by Ezra Glinter
The cow mooed loudly. It was closer, it had wandered into the street. It lectured him in its language, “It’s a sin!”
Velvel grew ashamed of himself and walked out of the room slowly, with a studied air of dignity. He still had to cross the kitchen before he would be safe. They were drinking tea in there, waiting for his father to return from afternoon prayers. His father must be praying now, whispering solemnly, facing the wall . . .
“Where were you hiding out, while we all were drinking tea?” Mama Feyge’s voice called out from the other room.
“I’ll be right there,” he answered out of the corner of his mouth, spinning around. A second later, he was climbing up a ladder, nimble as a cat, heading for the attic, which connected the ceiling of the house to the roof of the adjacent barn. This little attic was always full of hay and straw. From here, they could throw the cow’s food down to her stall without leaving the house. The dry, fragrant straw crackled strangely under his cautious steps. In a distant corner of the attic, he found the hollow he had made for himself a day or two ago, where he could commit his “sin” in peace.
The large cracks in the rotten shingles seeded the small attic with a gray, thoughtful light. Through them you could almost make out unfamiliar roofs, the gilded spire of the church, tiny shadows of people . . . And not far from Papa Uri’s house, a Polish horse, its face hidden up to its ears in a feeding sack, its head moving back and forth. It seemed to Velvel that the horse was deliberately nodding to him. And the cracks in the shingles were looking at him, like laughing, thievish, half-closed eyes which see everything that people try to hide.
But Velvel gathered his courage and moved deeper into his hollow, focusing on the straw, looking for a darker place, so dark he would not even be able to see himself, and then took out his hidden treasure.
His hands trembled. At last he would know the true taste of forbidden food. He had wanted this for so long, so badly, and had waited so patiently. Nevertheless, he had to force the first bit into his mouth and make himself chew. It was difficult to take the first bite of the unfamiliar, taboo food.
Salty. Fatty. Unpleasant. This was what was so exciting about eating pig? Where was the wonderful taste he had imagined? The amazing secret? Where was the secret that the Polish people knew?
Velvel tried to talk himself into believing that the nonkosher food was delicious, good and healthy. He bit into the fat with his front teeth, making contact with its veins. He wanted to see clearly how it thickened, how it was formed.
He chewed . . . did he have a choice? But oh, how he wanted to stop. No, on the other hand, it was good. Very good! But this, this was pig flesh? What about the secret? The secret . . .
“Velvel!” a voice rang out. “Where did he disappear to? It’s time to welcome the Sabbath!” It was his father’s voice.
He sat for a moment, trembling. But even so, his fear pushed him to take the piece of pork, bury it deep, deep in the straw, and spit out its forbidden taste. He trembled, and spit.
“Velvel! Just wait, I’ll show you to keep me waiting . . . !”
“There’s no sign of him in the garden!” The guilty boy heard his mother’s voice from his lair in the straw. He heard people walking around, looking for him. But did they know what he had done? Suddenly he heard a terrifying suggestion: “Maybe he is up in the attic?”
It was the nanny’s voice. That old witch! Right after that, he heard his little brother Fayvke’s carefree voice: “There! There! Yesterday he was there! And the day before that too!”
Right away Velvel heard heavy footsteps on the ladder. It was father, it was father! Oh, he had to swallow the last piece of pork! Otherwise it would betray him. His father was coming!
The boy crouched in his dark hole and waited. They might think that he had disappeared entirely. Father’s footsteps came closer. He could hear how he was breathing, furiously. The straw crackled and whispered around him. Velvel felt as though a terrifying wild beast were stalking him, hoping to devour him.
And choked, wild words, “Hm? Where? Wait, wait wait . . .”
The hands, which were feeling between the bales of hay, were coming closer and closer. He could almost see a head! A terrifying bearded head with pieces of straw stuck in its dusty hair. It was him! He was finished!
Velvel had rolled up his nice Sabbath pants when he burrowed into the straw, and now the bright white of his socks gleamed in the darkness. His father grabbed him. “Aha!”
Velvel felt strong hands dragging him out of his hiding place in the straw. Falling on his back, he felt a horrible slap on his face as though it came from Heaven. Velvel kept quiet.
“What are you doing here?” A slap. “Why would you be crawling around in the attic right before the Sabbath?” Another slap. “Were you born in a barn?” Another slap. “You don’t answer your father’s call?” Slap. “I’m asking you, why are you up here?” Slap. “Don’t you have any respect for the holy Sabbath?” Slap.
Velvel absorbed the blows, laying stretched out on his back, with clenched teeth. He felt like boiling hot water was being poured on his face.
Papa Uri grew disturbed by his young son’s stubborn silence. He suddenly pulled Velvel up from the straw. With both hands, he held his shoulders, and looked deeply into his round eyes. In the pale evening light, which filtered through the cracks in the roof, he saw a round, child-like face, a cold and stubborn stare—and trembled. He let go of Velvel’s shoulders, leaned against a nearby heap of straw, dazed, and stammered out, full of regret, “So, tell me . . . what is this? Well . . . what is going on with you? What will happen to you? Will you be all right, in the end?”
For the first time, the boy burst into tears.
77 Exodus 20:4.
78 A prayer deriving from Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One.”
79 Phylacteries.
80 Hebrew for “chain.”
Miriam Karpilove
1888–1956
MIRIAM KARPILOVE, ONE of the most prominent women Yiddish writers of the early twentieth century, worked in nearly every literary form, including short stories, belles-lettres, plays, and novels.
Born in Minsk to a family of nine children, Karpilove received a Jewish and secular education, as well as vocational training as a photographer and photo retoucher.
In 1905 she immigrated to America, where she settled in Bridgeport, Connecticut. An ideological Zionist, she joined the Labor Zionist movement and lived in Palestine in the late 1920s.
Karpilove began writing for the Forward shortly after her arrival in America. In the 1930s she was hired as a staff writer for the newspaper, and became well known for serialized novels that focused on women and the challenges they faced in a society with shifting romantic and sexual mores. Between 1920 and 1937 Karpilove published seven novels in the Forward, along with shorter works.
“In a Friendly Hamlet” appeared in the newspaper on June 14, 1934, and portrays a young woman trying to resist an unwanted marriage against the backdrop of a patriarchal society.
In a Friendly Hamlet
(JUNE 14, 1934)
Translated by Myra Mniewski
IT’S DISGRACEFUL; THE indignity of it is just too much. The country Jew’s daughter, the bride, ran away from the groom, the in-laws and all of the guests who had come to celebrate her wedding, and fled the house in a panic.
Out of the house and straight into the barn. She could not feel at peace, so she abandoned everyone and made straight for the livestock!
She went to the cows to unburden herself, feeling as though the speechless creatures might possibly be able to help her. But, regrettably, the animals turned away from her. Only one, her Hadoylia, the spotted cow that she had welcomed into her arms when it was calved, the one she had hand-fed, using her finger to place the gruel into the calf’s mouth so that it would think it was her mother nursing her—it was this beast, with her sorrowful eyes, that consoled her. This animal was the one who felt the bride’s conditi
on, understood the injustice perpetrated on her.
So the bride cuddled up to her cow and talked to her.
“You have no idea how good you have it to be a beast. If you were in my shoes, they’d be trying to find you in order to marry you off to some lowlife with big boots covered in muck. That’s the kind of bull my dear father has brought me from the market! If my mother, may she rest in peace, were still alive, he would let me remain in the stall. He wouldn’t be looking to entrap me, just to free himself to marry more quickly. It is bitter to be an orphan. Bitter as gall!”
As if showing her agreement, the spotted bovine lowered her head, making it easier for the bride to snuggle her.
“Don’t let them take me away from you. Kick them, knock their teeth out if they try to come near us. I’d rather stay here with you than go under the wedding canopy with such a bull, such a horse.”
Presently, the bride’s father came into the stall from the house.
“Listen here, girl!” he yelled out menacingly. “Don’t ruin my life—get in the house now!”
“I won’t go!” The bride clung tighter to the animal.
“Oh you won’t, won’t you?” her father retorted angrily. “Do you want me to smack your face to bits?”
“Skin me alive and send me right to my mother’s grave.” The bride burst out in tears.
Her father kicked the dung with his foot. “Stop howling and shut your big mouth. You should be glad that someone is willing to have you, my haughty one. The nerve of her protesting like this. It’s not to her liking!”
“I’d rather die!” The bride sobbed. “I’d rather fall down dead!”
Her father softened up a bit: “Chava-Tsire, don’t be a fool, listen to your father, I want the best for you, for your sake. He’s a good groom for you. After the wedding he’ll turn into a mentsch. 81 He likes you, he wants you, he’s eager to talk to you. He was itching to follow you into the stall. We were barely able to hold him back. It’s improper for a groom to run into a stall in pursuit of his bride. It’s unfitting, he’ll be laughed at.”
The old man had barely gotten his words out when the groom appeared, whip in hand. “Father-in-law!” He sounded as if his mouth were full. “Let me talk to the bride myself for a minute. I have a tongue in my mouth, I can speak.”
The bride’s father looked at his future son-in-law for a minute and nodded his head. “Okay, talk! Maybe she’ll listen to you more than to her father. I’ll be right here on the other side of the door listening,” the elder said, and stepped away from the couple.
The groom approached the bride swishing his whip, and then, as if ashamed, produced a slight smile. “An ox has a long tongue but cannot speak . . . eh, it’s not good to kick and scream . . . uh . . . I mean hesitate. It’s been preordained. Get a load of this beast—does she produce a full share of milk? My horse eats a full portion of feed—a full pail with no cover. He’s a noble steed. He steps lively and tows his load. I would never sell him even if you covered me with gold. I’ve known him since he was a colt.”
Getting closer to the cow, he began to pet her. She, with her big eyes, looked mournfully and in wonderment at the groom.
“She likes me,” the groom brayed at the bride—ha, ha, hee-hee. She’s not kicking or agitated—she’s a good animal. I have a good match for her. God willing, after our providential wedding, I’ll arrange hers.”
The bride blurted out irately, “I don’t want to. I’m not going to marry you!”
“You’re not! Why? Every girl wants to get married!”
“I don’t want to!” The bride maintained.
“This is not good!” the groom stamped his foot in his big boot on a pile of dung. “What will people say? They’ll laugh and say all sorts of horrible things. It will be ugly. They’ll call me a castoff, a waif who loafs about at strangers’ homes. They’ll make me out to be a farmhand. I’ll be a good husband. I won’t do anything to hurt my wife. I’ll listen to everything she says—may I die if I don’t. I’ll treat her as if she were heavenly. I’m good at pleasing. I’ll polish up with time. I’ll be respectable. On my own I’m a simpleton. That’s why I want someone who is above me. I will bow down to you.”
Looking down, the groom kept on talking and talking while leveling the dung pile with those huge boots of his, until the bride’s father came in.
“Nu,” the father eyed them, “how long is this going to go on? People are waiting. Who ever heard of such a thing—a groom and bride in a stall. This is a place for horses, for animals!”
“It’s okay, father-in-law, it doesn’t matter,” the groom said. “It’s not important where we speak, what’s important is what we’re saying. I’m speaking to the point here and directly to the bride: I will not leave this spot until I can show my face to decent folks. I’d rather be struck by lightning and not live to see tomorrow as my name is Moyshe.”
“Enough already, enough,” the bride’s father motioned with his hand. “Out of the stall. Go! Nu, nu!”
Like creatures being driven out to the field, the bride and groom lumbered out of the stall and made their way to the house, the country Jew in the lead with the two of them in single file behind him.
When they got to the door, the country Jew detained his daughter to have a few words with her.
“Look here, be a mentsch, do what you’re told. If you don’t, your groom will shake himself loose of you. After the ceremony you’ll climb all over him as much as you want, but not now. Nu, go, lead with your right foot! And may it be with good fortune!”
With her head bowed, the bride trudged from the stall into the big house. Women and girls, her friends, clustered around her. They took her into a side room and danced around her. They brushed her hair, primped and groomed her, and the whole time they were petting and gussying her up, they wished her good luck and happiness.
In the house the men fussed over the groom. They were advising him as to what to do when the time came to veil the bride, to go to the canopy, and later. The groom, fidgeting, didn’t know where to rest his big hands, as he didn’t have his whip at hand. The derby they’d put on his head kept sliding down over his eyes. He was hot. Gentiles from the area began gathering at the house and leaned on the walls.
The bride’s relatives brought over glasses of brandy and snacks. The peasants, especially the women, sipped their drinks and grimaced while covering their mouths with their hands. They stole looks at the groom and whispered to each other, then burst out in laughter. The musicians took out their instruments. The younger women, in their colorful dresses, gathered to dance a quadrille. Girls danced with girls, and men with men.
The bride’s father squabbled with the matchmaker, the wedding jester and the groom’s spokesman, all of them set on taking a piece of him. They wanted him to pay up now, before the ceremony; they wanted to be paid what he had agreed to. He kept putting them off, saying he’d pay them after.
“What do you want from me?” the father of the bride insisted, spreading his hands. “Why are you all on top of me? What do you think, that I’ll run away? If I said I’d give the speckled cow, I’ll give it! And I’m giving the bride’s trousseau too. I’m also making the wedding, providing room and board, and throwing in a bit of cash as well. What more do you want of me? Wait until the wedding gifts are distributed. There will be enough for everyone. Don’t ruin the party. The groom has agreed to everything, let’s just hope the bride goes along with it too.”
“The bride is seated!”—came the call from the room where the women were. “Seat the bride!”
The two opposing sides lined up to make way for the bride. The entertainer cleared his throat and quietly tutored the groom, informing him how to conduct himself during the seating: “You’ll very slowly take hold of the bridal veil and cover her face with it. When I give you the signal, that’s when you’ll do it.”
The groom nodded his shaggy head and pulled at the buttons of his vest with the fat fingers of his huge hands. He was nervous and imp
atient. He wanted the wedding to be over already so that he could be alone with the bride. She pleased him; she was sweet. Not such a thick imbecile like that other girl they wanted to fix him up with last year. The only trouble with this one was that she was kicking and screaming and running away. But that’s nothing, he’d break her in. It would be like it is with a new horse, it takes some time before it gets used to whoever is holding the reins. He’d have to break her in . . .
81 Literally, “person.”
Kadya Molodowsky
1894–1974
KADYA MOLODWSKY WAS a writer, teacher, editor, and one of the great Yiddish poets of the twentieth century.
Born the second of four children in Byaroza, a town in what is now Belarus, Molodowsky received a Jewish education from her father, a religious school teacher and proponent of Zionism, and received secular instruction from private tutors. Her mother ran a dry-goods shop and later managed a kvass factory. After passing her high school exams, Molodowsky received a teaching certificate, and from 1911 to 1913 taught in the cities of Sherpetz and Bialystok. She then moved to Warsaw, where she studied pedagogy until 1914.
During the First World War, Molodowsky worked in homes for refugee children in Ukraine before moving to Odessa and then to Kiev, where she began to write and publish. In 1921, Molodowsky married and moved back to Warsaw, where she would live until 1935. In Warsaw she taught in both Yiddish- and Hebrew-language schools, and published in the literary journal Literarishe bleter (Literary Pages) and edited the literary page of the newspaper Fraynd (Friend). In Warsaw she also published four books of poetry to critical acclaim, including the 1935 volume Freydke, a sixteen-part narrative poem about a heroic working-class woman.
In 1935, Molodowsky traveled to the United States with the intention of visiting relatives in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Boston. Instead, she wound up settling in New York, where she was later joined by her husband. In New York, Molodowsky began writing for the Forward, where she remained a contributor until her death. Her first contribution to the paper was a series about great Jewish women written under the pseudonym Rivke Zilberg, although she soon began publishing poetry and fiction under her own name. A collection of her stories, A shtub mit zibn fenster (A House with Seven Windows) was published in New York in 1957.