That is exactly what happened. Rulek and Abke marched in front, shackled to each other. Mendel walked behind with cuffs on his hands.
4
Shibele’s Lottery Ticket
After Zerdel departed from the world, his partner, Shibele the Conductor, couldn’t support himself. Their orchestra bit the dust. Before Zerdel’s death, the pair had walked through the courtyards and scrounged whatever they could to get them through the day. Zerdel played a violin without a back. Shibele accompanied him on a comb wrapped in silk paper and, with his left hand, conducted. That’s why he was known in Vilna as “Shibele the Conductor.”
People would throw them coins from their windows. This wasn’t because they liked the music, but to get rid of the two of them. Zerdel’s violin made drawn-out mournful sounds, like the buzzing of telephone wires. Shibele wasn’t particularly talented either. He sang whatever sounds he couldn’t blow with lips that were as thick as swollen leeches. He was also very lazy. He didn’t want to work too hard, so he swallowed half of every tune.
But now Zerdel’s instrument hung in a corner of Sheyndel’s teahouse in the synagogue courtyard. She wouldn’t let anyone touch it. “I want a little something to remind me of Zerdel,” she said and wiped away a tear. The courtyard folk said this was an old romance. Zerdel became a regular at the teahouse after Sheyndel’s husband went to fill his bucket of water at the little pump on the corner of Yiddishe Street and never returned. Sheyndel missed her husband, the shiksa chaser, less than the bucket. But Zerdel didn’t push things with Sheyndel. He loved his freedom too much. Still, of all the vagabonds who hung around the courtyards and gathered in the evenings at Sheyndel’s teahouse, Zerdel always got the best glass of tea.
When he was still partners with Zerdel, Shibele also got tasty morsels from Sheyndel. But now that he was on his own, Sheyndel just resented him. She hissed that he took up space at the table but gave nothing in return. “How long should I keep feeding him on credit?” she asked.
Shibele had a talent for eating. If only he’d had half as much talent for music. Whatever Shibele laid eyes on, he wanted: a jug of buttermilk, new potatoes with baby beets, buckwheat pudding. Everything. This annoyed Sheyndel.
Shibele wasn’t the only one who annoyed Sheyndel. She’d had her fill of all the trapeze artists, organ grinders, acrobats, and courtyard singers. But she’d approved of Zerdel because he’d kept himself as clean as a cat and knew how to eat a fish head.
Shibele, on the other hand, liked the ragtag gang. He was lonely and they were his family. But one Thursday, when he tried to line up at Probe’s bakery with the other beggars to get the weekly groschen, they cursed him and sent him packing. With his rosy cheeks, he was too healthy for charity.
Besides being lazy, Shibele was also a dreamer. He could easily while away a summer evening on the steps of the little Gravedigger’s Synagogue, daydreaming about wealth and fortune. He dreamt of owning a house in Pospieshk, at the edge of the city, right next to the forest. He’d eat sour cream with baby radishes every day and invite all his friends to visit. And he wouldn’t need any favors from Sheyndel.
Shibele had already seen the house of his dreams, an abandoned dacha in Oginski’s Park in Pospieshk. One day he and Zerdel went to Pospieshk to try their luck. It was summer, and the area was teaming with families staying in the dachas. But the pain had no luck, so they went off to cool their feet in the waters of the Viliye. Trudging up a hill and past a spring on his way to the river, Shibele came upon his dream. In among the tall wild grass and a few sickly trees covered with lichen instead of bark, he spotted a wooden building with open doors and broken windows. It was as if time, instead of moving past the house, had trampled it with heavy feet. The entire building was in ruins: the steps, the windowpanes, and even the chimney on the leaking roof. Old Count Oginski had long ago given up on his estate. He’d had neither the strength nor the money to look after his property, so he’d abandoned it to fate and the few families who rented the better dachas during the summer months.
Shibele and Zerdel never reached the river. They sat down on the only intact step of the ruined house. They took off their military boots and their socks filled with holes to let the breeze cool their tired feet. Shibele, who wasn’t usually a big talker, found his voice. The green of the surroundings, the quiet, and the cold water from the well awakened his philosophical bent. “You know Zerdel, if you deal in honey, you get yourself a lick. And in tobacco, a sweet-smelling stick. But what do we ever get?”
Zerdel was also moved by the surroundings, by the twittering of the birds, and wanted to answer in rhyme. He didn’t want to sound crude, so he said nothing. He’d been feeling very poorly lately. His lungs were whistling.
“Zerdel, how long are we going to keep drifting? We’re not kids anymore, you know. When you get right down to it, we have no place to lay our heads. Pretty soon, Sheyndel’s going to throw us out of her teahouse. We owe her money.”
Zerdel tried to calm him. “We’ll arrange something with Sheyndel. I wish I could fix my breathing as easily.”
“Oh, Zerdel. If only something worked out for us. You know, if we had a little money, I would buy this place and fix it up. There’s no end of fresh air here. I’d put a table out in front for everyone. On Shabbes, all the people from the street could come to breathe freely.”
“Where will you get the money? From our orchestra?”
“Maybe the money will just show up.”
“Right now we don’t even have enough for a glass of tea. Soon we’ll have to drag ourselves back to the city. I shuffle when I walk. I feel pressure in my belly, a buzzing in my ears, and my lower back is breaking. I just don’t feel well.”
Shibele took a good look at his partner. Zerdel looked like his strength had dwindled away. Shibele wanted to get back to the city and the synagogue courtyard as quickly as possible. If anything happened, there would be someone there to listen to his cries for help. Shibele put Zerdel’s shoes on for him. They left the abandoned estate determined not to rest until they made it half way back to Vilna, to the Antokl Church.
Shibele and Zerdel gave their last concert just before midnight next to the large city concert hall. There was a foreign pianist performing that evening. The pair stood in a darkened corner next to the exit, hoping someone from the audience would stop and throw them a few groschen. Someone did stop, but not someone from the audience. It was the pianist himself. He and his accompanist were the last to leave the hall.
When the pianist first heard the strange sounds, he was completely dumbfounded. Then, in the dim light from the hall, he noticed the two musicians with their instruments, and in particular, Shibele’s instrument. The pianist was overcome with laughter, as though ten demons were tickling his armpits with feather dusters. His accompanist also started to laugh. They held their trembling bellies. Shibele and Zerdel played highbrow music, doing their best to offer quality merchandise. This time Shibele didn’t hold back. He hummed the entire “March of the Regiment of the Sixth Legion” without swallowing a single note. The piece of silk paper around his comb swelled as though about to burst.
After a good laugh, the pianist took a coin from his trouser pocket and gave it to Shibele. His accompanist didn’t stand idle either—he handed Zerdel a coin. Shibele and Zerdel waited until they got to Sheyndel’s teahouse to examine their earnings. Their eyes immediately lit up. Shibele had a ten-zloty coin and Zerdel, a fiver. Zerdel paid off their debt to Sheyndel. They had enough left for two glasses of tea and kaiser buns with salami.
Shibele placed the ten-zloty coin on the table and gazed at his own reflection in the dull silver. He had a good look at the stern Marshal Pilsudski, the founder of Poland, with his thick whiskers hanging over his mouth. Then Shibele examined the other side of the coin with the number 10 under the claws of an eagle’s splayed legs. He and Zerdel were alone in the teahouse, so Shibele could sit quietly and feast his eyes on the pianist’s gift. The most they ever got in Vilna was ten grosc
hen, and for that, they had to wait for a traveling businessman. And suddenly, such a fortune. Neither of them could believe it.
Zerdel had stopped caring about things. He’d stopped grooming himself and no longer polished his shoes. Sheyndel had mentioned it. But even he was reluctant to leave the table, where the coin lay deep and wide, like a ring of fat in a bowl of chicken soup. Eventually, Sheyndel had to ask them to leave the teahouse. After all, she was also a human being and needed her sleep.
Shibele lay in the dark in the garret over the public bath with his eyes wide open. Even though there were more important people in the synagogue courtyard, he and Zerdel had permission to sleep there at night. The straw mat creaked under Shibele. He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Zerdel called from his corner, “Shibele, what’s bothering you? Can’t you lie still?”
Shibele had been just waiting for Zerdel to say something so he could share what lay in his heart and on his mind. “You know, Zerdel, a chance like this comes once in a lifetime. He gave us ten zlotys. That’s really something.”
“Absolutely. If only we got that every week.”
“Yes, really, and from someone in Vilna. Oh Zerdel, Zerdel. But I have something else on my mind. You’re a partner, so I have to ask you. You know what I’m thinking?”
“Tell me.”
“I’m thinking the ten zlotys will just disappear. We won’t even see it go. You’ll get a plate of cholent. Me, two or three servings of kishke. Then we’ll have a hankering for some stuffed spleen, a few goose livers, and that’ll be that. The few zlotys will be gone.”
“So what do you want to do? Buy a house?”
“Maybe a house, maybe not. What I really want to buy is a lottery ticket.”
Zerdel sat up. “A lottery ticket? With our luck?”
Shibele launched into a speech like the one he’d given on the steps of the ruined house in Oginski’s Park. “Why not? We went straight from the ruined house to the city concert hall and look what happened. Maybe luck is watching us. She’s probably standing behind us and snickering, waiting to see if we have the sense to grab her or if we’ll just watch her disappear.”
Zerdel tried to joke. “If our luck’s in this attic, she won’t escape. It’s so dark, she’ll break her arms and legs on the beams. But my guess is that she’s found someplace better to sleep.”
“Oh, Zerdel, you’re just not yourself. You used to have more guts.”
Zerdel was indeed not himself. His illness had exhausted him. Snuggling into his threadbare American coat with the deep pockets, he said his piece, “You want to buy a lottery ticket. Buy the ticket.”
Shibele heard no more from Zerdel. Those were his final words for one very simple reason: he’d breathed his last.
In the morning, Shibele nudged Zerdel, trying to get him to leave the attic. Zerdel lay curled up under his donated American coat. He didn’t move. His violin lay at his feet like a faithful dog.
When Sheskin saw Shibele the Conductor in his office, his first thought was to tell the errand boy to send Shibele on his way. Sheskin recognized Shibele from his morning performances with Zerdel in the office courtyard. But Sheskin changed money and sold lottery tickets in his office. This was no place for comb concerts. However, when Shibele explained the reason for his visit, Sheskin didn’t know what to do. Shibele buying a lottery ticket! He stood opposite Sheskin in a tattered jacket, a torn shirt, pants with holes in them, and shoes without heels. Sheskin, who was taller and thinner than Shibele, bent over, looked Shibele up and down and asked him, “Are you sure you want to buy a lottery ticket?”
Shibele blushed like a virgin when her beloved proposes marriage. He twisted his swollen lips into a sort of smile and assured Sheskin, “Yes, yes. Exactly. A lottery ticket.”
Sheskin felt obliged to discourage him. “What do you need a lottery ticket for? You’d be better off buying yourself a pair of trousers and a new shirt. You’d look more like a musician then.”
Shibele wouldn’t give up. “Mr. Sheskin, before Zerdel died, he said, ‘Buy the ticket.’ Zerdel never spoke without good reason.”
Sheskin cut in. “He probably figured it would make no difference to him anyway, so he told you to buy the ticket.”
“No, Mister Sheskin,” Shibele replied, “We’d already talked about it.”
When Sheskin realized how determined Shibele was, he began to joke. “Let’s say you win. What’ll you do? Open a business? Start lending money?”
Shibele didn’t know what to say. He blushed even deeper. Finally he stammered, “I saw a house in Oginski’s Park in Pospieshk. I was hoping . . . Well, why shouldn’t an ordinary guy like me have a dacha? And I want a gravestone for Zerdel. Oh, and also pants, like you said. And maybe something else.”
“What else?”
“Something for a marriage proposal.”
Sheskin said no more. He sold Shibele a lottery ticket. With trembling fingers, Shibele took the ten-zloty coin out of the well-used piece of silk paper and laid it on the table. When Shibele got to the door, Sheskin called after him, “Let me write down the number. If you win, I’ll do you a good turn and be the first to let you know. If we need you, where’ll you be?”
“On the steps of the Gravedigger’s Synagogue. Or at Sheyndel’s teahouse. In the synagogue courtyard.”
Sheskin recorded the number. Shibele shoved the lottery ticket deep into the breast pocket of his jacket and left the office, filled with excitement. On the steps, he stroked the lottery ticket through the lining of his jacket that had known better days, when it had been strong, dark grey alpaca and the weave hadn’t been about to turn to dust. Shibele placed all his faith in the square piece of paper with a number at both top and bottom and a colored crest. He fastened his breast pocket with a large safety pin and went to give a solo concert beside Velfke’s restaurant on Yiddishe Street. The hucksters, the nasty jokers who dragged customers into the ready-made clothing shops, pestered Shibele all along his route, starting at Sheskin’s office at the corner of Rudnitzker and Daytshe Street. Shibele didn’t stop. He was afraid one of those guys would get the better of him. He would say too much and they’d cheat him out of his ticket. They could convince a peasant to buy a necktie to match his wooden shoes. Shibele quickly left the street where the gullible were so easily tempted.
Summer raged in the synagogue courtyard. With its hot breath, it blew on the heavy green branches of the only tree in the entire courtyard. The leaves crackled and then wilted, longing for rain. An orphaned page from one of the holy books lay in the corner of the courtyard, curled up from the heat and waiting to be tossed into one of the cool chests filled with damaged holiday prayer books and volumes of the Mishnah that were falling to pieces. The sun was as hot as the Friday cholent in the oven at Probe’s bakery. Because of the heat, everybody had shuffled to the walls to grab a little shade. Shibele was the only one enjoying the sweltering heat. He lay down on the steps of the Gravedigger’s Synagogue to warm his limbs after a night’s sleep in the damp, dark garret. Putting his jacket down next to himself, he rolled what was left of the cuffs of his shirt over his elbows, and with his cap over his eyes, stretched himself out on the lowest step of the synagogue like it was the top bench of the community bath.
Half asleep, Shibele dreamt of winning. He was sure he had a winning ticket. Maybe not the big prize, but enough for the house in Pospieshk, a gravestone for Zerdel, a new pair of pants, and something for a marriage proposal.
Zerdel never spoke without good reason. During his final days, he kept saying that he was dying. No one had believed him, not even the new young doctor in the charity hospital. He’d insisted that Zerdel would be fine and prescribed Epsom salts. Zerdel had showed everyone who was right and went off and died. It would be the same with the lottery ticket. Zerdel would be right again.
As to the marriage proposal, Sheyndel was now free. After she shed a few tears over Zerdel and his broken fiddle, that romance would be over. Shibele would be able to approach her
with money. She would come with him to Pospieshk and leave the teahouse with its cockroaches behind. It wouldn’t even bother him if she set up a bar in the front room for the poor people who come on Shabbes with their own provisions to bathe in the Viliye.
Shibele fell asleep and dreamt one good dream after the next. Had it not been for the errand boy from Sheskin’s office, he would have slept until after Minkhe, the afternoon prayers. But the young man kept jabbing him until he had to open his eyes. Sheskin had sent the errand boy to tell Shibele to come to the office as quickly as possible. Luckily he didn’t have to search for Shibele for long. He was lying exactly where he’d said he would be. Between one yawn and the next, Shibele asked what the boss needed from him. The young man, who should have lowered his voice, squealed, “They said in the office that you won money.”
Sleep took flight from Shibele’s eyes like a bird with ruffled feathers. He was immediately up on his feet. He wanted to pick up his jacket and run like the devil to his luck, but the jacket wasn’t lying next to him. He leapt from one step to the next. Then he raced into the vestibule of the little synagogue and from there, into the synagogue itself. He scurried to the Torah platform, searched under the ritual washstand, peered behind the curtains of the ark for the Torah scrolls, and opened the cold oven. He overturned every bookstand and shoved his hand to the back of the ark. His jacket was nowhere to be seen. Shibele figured one of the Psalm reciters must have played a trick on him and hidden the piece of clothing somewhere in the little synagogue. He ran into the synagogue courtyard and searched every nook and cranny, including the chests of old prayer books. The jacket had disappeared like the last little cloud in the sky, leaving only a cheerful patch of blue, which just looked sad and black to Shibele. Returning to the vestibule of the synagogue, with both hands he grabbed the pillory that was forged into the wall and sobbed loudly. Everyone in the courtyard came running. Shibele was sniveling like a little child. And like a little child crying for his mother, through his tears he sputtered out the story of his loss.
Vilna My Vilna Page 8