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

You might wonder if I’m making all this up. But listen, and I’ll tell you how I found all this out.

E.

Do you know Mendl the slaughterer? If you don’t, you certainly don’t know his house either. It’s right next to Menashe the doctor’s house, and it looks right into his garden. If you sit on Mendl the slaughterer’s roof, you can see everything that’s going on in Menashe’s garden. The trick is, how do you climb up onto Mendl’s roof? For me, it’s no trick. Do you know why? It’s because Mendl’s house is next to ours, and it’s a lot lower than our house. If you climb up to our attic (I do it without a ladder; someday maybe I’ll tell you how) and stick your foot out of its small window and then let the rest of you follow, you are on Mendl’s roof! There you lie down whichever way you like, faceup or face-down. In any case you must lie down, or else you can be seen. (“What are you doing on Mendl’s roof?”) I always choose a time before nightfall, between the mincha and maariv prayers, when I am supposed to go to shul to say kaddish. At that time it’s neither day nor night — the best time. From there I can look down into the garden, and I swear to you it really is more beautiful than the Garden of Eden!

When summer begins and trees deck themselves out in little white feathery blossoms, little green gooseberries soon appear on short spiky twigs, you hope, if not today, then tomorrow. That is the first fruit you want to taste. Some people wait till the gooseberries turn red. That’s dumb! I know for sure that it’s when they’re green that they’re the most tasty and delicious. But aren’t they sour? you’ll ask. Do they make your mouth pucker? Well, what if they do? Sour things refresh your heart, and for puckering there’s a remedy — salt. You put salt on your lips and keep your mouth open for half an hour, and then you can go on eating green gooseberries. After gooseberries come the currants, red with little black mouths and yellow seeds. There are dozens and dozens on every twig. If you draw one twig between your lips, you get a mouthful of currants, winelike and fragrant, a delight! When they turn ripe, my mother buys a quart of currants for a groschen and I eat them with bread.

In Menashe’s garden there are two rows of small bushes growing close to the ground, covered with currants, glowing and shimmering in the sun. You long for just one little twig, just to pull off one currant with two fingers and pop it into your mouth! Will you believe me — when I speak of green gooseberries and red currants, my mouth begins to pucker! So let’s talk about cherries. Cherries don’t stay green for long. They turn ripe very quickly. I swear to you that once, while lying on Mendl’s roof in the morning, I noticed several cherries that were green as grass. By afternoon the sun had reddened their little cheeks and by evening they were red as fire! My mother used to bring me cherries. But how many? Five on a twig. What can you do with five cherries? You play with them until you don’t know what became of them.

F.

But Menashe’s garden has as many cherries as the sky has stars. You can understand, I’m so eager to count how many cherries grow on one little branch. I tried, but I couldn’t count them! Cherries usually cling tight to the branch — they rarely fall to the ground, and then only when they’re overripe or black as plums. Peaches, on the other hand, fall off as soon as they get ripe and yellow. Ach, peaches! Peaches! I love them more than any other fruit. In my entire life I’ve eaten only one peach, and I can still taste it. That was a few years ago, when I wasn’t yet five. My father was still alive, and we still owned everything in the house: the glass cupboard, the couch, the books, and all the bedding.

One time my father came home from shul, called me and my brother Elyahu to him, and put a hand in his back pocket where he keeps his handkerchief. “Children!” he said. “Do you want some peaches? I’ve brought you two peaches.”

And he removed from his back pocket two pieces of round, aromatic yellow fruit. My brother Elyahu rushed to eat it — he made a quick, loud blessing—“Blessed be the fruit of the vine”—and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth. But I played with it first, savoring its aroma, admiring its beauty, and then ate it bit by bit with bread. Peaches go well with bread. I’ve never tasted another peach, but the taste of that first one I cannot forget!

Now standing before me is an entire tree bursting with peaches, and I’m spread out on Mendl the slaughterer’s roof, looking and looking, and one peach after another falls to the ground. One is yellow, almost red, and has split open, exposing its round pit. What will the doctor’s wife do with so many peaches? She’ll probably gather them up and make them into preserves, which she’ll stick away behind the furnace until wintertime, when she’ll move them to the cellar, where they’ll remain so long they turn to sugar and get covered with mold.

After the peaches come the plums, but not all at once. There are two sorts of plums in Menashe the doctor’s garden. One tree grows a kind of round, sweet, hard black plum. The other grows ordinary plums they call bucket plums, because they are sold by the bucket. They have a thin skin and are slippery and sticky and watery to the taste. But still they’re not as bad as you would think. I just wish they’d give me some. But Menashe’che the doctor’s wife isn’t one of those giving people. She’d rather make plum compote for winter. When will she ever eat so much plum compote?

G.

When cherries, peaches, and plums are finished, the apple season is here. Apples, you must know, aren’t pears. Bergamot pears may be the best fruit in the world, but if they aren’t exactly ripe, you can’t manage anything with them. You might as well chew wood! Apples can be green, the seeds may be white, but they already taste like apples. You dig your teeth into a green apple, and your mouth turns sour. And you know, I wouldn’t give you half of a green apple for two ripe ones. You have to wait a long time for them to ripen, but you can eat green ones right away, right after the tree blossoms.

It just depends on what size you want. The longer an apple grows, the bigger it gets — like with a person, pardon the comparison. But a big apple doesn’t have to be good. Sometimes a small apple is better than the biggest apple. Take the Eretz Yisroel apples — they have a winey taste but are delicious. Or take sour or pickled apples. This summer they’re so plentiful, they’ll have to be moved by the wagonload. I heard that right from Menashe’che the doctor’s wife’s mouth. She told it to Reuben the apple man when the apples were just beginning to blossom. Reuben the apple man came to look at the garden. He wanted to buy her apples and pears while they were still on the tree. When it comes to apples and pears, Reuben is an expert. All he has to do is take one look at a tree, and he can tell you how much money it’ll bring in. He’s never wrong, unless it happens that there’s a big windstorm and the apples fall before they’re ripe, or worms and caterpillars infest them. These are things no one can predict. A wind is God’s doing, and so are caterpillars. For the life of me, I can’t understand why God needs caterpillars, unless it’s to take the bread from Reuben the apple man’s mouth. Reuben says he doesn’t ask more from a tree than a little bread. He has, he says, a wife and children and needs bread for them. Menashe’che wants not only bread but bread with meat, and she wishes him luck with the trees he’s selected. They’re trees? They are gold, not trees.

“You know I’m no enemy of yours, God forbid,” Menashe’che says to him. “What I wish for you, may it happen to me.”