And then the Elder began to beat himself, too. On the head. On his hat. Real, hard blows. “Nincompoop! Nincompoop!” he shouted, again and again. Why a man should attack his own body that way is of course difficult to say. But is it not likely that the Elder, who always thought he was smarter than anyone, had at that instant realized he did not know two plus two? Because any fool could have told him what four was: They were going to kill every last Jew in the Balut! That’s why the Schoolmaster, such a high official, had come. To observe the great day. Blind! Blind! Totally blind! No wonder he knocked his head about. He wouldn’t escape like young Czerniakow. He would be murdered with the rest.

Up, down, the steambath started to rock. Mist, bright and white, seemed to be closing around him. He couldn’t see anything. But he saw everything. It wasn’t just the Baluty Suburb that was being destroyed. And not simply Warsaw either. What about Crakow and Lwow and Pinsk? Every ghetto would be liquidated. If not today, then tomorrow. Budapest, too! And London! And the Jews of New York! Not just Jews! Half Jews! Quarter Jews! Non-Jews with Jewish faces or Jewish husbands or Jewish wives. There was no end to it. It was the mere beginning.

The Lithuanian stood limply, holding his glasses, holding his cane. Would someone tell him why the whole world was spinning? Had he struck his head too hard? He knew that outside, to the west of the city, the sun was going down. But why did it seem to be stuck over the top of the Rumkowsky Geyser? Its light kept pouring in. It made the steam whiter and whiter. Poor Poles! Poor people! That’s what he thought. He knew they would be the next to go. And then what? Then who? Slavs! Yellow Mongolians! Negroes in Africa. The earth’s population would be turned into Jews!

The High and Mighty, only they would remain.

Then it came to Chaim, with the terrible power of logic, that there could be no exceptions, that even then the killing was not going to stop. The Race of Masters would turn on itself, Blond One on Blond One, until out of millions and millions of human beings just one man would be left alive. Who? Who was he? Trumpelman lifted his head. He peered into the leaping light. Was someone there? Someone else? He blinked against the dazzle, the glare. A movement, a color, caught his eye. Where? There! There, in the highest place, under the dome, a figure was sitting, a person made out of light. Instantly, as if all the steam had been sucked from the roof top, he saw the bare pink body plain. Big Man! Big Man! It was the Big Man!

Trumpelman shuddered. It wasn’t from fear. Not from awe. Proudly he threw his wet cloak around him. “The dog,” he said, his own lips curling. “Uncircumcised!” Then the Elder fell with a thump to the floor.