by David Miller
I
I AM Gimpel the fool. I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. They gave me the name while I was still in school. I had seven names in all: imbecile, donkey, flax-head, dope, glump, ninny, and fool. The last name stuck. What did my foolishness consist of? I was easy to take in. They said, “Gimpel, you know the rabbi’s wife has been brought to childbed?” So I skipped school. Well, it turned out to be a lie. How was I supposed to know? She hadn’t had a big belly. But I never looked at her belly. Was that really so foolish? The gang laughed and hee-hawed, stomped and danced and chanted a good-night prayer. And instead of the raisins they give when a woman’s lying in, they stuffed my hand full of goat turds. I was no weakling. If I slapped someone he’d see all the way to Cracow. But I’m really not a slugger by nature. I think to myself: Let it pass. So they take advantage of me.
I was coming home from school and heard a dog barking. I’m not afraid of dogs, but of course I never want to start up with them. One of them may be mad, and if he bites there’s not a Tartar in the world who can help you. So I made tracks. Then I looked around and saw the whole market place wild with laughter. It was no dog at all but Wolf-Leib the thief. How was I supposed to know it was he? It sounded like a howling bitch.
When the pranksters and leg-pullers found that I was easy to fool, every one of them tried his luck with me. “Gimpel, the czar is coming to Frampol; Gimpel, the moon fell down in Turbeen; Gimpel, little Hodel Furpiece found a treasure behind the bathhouse.” And I like a golem believed everyone. In the first place, everything is possible, as it is written in The Wisdom of the Fathers, I’ve forgotten just how. Second, I had to believe when the whole town came down on me! If I ever dared to say, “Ah, you’re kidding!” there was trouble. People got angry. “What do you mean! You want to call everyone a liar?” What was I to do? I believed them, and I hope at least that did them some good.
I was an orphan. My grandfather who brought me up was already bent toward the grave. So they turned me over to a baker, and what a time they gave me there! Every woman or girl who came to bake a batch of noodles had to fool me at least once. “Gimpel, there’s a fair in Heaven; Gimpel, the rabbi gave birth to a calf in the seventh month; Gimpel, a cow flew over the roof and laid brass eggs.” A student from the yeshiva came once to buy a roll, and he said, “You, Gimpel, while you stand here scraping with your baker’s shovel the Messiah has come. The dead have arisen.” “What do you mean?” I said. “I heard no one blowing the ram’s horn!” He said, “Are you deaf?” And all began to cry, “We heard it, we heard!” Then in came Rietze the candle-dipper and called out in her hoarse voice, “Gimpel, your father and mother have stood up from the grave. They’re looking for you.”
To tell the truth, I knew very well that nothing of the sort had happened, but all the same, as folks were talking, I threw on my wool vest and went out. Maybe something had happened. What did I stand to lose by looking? Well, what a cat music went up! And then I took a vow to believe nothing more. But that was no go either. They confused me so that I didn’t know the big end from the small.
I went to the rabbi to get some advice. He said, “It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself.” Nevertheless, the rabbi’s daughter took me in. As I left the rabbinical court she said, “Have you kissed the wall yet?” I said, “No; what for?” She answered, “It’s the law; you’ve got to do it after every visit.” Well, there didn’t seem to be any harm in it. And she burst out laughing. It was a fine trick. She put one over on me, all right.
I wanted to go off to another town, but then everyone got busy matchmaking, and they were after me so they nearly tore my coat tails off. They talked at me and talked until I got water on the car. She was no chaste maiden, but they told me she was virgin pure. She had a limp, and they said it was deliberate, from coyness. She had a bastard, and they told me the child was her little brother. I cried, “You’re wasting your time. I’ll never marry that whore.” But they said indignantly, “What a way to talk! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? We can take you to the rabbi and have you fined for giving her a bad name.” I saw then that I wouldn’t escape them so easily and I thought: They’re set on making me their butt. But when you’re married the husband’s the master, and if that’s all right with her it’s agreeable to me too. Besides, you can’t pass through life unscathed, nor expect to.
I went to her clay house, which was built on the sand, and the whole gang, hollering and chorusing, came after me. They acted like bear-baiters. When we came to the well they stopped all the same. They were afraid to start anything with Elka. Her mouth would open as if it were on a hinge, and she had a fierce tongue. I entered the house. Lines were strung from wall to wall and clothes were drying. Barefoot she stood by the tub, doing the wash. She was dressed in a worn hand-me-down gown of plush. She had her hair put up in braids and pinned across her head. It took my breath away, almost, the reek of it all.
Evidently she knew who I was. She took a look at me and said, “Look who’s here! He’s come, the drip. Grab a seat.”
I told her all; I denied nothing. “Tell me the truth,” I said, “are you really a virgin, and is that mischievous Yechiel actually your little brother? Don’t be deceitful with me, for I’m an orphan.”
“I’m an orphan myself,” she answered, “and whoever tries to twist you up, may the end of his nose take a twist. But don’t let them think they can take advantage of me. I want a dowry of fifty guilders, and let them take up a collection besides. Otherwise they can kiss my you-know-what.” She was very plainspoken. I said, “It’s the bride and not the groom who gives a dowry.” Then she said, “Don’t bargain with me. Either a flat yes or a flat no. Go back where you came from.”
I thought: No bread will ever be baked from this dough. But ours is not a poor town. They consented to everything and proceeded with the wedding. It so happened that there was a dysentery epidemic at the time. The ceremony was held at the cemetery gates, near the little corpse-washing hut. The fellows got drunk. While the marriage contract was being drawn up I heard the most pious high rabbi ask, “Is the bride a widow or a divorced woman?” And the sexton’s wife answered for her, “Both a widow and divorced.” It was a black moment for me. But what was I to do, run away from under the marriage canopy?
There was singing and dancing. An old granny danced opposite me, hugging a braided white hallah. The master of revels made a “God ’a mercy” in memory of the bride’s parents. The schoolboys threw burrs, as on Tishe b’Av fast day. There were a lot of gifts after the sermon: a noodle board, a kneading trough, a bucket, brooms, ladles, household articles galore. Then I took a look and saw two strapping young men carrying a crib. “What do we need this for?” I asked. So they said, “Don’t rack your brains about it. It’s all right, it’ll come in handy.” I realized I was going to be rooked. Take it another way though, what did I stand to lose? I reflected: I’ll see what comes of it. A whole town can’t go altogether crazy.
II
At night I came where my wife lay, but she wouldn’t let me in. “Say, look here, is this what they married us for?” I said. And she said, “My monthly has come.” “But yesterday they took you to the ritual bath, and that’s afterwards, isn’t it supposed to be?” “Today isn’t yesterday,” said she, “and yesterday’s not today. You can beat it if you don’t like it.” In short, I waited.
Not four months later, she was in childbed. The townsfolk hid their laughter with their knuckles. But what could I do? She suffered intolerable pains and clawed at the walls. “Gimpel,” she cried, “I’m going. Forgive me!” The house filled with women. They were boiling pans of water. The screams rose to the welkin.
The thing to do was to go to the house of prayer to repeat psalms, and that was what I did.
The townsfolk liked that, all right. I stood in a corner saying psalms and
prayers, and they shook their heads at me. “Pray, pray!” they told me. “Prayer never made any woman pregnant.” One of the congregation put a straw to my mouth and said, “Hay for the cows.” There was something to that too, by God!
She gave birth to a boy. Friday at the synagogue the sexton stood up before the Ark, pounded on the reading table, and announced, “The wealthy Reb Gimpel invites the congregation to a feast in honor of the birth of a son.” The whole house of prayer rang with laughter. My face was flaming. But there was nothing I could do. After all, I was the one responsible for the circumcision honors and rituals.
Half the town came running. You couldn’t wedge another soul in. Women brought peppered chick-peas, and there was a keg of beer from the tavern. I ate and drank as much as anyone, and they all congratulated me. Then there was a circumcision, and I named the boy after my father, may he rest in peace. When all were gone and I was left with my wife alone, she thrust her head through the bed-curtain and called me to her.
“Gimpel,” said she, “why are you silent? Has your ship gone and sunk?”
“What shall I say?” I answered. “A fine thing you’ve done to me! If my mother had known of it she’d have died a second time.”
She said, “Are you crazy, or what?”
“How can you make such a fool,” I said, “of one who should be the lord and master?”
“What’s the matter with you?” she said. “What have you taken it into your head to imagine?”
I saw that I must speak bluntly and openly. “Do you think this is the way to use an orphan?” I said. “You have borne a bastard.”
She answered, “Drive this foolishness out of your head. The child is yours.”
“How can he be mine?” I argued. “He was born seventeen weeks after the wedding.”
She told me then that he was premature. I said, “Isn’t he a little too premature?” She said, she had had a grandmother who carried just as short a time and she resembled this grandmother of hers as one drop of water does another. She swore to it with such oaths that you would have believed a peasant at the fair if he had used them. To tell the plain truth, I didn’t believe her; but when I talked it over next day with the school-master, he told me that the very same thing had happened to Adam and Eve. Two they went up to bed, and four they descended.
“There isn’t a woman in the world who is not the granddaughter of Eve,” he said.
That was how it was; they argued me dumb. But then, who really knows how such things are?
I began to forget my sorrow. I loved the child madly, and he loved me too. As soon as he saw me he’d wave his little hands and want me to pick him up, and when he was colicky I was the only one who could pacify him. I bought him a little bone teething ring and a little gilded cap. He was forever catching the evil eye from someone, and then I had to run to get one of those abracadabras for him that would get him out of it. I worked like an ox. You know how expenses go up when there’s an infant in the house. I don’t want to lie about it; I didn’t dislike Elka either, for that matter. She swore at me and cursed, and I couldn’t get enough of her. What strength she had! One of her looks could rob you of the power of speech. And her orations! Pitch and sulphur, that’s what they were full of, and yet somehow also full of charm. I adored her every word. She gave me bloody wounds though.
In the evening I brought her a white loaf as well as a dark one, and also poppyseed rolls I baked myself. I thieved because of her and swiped everything I could lay hands on: macaroons, raisins, almonds, cakes. I hope I may be forgiven for stealing from the Saturday pots the women left to warm in the baker’s oven. I would take out scraps of meat, a chunk of pudding, a chicken leg or head, a piece of tripe, whatever I could nip quickly. She ate and became fat and handsome.
I had to sleep away from home all during the week, at the bakery. On Friday nights when I got home she always made an excuse of some sort. Either she had heartburn, or a stitch in the side, or hiccups, or headaches. You know what women’s excuses are. I had a bitter time of it. It was rough. To add to it, this little brother of hers, the bastard, was growing bigger. He’d put lumps on me, and when I wanted to hit back she’d open her mouth and curse so powerfully I saw a green haze floating before my eyes. Ten times a day she threatened to divorce me. Another man in my place would have taken French leave and disappeared. But I’m the type that bears it and says nothing. What’s one to do? Shoulders are from God, and burdens too.
One night there was a calamity in the bakery; the oven burst, and we almost had a fire. There was nothing to do but go home, so I went home. Let me, I thought, also taste the joy of sleeping in bed in midweek. I didn’t want to wake the sleeping mite and tiptoed into the house. Coming in, it seemed to me that I heard not the snoring of one but, as it were, a double snore, one a thin enough snore and the other like the snoring of a slaughtered ox. Oh, I didn’t like that! I didn’t like it at all. I went up to the bed, and things suddenly turned black. Next to Elka lay a man’s form. Another in my place would have made an uproar, and enough noise to rouse the whole town, but the thought occurred to me that I might wake the child. A little thing like that – why frighten a little swallow, I thought. All right then, I went back to the bakery and stretched out on a sack of flour and till morning I never shut an eye. I shivered as if I had had malaria. “Enough of being a donkey,” I said to myself. “Gimpel isn’t going to be a sucker all his life. There’s a limit even to the foolishness of a fool like Gimpel.”
In the morning I went to the rabbi to get advice, and it made a great commotion in the town. They sent the beadle for Elka right away. She came, carrying the child. And what do you think she did? She denied it, denied everything, bone and stone! “He’s out of his head,” she said. “I know nothing of dreams or divinations.” They yelled at her, warned her, hammered on the table, but she stuck to her guns: it was a false accusation, she said.
The butchers and the horse-traders took her part. One of the lads from the slaughterhouse came by and said to me, “We’ve got our eye on you, you’re a marked man.” Meanwhile, the child started to bear down and soiled itself. In the rabbinical court there was an Ark of the Covenant, and they couldn’t allow that, so they sent Elka away.
I said to the rabbi, “What shall I do?”
“You must divorce her at once,” said he.
“And what if she refuses?” I asked.
He said, “You must serve the divorce. That’s all you’ll have to do.”
I said, “Well, all right, Rabbi. Let me think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” said he. “You mustn’t remain under the same roof with her.”
“And if I want to see the child?” I asked.
“Let her go, the harlot,” said he, “and her brood of bastards with her.”
The verdict he gave was that I mustn’t even cross her threshold – never again, as long as I should live.
During the day it didn’t bother me so much. I thought: It was bound to happen, the abscess had to burst. But at night when I stretched out upon the sacks I felt it all very bitterly. A longing took me, for her and for the child. I wanted to be angry, but that’s my misfortune exactly, I don’t have it in me to be really angry. In the first place – this was how my thoughts went – there’s bound to be a slip sometimes. You can’t live without errors. Probably that lad who was with her led her on and gave her presents and what not, and women are often long on hair and short on sense, and so he got around her. And then since she denies it so, maybe I was only seeing things? Hallucinations do happen. You see a figure or a mannikin or something, but when you come up closer it’s nothing, there’s not a thing there. And if that’s so, I’m doing her an injustice. And when I got so far in my thoughts I started to weep. I sobbed so that I wet the flour where I lay. In the morning I went to the rabbi and told him that I had made a mistake. The rabbi wrote on with his quill, and he said that if that were so he would have to reconsider the whole case. Until he had finished I wasn’t to
go near my wife, but I might send her bread and money by messenger.
III
Nine months passed before all the rabbis could come to an agreement. Letters went back and forth. I hadn’t realized that there could be so much erudition about a matter like this.
Meanwhile, Elka gave birth to still another child, a girl this time. On the Sabbath I went to the synagogue and invoked a blessing on her. They called me up to the Torah, and I named the child for my mother-in-law – may she rest in peace. The louts and loudmouths of the town who came into the bakery gave me a going over. All Frampol refreshed its spirits because of my trouble and grief. However, I resolved that I would always believe what I was told. What’s the good of not believing? Today it’s your wife you don’t believe; tomorrow it’s God Himself you won’t take stock in.
By an apprentice who was her neighbor I sent her daily a corn or a wheat loaf, or a piece of pastry, rolls or bagels, or, when I got the chance, a slab of pudding, a slice of honeycake, or wedding strudel – whatever came my way. The apprentice was a goodhearted lad, and more than once he added something on his own. He had formerly annoyed me a lot, plucking my nose and digging me in the ribs, but when he started to be a visitor to my house he became kind and friendly. “Hey, you, Gimpel,” he said to me, “you have a very decent little wife and two fine kids. You don’t deserve them.”
“But the things people say about her,” I said.
“Well, they have long tongues,” he said, “and nothing to do with them but babble. Ignore it as you ignore the cold of last winter.”
One day the rabbi sent for me and said, “Are you certain, Gimpel, that you were wrong about your wife?”
I said, “I’m certain.”
“Why, but look here! You yourself saw it.”
“It must have been a shadow,” I said.
“The shadow of what?”