Verble’s mustache, a long one, was distinguished by the hairs at the ends, which had been waxed to a fine line. “At last! All authorities are in agreement. Urinstein, we’ll just use your fountain pen—”

“Not quite all authorities. Not every one.” The rabbi of the Fur Trimmers, even with his wrenched neck, started to speak. “My fellow scholars have overlooked the words of the mighty Rambam: If heathens say to the Israelites, ‘Surrender one of your number to us, that we may put him to death, otherwise we will put all of you to death,’ they should all suffer death rather than surrender a single Israelite to them. Thus wrote Maimonides.”

There was a murmur in the crowd. “There were not,” remarked Paradyz, “Gatling guns then.”

The hair, the beard, stood out wildly from every spot on Kornischoner’s face. But his small round eyes were wet and shiny. “Furthermore, the Jerusalem Talmud says that if a company of Jews is walking down the road, and the heathens approach them with the same demand, then, though they be all killed, they shall not surrender a single soul from Israel. Not a single soul, Baluters!”

“But why do we keep talking about killing, about death? It’s just a trip they are taking.”

“What about a soul that isn’t from Israel? We have many Christians in the Ghetto.”

Margolies, narrow-eyed, worried-looking, approached Kornischoner. “Rabbi! Say something else! Make a different suggestion! Tell us what to do!”

But the rabbi, thin as sticks, turned aside. “I can’t talk! My neck is twisted! I can’t make puffs this way!”

Rabbi Wolf-Kitzes, solemnly: “Everyone in the Baluty Suburb should start to pray. We will blow the shofar the entire night. Something will happen to make these hard hearts softer.”

“Pray? Is that what you have to tell us? Pray?” There was, in the House of Lords, general consternation.

Then an idea came to the Descendant. “One moment, please. There are certain exceptions to the rulings that the rabbi of the Fur Trimmers has quoted. If the demand of the heathens is not for just anyone, but for a named individual, Jew X, Y, or Z, then in order to avoid greater bloodshed he should be given up. Examples of such cases abound. Was not Johoiakim surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, in order to save the Temple? When King David’s forces declared they would destroy the city of Abel unless Sheba, the traitor, was given to them, was not the head of Sheba forthwith thrown over the wall? Give them, I say, their fifty heads, rather than let the whole city suffer.”

Suddenly the Chancellory was in an uproar. Everyone talked at-once. Gutfreind’s voice boomed the loudest. “But these victims were named by the heathens. In our case, we, we alone, must pick and choose.”

The Minister of Housing: “But we could ask the Others to give us hints. They could name the ones they wanted, and we would just write them down.”

Wolf-Kitzes: “No, no. The Judenrat may not set its hand to any such list. However, it may cause the list to be drawn up by its clerks.”