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

“It writes!”

Elye put us back to work pouring water. After a while he raised his hand and said “Stop!” again. He dipped the pen in the barrel, wrote something else, and showed that to my mother and Brokheh too. They looked and said:

“It writes!”

We kept it up until the barrel was full. There wasn’t room for another drop of water. Elye raised his hand, said “Stop!” one last time, and we all sat down to eat.

After dinner we filled the bottles. Elye had brought home bottles from all over the world. There were big bottles and little bottles and beer bottles and wine bottles and vodka bottles and plain ordinary bottles. He had also bought some used corks on the cheap and a new funnel and a tin dipper. He whispered to us to put the chain on the door and the four of us set to work.

We hit on a pretty good system. Brokheh rinsed the bottles and handed them to me, I stuck the funnel in them, and Elye ladled out the ink. We had a grand time getting ink all over our hands and faces. By the time we were through, Elye and I were as black as two devils.

I can’t remember when my mother last laughed so hard. I’m not even talking about Brokheh. Brokheh nearly split her sides. Elye doesn’t like being laughed at. He wanted to know what was so funny. That just made Brokheh laugh harder. She was having a fit a minute. I swear, I thought she would croak. My mother begged us to stop and wash up.

But Elye didn’t want to call it quits. Washing up was not on his mind. Bottles were. We had run out of them. He whispered to Brokheh to buy more. Brokheh looked at him and burst out laughing. Elye didn’t like that one bit. He whispered to my mother and she went to get more bottles while we refilled the barrel. Not all at once. After each bucket of water Elye raised his hand and said, “Stop!” Then he dipped the pen in the barrel, wrote a few words, and said:

“It writes!”

After a while my mother came back with a new bunch of bottles. We filled them until there were none left.

“How long do we keep this madness up?” Brokheh asked.

My mother muttered something against the Evil Eye.

Elye lost his temper and shouted:

“I asked for a wife and got a cow. God pity you!”

Don’t ask me how much ink we have. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a thousand bottles. The problem is what to do with them.

Elye has tried everything. Selling a bottle at a time, it seems, is no way to get rich. That’s what Elye said when Moyshe dropped by one day. Moyshe was so alarmed by all those bottles that he jumped a foot in the air. He and Elye had the strangest conversation. Here it is, word for word:

Elye: What’s the matter?

Moyshe: What’s in those bottles?

Elye: What do you think? Wine!

Moyshe: Some wine! It’s ink.

Elye: If you knew it’s ink, why ask?

Moyshe: What are you going to do with all that ink?

Elye: Drink it.

Moyshe: Be serious. Are you going to sell it by the bottle?

Elye: What do you take me for, a lunatic? I’ll sell ten, twenty, fifty bottles at a time. You know wholesell?

Moyshe: Of course I know wholesell. Who will you wholesell?

Elye: Who? The rabbi.

My brother Elye went to a big wholeseller. The wholeseller asked to see our ink. But when Elye brought him a bottle, he didn’t want to look at it. It didn’t have a label, he said. A bottle, he said, needed a label with a pretty picture. “I make ink, not pictures,” Elye said. “Then make yourself scarce,” said the wholeseller.

Next Elye went to see Yidl the scribe. Yidl said a word that wasn’t nice. He had enough ink to last him the whole summer. “How many bottles did you buy?” Elye asked. “Bottles?” Yidl said. “I bought one. When it runs out I’ll buy another.”

Are we ever in a business! Leave it to a scribbler like Yidl. First he spends a fortune on ink, now a bottle lasts him forever.

My brother Elye is going out of his mind. What will he do with all that ink? It doesn’t look like wholeselling will work. He’s decided to retell. I wish someone would tell me what that means.

I’ll bet you do too.

My brother Elye bought a large sheet of paper. He wrote in big letters:

Ink Sold Here

Wholesale and RETAIL

Good and CHEAP

The words “retail” and “cheap” took up most of the sheet. Elye poured himself a drink of water and hung the sign on our door. Through the window I saw people stop to read it. Elye watched them and cracked his knuckles. That’s something he does when he’s nervous. After a while he said, “You know what? Go outside and hang around to see what they’re saying.”

I was out of the house like a shot. Half an hour later I was back. Elye whispered: “Well?”

“Well what?”

“What are they saying?”

“What is who saying?”

“The people in the street.”

“They say it’s a nice sign.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Elye sighed. My mother asked him what the matter was. “You’re being foolish,” she said. “Did you expect to sell out your whole stock in a day?”

“All I want is one customer,” Elye answered with tears in his eyes.

“Don’t be foolish. Wait, son. With God’s help you’ll have a customer.”

My mother went to set the table. We washed and sat down to eat. The bottles took up so much room that the four of us had to squeeze together. We had just blessed the bread when a young man came flying through the door. A very odd young man he was, too. He’s someone I know. His name is Kopl and his father is a ladies’ tailor.

“Is this where they sell ink?”

“Yes. What can we do for you?”

“I’d like some ink.”

“How much do you want?”

“A kopeck’s worth.”

My brother Elye was fit to be tied. If not for my mother, he would have punched Kopl in the nose. But he controlled himself and poured out a kopeck’s worth of ink. Fifteen minutes later a girl walks in. Don’t ask me who she was. She asked my mother while picking at her nose: “Do you make ink?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“My sister wants to borrow some ink. She has to write a letter to her fiancé in America.”

“Who is your sister?” asks my mother.

“Basye the seamstress’ daughter.”

“Eh?! My, how you’ve grown! I never would have recognized you. Have you brought an inkwell?”

“Where would I get an inkwell? My sister wants to borrow a pen, too.

She’ll return it.”

My brother Elye is gone from the table. He’s in my mother’s room. He’s pacing back and forth there and whispering, biting his nails and staring at the floor.

“What made you make so much ink? You must have thought you were supplying the whole world. Did you think there was an international ink shortage?”

That’s Moyshe the bookbinder. He’s a strange Jew, Moyshe. He can’t resist rubbing it in. He’s not a bad type, but he can be an awful pain. There’s nothing he likes better than sinking his teeth in you. Did Elye give it to him! He should mind his own business, he said. Did he want to bind another selikhe in a Haggadah?

That hit where it hurt. Once Moyshe was asked by a coachman to rebind an old Passover Haggadah. As luck would have it, he glued in a High Holy Day selikhe by mistake. When the coachman came to the selikhe in the middle of the Seder, his voice changed to a funeral dirge. The whole table burst out laughing. The next day he showed up at Moyshe’s house ready to tear him limb from limb.

“You bastard, what have you done? How could you stick a selikhe in my Haggadah? I’ll beat the living daylights out of you!”

That was one swell Passover!

Excuse me for getting sidetracked. I’ll return to our booming business in a jiffy.