Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“You can guess for yourselves who you’re looking at, too — at a man whose rotten luck it is to have been a three-time loser. Three strikes is what I have against me: in the first place, I’m a Jew; in the second place, I’m a Jew from Boheslav; and in the third place, I’m a burned-out Jew from Boheslav — and burned out to a fine crisp too, a whole-offering to the Lord, just as it says in the Bible! It happened this year. The whole place went up in smoke like a straw roof. I came out of it bekharbi uvekashti —that means in plain Yiddish, with nothing but the shirt on my back. And the fact of the matter is that I wasn’t even there when it happened. Where was I? Not far away, in Tarashche, at my niece’s engagement party. It was a first-rate party too, with a banquet, with fine guests — none of your Boheslav trash. You can guess for yourselves that we drank a good barrel and a half of vodka, not to mention the beer and the wine. In short, the time went by kidibo’ey —that’s swimmingly to you, in plain Yiddish. All of a sudden I was handed a telegram. It was in Russian and it said, ‘Wife sick, children sick, mother-in-law sick, you come quick .’ I don’t have to tell you that I picked up my feet and cleared out of there in a hurry. I come home — surprise, surprise! The store is gone, the stock is gone, the house is gone, and everything in it is gone, down to the last pair of socks. Begapoy yovoy uvegapoy yeytsey— do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that some go from rags to riches and I go from rags to rags … The poor wife stood there crying; the children just stared at her, they didn’t have a place to lay their heads. It was a lucky thing it was all insured, and well-insured too — only that, you can guess for yourselves, is what smelled fishy. It wouldn’t have looked so bad in itself; but the worst part was that it wasn’t the first time, I’d already had a fire before — and also at night, and also when I wasn’t at home. Then, though, everything went smoothly. The inspector came, made a list of the burned rubble, gave an appraisal, haggled with me fair and square, a ruble more, a ruble less, until we reached an agreement — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“That was the first time. God save all Jews from the inspector they sent me this time, though: a mean bastard if ever there was one! And to make matters worse, an honest one too, there was no way I could slip him a bribe. Doesn’t that beat all? The man’s incorruptible, go do something about it! He poked and picked and puttered around, he kept asking me to explain to him how the whole thing had happened, and what exactly was burned, and where everything was, and why there wasn’t a trace left of anything, but not an iota …

“ ‘But that’s just my point!’ I said to him. ‘I’ve been totaled. If you want to know why, don’t ask me, ask God.’

“ ‘I don’t like the looks of it,’ he said. ‘Don’t think that getting us to pay up will be easy.’

“That’s one smart sleuth for you, eh? He thought he’d play the big bad wolf with me. And ditto the police detective who came to see me next. He kept trying to trip me up, he was sure he’d got his hands on a first-grader. ‘So tell me, Moshke,’ he says, ‘how come things have such a way of burning down with you?’

“ ‘How come?’ I say. ‘Because they catch fire.’

“ ‘Then suppose you explain to me,’ he says, ‘how come you took out insurance just two weeks before it happened?’

“ ‘When should I have taken it out, Officer,’ I say, ‘two weeks after it happened?’

“ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘how come you weren’t at home?’

“ ‘And if I had been,’ I say, ‘you’d be happier?’

“ ‘But how come,’ he asks, ‘you received a telegram telling you that your family was sick?’

“ ‘Because,’ I say, ‘they wanted me to come quick.’

“ ‘Then how come they didn’t tell you the truth?’ he asks.

“ ‘Because they didn’t want to scare me,’ I say.

“ ‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ve had enough of this! I want you to know that I’m running you in.’

“ ‘But what for?’ I say. ‘What did I ever do to you? You’re taking a perfectly innocent man and ruining his good name! Does it make you feel good to cut a man’s throat in cold blood? Well, if that’s what you want, I can’t stop you. Just remember, though, that there’s a God above Who sees everything.’

“Did he blow his top at that! ‘Just who do you think you’re talking to about God, you little so-and-so?’ he said. That didn’t scare me, though — not when they had nothing on me, because I was clean as the driven snow. How does the saying go? Al tehi boz lekhoyl bosor: in plain Yiddish that means that you don’t smell of garlic when you haven’t eaten it — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“In fact, everything would have been just fine if it weren’t for Boheslav. Do you think a Boheslav Jew can stand to see another Jew come by money? That’s when the poison pen letters began to circulate. Some sent them by mail and some brought them down to the insurance company in person, but everyone said it was me who gave the match a scratch … how’s that for sheer finkery? They said I had purposely left home that night so that … doesn’t that beat all for low-downness? They even claimed I never had the stock I put in for and that my account books were faked — they tried to pin such a bum rap on me that it would have made a Haman blush — they … they … but as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“That didn’t scare me, though, not when they had nothing on me, because I was as clean as the driven snow. After all, to say it was me who gave the match a scratch was ridiculous. Any child understands that if you do such a thing you don’t dirty your hands yourself, not when three rubles will get you a good angel to do the job for you … isn’t that how it’s done where you come from? And as for the rumor that I purposely left home that night because of it, nothing could be further from the truth, because I was at my sister’s party. I have an only sister in Tarashche, she was marrying off her middle daughter — are you telling me I shouldn’t have gone? What kind of a brother would that make me? I ask you: suppose you had an only sister whose daughter was getting engaged — would you have stood her up and stayed home? Of course not! It’s not as if I had any way of knowing it was the night my house would burn down. It’s a lucky thing I happened to be insured. And the reason I was is that lately, fires have been breaking out all over. Every summer each little town has too many of them for comfort. It’s one fire after another; if it’s not Mir, it’s Bobroisk, if it’s not Bobroisk, it’s Rechitsa, if it’s not Rechitsa, it’s Bialystok — the whole world is going up in flames!.. So I thought to myself, koyl yisro’el khaveyrim —do you know what that means in plain Yiddish? It means that if Jews are burning out everywhere, who’s to say it can’t happen to me! Why be a booby and trust in miracles to save a store that can be insured? And if I was already taking out insurance, why not the maximum? You know what they say: if you have to eat pork, you may as well eat it till you burst. The company wouldn’t lose its shirt or even grow a cent poorer because of my monthly payments — and as for the rest, to hell with them all and forget it!..

“And so I toddled off to my agent and I said to him, ‘Listen here, Zaynvel, it’s like this: the whole world is burning out, why take chances? I want you to insure my store.’

“ ‘You don’t say,’ he says, giving me a weird grin.