The Brothers Ashkenazi

by I. J. Singer

  He took off the silk gabardine and cried loudly, “Samuel Leibush, my robe!”

  Samuel Leibush, a young man with a trimmed blond beard and a paper collar, ran up quickly. He snatched up the silk gabardine Haim Alter had discarded and helped him into a flowered cloth robe.

  “Your cigar, Reb Haim,” he said with a smile, holding out the humidor of imported cigars.

  He knew the terrible deprivation his employer had suffered during the Sabbath, and he was ready the moment the ceremony was over.

  Haim Alter beamed with contentment over his man’s devoted service. He bit off the tip of the cigar and drew in the flame the servant held to the other end. Puffing away, Haim Alter intoned: “… and He shall give unto the …”—the words of the concluding prayer. He savored the sweet words of the Sabbath-night prayer and actually smelled the aromas of the dews and oils God bestowed upon those Jews who hewed to the path of righteousness. And still reciting the gratifying phrases, he opened the letters and telegrams that had accumulated over the Sabbath.

  When he reached the last lines of the prayer, he hurried his pace, he couldn’t wait for a glass of the fresh-brewed aromatic tea for which he had been yearning all Sabbath.

  “Privehshe,” he called to his wife, “Priveh love, you’ll tell the maid to bring me tea with lemon, won’t you, Privehshe?”

  Priveh, a plump, striking, clear-skinned matron in a silk dress with a train, pearls around her neck, diamonds on every finger, and a fair curly wig which made her look like an opera diva, came mincing up and, with the sweetest smile on blood-red lips, held out a coquettish hand for her weekly allowance.

  “Money, money,” Haim Alter grumbled good-naturedly. “For what do you need so much money, Privehshe?”

  Within a second, her sweet smile vanished. “You run the household,” she snapped hurling the ring of keys to all the closets and pantries at her husband.

  Haim Alter squirmed with contrition. “Privehshe, Priveh love,” he pleaded. “You know I didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a little joke.…”

  But Priveh wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. She knew that her Haim was crazy about her, and she wanted to teach him a lesson so that in the future he would know how to act toward a daughter of Ansel, the Warsaw Rabbi.

  Haim Alter nearly burst into tears. He couldn’t stand anger or resentment, the very opposite of Priveh, who delighted in confrontations. At the least provocation she would tell Hadassah to make up the master’s bed on the dining room sofa, and she wouldn’t let him near her.

  When this happened, Haim Alter suffered grievously. He yearned for her soft, warm flesh, her delectable neck. He was too weak and too self-indulgent for prolonged spats, and he would give in, begging her forgiveness with handsome presents, something Priveh really appreciated—a new dress or a piece of jewelry.

  He was especially irked that a thoughtless remark had slipped out now, at the beginning of the new week. It was true that Priveh was most extravagant in running the household—he couldn’t figure out how she managed to spend so much money—but he should have bitten his tongue before sounding off. He made up to her. He stroked the golden curls of her wig and offered her his purse—all the cash he had on him.

  “Here, Privehshe, take whatever you want,” he cajoled, “all the money in the world isn’t worth a moment of your displeasure.…”

  Priveh relented and finally accepted the roll of bills that he had forced on her, uncounted.

  “Everything all right now?” he asked, and in front of the servants he patted her pouting face.

  “Drink your tea before it gets cold, Haimshe,” Priveh said, appeased at last.

  Haim Alter gulped the tea in huge swallows, content that all was peaceful in the house again. He went over the accounts for the week with his man, Samuel Leibush. For a long time they pored over the stacks of papers—searching, figuring, growing more and more entangled and unable to arrive at any conclusion.

  Haim Alter kept his books in traditional Lodz-Jewish fashion—which is to say, in an erroneous Yiddish and broken Hebrew. One side of the page was marked “incoming,” the other, “outgoing.” But nothing tallied, and the servant was of no help at all.

  Lazy, placid, absentminded, Haim Alter kept sloppy books. His pockets bulged with papers, figures, notations that should have been entered—but somehow he never got around to doing it.

  The ledgers were a mess—blotted, erased, the margins full of numbers and annotations which he couldn’t figure out. So many entries accumulated by the end of the week that Haim Alter took the easy way out. He threw the ledger aside and told his man to escort him to the factory, which lay deep within the courtyard.

  “The less figuring, the more prosperity,” he observed. “Isn’t that so, Samuel Leibush?”

  “Absolutely, Reb Haim,” Samuel Leibush concurred as he turned up the wick in the lantern.

  The clacking of looms echoed in the courtyard. Haim Alter loved his factory. These weren’t numbers and figures to boggle the mind—this was something real and tangible. The more the looms rattled, the more work the weavers turned out, the more profit flowed in, the better this was for business—it was as simple as that.

  On Saturday nights the weavers worked longer than usual to make up for the time lost during the holiday. By the dim light of tallow candles affixed to looms, they sat—fifty men in all—and turned out women’s kerchiefs. The workers supplied their own candles, a precedent established by the earliest employers who had maintained two- or three-man shops. Even though Haim Alter’s factory was a big one, the old custom prevailed.

  Haim Alter disliked progress. He liked things just as they were under his father and grandfathers. That was the reason he hadn’t converted to steam despite pressures to do so.

  His factory was Jewish through and through. There were amulets on every doorpost. He had even set up a small lectern among the bales of wool and crates in his storeroom, with a tin candelabrum so that the workers could recite their afternoon and evening prayers without having to leave the premises. In winter, when they reported to work before the morning star came out, they conducted their morning services there as well.

  He also saw to it that his workers observed all the laws of Jewishness. No young worker dared sit at his loom bareheaded, even in the worst heat, be it only a makeshift paper cone that covered his skull. Ritual garments were a must. Haim Alter took care that the younger men didn’t trim their beards or wear short secular jackets instead of the traditional gabardine. He knew that the Jews had been redeemed from bondage in Egypt for three reasons—because they hadn’t changed their customs, their language, or their attire. He knew from the holy books that sin was as contagious as the plague and that one sick sheep could infect the whole flock.

  “If I wanted gentiles, I would have hired real gentiles and converted to steam. Whoever works for me must remain a Jew,” he was fond of saying.

  “A blessing upon your head, Reb Haim,” the older weavers bleated fawningly. They were lean, broken men with faded beards, weary faces, and eyes red from the years of working in semidarkness.

  Haim Alter made a contribution to their weavers’ synagogue, Love of Friends, in Balut, which was crammed among factories, lumberyards, and coalyards. He also maintained a tutor who instructed them on Sabbath afternoons—“Ethics of the Fathers” in summer, chapters from Psalms in winter. The teacher was a learned man with a thorough knowledge of the other world. He sat tightly squeezed among the exhausted weavers and lectured on the follies of human life and the triviality of flesh.

  “From where dost thou issue, man?” he asked in a chanting tone, and answered, “From a stinking drop. To where goest thou? To a place of worms and worms.…”

  Outside Balut stretched open fields where Jewish teamsters sprawled on the sweet grass, dozing, while their horses grazed. Beyond the pastures lay a shady and redolent pine forest, but Haim Alter’s weavers didn’t go there. Haim Alter checked with the teacher as to which of them had played hooky,
and whoever repeated the offense was fired, for it was forbidden a Jew to wander through field and forest on the holy day in a place frequented by gentiles and other riffraff. No, a Jew had to study on the Sabbath, just as he, Haim Alter, did.

  All Sabbath afternoon he sat on the veranda of his summer villa, reading the holy books and discussing Jewishness with fellow Hasidim. How did the Holy Torah put it? That a Jew who walked outside and exclaimed, “How lovely is the tree!” or “How luscious is the field!” had forfeited his life.…

  Besides, all these walks tended to make workers lazy, and on Saturday nights they had to work until midnight or later to make up for the time lost on the Sabbath.

  Haim Alter was like a surrogate father to his men. When a worker’s wife bore a son and the father came with cake and whiskey to Haim Alter’s house to invite him to the circumcision, where he would be accorded the honor of holding the infant during the ceremony, Haim Alter never refused, busy as he might be. Even though he was, thank God, a man of substance, he didn’t hold himself above his employees, for it was written that all Jews were brothers. Nor was the privilege of holding the newborn infant something to be sneezed at. His presence lent grandeur to the occasion; he ate the meager cake even though it offended his taste, and he left a gift of three rubles.

  Likewise, when a weaver married off a daughter, Haim Alter sent a nice wedding present even if he was too busy to attend the ceremony. On Passover he gave each worker a bottle of the raisin wine that he bought cheaply from a fellow Hasid at the studyhouse. On Succoth he provided the ceremonial citrus fruit for the weavers’ synagogue. True, it wasn’t as handsome as the one he bought for himself, but it served the purpose. In the event one of his men died, God forbid, he dropped whatever he was doing and went to the cemetery since escorting a Jew to his eternal rest was a good mark on one’s record of good deeds. He contributed toward the cost of the shrouds, and he also sent Samuel Leibush with some money for the bereaved family.

  Yes, he did everything he could for his people, for which he was lauded in the Hasidic prayerhouse he frequented. For these reasons, he loved his factory, and he listened with pleasure now as it hummed with activity—every loom clacking away and making money.

  Still in his robe and skullcap, he went inside to have a look at how the work was progressing. Samuel Leibush walked in front, lighting the way.

  “Is everything in order?” Haim Alter asked as they paused on the threshold.

  “Everything is in order, Reb Haim,” Samuel Leibush assured him. “Two looms were out of commission, but they’re all right now.”

  “Who fixed them?” Haim Alter asked.

  “Tevye, the one they call the World Isn’t Lawless, did,” Samuel Leibush replied. “He fiddled and fiddled with them until he got them to run like they were greased.”

  “The lad has golden hands,” Haim Alter said. “But he’s a rebel and a knave. He tears the guts out of young and old alike.”

  “What can you expect when you spoil him so? … Five rubles a week! Whoever heard of paying such wages?” Samuel Leibush said with assumed outrage as he opened the door for his employer.

  “A good week! A good week!” Haim Alter greeted one and all. The half-dim factory burst into sudden frenzy. The older workers, who had been discussing the problem of marrying off daughters, turned back to their looms and hurried their movements. They adjusted the sidepieces of their glasses and let their pale, veiny hands fly over the looms as they pumped their weary feet and swayed up and down on their seats.

  “A good week, Reb Haim, a good week,” they responded without looking up from their work.

  The younger men, who had been chanting, “Be not afraid, my slave, Jacob,” with intricate cantorial embellishments, were left with the unsung chorus still on their lips. They accelerated their pace so that the thread was fairly flying.

  Haim Alter walked from loom to loom. He touched a kerchief here, made some observation there, checked the output. Spotting a stain from a sweaty hand, he wagged a threatening finger. “No botching, boys, and no eating at work. You see to it, Samuel Leibush, you hear?”

  “I hear, Reb Haim,” Samuel Leibush replied, glaring at the weavers. “How many times have I told you to keep those hands clean?”

  Actually no one had ever heard him say this, but the looms kept on clacking. The rhythmic pounding was like music to Haim Alter’s ears. It brought to his mind the sound of money being minted. He poked his nose into all the stockrooms, which were crammed with raw goods and finished kerchiefs, and his heart soared.

  “Let people say what they want,” he mused, “let them say handweaving is finished and steam is the wave of the future—I’ll stick to my handlooms.” And why shouldn’t he? They’d provided him a handsome income, blessed be His name. If things remained just as they were, he would be content. His women’s kerchiefs were the rage of Poland and Russia. The gentiles literally snapped them up. So many orders were coming in that it might be necessary to lengthen the workers’ hours. His weavers turned out a better product than any machines could. Let the Germans and the Jewish heretics put up plants and chimneys; he’d stick to his handlooms.

  For what did he need smoke and chimneys and whistles? His weavers managed to report to work on time without whistles. Nor did his devotion to Jewishness stand in the way. Nothing prevented a man from being a good Jew and wealthy at the same time—Torah and srorah were the answer—the Good Book and business together.

  Smug with pride and a sense of accomplishment, he walked the length of the looms, his olive eyes glinting with pleasure as the kerchiefs took shape with every minute, every second. Trailing him like a shadow was the ubiquitous Samuel Leibush. Finally, they came to the loom of Tevye, nicknamed Tevye the World Isn’t Lawless.

  He was the only one who hadn’t acknowledged the boss’s presence. Slight, with sharp yellow eyes beneath bushy eyebrows and a fair, sprouting beard slightly trimmed at the sides, he stood at his loom and fed red thread into the borders of a black shawl. A paper collar surrounded his scrawny neck, inside which his Adam’s apple bobbled. His lean hands flew as swiftly as a magician’s as he sang not a cantorial piece, but some secular Yiddish song.

  Sensing the boss near him, he lowered his tone so that the words could be heard, yet could not be clearly discerned.

  It was an odd little ditty Tevye had introduced into the factory some weeks earlier. It quoted a rich employer who took offense when his workers wept at their jobs even as he was guzzling his beer and smoking his cigars. Part of it went like this:

  Stop pissing with the tears, you fool,

  You’re staining the cotton and wool.

  Your belly is empty? So what?

  I’ll fire you on the spot.

  Haim Alter had heard from his lackey about the seditious song being sung in his factory. He couldn’t quite make out the words Tevye was humming, but he suspected that the song somehow mocked him, Haim Alter.

  “What’s that you’re singing there, Tevyele?” he asked with an affected smile.

  “Just a song,” Tevye replied, keeping his eyes on his work.

  “A Sabbath hymn?” Haim Alter probed innocently. “So why don’t you sing it louder? Let us all hear it—after all, it’s the Sabbath night.…”

  Tevye didn’t respond. He stopped humming.

  Haim Alter glanced at Tevye’s ritual fringes, so shrunken and snarled from repeated washing as to be almost meaningless, and he left the factory in a huff.

  “Oy, Tevyele,” he groaned, not finishing the sentence, “my, my, my.…”

  Everyone’s eyes were immediately riveted on Tevye. He stuck in the boss’s craw and ruined his post-Sabbath glow.

  But Haim Alter’s mood didn’t last; there was someone he had been anxious to see waiting for him at home.

  “Ah, there you are, you rascal. A good week!” He welcomed his guest and paternally tweaked his ear.

  It was Simha Meir, Abraham Hersh’s elder son. He was playing cards with Haim Alter’s sons. They wer
e fleshy, overgrown youths and big for their age, but they let the little sharpster push them around and win all their money.

  Haim Alter was flattered that Simha Meir associated with his lummoxes, for Simha Meir was known as a lad with a sharp head for everything, including business. He could master the most difficult calculations, and each time Haim Alter was perplexed by some mathematical problem he turned to Simha Meir for help.

  Mumbling to himself, wetting the tip of the pencil on his tongue, the boy would add, subtract, divide, and multiply until everything tallied. Himself a thundering booby, Haim Alter would chastise his sons for being such dummies.

  “You see, you knuckleheads,” he would say, indicating Simha Meir, “here’s a genius growing up. One day he’ll lead all Lodz by the nose.…”

  Inside his head there had already blossomed the notion of corralling the little prodigy as a husband for his only daughter, Dinele.

  True, he was only a boy, not yet thirteen, and the wedding would have to be put off a few years, but it was high time to propose the match since such a prize would not lie long unclaimed. And for this reason Haim Alter was pleased to find the youth at his house.

  “Dinele, daughter of mine, serve our guest some tea with strudel,” he said.

  Reluctantly Dinele brought tea to the little Hasid with his satin Sabbath gabardine, satin hat pushed back on his head, and sly, darting eyes. His head jerked like a bird pecking kernels, and his fair earlocks cast comical shadows upon the wall.

  She had never liked him from the days when he used to loosen her hair ribbon or pour sand on her head. Besides, for years now she had been attending a gentile girls’ academy, where her head was constantly filled with tales of kings and heroes and where she, the daughter of a Hasid, was instructed in social graces and customs. She studied piano and dancing and was always the court lady in the school plays, dressed in crinoline and waving an enormous fan.