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

by Sholem Aleichem

  Pinye is quite a fellow. There’s nothing in the world he doesn’t know. Folks say he knows more than the rabbi. He can put the biggest genius in his little pocket, Pinye can. You should see his handwriting too! And he’s a whiz at rhymes. Pinye can rhyme anything. He’s rhymed our whole town—the rabbi, the slaughterer, the beadles, the butchers, his own family, everyone.

  Pinye’s rhymes can make you die laughing. They’re passed around and learned by heart. I even remember a few myself. Here’s one:

  Shmuel-Abba the beadle

  Is certain to eat all

  He can when he sits down to dinner.

  He grabs what he’s able

  To take from the table

  And doesn’t get up any thinner.

  And Nechameh his wife?

  As I value my life,

  I’d rather we didn’t discuss her.

  Her brain’s smaller than that

  Of the rabbi’s old cat—

  The devil take her and cuss her!

  The whole town buzzed with this poem. One man even set it to music and sang it at his Sabbath meal. The song went round until it got back to the beadle and his wife. They sent for Hirsh-Leyb the mechanic and asked with tears in their eyes what Pinye had against them. Hirsh-Leyb went home, locked and bolted the door, and gave Pinye a licking. He whipped him so hard that Pinye gave his word of honor never to write another rhyme in his life.

  Pinye hasn’t rhymed a word since. He says the rhymes don’t come any more. That’s because he has problems. It all started with his wanting to get married. I mean it wasn’t Pinye; it was his father, who wanted to make a man of him. He arranged a match with the daughter of a miller and the miller set Pinye up in the flour business.

  Elye envies Pinye for having his own business. Pinye just laughs. It may be a business, he says, but it’s no business of his. What kind of work is messing around with flour? At most it’s a job for some young moron of a miller’s son. He’s not to blame, Pinye says, if he can’t sit still in a store. His mind keeps flying off. His whole family is like that. They’re high flyers.

  That’s what Pinye says. He doesn’t want to run a store. He’d rather enjoy a good book. That makes his father-in-law the miller sore. There’s nothing the man can do about it, though, because he’s afraid of ending up in Pinye’s rhymes. And his daughter is delicate, an only child. Taybl, her name is. She has a face like a Cossack’s but she’s as good as gold. My mother says she hasn’t a drop of gall. It beats me how anyone can count the drops. Taybl minds the store while Pinye stays at home. Elye and I drop in on him there. He tells us everything. Pinye likes to gripe about his fate. He’s boxed in, he says. He can’t breathe. If only he could get away, he would be a different man. A year to see the world is all he asks. So he says to Elye. Elye is the one person he trusts. He shows Elye letters from important people. The important people write Pinye that he has it in him. Pinye thinks he has it in him too. I look at him and think: God almighty, just what does he have there?

  Pinye came to tell Elye a secret. I can’t hear about a secret without wanting to find out what it is. I’d find out every secret in the world if I could. I eavesdropped and here’s what I heard:

  Pinye: How much longer are we going to hang around here?

  Elye: That’s just what I ask myself.

  Pinye: I read about a fellow who lit out with nothing but the shirt on his back. For half a year he slept in the streets and went hungry.

  Elye: And then?

  Pinye: We should only have his luck.

  Elye: You don’t say!

  Pinye: Today Rothschild is a pauper next to him.

  Elye: Is that a fact?

  Pinye: You bet it is! Would I pull your leg? I’ve talked things over with Taybl.

  Elye: What does she say?

  Pinye: What should she say? She’s ready to come with me.

  Elye: She is? And your father-in-law?

  Pinye: Who’s asking him? Would he be happier if I left Taybl behind? You can see I’m itching to go. I can’t waste another day here.

  Elye: You think I can?

  Pinye: Then let’s take off.

  Elye: With what?

  Pinye: The ship tickets cost nothing, you dope.

  Elye: What do you mean, nothing?

  Pinye: You pay in installments. That’s nothing.

  Elye: But what about getting to the ship? There are railroad tickets, all kinds of expenses.

  Pinye: How many tickets do we need?

  Elye: You tell me. How many?

  Pinye: It’s simple arithmetic. Taybl and me makes two. Brokheh and you makes four.

  Elye: And my mother.

  Pinye: That’s five.

  Elye: And Motl.

  Pinye: Motl can travel half fare. Maybe even for free. We’ll say he’s under six.

  Elye: Are you crazy?

  I couldn’t keep quiet a second longer and jumped for joy. The two of them turned and saw me.

  “Beat it, you pest! Can’t you see this is an adult conversation?”

  I took off on the run, jumping and slapping my legs. Just imagine: me, a traveler! Ships …trains …tickets …half fares! Where were we going? Who cared! What difference did it make? Somewhere—that’s all that mattered! I had never gone anywhere in my life. I had no idea what traveling was like.

  Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration because I did once take a ride on the neighbor’s goat. I paid for it by falling off and getting a bloody nose and a whipping. But I wouldn’t exactly call that traveling.

  I walk around in a fog. I’ve lost my appetite. Every night I dream of traveling. In my dreams I have wings and can fly. Hurrah for Pinye! I think a thousand times more of him now. I would kiss him if I weren’t embarrassed. What a Pinye Pinye is!

  Didn’t I tell you he was a quick thinker?

  WE’RE OFF TO AMERICA!

  We’re off to America! Where is that? Don’t ask me. I only know it’s far away. It takes forever to get there. You have to reach a place called Ella’s Island where they take off your clothes and look at your eyes. If your eyes are all right, come right in! If they’re not, you can go back to where you came from.

  I’d say my eyes were pretty good. The only trouble they ever gave me was when some boys from school ganged up on me and blew snuff in them. Did they catch it from Elye! Since then I’ve had perfect vision. The problem, Elye says, is my mother. Who knows what all that crying has done to her eyes? She hasn’t stopped since my father died. Elye tells her:

  “For the love of God! Think of the living, too. They’ll send us back because of your eyes.”

  “Don’t be silly,” my mother says. “I’m not doing it on purpose. The tears come by themselves.”

  That’s what she says, my mother, wiping her eyes with her apron and going over to the pillows by the wall. She’s redoing them all. America, it seems, has everything but pillows. It beats me how anyone sleeps there. They must get headaches all the time.

  Brokheh is giving her a hand. I don’t mean to boast, but we have a lot of linens. Not counting the bedspreads, there are three big pillows and four babies. My mother is making the babies into another big one. That’s too bad because I like the babies better. Some mornings I play with them. They make a fine hat or even a cake.

  “When we get to America, God willing, we’ll turn them back into babies.”

  So my mother says, showing Brokheh what to do. Brokheh would rather stay put. It’s hard for her to leave her parents. Had anyone told her a year ago that she would be going to America, she would have laughed in his face.

  “And if anyone had told me a year ago that I’d be a widow …”

  My mother starts to cry. Elye loses his temper.

  “There you go again! You’ll be the ruin of us!”

  As if that weren’t enough, along comes our neighbor Pesye, sees us working on the pillows, and hands us a sob story of her own:

  “So you’re really going to America? God speed you and bring you happiness! He
’s capable of anything, God is. Look at my only daughter Rivl, who went to America with her husband Hilye. They write that they’re breaking their backs and making a living. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve asked them to send us a long letter with all the whats, whys, and wherefores. All they ever write is: ‘America is a country for everyone. You break your back and make a living …’ But who am I to complain? I should be thankful they write at all. At first there wasn’t so much as a howdy-do. We thought they had sunk to the bottom of the sea. Then at long last comes a letter saying, thank God, they’re in America. They’re breaking their backs and making a living…. Well, I suppose that’s something to knock your brains out and redo all the pillows and travel across the ocean for!”

  “I’m asking you for the last time. Stop being a wet blanket!”

  That’s from my brother Elye. Pesye turns on him.

  “A wet blanket? Still wet behind the ears, you are—and such a smart one! He’s going to America to break his back and make a living! To think of all the times I nursed you, held you in my arms, took care of you …Why don’t you ask your mother about the fish bone you swallowed one Friday night as a boy? If not for the three good whacks I gave you on your back, you couldn’t break it in America now.”

  Pesye would have gone on if my mother hadn’t calmed her: “Please, Pesye darling! Pesye dear! Dearest Pesye, please be strong!”

  She started to cry again. Elye hit the ceiling. He threw down the pillow he was holding, ran outside, and yelled as he slammed the door:

  “To hell with it all!”

  Our house is empty. It looks deserted. The little room is full of bundles and bedclothes. They’re piled to the ceiling. When no one is looking I climb to the top and sled down. Life has never been so good.

  We’ve stopped cooking. For our meals Elye brings a dried fish and an onion from the market. What could be better than fish with onions?

  Sometimes Pinye eats with us. He has more on his mind than ever. It doesn’t stop working for a second. Going to America has made a nervous wreck of him. That’s what my mother says. One pants leg is too high and one sock is too low. His necktie hangs every which way. He bumps his head each time he enters the house. My mother tells him:

  “Pinye, bend over! You don’t realize how tall you’ve gotten.”

  “He’s nearsighted, Mama.”

  That’s Elye’s excuse for him. The two of them have gone off to finish the paperwork on the house. We sold our half of it to Zilye the tailor long ago. But don’t expect a quick closing from a tailor. What a wafflehead that Zilye is!

  First he starts coming three times a day to look at the house. He taps the walls, he smells the stove, he crawls into the attic, he looks at the roof. Then he brings his wife—Menye is her name. Just the sight of her makes me laugh. Pesye’s calf was called Menye too, and this Menye reminds me of that one. Menye the calf had a white face with big, round eyes and so does the tailor’s wife.

  Next Zilye began bringing all kinds of experts, most of them tailors like himself. Each found something wrong with the house. That’s when it was agreed to bring Pinye’s father, Hirsh-Leyb the mechanic. Hirsh-Leyb knows all about houses. He’s honest and can be trusted.

  Hirsh-Leyb came and inspected the house from every angle. He threw back his shoulders, tilted his head, adjusted his hat, scratched his chin, and declared:

  “This house will stand for a hundred years.”

  A tailor friend of Zilye’s said:

  “Sure! Redo it in brick, prop it up with some good beams, put in four new walls, give it a tin roof, and it will stand until the Messiah comes.”

  You couldn’t have made Hirsh-Leyb madder if you had cussed him to his face or sprayed him with soda water. All he wanted to know was: “Where does a sneaking, lowdown, lying louse of a needle pusher get off opening his big fat mouth in front of a mechanic like me?”

  I got my hopes up too soon, though. Just when I was sure there would be a swell fight, everyone and his uncle turned up to make peace between Hirsh-Leyb and the tailors. We bargained, settled on a price, sent out for vodka, and drank toasts to a safe voyage and our making lots of money and coming back, God willing, from America.

  “Hold on there!” Elye declared. “What’s the big hurry to come back from America?”

  That started a conversation about America. Hirsh-Leyb was ready to bet a pot of gold that we would be back in no time flat. If he weren’t worried about Pinye being drafted, he would never agree to his going. America? Feh!

  “Begging your pardon,” said Zilye the tailor, “but what’s so feh about it?”

  “America,” Hirsh-Leyb said, “is a lowdown land.”

  “Begging your pardon,” said Zilye, “but what’s so lowdown about it?”

  “That’s obvious,” Hirsh-Leyb said. “If it’s so obvious, you might explain it,” said Zilye.

  But although Hirsh-Leyb tried explaining, he was too soused to put two words together. So was everyone. We were all in a grand mood, myself included. All except my mother, who kept wiping her eyes with her apron. Elye saw her and whispered:

  “You’re a heartless woman! Don’t you even care about your own eyes? Murderer!”

  It was time for the good-byes. We went from house to house, parting from every relative, neighbor, and friend. We spent a whole day at Yoyneh the bagel maker’s. Brokheh’s parents made us a swell dinner. The whole family sat around a table.

  I sat next to Brokheh’s sister Alte. I’ve already told you about her. She’s a year older than me and has two braids. Since Elye’s wedding we’re supposed to be a couple. Whoever sees us together says, “There go the bride and groom.” That’s why we’re not embarrassed to be seen talking. Alte asked me if I would miss her. Of course I would, I said. Then she asked if I would send her letters from America. I said of course to that too.

  “But how can you? You don’t know how to write.”

  “So what?” I said, sticking my hands in my pockets. “You think you can’t learn in America?”

  Alte looked at me and smiled. Don’t ask me what was so funny. She’s just trying not to be jealous. Everyone is. Even bug-eyed Henekh would like to drown me in a spoon of water. He stopped me and said with his buggy eyes:

  “I hear you’re going to America.”

  “Yup.”

  “What will you do there, walk the streets with a tin cup?”

  He’s lucky my brother Elye wasn’t there. Elye would have given him a tin cup all right! I wasn’t going to start up with a bum like that. I stuck out my tongue and ran to Pesye’s to say good-bye to her and her gang.

  That’s some gang Pesye has! I’ve told you about them. All eight of them stood around me in a circle. They wanted to know if I was glad to be going. It didn’t take long to answer that. Are they green with envy! The greenest is Bumpy. He can’t take his eyes off me. He keeps sighing and saying:

  “So you’re going to see the world.”

  Yup. I’m going to see the world. I can’t wait!

  We’re off! Leyzer the coachman is here with his “eagles”—three horses fast as lightning who wouldn’t stand still for love or money. They paw the ground, snorting and foaming. I can’t make up my mind whether to watch the horses or help with the bundles. In the end I compromise by staying with the horses while watching the bundles being carried out. They fill Leyzer’s wagon. There’s a mountain of pillows on it. And no time to waste, because it’s forty-five verst to the station.

  We’re all here: me and my brother Elye and his wife Brokheh and his friend Pinye and Pinye’s wife Taybl and their whole family—Hirsh-Leyb the mechanic, and Shneyur the watchmaker, and Taybl’s father the miller, and the miller’s wife, and Aunt Kreine and her birdfaced daughter, and even old Reb Hesye. They’ve all come to say good-bye to Pinye. On our side there’s Yoyneh the bagel maker with his wife and sons. It’s a pity I haven’t introduced them all. Now it’s too late because we’re off to America. They stand around giving advice. Watch out for thieves in America
!

  “There aren’t any thieves there.”

  That’s what Elye says, patting the secret pocket sewed by my mother in a place where no one would dream of looking. The money from the sale of our house is there. It’s squirreled away safe and sound.

  “Don’t you worry,” Elye says. He’s tired of having to give the whole world an account of our money.

  It’s time to say good-bye. We look around …where is my mother? Nowhere, that’s where! Elye is about to have a fit. Leyzer is chafing at the bit. He says we’ll miss our train if we don’t get cracking. But wait—here she comes! Her face is red and her eyes are swollen. Elye pounces onher.

  “What’s the matter with you? Where have you been?”

  “Saying good-bye to your father in the graveyard.”

  Elye turns away. No one knows what to say. I haven’t thought of my father since the day we decided to go to America. I feel an ache inside. We’re going and he’s staying in the graveyard.

  But there’s no time to think of that. Someone gives me a push and tells me to climb aboard. How am I supposed to climb a mountain of pillows? By using Leyzer’s shoulders as a ladder!

  Suddenly there’s such a weeping and a wailing that you might think the Temple had been destroyed. The loudest is my mother. She throws her arms around Pesye and says: “You’ve been a true sister to me. Truer than a sister!” Pesye doesn’t cry. Her big Adam’s apple just bobs in her throat and tears big as beans run down her fat cheeks.

  Everyone is done kissing except Pinye. Watching Pinye kiss is better than going to the theater. Each kiss lands in the wrong place, that’s how nearsighted he is. If his lips don’t wind up in your beard or on your nose, his head bangs into yours. He can’t take a step without tripping. You could die laughing.

  Praise God, we’re all in the wagon. I mean we’re on top of it. My mother, Brokheh, and Taybl are sitting on one mountain and Elye and Pinye are facing them on another. Leyzer and I are in the driver’s seat. Although my mother wanted me next to her, Elye said I’d be better off by the driver. You bet I am! I can see the whole world and the whole world sees me. Leyzer reaches for his whip. There’s a last round of good-byes. The women cry.