For the lucky few who had a formal education, there was law, medicine, or engineering. The rest sought a position in an office or in a school where the work wasn’t too taxing and they had time to pursue their real interests, be it scholarship or politics. Eventually, certain offices became known for their concentration of scholars and radicals. The Office of the District Chief was known as the Conservatory of Arts and Letters, the Municipal Waterworks became the Academy of Sciences, and the Podolia Trade Bank was the Yiddish Literary Society. The society was famous in certain circles as the place to go if you were Jewish and looking for small firearms. Hershel had spent this last trip traveling first to Odessa and then up to Moscow and back to Odessa on consortium business. He had seen buyers, met with shippers, and in one case supervised the loading of tons of wheat into the hold of a cargo ship bound for Great Britain. Once he was finished with the consortium’s business he was free to go off on his own.
