Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“All day long the Jews of Kaminka stewed as if in a pot. On Saturday night, as soon as the Sabbath was over, they ran crying to my grandfather — Reb Nissl Shapiro was his name. ‘Why don’t you say something, Reb Nissl? How can you allow a Jew, and a Kaminkan no less, to be flogged?’

“You must be wondering why they all ran to my grandfather. I don’t mean to boast, mind you, but I have to tell you that my grandfather, may his soul dwell in Paradise, was the richest, most important, most cultured, most highly thought-of Jew in town, and a very brainy man with high connections. When he heard what the trouble was, he paced up and down the floor a few times (when he was thinking, my father told me, he always liked to pace back and forth), then stood still and announced: ‘Children, go home! No one will be hurt. God willing, it will turn out all right; here in Kaminka, the Lord be praised, we’ve never had a Jew flogged yet, and with His help we never will.’

“Those were my grandfather’s very words, God bless him, and it was common knowledge in town that whatever Reb Nissl Shapiro said was as good as done. He just didn’t like being badgered about how he intended to do it. When a Jew is rich and has connections, you understand, and he’s as brainy as my grandfather, you learn to tread lightly with him. And you know what? It turned out exactly as he said it would. What did? Listen and I’ll tell you.”

Seeing that the whole car was waiting with baited breath to hear what happened next, the Jew from Kaminka paused, took out a large tobacco pouch from his pocket, and slowly rolled himself a cigarette. So important had he become that several passengers jumped up to offer him a light. Having taken a few puffs, he resumed his story with fresh vigor:

“Now see how a clever Jew operates — I mean my grandfather, God bless his memory. He thought the matter over and cooked up a little plan, which is to say, he persuaded the authorities that the sentenced man, Kivke, should take time out to die while still in prison … but why are you all staring at me? Don’t you get it? Do you mean to tell me you think he was poisoned? Relax. That’s not how it’s done in Kaminka. What did happen, then? Something much more elegant: it was simply arranged for the sentenced man to go to bed fit as a fiddle one night and wake up a corpse in the morning … do you follow me now? Or do I have to feed it to you from a bottle?

“In a word, early one morning a messenger arrived from the prison with a message for my grandfather: Whereas notification is hereby given that a Jew named Kivke died in prison last night, and whereas Reb Nissl Shapiro is the president of the Burial Society, he, Reb Nissl, is requested to dispose of the deceased, that is, to see to his interment in the Jewish cemetery … How’s that for a neat piece of work? Not bad, eh? But don’t rush out to celebrate yet; it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Keep in mind that the departed wasn’t just another dead Jew. There was military brass involved … and a governor … and a gauntlet waiting to be run … do you suppose all that’s a laughing matter? The first order of business was preventing an autopsy, which meant going to the doctor and getting him to sign in black and white that he had examined the dead man and determined that the cause of death was conniptions of the heart, that is to say, general apoplexy, it shouldn’t happen to you — after which there were various other authorities to be taken in hand too, because they all had to sign the same document. Only then was the dead man really dead. Bye-bye Kivke!

“Needless to say, everyone in this car would be glad to make in a month what it all cost the Jews of Kaminka — and if you have any doubts about the wager, I’ll be happy to come in as your partner. And on whose say was the money laid out? On my grandfather’s, may he rest in peace. That was a man you could trust. I tell you, the way he had it worked out down to the tiniest little detail was a masterpiece! That evening the sextons of the Burial Society came with a bier to receive the distinguished corpse in grand style and transport it with the highest honors from the prison to the graveyard — that is, with a detail of two soldiers followed by the entire town. You can well imagine that Kivke never dreamed of such a state funeral in his life. And when they reached the gates of the cemetery, the two soldiers were given some vodka to drink and the late departed was brought inside, where Shimon the coachman (I’m passing on his name to you as my father did to me) was waiting for him with a team of four swift horses. Before the cock crowed, mind you, our dead hero was well across the town line on his merry way to Radivil, and from there lickety-split across the Austrian border to Brody.

“It goes without saying that no one in Kaminka slept a wink that night until Shimon the coachman returned from Radivil. The whole town was beside itself with worry, and my grandfather most of all. What if our dear dead Kivke was apprehended at the border and brought back to Kaminka as alive and well as you and me? Why, an entire community might be banished to Siberia … With God’s help, however, Shimon the coachman and his team of swift horses returned safe and sound from Radivil with a letter from Kivke that said, ‘I wish to inform you all that I have arrived in Brody,’ and there was great joy in Kaminka. A banquet was given at my grandfather’s house, to which the jailkeeper and the constable and the doctor and all the authorities were invited, and a gay time was had by all: a band played music and everyone, mind you, got so drunk that the jailkeeper kissed my grandfather and his whole family as hard and as often as he could and the constable greeted the dawn by taking off his unmentionables and dancing on my grandfather’s roof. After all, ransoming a Jew is nothing to sneeze at — and one saved from a flogging yet! Not bad at all, eh? Well, take a deep breath, my good friends, because the real fun has yet to begin. If you want to hear the rest of it, though, you’ll kindly wait a few minutes, because I have to ask the station-master here how much time we have left to Baranovich. That’s not where I’m going, mind you, but I have to change trains there …”

There was nothing to do but wait. The man from Kaminka went to talk to the Stationmaster while we passengers in the car discussed him and his story.

“What do you think of him?”

“A swell fellow!”

“No nonsense about him!”

“He sure can talk.”

“And no need to be coaxed!”

“What about the story?”

“It’s a damn good one.”

“Let’s hope it’s a long one, too.”

Incidentally, there were even a few passengers who claimed that the same thing had happened in their towns. That is, not the exact same thing, but something more or less like it. And since every one of them was keen on telling it, the car soon turned into a free-for-all — but only until the Jew from Kaminka reappeared. As soon as he did, we all quieted down, crowded together to form a human wall, and gave him our undivided attention.

“Now where was I? We had just, thank God, said goodbye to a Jew named Kivke, hadn’t we? You agree? Well then, you’re wrong, my dear friends. A half year or a whole one went by, I can’t tell you exactly, and our Mr. Kivke, mind you, sat down and wrote a letter and addressed it to my grandfather. ‘In the first place,’ he wrote, ‘I wish to inform you that I am in good health and hope to hear the same from you. And in the second place, I’ve been left high and dry here without a cent to my name and no way of earning one, surrounded by Germans in a foreign land. They don’t understand my talk and I don’t understand theirs. If I can’t make a living, I’ll have to lie down and die. And so,’ wrote Kivke, ‘please be so kind as to send …’ A subtle fellow, no? What he wanted to be sent, of course, was money! Everyone, mind you, had a good laugh, and then that letter was torn up into little pieces and forgotten. Well, before three weeks were up, another letter arrived, again from the late Kivke and again addressed to my grandfather, with an ‘I wish to inform you’ at the beginning and a ‘Please be so kind’ at the end, but this time the end had a postscript. Could it be, Kivke wanted to know, that the Kaminkans had something against him? Better to have been flogged and gotten it over with, because his wounds would have healed long ago and he wouldn’t have been left penniless among Germans with nothing to do but watch his own belly swell from hunger …