Are we there yet?

Last time we left Reisa & co they had been on the boat for a while. And yet, here we have a whole other chapter and they still only make it as far as New York Harbor. You'd think this was being serialized in the Forward or something.

Luckily, Reisa has hobbies to pass the time. These include taking English lessons from famed linguist/galley cook Herr Schultz.

Schultz was ordinarily gruff, running the sailors out of his galley with curses, but something about Reisa's appealing manner seemed to melt his crustiness.

A crusty cook, eh? Looks like Reisa was smart to bring her own food.

Reisa isn't Schultz's only student. There's also this Petya guy, also supposedly Jewish. Unfortunately, Petya is more interested in learning how to hit on American girls than useful phrases like "Where's the bathroom?" and "Can I offer you a bribe?" Luckily Herr Schultz is here to keep the lessons on track:

"What about an unmarried man?" Petya demanded. Reisa asked this of Schultz, who grinned.

"In English is bachelor." Then he said, "You need to know the word slob."

"Slob? What means slob?" Reisa asked.

"Someone who ain't got no manners and is rather nasty."

"Oh. Reisa smiled, her eyes laughing. "We have that word. It is zhlob."

What's the Yiddish word for filler? Boring waste of time? No talent hack? We get it, Morris. You found a Yiddish dictionary at a used bookstore. Mazel Tov, get on with it.

Incidentally, apparently Petya is unable to speak with Schultz directly. I guess that means that Schultz and Reisa are speaking Yiddish... or maybe German. Exactly how many languages did Reisa's podunk family manage to teach her?

Also on board are a group of Russian Protestants on their way to start a settlement, who spend their time singing hymns. Though the lyrics are characteristically dour (although the way be cheerless/We will follow calm and fearless), they somehow manage to do this "lustily." A miracle!

Reisa is intrigued because "she understood they were not the Russian Orthodox that she had known in the village..." Ah, I see where we're going here. Jews should accept Christianity because all those jerks back in Russia were Orthodox, not Protestant (perhaps not even "real" Christians?) Brilliant.

The second officer of the ship, "a tall man with piercing blue eyes" named Ellis Carpenter, is standing by watching them too, and chats up Reisa.

"You'll have an easier time than most," he said, nodding at the small group. "I've made this trip twice, and we've put people off who couldn't speak a word of English. I don't see how in the world they make it."

Hmm, a proto-Pat Buchanan?

Reisa spends a lot of time admiring Carpenter's deep blue eyes while hoping a gust of wind won't blow up her skirt or knock her off the ship. He mentions that he hopes they won't sink, since he is not religious and is "in no shape to meet God." That's your only reason, you say?

In the last chapter Reisa and Jacob compared themselves to Abraham being sent on a journey. If that's true I guess this chapter is supposed to be about Noah's Ark because LOOK OUT, a storm! It's bumpy and loud and ever so wet, and the stench below decks is not improved by the addition of vomit. We can tell this storm is bad because Morris says the wind "howled in a fierce incantation of doom," which must have been based off of the one time he accidentally listened to an LP backwards.

The ship takes on water and they need volunteers to pump out the bilge. Dov takes a break from breathing heavily on Reisa's neck to help out. Carpenter is so impressed, he feels a need to remark that Dov reminds him of some sort of animal. Guess which one. No, not muskrat.

"I never saw such a man," Carpenter murmured. "He's strong as a bear!"

"That is what his name means. It is good to have a man like him at a time like this."

Oh Reisa, ever helpful with irrelevant comentary.

The Russian Lutherans decide now is a great time for a prayer meeting. Carpenter gets pissed and tells Reisa to get rid of them, which she does, but not before their singing (which again, they do "lustily") touches her heart.

They're singing lines from Isaiah! And she knows Isaiah! Wait a minute...

She interrogates one of the would-be colonists (because it's not like there's anything pressing going on) about why Christians are singing about the Jewish Messiah.

The speaker examined her face and seemed to find something there that interested him.

"Have you ever considered a career in Christian modeling?"

"Isaiah speaks of the Messiah, and it is the Messiah of God that is in our hearts. It is he who tells us not to be afraid."

"How does he speak to you" Reisa asked in wonder.

"He speaks in his words the Scripture, and in our hearts through the Holy Spirit."

Reisa had no answer for this. It was something far beyond her, and she looked away, somehow troubled by the encounter.

I understand. I get troubled when I talk with crazy people too.

The storm finally ends, and no one's dead. Hooray. Reisa talks with Petya about the Lutherans. But poor Petya must be a descendant of the High Priests or something, because he's not having it.

"They think that Jesus is the Messiah of whom Isaiah spoke."

"They cannot be good people," Petya said firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because it is the goy, the Gentiles, who have slaughtered our people. How could they be good?"

Dude, grammar. Goy is singular. Goyim is plural. We even could have worked with Goys. Lazy!

Reisa kept those things in her heart. She did not have the coyrage to go to the leader of the small group, but she did listen to their singing, which never failed to stir her. They awakened some sort of longing in her, and she realized, being an honest young woman, that she had been terribly afraid during the storm. She had been afraid of death. Time and time again the words of the eader of the Christians came to her. Our people are not afraid to die.

You know who else says that? Terrorists. Not a great role model. Also, I know whenever I get scared I convert to another religion. Well, that and for the mileage points.

Six days after the storm, they arrive in America. Ah, this must be another Biblical reference: six days they floated, and on the seventh... they couldn't get off the boat because it was Shabbos?

Reisa and Jacob stare at the new land from the ship, thanking God for, you know, not drowning them. And, right when I started worrying I wouldn't have anything left to ridicule, Morris came through:

The ship was under full sail...

Sails? No wonder it took them so long to get there!

Next Time: Morris describes the Lower East Side as revealed to him in a dream. Possibly by a retarded angel.