The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son

by Sholem Aleichem

  “If you at least had a complete set of the Mishnah, this might be worth something.”

  My mother turned pale as a sheet. My brother Elye flamed and shouted:

  “If you wanted a Mishnah you should have said so instead of wasting our time!”

  “Hush!” my mother said. “Who’s there?” a hoarse voice asked from the next room. “No one,” my mother answered, sending Elye to my father’s bedside. She settled with Mikhl by herself. It couldn’t have been for much because when Elye came back and asked, she told him it was none of his business. Mikhl took the books, stuffed them in his sack, and cleared out.

  Of all the things we sold, the glass cupboard was the most fun. In the first place, who could take it? It had always seemed part of the wall; how was it going to leave now? And besides, where would my mother now put the bread, the hallah, the dishes, the tin spoons and forks (our two silver spoons and one silver fork had been sold long ago), and where would we keep the matso on Passover? That’s what I wondered as Nachman the carpenter stood measuring the cupboard with the big raw nail on the fat finger of his greasy hand. In his opinion it wouldn’t fit through the door. The cupboard was this wide, the door was that wide—there was no way of getting it out.

  “Then who got it in?” Elye asked.

  “Why don’t you ask the cupboard?” Nachman said crossly. “How do I know? Someone, that’s who.”

  I felt sorry for that cupboard. I mean, I felt sorry to think we’d be stuck with it. But soon Nachman came back with his two sons, both carpenters too, and it flew through the door as though possessed. Nachman went first, followed by his sons. He gave directions:

  “Kopl, that way! Mendl, to the right! Kopl, slow down! Mendl, stop!”

  I helped by bringing up the rear. My mother and Elye just stared at the bare wall that was covered with cobwebs and bawled. What a sight!

  Suddenly—crashhh! Just as the cupboard reached the door, the glass shattered. The carpenter and his sons blamed each other. “You’ve got the hands of a tin rooster!” “And you have the feet of a bear!” “The devil take you!” “It was a black year you were born in!”

  “What’s going on?” a hoarse voice asked from the other room.

  “Nothing,” my mother said, wiping her eyes.

  “Now what?” So my mother asked Elye one morning, looking anxiously at the bare walls. Elye and I helped her look at them. Then Elye looked at me, all worried and pitying-like.

  “Go outside,” he said sternly. “I need to talk to Mama.”

  I hopped out on one foot and made straight for the neighbor’s calf. Menye had grown by leaps and bounds and was now a handsome young bull with a cute black muzzle and big round eyes that looked so smart when they asked for something to eat that they were almost human. He liked being chucked with two fingers beneath the chin.

  “What’s this? Hanging out with that calf again? The two of you are bosom buddies!”

  It was Elye again. This time, though, he was nice. He took my hand and told me we were going to Hirsh-Ber the cantor’s. I would like it there, he said. There would be plenty to eat. Things at home weren’t good. We had to save Papa’s life. Elye opened his gabardine and showed me his vest.

  “I’ve even sold the silver pocket watch I was given for my engagement. Brokheh’s father will have a fit if he finds out. He’ll turn the world upside down!”

  It’s a good thing Brokheh’s father never found out and the world is still right side up. What would poor Menye do on his head?

  “Here we are,” my brother Elye said. He was getting nicer by the minute.

  Hirsh-Ber wasn’t a cantor like my father. According to my father, he couldn’t even carry a tune. But he knew music and had a choir of fifteen boys and a temper you had to watch out for. I sang him a synagogue number, jerking it out for all it was worth, and he said I was a soprano. “A soprano?” said Elye. “A soprano to beat all sopranos!” Elye bargained, was given an advance, and said I would be living at the cantor’s. “Do what he tells you,” he said. “And don’t feel homesick.”

  That’s easy to say. How was I not supposed to feel homesick? The spring mud was gone, the summer sun was shining down, the sky was crystal clear, and I even had my own pile of logs. The logs weren’t ours. They belonged to a rich Jew named Yosi who was building a house and had dumped them next door. Three cheers for Yosi! I made a fort out of them and picked the brambles and puffballs that grew between them. The brambles made good swords and the puffballs went bang when you blew them up and knocked them against your head.

  I had a good life. So did Menye. The whole outdoors was ours. And I shouldn’t feel homesick?

  After three weeks of living with Hirsh-Ber I’ve hardly sung a note. I have another job. It’s taking care of Dobtshe. Dobtshe is a hunchback. That’s why she outweighs me even though she isn’t two years old. Carrying her around can break your back. But Dobtshe loves me. She likes to grab me and feel me all over. “Kiko,” she calls me, don’t ask me why. At night it’s “Kiko ki,” which means I should stay up and rock her. Love isn’t the word for it. At mealtimes it’s “Kiko pi,” which means I should give her all my food. I want to go home. Even without Dobtshe, the food at Hirsh-Ber’s isn’t great.

  Last night was the night of Shavuos. That’s when you can see the sky open up if you stand outside and wait to wish on it. But not with Dobtshe loving me. “Kiko ki!” she said and I had to rock her until I fell asleep myself. That’s when I had a visit from Menye. He looked at me with his human eyes and said: “Come!” The two of us headed downhill for the river. As soon as we reached it—hup! I rolled up my pants and was in the water with Menye swimming behind me. I made for the opposite bank, as far away as I could get from Dobtshe, Hirsh-Ber, and my sick father.

  I woke up with a start. It was only a dream. But I have to get away. How? Where? Home, of course. The problem is that Hirsh-Ber is awake, too. He has a big tuning fork that he tests on his teeth and holds to his ear. He wants me to dress quickly. We have a new number to sing today after the Torah reading.

  In synagogue I see my brother Elye. What is he doing here? He usually prays at the butchers’ place, where my father is the cantor. As soon as the Torah scroll is taken out, he goes over to talk to Hirsh-Ber. Hirsh-Ber doesn’t look very happy. I hear him say:

  “Don’t forget: as soon as your Sabbath lunch is over!”

  “Come, you’re going to see Papa,” Elye says. The two of us start for home. Elye walks and I skip. I mean, I run. That is, I fly.

  “Take it easy! What’s the hurry?” my brother asks. I can see he wants to talk to me. “You know Papa is sick, very sick. God knows what will become of him. We have to do all we can for him. There’s no one else to help. Mama’s dead set against putting him in the public sick ward. She says she’d rather die first…. Shhh, here she comes.”

  My mother holds out her arms and throws them around me. I feel a tear that isn’t mine on my cheek. Elye goes to my father and leaves us standing outside. We’re not alone. Around us stand our neighbor Fat Pesye, her daughter Mindl, her daughter-in-law Perl, and two other women.

  “A guest for Shavuos! God grant you pleasure from him!”

  My mother doesn’t lift her swollen eyes. “A guest? A child! He’s come to see his sick father. My little boy!”

  That’s what she says out loud to everyone. She adds quietly to Pesye, who is shaking her head:

  “What a town! You would think someone might drop in on him. For twenty-three years he ruined his health by praying his heart out for them. There’s nothing left to pay the doctors with. Everything has been sold except the sheets and pillows, God help us! I’ve boarded the boy with Hirsh-Ber the cantor, done all I could.”

  I let her complain while craning my neck in all directions. “What are you looking for?” she asks.

  “What could a young scamp like him be looking for?” Pesye says. “It’s got to be that calf.” She turns to me and says like my best friend:

  “What can I tell yo
u, my boy? Your calf is gone. We had to sell it to the butcher. What choice did we have? Supporting one dumb critter is hard enough. Two is asking too much.”

  So Menye has become a dumb critter. A strange woman. Pesye, sticking her nose into everything. What’s it to her whether we’re planning to have dairy for Shavuos?

  “How come you ask?” asks my mother.

  “I was just wondering,” Pesye says, pressing a pot of sour cream into my mother’s hands.

  “What in God’s world are you doing, Pesye! What do you take us for? God forbid we should be that badly off. You ought to know better.”

  “I do,” Pesye says. “That’s why I’m doing it. Lately, knock wood, our cow has been swimming in milk. We have more cheese and butter than we can eat. I set this aside for you. You’ll return it when you can.”

  Pesye talks to my mother while I think of my logs and my calf. If I weren’t ashamed I would cry.

  My mother says: “When Papa asks how you are, just say: ‘Praise God, I’m fine.’”

  Elye makes sure I understand: “No complaints and no sob stories, do you hear? ‘Praise God, I’m fine,’ that’s all you say.”

  Elye leads me to my father’s room. The table is covered with bottles, pillboxes, cupping glasses. The window is closed and the room smells like an apothecary’s. In honor of the holiday the walls are decorated with green branches. A paper cutout of a Star of David hangs over the bed. That’s Elye’s work. Sweet-smelling grasses are spread on the floor. My father motions to me with a long, thin finger. My brother Elye gives me a push and I go to him.

  I hardly recognize him. His skin is like clay. The gray hairs on his head glisten damply. Each of them looks pasted on. His two eyes are stuck deep in their sockets. His teeth don’t look like his own, either. His neck is so thin it can hardly hold up his head. But at least he can sit. He makes a sound like a drowning man, lays his bony fingers on my face, and gives me a smile as crooked as a corpse’s. He says:

  “I reckon you know enough to say the kaddish, eh?”

  Elye bends and pretends to blow his nose while he sniffles.

  Just then my mother walks in. Behind her is Dr. Blackwhiskers. He greets me like a younger brother, pokes me in the stomach, and says cheerfully to my father:

  “I see you have a guest for Shavuos. Enjoy him!”

  “Thank you,” my mother says. She signals to the doctor to examine my father and give him his medicine.

  The doctor opens the window noisily and scolds Elye for keeping it closed. “I’ve told you a thousand times he needs fresh air!”

  Elye points to my mother to say it’s her fault. My mother says she’s afraid my father will catch cold. She signals to the doctor again. He takes out a big gold pocket watch. Elye stares at it. The doctor notices and says: “I’ve got half-past five. What time do you have?”

  “My watch isn’t running,” Elye says, flushing from the tip of his nose to the ends of his ears.

  My mother fidgets. She wants my father to get his medicine. The doctor takes his time asking all kinds of questions. When is my brother’s wedding? What does Hirsh-Ber think of my voice? I should have a good one, because voices are inherited. My mother fidgets some more. At last the doctor moves a stool to the sick bed and takes my father’s hot, dry hand.

  “Well, cantor! How has Shavuos been treating you?”

  “Praise God.” My father smiles like a corpse.

  “Aha! You’ve been coughing less? You slept well?” The doctor bends close to him.

  “Not at all …,” my father answers, stopping to catch his breath after every few words. “I’ve been coughing more and sleeping less …but God be praised …it’s Shavuos …the day the Torah was given …and we have a guest …a guest for the holiday …”

  Everyone looks at the guest. The guest stares at the floor. His thoughts are somewhere else. He’s thinking of logs, bramble swords, puffballs that burst like bombs, a calf that has become a dumb critter, the river at the bottom of the hill. He’s thinking of the high, bright, deep, blue skullcap of the sky.

  LUCKY ME—I’M AN ORPHAN!

  I’ve never been so important. How is that? Because my father, Peysi the cantor, died on the first day of Shavuos. That makes me an orphan.

  My brother Elye and I have to say the kaddish. Elye taught me to say it. He’s a good brother and a rotten teacher. He whacks me each time he gets mad. He sat me down, opened a prayer book, and had me read:

  Yisgodol veyiskodosh shmey rabbo …

  Elye said I had to learn it by heart. He read it with me a few times and told me to practice. I tried but couldn’t get the hang of it.

  Everything went fine up to veyatzmokh purkeney. I kept getting stuck on those two words. Elye poked me with an elbow and said that either I was dreaming (I was) or thinking of the calf (I was). He’s no slouch, my brother Elye. He made me say the kaddish over and over. In the end I got as far as le’eylo ule’eylo min kol birkhoso veshiroso and couldn’t go a line further. Elye grabbed me by the ear and said Papa should only rise from his grave and see the son he had.

  “I wish I could skip the kaddish.”

  So I said to Elye and got a good box on the ear. My mother came running.

  “For the love of God! What do you think you’re doing? Have you forgotten the boy is an orphan?”

  My mother and I sleep together in my father’s bed, which is the only furniture left. She lets me have most of the blanket.

  “Cover yourself and sleep, my orphan,” she says. “I only wish there was something to eat.”

  I cover myself and don’t sleep. I practice the kaddish. It’s the one thing I have to learn, because I’ve stopped going to school and am no longer in Hirsh-Ber’s choir. Orphans are excused.

  Lucky me!

  Congratulations! I know the whole kaddish by heart. You should hear me rattle it off in synagogue. Like a house on fire! I have a terrific voice too, a soprano I got from my father. All the boys are jealous. The women cry. Rich Jews like Yosi give me a kopeck after prayers. But Yosi’s son, bug-eyed Henekh, is out to get me. He sticks his tongue out whenever I say the kaddish. He’s dying to make me laugh. I keep a straight face just to spite him. Once Aron the beadle saw him and chucked him out by the ear. That’s what I call a good deed!

  Now that I say the kaddish every morning and evening, I don’t have to carry Dobtshe around. I’m free as a lark to spend all day by the river, swimming and fishing.

  Fishing is something I taught myself to do. I could teach you too if you wanted. You take off your shirt and knot the sleeves and wade into the water up to your neck. You have to wade pretty far. When your shirt is full of mud and weeds, you hustle out and give it a shake to see what’s in it. If there are any tadpoles flipping about, you throw them back—that’s plain human kindness. Sometimes there’s a leech. Leeches are good money. They fetch three and a half kopecks a dozen. That isn’t hay.

  You can forget about fish, though. There used to be fish but no more. I haven’t caught a single one. Leeches are good enough for me. But sometimes there are no leeches either. This summer I’m still looking for my first. Just don’t ask me how Elye found out I’d gone fishing. He nearly tore my ears off. It’s a good thing Pesye saw him. She watches out for me like a mother.

  “How can you pick on an orphan like that?”

  Elye was so ashamed he let go of my ear. There’s nothing folks won’t do for me. Lucky me—I’m an orphan!

  Pesye is in love with me. She keeps asking my mother if she can have me. “What do you care?” she says. “I already have twelve mouths to feed. So there’ll be a thirteenth.

  She had almost talked my mother into it when Elye butted in:

  “Who’ll see to it that he says the kaddish?”

  “I will, all right? I hope that’s good enough for you.”

  Pesye’s no rich lady. Her husband is a bookbinder named Moyshe. They say he’s pretty good at it. But being good isn’t enough; you need luck too. That’s what Pesye tells my mother
. My mother disagrees. She says you can be lucky without luck. Look at me. I’m an orphan and everyone wants me. They’re actually fighting over me. My mother says they can kill themselves first. She cries and asks Elye:

  “What do you think? Should we let him stay with Pesye for a while?”

  Elye is nearly a grown-up. That’s why she asks him. He strokes his smooth face as if it had a beard and talks grown-up talk.

  “By all means! Anything to keep him from growing up a bum.”

  That means I can live with Pesye if I promise not to be a bum. There’s nothing being a bum doesn’t include. Tie paper to the cat’s tail and you’re a bum. Bang a stick on the priest’s gate to make his dogs come running and you’re a bum. Unplug Leibl the water carrier’s barrel so that all the water runs out and you’re a bum.

  “It’s your luck you’re an orphan,” Leibl says. “Believe me, I’d break every bone in your body if you weren’t.”

  I believe him. He’d never lay hands on an orphan.

  Lucky me.

  You’ll pardon my saying so, but our neighbor Pesye told a fat lie. She said she had twelve mouths to feed. But by my count, I’m the fourteenth. She must have forgotten blind Uncle Borukh. Or else she left him out because he has no teeth. That doesn’t stop him from eating, though. He stuffs his mouth with food and swallows it like a goose. Everyone stuffs themselves at Pesye’s. It’s unnatural how much they eat. I stuff myself too. But I’m the only one to get kicked beneath the table for doing it. The worst kicks come from Bumpy. He’s a maniac, Bumpy is. His real name is Hirshl but he’s called Bumpy because of the bump on his forehead. Everyone at Pesye’s has a name. There’s Log, and there’s Tomcat, and there’s Ox, and there’s Ratface, and there’s Petelulu, and there’s Give-Me-More, and there’s Butternose.

  Don’t rack your brains over it. I’ll explain each one to you. Log is Log because he’s heavy and round. Velvl is black and hairy as a cat. Hayyim looks like an ox, so that’s his name. Mendl is Ratface on account of his pointy nose. Faytl doesn’t talk so well: that makes him Petelulu. Berl is always eating; give him bread with chicken fat and he wants more. Zerakh is Butternose because of a disgusting habit that’s not his fault. You can thank his mother for never teaching him to use a handkerchief. But maybe she’s not to blame either. Let’s not fight over it.