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

All day long I go around in a fog. I’ve lost my appetite. At night I dream I’m going away — not going but flying. I have wings like a dove, and I’m flying. Long live our friend Pinni! In my eyes he’s a thousand times more attractive than before. If I weren’t embarrassed, I’d hug and kiss him. A dear man, that Pinni!

Didn’t I tell you he has good ideas?

A.

Guess what? We’re off to America! Where is America? I don’t know. I only know that it’s far, terribly far away. You have to travel and travel until finally you get to a place called Castle Garden, where they strip you naked and examine your eyes. If you have healthy eyes, it’s good, and if not, you have to go back! I’m sure I have healthy eyes. I only had a problem with my eyes once. Boys from the Russian school grabbed hold of me, then knocked me down, and blew cigarette smoke in my eyes. Ay, did my brother Elyahu beat them up! Now my eyes are clear as crystal.

My mother’s situation is not so good. So says my brother Elyahu. It’s her own fault, because she’s been crying day and night ever since my father died. “In God’s name, have pity on us!” he complains to her. “On account of you we’ll all have to go back, God forbid!” he complains to her.

“Foolish child that you are! Do I want to cry? The tears come of their own.” She wipes her eyes on her apron and gets to work on the bedding, especially the pillows, which have to be restuffed. America is a country where they have everything except pillows. I don’t understand how people sleep there. It must be hard for their heads! My sister-in-law Bruche helps her restuff the pillows. Not to boast about it, but we have three large quilts and quite a few pillows — six big ones and four little ones. From the four little pillows my mother is making one, which is too bad. I like those little pillows better than the big ones. I always play with them in the morning and make triangular hats out of them.

“When we arrive in America, God willing, we’ll stuff them into little pillows again,” my mother says to me. She tells my sister-in-law Bruche to do the same as she has. She obeys, even though she’s not happy about the journey. It’s difficult for her to leave her parents behind. If someone had told her a year ago she’d be going to America, she’d have spit in his eye.

“If someone had told me a year ago I’d now be a widow. .,” says my mother, and bursts into tears.

“You’re crying again?” my brother Elyahu scolds her. “You want to ruin us all?”

B.

As if we don’t have enough on our hands, here comes our neighbor Pessi. Seeing us stuffing pillows for the trip, she pours out her bitter soul to us.

“So, you’re really going to America? May the One Above grant that you arrive in good health and find happiness! With God everything is possible. A year ago relatives of mine, Rivele and her husband Hili, left for America. They write that they are struggling but are making a living. We keep begging them to write more details — what and when and how? They answer that America is good for everyone. You struggle but make a living. What is there to say to that? But at least they write. At first they didn’t write at all. We thought they had fallen into the ocean, when suddenly news arrived that they were already, thank God, in America. I ask, was it worth all that fuss to break their backs, repack the bedding, and sail across the ocean?”

“I beg you, stop making things worse for us,” my brother Elyahu protests.

Our neighbor Pessi gives as good as she gets. “Making things worse? Look at him, a smart aleck! He’s going to America so he can struggle to make a living! How long ago was it that I held you in my arms, fed you, took care of you? Go ahead, ask your mother about the fishbone you swallowed as a child one Friday night. If I hadn’t grabbed you from behind, one two three, you wouldn’t be going to America to struggle to make a living!”

Our neighbor Pessi would go on and on talking, but luckily my mother gets involved, gently: “I beg you, Pessi’nyu, dear soul, dear heart, lyubeh’nyu, may you be well and strong!”

More than that my mother cannot speak — she begins to cry. My brother Elyahu sees her and becomes enraged. He drops his work and runs out of the house, slamming the door. “May it all go to the devil!”

C.

Our house is now a bare, empty mess. The bundles and bedding in the alcove reach almost to the ceiling. When no one is around, I climb up on all the pillows and slide down like on a sled. I’ve never had it as good as I do now. No one has cooked anything for days. My brother Elyahu brings a dried-out fish home from the market, and we eat it with an onion. Fish and onions — what could be better than that? Our friend Pinni eats with us. He’s always been absent-minded, his head in the clouds. But ever since we decided to go to America, he’s really been distracted. That’s what my mother says. Still one trouser leg is rolled up, one sock is rolled down, and his tie is way off to the side. Whenever he comes into our house, he still bumps into things.

My mother always scolds him in the same way: “You know you’re tall — why don’t you bend down a little?”

“He’s nearsighted, Mama!” my brother Elyahu defends him, and he and Pinni go off to finish the business of selling our half of the house. They have to write up the bill of sale. We sold our half long ago to Zili the tailor. But a tailor doesn’t buy a house so quickly. What a pain, a real nudnik, that Zili the tailor! He came over at least three times a day to look over our half. He sniffed the walls, felt the chimney, crawled into the attic, and examined the roof. Then he brought his wife Meni. I have to say, she makes me laugh. Our neighbor’s calf was also called Meni. Both Menis have the same face. Meni the calf had a white snout and round eyes. So does Meni the tailor’s wife. Then Zili the tailor brought in experts to look over the house, mostly other tailors. Each one found a different fault with it.

Then they brought in Pinni’s father, Hersh-Leib the mechanic, who is a real expert on houses and an honest man. You can rely on him. He examined our half of the house from top to bottom, squared his shoulders, pushed back his cap, and scratched his neck. “Without a doubt this house can stand for a hundred years, if not more,” he said.

One of Zili the tailor’s experts piped in, “Absolutely! So long as you face it with bricks, put in some new beams, four new walls, and a new tin roof, it will stand, God willing, until the Messiah comes!”

If you had cursed out Hersh-Leib the mechanic or poured a bucket of boiling water on him, he couldn’t have gotten angrier. Where did this Jew get off, he demanded, this idiot, this mere tailor, a thief, and a moron into the bargain, talking to him, Hersh-Leib the mechanic, in that language, with that tone of voice?

I was enjoying this, expecting a fistfight to break out any minute. But somehow people showed up from somewhere (people always seem to appear from somewhere when they’re least needed!) and separated them. Zili the tailor made peace and began haggling. Finally both sides agreed on a price, and brandy was ordered for a l’chayim . The tailor wished us a safe journey, success in business, and a welcome return home, God willing.

“Slow down, not so fast. Are we coming back from America?” says my brother Elyahu, and a discussion followed. Hersh-Leib the mechanic bets we will come back. If not for the conscription, he says, he’d never allow his son Pinni to go. America, he says, is phooey !

Zili the tailor asks him, “Pardon me, but how, exactly, is America phooey ?”