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

That’s what she said, Goldeleh, and burst into tears. It broke me up. I didn’t know how to comfort her. All I could think of was: “God Almighty! What do you have against this little girl? What did she ever do to you?” I took her hand and stroked it and said:

“Don’t cry, Goldeleh. You’ll see. As soon as I make a living in America, I’ll send you calamine for your eyes. And I’ll send you a ticket too, half fare because you’re under ten, and you’ll come to America. Your mama and papa will be waiting for you at Ella’s Island. So will I. You’ll look for me and there I’ll be — look, I’ll be holding this pencil. That’s how you’ll recognize me, Motl. You’ll get off the ship and give your parents a hug, but you won’t go straight home with them. You’ll give them your things and come with me to see America. I’ll show you everything, because I’ll know it cold by then. Then I’ll bring you to your parents’ and we’ll have a bowl of hot soup.”

Goldeleh didn’t want to hear any more. She threw her arms around me and kissed me. I kissed her too.

Leave it to Brokheh! She’s always popping up where you least expect her. Just when I’m saying good-bye to Goldeleh, she has to put in an appearance. She didn’t say anything. She just went “A-haaaa!” in a voice ten feet deep. Then she wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips in this weird way and said “A-hemmm!” and went off to look for Elye. I don’t know what she told him. I only know that as soon as we left Ezrah, I got two slaps that made me see stars.

“But why?” asked my mother. “What was that for?”

“He knows what it’s for,” Elye answered and we went back to our hotel.

It’s time to pack. What a scene! I like to watch people pack. My brother Elye is a whiz at it. As soon as there’s packing to do, he pulls off his coat and gives orders. “Hand me the dirty laundry! …Mama, the teapot! …That hat, Brokheh, quick! …Pinye, those galoshes! You’re blind as a bat, they’re right under your nose! …Motl, what are you standing like a dummy for? Pitch in! All he can do is doodle, doodle, doodle!”

That’s me! I jump up and grab all I can and throw it at him. Elye yells that I’ll catch it. My mother sticks up for me: “What do you want from the child?” Brokheh objects to my being called a child. My mother remembers I’m an orphan and starts to cry. Elye shouts:

“Go ahead, cry, cry your eyes out!”

So long, Antwerp!

In all my life I’ve never seen a carnival like the one in London. I mean, it isn’t in London. It’s London that’s the carnival. The clamor, the yammer, the hooting, the tooting, the people — like ants! Where are they all coming from and going to? They must be hungry or running to catch a train. Why else would they knock you down and step all over you?

I’m talking about Pinye. Pinye, you’ll recall, doesn’t see so well. That’s why he goes around with his head in the sky and his feet dragging after him. He looks like an absentminded angel. His mind is always somewhere else.

Pinye’s introduction to London came in the railroad station. We had barely crawled out of the train when disaster struck. He was first on the platform, one pant leg hiked up, one sock falling down, his necktie jerked to one side — in short, the usual Pinye. I had just never seen him so excited. He was on fire as though with a fever. The weirdest words came tumbling out of him: “London! England! Disraeli! Buckle! History! Civilization …!” You couldn’t get him to calm down.

Two minutes later our friend Pinye was on the ground, being walked on as though he were a plank. It’s a good thing Taybl looked for him and screamed: “Pinye, where are you?” Elye leaped into the crowd and pulled him out, as pale and crumpled as an old hat.

That was for starters. Act Two came later that day, in a neighborhood with the Jewish name of Vaytshepl. That’s a place where you can buy fish and meat and prayer books and apples and barley beer and sugar cakes and herring and prayer shawls and lemons and wool and eggs and bottles and pots and noodles and brooms and whistles and pepper and rope, just like back home. It has everything. It even has your Kasrilevke mud. It smells the same too, only worse.

It did our hearts good to see Vaytshepl. It did Pinye too much good. “Why, it’s Berdichev!” he shouted. “Children, I swear, we’re not in London at all, we’re in Berdichev!” The next thing I know he’s been given such a Berdichev that I thought it was the hospital for sure. Since then Taybl doesn’t let him take a step in London without her.

Vaytshepl made me think: good God, if this is London, what is America like? But as far as Brokheh is concerned, London can go up in flames. She hated it the minute she laid eyes on it. “You call this a city?” she says. “It’s hell on earth! It should have burned to the ground a year ago.”

Elye tries pointing out London’s good sides. It does as much good as chicken soup does a dead man. Brokheh pours fire and brimstone on the place. She has fire on the brain, Brokheh does. Taybl backs her up. My mother says, “Dear God, have mercy and make London our last stopover!”

The three of us, Elye, Pinye, and me, think the world of London. We like the hustle and the bustle. What’s it to us if the town is always cooking? Let it boil! Our problem is that we have nothing to do here. We can’t find a Committee. Either no one knows of one or no one wants to tell us. This person has no time, that one is busy. Everyone is in a hurry.

The reason we need a Committee is simple. We have nothing left to get to America with. Elye is broke. The proceeds from our house have gone up in smoke. Pinye laughs and says to Elye, “Your secret pocket has lost its secret.”

That gets Elye mad. Elye doesn’t like wisecracks. He’s a brooder, Elye is. He and Pinye are opposites. Pinye calls him “Mr. Family Conscience.” What I like about Pinye is that he’s always in a grand mood. The good thing about the English, he says, is that they don’t speak German. The bad thing is that they speak something worse. Brokheh would trade three Englishmen for one German. Who ever heard of a country, she says, that has money called “aypens,” “toppens,” and “troppens?”

I’ve told you we’re looking for a Committee. Finding a Committee in London is like finding a needle in a haystack. But there’s a great God above. One day we’re out walking in Vaytshepl. I mean one evening. That is, it was daytime. The point is, there’s no daylight in London. It’s evening all day long. Anyhow, along comes a Jew with a short jacket, a fine hat, and eyes on the lookout for something.

“If I’m not mistaken, you’re all Jews!”

That’s what he says, the man with the fine hat. Pinye answers: “You bet! They don’t come any more Jewish than we do.”

“How would you like to do a good deed?” says the Jew.

“Such as what?” Pinye asks.

“I have an anniversary of a death today and can’t get to synagogue to say the kaddish. I need nine Jews to pray with me. Is this young man bar mitzvah?”

He meant me! I liked being called a young man and taken for thirteen.

We followed the Jew up some steps to a dark room full of ragged children and smelling of fried fish. No one else was there. That still left us seven Jews short. The man offered us a seat and ran back down. He came and went a few times until he had rounded up ten men.

Meanwhile I talked to the children and watched the fish fry on the stove. The English call it fishink tships. A tship is a boat for catching fish. It’s not a bad dish, fishink tships. One thing is for sure: it’s a lot better than Brokheh says it is. The truth is that I wouldn’t have minded a piece of it. I’ll bet Brokheh wouldn’t have, either. We had hardly eaten all day. Lately, our only food has been herring and radishes. They sell swell black radishes in Vaytshepl. But the Jew didn’t have the brains to invite us for dinner. Maybe he didn’t think we were hungry. At the end of the prayer he thanked us and said we could go.