Then, in the air, there was a strange sound, like a cork coming out of a bottle. One, two, three—all the Jews disappeared. One minute there they were, a crowd of thousands, with big metal tubas, and the next minute there was nothing at all. This was all the more astonishing because no one knew for sure whether the popping sound had indeed been a shot. That became clear only when Rievesaltes’ big white stallion, the one that had once belonged to the Elder, dropped onto its knees, the way a camel does to let its rider dismount. Then the beast collapsed completely, and Rievesaltes ran off on his uneven legs.

From that day onward the Jewish Council no longer counted within the Balut. Of course it still ran the soup kitchens and deloused the houses and delivered the mail. But no one paid attention to its rules. When a new tax was announced, with severe penalties for nonpayment, hardly a “Trumpkie,” much less hard zlotys, came in. What happened was the no-neckers went around and collected the money first. The police force, in fact, was the real government of the Suburb. Rievesaltes’ word was the law. He was the one who set the new curfew hour, made the new spinning-mill quotas, decided whether or not there would be a coupon for coffee in that week’s ration book. If you didn’t like it, if you had a complaint, your name might show up on the resettlement list.

But for all his power, the Security Minister was just as frightened as the rest of the Judenrat. So were all rich Jews, and the café owners, and the owners of casinos. It was the Communists, the sharpshooters, who made them tremble. Not a single policeman dared to walk the streets alone. Thus the Lipskyites were like a third government within the Ghetto. The other two did everything they could to bring it down. The Judenrat offered, for the capture of the underground leader, a fifty-thousand-zloty reward. Time after time the police force would sweep through a section of the Suburb, certain they had at last trapped their prize. No luck. No Lipsky. Once they came upon poor Mister Kemp, in the act of slipping leaflets under a door. They poured water on his head. They hit him with rubber rods. But the ex-finisher, a veteran of the Five Day Strike, refused to talk. Where was the little lawyer? The agitator? It was as if he were made from puffs of wind.

Ladies, gentlemen, you know somebody else was missing, too. Trumpelman, Trumpelman! Why talk about the Judenrat, the Lipskyites, the power of Rievesaltes? Had not the fourth government, the Conquerors themselves, once declared: “Every Jew and Jewess must obey the Elder’s commands”? But the fact was the citizens of the Balut had not seen the Elder for almost a year. Two, then three months went by after the roundup at the House of Culture, and Trumpelman remained in his mansion. Mourning for the deported Ghetto Queen, that was the official explanation. But gradually the word got out, perhaps from the Guardsmen, perhaps from the Jewish Council, that at the Geyser the Elder had suffered a stroke.