Leafing through the pages with the names of hundreds of refugees who came from various cities and towns, I stumbled upon, to my great joy, the name of a fellow townsman, the writer Avraham Kotik, a son of Yekhezkel Kotik, the author of "Remembrances". He had been driven here from Byalistok, with a family consisting of eight souls.

The name "Kotik" brought back to me many thoughts of home, village, and family. A small thing, a name....Kotik....Kotik! I turned it over and over in my mind...they were the "Royal Guard", as we used to call them back in the village. For generations and generations, they had held the license for the so-called "Jewish Taxes", the tax on kosher meat, the post office, the hotels and inns in the village. And in the summer-time, when the elder Yekheskel Kotik used to sometimes come up from Warsaw to Kamenets-Litovsk, which he had described so lovingly in his memoirs, it would be a big event for the whole village.

And now, out of the blue, I had stumbled across his son, with whom I had until now been aquainted only through his published articles and his popular scientific lectures in the "Jewish Library". But his cradle stood on the same ground as mine! And here we were, both of us, together in faraway Yaroslavl! I couldn't wait to meet him. Perhaps I would find in him a friend, to help drive away the loneliness that weighs so heavily on me? Just as my father had found a friend in his relative Yudel Kotik, the acknowledged spokesman before the Kamenetz town council, the same one who used to send a messenger all the way to Zastavia, across the bridge, to warn my father, that the inspector was coming from Brisk, or from Grodno, to collect from him the "300 roubles" for his sons who had run away to avoid military service. In that way, Yudel Kotik had on several occasions saved my mother’s mountain of cushions and quilts, the samovar, the copper pots, and the dishes....from falling into the Tsar’s hands.

And so the very next day, late Friday afternoon, when I finished work, I made my way to the address I had copied down from the lists of refugees. I was so eager to see him, that I completely forgot that I hadn’t washed up or changed out of my work clothes. With a pounding heart, I rang the doorbell. The door was answered by a child, who addressed me politely in Russian:

"What can I do for you?"

"I wish to see Mr. Kotik", I answered in Yiddish.

Soon there appeared at the door Mr. Kotik himself, a well-built middle-aged man of around fifty, with a short, grey, four-cornered beard. His overall appearance gave me the impression more of a Russian landowner that a Jewish writer. He looked me up and down with a quick glance...he must have been mystified at the presence of this unexpected guest in his filthy clothes which gave off a sharp odor of pitch and oil. He was surely wondering what kind of ill wind had suddenly blown me here! But I didn't give him the opportunity to spend too much time examining me...instead, I burst out breathlessly:

"I am a Kamenetser! A Kamenetser!"

As soon as he heard the word "Kamenets", a smile spread over full, round face. He extended to me a warm "Sholom-Aleykhem", took me by the arm and led me, like a bridegroom, into his well-lit dining room, where the whole family was sitting around a large tabled, covered with plates of fish, meat, and vegetables.

"A visitor from home!" he called out joyfully. He quickly introduced me to Madam Kotik, a small, dark, slender woman with clever eyes; and her mother, the elderly Madam Lapidus, who wore on her head a lovely flowered bonnet, which lent a special grace to her aristocratic face; and finally, one by one, to the children, who spoke in a soft, down-home Yiddish accent.

Next, they insisted that I join them for dinner. And no matter how much I tried to protest, that I could not, in my filthy clothes, sit at such a fine table.....it was to no avail. Madam Kotik stood there blocking my exit; with towel and soap in hand, she ordered me to wash up! It wasn’t long before I was seated at the table with everyone else. It had been a very long time since I had lasted tasted a home-cooked Jewsih meal in such Sabbath-holiday-style warm surroundings. They treated me as though I were one of the family, who had somehow disappeared along the way, and had now suddenly re-appeared.

From that day on, I was a regular house-guest. Avraham Kotik was like an older brother to me; and his wife - a generous, faithful sister. And although she was busy night and day with her housework, with needle and thread, to keep her five children fed, clothed, and shod, so they shouldn't have to go out and appear before the world in rags, and God forbid bring dishonor on their father, the intellectual, the writer....or on the proud, aristocratic lineange which was derived on one side from the famous Lapidus family of Byalistock, and on the other side from the proud Kotidks of Kamenets...despite all this, she still found time for me, the lonely, forlorn "relative", who had come to eat in their tent....she, with her discerning eye, would always see to it that I should not be lacking for a button in my coat, or that a jacket which I was outgrowing should be let out a little at the sleeves; that in my pocket there should always be an kercheif, wahsed and pressed, and so forth.

She reminded me in many ways of my own small, thin mother, with her strong character, with her faithfulness and her great energy. Yes, I found a great resemblance between the two of them...thanks to her, I could forget that I found myself all alone in a strange place..

Avraham Kotik became for me spiritual mentor. He took and interest in all the trivialities of my daily life. I revealed to him my great secret, of bearing a false name. With him, I felt I could speak from the heart. And I told him about my spiritual pain, which I bore on account of my great, dreadful tragedy.....the loss of my manuscripts. He consoled me with these words:

"These kinds of things," he told me, "have always happened, and continue to happen to us writers........the important thing is, that you still have the true spark, which nobody can steal from you."

And in fact, under his influence, I began to write again, as if to prove to myself that I hadn't lost that holy, God-given spark. I wrote descriptive sketches of the leather factory: I told about Friday afternoons, and the way our God-fearing boss used to quickly count out the wages of his Jewish workers, and then close the office for Sabbath, as soon as he saw that it was time to bless the candles.

I described Hennekh, the practical joker, who used to play all of tricks in the factory. I also wrote about the "blond woman", the refugee-ess, as they called her in the section where I worked. She was the only woman who worked in our department, among all-male workers.

Every time, when I felt I had succeded in describing something "just so", I would rush to show it to Avraham Kotik. He would enjoy reading it out loud to Madam Kotik....and afterwards, in a fatherly way, he would give me his critique, which was alwyas an encouraging one. And he would finish off with the words:

"Keep learning, keep reading, and then write a little more...."

At his invitation, I became a regular Friday night guest at their Sabbath table. And Saturday evenings, when I was free from work, I started giving lessons in Jewish Literature for his two oldest children, a son and daughter in high school. When he happened to be home, he would sit down beside me, to listen while I would explain an essay by Peretz, or a chapter of Sholom-Aleykhem. Often enough, he used to join in the discussion, giving his own interpretation, his analysis which was for me, the "teacher", an education in itself.

The home and family of the Kotiks became for me a spiritual harbor. Here, for the first time, I met other Jewish writers, who were visiting from the heartland, from Moscow, Petrograd, Minsk, etc. And I also met a number of Jewish socialist worker’s leaders, who even in time of war continued to lead an underground movement.

Thanks to the Kotiks, I was also drawn into the circle of the local Jewish intelligentzia, most of whom had fled here from various towns and villages in Lithuania and White Russia. Here, they were continuing to carry on their work in this new Jewish settlement, which had begun to carve out its own niche within the larger Russian milieu. I myself became a participant in those cultural undertakings, which had recently begun to spring up all along the banks of the River Volga.