Tilting the Balance

Bristles rasped under his fingers as he rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. From here on out, he’d shave every day, no matter what: putting it off till tomorrow was liable to make him resemble himself too much.

He finally reached the head of the line, bought a couple of cabbages, and asked the price of some green onions the peddler had in a little wicker basket on his cart. When the fellow told him, he clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, “Ganef! You should grow like an onion-with your head in the ground.”

“An onion should grow from your pippuk,” the vegetable seller retorted, answering one Yiddish execration with another. “Then it would be cheaper.”

They haggled for a while, but Russie couldn’t beat the man down to a price that wouldn’t leave Rivka furious at him, so he gave up and left, carrying his cabbages in a canvas bag. He thought about stopping to buy a cup of tea from a fellow with a battered tin samovar, but decided that would be tempting fate. The sooner he got out of the square, the fewer eyes would have a chance to light on him.

Going out, though, was swimming against the tide. The Balut Market square had filled even fuller when he stood in line. Then, abruptly, the swarm of people coming in slowed. Russie looked up just in time to keep from being run over by Chaim Rumkowski’s coach.

The horse that drew the four-wheeled carriage snorted in annoyance as the driver, a hard-faced man in a gray greatcoat and quasimilitary cap, hauled back on the reins to stop it. The driver looked annoyed, too. Russie touched the brim of his own cap and mumbled, “Sorry, sir.” He’d had plenty of practice fawning on the Germans, but doing it for one of his own people grated even harder on him.

Mollified, the driver dipped his head, but from behind him came the querulous voice of an elderly man:

“You up there-come here.” Heart sinking, Russie obeyed. As he walked back toward Rumkowski, he saw that the driver’s bench still sported a neat sign left over from the days of German domination: WAGEN DES AELTESTEN DER JUDEN (coach of the Eldest of the Jews), with the same in smaller letters in Yiddish below.

He wondered if the Eldest still wore a yellow Star of David on his right breast, as the Nazis had required the ghetto Jews to do. No, he found to his relief, although he could still see where the star had been sewn onto Rumkowski’s herringbone tweed overcoat.

Then Moishe stopped worrying about small things, for sitting beside Rumkowski, almost hidden by his bulk, was a Lizard. Russie didn’t think he had ever seen this particular alien, but he couldn’t be sure. He felt as if all the posters with his picture on them were growing hands and pointing straight at him.

Rumkowski pointed straight at him, too, with a stubby forefinger. “You should be careful. You were almost badly hurt.”

“Yes, Eldest. I’m sorry, Eldest.” Russie looked down at the ground, both to show humility and to keep Rumkowski and the Lizard from getting a good look at him. The aliens had as much trouble telling people apart as people did with their kind, but he did not want to find himself an exception to the rule.

The Lizard leaned forward to see him without being blocked by Rumkowski’s body. Its eye turrets swiveled in a way Russie knew well. In fair German, it asked him, “What do you have in that bag?”

“Only a couple of cabbages.” Russie had the presence of mind not to add superior sir, as he had learned to do back in Warsaw. That would just let the Lizard know he was familiar with the usages of its kind.

“How much did you pay for these cabbages?” Rumkowski asked.

“Ten zlotys, Eldest,” Moishe said.

Rumkowski turned to the Lizard and said, “You see, Bunim, how we have flourished under your rule. A few months ago, these cabbages would have been many times as dear. We are always grateful for your aid, and will do whatever we can to continue deserving your favor.”

“Yes, of course,” Bunim said. Had he been a human, Russie would have thought his voice full of contempt: how could one not feel contemptuous of such an abject thing as Rumkowski had become? Yet the Lizards, even more than the Germans, assumed themselves to be the Herrenvolk, the master race. Perhaps Bunim accepted sycophancy from the Eldest simply as his due.

Rumkowski pointed to his own propaganda posters on the walls of the market square. “We know our debt, Bunim, and we work hard to repay it.”

Bunim swung one eye toward the posters while keeping the other on Russie. Moishe made ready to fling the cabbages at his scaly face and flee. But the Lizard just said, “Continue on this course and all will be well.”