The Judenrat Chairman spoke to Lipiczany. “Why do I feel that we are living though this moment a second time? Where was the first time? When?”

Instantly Nisel remembered. Trumpelman had been the one standing, weeping. The child was the one on the bed. He saw that room again, the turned-on light bulb, the face of the Director, the Director’s shining hair. He had thought he was seeing an angel, a knight.

The moment came back to Trumpelman, too. “It was in the old Asylum. On Krzyzanowsky. I listened to your heart. I was your doctor, and I brought you back to life.”

“It isn’t true! Zam did it! It was Doctor Zam who gave me the shot!”

“Yes, Zam! With imported suits! Now he’s a Communist, ha-ha!”

The boy gripped the gun with both hands. “You’re no doctor! You were never a doctor! What lying! It’s shameful! We know the truth about you!”

“Not a doctor! Before I was half your age I had cured hundreds of people. Hundreds! I’m not talking about Indians! About America! Not those fairy tales. I’m talking about a little town, my own town. The kind with a puddle in it. This puddle froze in the winter, it shrank in the summer, but it never once went away. This is the truth about me! This town! This puddle! The Jews walked around it all their lives!”

“I won’t listen!” cried Nisel. “Stop talking!”

“When I was an infant, before I could talk, the Jews came to me with their boils, their sores. I sat high in a chair. It was like a throne. With cushions! With satin! Why was this? Why such an honor? Because I had blue eyes. Blue eyes! That meant I was a wonder-worker! Should we do this? the people would ask. Should we do that? I did not understand a word they were saying. I just heard their voices and shook my head or nodded, ha-ha, ha-ha, like a clever horse!”

Lipiczany could not help staring at the Elder. The man’s eyes were round still, like a child’s, and blue-colored. They made you think that what he said was true.

“It worked! People got better. Jews came from other towns. Even from Vilna. Take this medicine, but don’t take that one, I said. Or, Buy this potion, fill up a teaspoon with it, and pour the teaspoon onto the ground. One person I told to swim in water. Another to walk without clothes in the cold. Why I said these things I do not know. It was as if someone else and not I were speaking. One day I looked down from my seat and I saw a whole crowd of people kneeling before me. Thousands, it seemed. My head started to spin! I was like a drunkard! The crowd rose up. Rabbi! Tell us! Why do we suffer? That is what they were crying. Rabbi! Prince!

“From that day I ceased being a healer. I devoted myself to study. Day and night I was reading. I did not eat. I did not sleep. I never spoke to another soul. Years passed this way. The puddle grew and shrank and grew and shrank, as if it were breathing. The whole world, these thousands of people, were waiting for me to solve their riddle: What is a Jew? Why does he suffer? No scholar knew more than I!”