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“I will trade you my fattest pig for your daughter,” Igor offered.
“And what have you got?” Myra’s father asked Elya.
“A heart full of love,” said Elya.
“I’d rather have a fat pig,” said Myra’s father.
Desperate, Elya went to see Madame Zeroni, an old Egyptian woman who lived on the edge of town. He had become friends with her, though she was quite a bit older than him. She was even older than Igor Barkov.
The other boys of his village liked to mud wrestle. Elya preferred visiting Madame Zeroni and listening to her many stories.
Madame Zeroni had dark skin and a very wide mouth. When she looked at you, her eyes seemed to expand, and you felt like she was looking right through you.
“Elya, what’s wrong?” she asked, before he even told her he was upset. She was sitting in a homemade wheelchair. She had no left foot. Her leg stopped at her ankle.
“I’m in love with Myra Menke,” Elya confessed. “But Igor Barkov has offered to trade his fattest pig for her. I can’t compete with that.”
“Good,” said Madame Zeroni. “You’re too young to get married. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“But I love Myra.”
“Myra’s head is as empty as a flowerpot.”
“But she’s beautiful.”
“So is a flowerpot. Can she push a plow? Can she milk a goat? No, she is too delicate. Can she have an intelligent conversation? No, she is silly and foolish. Will she take care of you when you are sick? No, she is spoiled and will only want you to take care of her. So, she is beautiful. So what? Ptuui!”
Madame Zeroni spat on the dirt.
She told Elya that he should go to America. “Like my son. That’s where your future lies. Not with Myra Menke.”
But Elya would hear none of that. He was fifteen, and all he could see was Myra’s shallow beauty.
Madame Zeroni hated to see Elya so forlorn. Against her better judgment, she agreed to help him.
“It just so happens, my sow gave birth to a litter of piglets yesterday,” she said. “There is one little runt whom she won’t suckle. You may have him. He would die anyway.”
Madame Zeroni led Elya around the back of her house where she kept her pigs.
Elya took the tiny piglet, but he didn’t see what good it would do him. It wasn’t much bigger than a rat.
“He’ll grow,” Madame Zeroni assured him. “Do you see that mountain on the edge of the forest?”
“Yes,” said Elya.
“On the top of the mountain there is a stream where the water runs uphill. You must carry the piglet every day to the top of the mountain and let it drink from the stream. As it drinks, you are to sing to him.”
She taught Elya a special song to sing to the pig.
“On the day of Myra’s fifteenth birthday, you should carry the pig up the mountain for the last time. Then take it directly to Myra’s father. It will be fatter than any of Igor’s pigs.”
“If it is that big and fat,” asked Elya, “how will I be able to carry it up the mountain?”
“The piglet is not too heavy for you now, is it?” asked Madame Zeroni.
“Of course not,” said Elya.
“Do you think it will be too heavy for you tomorrow?”
