Yoked

For a few months after Stefan Krause was sealed for time and all eternity to Shayna Selig in the Freiberg temple, he felt like he was on a free-fall through bliss. It lasted after the temple sealing and the evening of dancing, after their first night together (and together, and then together once more), lasted after they went on their celebratory trip to the Baltic coast and returned to an apartment in Leipzig where they would make their first home, after they settled into a routine of warm morning kisses followed by remarkably mundane days at work. Lasted until sometime around the day when Stefan’s boss’s boss’s boss called him in for a one-on-one meeting. 

“I hear you got married this year. Congratulations,” the crisply dressed executive said. Stefan wondered if having a wedding was truly so unusual as to merit this level of attention. But he just said, “Thank you.”  

The executive poured him a glass of carbonated water. “I also heard she’s from Chelm.” 

“That’s right,” Stefan said. He was mildly surprised that particular fact had been noticed, let alone circulated. 

“She was born there?” the executive asked. “I mean, she has local roots?” 

Stefan nodded. 

“Does she miss it?” the executive asked. 

Stefan searched his recent memories with her and smiled. “We’re quite happy here.” 

The executive leaned back in his chair. “We own a small mining operation in Chelm—one that’s important to our larger supply lines—and a position has opened up. We could use someone with your talents there.”

Stefan took a slow drink of his water to give his mind a moment to catch up. In a setting like this, he didn’t want to give the impression of being unwilling to do what the firm needed. But he also had a feeling there was probably a catch. They were hoping to move him to a lower, Polish salary, maybe? Or had he upset someone here? “My talents?” he asked.

The executive sat forward again. “I’ll be frank. We’ve struggled with Chelm. There’s a . . . different culture . . . in that office. We’ve had a string of bad luck retaining transferred talent. But there’s no easy way around the need.” Even though Stefan wasn’t far into his water, the executive leaned over to refill his cup. “I don’t expect you to stay forever, of course. You could choose to transfer back here after two years, if you’d like.” He gave Stefan a long, appraising look. “I can offer you a raise. And I should mention that we view the Chelm post as a prime growth opportunity for future management candidates. Someone who can succeed there shows us they can succeed anywhere.” He paused. “Give it some thought?” 

In words, it all seemed fine. But something about the executive’s eager tone left Stefan feeling unsettled. And he had to consider the opinion of his mother-in-law, Fruma Selig; if he and Shayna moved to Chelm, she would be more delighted than he felt entirely comfortable with. “Obviously, I’ll need to talk it over with my wife,” Stefan said. “But I’ll let you know soon.”

“Please do,” the executive said. He stood and offered his hand. “It’s been a pleasure visiting with you.”      

On his way home that evening, Stefan picked up a chicken döner for Shayna and a halloumi döner for himself. If he and Shayna decided the offer was good news, this could be a sort of celebration. If not? There were worse ways to smother troubles and sorrows. Between bites, he told Shayna the whole strange story of how his work had turned promising and fraught over the course of a single meeting. “What do you think?” he asked her. “Do we take it, or do I find a polite way to turn the offer down?” 

“How do you feel about it?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He frowned. “I guess it makes sense.” 

Her eyes seemed to focus for a moment on his forehead before she made eye contact again. “Sense? Who said anything about sense?” She waved a hand, which happened to have the remainder of her döner in it. The smell of fresh Turkish bread, roasted chicken, and spicy sauce hit his nostrils and calmed his nerves. “I asked how you feel.” 

She was right, of course. There was the Holy Ghost to think about; they didn’t have to do what made sense. Stefan took a deep breath and tried to listen to his gut. But it was no use: his gut was thoroughly occupied with dinner. “I don’t know that, either.” He tapped his head. “Too much clutter in the way.” 

Shayna set her food down. “Then let’s get your head cleaned up and organized. We’ll talk a little more, and I’ll make a list of the pros and a list of the cons. Then we’ll talk through the lists like sensible people. After that, we’ll throw the lists in the garbage and I’ll count to three. When I get to three, we each say what we feel: yes or no. If what we say matches, that’s what we should do.”

“And if it doesn’t match?”

She smiled. Her eyes flicked toward his forehead again; it was a strange habit of hers. Then she took his hand. “If it doesn’t match, you’re probably wrong. But I love you anyway.” 

Her eyes sparkled. Everything seemed simpler when she talked about it. He wasn’t used to living like that. Before Shayna, he used to feel like the more you worried about things, the smarter your decisions would be. If there wasn’t a little anguish, you weren’t working hard enough to deserve the best outcome. And then, at a young adult conference, he’d met her. She showed him that sometimes life could be easy—even if it was still completely confusing. 

So they talked. He started with the straightforward, almost mathematical parts: better pay, lower cost of living, the carrot of career advancement. She chimed in with how she loved their apartment, while also mentioning that any place in Chelm would put her a full twelve hours closer to her family. He thought about the old Chelm travel brochures Fruma had given him, but decided not to bring up his irrational fear about giving his mother-in-law what she wanted. Instead, Stefan talked about how his boss’s boss’s boss sounded almost desperate. And about how he didn’t trust his own desire to please the office if there was something wrong with the Chelm assignment. 

Through it all, Shayna would periodically jot down a line here or there. But when Stefan glanced across the table at the paper to review what they’d covered so far, her lists seemed a little mixed up. 

“Hold on,” he said. “Why is ‘we just moved here’ listed under the pros column?” 

“I already told you,” Shayna said. “This is our first place together. It has beautiful memories for me.” 

“I don’t understand . . . why is that a reason to leave Leipzig and go to Chelm?”

Shayna answered slowly, as if breaking down a basic concept for a small child. “If we leave now, our first place together will have only happy memories. Then, if things get bad later, we’ll always be able to think about how happy we were in our first apartment.” 

Stefan wouldn’t have thought of it like that, but he understood how it could be nice to have a sentimental place. “That makes sense,” he said. “But why is ‘Stefan just wants to make his boss happy’ on the pro list?” 

She gave him a dreamy smile. “It’s cute how you’re always thinking about other people. I like that about you.” 

“But I only brought it up because it might be getting in the way of my judgment.” 

She shrugged. “Service is good. If you’re taking a work assignment no one else wants, that makes life easier for your coworkers. And you’ll be happier knowing that you’re doing them a favor.” 

Stefan wasn’t sure he always thought about work that way, but it was something to aspire to. “So you think we should go to Chelm because none of my coworkers want to and because we just moved into our apartment here?” Once the words came out of his mouth, the reasoning seemed broken, even though he knew he had just accepted each of those points on its own. 

“I don’t know yet if I feel like we should go,” Shayna said. “Right now, it’s just a pro list and a con list, because you wanted to clear your head.” 

“If that’s the pro list,” he asked, “what’s on the list of cons?” 

Stefan pulled the paper in front of him and puzzled over her notes. 

“Why did you put being close to your family down as a disadvantage?” he asked. 

“Because I love them,” Shayna said. “The only people more important to me than my mother and sister are you—and our heavenly parents, of course.” 

He scratched his head. He knew this about her. He admired these strong bonds of love. But he felt deeply disoriented now about exactly how those bonds worked. “What does that have to do with living here?” he asked.  

Shayna gave him that elementary-school-teacher look again. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” She picked up the last of her döner, then seemed to notice that he wasn’t understanding yet. “That’s why we came to earth, isn’t it? To be away from our heavenly home? If that’s reason enough to take on mortality—well, Germany isn’t half as bad.” 

She took a bite of her food. Stefan felt a strange guilt as he thought about how he’d brought her, for all intents and purposes, to start their marriage out in the lone and dreary world, when to him it was just the same old Saxony.  

He tucked that thought in his heart and looked back down at the paper. “All right,” he said. “But why is cost of living on your cons list?” 

Shayna put a hand over her mouth to be polite, but spoke before she finished chewing. “Because sacrifice brings blessings. If lower prices make us more rich, we’ll be less blessed. That’s just mathematics.”

Stefan didn’t even try to process, because he’d noticed the next item. He wanted to be reasonable, but this one made him feel attacked. “What about my opportunities for advancement?” he asked.  “Surely, that should be good. Can I move it at least to the pro list?” 

Shayna shook her head. “It’s very dangerous. Do you want to be married to me or to your job?” She took a napkin and wiped the corners of her mouth. “I am ready to support you, whatever we do. But the scriptures say to count the cost. And little promises, bits of praise . . . that’s how they get you. The most dangerous part of any trap is the bait.”  

The defensiveness Stefan had felt melted away beneath his wife’s words. She had left her world to be with him, and he was all she expected in return. He crumpled up the paper and tossed it toward the paper recycling bin. It bounced on the edge, flew up, and fell in. 

“My head is clear,” he said. “Let’s count.” 

One, they said. Two. Three. 

“Let’s take it,” Shayna said. At the exact same time Stefan said “Chelm.” 

And so it was that Stefan found himself, a few weeks later, standing in the back of a small moving truck beside President Gronam, Yossel the Fisherman, Lazar the Blind Beggar, and a deacon named Gimpel. He and Shayna didn’t yet have very much to move, so the humble turnout should have been plenty. Before long, though, he felt like it was at least three people too many. 

When he and Yossel picked up the dresser, President Gronam shouted for them to put it back down. “Never lift with your knees,” he told them. To spare their backs, he had them try again and again until all the movement was in their legs. Even empty-handed, squats are real exercise. Though the dresser was not too heavy, Stefan was beginning to feel winded by the time they got out of the truck. 

He came back down to find piles of his books removed from their boxes and set on the shelves. “What are you doing?” he asked President Gronam. 

“Those boxes were too heavy: even the strongest knees can pop,” President Gronam said. “Since you’ll only have to unpack up there anyway, I thought I’d give you a head start.” He crouched down to use his leg muscles as he lifted an empty box. “You see? Now, it’s no strain at all.”  

While President Gronam carried the box, Lazar grabbed a few books and took them. Stefan supposed it was just as well for him to clean up after the president. It would be best if the blind elder were not carrying the heaviest furniture anyway. 

While Yossel stopped for a drink of water, Stefan looked around for Gimpel. If the two of them could carry the empty bookcase up together, it was possible that the books might end up on it rather than scattered across the floor. But the deacon was nowhere to be found. Stefan looked left and he looked right. He started to wonder if Gimpel had gotten bored and gone home. 

Then Stefan happened to glance up. Hanging off the front of their new building was Shayna’s nightstand. And above it, looking down from the window as he tugged at an improvised pulley system, was Gimpel. 

Stefan ran helplessly toward the nightstand as it swayed unsteadily upward. “What are you doing?” Stefan shouted. 

“Avoiding the stairs,” Gimpel called back. 

“Are you crazy?” Stefan shouted. “Let it down!” 

“Are you crazy?” Gimpel shot back. “Do you want it to fall and break?”

There wasn’t anything Stefan could say to that. He stepped back a safe distance and watched it rise and held his breath while Gimpel tugged it awkwardly through the window. 

“You see?” Gimpel said. “That worked fine. What’s next?” 

“Taking the stairs,” Stefan said firmly.  

By then, Yossel was ready to help. After their experience with the dresser, Stefan and Yossel made sure to lift in the safest way—which was to do so only when President Gronam wasn’t looking. While they worked, Yossel shared an old business idea. During a move, the idea had come to him to develop a single piece of furniture which could fill all a family’s needs without requiring a thing of the elders quorum. 

Imagine a bed, Yossel said, which could be adjusted to different heights. Raised up and stripped of its mattress in the morning, it could be a table. But the table would be made of six separate sections fastened together, so that after breakfast, two could be removed to use as chairs while the other four were raised still higher to use as a desk. For extra comfort, of course, the mattress would also be made of six separate pieces, which could be used as chair cushions during the day. At meals, the chairs could become a table again, and at night, a bed. 

“If the chairs are part of the table,” Stefan asked, “where would you sit while eating?” 

Yossel considered the problem. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he confessed. “Maybe you could sit first and eat later, or eat first and then sit.” 

“It might be hard to convince people to do that,” Stefan pointed out. “So many like to sit and eat at the same time.” 

Yossel thought some more. “I’ve got it!” he said. “We’ll make the table legs removable. That way, you can set the table low enough to sit quite comfortably on the floor!” 

Stefan admitted he still had his doubts about the product, but Yossel assured him there would be no hard feelings between them. It was best to keep church and business separate. Because Stefan was a ward member now, he wouldn’t make a proper customer anyway. 

To be fair, Stefan and Shayna’s table and chairs and desk and bed took more than one trip. But before long, almost everything was in the apartment. The end table was there, and the bookshelf was there, and the empty boxes that had once stored the books were there. 

Only a few of the books themselves were. Apparently, Lazar the Blind Beggar had lost count of floors and doors, so many of the books were in other apartments in the building. Stefan was a little taken aback, but Shayna tapped her forehead and said it was all right. Lazar had done them a service; his deliveries meant that she and Stefan could meet the new neighbors without having to come up with an excuse to introduce themselves. 

Within a few weeks, Stefan found himself wishing the rest of his life could go as smoothly as that move. Grocery shopping was overwhelming, public transit perplexing, and work a total nightmare. The budgeting process between the teams somehow involved barter? So Stefan, being unprepared, ended up without the funding his first project would need. It took hours to make sense of his email. He would read a message again and again, trying to follow a coworker’s line of reasoning until he found himself walking over to the sender and talking in circles until he could spiral in on what was actually going on. And the lead engineer for the mine—oh, save the innocent from that man!—the lead engineer for the mine was an elderly madman named Reuben Goldberg, who had found the most circuitous possible solutions to adopt in every one of his designs and refused to consider alternatives. No matter what Stefan tried, no one was willing to consider a change to the wildly idiosyncratic ways they did business. 

By each weekend, Stefan was desperate for a break. Unfortunately, the weekends started with a Friday night family dinner with his mother-in-law, Fruma, his sister-in-law, Leeba, and Leeba’s husband, Noam. It was nice to see Shayna happy there, but the dinner traditions only added to Stefan’s sense of disorientation. 

For example, at the beginning of the evening, Leeba would light the candles—then immediately cover her eyes. Now that this was to be a regular part of his life, Stefan made the mistake of asking why you’d go to the trouble of making light only to put yourself into artificial darkness. Shayna tried to explain why this made sense—something about how you should only benefit from the light after saying the blessing, but you shouldn’t say the blessing until after the work of lighting the candles was done. It was such strange Chelm logic, Stefan decided not to try too hard to follow it. Or, for that matter, anything else he heard that night. If anyone noticed his mind was drifting and asked what was wrong, he had a simple defense: following Chelm reasoning was a kind of work that really ought to be forbidden on the Jewish Sabbath! 

The first test of his resolve came almost immediately. Leeba asked how he was doing, and he admitted that the week at work had left him feeling less than sane. She smiled sympathetically and began to tell him an old story she thought would be helpful. The story was about a prince who believed he was really a rooster. This prince stripped off his royal robes, abandoned his room to settle under the table, and would only eat by pecking at scraps set for him on the floor. Naturally, this was a great distress to his mother the queen and his father the king. From every corner of the land, they called healers to explain the problem and offer a cure. But the doctors left—some pecked, some scratched, and some just exasperated. 

Finally, a rabbi arrived who understood what needed to be done. He stripped off his clothes, squatted under the table, and bent his neck to eat scraps off the floor. 

“Ah,” said the prince, “how good to meet a fellow rooster!” 

“Agreed,” said the rabbi. “Since I left my coop, I’ve missed the companionship of my fellow birds.”

For days, they pecked at food together. They strutted together. And they talked together. One day it was cold; the rabbi took the end of a servant’s scarf in his teeth, pulled it down, and wrapped it around himself. 

“What are you doing?” the prince said. “I thought you were a rooster like me!” 

“Of course I am a rooster,” the rabbi said, affronted. “Should it make me any less a rooster if I happen to steal a scarf?” 

“Of course not,” the prince said. “I’m very sorry.” 

Well, the next day the rabbi stole another scarf and offered it to the prince. “Would it make you any less a rooster to accept this gift?” the rabbi asked. 

“What are you suggesting?” the prince replied. “How could it? I’m certainly no less a rooster if I happen to wear a piece of human clothing.”

The day after that, the rabbi began to wear a shirt, and the next day pants, and so on until the both of them were living under the table fully clothed—and no less roosters for doing so. 

Another morning, the rabbi slept in. The prince felt bored all by himself. Because he was a more devoted than thoughtful friend, he let himself eat his feelings and finished all the scraps before the rabbi got up. 

“Forgive me,” the prince said when the rabbi saw that the tray under the table was empty. “You must be hungry. That’s my fault. But I’ll make it up to you.” 

“Don’t worry,” the rabbi said. “I wouldn’t be any less of a rooster if I looked a little more widely for food.” He stretched his neck, and his arms, and his legs, then he walked out to the kitchen and returned with a warm meal—on a human plate—and sat at the table. 

“What are you doing?” the prince asked. “Eating at the table is for human beings!” 

“Am I any less a rooster if I take their place?” 

The prince considered. “No,” he said. “I suppose you’re not.” And so the prince joined the rabbi for dessert. 

Over the next week, the rabbi asked the prince if a rooster would be any less himself if he slept in a bed, or rode a horse, or wrote a letter, or managed affairs of state. And each time, the rooster prince assured his friend that a rooster was a rooster, no matter what. 

Before long, Leeba said, the rooster prince was prepared to act just like any king. So the rabbi wished him farewell and went off to tend, once more, to the coop he had come from. 

Stefan considered the story a long time. “Are you saying that work will be easier if I find a way to get on my coworkers’ level?” 

Leeba looked back at him, confused. “You told me you’re feeling crazy. I’m saying that a little insanity never kept anyone from being king.” 

On the walk home, Shayna asked if he remembered the old Chelm story about the king and the tainted harvest. Stefan didn’t, but he also felt that one tale had given him enough to think about already. “Is that the one where they went to the fields and pecked them clean?” he asked. Shayna looked at his forehead, shook her head, and laughed. Then she kissed him and he lost all interest in old Jewish stories. 

That Sunday, though, Stefan tried to follow the fictional rabbi’s example as well as he could. In sacrament meeting, he sang from the wrong hymn. He kept his eyes open during the closing prayer—and discovered that half the ward did, too. In elders quorum, the lesson involved the faith of the pioneers, and devolved into a discussion of their oxen. Stefan not only took it in stride, but spoke of his gratitude for being yoked with Shayna. “Together,” he said, “we will make it across these dreary prairies to the promised land.”

“Are you moving to Israel?” Aaron Cohen asked. 

“Or do you mean Utah?” Menachem Menashe added. 

“I mean here,” Stefan said. “I think Chelm is where God is leading me. But it’s been such a hard week at work. Even though I’m here, I’m not sure I’ve arrived yet.” 

The whole quorum nodded sagely, as if he’d made perfect sense. “I know exactly how you feel,” Heshel said. He put a gentle hand on Stefan’s shoulder—and for a moment, Stefan felt almost as though he was being blessed. 

The gesture gave him courage. The next day in the office, he went into the budget meeting and traded his stapler for extra project funds. He skimmed his email and then followed the conventions of a stream-of-consciousness novel in his reply. When he met with Reuben, he pointed out a way they could make the design just a few steps more complicated. Reuben actually thanked him for the advice! 

One whole week went by that way, and then another. Stefan made friends. He wasn’t sure if he was making any progress—it was hard to tell, given that he was moving more or less at random—but the rhythms of his day had a feeling that reminded him of productivity. Sometimes, the absurdity of it all would start to creep back into the edges of his consciousness, but he’d take a deep breath and that feeling would usually go away. He got a little worried when Reuben began calling his ideas brilliant, but he reminded himself it was all part of a plan. 

Finally, he was ready to make his move. Reuben shared a suggestion to add yet another piece to a device, and Stefan told him that he was a genius. Then he pointed to another place on the blueprint. “But would the design be any less brilliant,” he asked, “if we took that part out?” 

Reuben scratched his head. “Why would we do that?” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.” 

“We’re always adding steps,” Stefan explained. “Wouldn’t it be more novel and daring to take one out for a change?” 

Reuben shook his head. “Lacks elegance,” he said. “Just because something has to be useful doesn’t mean it has to be ugly. I hate it.” 

Stefan sighed. He had a sudden urge to take off his clothes and hide under his desk. But he left the office early instead, closed all the curtains, turned off all the lights, and collapsed into his bed, exhausted. 

When Shayna came home, it was unnaturally dark. She found Stefan still lying face-down. He was moaning softly. 

“I’m not a rooster,” he said. “I can’t spend the next two years as a rooster.” 

“Of course you’re not a rooster,” Shayna said. “Why would you be?” 

“Ever since we got here, nothing has made sense,” Stefan said. “And that’s fine when you’re just visiting. It’s almost amusing, even. But now, this is my life.” He moaned again. “I thought I had it figured out when Leeba told that rooster story, but I can’t do this alone.” 

Shayna climbed into the bed beside him. “Can I tell you another story?” she asked.

“Depends,” Stefan said. “Does it involve people going crazy?” 

“Oh yes,” said Shayna. “I told it to you the weekend we met, but I think you’ve forgotten.” 

Stefan could remember the feeling of that weekend so well, but it was no surprise if the details escaped him. “Go ahead.”

And so, in the dark of their apartment, Shayna once again told her husband the story about a royal adviser who went to meet with the king. “There’s a problem with the wheat harvest,” the advisor said. “It’s been tainted by a certain kind of rot. It’s edible—no one will have to starve—but whoever eats loses their grip on reality. Most of the kingdom will go mad.” 

“Most?” asked the king. 

“There’s a little good grain left in storage,” the adviser explained. “Enough to feed you and me. That way we’ll be able to keep our wits about us through the crisis.” 

“Are you already crazy?” the king said. “Why should we want to be the only sane people in the kingdom of the mad?” 

The adviser admitted that the king had a point. If they stayed sane in a world of insanity, they would be the ones who seemed unreasonable. 

“We’ll eat the tainted grain with everyone else,” the king declared. “But I’m glad you brought this news to me. Because there’s something we can do to prepare. Something to offer ourselves some relief, and some measure of wisdom.” 

The adviser found himself taking the king’s hand, Shayna said, as she laced her own fingers through Stefan’s. 

Stefan turned on his side, facing her in the dark. He remembered her hand in his, but he’d forgotten the ending. “What happened next?” he asked. “What did the king recommend to his adviser?” 

“The king said, ‘Before we eat, we’ll mark each other’s foreheads with the seal of madness. That way, when we begin to lose hope, we might see each other. Then we’ll understand what’s happened to the world around us. Of all the people in the world, we, at least, will know that we’re insane.’”

“What does the symbol look like?” Stefan whispered. 

“Don’t you know yet?” Shayna said. Her eyes went to his forehead. “That’s why I married you. I see it every time I look at your face.” 

 James Goldberg is a poet, playwright, essayist, novelist, documentary filmmaker, scholar, and translator who specializes in Mormon literature.

Artwork by David Habben.

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Tales of the Chelm First Ward: Introduction