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

In short, it’s a household in which everyone has a nickname. Even the cat, just a dumb animal, surely innocent, is called Feige-Leah the Beadle’s Wife. Do you know why? It’s because she’s fat like Feige-Leah, Nachman the beadle’s wife. Can you imagine how many slaps they caught for naming a cat after a person? It did no good. Once you give someone a nickname, it sticks!

E.

They gave me a nickname too. Try and guess: Lips (Motl-with-the-Lips). It seems they don’t like my lips. They say I make noise with them when I eat. I would very much like to see anyone eat and not make noise with his lips! I’m not among those oversensitive people who hate to be criticized, but I really hate this nickname! I don’t understand why. But because I hate it, they taunt me with it all the time. You’ve never seen such nasty creatures! At first I was called Motl-with-the-Lips, then it was shortened to With-the-Lips, and later it became The Lips, and finally Lips.

“Lips! Where have you been?”

“Lips! Wipe your nose!”

It infuriates me, really hurts my feelings and makes me cry. Their father Moishe the bookbinder once saw me crying and asked me, “Why are you crying?”

I told him, “Why shouldn’t I cry when my name is Motl and they call me Lips!”

“Who?”

“Vashti.”

He turned to punish Vashti, but Vashti said, “It’s not me, it’s Barrel.”

He went to punish Barrel, and Barrel said, “It’s not me, it’s Tomcat.”

So it went from one to the other — a tale without end! Moishe the bookbinder thought it over, laid them down one at a time, and spanked them all with the cover of a prayer book.

“Good-for-nothings!” he said to them. “I’ll teach you to tease an orphan!”

That’s the way it goes! Everyone stands up for me. Everyone, everyone takes my part.

I have it good — I am an orphan.

A.

Guess where paradise is. You can’t in a million years. Do you know why? Because it is in a different place for everyone. My mother says that paradise is where my father is. That’s where you’ll find all the poor worthy souls who suffered on earth. Because they didn’t have a good life on earth, they deserve a place in paradise. That is as clear as day. And my father is the best evidence. Where else could he be if not in paradise? Didn’t he suffer enough on this earth? So says my mother, wiping her eyes as she usually does when she speaks of my father.

But if you ask my friends, they’ll tell you that paradise is found somewhere on a mountain of pure crystal, as high as the sky, where boys do whatever they please. They don’t go to school, but all day they bathe in milk and eat honey by the fistful. Are you ready for this one? Along comes this Jew and says that true paradise is in the bathhouse on Fridays. I heard it myself from our neighbor’s husband Moishe the bookbinder, so you can believe me. Is there an end to these stories?

If you ask me, I’d say that paradise is Menashe the doctor’s garden. As long as you’ve lived, you’ve never seen a garden like that. It is the most beautiful garden, not only on our street, not only in our town, but in the whole world. There isn’t another garden like it — there never was and never will be! Everyone will tell you that.

What do you want me to describe first — Menashe the doctor and his wife, or shall I first describe paradise, I mean their garden? Let me tell you first about Menashe and his wife. The owners should get the first introduction.

B.

Winter and summer Menashe the doctor wears a high collar, copying the swarthy doctor who visited my father. Menashe has one eye smaller than the other, and his mouth seems to twist to the side, not a little but quite a lot. As he tells it, a draft caused it. I can’t understand how a whole mouth can get twisted to the side by a draft. How many drafts, big and little, have I lived through in my life! My whole head would by now be twisted around to my back. I figure it’s really out of habit; it’s how you get used to holding your mouth. Take my friend Berl, who blinks his eyes. Another friend, Velvl, sounds as if he’s slurping noodles and soup when he talks. Everything is a habit. Even though his mouth is twisted to the side, still and all Menashe does better than any other doctor. First of all, he isn’t full of himself like other doctors. When you call him, he comes running immediately all sweated up.

And second of all, it isn’t his way to write prescriptions. He makes the medicines himself. Once I had a sticking pain, a chill, and the shivers, and my mother ran right over and brought home Menashe the doctor. He examined me and told her with his twisted mouth, “You don’t need to worry. It’s nothing at all. The little scamp caught a cold in his lung.”

And with these words he took out of his pocket a blue bottle and poured white powder into six pieces of paper. One powder he told me to take right away. I turned and twisted all around — my heart told me it would be bitter as death. And it was. I was right! There’s nothing more bitter. Have you ever tasted the fresh bark from a young tree? That’s how his powder tasted. Just remember — if it’s a powder, it has to be bitter. My thrashing around didn’t help me one bit. I swallowed the powder and thought I was going to die. He told my mother to give me the other five powders every two hours. He really thought he had found a willing taker of bitter medicine! When my mother turned around for a minute to tell my brother Elyahu I was sick, I poured all five powders into the trash and later replaced them all with flour.

My mother had quite a job ahead of her. Every two hours she had to run to our neighbor to look at the clock. After each powder I took, she remarked that I was getting better. By the sixth powder I was healthy.

“Now that’s what I call a doctor!” she said, but still she didn’t let me go to cheder —she kept me home all day, and fed me sweet tea and white rolls.

My mother boasted to everybody, as usual wiping her eyes, “Menashe is a better doctor than all the others, may God grant him health and many years! He has medicines that turn the dead into living people.”

C.

Menashe the doctor’s wife is known by her husband’s name: “Menashe’che the doctor’s.” She’s a witch. That’s what everybody says. Do you know why? It’s because she’s mean. She has a face like a man’s, the voice of a man, and wears men’s boots. When she speaks, you have the feeling she’s angry. She has quite a reputation in town. As long as she’s lived here, no needy person has ever received so much as a piece of bread from her. Her house is full of good things — you can find preserves made a year ago, three years ago, and even ten years ago.

Why does she need so many preserves? If you ask her, she doesn’t know herself. That’s the way she is. Don’t even think about it, you won’t change her. Once summer comes, she just has to keep cooking up preserves. She doesn’t know why. If you think she cooks on coals, you’re wrong. She can cook on thorns, cones, and dried leaves. She raises so much smoke on the whole street that you could choke. If you ever come to us in summertime and you smell something like tar, don’t be afraid. It isn’t a fire, but Menashe’che the doctor’s wife’s preserves made from her own garden, which I promised to tell you about.

D.

What fruits can you not find in that garden? There are apples and pears and grapes and plums and sour cherries and Spanish cherries and gooseberries and blackberries and peaches and raspberries and morellos and currants and more. Is there anything else you need? From Menashe’che the doctor’s you can even buy grapes for the erev Rosh Hashanah blessing. True, when you taste the grapes, your mouth puckers — that’s how sour they are! But she still gets good money for them. She knows how to turn anything into money, even sunflowers. God save you if you ask her to pull up a sunflower — she won’t do it! She’d rather pull a tooth from her mouth than pull a little sunflower from her garden. And never mind an apple, a pear, a sour cherry, or a plum — you’re not sure of your life! I am as familiar with this garden as a Jew is with the ashrei prayer. I know where every tree is located and what grows on it and if this is a good or not so good year. How do I know? Don’t worry, I’ve never been in the garden. How could I, when it’s is surrounded by a high fence covered with scary spikes? (Are you ready for this?) There’s also a dog in the garden. Not a dog, but a wolf! He’s tied up on a long leash, this dog of dogs, and whenever someone passes by, or the dog even imagines someone is passing by, he yanks at the rope, jumping and barking with all his might, as if the devil himself has gotten into him!