– Fuck you too, Uncle Moishe.

Axler points at her.

– See, see, that’s how she is. I don’t even want her, Papa, I don’t even want to marry her, let alone have a child with her.

Harm gives a bark.

– Not to worry, cousin, you won’t be marrying me. And you sure as fuck won’t be doing anything with me to make a baby.

– Enough! Yes? Enough? Now. Enough. Axler, you said Leah and Rachel are here, yes?

– Yes, Papa.

– Can either give blood?

– Leah is on her period. Rachel gave some to David and to Matthew.

– How much?

– A pint.

– She is a healthy girl. She can give more. Bring her here.

One of the boys leaves and Axler goes to the altar for a small wood box with a bit of cloth wrapped around it.

Moishe presses one gauze pad around the shaft of the arrow where it emerges from Lydia’s neck, takes the other end of the arrow in his right hand, and draws it out in a long, smooth motion and drops it and claps another pad at the opposite end of the wound. Both pads are quickly stained red.

He cranes his neck and looks at me.

– She is something to you?

– Not much.

– Too bad for you. A beautiful girl. And strong. As much as she has bled out, she should be dead. But a little fresh blood, she will be heartened. She’ll be weak, but well enough.

He looks back at Lydia.

– That you should care so little for this woman. A shame. They are everything to us, our women. Everything comes from them. Our blood. Our faith. The Tribe of Benjamin would have died long ago. The women in our tribe, they can trace back to Benjamin, one of the sons of Jacob. Grandfather of the twelve tribes. Without the women, none of this is passed on.

Axler comes down the aisle with the box.

The Rebbe peels the gauze from the wounds on Lydia’s neck.

– See how strong she is? Wounds closed. So little blood, still strong enough to heal that much.

He takes the box from his son, unwraps the piece of cloth, drapes it over his shoulders, kisses the top of the box, says a prayer, opens it and takes out a small single-edged knife with a silver handle.

– This is why Hannah and Sarah are so important to us, yes?

Harm looks at the ceiling.

– Our names are Vendetta and Harm.

Moishe shakes the knife.

– Call yourself what you like, young lady, your names are Hannah and Sarah.

– Whatever.

He sets the little box aside.

– My sister’s girls. Is it a surprise they are as willful as she was? No.

He presses the knife to his forehead, mumbles another prayer, takes it away.

– My sister, running off to join the circus, of all things.

– It ain’t a circus, Moishe, it’s a freak show.

He faces Stretch.

– What did I say, Abe? About being quiet and listening, what did I say? Did I say to try doing that? I did. I’m certain I did.

Stretch lets out a long sigh and leans his head against the back of the pew and closes his eyes.

– Fine, I’m listening. Tell me when you want to stop fucking around and let me and my girls out of here.

The kid comes back with one of the Lucys that drove them around. A big girl, dark complexion, dark hair mostly hidden by a scarf, a plain long skirt and a blouse that matches the ones they put on Harm and Vendetta. She smells fresh, alive, the only thing I’ve smelled here that doesn’t carry the Vyrus. All the blood I’ve lost, my mouth starts to water.

She goes to Moishe.

– Rebbe.

He cradles her cheek in his palm.

– Rachel.

He looks at me.

– This girl, a treasure. Pure faith in God.

– And in you, Rebbe.

– Shht, nonsense. A sin to even say it.

– I’m sorry, Rebbe.

He smiles.

– Don’t be sorry. I tease, I’m teasing. See, a good girl. She understands. Rachel. A wife of Jacob. And Leah, another wife, yes? Mothers of the twelve tribes.

He bares the girl’s forearm, revealing a long series of scars, white slash marks down the length of her arm.

– The word my son used, Lucy, a disrespectful word. These girls are of our tribe. A sacrifice, a great sacrifice they make to keep their blood sanguine. And kosher?

He grins.

– These girls have never seen a pig, let alone eaten any part of one.

He kisses her forehead.

– Blessed and washed and dieted as proper Jewesses. Blood like this, it is all that will do for us. She is not the only one, of course. But still, there are not enough like her. We’re forced to hunt in Bensonhurst and Borough Park and Bay Ridge. But these girls are the only way to be certain the blood is truly kosher. From one who keeps kosher. We’ve tried buying. Of course we have. But the market is an unsure thing, yes? One is never certain of what one is getting, yes? And not all merchants understand the importance of this to us. Rachel, she is a blessing. A true daughter of Benjamin.

He sits her on the bench with Lydia.

– The Tribe of Benjamin, the tribe we descend from, was cursed, yes? You know this?

I scoot so I face him.

– Christ, no.

He drops his head.

– About being a smartass, what can I say? Other than it is rude, what can I say? It is rude, yes?

– Sure, yes. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop.

– Yes, I’m not surprised. Yes. Benjamin. Cursed. The whole tribe. It’s a story from the Bible. Well known.

He places the knife to Rachel’s skin and slices deep and she gasps and he presses the open wound to Lydia’s mouth and Lydia’s lips wrap around it and she begins to nurse; a baby at her mother’s tit.

I flinch when the scent of the blood hits the air. Sweat on my brow, a small erection in my pants, I watch Lydia feed and think about ripping free of the straps binding me and tearing her from the girl and clawing the wound in her arm wider and filling my belly till I vomit blood.

The Rebbe places a hand on Lydia’s throat, feeling the contractions as she swallows.

– Not too much, Rachel. Just what she needs.

Rachel has her eyes closed.

– Whatever I can give is yours, Rebbe.

He looks at me, and then at his son and the boys and Stretch and Vendetta and Harm.

– See, this is instructive, what she says. The story I mentioned, from Judges nineteen and twenty and twenty-one: a man travels with his concubine. Coming to Gibeah in the land of the Benjaminites they could find no lodging. No one would take them in, you see? All doors were closed. Windows sealed. No welcome as night came. None would even speak to them. None but one old man. He took them in, yes? And that night, men of Gibeah, they came to the old man’s house and demanded the stranger. The old man, fearing for the stranger’s life pleaded for them to leave. They refused. And the old man he offered them his daughter to do with as they pleased if they would leave the traveler in peace. But the men would not harken to this. Then the traveler offered to the men of Gibeah his concubine, and the men of Gibeah knew her and abused her all night until the morning. Our tribe, the Tribe of Benjamin did this.

He looks in Rachel’s eyes.

– And she died of it, the concubine. But she did not complain. Sacrificing herself. And because of this sacrifice, the traveler took the body of his concubine, a woman who, it must be noted, had been infamously unfaithful to him, and he divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.

He looks away from the girl’s eyes.

– And the message was not lost on the other tribes.

He looks down, takes a firm grip on Lydia’s jaw and on Rachel’s wrist and pries them apart, Lydia’s throat continuing to work, her tongue swiping blood from her own lips.

– Four hundred thousand men they sent to Gibeah. A city whose men numbered seven hundred. Seven hundred chosen men left-handed; every one could sling stones at hair breadth, and not miss. And beside these seven hundred stood twenty-six thousand other men of the Tribe of Benjamin.