “The costumes are most imaginative.” He knocked his elbows together, and the spoons clinked like a dull chime.
    “A wonder with a needle and thread. It’s true.” This from Zahava in a breastplate of cigarette boxes and with pipe cleaners sewn to her knees.
    The widow slipped an arm around Zahava’s waist—always such a trim girl, even before—and pulled her close as she used to do Sabbath mornings on the way out of the shtibl. Raizel squeezed her as tightly as she could, and Zahava, more gently, squeezed back. Both held their eyes closed. It was obvious that they were together in another place, back outside the shtibl when the dogwoods were in bloom, both in new dresses, modest and lovely.
    Mendel and the Rebbe and Feitel, all the Mahmirim who could not join in the embrace or the escape to better times, looked away. It was too much to bear unopaqued by any of the usual defenses. They raised their eyes as Zahava planted a kiss on the old woman’s head, a kiss so sincere that Mendel tried to cut the gravity by half:
    “You know,” he said, “never has so much been made of the accidental boarding of a second-class train.”
    His observation, a poor joke, did not get a single smile. It only set the Mahmirim to looking about once again, desperate for a place on which to rest their gazes.
    It may have come from a leaky pipe, a hole in the roof, or off the chin of the stage manager darting about, but most likely it was a tear abandoned by an anonymous eye. It hit the floor, a single drop, immediately to the right of the Rebbe.
    “What is this?” the Rebbe said. “I won’t have it. Not for a minute!”
    Mendel and the others put on expressions as if they did notknow to what he referred, as if they did not sense the somberness and the defeat rising up around them.
    “Come, come,” said the Rebbe. “We are on first, and Shraga has not yet perfected his Full Twisting Voltas.” He tapped out a four beat with his foot. “Hup,” he said. “From the top,” he said, exhausting all of the vocabulary that he had learned.
    They made a space for themselves and ran through the routine, the Rebbe not letting them rest for a moment and Mendel loving him with all his heart.
    The manager came for them at five minutes to curtain. It was then, from the wings, that they got to see it all. The red carpets and festooned gold braids, the chandelier and frescoed ceiling—full of heroes and maidens and celestial rays—hemmed in by elaborate moldings. And the moldings themselves were bedecked with rosy-cheeked cherubim carved from wood. There was also the audience—the women in gowns and hair piled high, the men in their uniforms, pinned heavy with medals for efficiency and bravery and strength. An important audience, just the kind to make a nervous man sweat. There was also a box up and off to the left; in it sat a leader and his escort, a man of great power on whom, Mendel could tell, a part of everyone was focused. The chandelier was turned down and the stage lights came up and the manager whispered “Go” so that Shraga stepped out onto the stage. The others followed. It was as plain as that. They followed because there was nothing else to do.
    For a moment, then two, then three, they all stood at the back of the stage, blinded. Raizel put a hand up to her eyes. There was a cough and then a chuckle. The echo had not yet come to rest when the Rebbe called out:
    “To your marks!”
    Lifting their heads, straightening