Lamed Shapiro, "White Challa" in The Jewish Government and Other Stories, Curt Leviant, ed. and trans. (New York: Twayne), 54-64.

One time, a neighbor smashed a stray hound's leg with a heavy stone. When Vasya saw the bone protruding through the skin he burst into tears. His eyes, nose and mouth ran; his short neck, with its white flaxen hair, sank deeper into his shoulders, his entire face became distorted and shrunken, and he did not utter a sound.

He was seven years old.

Later he stopped crying. Everyone in the household drank, fought with the neighbors and with one another, beat their wives, the horse, the cow, and occasionally, in the height of rage, butted their own heads against the wall. The large family owned a small plot of land; they worked hard and clumsily, and lived together in a one-room hut where they all—men, women and children—slept together on the floor. The village was tiny and poor and far from the nearest town.

The town, which they occasionally visited at fair time, seemed big and wealthy to Vasya. Jews lived there—a people who dressed oddly, sat in stores, ate white challa and had sold Christ. The last point was somewhat fuzzy: Who was this Christ and why did they sell him? Who bought him, for what purpose, and how much did they get for him? The whole affair was foggy. On the other hand, Vasya had actually seen white challa a few times. What's more, he had once swiped a piece, eaten it, and then stood a while rapt in thought, an expectant and disappointed expression on his face. He understood nothing, but his respect for white challa remained.

He was too short for the army, but was accepted for his broad, somewhat hunched shoulders and short, thick ox-like neck. Here, too, they dealt blows: the corporal, the sergeant, the officers, the soldiers among themselves—everyone. Teaching him the rules of military service was impossible—he neither understood nor remembered. He also did not talk much. Even if he wanted to say something very badly, he could not utter a sound. His face merely became strained and his low forehead wrinkled. However, borscht and kasha were plentiful. There were also some Jews in the company, those that had sold Christ. But in their uniforms and without white challa, they almost resembled everyone else.

They spent so much time riding trains and marching, camping in fields or being billeted in strange houses that Vasily became thoroughly confused. He no longer remembered when it all began, where he had been, and who he had been before it all began. He felt as though he had always been marching from town to town with tens and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, in strange places with strange people who spoke incomprehensibly and had either frightened or hungry looks. Nothing untoward happened, except that fighting became the focal point of life. Everyone fought, not for fun, but with a vengeance till blood ran, or till death. People were hacked to pieces, bayoneted, and even, on occasion, bitten. He too fought with increasing rage and greater gusto. Food supplies arrived irregularly, and they slept little. They marched and fought a great deal. All this unnerved him. He always longed for something, felt something, and when distressed he bayed like an enraged dog, for he could not articulate his feelings.

The surrounding countryside gradually became steeper; mountain ranges were visible from all sides, and a bitter winter raged over them. They plowed through valleys kneedeep in dry grainy snow, and icy winds combed their hands and faces like potato graters. But the officers, speaking of victories, were in better humor than before. Food, not always on time, was plentiful. At night fires were occasionally permitted on the snow and then monster shadows silently ran between the mountains. The soldiers sang songs and Vasily, too, wanted to sing—but he bayed instead. They slept like the dead without fear or dreams, and at daybreak the mountains again echoed with the thunder of the cannons and people once more began their ascent up the mountains.

A horse-borne courier flew like a whirlwind through the camp; an advance cavalry unit suddenly retreated and took a flanking position. Two batteries were switched from the left flank to the right. The surrounding mountains split open like newly-active volcanoes and a rain of fire, lead and iron inundated the world.

It lasted long. Pyotr Kudo was torn to pieces; the handsome Krivenko, the platoon's leading singer, lay with his face in a puddle of blood. The girlish-faced Lieutenant Somov lost a leg; Neiman the tall, tow-headed Estonian had his entire face blown off. Pimply Gavrilov was killed. One grenade finished the two Bulgatsh brothers. Killed, too, were Haim Ostrovsky, Yan Zatika, Stashek Pyeperzh and the small Latvian whose name Vasily could not pronounce. Then entire lines were mowed down. When it was impossible to hold out any longer, Nokhem Ratchik, a tall, thin young man who had always been silent, sprang up and, without waiting for the command, rushed forward. This suddenly perked the spirits of the sluggish soldiers and they took the jagged hill on the left, whose batteries led the chorus of the enemy's artillery; almost with bare hands they strangled its defenders like kittens. But later it was learned that of the entire company only Vasily and Nokhem Ratchik had survived. Ratchik then lay for a long time on the ground vomiting green gall; near him lay his rifle, its butt smeared with blood and brains. He was not wounded, and when Vasily asked him what was the matter, he did not reply.

At nightfall they abandoned the occupied position and retreated. How and why this had happened Vasily did not know, but henceforth the army began rolling back down the mountains like stones. The further they went the quicker and less orderly the retreat became. Finally they ran ceaselessly, helter-skelter, night after day. Vasily did not recognize the region, and every place was new for him; he only heard and sensed that they were retreating. Mountain ranges and winter were far behind him. Instead, he saw a long endless plain, where spring was in its full glory. Still the army ran on. The officers turned wild and mercilessly beat the soldiers without reason. Several times they halted for a while. The cannons roared, a fiery rain pounded the earth, soldiers falling like flies, and they continued running.

Someone said that the Yids were to blame for everything.

Again the Jews. They had sold Christ, ate white challa, and, to top it off, were to blame for everything. What was everything? Vasily wrinkled his brow, enraged at the Jews and at someone else. Printed leaflets, which had been distributed among the soldiers, suddenly appeared. When they bivouacked, knots of soldiers gathered around those who could read. They stood, listened and remained silent—it was a strange, almost inhuman silence. Someone also handed Vasily a leaflet. He looked at it, touched it, put it in his chest pocket and went to hear what people were reading. He did not understand a word, except that it concerned the Yids. In that case, the Jews must know all about it, so he turned to Nokhem Ratchik:

"Here, read it."

Ratchik glanced at the leaflet and gave Vasily an odd look. He said nothing and wanted to throw the sheet away.

"Don't throw it away, it's not yours." Vasily flew into a rage. He put the pamphlet in his pocket and walked around in a passion. Then he returned to Ratchik:

"What's it say in there? It's about you, right?"

Now Nokhem flared up.

"Yes, it's about me. That I'm a traitor, understand? That I've betrayed us. That I'm a spy, like that German they caught with his papers and shot, understand?"

Vasily was frightened. Sweat broke out on his brow. Flustered, he left Nokhem. He fingered the leaflet and felt awful. This Nokhem must be a bad man—he was angry and a spy, besides. He said so himself. But something was puzzling here —so confusing that his head rang. Damn it all!

After a long run they stopped somewhere. The enemy had not been seen for several days. No shooting was heard. They only dug trenches in preparation. In about a week it began again. It turned out that the enemy was quite near. He too squatted in trenches, which moved closer daily—so close that on occasion a head could be seen over the embankments. They ate little, slept less, and fired at the place whence bullets flew, bullets that shattered the earth walls, whistling over heads, and sometimes burying themselves into human bodies.

Nokhem Ratchik was always on Vasily's left side. He never said a word, but kept loading his rifle and firing, automatically and calmly. Vasily could not stand him and sometimes felt like stabbing him from the rear with his bayonet. Once, when the firing was especially heavy, Vasily suddenly felt strangely ill-at-ease. He glanced quickly at Ratchik and saw that he lay in his previous position, rifle in hand, but with a hole in his forehead. Something snapped inside of Vasily—loudly. With blind anger, he kicked the dead body and pushed it aside. Then he began firing above the trench line, carelessly, aimlessly, exposing his head to the rain of lead spattering around him.

That night it took him hours to fall asleep. He tossed from side to side, cursing softly. Once he jumped up in a rage and broke into a run, but then remembered that Ratchik was dead; deeply disappointed, he returned to his bed. Yids. Traitors. Sold Christ. Sold him for nothing.

In his sleep he grated his teeth and tore at his flesh.

Before dawn Vasily suddenly sat up on his hard bed under a clear sky. A cold sweat covered his entire body. His teeth chattered, and his eyes, round and wide-open, tried to pierce the thick darkness. Who had been here?

It was dark and frightfully quiet, but he still heard the beating of giant wings and felt the cold of the black cloak that had touched his face in flight. Someone had coursed through the camp like a cold wind, striking during sleep, striking at the heart, and the camp had remained silent and frozen—an open grave of thousands of corpses. Who had been here? Who had been here?

During the day Lieutenant Muratov of the Yenisey regiment's fourth battalion, an irascible, wicked man with a parchment-like face, was killed. The bullet that struck him between the eyes had come from his own battalion. When asked who had done it, no one in the battalion replied. Threatened with general punishment, they still refused. Even when they were ordered to give up their weapons no one spoke up. The rest of the regiment was brought out against the battalion, but at the command, "Fire," the entire regiment to a man lowered their rifles. Another regiment was summoned and after ten minutes of firing not a soul remained of the rebellious battalion.

The next morning, two officers were hacked to pieces, and three days later two cavalrymen were involved in a fight. The entire regiment quickly split into two opposing camps and slaughtered one another until only a handful of survivors were left.

Then some men in civilian clothing appeared, and, supported by the officers, once again distributed leaflets. They spoke briefly, harping constantly on the same theme: Yids—traitors—to blame for everything.

Again Vasily was offered a leaflet, but this time he did not take it. From his pocket, like a charm, he tenderly pulled out a piece of paper—wrinkled, ripped, faded, blood-stained —and showed it to the man. He had one already and remembered it. The man who distributed the leaflets, a thin man with a sandy beard, closed one of his tiny eyes and stared at the short, broad-shouldered soldier with the short, thick neck and protruding grey, watery eyes. Then he amicably patted him on the back and departed with an odd smile on his lips.

The Jewish soldiers vanished. They had been unobtrusively gathered and sent away—no one knew where. Then everyone felt freer and more at ease; and though there were various nationalities in the units, there was one thought: The foreigners had been removed.

Then someone snarled: "The Jewish government!"

This was the army's last stand and when it crumbled the soldiers no longer stopped anywhere, but fled like beasts in a forest fire. Terror-stricken, without commanders and without order, they cast themselves into every opening provided by the enemy. Not everyone had weapons, no one had a complete issue of clothing, and their undershirts lay like skin on their unwashed bodies. The summer sun blazed mercilessly; they ate whatever they could steal. In the towns they already heard their native language. Familiar fields spread out around them, but they were unrecognizable. Last year's wheat lay rotting, trampled into the earth, and the land was dry, grey and pock-marked, like the corpse of an ox whose entrails had been devoured by wolves. Soldiers crawled like clusters of grey worms on the ground, while a flock of black ravens hovered overhead, cawing drily and petitely, sounding like rotten linen tearing. Turning in bewildering circles, they waited for what was theirs, waited for what was theirs....

Between Kolov and Zhaditsa the starving and provoked legions caught up with huge groups of Jews who had been expelled from the border towns—they, their wives and children, their sick and their belongings. The cry, "Kill!" came briefly and mutedly, like the roar of a cannon. Vasily held off at first, but the shrieks of the women and children, and the awful terror of the men with the long sidecurls and windblown gabardines provoked him, and he cut into the Jews like an enraged bull. They were dispatched with merciful swiftness. The army rode through them like a herd of galloping horses and inundated the flat fields. One madman remained in the ruins of Dobroslavo, the sole survivor in town, barking like a dog.

The number of disbanded units increased. The peasant left his village, the burgher his town. Priests holding ikons and crosses led processions through the villages and with pious enthusiasm blessed the folk—the byword was "the Jewish government." The Jews themselves realized that their final hour—their very last—had come. Whoever had remained alive went to die among Jews in Maliasi, the largest and oldest Jewish city in the land. Maliasi had been a center of Torah scholarship since the fourteenth century; it had old synagogues and great yeshivas, rabbis and modern intellectuals, and ancient families of scholars and merchants. Here Jews held public fasts, confessed their sins, begging forgiveness of good friends and enemies. Old men recited Psalms, penitential hymns and prayers for the dying, and young men burned grain and clothing, broke furniture, and smashed and ruined other things that might have been useful to the oncoming army. And come it did . . . from all sides, burning the town and pouring into the streets. Young men attempted to resist with revolvers in hand. The revolvers sputtered like toy guns. The soldiers replied with thunderous laughter, and drew the veins out of the young men one by one and broke their bones to pieces. Then they swarmed over the houses, killing the men where they found them and dragging the women into the marketplace.

One quick blow with his fist broke the lock and the door opened.

Vasily had neither slept nor eaten for forty-eight hours. His skin burned with dry heat, his bones felt as if they had been wrongly set, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face overgrown with tiny flaxen hairs.

"Food," he groaned hoarsly.

No one answered. At the table, in a black coat, stood a tall Jew with a black beard, sidecurls and melancholy eyes.

He pressed his lips and maintained a stubborn silence. Vasily angrily took a step forward and repeated:

"Food!"

But the sound was more subdued now. He had noticed another figure near the window—a young, black-haired woman dressed in white.

Her two large eyes—he had never before seen such huge eyes—looked at him and past him, and her glance made Vasily momentarily lift his hand to cover his eyes. His knees shook and he felt that he was melting. What sort of woman was this? What sort of people were these? God! Why, why did they have to sell Christ? And to top it off, they were responsible for everything. Ratchik himself had said so. They kept silent and always looked far away, damn it. What did they want? And he grabbed his head with both hands.

He felt something and looked around. The Jew stood near him, deathly pale, his eyes radiating hatred. For a while Vasily looked at him dully. Then suddenly, he grabbed the beard and gave it a murderous tug.

A white figure slipped in between them, but the rage swirled in his head and seared his throat. With one hand he tore at the white figure. Trrr. A long strip of cloth was torn from the dress and blouse and it hung at the hem. The glitter nearly blinded him. Half a breast, a well-shaped shoulder, a full-rounded hip—all white and soft, like white challa. The devil take it, these Yids were made of white challa. A hot stream singed his entire body from head to toe; his hand flew out like a spring and shot into the torn dress.

A hand grabbed his throat, choking him. He slowly turned to the Jew and stared with narrowed eyes and bared teeth, without removing the feeble fingers from his neck. Then he raised his shoulders, bent over like a stiff wheel, picked the man up by his feet, lifted him and swung him down against the sharp edge of the table. Then he threw him away like a broken stick.

The man groaned feebly and the woman shrieked. But he was already on top of her. He pressed her to the floor, tearing at her clothes and flesh. Now she was ugly, her face splotchy, the tip of her nose red, her dishevelled hair covering her face. "Witch!" he grated through his teeth; then he grabbed her nose and twisted it like a screw. She emitted a short, mechanical, high-pitched scream like the whistle of a locomotive. The screech pierced his brain and drove him wild. He grabbed her throat and strangled her.

Before his eyes a white shoulder twitched; on it lay a full, round drop of fresh blood. His nostrils fluttered like wings. He began to grind his clenched teeth; suddenly he opened his mouth and sank his teeth deeply into the white flesh. White challa . . . it had the taste of firm, juicy oranges. The juice is warm, the juice^ is hot; the more one sucked, the thirstier one got. The juice is pungent and thick, strangely spiced, strangely spiced, indeed.

It was like sliding down a mountain in a sled, like drinking strong whiskey. Like both at once.

In a circle, in a circle, coursed the juices of life from body to body . . . from one to another, from the second back to the first. In a circle, in a circle. Pillars of smoke and pillars of fire rose to the sky from the entire town. The fire on the great altar burned beautifully. The cries of the sacrificial victims—long, drawn-out, endless—were sweet in the ears of the god who was eternal as the Eternal God. And the tender parts, thighs and breasts, were the portion of the priest.