Chad Gadya

Sleep Tight and Don't Let the Beds Bite

   I thought after dealing with the spirit of Bathsheba's husband, things couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong. My next experience made exorcism look tame, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

     Alexandros guided us north like a holy person leading pilgrims on a pilgrimage. I liked that metaphor because it definitely explained some of sufferings — sorry, minor inconveniences — of traveling afoot. First thing's first: my legs and feet were so sore every night when we stopped to rest that I would ungracefully flip into whatever "bed" we had for the night. Sometimes it was made of straw. Sometimes it was made of leaves. Once, it was made of plastic bags (don't ask and I won't tell).

    Secondly, there weren't many provisions where we were. We had soon scarfed down what Alexandros had bought in the last town. The first couple days, hunger racked my stomach like a sharp knife piercing my abdomen. Eventually, my hunger faded to an empty hollowness that was occasionally punctuated by sharp pangs of hunger.

    Thirdly, we didn't have any clothes to change into and I hadn't gotten a shower in over a week. My clothes were now peppered with holes. I wondered if they'd fall apart and we'd have to weave clothes out of fig leaves. I wasn't even sure if there were fig trees in Russia. I resolved that next time I went on a quest, I would Google important questions like that beforehand.

To pass the time, we played games. At first, it was initials, but after Alexandros chose one obscure Torah scholar too many, we decided to play I Spy. When we got bored of that, I asked my mother to tell a story. "About what?" she asked.

"Anything," I said. "I'm bored."

"I'm tired," Marzipan said with a gusty sigh.

"I'm hungry," Kuni said.

"We've been walking for days," I said.

My mother gave us all concerned looks. "Why don't we all sit down and rest for a minute?"

Alexandros looked like they might argue, but my mother's expression was firm and they assented with a nod. I gratefully sank to the ground. It was cold and hard and I missed my bed more than I ever thought I would. "They left this part out of all the adventure books I've read," I said.

Marzipan rolled her eyes. "Who wants to read about kids with leg cramps and dry throats?"

Kuni groaned. "Don't remind me. My throat feels like the Dead Sea."

My mother looked as exhausted as any of us, but she smiled and told us all to relax and listen to her story. "I'm going to tell you why chests don't have wheels."

"Boring," Marzipan said with an exaggerated yawn. "Next."

I poked her. "Don't be rude. My mom tells the best stories."

"There once was a poor man," my mother began. "He lived with his wife at the top of a hill. After the rabbi's daughter married, they remarked on how lovely the cake tasted. 'You know,' the man told his wife. 'If we saved up, we could have a cake just as scrumptious as this one.'"

"The wife liked the idea, so they both agreed to deposit one coin each Shabbat into their wheeled chest," my mother continued. "They agreed to keep the chest locked and not open it for six months. They each deposited one coin on the first Shabbat, but as the next week progressed, both of them had second thoughts."

    "The wife wanted to buy a bone to make soup," my mother said. "She decided that in six months, her husband would have put enough coins in the chest for them to have a decent enough cake. The husband was thinking long the same lines, wanting to save up for a new book instead of a cake. So they both stopped putting coins in the chest."