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

Well, Succos came. It was time for them to board the ship. Goldele’s parents were told they all had to pay a visit to the doctor. The doctor examined them and found they were all strong and healthy and could go to America. But she, Goldele, couldn’t go because she had trachoma. At first they didn’t grasp what that meant. Then it sank in. It meant that all of them could go to America but that Goldele would have to stay in Antwerp. They wept and wailed. Her mother fainted three times. Her father insisted on staying here with her, but it wasn’t possible — that would have meant they all lost their steamship tickets. So they decided that they would all go to America but that she, Goldele, would stay behind until her trachoma cleared up.

Now almost a year later it’s still not cleared up. Fräulein Zaichik says her eyes aren’t healing because she cries constantly. But Goldele says there’s another reason — it’s on account of bluestone salve! Every time she goes to the doctor, he smears her eyes with the same bluestone salve that he uses on all the other patients. If she could afford to buy a different salve, she would have been cured long ago.

“And what about your parents?” I ask her.

“They’re in America. They’re making a living. Almost every month I get a letter from them. Come look — can you read? Read them to me!”

She takes a pack of letters from her bosom and gives them to me to read aloud. I would have been glad to, but I can’t read handwriting. If they were printed, I could have read them. She laughs at me and says a boy is not a girl. A boy needs to know everything!

I’m afraid she’s right. Ah, how I wish I could read handwriting! Ah, how I envy my friend Big Motl because he can read and write. Goldele has Big Motl read her the letters from America, and Big Motl zips right through them. The letters are written in the same style and in almost the same words:

“Dearest Goldele, darling Goldele, long life to you! When we in America remember that our child was torn from our arms and left on your own in a strange land among strangers, we cannot bear our lives. Day and night we weep and wail for our bright star that was taken away right before our eyes. . ” And so on.

Big Motl reads, and Goldele cries and wipes her eyes. Fräulein Zaichik sees this and scolds us for making her cry. She tells Goldele she’s ruining what’s left of her eyes! Goldele answers her with a laugh, and more tears pour from her eyes.

“The doctor is ruining my eyes with his bluestone salve worse than I am with my crying.”

We say goodbye to Goldele, and I promise I’ll see her tomorrow at the same time.

“God willing!” Goldele responds, making a pious face like an old woman. And both of us, Little Motl and Big Motl, go for a walk in Antwerp.

D.

I, Little Motl, and my friend Big Motl are not alone. We have another friend, a boy of thirteen named Mendl. He was also left behind in Antwerp on the way to America, not on account of his eyes but for something else. His parents lost him along the way, somewhere in Germany. As he tells it, his family was surviving on herring, which gave him heartburn. He jumped off the train for a moment at a station for a drink of water, but the train left without him, and he was stuck without a ticket, without a kopek, and without a shirt on his back. Because he didn’t know the language, he pretended to be mute. The committee took him everywhere to see if anyone could recognize him. Then he spied a party of Jewish emigrants. He approached them and told them his story. They took pity on him and brought him along with them to Antwerp, where he managed to reach the Ezra. The Ezra wrote a letter to America trying to locate his parents.

Now he’s waiting for an answer and a steamship ticket, or rather a half-price ticket, because he’s young. He’s not really that young, but he acts young. He’s probably a bar mitzvah, though he doesn’t put on tefillin. He doesn’t have any. When the emigrants found out that Mendl was thirteen and didn’t have tefillin, they made a fuss: “Why doesn’t someone see to it that he has tefillin?” To which Mendl said, “Why doesn’t someone see to it that I have boots?” An emigrant with keen eyes reprimanded him, “Oh you ungrateful boy! Not enough we worry about you — you’re sassy!” The emigrant with the keen eyes managed to collect enough from the other emigrants to buy Mendl a pair of tefillin.

You can get anything you want in Antwerp. Do you think there are no prayer houses or synagogues in Antwerp? Wrong! And what synagogues! One of the synagogues is Turkish. Do you think Turks pray there? Not at all! Jews pray there, the same Jews as we, but they pray in Turkish. You can’t understand one word! Our new friend Mendl took Big Motl and me there. The three of us have become fast friends. All day long we walk around the city. When we were in Brod or Cracow or Lemberg or Vienna, my mother was afraid to let me take a step away from her. Here in Antwerp she isn’t afraid. In those cities, she says, there were only Germans, but here in Antwerp we are among our own people. You hear Yiddish spoken. She means the emigrants. Long live the emigrants! Among the emigrants we really feel at home! And soon we’ll have guests, God willing. After Shabbes our in-law Yoneh the baker is coming with his family. We’re waiting every day for our neighbor Pessi and her gang. Then the fun will really begin.

I’ll tell you all about it.

A.

You’re already familiar with the gang — our neighbor Pessi and her husband Moishe the bookbinder and their eight children, each of whom, as I told you, has a nickname. The youngest is my age, nine and a half, and they call him Vashti. His real name is Hershl, but because he has a birthmark on his forehead, the older children gave him the nickname Vashti. I like him because he doesn’t cry. No matter how much you beat him, he takes it silently. Once he tore somebody’s prayer book, and his father beat him with the board on which he cuts paper. Vashti suffered for two days straight. He even refused to eat. People were afraid for his life. His mother, our neighbor Pessi, was already mourning for him, and his father was beside himself. Everyone thought it was the end of Vashti, but not so. On the third day Vashti asked for bread and ate as if after a fast.

The children all love to eat and really enjoy their food. Their own mother calls them the Hungry Locusts. Pessi is a very fine woman but a bit too fat. She has three chins. I’ve drawn her on paper several times. Once Vashti saw me doing it and grabbed the drawing and showed it to his mother. She laughed. My brother Elyahu found out and wanted to punish me for my figure drawings as usual. Luckily Pessi stuck up for me: “A child likes to fool around. It’s not worth eating your heart out over.” Long live Pessi! I love her. I just hate when she kisses me. When she arrived in Antwerp, she hugged me and kissed me like her own child. She kissed everyone, but more than anyone, naturally, she kissed my mother. When my mother first glimpsed her, it was as if Pessi were my father risen from the dead. My mother cried so hard that my brother Elyahu fell upon Pessi, blaming her for making my mother ruin her eyes so she can’t go to America.

Everybody who comes to Antwerp has to go to the doctor. The first thing you’re asked is “Have you been to the doctor yet?” “What did the doctor say?” When you go to the Ezra, she sends you straight to the doctor. When we first came to the Ezra, all my mother wanted to do was tell the story of her life, starting with her husband and ending with the stolen bedding. Fräulein Zaichik wrote it all down in a book. My mother had more to tell but was interrupted by one of the other Ezra.