Nathan Englander reads 'The Story of My Dovecote' by Isaac Babel

I've always loved "The Story of My Dovecote". It's one of those short ­stories that affects me deeply – and differently – every time I read it. And these last years I go back to it fairly often. What I find most fascinating about it is the two radically different frequencies vibrating through the story simultaneously. That is, if you ask me what the story is about, I will tell you that it's about a boy who has done well in an exam and goes to the market to buy ­pigeons for his dovecote. Simple as that. That's undeniably the plot of the story. But if you catch me at a different time, I will tell you that it's a story about the history of Jews in Russia, about Cossacks and antisemitism, about corruption and pogroms, about fragility and loss and love and loyalty and man's inhumanity to man. That, and pigeons.