The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
by James McBride
Contents
5. The Stranger
Overview
A stubborn stranger arrives before dawn demanding kosher flour, and Moshe—frayed by Chona’s illness—ends up physically overmatched and humiliated in his own store. The man’s insistence turns into a startling personal claim: he says he followed Moshe’s past advice, found a wife, and has returned because of Chona. Moshe finally recognizes him as Malachi, a famed Hasidic dancer from Moshe’s theater days, linking the present crisis to an older, ominous memory Malachi says is now over.
Summary
At 4:30 a.m., Moshe Ludlow naps beside Chona’s sickbed when loud knocking wakes him. Addie Timblin goes downstairs and returns irritated, saying a man who bought Mr. Fabicelli’s bakery keeps coming by and insists on seeing Moshe, mumbling about “hollers.” Moshe checks that Chona is still breathing and, worried about leaving her, reluctantly goes down.
In the dim grocery store, Moshe cracks the outer door and finds a small, stout Jewish stranger speaking Yiddish and smiling. Moshe tries to dismiss him, but the man wedges a battered boot in the doorway and physically holds the door against Moshe’s attempts to shut it. Mishearing Addie’s report, Moshe realizes the stranger wants kosher flour to make challah, not “hollers,” and resents the demand—especially when the man easily overpowers him.
The struggle escalates until Moshe, exhausted from worry and sleeplessness, loses leverage. The stranger shoves the door wide and sends Moshe tumbling backward onto the store floor, prompting Addie to shout from upstairs for quiet. Instead of attacking, the stranger lingers in the doorway, teasing Moshe about Chona and insisting he came because Moshe’s wife is sick.
From the floor, Moshe switches tactics and invites the stranger in, offering flour and leaving payment to the man’s conscience, like the negotiating tricks Moshe learned in Europe and in theater dealings. The stranger recognizes the move and then abruptly announces he has “good news”: he has found a wife, claiming Moshe once told him to do so and invited him to dance.
As the man describes “the greatest dance,” Moshe’s memory returns to a packed Jewish crowd outside his theater years earlier, the sound of Mickey Katz’s music, and a young Hasid who claimed he would not dance without a wife—yet danced with everyone and dazzled the room. Moshe recognizes the visitor as that extraordinary dancer. Asked his name, the man answers, “Malachi,” and helps Moshe up as Moshe recalls their brief meeting afterward, when Malachi offered plum brandy and warned that black smoke on the Hill was a bad sign; Malachi insists those bad times have ended.
Who Appears
- Moshe LudlowExhausted shopkeeper; confronts a dawn intruder, then recognizes him from past theater days.
- MalachiStout stranger and powerful Hasidic dancer; demands kosher flour, claims he found a wife, reconnects with Moshe.
- Addie TimblinHousehold helper; fields the visitor repeatedly and stays upstairs watching over Chona.
- Chona LudlowMoshe’s gravely ill wife; asleep through the encounter but central to Moshe’s fear and urgency.
- Mickey KatzMusician recalled in Moshe’s memory of a past theater dance where Malachi stood out.