Now they were all standing on the riverbank, the men and women gathered in clusters by gender. The smaller children, pushed to the front by their parents, scampered back and forth a bit among the women and the men, though most of the littlest ones huddled closer to their mothers, even if they were boys. Wilhelm, standing with his mother and grandmother, looked around at the other children, both in the women’s section and in the men’s. The girls looked more or less like the girls in the schoolyard in Vienna. But the boys—everyone except Wilhelm—had long locks of hair alongside their ears, like little flaps; some of them, the very smallest ones, had long hair all around, almost like girls. The children stared back at him, then moved away from him. Wilhelm began to feel very hot, despite the cool breeze blowing from the river. Someone had begun passing out little pieces of stale bread, and Aunt Sarah stuck one in Wilhelm’s hand.

Wilhelm looked at the bread, grateful. The service had been long, and he was starving. But as he brought it to his mouth, he felt Aunt Sarah smack his hand, making him drop the piece of bread on the riverbank. He looked at the bread in the mud and felt himself about to cry.

His grandmother stooped down to face him, holding his chin in one hand and picking up the bread with the other. “It’s not for eating,” she said in her funny way of talking, putting the piece of bread back in his hand. “It’s supposed to be your sins—everything you did wrong during the past year. We’re going to say a prayer now, and then you’re going to throw it in the river and ask God to forgive you—to forgive you,” she finished in awkward German.

Wilhelm was stunned. He looked at the piece of bread, now half covered with mud, fascinated. But before he had time to think about it, all the women and men began chanting and mumbling, the men with prayer books, most of the women without. Wilhelm’s grandmother had a little book, though. She remained stooped by Wilhelm’s ear, telling him what they were saying in her funny way of talking, and then his mother bent down too, putting her face between them and turning the funny words back into German.