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

by Sholem Aleichem

  It’s all a lot of hot air. All the zayavlenyes and proshenyes in the world won’t do any good. And Pinye won’t cross any borders because Taybl won’t let him. Not for all the Tsar’s gold, she says. Running the border once was enough for her. To tell the truth, it was enough for us all.

  We tell our story to everyone: how we met the woman with the wig, and how she told us how to run the border, and how we were taken to the forest, and how we almost had our throats slit, and how Brokheh has a habit of fainting, and how my mother screamed and the soldiers shot and the men ran away and our lives were saved.

  That’s my mother’s version. Elye has his own. Before he gets very far with it, Brokheh butts in with hers. But Brokheh, Taybl says, doesn’t remember because she passed out. Taybl tells it her way and is interrupted by Pinye, who says Taybl doesn’t know a thing. And so Pinye tells the whole story from the beginning. We tell it over and over each day, mouthing the words and nodding as we listen. Everyone says we were lucky and should say a special prayer of thanks.

  Life on this side of the border is good. In fact, it couldn’t be better. There’s not a stitch of work to be done. Either we sit in our inn or go for walks in the city. I’ve told you what a fine place Brody is. I don’t know what Brokheh has against it. Every day she has some new complaint. This here is no good, and that there isn’t clean, and something else smells bad, and back home it was different. Once she let out a scream in the middle of the night. We all jumped out of bed.

  “What is it? Thieves?”

  “What thieves? Bedbugs!”

  In the morning we went to complain to the innkeeper. He couldn’t make head or tail of it until Pinye explained to him in German what the matter was. Never in his life, said the innkeeper, had he heard the likes of it. Not in the whole kingdom of Austria. We must have brought the bedbugs from Russia.

  Did Brokheh blow her top! A Jew like our innkeeper, she said, is worse than a Jew who’s been baptized. It beats me why she said that, because the innkeeper seems like a fine fellow. He talks with a lopsided grin and likes to give friendly advice about where to go and who to buy from and who to steer clear of. Sometimes he even comes along.

  Mostly, we buy clothes. We’ve become spiffy dressers. Pinye says it isn’t nice to dress like bums. A tourist, he says, should dress respectably. And especially in a country where everything is dirt cheap. The first thing he bought was a top hat. After that he bought a new tie and a frock coat, the kind that comes down to the knees.

  You’d have to be made of cast iron to keep a straight face when Pinye wears his new clothes. He’s tall, he’s thin, he’s nearsighted, and he walks with a bounce, remember? And his nose! My mother says he looks like a circus clown. Elye says it’s more like an organ grinder. Pinye says he’d rather be an organ grinder than a bum.

  Elye says he could dress like a German too if he wanted. It’s no trick to throw away your money, he says. In America we’ll need every penny. Pinye says money won’t be a problem there. In America, he says, every man is worth his weight in gold. He nagged until Elye bought a top hat and a frock coat too. Now when we walk down the street talking German, we could pass for natives if not for the women. I mean my mother, Brokheh, and Taybl. They follow us everywhere. My mother is afraid of getting lost and Brokheh and Taybl tag after her like calves. Don’t ask me what they’re afraid of. The six of us are always together. Everyone stares at us. You would think no one had seen a Jew before.

  “The Germans are the world’s biggest fools,” Elye says. “They’ll believe anything they’re told.”

  “Provided it doesn’t involve money. They’re money-mad. Why, they’d sell their souls for a groschen. And their father for a schilling and God himself for two!”

  That’s Brokheh. Taybl agrees. None of the women like the Germans. You can search me why they don’t. I like them fine. I could stay here forever if we weren’t going to America. Where else do you have such houses? And the people! They’re swell folk. There’s nothing they won’t sell you. Even the cows here are different. I’m not saying they’re smarter than our Russian cows, but they’re more human, that’s for sure.

  Try telling that to the women, though. They’ll only answer that everything was better back home. Nothing is good enough for them, not even our inn. They don’t like its owners. “They skin you alive,” Brokheh says. “They make you pay for a glass of hot water, even for a pinch of salt. If we don’t leave this place soon, we’ll end up begging in the street.”

  That’s what she says, Brokheh. Brokheh says a lot of things. She says Elye is an old maid. She says Pinye is the joker in the deck. Anyone else in Taybl’s place would have smacked her long ago. But Taybl is without a drop of gall. She doesn’t talk back to Brokheh. No one does, not even me. She’s a terror, Brokheh is. She calls me “Crumb-bum” and “Motl Chop-Chop.” Since we’ve been on the road, she says, I’ve grown a fine pair of chops. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of answering. My mother can’t stand it and cries. Elye hates that. He says her eyes are ruined. With eyes like hers we’ll never make it to America.

  I have news! We’ve heard from our pillows. The woman who ran us across the border is in jail. Pinye is delighted. He says the police should be congratulated. “So congratulations,” says my mother. “Now where are my linens?” “The same place mine are,” Pinye says. We may as well face it. We’ll never see them again.

  It’s time to move on. Elye acts as though it’s the end of the world. My mother tries to cheer him. “Don’t be foolish,” she says. “Would you be happier if they had taken all our money in the forest and slaughtered us in the bargain?” Pinye says she’s right. A Jew, he says, should see the bright side. Brokheh sticks her nose in and says, “I’ve always said Elye was an old maid.”

  We have to make plans. How do we get to America? Everyone suggests something else. One person says via Paris. Another says London. A third tells us Antwerp is closer. We can’t make up our minds. My mother is scared of Paris because it’s so big. Brokheh doesn’t like the sound of Antwerp. Who ever heard of a city named for ants? That leaves London. Pinye thinks it’s our best bet. He’s read in a book called “The Atlas” that London is quite a place. It’s the hometown of Moses Montefiore and Rothschild.

  “Rothschild? He’s from Paris!”

  So says my brother Elye. The one thing he and Pinye agree on is that they always disagree. If Pinye thinks it’s daytime, Elye is sure it’s the middle of the night. They don’t exactly quarrel. It’s more like boxing. They can go at it for hours if no one stops them.

  Once they had it out over the German word for horseradish. In Kasrilevke we said khreyn, but did the Germans say khron or khran? They went at it hammer and tongs until they decided to buy some horseradish in the market and show it to our innkeeper. “Hey there, Mr. Germany,” they said, “we’d like to ask you something. Tell us the truth: this here fruit—do you call it a khron or a khran?” “You’re talking Jewish,” answered the innkeeper. “In German it’s a Meer-rettich.”

  Did you ever hear such a crazy word in all your life? He’ll do anything to annoy us, that innkeeper. He makes everything sound like something else. He calls a hair a har, which means a gentleman, and a gentleman a her, which means “Over here!” And how does he say “over here”? Hier-hier! And you wonder why we call the Germans cabbageheads?

  You’ll have to excuse me for going on about the Germans and their language and forgetting all about America. America, it seems, is still a ways off. First we have to get to London. And before that, there’s Lemberg. In Lemberg, we’re told, there’s something called an Emigration Committee. We’re hoping it can help us. Why shouldn’t it when it’s helped others—and especially after all we’ve been through, what with losing all our bundles and linens and all? My mother is planning what to say to it. “Just don’t cry!” Elye tells her. “Think of your eyes! Don’t you want to get to America?”

  That’s what he says, Elye, and goes off to pay our bill. A minute later he comes back pale
as a ghost. What’s wrong? The bill has thrown him completely. There’s nothing that isn’t on it. The six Sabbath candles we lit—six groschen. The havdalah candle to end the Sabbath—four groschen. “What havdalah candle?” Elye asks. “The one you heard me say the blessing over,” says the innkeeper. “But why four groschen?” Elye asks. “If you’d rather make it five, let’s make it five,” says the innkeeper. Next comes something called his “commission.” What kind of bad news is a commission? It’s his fee, he says, for coming with us to buy clothes.

  Brokheh hears that and gives her hands a clap. “Mother-in-law! What did I tell you? These Germans are worse than the robbers in the forest! Your biggest Russian pogromchik is a saint compared to them. You say the name of this place is Brody? I tell you it’s Sodom!”

  Being compared to a Russian pogromchik didn’t faze that German as much as hearing Brody called Sodom. Did he fly off the handle! The Russians, he said, had the right idea. If you asked him, there should be more pogroms. If he were the Kaiser of Russia, he would slaughter every one of us.

  I’ve told you our friend Pinye has a temper. He can be pretty peaceful until it explodes, but just say a wrong word to him then and you’re taking your life in your hands. He drew himself up to his full height, Pinye did, went over to that innkeeper, and shouted right in his face:

  “Go to hell, you stinking kraut! And your father, too!”

  The kraut made Pinye pay for that. He gave him two such juicy slaps in the face that the sparks flew. What followed was grand. All Brody came running. It was Jew against Jew, a real slugfest. Do I love it when the fur begins to fly!

  We took off for Lemberg that same day.

  THE LEMBERG COMMITTEE

  Lemberg, mind you, is nothing like Brody. First, there’s the town itself. It’s clean, airy, pretty—a sight for sore eyes. I won’t say it doesn’t have streets like Brody’s in which you have to hold your nose and wear galoshes even in good weather. But it does have a park in the center of it where everyone goes walking, even the goats. On Saturdays the Jews promenade in their fur hats and no one says a word. It’s a free country. And the people! Pure gold!

  My mother says Lemberg and Brody are like day and night. Elye says he wishes we had come to Lemberg first. Pinye says that’s illogical, since Lemberg is only better than Brody because it’s further from the border and nearer to America. “You call that logic?” Elye says. “Show me Lemberg on the map and show me America!” When it comes to maps, Pinye says, he’s studied geography and can teach Elye a thing or two. “Then why don’t you tell me where the Committee is,” Elye says. “What Committee?” “The Emigration Committee!” “What does that have to do with geography?” “A big expert like you,” Elye says, “should know that too.”

  So Elye says. But the more people in the street we stop to ask, the more have never heard of the Emigration Committee. A weird town!

  “They know. They’re just not telling!”

  That’s Brokheh’s opinion. She’s down on everything, Lemberg too. She thinks the streets here are too wide. Now isn’t that something to be ashamed of!

  That’s women for you. Nothing ever suits them.

  We’ve found the Committee. It’s in a tall building with a red roof. First you wait outside for a while. It’s a pretty long while. Then someone opens a door and you climb some stairs and see a lot of people at the top of them. Most are emigrants from Russia like us. Many look hungry and have babies. The ones without babies look hungry too. Each day they’re told to come back the next morning. The next morning they’re told to come back the next day.

  My mother has made friends with some of the women. Many have had bad luck too. They tell each other about it and feel luckier. Some have been through pogroms. That’s horrible to hear about. Everyone is going to America and no one has a way of getting there. Some folks have been sent back to Russia. Some have found work in Lemberg. Some have been sent on to Cracow. Where is the Committee? You’re at it. Who is the Committee? May you know as much sorrow in your life as anyone knows that!

  A tall man with a pockmarked face and kind, smiling eyes appears.

  “He’s from the Committee! He’s a doctor.”

  The doctor pulls up a stool. Every few minutes a new emigrant steps up to him with some new problem. The doctor listens and says he’s only one person. He wishes he could help. “On a Committee of thirty members,” he says, “I’m the only one who ever shows up. What can I do all by myself?”

  The emigrants don’t want to hear that. How long can they go on like this? They’ve used up all their money. Either give them tickets to America, they say, or send them back to Russia.

  The doctor explains that he can only send them as far as Cracow. In Cracow there’s another Committee. Maybe it can do more than this one.

  The emigrants protest that they’re at their wits’ end. The doctor takes out his wallet and hands them a coin. The emigrants pocket it and go away. New emigrants take their place. They tell the doctor they’re hungry.

  “What can I do for you?” he asks.

  “We want to eat,” they say.

  “Here’s my breakfast,” he says. “Eat.”

  He points to some rolls and a cup of coffee that have been brought him. Honestly, he says. Have his breakfast. What can a man do all by himself? The emigrants thank him. The food isn’t for them. It’s for their children.

  “Next time bring them too,” says the doctor with a twinkle in his kind eyes. He turns to the next emigrant.

  “What can I do for you?”

  It’s my mother’s turn to tell the doctor her case history. How she had a husband. And how this husband was a cantor. And how the cantor fell ill. And how he grew worse until he died and left her a widow with two children, one grown up and one a little boy. (That’s me!) The older one was recently married. He was swimming in chicken fat. Then the fat ran out and left a hole. His father-in-law went bankrupt and he was nearing draft age, so we decided to go to America.

  “Mama, what kind of sob story are you giving him?”

  That’s my brother Elye. He starts again from the beginning:

  “Draft, shmaft—the thing is, we’re going to America. I mean me, and my mother, and my wife, and my little brother” (that’s me!), “and that fellow over there” (he points to Pinye). “We had to run the border. I mean we couldn’t get an exit permit. The thing is, my friend and I were draft age …”

  “Allow me!” Pinye says, shoving Elye aside and telling it his way. Even if Elye is my brother, I have to admit that Pinye tells it better. For one thing, he knows Russian. Does he use some swell words! This is how it went:

  “If I were to present you with a short vozglyad of the entire polozhenye, you would have a totshke zrenye. We’re going to America less because of the voyenske povyonost than because of the samastoyatelnost. Here, you see, we’re extremely styesnitelni, not merely in terms of progres, but also regarding vozdukh, as Turgenev observed. And vovterikh, that’s especially so since the yevreiski vopros, not to mention the pogroms, the Constitution, and tomu podovne, as Buckle says in his History of Civilization …”

  But I don’t do Pinye justice. That was only the beginning. He was just warming up when the doctor cut him short, took a sip of his coffee, and said with a smile: “Well, what can I do for you?”

  That’s when Elye muscled in and said to Pinye: “How come you never stick to the point?”

  That made Pinye pretty sore. He walked away, tripping over his own feet and saying crossly: “You think you talk better? So talk!”

  Elye stepped up to the doctor and began the whole story again.

  “The thing is, we came to the border. I mean we started negotiating with the agents. Those agents, let me tell you, are real bastards. Right away they give us the runaround. They double deal, they rat, they finagle. And then along comes this woman. I mean a decent, pious, one-hundred-percent type! So we bargain with her and arrive at a price for running us across the border. The thing is, we’re supposed to g
o first and our belongings will follow. She found two Christians to go with us …”

  “Just listen to him! He’s already up to the Christians! What’s the big rush?”

  That’s Brokheh jumping in to tell it her way. It’s the same story but a little different. The woman told us to walk to a hill. There we turned right and walked to another hill. Then we turned left and walked to a tavern. Pinye went inside and found two men drinking vodka. He gave them a password and they took us to a forest. It’s a lucky thing that she, Brokheh, has a habit of fainting …

  “Shall I tell you something, my dear woman? I’m about to faint myself. Please get to the point and tell me what I can do for you.”

  My mother steps back up to the doctor and says: “The point is that all our things were stolen.”

  The doctor: “What things?”

  My mother: “Our linen. Two bedspreads, four large pillows, and two more made from the babies.”

  The doctor: “That’s all?”

  My mother: “And three quilts, two old and one new. And some clothing and—”

  The doctor: “That’s not what I meant. I meant, is that the worst that happened?”

  My mother: “You’d like worse?”

  The doctor: “But what is it that you need?”

  My mother: “Linens.”

  The doctor: “That’s all?”

  My mother: “It’s not enough?”

  The doctor: “You still have your tickets? Your money?”

  My mother: “That much we have. Our ship and railroad tickets, both.”

  The doctor: “Then you have a lot to be thankful for! I envy you. Let’s change places. Don’t think I’m joking. I’m perfectly serious. Take my breakfast, take my emigrants, take my Committee, give me your tickets—and I’m off to America today. What can I possibly accomplish here, all by myself with so many poor souls?”