They have an aunt Kryni who has a daughter Malkeh, and she has a nose that’s wondrous to see. Not only the nose, but her face as well—it’s more like a bird’s face than a person’s. She’s ashamed to go out into the street—a God’s pity on her! Pinni resembles her, but on a man it doesn’t matter. His face is so comical, you’d laugh just looking at him. It’s not enough that he’s tall and skinny—he has a pair of long ears, and a long neck like a gander, and he’s nearsighted in the bargain.
Wherever he goes, he bumps into someone. Whenever he stands up, he steps on someone’s foot. One trouser leg is always turned up, one sock is falling down, his shirt is always unbuttoned, and his necktie is off to the side. And when he speaks, he seems to gargle. He also has a sweet tooth, so that whenever you meet him, he’s sucking something.
For all that, he’s a very competent person. There’s nothing on earth he doesn’t know. He’s outdone the rabbi in learning. And his writing is better than that of all the scholars.
Besides having a fine handwriting, he’s an expert at rhymes. He’s always writing in rhyme. He’s written rhymes about everyone in town—the rabbi, the slaughterer, the councilors, the butchers, and even his own family. For a while Pinni’s rhymes passed from hand to hand, and people had a good laugh. Some even learned them by heart. I remember a few myself:
Our gabbai
Reb Shmuel Abba
Has a big belly.
When he sits at table
He grabs what he’s able
As he shakes like jelly.
His wife Nechama
Is a pious gramma—
Of her I will not say a thing.
She’s as bright
As late last night.
May the devil take them both under his wing.
The whole town was rocking with these rhymes. Someone set this one to music, and the town was going around singing the tune until Shmuel Abba and his wife Nechama got wind of it. They sent for Hersh-Leib the mechanic and wept bitter tears. “What does your son Pinni have against us?” they cried.
Uncle Hersh-Leib the mechanic called Pinni into the house, locked the doors, and gave him a good dressing-down. He made him promise he’d never write any more rhymes as long as he lived.
C .
From that time on Pinni wrote no more rhymes. Rhymes didn’t enter his mind. As he tells it, he has many other problems to worry about. His father Hersh-Leib decided Pinni should get married and settle down. He arranged for Pinni to marry a miller’s daughter. The miller opened a shop for him that sold flour. My brother Elyahu envies him his business, but Pinni laughs at him, saying it’s a business but not for him. What kind of work is it, messing around with flour? It’s fit for an uneducated person like a miller. Is it his fault he can’t sit in the shop? He just can’t do it. His mind is restless, always working. He belongs to a family of restless minds.
That’s what Pinni says, and he refuses to look after the flour shop. He’d much rather sit over a book. His father-in-law is angry about it but keeps silent—he’s afraid his son-in-law will write rhymes about him. He also keeps in mind that his daughter Teibl is a delicate creature with a slightly crossed eye. She is a precious only daughter. My mother says she doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. But what does that mean? How can a bone be mean? All day she sits in the shop while Pinni sits at home. My brother Elyahu and I visit him every day, and he pours his heart out to us. He sighs and groans and bemoans his bitter luck. He feels hemmed in, he says, constrained. He’s being smothered. If he were in another town, it would be very different. If he could get out of here for even a year, he’d turn the world on its head!
D .
There’s no one he trusts as much as my brother Elyahu. He shows him his personal letters. Famous people write and tell him he has something special inside him, which Pinni too firmly believes. I look at him and wonder, God in heaven! What can he have inside him?
Once Pinni called my brother Elyahu aside to tell him a secret. If it’s a secret, I have to know it. I love to be in on secrets. So I walk right behind them and try to catch a few words. Pinni speaks, and then my brother Elyahu speaks. I’ll tell you what they both said:
PINNI: Why are we wasting our time here?
ELYAHU: I don’t know.
PINNI: Someone went there with nothing to his name, slept outdoors for half a year, and swept the streets for a piece of bread. I just read about it.
ELYAHU: And now?
PINNI: May it happen to both of us!
ELYAHU: Really?
PINNI: Really! Really! Do you think I’d lie to you? I’ve already spoken to my Teibl.
ELYAHU: What did she say?
PINNI: What should she say? She’s going.
ELYAHU: She’s going? Nu, and your father-in-law?
PINNI: Who listens to him? If I go alone, will it be better? He sees that I’m determined to go—I can’t stay here any longer!
ELYAHU: Neither can I!
PINNI: So let’s pack up and go!
ELYAHU: Pack up and go? With what money?
PINNI: Don’t be foolish—they’re giving out steamship tickets for free.
ELYAHU: What do you mean, for free?
PINNI: We pay in installments. We’ll pay it back fully one day. In the meantime we have them for free.
ELYAHU: Nu, and before we get to the ship? Expenses? Tickets? Train fare?
PINNI: How many tickets do we need?
ELYAHU: Yes, how many?
PINNI: Figure it out—I and my Teibl are two. You and your Bruche are two. That makes four.
ELYAHU: And my mother makes five.
PINNI: So it’s five.
ELYAHU: Nu, and Motl?
PINNI: He can get a half-fare ticket and maybe not even that. We can say he isn’t yet three years old.
ELYAHU: Are you crazy?
I can’t hold it in any longer. Out of great joy I let out a shriek!
Both turn around to me. “Go away, you imp! You have a bad habit of listening in when grown-ups talk!”
I run, skip, and slap my thighs with both hands. It’s no small matter—I’m going away! . . . Ship! . . . Train! . . . Ticket! . . . Half-fare ticket! Where are we going? I don’t know—what difference does it make? I’m going away—that’s enough! I’ve never gone anywhere in my life. I don’t know how “going away” feels. What does it mean? Once I rode around on my neighbor’s goat, but it cost me dearly—I fell off and bloodied my nose, and I collected a few slaps. So that trip doesn’t count.
All day long I go around in a fog. I’ve lost my appetite. At night I dream I’m going away—not going but flying. I have wings like a dove, and I’m flying. Long live our friend Pinni! In my eyes he’s a thousand times more attractive than before. If I weren’t embarrassed, I’d hug and kiss him. A dear man, that Pinni!
Didn’t I tell you he has good ideas?
XII
GUESS WHAT? WE’RE OFF TO AMERICA!
A.
Guess what? We’re off to America! Where is America? I don’t know. I only know that it’s far, terribly far away. You have to travel and travel until finally you get to a place called Castle Garden, where they strip you naked and examine your eyes. If you have healthy eyes, it’s good, and if not, you have to go back! I’m sure I have healthy eyes. I only had a problem with my eyes once. Boys from the Russian school grabbed hold of me, then knocked me down, and blew cigarette smoke in my eyes. Ay, did my brother Elyahu beat them up! Now my eyes are clear as crystal.
My mother’s situation is not so good. So says my brother Elyahu. It’s her own fault, because she’s been crying day and night ever since my father died. “In God’s name, have pity on us!” he complains to her. “On account of you we’ll all have to go back, God forbid!” he complains to her.
“Foolish child that you are! Do I want to cry? The tears come of their own.” She wipes her eyes on her apron and gets to work on the bedding, especially the pillows, which have to be restuffed. America is a country where they have
everything except pillows. I don’t understand how people sleep there. It must be hard for their heads! My sister-in-law Bruche helps her restuff the pillows. Not to boast about it, but we have three large quilts and quite a few pillows—six big ones and four little ones. From the four little pillows my mother is making one, which is too bad. I like those little pillows better than the big ones. I always play with them in the morning and make triangular hats out of them.
“When we arrive in America, God willing, we’ll stuff them into little pillows again,” my mother says to me. She tells my sister-in-law Bruche to do the same as she has. She obeys, even though she’s not happy about the journey. It’s difficult for her to leave her parents behind. If someone had told her a year ago she’d be going to America, she’d have spit in his eye.
“If someone had told me a year ago I’d now be a widow . . . ,” says my mother, and bursts into tears.
“You’re crying again?” my brother Elyahu scolds her. “You want to ruin us all?”
B .
As if we don’t have enough on our hands, here comes our neighbor Pessi. Seeing us stuffing pillows for the trip, she pours out her bitter soul to us.
“So, you’re really going to America? May the One Above grant that you arrive in good health and find happiness! With God everything is possible. A year ago relatives of mine, Rivele and her husband Hili, left for America. They write that they are struggling but are making a living. We keep begging them to write more details—what and when and how? They answer that America is good for everyone. You struggle but make a living. What is there to say to that? But at least they write. At first they didn’t write at all. We thought they had fallen into the ocean, when suddenly news arrived that they were already, thank God, in America. I ask, was it worth all that fuss to break their backs, repack the bedding, and sail across the ocean?”
“I beg you, stop making things worse for us,” my brother Elyahu protests.
Our neighbor Pessi gives as good as she gets. “Making things worse? Look at him, a smart aleck! He’s going to America so he can struggle to make a living! How long ago was it that I held you in my arms, fed you, took care of you? Go ahead, ask your mother about the fishbone you swallowed as a child one Friday night. If I hadn’t grabbed you from behind, one two three, you wouldn’t be going to America to struggle to make a living!”
Our neighbor Pessi would go on and on talking, but luckily my mother gets involved, gently: “I beg you, Pessi’nyu, dear soul, dear heart, lyubeh’nyu, may you be well and strong!”
More than that my mother cannot speak—she begins to cry. My brother Elyahu sees her and becomes enraged. He drops his work and runs out of the house, slamming the door. “May it all go to the devil!”
C .
Our house is now a bare, empty mess. The bundles and bedding in the alcove reach almost to the ceiling. When no one is around, I climb up on all the pillows and slide down like on a sled. I’ve never had it as good as I do now. No one has cooked anything for days. My brother Elyahu brings a dried-out fish home from the market, and we eat it with an onion. Fish and onions—what could be better than that? Our friend Pinni eats with us. He’s always been absent-minded, his head in the clouds. But ever since we decided to go to America, he’s really been distracted. That’s what my mother says. Still one trouser leg is rolled up, one sock is rolled down, and his tie is way off to the side. Whenever he comes into our house, he still bumps into things.
My mother always scolds him in the same way: “You know you’re tall—why don’t you bend down a little?”
“He’s nearsighted, Mama!” my brother Elyahu defends him, and he and Pinni go off to finish the business of selling our half of the house. They have to write up the bill of sale. We sold our half long ago to Zili the tailor. But a tailor doesn’t buy a house so quickly. What a pain, a real nudnik, that Zili the tailor! He came over at least three times a day to look over our half. He sniffed the walls, felt the chimney, crawled into the attic, and examined the roof. Then he brought his wife Meni. I have to say, she makes me laugh. Our neighbor’s calf was also called Meni. Both Menis have the same face. Meni the calf had a white snout and round eyes. So does Meni the tailor’s wife. Then Zili the tailor brought in experts to look over the house, mostly other tailors. Each one found a different fault with it.
Then they brought in Pinni’s father, Hersh-Leib the mechanic, who is a real expert on houses and an honest man. You can rely on him. He examined our half of the house from top to bottom, squared his shoulders, pushed back his cap, and scratched his neck. “Without a doubt this house can stand for a hundred years, if not more,” he said.
One of Zili the tailor’s experts piped in, “Absolutely! So long as you face it with bricks, put in some new beams, four new walls, and a new tin roof, it will stand, God willing, until the Messiah comes!”
If you had cursed out Hersh-Leib the mechanic or poured a bucket of boiling water on him, he couldn’t have gotten angrier. Where did this Jew get off, he demanded, this idiot, this mere tailor, a thief, and a moron into the bargain, talking to him, Hersh-Leib the mechanic, in that language, with that tone of voice?
I was enjoying this, expecting a fistfight to break out any minute. But somehow people showed up from somewhere (people always seem to appear from somewhere when they’re least needed!) and separated them. Zili the tailor made peace and began haggling. Finally both sides agreed on a price, and brandy was ordered for a l’chayim. The tailor wished us a safe journey, success in business, and a welcome return home, God willing.
“Slow down, not so fast. Are we coming back from America?” says my brother Elyahu, and a discussion followed. Hersh-Leib the mechanic bets we will come back. If not for the conscription, he says, he’d never allow his son Pinni to go. America, he says, is phooey!
Zili the tailor asks him, “Pardon me, but how, exactly, is America phooey?”
“Because America is a nasty country.”
“Pardon me, but how do you know America is a nasty country?”
Hersh-Leib the mechanic responds that it’s just common sense. Zili asks him to explain this “common sense.” Hersh-Leib stammers, trying to explain his reasoning, but his words become garbled, especially since he’s by now a bit tipsy. Everyone is tipsy. Everyone is feeling fine, marvelously fine. Me too. Only my mother keeps hiding her face in her apron and wiping her eyes.
My brother Elyahu looks at her and says to her quietly, “Troublemaker! Have you no pity on your eyes? You’re killing us!’
D .
Now a new to-do starts up—saying goodbye. We go from house to house to say our goodbyes. We’ve already been to all our relatives, neighbors, and friends. At the home of our in-law Yoneh the baker, we spend a whole day. Our in-laws have prepared a supper for us, invited the family, and put beer on the table. They seat me separately with my sister-in-law’s little sister Alteh. I already told you about her. She’s a year older than me and wears two braids twisted together to look like a bagel. They once talked about us as a future match, and since then, whenever we are seen together, they call us “the bride and groom.” But that doesn’t keep us from speaking to each other. She asks me if I’ll miss her. Certainly I’ll miss her! Then she asks if I’ll write her letters from America. Certainly I’ll write her letters!
“How will you write them? Do you know how to write?”
“It’s easy to learn how to write in America!” I stuff my hands in my pockets. Alteh looks at me and smiles. I know why she’s smiling. She envies me that I am going to America.
They all envy me, even Yossi the baker’s son Cross-Eyed Henich, who would drown me in a spoonful of water if he could! He stops me and blinks his bad eye at me. “Listen here, you. So you’re going to America!”
“Yes, I’m going to America.”
“What will you do there—go begging from house to house?”
Lucky for him my brother Elyahu isn’t nearby. He would have slapped him around for that jibe! I don’t want to start up with him,
the stuck-up lummox. I stick my tongue out at him and run off to our neighbor Pessi to say goodbye to her gang. It’s quite a gang! All eight of them surround me and ask me if I’m happy that I’m going to America. What a question! I feel very confident. They’re all jealous.
More than anyone, Hershl is jealous. He’s the one they call Vashti on account of the birthmark on his forehead. He can’t keep his eyes off me. He sighs and says, “You’ll be seeing the whole world!”
Yes, I’ll be seeing the whole world! I can’t wait!
E .
Now Lazer has arrived with his “eagles,” three fiery horses! They can’t stand still. Either they’re pawing the ground or they’re snorting and spraying my face. I don’t know what to do first—should I look at the horses, or should I help carry the bundles and the pillows into the wagon? I can manage both things. I stand next to the horses and watch the bundles and pillows beds carried out, creating a full wagon of pillows, a mountain of bedding. It’s time to get in and go. We have forty-five versts to the railroad station. Everybody is here. I and my brother Elyahu, my sister-in-law Bruche, our friend Pinni and his wife Teibl, and their whole family—Pinni’s father Hersh-Leib the mechanic, Shneur the clockmaker, Pinni’s in-laws the miller and his wife, Aunt Kryni’s daughter with the birdlike face, and even the old grandfather Reb Hessi—all have come to advise Pinni on how to behave in America. From my family only our in-laws have come, Yoneh the baker and his sons. Too bad I didn’t acquaint you with them. Now is not the time. We’re going to America. Everyone is crowding around us, warning us to watch out for thieves.
“In America there are no thieves,” my brother Elyahu says, and pats his pocket. My mother has sewn in the money there so cleverly that no thief on earth would even think there was a pocket there. That’s where all the money from the sale of our half of the house is hidden. Apparently it’s quite a stash, because everyone’s asking him if he’s safely hidden the money.
Tevye the Dairyman & Motl the Cantor's Son Page 28