Every summer, as soon as the muddy roads which led to our village had dried up, and all of nature began to bloom and grow, basking in the golden rays from the sun....my my parents, for their part, would begin to tremble in fear of....the Russian Tsar! If someone heard from off in the distance the ringing of a bell, which signified that a lord, or a Russian official was approaching, my father would turn white as the wall, and start tearing at the hairs of his thick, blond beard.. Suddenly he would bolt from the classroom...his students would scatter in all directions, like a flock frightened birds. Mother would be standing with her wooden cooking spoon in her hand, unable to move from where she stood. And until God had guided the official through the village in peace, and the ringing of the bells had faded into the distance...only then would things go back to normal.

It was the tax collector who instilled such fear in the village. Year-in and year-out he would come down from the regional capital, or "all the way from Petersburg", to collect from my father the three-hundred rouble penalty on account of father’s not having sent his eldest son, Leyzer, to military service. And after the second son, Mosheh-Ber, had also thumbed his nose at the Russian Tsar, by making his escape all the way to America, my father’s "debt to the Crown" was raised to the nice round sum of six hundred roubles. In this way the Tsar hoped to reduce the size of his own substantial debt.... with the help of my father, the teacher.

And so with the coming of each summer, you could count on the fact that one fine day the tax collector would come to seize the all of our meager household goods... the valuables, the copper pots, the brass candlesticks, the whole kit and kaboodle....so when we heard that a "big shot" was coming from der city, a terror would come over us all. And not until the dear summer had dis-appeared, and the cold autumn had come back with its heavy rains, and all the roads had been once more buried under deep, sticky mud...only then could my parents breathe freely once more; only then could we children sleep peacefully in our beds.

But it was not only because of that deep sticky mud that my father’s hard-earned possesions were saved from falling into Gentile hands. For this we were truly indebted to the town’s Jewish representative on the town council. Yudel Kotik belonged to the well-known Kotik family of Kamenetz, the family which had, for generations, provided the leadership of the community. They were responsible for the communal taxes and other such dealings with the government. Their word was something to be reckoned with...indeed, in Kamenetz they were known as "the Royal Guard" (see Yekhezkiel Kotik’s "My Remembrances"). Yudel Kotik followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and great-grandfather, the movers and shakers who dealt direcly with Russian officialdom. With each one, he was on the terms of a "Lord/Brother": every visiting official, every big shot sent down from the capital on official business, would always go first to the home of Yudel Kotik to pay his respects. His house, which stood right in the center of the market, had acquired the character of a Russian "salon". The local gentry, the Russian intellegentsia, were frequent visitors, as was the Orthodox priest, the Jewish doctor, the Polish optician, the postmaster, the judge, and others. They would come to play cards, to play chess, and to drink liquor. They came to drink tea from his great samovar, and to partake of the tasty Jewish delicacies which his wife, Matkeh, they well-known "woman of valor", used to prepare for them. His children were the first ones in town to study in the high school in Brisk, the first to wear Russian-style jackets with silver buttons. They spoke Russian and knew how to whistle a Russian tune. But if there were a communal dispute, an misfortune, or an edict, you would run to Yudel Kotik, he should write an "appeal to the Tsar". If someone served a Jew with papers....once again, you would run toYudel Kotik. He would hear each one out with dignity, with attentiveness, as though he were the Governor himself...

It was this Yudel Kotik, whose acts of philanthropy had virtually made him into a communal institution, who took it upon himself to safeguard my father meager holdings, so that they shouldn’t fall into the Tsar’s hands. As soon as he had sniffed out that an assesor had come to town, to collect from a Jew the "three-hundred roubler", he would send a messenger to Zastavia to warn us that we’d better hurry up and "clean out the leaven". Immediately our house would be turned upside-down. Father’s older students, along with the neighbors, would grab everything in sight....this one a quilt, this one a pillow, this one a pile of books...and trundle it off to their own homes. All that was left behind was the long table, the cupboards, the big wooden bed which was missing one leg, and was instead propped up on a block of wood....and the wooden sleeping-bench, which was padded with sacks of straw...After this "purging of the leaven" our little flat looked like it had just been through a pogrom...and so that the picture should be all the more realistic, father used to take a book in hand, sit himself down at the table, and pretend to study. Mother would grab a basket of feathers to pluck...and as for us small-fry, she would shove a hard piece of dried-out bread into each of our hands, which we would then procede to gnaw on with particular enthusiasm...

The tax collector, accompanied by Yudel Kotik, with a thick portfolio under his arm, was confident that he would soon be enriching the treasury of the Russian Government. But when he saw the face of our poverty, staring nakedly at him from inside the bare room, he could only stand speechless at the door, terrified to go a step farther. Nevertheless, to fulfill his obligation to his Tsar, he would procede to address my father:

"From what does your household earn its livelihood?"

"From communal charity", father would answer, not raising his eyes.

"Where are your sons?"

"I don’t know.....run off somewhere in the world, looking for bread", father would allow, with a cough.

Yudel Kotik, who was something of a joker, could see that his little game with the Russian assesor was working out according to plan. So he tossed out a suggestion of his own: "For such an "indigent Jew" as this poor Cyril Zholf, it would be a fine gesture if the Tsar, long may he live, could send him a few roubles for Sabbath..."

The assessor would have to make out a document, and call on two of the local townsfolk to sign as witnesses, to the effect that the aforementioned "Cyril Zholf" was in fact a pauper "in the seventh degree". And after that, there was nothing left for him to do but to leave with empty hands. So it went...year-in, year out.

But everything changed after the my father became a householder, with his own property - my mother’s inheritance, which they had brought over to the village from the Town of Luskela...this posed a whole new problem: Now what? God forbid that the Tsar in Petersburg should find out that father was all of a sudden the proud owner of his own home...surely he would come to take it away! Perhaps somehow, with a bit of shuffling, they would find a way out of this...but you can’t very well ask your neighbor to hide for you a whole house!

After a long discussion with my mother, my father ran off to see Reb Mayer Pasternak, a highly respected householder in the village, who had already more than one house registered under his name. So the following year, when the tax collector came to check up on our house, there followed not too far behind him an out-of-breath Reb Mayer Pasternak, waving the title deed in his hand, wherein it was clearly written, in black and white, that the house was his property...he even had the receipt for the taxes! And father was no more than a lowly tenant.

Something happened once that the local people used to talk about for years afterwards; a story that spoke in praise of the clever head of Yudel Kotik. The story went like so:

One fine summer day there came to Kamenetz an assessor, who was altogether different from all the previous assessors. This one was a young whippersnapper with a thin, blond mustache...the son of a rich farm-owner, who had graduated from a Russian high-school and quickly earned an appointment as a civil servant. And in gratitude to his "Tsar Batyoushka", who had done him such a great kindness, he vowed to serve his master with heart and soul. And so on his very first assignment, he wanted to shown that despite the fact that all the previous assessors who had gone before him had reported that my father, "Cyril Zholf", was a true pauper, who didn’t have even a broken pot to his name....yet he, in one fell swoop, would find a way to make my father "cough up" the entire six hundred roubles for his two sons’ failure to report for military service!

With this resolve, he arrived in the village. But he told no one of his intentions, afraid that the local "crafty Yids" would play some kind of trick on him. He set up shop in an a poor inn. He went about with an angry, sullen expression, and wouldn’t speak to anybody. From time to time he took a walk in the streets, through the market, among the shops: looking, searching, probing with his evil, crafty eyes, which cast a dread over everybody.

The clever, crafty Yudel Kotik tried by every means under the heavens to uncover the mystery of what he was doing here, but to no avail. On several occasions, he tried to let it be know, that if "His Lordship" would tell him what he wanted, his reason for being in the village, that he, Yudel Kotik, as the representative on the town council, would help him with everything he needed, as he had done with all the previous assesors. But nothing helped. The Gentile remained aloof, like a young horse, who had just been harnessed for the first time to a wagon.

In the village, meanwhile, confusion reigned. "Who knows what kind of trouble this "foreskin", my his name be erased, plans to bring down on us?", whispered the Jewish shop-keepers and merchants

Soon they began disposing of their own illegal merchandise...this one, the packages of tobacco without the "stamps"; another one, bottles of moonshine...another one, his packs of matches...the kinds of merchandise from which, since time immemorial, Jews have drawn their livelihood. Teachers, who according to the law were also supposed to have certificates, abandoned their classrooms. People were jumping at the sight of their own shadows. Everywhere you could see groups of men standing around whispering to each other. Everyone strained his ears to hear what was being said. Everyone tried to think of a way to deal with this new assessor, the "new Pharaoh". The village was in a panic.

Some went and stood outside the inn, where day after day His Lordship went about his mysterious business, hoping to hear something...but it was to no avail. With each passing day, the village knew no more than the day before. And meanwhile, the hours and days seemed to stretch themselves out as long as the Jewish Exile. And then, from out of the blue....salvation!

It was early evening, between afternoon and evening prayers. The shepherd was herding his goats back from the pasture. It was then than the "His Lordship" suddenly sent for Yudel Kotik, and proposed that he should join him in a little walk "to the bridge", which was the most pleasant walk in the village. Yudel Kotik very gladly accepted this invitation. You can imagine that it gave him a great deal of pride that the haughty, young Lord should have to finally bow down before him, Yudel Kotik. And when the town saw these two "great men" going for a walk together, on one side the Jew Kotik, walking stick in hand and fat cigar in his mouth, and on the other side the Russian official, with his thick portfolio under his arm...well, everyone breathed a little easier. It was taken as a sign that everything would ultimately resolve itself for the good.

And so they strolled off, the two of them, very relaxed, down the road which led to the village of Zastavia. Arriving presently at the bridge, standing at the river-bank, the tax collector finally revealed his great secret...that he now intended to procede to "Zamostia", to the Jew "Cyril Zholf", to conduct an audit!

When Yudel Kotik heard this, his heart skipped a beat. This was totally unexpected! But what was he to do?? He couldn’t very well abandon the assessor in the middle of the road and run off to warn Yisroel Luskeler the Teacher, that someone was coming to count up his bric-a-brac! (He was in fact less worried about the of this of this one particular poor Jew, as for the fact that his entire reputation as the protector of "his little Jews" now hung in the balance...)

But a moment later - like a miracle from heaven- along came Shayeh the Carpenter of the long legs, with a bag of seeds on his shoulder, saw and plane in hand, returning home from work in town, towards Zastavia. Yudel Kotik had a sudden inspiration. Calmly and politely, he asked his companion, the esteemed guest, to kindly excuse him for a moment. He quickly caught up with Shayeh the Carpenter, got his attention by means of a smack on the back of the head, and began hurling abuse at him, shouting at him half in Yiddish and half in Hebrew:

"Hey, idiot! Are you too sick to take your raglayim from your shoulders and modiyeh zayn dem Yehudi, the gemorrah-melamed, that this adon-hagadoyl is coming to bodek-khometz! Hurry up or I’ll have you put in khad-gadya!"

Shayeh the Carpenter, although he was one of the "not-too-sharp-ones", nevertheless caught on to what was being asked of him...terrified, he mumbled something in reply, and set off for the village as fast as his legs could carry him. And when the assessor asked Yudel Kotik "why he was shouting so at that Jewish tradesman?", the crafty Yudel Kotik, right on the spot, came up with this "explanation":

"I have been asking him already for a long time he should come to the courthouse to fix the porch, and he still hasn’t come. From this he’s cost me already quite a few roubles for penalties. I want he should pay me back with work...and so he’s been avoiding me. This time I caught him, I gave it to him good, the scoundrel!"..

Shayeh the Carpenter had moved quickly. Whomever he met on the way, he sent ahead to spread the news. One messenger followed another. Soon my father was hurrying home from the House of Study, along with his young students. They quickly threw themselves upon the household goods, and carried it all off to the neighbors. It wasn’t long before our house was no more than an empty four walls.

The proud young assessor, who had been so sure that this time he would find what he was looking for, had no choice but to turn back with empty hands. And for a long time, Zastavia and Kamenetz and all the nearby villages used to laugh at the story of how the clever Yudel Kotik, Jewish representative on the town council, had taken the proud young tax collector "to the bath-house"...