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

by Sholem Aleichem

  It’s a house full of names. Even the poor cat, who did nothing to deserve it, is called Feyge-Leah the Beadle’s Wife. That’s because Feyge-Leah’s a big woman and the cat’s a big cat. I don’t know how many lickings Pesye’s boys have gotten for calling that cat by a woman’s name. Go throw beans at the wall! Everyone has a name and that’s that.

  I’ve been given a name too. Don’t try to guess what it is. It’s Lips. No one, it seems, likes my lips. They say I use them too much when I eat. I’d like to see someone eat without them! Although I’m not the type to take offense, it’s a name I hate. That’s why they tease me with it. I’ve never seen such wise alecs in my life. First they called me Motl-Much-Lips. Then they shortened it to Much-Lips. Now it’s plain Lips.

  “Lips! Where have you been?”

  “Lips! Wipe your nose!”

  When it gets me down, I cry. Once Moyshe asked why I was crying. I said he’d cry too if his name was Motl and everyone called him Lips. “Who’s everyone?” he asked. “Bumpy,” I said. He went to give Bumpy a licking and Bumpy said, “It’s Log.” He went to Log and Log blamed Tomcat.

  It went on like that. In the end Moyshe lined them all up, took the binding of a prayer book, and whacked them one by one. “I’ll teach you little bastards to make fun of an orphan,” he said. “The devil take whoever brought you into this world!”

  I’m not making up a word. He made them all pay for it. They took their licks because of me.

  What luck I’m an orphan!

  WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?

  Can you guess where Paradise is? I’ll bet you can’t. And do you know why not? Because it’s a different place for everyone. My mother thinks it’s where my father is. She says that’s where the good souls go when they die. And the proof is that if he’s not in Paradise, where else can he be? Why else was he made to suffer so much in this world? That’s what she says, my mother, wiping her eyes.

  Ask my friends, though, and they’ll tell you that Paradise is a mountain of crystal as high as the sky. Boys run free as the wind there, never go to school, take baths of milk, and eat honey by the fistful. And listen to this: I know a bookbinder who thinks Paradise is the bathhouse! I swear, that’s what I heard our neighbor Moyshe say. It’s enough to drive you crazy—especially if like me you think Paradise is Dr. Menashe’s garden.

  You’ve never seen such a garden in your life. Not only is it the only garden on our street, and even the only garden in our town, it’s the only garden of its kind in the world. There’s never been another like it and never will be. I just don’t know what to describe for you first: Dr. Menashe’s garden or Dr. Menashe and his wife. I’d better begin with the two of them. After all, it’s their garden.

  Menashe walks around with a cape all the time, the same as Dr. Blackwhiskers. He has one big eye and one small one and a crooked mouth. I mean, one side of his mouth is longer than the other. It was blown out of shape by the wind. That’s what Dr. Menashe says. It beats me how he can be right. Any wind that could do such a thing would have blown my head off long ago.

  Most likely, it’s just a habit. For example, I have a friend, Berl, who’s in the habit of squinting all the time. And I have another friend, Velvl, who always sounds like he’s slurping soup. There’s nothing you can’t get used to if you set your mind to it. And even if Dr. Menashe has a crooked mouth, he’s still the best doctor around. He doesn’t put on airs like the other doctors but comes lickety-split when he’s called. And he makes his own medicines instead of writing out those weird prescriptions. Not long ago (I must have spent too much time in the river) I came down with such a case of the aches-and-shakes that my mother went running to get him. He took one look at me and said with that crooked mouth:

  “There’s no need to worry. It’s nothing serious. The little rascal’s caught a cold in his lungs.”

  And with that he took a blue flask from his pocket and tapped something white into six packets of paper. It was a powder, he said, and I should take my first dose right away. I crumpled the packet in my hand, turning it this way and that. Something told me it would taste awfully bitter. Don’t think it didn’t. There’s bitter and there’s bitter, and if you’ve never made your own chewing gum from the bark of a young tree you’ll never know what that powder was like. There must be a law that the more powdery anything is, the bitterer it tastes. God himself couldn’t have done anything about it. It tasted like death.

  Dr. Menashe said I should take a dose every two hours. He might as well have told me to drink bile. As soon as my mother went to tell my brother, I dumped the other five doses in the tub and filled the packets with flour. My mother had a time of it running to Pesye’s every two hours to look at the clock. After each dose she said I was looking better. By the last I was in perfect health.

  “Now that’s what I call a doctor!” my mother said. She kept me home from school for a day and gave me sweet tea and white bread.

  “There’s not a doctor can hold a candle to Menashe, God bless him! He has powders that could bring a dead man back to life.”

  So my mother told everyone, wiping her eyes as usual.

  Dr. Menashe’s wife is known as “the Doct’ress.” Everyone tells you to steer clear of her. That’s because she’s mean. She has a face like a man’s, a voice like a man’s, and boots like a man’s. Whatever she says sounds cross. You can guess what people think of her. She’s never in her life given a hungry man a slice of bread, even though her house is full of food. There are jams and jellies from last summer, and from the summer before that, and from ten summers before that. What does she need them all for? Go ask her! That’s how she is. Some people are hopeless.

  Every summer the Doct’ress makes more jam. I suppose you think she cooks it over a coal or wood fire. Not in your life! She uses weeds, pine cones, dead leaves. There’s enough smoke to choke the whole street. If you ever come our way on a summer day and smell an awful stink, don’t worry—the town’s not burning down. It’s just the Doct’ress making jam. She makes it from the fruit in her garden. I told you I’d get around to the garden.

  What grows there? Apples and pears and cherries and plums and sour cherries and raspberries and currants and peaches and gooseberries and blackberries and huckleberries and whortleberries and you name it. Even grapes for Rosh Hashanah. If you want a new fruit to bless the new year with, you have to buy your grapes from the Doct’ress. Sure, you can find them in Cracow and Lemberg too, if you look hard enough. But they’ll be sour. That’s why the Doct’ress gets such a good price for them.

  She makes money from everything, even her sunflowers. God help the person who asks permission to pick one! You’d have an easier time pulling teeth. And I’m not even talking about her apples, pears, cherries, and plums. That’s taking your life in your hands.

  I know that garden like a Jew knows his prayers. I know every tree and what grows on it and if this year’s crop is better than last year’s. You’re wondering how? Believe me, I’ve never set foot in it. How could I when it’s surrounded by a high fence with monster stakes? Worse yet, there’s a dog inside. I mean, he’s more like a wolf. He’s on a long leash, the big brute, and just try getting past him—just let him think you’re thinking of trying—and he’ll rip and tear at you like the very devil. So how do I know what’s in that garden? That’s the next thing I’m going to tell you.

  If you don’t know Mendl the slaughterer, you certainly don’t know where his house is. It’s next to Menashe’s and looks down on his garden. You can see the whole garden from Mendl’s roof. The trick is getting up there.

  It’s a cinch for me. Mendl’s house is next to our own and not as high. Shinny up to our attic (I’ll show you how to do it without a ladder), stick your foot out the window, and you’re already on Mendl’s roof. You can lie there as long as you like on your back or on your stomach. Just don’t try standing, because someone might see you and wonder what you’re doing. The best time is before sunset, between the afternoon and evening prayers, when
I’m supposed to be in synagogue. I tell you, that garden is a Paradise! Adam and Eve’s had nothing on it.

  When summer comes and the trees blossom with white feathers, you can bet your boots there’ll be green raspberries. They’re the first fruit to watch out for. Some folks wait for them to get ripe. That’s plain dumb. Take it from me, they’re better green. You say they’re sour? They pucker your mouth? Big deal! Sour food is good for the heart and your mouth’s no problem. Just rub the inside of it with salt and keep it open for half an hour and you’re ready for more green raspberries.

  After the raspberries come the currants. They’re red, with little black mouths and yellow seeds, dozens of them on each branch. Run a branch through your teeth and off they come, all juicy and yummy. When they’re in season my mother buys a quart for a kopeck and I eat them with bread. The Doct’ress’ garden has two rows of currant bushes that shine in the sun. What wouldn’t I give for just one branch—for just one currant to pop in my mouth! But all this talk is making me hungry. Let’s go on to sour cherries.

  Sour cherries don’t stay green for long. They ripen in no time. I swear, I’ve been on Mendl’s roof and seen cherries that were green as grass in the morning, rosy pink by afternoon, and red as fire by evening.

  Sometimes my mother buys sour cherries too. But how many can she afford? Five cherries on a string. What can you do with five cherries? You play with them until you lose them and can’t find them any more.

  If you can count the stars in the sky, you can count the cherries in Menashe’s garden. I’ve tried lots of times and always lost count in the end.

  One thing about cherries is that they won’t drop from the tree until they’re past their prime. You’ll never find a fallen cherry that isn’t black as a plum. Peaches are different: they fall as soon as they turn yellow. Ah, peaches, peaches! They’re my favorite fruit. I’ve eaten one in my whole life and still remember the taste of it. My father was alive then and our house had all its fixings, the glass cupboard and the little couch and all the books and bedspreads. We were on our way home from synagogue when he reached into his back pocket, the one he kept his handkerchief in.

  “Care for some peaches, boys?” he asked. “Here’s one for each of you.”

  Out came his hand with two big, round, yellow, luscious peaches. My brother Elye couldn’t wait. He said the blessing out loud and stuffed the whole peach in his mouth. Not me. I played with it, looked at it, sniffed it, and ate it bit by bit with bread. Peaches and bread are a swell combination. I’ll never forget that peach.

  From Mendl’s roof I can see a tree full of peaches. They fall one by one, yellow and red ones, splitting open when they hit the ground. I can even see their big pits. What will the Doct’ress do with so many peaches? She’ll make lots of jam and store it in the back of her oven and take it down to the cellar in winter and keep it until it gets moldy.

  After the peaches come the plums. Not all at once. You’ve got two kinds of plum trees in Menashe’s garden. The first are the cherry plums; they’re small, sweet, hard, and black. Then come the bucket plums. Bucket plums are sold by the bucket. They’re thin-skinned, sticky, and watery but not as bad as you think. In fact, I wouldn’t mind one right now. But the Doct’ress doesn’t give them away. She’d rather make plum jam for the winter. Don’t ask me how she’ll eat it all.

  We’re done with the cherries, plums, and peaches. Now it’s apple time. Apples, you should know, are not pears. Even a bergamot, which is the best pear in the world, is worthless until it’s ripe. You might as well chew wood. But an apple is an apple no matter how green it is. Bite into a green apple, I grant you, and you’ve got one sour mouth. Do you want to know something, though? I wouldn’t swap you a green apple for two ripe ones. A ripe one takes forever to ripen but a green one is ready to eat the minute it sets on the tree. The only difference is the size. And apples are like people: getting bigger doesn’t make them better. Your little apple can taste just as good. Take your Winesap. What doesn’t it have that a bigger apple does? And it’s going for nothing this year. There’s such a glut they’ll be trucking them in wagons. I heard that from the Doct’ress herself. She was talking to Ruvn the Apple Jew when the fruit was young on the trees.

  Ruvn had come to look at her garden. He wanted to buy her pears and apples on the branch. He’s the world’s biggest expert, Ruvn is. One look at a tree and he’ll tell you what it’s worth. He’s never wrong either, barring winds, heat waves, weevils, and worms. Those things come from God, there’s no way to predict them. Not that I know what God needs apple weevils for. But he must know what he’s doing when he takes the bread from Ruvn’s mouth. A bit of bread, Ruvn says, is all he asks from a tree. He has a wife and children at home and needs to put something on their table. The Doct’ress promised him not only bread but meat. She should only, she said, be as lucky as he was in getting such trees. Trees? Pure gold!

  “You know I have your best interests at heart,” the Doct’ress said. “I don’t wish better for myself.”

  “Amen!” Ruvn said with a smile on his kind, red face that was peeling from the sun. “Promise there’ll be no winds or weevils this year and I’ll give you every kopeck you’re asking for.”

  The Doct’ress gave him a sharp look and said in her man’s voice:

  “Promise you won’t fall and break a leg.”

  “No one is sent an announcement that he’s about to break a leg,”

  Ruvn answered with a twinkle. “And the rich should worry more than the poor because they have more to lose.”

  “You’re a clever Jew,” the Doct’ress said in a tone that could kill. “A man who wishes misfortune on others had better watch his tongue before he loses that too.”

  “You’re quite right,” Ruvn said with the same smile. “A tongue is a useful thing to have. Unless, God forbid, it belongs to a hungry man on your doorstep.”

  Too bad the Doct’ress’ garden isn’t Ruvn’s! Life would be a lot finer then. You’ve never seen such a witch. Let the measliest, wormiest apple with wrinkles like an old woman’s fall from a tree and she’ll pick it up and drop it in her kerchief. Where does it go from there? Either to her attic or her cellar. Most likely her cellar, because I’ve heard it’s full of rotten apples. Swiping an apple from her is a good deed.

  But how? Sneak into her garden at night when the whole town’s sleeping and fill my pockets? A swell idea if not for the dog! And the most annoying part is that there are so many apples on her trees this summer that they’re practically begging to be taken. I wish I knew a magic charm to make them jump into my arms.

  Well, I thought and I thought and what I finally thought of wasn’t magic. It was a long pole with a nail at one end. I had only to hook an apple by the stem and give a yank, and over the fence it would go. Provided it didn’t fall, of course. But what if it did? As long as I didn’t poke holes in it, the Doct’ress would think it was a windfall.

  I swear, I didn’t bruise a single apple. I didn’t let any fall, either. I know how to handle an apple-swiping pole. The trick is to take your time. You’ve hooked an apple? Eat it real slow, take a break, and go for another. The birds won’t tell on you, I promise.

  How was I supposed to know that the witch knew exactly how many apples she had on each tree? She must have counted them and seen some were missing, because the next evening she waited for the thief to show up on Mendl’s roof. She had figured out that someone was up there with a pole. Even then I might have gotten away with it if not for the witnesses. An orphan can always beg for mercy—but not when the Doct’ress thought of taking my mother and Mendl’s wife and our neighbor Pesye up to our attic with her. It was no trick to spot me through the window, fishing for apples.

  “Well? What do you say about your darling son now? Do you believe me?”

  It was the Doct’ress. I’d know that voice anywhere. I turned to look and saw all four of them in the attic. Don’t think I panicked and threw my pole away. It dropped by itself. It was sheer luck i
t didn’t take me with it. I couldn’t look those women in the eyes. If not for the dog, I’d have jumped and killed myself. The worst part was my mother. She didn’t stop weeping and wailing.

  “Oh, my God! That I should have lived to see the day! Here I thought my orphan was saying kaddish for his father and I find him on the roof stealing apples from a garden! May I be struck by lightning!”

  The witch gave it to me good with her man’s voice:

  “He deserves a beating, the scoundrel! A whipping! A flogging! Let him bleed! Let him learn what it means to be a thie—”

  My mother didn’t let her finish the word.

  “He’s an orphan!” she screamed. “A poor orphan!” She kissed the Doct’ress’ hand, begged her forgiveness, and swore by all that was holy that I would never do it again. As she lived and breathed!

  “Make him swear never even to look at my garden!” thundered the Doct’ress without a drop of pity for an orphan.

  “May I hope to die! May my eyes be poked out!” I said. I climbed down from the attic with my mother, who went on crying and scolding after everyone was gone.

  “I ask you, what will become of you?” she said. Elye turned pale when she told him what had happened. It must have been from anger, because I heard her whisper that I was an orphan.

  “I haven’t touched him,” Elye said. “I’d just like to know what will become of him. What?”

  That’s what he said, my brother Elye, gritting his teeth and waiting for an answer. How am I supposed to know? Do you?

  MY BROTHER ELYE GETS MARRIED