Everyone desires the nipple.
A wife known as a blessing can sometimes be the greatest curse.
In a fire, even the slop pail can help.
Of an ugly girl: She looks like a cross-eyed herring on heels that are too high to be flat and too flat to be high.
God pays honestly, but He takes His time.
A lowly boot also has ears.
Even a humble hut has windows.
A poor man complains when he has two weddings in one day. Where will he eat the next day?
Even a thief should maintain his honor.
If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a locomotive.
At this, Dr. Weinreich doubled over with laughter and stopped reading from the collection of Vilna aphorisms and sayings.
One hot summer day Chana-Merka was standing next to her tub, waiting for a customer to come along and buy her last few barbels at a bargain price. She’d recently lost interest in the whole fishing business. Looking to switch to another line of work, she started hatching various plans.
Itske the Redhead had offered her a share in his bar on Yatkever Street, not far from her little room. Pale Tsirl warned Chana-Merka against it. “A tub of fish is an honest business. If you don’t like a customer, just chase her away with the tail of a carp, saying, ‘Madam, buy smelts instead. This fish isn’t for you.’ But all sorts of thugs come into a bar. You have to put on a sweet face, wiggle your bottom, and ask them what they’d like, when really you’d like to see the back of them. Here at the tubs, the entire city knows you, Chana-Merka, but at Itske the Redhead’s, you’ll be nothing more than Chana-Merka the waitress.”
So Chana-Merka didn’t take Itske up on his offer. But she no longer felt happy standing next to the tubs. When Rubinshteyn had spent time with her, she’d felt important. And in the Institute they’d treated her like an empress, fussing over her. Dr. Weinreich shook her hand. If only she could devote herself to folklore, like the young men and women who worked in the Institute. But they were so well-educated; she couldn’t measure up to them. She had nothing but her tub of fish.
Heaving a sigh, Chana-Merka looked around for a customer. At one time, before she got involved with folklore, she’d lured her customers by yelling witty sayings, praising her merchandise to the sky. But now she ran a respectable business, which was no good for the tub of fish.
Pale Tsirl fretted. She watched her friend sink lower and lower. Chana-Merka just wasn’t the same. Tsirl chastised her. “The only gleam left is from the gold tooth in your mouth. Pretty soon you’ll be like Zelda the Researcher, that drab, old maid.”
As Chana-Merka stood waiting for her final customer, she noticed off in the distance, at the edge of the market, a man walking toward her, dragging his stiff leg behind him. He stopped every ten or twelve steps, perhaps because of the heat. As the limping wanderer trudged toward the row of tubs, the green backpack hanging off one of his shoulders shone in the bright sunlight.
Chana-Merka stood at her tub, absolutely still. She couldn’t be wrong. It had to be Rubinshteyn the Folklorist. He was too close for her to be just imagining him. He kept walking until he stood right next to her. She didn’t know what to do. She stood still, leaving it to Rubinshteyn to limp the last step and take her hand that was clenched around the edge of her tub.
Rubinshteyn took the step. His hand clasped Chana-Merka’s. They stood together, without saying a word. They left talking for later, when they sat at the table in Chana-Merka’s tiny room and Rubinshteyn enjoyed a glass of tea and a piece of gefilte fish.
7
Lost and Found
Ortshik’s eyes almost crawled out of his head before he managed to open his own barbershop. He’d been collecting equipment for a few years, one shaving knife at a time. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just go to Kruk’s daughter’s warehouse and ask to have the barbershop supplies packed up. Had he been single, that might have been possible, but he’d just hitched up with Libke. And he’d barely stepped out from under the wedding canopy when she started to show.
Libke had to stop working. Itske the Redhead didn’t, God forbid, force her to quit. He just told her she took up half the bar and the customers were afraid she’d go into labor and drop a plate of baby beets on them. Libke tried to tell Itske that she was only in her seventh month and still far from the big day, but it made no difference. He shouted that Vilna had never seen such a monstrous pregnancy. “Maybe you’re carrying triplets.”
Libke came home in tears. She hoped Itske’s wife would bear him only black monsters. After all, she’d worked as a waitress in Itske’s bar for ten years. Loyal as a dog, she’d ignored the pinches to her soft flesh so the customers would be happy and the business successful. And he’d dismissed her now, of all times, when they needed every groschen. In the past, she could always count on bringing home a few zlotys in tips, a piece of cheap udder, or a few stuffed chicken bellies from the bar. No longer.
Ortshik couldn’t maintain the household and buy equipment on his wages. That was clear. He needed to open his own shop. As his grandmother used to say, “A door on the street is a window into heaven.” He tightened the belt of his white housecoat, fighting off his doubts and hesitations.
Shabbes morning, before Ortshik got out of bed, he tallied up what he had and what he still needed. Libke lay next to him, her pointy belly covered with a cotton blanket like a cholent waiting for tardy guests. Poking him, she said, “Ortshik, stop counting the scissors.” Ortshik ignored her. He peered over her mountainous belly into the distance, imagining the sign for his establishment, “Ortshik the Barber (Formerly at Bendel’s).”
Libke had a boy. He came out of her belly with a real head of hair. He was just waiting for someone to sit him down and give him a good haircut. Everyone in Vilna came running to have a look at the amazing sight. Itsik the Redhead predicted the child would grow up to be an athlete and conquer the world.
The gangsters decided to hold the bris right there, in the bar, at their expense. They asked Itske to be the sandek. The chicken sellers from the lumber market contributed all their giblets. A few skinners threw in a side of meat. Itske provided whiskey. For a while Ortshik forgot his worries. His pals plied him with drink until he babbled that the bottle needed a shave. Embarrassed, Libke screamed that if Ortshik couldn’t hold his liquor, he should stick to Yoshe’s kvass. She was the first to leave for home, taking the child with her. Ortshik’s pals dragged him home much later.
When Ortshik recovered from the bris, he began setting up his business. He heard that Avromke the Anarchist, who sold his wares in the passageway, had an assortment of barbering tools. A barber, a goy, had died in Rone-Pole. During his final years, the man had raised rabbits rather than cutting hair. His wife had shown up with a sack of equipment to sell.
Ortshik slipped away from Bendel’s to look over the merchandise but there was almost nothing he wanted. Damaged razors, one with a cracked handle; moldy leather sharpening belts; a set of shears with missing teeth; worn-out brushes; and three yellowed shaving mugs. Of the many pairs of scissors, at most only one was worth taking. The goye offered to throw two faded mustache bandages from King Sobietski’s time into the bargain. Ortshik spit at the ground and took off. Avromke the Anarchist wanted to call him back, but then he saw for himself that there was nothing worth buying. It was all just old junk. He grabbed everything, stuffed it back into the sack and escorted the goye out of the passageway, bidding her good riddance.
Things did not go well for Ortshik. He was plagued by bad luck. He leased a shop on Krupnitshe Street at a good rent. He was just about to hire someone to whitewash the place when a barbers’ strike broke out in Vilna and wrecked all his plans. Altetshke had hired a barber who wasn’t from Vilna, even though the barbershop bosses had agreed to only hire Vilna barbers. There were already enough locals. The barbers had sat in the union office on Zavalne Street with the bosses for many nights before they finally agreed to this point and signed it with a handshake and refreshments a
t Velfke’s restaurant.
But Altetshke thought she was smarter than everyone else and claimed the man was a distant relative. The union decreed that Max and Liovke, who worked at Shirbe’s on Daytshe Street, would go with Ortshik to remove the good-for-nothing from the barbershop. Ortshik was expected to maintain discipline until he was on his own. So he went.
The three men sat themselves down at Altetshke’s and waited while the supposed relative shaved a customer. The guy dragged out the shave for as long as possible, going over the same cheek three times with the shaving knife and then getting rid of every little nose hair. To this day, no one knows who smashed Altetshke’s mirror. However it happened, the customer ran into the street with the bib still under his chin and the fool from elsewhere went home with one eye a little smaller than the other.
The delegation didn’t get off scot-free either. Ortshik suffered more than the others. Someone punched him from behind and twisted one of his sidelocks. Libke walked into the union office, holding the infant with the thick head of hair, and told the chairman, Yoske Geker, that in return for sending Ortshik into the flames, she hoped he choked on a fish dumpling. The chairman told Libke that her husband had to stand shoulder to shoulder on the barricades to defend the interests of the working class.
Altetshke submitted to the union’s decree and gave up trying to be smarter than everyone else. Everyone in the trade was sure things would calm down. They would walk down Daytshe Street like heroes. But then it was the Days of Awe and time to negotiate a new contract. The bosses wouldn’t budge. Strelnik from Gitke-Toybe’s Lane wreaked havoc, insisting there would be no more overtime pay. “What God gives, He’ll give, and no more. The workers have to share in the burden of turning a profit along with everyone else. They can’t just throw their smocks at the wall when the clock strikes seven.”
Ortshik didn’t know where to turn. He stood at Bendel’s with his shaving knife in hand, but his head was already in his own shop with his own garbage. And his heart was with his pals Yosl Pasovke, Shepske, and Max, who were all fired up and spent their time in the union hall, scheming about how to wage war against the enemies of the working class like Strelnik, Bendel and the other oppressors.
Ortshik used the few weeks of the barbers’ strike to organize the cupboards in his barbershop. Libke told him to put a blue awning above the small white door so it didn’t look like a medical clinic. When the neighbors showed up to offer their opinions, they said the place looked wonderful. The workers won the strike, but Ortshik didn’t enjoy the victory. He took Libke’s advice and didn’t return to work. It had almost killed her when he went out onto the barricades.
Ortshik bought a few inexpensive mirrors and the shop started to look like something. It still needed chairs, a hair dryer, and a few hand implements. A friend of Libke’s gave her a painting of a woman lying on a chaise lounge in a nightgown, with two chubby cherubs combing her bangs. Libke hung the painting where everyone would see it. She polished and scrubbed without standing still for a minute. By the time she finished, she had no feeling in her arms.
Friday evening, before the barbershop was scheduled to open, Libke barely had the strength to light the candles. She and Ortshik sat at the Shabbes table looking tired and bleary-eyed after a week of hard work. On Sunday morning, Ortshik would, with luck, stand in front of his own shop. Libke poured the chicken broth into a bowl and looked at her husband. Then she put down the ladle and burst out crying. Ortshik’s sparse whiskers quivered. “Why are you crying?”
“Just look at you. You’re half your normal size.”
“What can I do? I’ve been rushing around to get everything ready.”
“I know that. I also know the kind of brides they offered you. Girls with money and a place to live. You settled for a poor girl. Maybe you figure it wasn’t worth it.”
Ortshik smiled. “What are you thinking? There’s a little one in the crib. We’re an old couple now.”
The Shabbes candles lit up Ortshik’s smile. Libke’s face was glowing. She walked over to her husband, ran her chubby fingers through the billows of his forelock, and revealed her naked breast. “Ortshik, my little tomcat. Are you still taken with me, like before?”
Ortshik smiled.
“So tell me the truth. Why did you choose me? Tell me.”
Ortshik smoothed down his whiskers. “It was your good looks Libke. That’s the only reason.”
Early Sunday morning, Ortshik took his keys and went to open his barbershop. The short distance from Stephan Street to Krupnitshe felt like miles. He wanted to get there as quickly as possible and wish his first customer a hearty good morning. When he arrived at the shop, he looked at the sign with pleasure and then put his key into the hanging lock that held an iron bar. Carefully, so as not to damage the fresh paint, he moved the bar to one side, opened the door wide, and hurried into the business of his dreams.
Ortshik’s face fell from shock. The barbershop was completely empty. There wasn’t a single chair, a single mirror, or even the tiniest implement in the shop. Lonely hooks winked at Ortshik from the naked and embarrassed walls. He pulled out one drawer after the next, but found nothing. It was as though a demon had played a trick on Saturday evening and with one breath, blown the entire barbershop through the chimney. The new nickel chairs with headrests and hidden hinges were missing. Also the polished four-meter-high mirrors and the hair dryer with its bell-shaped attachment that Ortshik had bought for working on women’s hair. Gone were the sets of shears, the shaving knives, the bone and steel combs, the soap mugs, and the brushes made from the best pig hair. Everything had disappeared. Even Ortshik’s new smock with the small blue collar was missing. From Libke’s picture, only the string remained.
Ortshik’s felt his heart tighten. He stood absolutely still for a moment. Then he fell to the floor, stretched out to his full length. That’s how his first customer, Hirshel the Canary, found him. Hirshel woke the entire street trying to revive Ortshik. Then he went off to find out who could have committed such a heinous act.
The people of Vilna were outraged when they heard that someone had cleaned out Ortshik’s barbershop. The entire trade was fuming. Libke was so upset, her milk dried up. The boy clung with both hands to his mother’s breast that was as big as a pumpkin, but he only managed to squeeze out a little sip. Ortshik lay in bed with his eyes closed. Libke begged him, “Orele, you have to be strong. The baby needs a father.”
That evening Ortshik’s friends came to comfort him. Yoske said they’d turn Vilna inside out to find Ortshik’s things. He promised that, God willing, in the morning they would make contact with the shady elements in town and solve the crime. Yoske added that Ortshik shouldn’t have betrayed the ranks and joined the petit bourgeoisie by opening his own barber shop. But still, when he found the bastards who’d robbed Ortshik, he’d personally shave them with a blunt shaving knife.
Hirshke the Canary wasn’t sitting idle either. He’d experienced the robbery at Ortshik’s barbershop as a personal insult. After all, he was the Emperor of Krupnitshe Street. No one dared lay their hands on a hair’s worth of merchandise without his approval. And then, out of nowhere, some scoundrel showed up and robbed one of his neighbors. Hirshke informed Ortshik in no uncertain terms not to go to the police. Commissar Mayevski and his informers would just scare off the thief. Then Hirshke went to see the locksmith, Yanek the Grumbler, to find out whether anyone had recently ordered a skeleton key.
But there were no clues to the theft. Hirshke the Canary went to the criminal organization, the Golden Flag, to demand justice, but the president, Zelik the Benefactor, was in Lukishke prison, so there was no one to talk to. Zelik was due out any day. They had to wait.
When Libke saw that Ortshik’s skin had turned as black as a cauldron from worry, she went looking for advice and the chance to unburden her heart. The pluckers in the chicken shed advised her to go see the yeshiva student who read palms. Maybe he’d be able to tell her where the contents of the barbershop
had ended up. They explained that it wasn’t only agunes who went to him, but also respectable people, merchants and the like. Everyone had their burden. The yeshiva student usually made his predictions from a lined piece of paper with horoscopes. For difficult situations, he consulted a book about the Kabbalah for the right combination of Hebrew letters and numbers.
Libke found the yeshiva student eating a herring with onions. Seeing her sad expression, he tried to calm her by pointing out that there wasn’t a man on this earth who wouldn’t eventually return home with his tail between his legs. He would explain everything in detail as soon as he finished the herring. Libke didn’t wait for him to get to the herring’s tail. She immediately corrected his mistake with a few sharp words. Wasting no time, the yeshiva student looked at his astrological chart for some hint to explain the disappearance of Ortshik’s barbershop supplies. Then he did something with a little mirror. Finally, he looked at Libke’s calloused palm and sent her home with a muddled explanation that because the theft was still fresh, she should sit tight for a little while. They would speak later. One thing was certain—the thief had whiskers.
Hirshke the Canary got his due. As soon as Zelik the Benefactor was released from prison, a meeting was organized. Rabbi Kivele, the rabbi for the profession, promised to attend. That evening, everyone with the slightest involvement in illegal activity showed up for the meeting at Itske the Redhead’s bar. Itske closed the shutters against onlookers and told the waitresses to cut up two meters of roasted kishke for refreshments. Zelik the Benefactor sat at the head of the table with Prentsik and Zorukh the Double Boiler at his side to assist him. Further down the table, according to their rank, sat Avromke the Anarchist, Wise Melekh, Dodke the Ace, Elinke, Motke the Little Kaiser, both Squirrel brothers, and so on, all the way down to the little minnows at the end of the table.
Vilna My Vilna Page 11