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

“At least one sale!” says my brother Elyahu, his voice choking.

“You’re a great fool, I tell you. Just wait, my child, and you will, God willing, make a sale.”

My mother sets the table. We wash and sit down to eat. The four of us squeeze together into one tight space. Because of all the bottles, it’s terribly crowded in the house. We make the blessing over the bread — when a strange man arrives. I know him. His name is Kopl. His father is a ladies’ tailor. He’s betrothed to be married.

“Do you sell single bottles of ink here?”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I want some ink.”

“How much ink do you need?”

“Give me a kopek’s worth.”

My brother Elyahu is really upset. If my mother hadn’t been there, he would have slapped this betrothed Kopl a few times and then thrown him out of the house. But he controls himself and pours out a kopek’s worth of ink. Less than a quarter of an hour later, a young girl comes in. I don’t know her. She picks her nose and says to my mother, “Do you make ink here?”

“Yes, what would you like?”

“My sister wants to know if you can lend her a little ink. She has to write a letter to her future husband in America.”

“Who is your sister?”

“Basya the seamstress.”

“Ah? Look how she’s grown up! Kayn eyn horeh! I didn’t recognize you. Do you have an inkwell?”

“Where would we get an inkwell? My sister wants to know if you have a pen, and as soon as she finishes writing the letter to America, she’ll give you back the ink and the pen.”

My brother Elyahu has vanished from the table. He is in my mother’s room. pacing quietly, head down, biting his nails.

F.

“Why did you make so much ink? It looks like you want to supply the whole world with ink in case there’s a shortage.”

That’s what our neighbor’s husband Moishe the bookbinder says. What a strange man that bookbinder is! He has a habit of rubbing salt in your wounds. Usually he’s a tolerable fellow, just a bit of a pest — he likes to get under your skin.

But my brother Elyahu really gets back at him! He tells him to mind his own business and to be careful not to bind together a Haggadah with the High Holiday penitential prayers. Moishe the bookbinder knows very well what that dig is about! He was once engaged by a coachman to do a job. The coachman had given him a Haggadah to bind, but by mistake the bookbinder bound in with it a section of the penitential slichot prayers of the High Holidays instead of the welcoming prayers for Elijah at the Passover seder. Everyone at the seder laughed. The following morning the coachman went to our neighbor the bookbinder and wanted to tear him limb from limb.

“Villain, what did you do to me? Why did you stick an unkosher prayer into my Passover Haggadah? I’m going to rip the guts out of your belly!”

Yes, that was quite a jolly Passover.

But don’t be upset that I brought in another story. I’ll get back to our moneymaking ventures now.

A.

My brother Elyahu is beside himself with worry. What to do with all that unsold merchandise?

“Still with the ink?” my mother asks him.

“I’m not talking about ink!” my brother Elyahu answers. “To the devil with the ink! I’m talking about the bottles! There’s a fortune in them! We have to make sure to empty the bottles so we can get our money out of them!”

Everything has to be turned into money! My brother Elyahu decides we have to get rid of all that ink, no matter how. But that’s the problem — where to pour it all? It could be embarrassing.

“There’s nothing to it,” says my brother Elyahu. “We have to wait till night. At night it’s dark, no one will see.”

Night falls at last. Out of spite, the moon shines like a lantern. “When you need it, it hides. But look at it now, as if we’d sent for it!” my brother Elyahu says as we carry out bottle after bottle and — splash! pour the ink onto the street. A huge puddle grows in the place where we’re pouring the ink. “We shouldn’t pour it all in one place,” says my brother Elyahu, and I obey him. I find a fresh place to pour the bottles. Splash! Against a neighbor’s wall! Splash! Against another neighbor’s fence! Splash! All over two goats chewing their cuds in the moonlight!

“That’s enough for tonight!” my brother Elyahu says, and we go to bed. It’s quiet and dark. I can hear the crickets. The cat is purring under the stove — that sleepyhead! Day and night all she wants is to warm herself and doze. I hear footsteps on the other side of the door. Could it be some bad person? No, it’s my mother — she isn’t sleeping. It seems she never sleeps. During the nights I can always hear her cracking her knuckles, sighing and groaning, and talking to herself. That’s her habit. Every night she talks out her troubles. To whom is she talking? To God. Every other minute she lets out an “Oy, God! God!”

B.

I’m lying on my bedding on the floor and hear a hubbub of familiar voices in my sleep. Slowly I open my eyes — it’s broad daylight. The bright sunlight bursts through the window. It’s calling me outdoors. I try to remember what happened the night before — aha! Ink! I jump up and quickly dress. My mother is teary-eyed — but when isn’t she teary-eyed? My sister-in-law Bruche is furious — but when isn’t she furious? And my brother Elyahu is standing in the middle of the room, hanging his head, trying to look innocent as a lamb.

What’s been happening? A great deal! Once our neighbors woke up this morning, all hell broke loose. You’d think they were being slaughtered! One neighbor’s wall is splashed with ink. Another neighbor’s fence, a new fence, has ink all over it. A third neighbor had two white goats but now they’re black, unrecognizable. All this might be tolerable were it not for the slaughterer’s wife’s stockings. She had hung out her new pair of white stockings to dry on our neighbor’s fence. They’re ruined. To keep the peace, my mother promises to buy her a new pair of stockings. But what about the wall and the fence? We decide that my mother and sister-in-law Bruche will very kindly take two brushes and whitewash the stains.

“You’re lucky you live next door to decent neighbors. If you had splashed ink on Menashe the doctor’s garden, you’d know what kind of God we have!” our neighbor Pessi says to my mother.

“What are you talking about? Do you mean you need to have luck to have bad luck?” My mother looks at me meaningfully.

What do you think she means?

C.

“Now I’ll be smarter,” my brother Elyahu says to me. “Just wait till nightfall, and we’ll take the bottles down to the river.”

Right, as I am a Jew! What could be smarter than that? People pour filth into the river anyway! They wash laundry and water horses there, and it’s where the pigs wallow. I know that river well. I used to catch fish in it. In fact, I’m looking forward to going to the river.

As soon as night falls, we load baskets full of bottles and carry them to the river. We pour out the ink and carry the empty bottles back home, then take another load of full bottles. We work all night. I haven’t had such a happy, enjoyable night in a long time.

Just picture it: the town is asleep, the sky is full of stars, and the moon is reflected in the river. It’s peaceful and quiet. A river is like a living thing. After Passover, when the ice melts, it performs wonders! It swells, spreads itself out, and pours over its banks. And then it grows smaller, narrower, and shallower. By the end of summer, it quiets down and takes a nap. Occasionally some creature in the bottom mud goes bul-bul-bul. A pair of frogs reply from the other side: krua-krua! It’s so small, it’s an embarrassment, not a river! And I can cross by foot to the other side without even taking off my pants!