Lubji turned back, unsure what he meant. He then watched as the shopkeeper deposited the note in a tin box and extracted some coins, which he handed across the counter.
Once he was back on the street, the six-year-old studied the coins with great interest. They had numbers stamped on one side, and the head of a man he didn’t recognize on the other.
Encouraged by this transaction, he moved on to the potter’s shop, where he purchased a bowl which he hoped his mother would find some use for in exchange for half his coins.
Lubji’s next stop was at Mr. Lekski’s, the jeweler, where his eyes settled on the beautiful brooch displayed in the center of the window. He pushed open the door and marched up to the counter, coming face to face with an old man who wore a suit and tie.
‘And how can I help you, little one?’ Mr. Lekski asked, leaning over to look down at him.
‘I want to buy that brooch for my mother,’ he said, pointing back toward the window and hoping that he sounded confident. He opened his clenched fist to reveal the three small coins left over from the morning’s bargaining.
The old man didn’t laugh, but gently explained to Lubji that he would need many more coins than that before he could hope to purchase the brooch. Lubji’s cheeks reddened as he curled up his fingers and quickly turned to leave.
‘But why don’t you come back tomorrow,’ suggested the old man. ‘Perhaps I’ll be able to find something for you.’ Lubji’s face was so red that he ran onto the street without looking back.
Lubji couldn’t sleep that night. He kept repeating over and over to himself the words Mr. Lekski had said. The following morning he was standing outside the shop long before the old man had arrived to open the front door. The first lesson Lubji learned from Mr. Lekski was that people who can afford to buy jewelry don’t rise early in the morning.
Mr. Lekski, an elder of the town, had been so impressed by the sheer chutzpah of the six-year-old child in daring to enter his shop with nothing more than a few worthless coins, that over the next few weeks he indulged the son of the cattle trader by answering his constant stream of questions. It wasn’t long before Lubji began to drop into the shop for a few minutes every afternoon. But he would always wait outside if the old man was serving someone. Only after the customer had left would he march in, stand by the counter and rattle off the questions he’d thought up the previous night.
Mr. Lekski noted with approval that Lubji never asked the same question twice, and that whenever a customer entered the shop he would quickly retreat into the corner and hide behind the old man’s daily newspaper. Although he turned the pages, the jeweler couldn’t be sure if he was reading the words or just looking at the pictures.
One evening, after Mr. Lekski had locked up for the night, he took Lubji round to the back of the shop to show him his motor vehicle. Lubji’s eyes opened wide when he was told that this magnificent object could move on its own without being pulled by a horse. ‘But it has no legs,’ he shouted in disbelief. He opened the car door and climbed in beside Mr. Lekski. When the old man pressed a button to start the engine, Lubji felt both sick and frightened at the same time. But despite the fact that he could only just see over the dashboard, within moments he wanted to change places with Mr. Lekski and sit in the driver’s seat.
Mr. Lekski drove Lubji through the town, and dropped him outside the front door of the cottage. The child immediately ran into the kitchen and shouted to his mother, ‘One day I will own a motor vehicle.’ Zelta smiled at the thought, and didn’t mention that even the rabbi only had a bicycle. She went on feeding her youngest child — swearing once again it would be the last. This new addition had meant that the fast-growing Lubji could no longer squeeze onto the mattress with his sisters and brothers. Lately he had had to be satisfied with copies of the rabbi’s old newspapers laid out in the fireplace.
Almost as soon as it was dusk, the children would fight for a place on the mattress: the Hochs couldn’t afford to waste their small supply of candles on lengthening the day. Night after night, Lubji would lie in the fireplace thinking about Mr. Lekski’s motor car, trying to work out how he could prove his mother wrong. Then he remembered the brooch she only wore at Rosh Hashanah. He began counting on his fingers, and calculated that he would have to wait another six weeks before he could carry out the plan already forming in his mind.
Lubji lay awake for most of the night before Rosh Hashanah. Once his mother had dressed the following morning, his eyes rarely left her — or, to be more accurate, the brooch she wore. After the service she was surprised that when they left the synagogue he clung to her hand on the way back home, something she couldn’t recall him doing since his third birthday. Once they were inside their little cottage, Lubji sat cross-legged in the corner of the fireplace and watched his mother unclip the tiny piece of jewelry from her dress. For a moment Zelta stared at the heirloom, before kneeling and removing the loose plank from the floor beside the mattress, and putting the brooch carefully in the old cardboard box before replacing the plank.
Lubji remained so still as he watched her that his mother became worried, and asked him if he wasn’t feeling well.
‘I’m all right, Mother,’ he said. ‘But as it’s Rosh Hashanah, I was thinking about what I ought to be doing in the new year.’ His mother smiled, still nurturing the hope that she had produced one child who might become a rabbi. Lubji didn’t speak again as he considered the problem of the box. He felt no guilt about committing what his mother would have described as a sin, because he had already convinced himself that long before the year was up he would return everything, and no one would be any the wiser.
That night, after the rest of the family had climbed onto the mattress, Lubji huddled up in the corner of the fireplace and pretended to be asleep until he was sure that everyone else was. He knew that for the six restless, cramped bodies, two heads at the top, another two at the bottom, with his mother and father at the ends, sleep was a luxury that rarely lasted more than a few minutes.
Once Lubji was confident that no one else was awake, he began to crawl cautiously round the edge of the room, until he reached the far side of the mattress. His father’s snoring was so thunderous that Lubji feared that at any moment one of his brothers or sisters must surely wake and discover him.
Lubji held his breath as he ran his fingers across the floorboards, trying to discover which one would prize open.
The seconds turned into minutes, but suddenly one of the planks shifted slightly. By pressing on one end with the palm of his right hand Lubji was able to ease it up slowly. He lowered his left hand into the hole, and felt the edge of something. He gripped it with his fingers, and slowly pulled out the cardboard box, then lowered the plank back into place.
Lubji remained absolutely still until he was certain that no one had witnessed his actions. One of his younger brothers turned over, and his sisters groaned and followed suit. Lubji took advantage of the fuddled commotion and scurried back around the edge of the room, only stopping when he reached the front door.
He pushed himself up off his knees, and began to search for the doorknob. His sweaty palm gripped the handle and turned it slowly. The old spindle creaked noisily in a way he had never noticed before. He stepped outside into the path and placed the cardboard box on the ground, held his breath and slowly closed the door behind him.
Lubji ran away from the house clutching the little box to his chest. He didn’t look back; but had he done so, he would have seen his great-uncle staring at him from his larger house behind the cottage. ‘Just as I feared,’ the rabbi muttered to himself. ‘He takes after his father’s side of the family.’