Part One

Small Change opens in an Israeli neighborhood with the narrator recalling what she saw and heard, and what the neighbors saw and heard, when Rutchen returned home after traveling. Based on these stories, the narrator learns that Rutchen's father has sold his "magnificent" stamp collection, and the money it brought is surely enough to buy land, houses, shops, diamonds. But it appears that Rutchen has taken some of the money and traveled with it; now she has returned home, looking ill.

The narrator reports—as do the neighbors, including Mrs. Klein, Mrs. Borak, and Mr. Everything Cheap—that, when Rutchen entered her parents' home, her father, Mr. Shlezi, began to yell and moan, "with a growl coming out of his belly." After a time, the lights in the house went out, and they could hear Gerda, Shlezi's wife, emit a scream and say something about small...