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the gray of a weathered fence from the dimness of a muddy yard. Why should they leave?

SIX
    SPRING PASSED into summer, and before the green leaves turned to autumn gold, Uncle Chizor left for America. True to this word, he would not celebrate one more Jewish holiday in the
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country of Russia. Reuven had mastered the Bach concerto, and was even mastering the intricacies of the Dvo?ák, which had seemed deceptively simple. He had improved since that first night of seder when he had played it. He had learned that nothing was simple, and many things were deceptive.
    But not a day went by that Reuven did not think of Muttle, and now Uncle Chizor was gone too. Reuven had been thinking of him often in the three weeks since he had gone. He sat by the river now and thought about the deception of things, of appearances, of people, of music, of holiness, of words, and of the river itself, where he had last spoken with Muttle five months before. It was still unbelievable, unacceptable, that those words would be the last that he and Muttle would ever exchange. How placid the river had been on that day. How placid it was on this day. Yet Reuven knew that there was a strong current. It was a dangerous river. Here at this very spot the current might not be so strong, but one hundred meters down it grew fierce. Still one wouldnever know, for it never showed on the surface because the river was so deep. Anyone weighing under thirty-five kilos had no chance if he or she were to fall in.
    How many children had been sucked away by this river? Too many. Yet this was the very river that he had run to on the night Rachel was born for cold water. This river, which sucked away life, had caused her to breathe, to yowl, to turn pink and lively. Maybe it wasn’t deceptions but contradictions that filled life. Maybe in order to begin to understand the world, one had to begin to accept contradictions as a fact. But was it a contradiction or a deception now that the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur had passed? There had been no pogroms, no violence, no rumors of harassment from other villages. Why were they being left alone by the tsar and the Cossacks, who loved to kill and kidnap on the holidays?
    Tonight was the first night of Sukkoth, the harvest festival. It would be the first time they had built the sukkah hut without Uncle Chizor. For seven days they would have their meals in the outdoor little lean-to constructed against the side of their house. It would be made from wooden planks, branches, and old doors that they had kept over the years just for this structure. Sometimes Reuven had slept out in the sukkah with Muttle and through the spindly tree limbs they had watched the stars all night long.
    But it’s not the same, not without Uncle Chizor, not without Muttle
.
    These thoughts stayed with Reuven, clung to him,and would not free him long after he had left the river and gone home.
    “Reuven, you don’t like the noodle kugel?” his mother said. “Reuven! Reuven! You’re a million miles away.”
    “You going deaf?” his father said. “Not good for a musician to be deaf—except Beethoven. He seemed to do all right.”
    “What?” Reuven suddenly was aware that all of his family was looking at him and that they had been speaking to him.
    “You’re a million miles away, I say. You haven’t touched your food. You’re not feeling well?” his mother asked.
    “No, I’m fine, Mama,” Reuven said. But she was right. He had been a million miles away. He had been looking through the pine boughs of the sukkah roof at the stars, the same ones that were shining now on Uncle Chizor, who was maybe in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Or maybe they were shining on Muttle, and only God knew where Muttle was. If the same stars shone over every place and everyone, why … why … But his mind could barely finish the thought. Why was Uncle Chizor having to leave this
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country and why had Muttle been snatched