It's still late July 1919 and finally Dovid Gilevic has arrived in the same place that Golde Atlas is living in. The strings of destiny draw closer.

Dovid and Avram had travelled the roads to a point past Kazan (which they had skirted) and then heading for the Belaya River, they had followed its course all the way to Ufa. The river itself ran a length of 1430 kilometers and was the best guide on the last stretch of their journey and upon reaching their destination they found themselves a little over fifteen hundred kilometers from Moscow and that by the straightest route.

Ironically 8 months earlier, the city of Ufa had been a centre of Russian politics occupied by Anti Bolshevik forces but they had all moved East as the Whites regained territory closer to Russia. For this reason amongst others, Dovid and Avram felt Ufa a good location to pass into obscurity.

Which is why it probably wasn't a good idea for two men trying to keep a low profile to get involved in a fight with soldiers of the local garrison!

It had happened barely 24 hours after their arrival; Avram had secured some mean lodgings for a few nights on the outskirts of the city and once settled they rose the following morning and set off to look for supplies at a local market and it was there that they noticed five soldiers lounging by a wall.

The soldiers were youths, mostly in their early twenties and bore the markings of the Tsarists on their uniforms. Already they had upset an apple cart and taken food off of traders who were too afraid to stand up to the armed men.

Dovid and Avram had noticed their antics an hour or so before when they had first entered the market and now on their way out, they were drawn back by a different sound; the laughing mockery had been replaced by more serious insults and slurs of an anti Semitic nature.

What had happened was this; a young Jewish couple in their twenties had been walking by accompanied by another slightly younger girl. The young man's wife was noticeably pregnant and this caught the eye of one of the soldiers who had made a deliberately over-loud remark about there being too many Jews in the world already.

The man looked uncomfortable but he and the women attempted to ignore the provocation and walk by.

They were prevented by one of the uniformed men, an obviously drunken individual whose face resembled nothing less than a pig snouted mask of blubber. In fact for all their youth, none of the soldiers looked as if they had seen action or undertaken anything of a strenuous nature for quite some time.

The piggish soldier had blocked the man's way and was trying to provoke an argument.

Please sir, let us pass,' the bearded young man kept saying. He looked panicked and the women looked frightened and huddled close to each other.

By this time a crowd had gathered and it was obvious it was going to turn nasty. Pig Snout was getting more and more agitated that his intended victim was avoiding giving him the excuse he was looking for and so he and two others who followed his lead decided to push the situation up a notch. They began to verbally abuse the women and touch them.

This finally provoked a reaction from the bearded young man who was then knocked to the ground and set upon.

Seeing this, the onlookers either drew back from fear of getting involved – two of the other soldiers were already looking around and daring the spectators to meet their eyes – or attempted to keep watching while seeming to be going about other business such as engaging in intense scrutiny of fruit and other wares at nearby stalls.

Dovid took this all in with a characteristic tightening of his face, nose quivering above his mustache.

Avram had hold of his arm and sadly shaking his head whispered something to his friend before trying to pull him away.

It almost worked but then the younger girl started screaming and it was obvious what was about to happen. With a roar, Dovid steamed forward bowling aside two of the soldiers and crashed into Pig Snout, who was in the process of loosening his belt; he went down with Dovid on top of him, fists pile driving in to the blubbery face.

The pregnant girl was being held by two of the soldiers who thrust her backwards and began to move to assist their friend. Their advance was checked before they had moved even one pace by Avram who had marched forward with a gun in each hand and aimed at both their heads.

'Stay,' he warned them.

The last two soldiers sprung up from where Dovid had knocked them sprawling and tried to pull him off of Pig Snout, who by now was lying there a mask of bloodied unconscious flesh.

Dovid shrugged the others off of him and rose to face them, standing rigid, panting with exertion and suppressed violent emotion. Both his fists dripped with blood and his face quivered with rage.

The soldiers raised their rifles and for a moment it looked like Dovid Gilevic had come to the end of the road but then the murmur from the crowd which had been gaining in momentum whilst this had been occurring, grew to an angry rumble and something struck them followed by something else.

Pelted by the crowd and threatened by people who for once resisted their bullying ways, the men took the cowards route and dropping their rifles, began to run, dragging Pig Snout along with them.

Avram looked grimly at the two he was covering and then raised his pistols and inclined his head to the right. 'Go,' he said and they went, running after their fellows.

He thrust the guns into his waist band and walked over to Dovid. 'So much for keeping a low profile, eh?

Let's hope we don't run into them again!'

Dovid wasn't listening. He had turned to help the young girl with the dark hair and seen that she and the pregnant girl were kneeling by the unconscious young man.

As he approached she looked up at him with big brown eyes and smiled. 'Thank you sir,' she breathed, 'If you hadn't come along they might have killed my brother in law and ... and ...' tears filled her eyes and she shuddered convulsively.

Dovid knelt and some instinct told him to take her hand. She looked at him and then down at his hand

'Oh, but you're hurt!' she gasped softly.

'It is nothing,' he started to say before the realization hit him that she was holding his left hand. He began to pull away but her small fingers held his large rough hewn hand with surprising strength.

'This ...it is an old wound,' he said, feeling self conscious as her fingers touched his remaining two fingers, his thumb and gently over the stumps of where his missing digits had been. 'The war...' he explained, feeling some explanation was needed.

He never minded his missing fingers so much as when a woman noticed them. Other times he rarely gave a thought to his mutilation but the few times he had let a woman close enough to see, they had either drawn away or gazed at him in pity. None had continued to touch his hand once they saw but she had ... she was holding it still.

Still keeping his gaze with her brown eyes she asked him his name.

'Dovid Ben Sholom,' he replied, instinctively giving her his Hebrew name and asking for her name in return.

'Golde.' she told him softly, only now breaking their gaze for a moment to look shyly away.

'Golde.' he repeated. They were still holding hands.

Following the incident in the marketplace, Dovid and Avram were hustled away by a grateful Abraham, who on realizing the men who had saved his pregnant wife and his sister in law from who knows what indignities, were also fellow Jews, he not only thanked them but offered a welcome into the community.

At first Avram was unsure – his first instinct had been for the pair to lose themselves in the deep warrens in the heart of the city – but on reflection it made sense. Where else can two Jews hide most effectively than within the Jewish community.

In addition they were welcomed as heroes and for at least a month, not a night went by when they weren't invited to take supper with a different family, all eager to play host and show hospitality to the brave newcomers. On the first night they dined with Abraham Fuchs and his wife Ete who had invited his in-laws Smeras and Frade Atlas and most significantly, Ete's sister Golde.

All that night Golde looked on the big man who had saved her, with open admiration, drawing a slight frown from her father Smeras, a quizzically raised but wryly amused eyebrow from Avram and strangely enough, an uncharacteristic coyness from Dovid himself, who studiously engaged the men folk in conversation, allowing his eye to be drawn to Golde only occasionally and then for the briefest of moments.

As the weeks turned into months and it became obvious that if the soldiers had sought them, they had been unsuccessful, Dovid and Avram relaxed into the community although always cautious. Joining the local synagogue almost immediately, the pair struck up friendships and re-engaged with their religion in earnest with Avram accepting a job within the temple where he put his skills to use as a teacher and helping the Rabbi with accounts and organization.

While they had been on the road, Dovid had practiced the art of barbering on Avram and now began to learn the trade in earnest, taking to it like a duck to water; he used his right hand to cut and so his war wound never became a problem when it came to the manual dexterity required in barbering.

Dovid also began to spend much time in the company of old Smeras and gradually won the old man over. Avram knew the reason, for on the second night once they had settled into the quarters granted to them in the Jewish community at the edge of the city, his friend had confided something to him.

'Avram Aaronovitch,' he had said as they began to doze under straw filled pallets by the tallow flickering light of the single candle, 'We may have to stay more than six months here.'

Avram raised an eyebrow. 'Oh?'

His friend continued, almost tentatively. 'I still want to go to the Holy Land my friend ... but maybe there will be more than just the two of us ... maybe.'

Avram smiled. 'Do you remember back in Lithuania, speaking about how one day you would find your special girl?'

'Da.'

'Well, I think she found you. Now, go to sleep my friend and may your dreams be pleasant ones.'

Dovid smiled and blew out the candle.