In the Land of Happy Tears

by Yiddish Tales for Modern Times

  Hearing a cricket, he creeps up quietly, looks into its green eyes for a while, then grabs it by both legs and plays cat and mouse with it. He holds it in his fist and opens his hand so that it can leap out, while keeping the other hand ready to grab it.

  If the cricket manages to escape, he follows its every leap—he lies low and hops up, as if riding on green waves—and grabs it, pulling off its saw-like leg. “Go, little cripple, let’s see how you chirp now.”

  Feeling tired, he stretches out to see if there are any birds flying in the sky. He could catch all the birds. And in the clouds, he also sees rivers, mountains, and big, strange crickets.

  In the evening, he chases swallows. It’s a mitzvah—a good deed—to twist off their heads, because they carried fire to the Jerusalem Temple. It’s not for nothing that their throats bear a red mark, while they themselves are scorched black.

  When Esterke’s in the garden, he plays with her by hiding in the grass and suddenly jumping out to scare her. The different creatures that Shoyelke holds scare her, and when he comes toward her with a cricket or a bee, she screams, watches him with frightened eyes, and hides her hands behind her back.

  But she follows Shoyelke like a sheep and watches everything he does.

  * * *

  —

  Esterke is now standing and watching Shoyelke put together five bricks to make a bird trap.

  “I’ll catch as many birds as you want,” he boasts to her as he quickly makes a box out of four bricks, props up the top brick with a small piece of wood, places a little board under it, and scatters some crumbs of challah bread.

  “Now let’s hide.” He pulls Esterke away to the side.

  A host of sparrows descends, chirping like children, and scatters all over the trap. A group of younglings starts hopping on and around the bricks.

  An elderly sparrow, a dignified uncle, stays at a distance, looking askance at the young twosomes as if warning them: don’t be so joyful, don’t let yourselves be fooled.

  But the twosomes hop and peck, hop and peck.

  Shoyelke and Esterke watch them.

  “How many will you catch?” asks Esterke.

  “A he and a she,” replies Shoyelke.

  “Will you give me any?”

  “As many as you want.”

  “A he and a she, too.”

  “Sure.”

  “Shh.” His eyes suddenly light up. “There’s one coming….”

  “A he or a she?” asks Esterke.

  “A he.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. He has a crown on his head,” replies Shoyelke.

  “I don’t see it,” returns Esterke.

  “You can’t see the crown,” replies Shoyelke authoritatively. “Look! Look…”

  He doesn’t have time to finish the sentence before the top brick—zap!—drops with a clap.

  A pitiful squeak—like a small child squealing with sudden pain—cuts through the air and dies out.

  The entire host of sparrows rises up noisily and flies away. Shoyelke dashes out of his hideout while Esterke stays behind, frightened by the clapping sound.

  “Two! Two in one go!” he shouts to her in joyful excitement. “Come here, you’ll see—a he and a she!”

  Like a professional, he uses his jacket to cover the bricks, and he sees that sticking out from one side is half a bird, crushed by the brick. The sparrow doesn’t move, except for one open eye with a red stripe around it, which keeps blinking at him as if trying in vain to cry.

  “What’s wrong with the birdie?” Esterke comes up.

  “It died,” replies Shoyelke indifferently.

  “You’re no good at catching them.” Esterke pouts her lips. “Poor birdie.”

  “No big deal, I can catch as many as you want. You’ve got one, anyway!”

  He stretches out on the ground, peeps into a crack in the bricks, and sees a sparrow sitting hunched up, its feathers raised with fright.

  “Want to see how our guest sits there?” Shoyelke gets up.

  “I’m afraid of the dead one.” Esterke looks fearfully on. “It could appear in a dream, like Grandma says.”

  Shoyelke laughs.

  “You’re such a granny!” he says with the same face his father makes when he says it to his mother. “It’s not a person. It’s just a bird….”

  * * *

  —

  In his sleep, Shoyelke feels someone pecking him ever so lightly, as if with a tiny beak. He pinches himself and in the dark sees a tiny open eye with a red stripe around it, blinking at him as if trying in vain to weep.

  He immediately remembers Esterke’s words. The bird has come to him in a dream, and, frightened, he wants to shout, “Mama!” But the darkness around the eye starts to brighten, and he sees a whole bird looking at him ever so kindly. He seems to know this bird. “Why, it’s Esterke!” he marvels. “I’d swear it’s Esterke, but she looks kind of strange—like a real sparrow, with feathers, a pretty little tail, trim little wings, a mouth like a tiny beak.”

  His heart rises. He can’t contain himself any longer and bursts out laughing.

  “Esterke, why are you pretending to be a bird?”

  “Why ‘pretending’?” chirps Esterke so strangely, lovingly rubbing her beak against him. “You’re also a bird.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes!”

  He takes a look—it’s true, he’s also a sparrow, a real he. He wants to stretch out a hand, to feel whether he has a crown on his head, but it’s not a hand he has at all, it’s a wing.

  “Well, did I lie?” asks Esterke.

  “I swear—it’s true.” Shoyelke no longer recognizes his voice, chirping like a bird. “Can we fly, too?”

  “Of course!”

  Shoyelke feels light and airy, as if he has no belly at all and is made up entirely of wings.

  “Let’s fly!”

  “Let’s.”

  Shoyelke takes off. “I swear I can fly!” He’s still a little amazed.

  Esterke flies after him. They circle around the room, and Shoyelke feels as if he could land on the hanging lamp, on the corner of the bookcase with the sacred books, anywhere he wants.

  “Why are we flying around inside?” Shoyelke says to her. “We could wake up Mama and Papa. Let’s fly away outside.”

  “Let’s.”

  “Through where?”

  “Where I came in—through the broken windowpane.”

  “Where shall we fly, to our garden or to Auntie’s on the square?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  “Let’s fly far, far away.”

  “Let’s fly.”

  Shoyelke ascends into the sky, flies around in circles, flies over the shingled roofs of their town, over the church spire, and dashes over the field. He looks down and sees their rivulet winding below like a ribbon and the curly treetops swaying.

  A flock of pigeons, like a colored cloud, appears in the sky. Shoyelke feels like competing with them in speed, so he darts through them like a flung pebble and asks Esterke proudly:

  “Who’s faster?”

  Esterke doesn’t answer him but instead lets out a desperate shriek, and he sees a sparrow hawk hovering in the sky as if deciding on whom to strike—them or the pigeons.

  “Faster, Esterke!” he shouts with all his might. “Fly! He’s coming at us.”

  Esterke doesn’t respond, and they pull up and down, up and down, swerve to the right, and dart to the left, with the sparrow hawk still in hot pursuit.

  As far as the eye can see, Shoyelke sees the open sky and the flat earth, but something’s looming on the horizon.

  “Fly! Fly!” he keeps shouting to Esterke.

  Esterke doesn’t respond, but he feels her panic.

&nbs
p; “Fly! Fly!” he keeps pressing her. “A little more and we’ll be in the forest.”

  The sparrow hawk swoops down like the wind. They dart to one side, he follows, they dart back. This way, they fly around until they duck into the forest and huddle up under the branches, where the sparrow hawk can’t get at them.

  “Esterke! There’s nothing to fear anymore,” says Shoyelke as he watches Esterke cling to him.

  “I’m tired and hungry,” complains Esterke.

  “We’ll go down to the ground and find something,” Shoyelke assures her.

  “Let’s.”

  No sooner said than done. Shoyelke and Esterke hop down and peck, forage with their beaks—no, nothing but bare moss and rotting mushrooms all around.

  “I’m faint with hunger.” Esterke suddenly bursts into tears.

  “We’ll have to fly home,” Shoyelke says.

  “Is home far?” asks Esterke.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask a chirper—he’ll tell me.”

  Shoyelke finds a cricket.

  “Where’s my home?” he asks.

  “Who are you?” asks the cricket, and watches him with his green eyes.

  “I’m Shoyelke.”

  “Oh, Shoyelke the Leg Puller. I won’t tell you.”

  Shoyelke dashes forward to peck at him, but the cricket leaps to one side and chirps with laughter: “Shoyelke the Leg Puller will die of hunger here.”

  “I’m starving,” says Esterke, sobbing.

  “I won’t pull any more legs! Tell me!” cries Shoyelke.

  “You swear?” The cricket stops laughing.

  “I swear.”

  “Fly out of the forest, turn right, then left, and you’ll be in your garden.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course!”

  “And I thought we were so far away!”

  “That’s because the sparrow hawk chased you around in circles,” chirps the chirper.

  “Farewell!”

  “Keep your word!”

  Shoyelke looks down, and indeed, the garden’s just below! And here are the bricks, still arranged with crumbs of challah bread all around.

  “Let’s go down into the garden,” suggests Shoyelke.

  “Let’s.”

  “I’m starving.” Esterke looks at the scattered crumbs greedily. “What do you think, can I eat the challah?”

  “You can—it’s pure challah, I swear, I scattered it myself,” Shoyelke assures her. “What do we care, anyway? We’re birds!”

  And they hop over the bricks and peck with their beaks when suddenly—zap!—the top brick drops.

  A pitiful squeak cuts through the air. Shoyelke sits on the bricks, his feathers raised in fear. Esterke lies crushed, and one eye keeps blinking as if trying in vain to weep.

  Shoyelke wakes up in terror.

  Translated by Lena Watson

  A little boy made a paper kite and went up to his roof to let it fly.

  The kite flew through the air, flying and floating and showing off its tricks, with a twist here and a turn there and a wag of its tail as if its tail were real—a tail like a snake. But the truth is that the tail was actually just a long, thin rag attached to the kite, which the boy had torn from an old apron that his mother no longer needed.

  But what did it matter what the tail was made of? It was a tail. For a paper kite, it was a good tail—there was no need for a better one. The boy thought so, too, and he looked at the tail trailing behind the paper kite and beamed with joy.

  The paper kite flew through the air, and it thought it could fly as high and as far as it wanted. The kite completely forgot that it also depended entirely on the wind, and that should the wind stop blowing, the kite, too, would have to stop flying. Aside from that, the boy was holding the kite on a string, and if he wanted to, he could pull the string toward himself, and that would be the end of its flight!

  But the string was long enough for the kite to fly high and far without realizing from the outset that it was in the boy’s hands. The kite flew off and tried hard to fly together with all the birds. All the birds looked at the kite and wondered: “What type of bird is this, and where does it come from?” They’d noticed many similar ones before, but this time they had to ask.

  The birds asked the kite. It told them that it was not a bird but a kite—with a snaky tail. The birds were even more amazed. “A flying snake?” They’d heard of snakes, but snakes crawled around the ground, they didn’t fly in the air. “A snake that can fly?” And the birds were frightened—because they’d heard that snakes had a kind of venom with which they can kill—and so they quickly turned from the kite and made off. When the paper kite noticed that the birds were fleeing, it thought even more highly of itself and puffed up. “Aha,” it thought, “the birds are scared of me! I’ll have to chase after them and catch a few!”

  It darted after them with all its might. It forgot entirely that it was no more than a paper kite and that a boy was holding it by a string. It wanted to chase after the birds but couldn’t. It thought: “What’s the problem here?” It looked down and saw that the boy was holding it by a string. It wanted to tear free from the boy’s hands but couldn’t. It began to pull furiously, but to no avail. The boy laughed at it and said: “Don’t pull like that, you paper golem. You’ll tear yourself apart.”

  The paper kite said to the boy: “Let me off the string for a while, and I’ll bring you back a little bird.”

  The boy laughed at it again and said: “How can you bring me a bird?”

  The paper kite answered: “I flew with the birds and told them I was a kite with a snaky tail, and they were scared and flew away from me. Now I want to chase them and catch a couple. I’ll give you one and keep one for myself.”

  The boy said to the paper kite: “Fine. I’ll let you loose. Go and bring me a bird. But remember: don’t fly too far and don’t take too long.”

  The paper kite flew off just when the wind was quite strong. It flew high and far, and all the birds saw it flying fast, twisting its tail, so they were frightened of it again and said to one another: “Beware, beware, a flying snake!”

  An old bird heard this talk and said: “Why are you running around like a bunch of crazies? What kind of snake? I’m a pretty old bird by now, and I’ve never heard of a flying snake. Maybe you mean a hot-air balloon or an airplane?”

  The birds all answered as one: “No, a snake with a long tail.”

  The old bird said to them: “You don’t say! Well then, show me this snake. Let’s have a look at it.”

  Just then, the wind carried the paper kite over, and the frightened birds pointed it out. But the old bird burst into laughter.

  “This is the snake you’re talking about?” it asked them. “This here is the paper golem that scared you? Bah! You fools! Just let me go right up to it and peck and tear it apart with my old beak, and there’ll be nothing left of your paper hero.”

  The old bird flew toward the paper kite. The paper kite puffed up even more and, seeing the old bird fly toward it, exclaimed with joy: “Here, I’ve got one bird already!”

  But its joy didn’t last long. The old bird sank its beak and talons into the kite and tore it to tiny little shreds. When the young birds saw this, they clapped bravo with their wings. The old bird said to them: “Well, do you see now what kind of snake this is? It’s just a paper kite! I saw with my own eyes how a boy once made such a paper kite. Now you’ll know that you don’t have to fear everything you see.”

  The birds flew off happily and merrily, but the paper kite could not, obviously, fly anymore. Torn and tattered, it fell down to the ground in a clearing, since finding its way back to the roof where the boy stood and waited for it was no longer possible.

  The boy waited and waited. When he realized the kite wasn’t coming back, he cli
mbed off the roof and went looking for it until he found it, shredded and tattered, lying in a clearing. The boy could barely recognize it. He picked it up, took it home, and repaired it. Later, the boy stood on his roof again and let his paper kite fly. The paper kite did not pick any more fights with anyone, and it flew only as far as the boy would let it fly. It never flew any farther.

  Translated by Sandra Chiritescu

  Once upon a time, there were two sisters—two beautiful, good, happy sisters—who loved each other as much as they loved life itself.

  When their mama and papa used to go into the fields at daybreak, these two sisters would lie in bed a little longer, hugging each other, playing around, and singing along with the little birds outside their window. This they did until seven o’clock, when they jumped up, got dressed, and ran out to wash up at the clear stream that flowed merrily past their house. Then one of them collected dry twigs, and the other started a fire. Once they finished preparing breakfast, they hugged each other again, and one of the sisters would run into the fields to bring food to Mama and Papa, while the other set herself to the task of cleaning the house, singing all the while. And by the time the first sister made her way back from the fields, the house was already shiny clean. Both sisters were extremely pleased to see their little house looking so nice, and they began to laugh and sing with joy. The little birds outside the window sang along with them, and the golden sun looked glowingly into the house to watch the two loyal sisters hugging each other.

  They would pass the whole day this very same way, singing as they washed clothes at the river and frolicking as they prepared lunch. And when there were no chores left, they played in front of the house in the golden sunlight, and their sweet singing echoed through the wide fields for miles around.

  In this way, they passed the time that remained until the sun began to set and Mama and Papa returned from the fields, bringing with them the fragrance of freshly mown hay. Then the two sisters ate supper with their parents and happily lay down in their bed, where they amused each other quietly for a long while until at last they dropped off to sleep.