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

F.

“Hello to you, Columbus! We greet you, land of the free! Oh, golden, happy land!”

So our friend Pinni salutes the new land. He actually removes his cap, bends down, and bows his head. Since he’s nearsighted, he doesn’t notice a sweaty, ruddy-faced sailor running toward him, and they collide head on. The tip of Pinni’s nose strikes the sailor between the eyes — but luckily the sailor’s a good-hearted sort. He examines our Pinni’s bruised nose, smiles, and mumbles something under his mustache. It must be some curse in an American language.

G.

Suddenly there’s chaos. Third-class passengers are asked to please go back to their places. First they’re asked politely, then angrily. Whoever doesn’t hurry down gets shoved from behind by a sailor or a steward. They close the doors and hang iron locks on them. Young and old; men, women, and children; Christians, Turks, gypsies — we’re all crammed in together. It’s suffocating. We can only see through the portholes what’s going on outside. We’ve never felt so miserable, like prisoners. “Why? Why are they doing this?” my friend Mendl complains, his eyes burning with fury.

H.

It turns out we’ve arrived in America. Now what? The first- and second-class passengers have left the ship by going down a long ladder with about a hundred steps. And how about us? We’re also in America!

“They shouldn’t treat us this way!” a Jewish tailor from Heissen cries. He’s all dressed up, wearing fancy spectacles. He’s not a bad fellow but he’s a bit of a pest, thinks highly of himself, and contradicts everyone. As soon as he hears what you have to say, he says the opposite. He and our friend Pinni have already gone at it. My brother Elyahu could barely separate them. Pinni had insulted him by calling him names — seamstress, tailor-man, pants-sewer — and asking him how many remnants he’d stolen.

Now that we’re all locked up together, the Heissen tailor speaks up in Hebrew: “What are we? Who are we? We are like cattle. But even cattle have to be given consideration.”

Pinni attacks him. He says that’s not a good comparison. If you’re talking about America, he says in his elegant language, as is his way, you have to wash your hands first. He can’t bear to hear a bad word about America.

The Heissen tailor says he isn’t speaking well or badly of America. He’s only saying that everything is good and fine and nice but not for us. They won’t be letting us out so soon.

Pinni loses his temper. “What then will they do with us? Pickle us?” he shouts.

“They won’t pickle us,” the Heissen tailor says with spite and pleasure in his voice. “They’ll take us to a place called Ellis Island. There they’ll lock us up like calves in stalls until our friends and family remind themselves to come get us.”

Pinni leaps up. “Just listen to this man! All this tailor-man knows is bad news. He’s not so old, but he’s very clever! We all know about Castle Garden, I mean Ellis Island, but I’ve never heard anyone say that Ellis Island rounds people up like cattle.”

Pinni grows more excited. He moves closer to the Heissen tailor as if threatening him.

The tailor backs off, a bit frightened. “Take it easy! Look at him — you’d think I’d stolen his coat! I said a bad thing about his America, but that’s not allowed. Well, when we’re all a few hours older, we’ll be wiser.”

A.

Our friend Pinni really hates Ellis Island. He’s ready to write a poem about it or fight with my brother Elyahu, but he keeps his anger to himself. Pinni doesn’t want the Heissen tailor to know that he, Pinni, is dissatisfied with America. He keeps quiet, but inside he’s boiling. “How can they take people and lock them up like cattle, like prisoners, like criminals!” he complains quietly to my brother Elyahu after they’ve brought us here.

The Heissen tailor was right. Oh, he exaggerated a bit — he said they’d lock us up in prison cells. Actually they led us into a large, brightly lit hall and give us free food and drink. They seemed like good, kind people, so what’s the problem? Then we finally reach the hall — oh my! We have to walk single file across a long bridge. At every step we’re greeted by a new nuisance of an official who considers, scrutinizes, and prods us.

The first thing they do is to turn our eyelids inside out with a white card to examine our eyes. Then they examine our arms and legs. Each examiner leaves a chalk mark on us and directs us where to go next, left or right. Then we enter the great hall I told you about. Only then can we look for one another. Until then we’ve been confused and separated. We’re as frightened as calves led to the slaughter.

B.

What do you think we’re so afraid of? Our fear is about my mother’s eyes. What will happen when they see her red, weepy eyes? But it turns out her eyes are examined less than anyone else’s.

“You can thank your father for this, may he have a blessed paradise!” My mother embraces us all and weeps tears of joy. She doesn’t know what to do with so much happiness. My brother Elyahu too becomes another person. Usually when we’re upset and rushing around, he takes it all out on me. His slaps fly right and left, and Bruche helps him out with a curse. But now it’s as if he’s grown a new skin. He pulls from his pocket an orange left over from the ship and hands it to me. On the Prince Albert they distributed an orange every day. Whoever wanted one ate it, and whoever didn’t hid it in his pocket. I never hid mine. How can you see this fruit and not eat it up?

But Pinni expresses his delight the best. He says to us: “ Nu? Who’s the smart one, I or you? Didn’t I say that our enemies told lies about America, that they wouldn’t let in people with weepy eyes? They’re idlers, liars, gossips, bad-mouthers! They’ll soon be saying that America will force us to convert. Where is that Heissen tailor, a curse on his father’s bones?”

Our Pinni has made peace with America.

C.

In all the excitement one of our company goes missing — my friend Mendl. Bruche notices it first. She gasps and claps her hands together: “Oh my God, where’s that Colt?”

“I can’t believe it!” says my mother, and we all go looking for Mendl. He’s gone, as if he’s been swallowed up.

It turns out he got himself into a mess. During the examination he got confused. First he pretended to be mute, as he had in Germany. Then he spoke, but in crazy nonsense. He said he was ten years old, and then he said he was already a bar mitzvah and was putting on tefillin. Finally he told the officials the whole story — that at the German border his parents had somehow lost him and we had befriended him. He didn’t know his parents’ address or the name of the city they lived in. If he did know, he wouldn’t need anyone’s help finding them, he’d do it himself. So they placed him, along with some others, in a separate room to be sent back later.

D.

When we hear this story, we all come to the defense of the unfortunate Mendl. My mother makes a fuss. She’ll have to explain things to his parents if she ever meets them, she knows.

“Wait a second, you aren’t even out of the woods yourselves,” the Heissen tailor tells her.

“Haman is heard from!” Pinni looks angrily at the tailor, ready to grab him by the throat.

The tailor acts dumb and goes on lecturing as if he had been asked, really piling it on. He lists all the problems and woes that we have yet to endure. First, he says, they’ll take the addresses of our friends or relatives. Then they’ll take money to send them a telegram. We’ll have to wait until someone comes. And only when someone says he knows us, and can promise that we’ll be good and devoted to God and mankind, will they release us from confinement.