They tried to talk my brother out of making this pilgrimage, his apostles and those who loved him. Way too dangerous, they declared, especially now on Rosh Hashanah when tens of thousands of Hasidim, men only, from all around the world flock to Uman to chant the Tikkun HaKlali beseeching the holy Rabbi Nahman for his intervention in granting a blessed New Year, and also to prophylactically vaccinate their young sons, dragged along for the festivities, from the pollution of wet dreams. It was the Jewish version of the annual Muslim hajj, the Hindu Kumbh Mela, Woodstock, they would be stampeded to death by the herds. The Ukrainian high-rises, slapped together by alcoholics from the cheapest junk, which had been vacated by the locals so that they could rent their apartments to the Jews for extortionate sums, these excuses for housing would crumble and collapse thanks to the pounding and stomping of the Hasidim dancing twenty-four hours a day in ecstatic circles. He would be crushed to death for sure along with the rest of them because, due to the fact that he was crippled in body though not, God forbid, in soul, his apartment would be located on the ground-zero floor, anything higher was not feasible, the elevator, if one existed, chronically out of order, the Sabbath elevator, programmed to stop automatically on each floor on days when it is forbidden to summon it electrically, lost in limbo, the whole pile of schlock would come smashing down upon his head, his precious body parts would be buried in the rubble, their sacred sparks growing more and more feeble. The town would be crawling with drug dealers and bootleggers and prostitutes from end to end, converging on Uman from Kiev and the far corners of the cursed land, Baba Yagas from the black hole of Babi Yar, descending on the Rabbi Nahman mosh pit during this holiday season to service the Hasidim who were soaring on the heights, all their senses ravenous and aroused. Under the circumstances, it was not in his interest to add fuel to the fire by letting himself be seen and recognized in such an environment, considering the nature of the false charges that had been leveled against him, which had launched him into such a mercilessly grueling flight. He would be obliged to go around in public wearing a heavy modesty veil attached to his black hat draped over his face to hide his identity, but above all to conceal such offensive sights from his eyes, to prevent himself from unwittingly catching a glimpse of the short, tight skirts packaging buttocks like two rising challahs, the high heels like a dagger to the prostate, the overflowing milky breasts, the meaty lips, bright, moist red. Above all, his disciples pleaded with him, Uman was now infested with Israeli official types, ruthless enforcers, Mossad, Shin Bet, cops, many of them disguised as fellow Hasidim so that you couldn’t tell who was what. Ukraine had a very strict extradition treaty with Israel, it welcomed these judenrats with open arms, let them do the dirty work. As far as they were concerned, he could be their very own Son of God, JC himself (not to compare, God forbid, to separate by thousands upon thousands of separations), it would not stop them from snatching him in a flash and turning him in for thirty silver shekels, disappearing him, handing him over to the Pharisees, they were shameless, without scruples. No one would ever see him again, except maybe in a glass booth Israeli-style like a freak in a circus, or an iron cage Russian-style like an animal in a zoo before he is dumped into the sea and finds his resting place at last in the belly of the big fish.