Performance and disguise as sources of power

Performance and disguise become a source of power for Devorah, who discovers that convincing others of an emotion can change their behavior even when the emotion is not wholly genuine. A staged mouse scare interrupts a classroom; later, tears soften adults who have caught her and Golda alone. Across these scenes, acting is less an escape from authority than a way to work upon its judgments, though the success of the performance depends on being believed.

Discovery in the Classroom

The idea grows from an actual classroom disruption. Two weeks earlier, a dead mouse had been found beneath the radiator, prompting a rush to escape and drawing Chaya down from her office to investigate. Remembering how readily the discovery unsettled the class, Devorah considers pretending to see another mouse. The earlier incident supplies both a plausible model and an audience already prepared to believe in the danger.

She turns the prank into a small piece of stagecraft. She rolls her pencil off the desk, reaches down to retrieve it, pauses beneath the desk, and then jumps onto her chair, screaming that she has seen a mouse. The staged alarm produces a real collective response: girls scramble onto their desks, the teacher looks horrified, and the class monitor is sent for the janitor. Studying stops until the room has been inspected. Devorah has not changed the classroom itself; she has changed what everyone thinks is happening there, and that belief briefly reorganizes the room around her claim.

The janitor questions her about the mouse’s route and where it might have disappeared, without appearing to doubt her. Devorah wonders whether he cannot imagine a Satmar girl inventing such mischief, or whether some of her own shock is real. That uncertainty complicates the idea of acting as effortless control. She has planned the deception, but even she is taken aback by her daring; the performance draws on alarm that is partly manufactured and partly felt.

An Audience Convinced

At recess, her classmates gather around her, fascinated by the sighting, and tell her that her pale face and trembling hands looked genuinely frightened. Their response gives Devorah a new understanding of what she has done. The prank matters not only because it stopped the lesson but because her outward signs persuaded other people that she felt something she did not fully feel. She imagines the possibilities opened by that ability to make an emotion legible and believable.

The scene’s sequence makes performance a social skill rather than a private fantasy. Devorah chooses the gesture, cry, and posture; the class interprets them; the teacher and janitor act on that interpretation; and her peers later certify how convincing she seemed. Her power lies in directing this chain of responses. Yet the success is not absolute: it depends on other people’s assumptions, including the assumption that a good Satmar girl would not invent such a disruption. The expectations that constrain Devorah also help make her deception plausible.

When Bubby and Zeidy hear about the incident from Chaya, they laugh. Chaya alone gives Devorah a suspicious look, but says nothing. Devorah meets that look calmly and experiences triumph: she has been suspected, perhaps, but not exposed. The contrast marks both the reach and the limit of her skill. She can persuade a room and amuse her grandparents, but she cannot ensure that every observer accepts the performance without reservation.

Tears as a Second Performance

A later encounter with adults at camp reveals that the classroom prank is not an isolated trick. Devorah and Golda have been found alone in the garden area, and the adults’ accusation is unclear to them. Devorah cannot work out what they are thought to have done; Golda is equally perplexed, and both girls are frightened. The adults’ authority is especially difficult to answer because the girls do not know the nature of the charge.

Devorah responds by forcing herself to cry. She recognizes the effort involved and moves from tears into wailing; the adults’ faces visibly soften as they read her distress as sincere regret. Mrs. Halberstam then offers a permitted alternative: the girls may talk at picnic tables near the dining room, but must not be caught alone again in the garden. The crying does not erase the restriction or resolve the girls’ confusion. It changes the immediate outcome, moving them away from reprimand and toward an approved place to sit together.

The encounter also shows the cost of using performance within an unequal situation. Devorah’s tears influence the adults, but she and Golda still do not understand the accusation and cannot defend themselves against something they cannot name. They leave quickly, watch to see whether they are still being observed, and sit without speaking. Their friendship feels tainted by the suspicion surrounding them; Golda goes home that afternoon, and Devorah hears nothing from her all summer. Devorah later declines another invitation to the private garden area and wonders whether girls might go there for reasons other than quiet. In this episode, acting gives her some control over the adults’ response, but it cannot restore the ease or trust the encounter has unsettled.

Power, Belief, and Concealment

Together, the classroom and camp scenes define performance as a practical form of agency for Devorah. In one, a false sighting mobilizes a classroom and interrupts its routine; in the other, performed grief softens an adult response and secures permission to sit somewhere else. The mechanisms differ—one relies on collective fear, the other on sympathy—but both turn visible emotion into leverage. Devorah’s skill is not simply pretending; it is anticipating how an audience will interpret a gesture and using that interpretation to affect what happens next.

The power remains narrow and conditional. Devorah cannot command the people around her directly, and her success does not dissolve the rules they enforce. Instead, she makes herself difficult to read: outwardly she appears frightened or remorseful, while inwardly she knows that the display has been shaped for effect. Chaya’s suspicious glance keeps open the possibility that the disguise may be noticed. The scenes therefore hold triumph beside exposure, and agency beside dependence on an audience.

For Devorah, the mouse prank turns this discovery into a sense of personal capacity: she recognizes that she can act so convincingly that others may not discover what is true. The camp episode gives that capacity a more complicated form. A performance can protect or redirect her in the moment, but it cannot prevent misunderstanding, suspicion, or the loss of closeness with Golda. Performance is power precisely because it works through other people’s beliefs; it is also limited by the same beliefs, which Devorah can influence but never fully control.