Sholem Aleichem - Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son

E.

“What more can we do?” my mother says one morning to my brother Elyahu as she studies the four bare walls, her forehead wrinkled. I and my brother Elyahu, to help her out, study the walls with her. My brother Elyahu looks at me with concern and pity.

“Go outside!” he says to me sternly. “We have to talk about something.”

On one foot I hop outside and, naturally, right over to my neighbor’s little calf.

In recent days Meni has grown tall and handsome, his black muzzle attractive, his round eyes full of human understanding and intelligence. He is always looking to get something in his mouth and enjoys being scratched under his neck.

“Again? You’ve been playing around with the calf? You can’t tear yourself away from your dear friend?” says my brother Elyahu, this time without scolding. He then takes me by the hand and says we’re going to Hersh-Ber the cantor. There, he says, it will be good for me. First of all, he says, I’ll have something to eat. At home, he says, it isn’t good. Our father is sick. We’re doing all we can to save him.

My brother Elyahu unbuttons his coat and shows me his vest. “Here’s where I had a pocket watch, a gift from my future father-in-law. I sold it. If he knew, it’d be a black day! The world would turn upside down!”

I thank and praise God that his future father-in-law doesn’t know about the pocket watch and that the world doesn’t turn upside down. Oh my! May it never happen, because if it did, what would happen to Meni the neighbor’s little calf, a dumb helpless animal?

“Here we are!” says my brother Elyahu, who by the minute is growing ever more caring and friendly.

Hersh-Ber the cantor teaches singing. He himself doesn’t sing; he has no voice at all. That’s what I heard from my father. But he knows everything there is to know about singing. He has about fifteen little choristers and is an awful grump. He listens to me sing “ Mogen Oves ” for him with my own personal touch. He pats me on the head and says to my brother that I’m a soprano. My brother says I’m not just any soprano, but a soprano among sopranos! My brother Elyahu negotiates with him, pockets some money from Hersh-Ber, and tells me I’m going to stay with Reb Hersh-Ber the cantor and that I should obey him, and he adds, “Don’t be homesick!”

That’s easy for him to say! How can I not miss summertime, with the sun baking, the sky clear as crystal, the mud long dried out? Near our house lie wooden logs, not ours, but Yossi the rich man’s logs. He’s planning to build a house and has readied logs but has no place to put them, so he’s stacked them near our house. Long may he live, Yossi the rich man, because out of those logs I can build a fortress. Spiny plants and puffballs grow between the logs. The thorns are good for sticking, and the puffballs you can blow up and burst against your forehead.

I have it good. Meni our neighbor’s little calf also has it good. Meni and I are the only real masters here, so how can I not miss him?

F.

It is almost three weeks that I’ve been at Hersh-Ber the cantor’s, and I hardly sing at all. I have another job. I carry around his Dobtzi, who is a hunchback, barely two years old, but still, kayn eyn horeh, quite heavy, heavier than I am. I risk my health carrying her around. Dobtzi loves me. She hugs me with her thin little arms and latches on to me with her thin little fingers. She calls me Kiko. Why Kiko, I don’t know. Dobtzi loves me. She keeps me awake all night. “Kiko, ki!” means she wants me to rock her. Dobtzi loves me. When I eat, she tears the food from my mouth. “Kiko, pi!” means “Give it to me!” I long for home. The food here isn’t too good either. It’s a holiday — Succos evening. I want to go outdoors to see the sky opening up, but Dobtzi won’t let me. Dobtzi loves me. “Kiko, pi!” She wants me to rock her. I rock her and rock her and fall asleep.

A guest comes to me — Meni the neighbor’s little calf is looking at me with knowing eyes and says, Come! We run downhill to the pond. Not wasting any time, I roll up my trouser legs, and plop! I’m in the pond. I swim, and Meni swims after me. The other side is lovely. There’s no cantor here, no Dobtzi, no sick father. I wake up — it’s just a dream. Run away! Run away! Run away! Where to? Home, naturally.

But Hersh-Ber is already up before me. He has a huge tuning fork that he bangs on his teeth and then places near his ear. He tells me to dress quickly and go with him to shul . Today for musaf they will sing a special piece. In shul I see my brother Elyahu. What’s he doing here? He usually prays in the butchers’ shul, where my father is the cantor! What does this mean?

My brother Elyahu is saying something to Hersh-Ber the cantor, who is not pleased and says, “Remember, for God’s sake, bring him back right after we eat!”

“Come!” my brother Elyahu says to me. “You’ll see Papa!” We go home together. He walks, and I skip. I run, I fly.

“Take it easy! Why are you in such a hurry?” He holds on to me. It looks like he wants to talk to me.

“Do you know that Papa is sick, very, very sick? Only God knows what will happen to him. We must save him, but we don’t have the medicine. No one wants to help. Mama won’t let him go to the poorhouse under any circumstances! She’d rather die herself. She says that before letting him to go to the poorhouse. . Sha, here comes Mama.”

G.

My mother comes toward us with outstretched arms and embraces me, and I feel her tears on my cheeks. My brother Elyahu goes to my sick father, and my mother and I remain standing outside. We are surrounded by our neighbor’s wife Fat Pessi and her daughter Mindl, her daughter-in-law Perl, and two other women.

“Do you have a guest for Shevuos? God love you and your guest!” they say.

My mother lowers her swollen eyes. “A guest?” she says to the women. “Just a child, come to find out how his sick father is doing. Just a child. .”

While Pessi is shaking her head, my mother whispers in her ear, “What a town this is! No one cares enough about what’s going on. Twenty-three years of his life he gave singing in the pulpit, sacrificed his health. I want to save him, but I don’t have with what. Everything, praised be God, is sold down to the last little pillow. We’ve placed the child with a cantor, all for his sake.”

So my mother laments to Pessi. I look all around me.

“Who are you looking for?” my mother says to me.

“What does a child look for? Probably the little calf,” Pessi our neighbor says with strained friendliness. “Eh, little boy! No more little calf! I had to sell it to the butcher. Did I have any choice? It’s enough that we have to feed one dumb animal — we can’t manage two!”

Now the calf has become a dumb animal to her? A strange woman, this Pessi. She pokes her nose into everything. She wants to know if we’re having a dairy supper.

“Why do you need to know that?” asks my mother.

“Just like this!” says Pessi. She lifts her shawl and pushes a bowl of sour cream at my mother.

My mother pushes it back. “God be with you, Pessi! Why are you doing this? What are we, God forbid? You know the way I am.”

“On the contrary,” Pessi protests, “it’s because I do know you. The cow, kayn eyn horeh, has been giving lots of milk lately. We have cheese and butter. I’ll lend you some. God willing, you’ll repay me.”

And Pessi the neighbor talks a long time to my mother while my heart aches for the logs, the little calf — oh, the little calf! If I weren’t embarrassed, I’d burst out crying.