The Stars and the Cookie Jar

           "Leave me alone, Fayge," she mumbled, half into her own hair. "Tired."

            Fayge let the heel of bread drop onto Raissa's notebook, but Raissa did not move to take it until a red curve of currant jam slid over the crust's edge. She swiped at the page, licked her fingers and raked back her hair.

            "My pages are going to stick," she said, and lied, "I can't eat all this."

            "It's –"

            "Half?"

            "Half." Fayge agreed. They managed entire arguments in six words, these days. She could not take her eyes from the coarse white of crumb, the jewel-red of jam, as she broke the bread. Hunger without shame made her spear fragments of sharp-browned crust on one finger; Raissa had already crammed down her share, and winced a little for the raw, rancid taste of preserves left too long in the heat.

            "White bread," gulped Raissa. "Jam. Where did you get it?"

            "He gave it to me," she said, and Raissa looked away.

That's from the Big Raissa Scene... the beginning of said scene, anyway. It is coming in awkward fits and gasps, since I want it right, really right.

The character names in the Vilna stories cause utter and immediate tongue-trip, in most cases, unless you're familiar with the origin languages of the names in question, or familiar with the people themselves. So I decided to provide this. It's the sort of vaguely useful, mostly useless fodder ideal for a public journal.... I get to put it somewhere, someone else gets to use it, everybody gets their spine scratched. Prrrrrrr.

Raissa:   raIHsa or RYE-sa, as you like; Rais'le is pronounced with great elision, RYEsla, and reflects the more usual spelling Raizl.
Fayge: FI-zhe. Diminutized Faygelein, Fayg'l. Not Faygele, that's a word for something else. :)
Violeta: vyoLEYta, with a fade on the last syllable, because it's really just a gender mark.
Hirsh: HEERSH. Hooray for long-I, people!
Beniek: BENyek. Already a nickname. Like a lot of Yiddish nicknames, the last syllable can get swallowed, assimilated into the next consonant, or lost.
Kruk: as in English 'crook'.
Murer: as in English 'mural'.
Kittel: KIHtel.
(Mikah, Mendl, Talia, Sheyndl are fairly automatically phoneticised, right?)