Aaron tightened his hands into fists. "We will not go!" he vowed. "I will find a way for us to stay." He broke open the box of cigars that had been meant as a gift for Musa and clamped one of the black stogies between his teeth. "What is their _heidisch_ secret?" he demanded. "What does the Mother want of me?" "Aaron Stoltz," Martha said vigorously, "I'll have no man of mine offering dignity to a heathen god. The _Schrift_ orders us to cut down the groves of the alien gods, to smash their false images; not to bow before them. Will you make a golden calf here, as did your namesake Aaron of Egypt, for whose sin the Children of Israel were plagued?" "Woman, I'll not have you preach to me like a servant of the Book," Aaron said. "It is not for you to cite Scripture." He stared through the window. "What does the Mother want of me?" "As you shout, do not forget that I am a mother, too," Martha said. She dabbed a finger at her eye. "_Fagep mir_, Liebling," Aaron said. He walked behind the chair where his wife sat. Tenderly, he kneaded the muscles at the back of her neck. "I am trying to get inside Musa's head, and Kazunzumi's; I am trying to see their world through their eyes. It is not an easy thing to do, Martha. Though I lived for a spell among the 'English,' my head is still House-Amish; a fat, Dutch cheese." "It is a good head," Martha said, relaxing under his massage, "and if there be cheese-heads hereabouts, it's these blackfolk that wear them, and not my man." "If I knew what the die-hinker our neighbors mean by their Mother-talk, it might be I could see myself through Murnan eyes, as I can hear a bit with Hausa ears," Aaron said. "_Iss sell nix so_, Martha?" "We should have stood at home, and thought with our own good heads," she said. "Let me think," Aaron said. "If I were to strike you, wife," he mused, "it could do you great hurt, and harm our unborn child, _Nee?_" "Aaron!" Martha scooted out from under her husbands kneading hands. "_Druuvel dich net!_" he said. "I am only thinking. These blackfolk now, these neighbors who were before last night our friends, speak of Light as our bishop at home speaks of Grace. To have it is to have all, to be one with the congregation. If I can find this Light, we and the Sarki and his people can again be friends." Aaron sat down. "I must learn what I have done wrong," he said. * * * * * "Other than drink a glass of cider now and then, and make worldly music with a guitar, you've done no wrong," Martha said stubbornly. "You're a good man." "In the Old Order, I am a good man, so long as no _Diener_ makes trouble over a bit of singing or cider," Aaron said. "As a guest on Murna, I have done some deed that has hurt this Mother-god, whom our neighbors hold dear." "Heathenish superstition!"