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

As you can well imagine, our friend Pinni flares up like a match. He looks at my brother Elyahu, but he’s really speaking to the tailor. How does he know so much about the laws of Ellis Island? he asks him. The tailor tells him he made the acquaintance of another emigrant on the ship, a man who had traveled back and forth three times. He must be speaking of the old sea dog. From him the tailor learned about all the rules and regulations — and many more things about America, so many that he felt he was an American already. He even knew how to speak the American language — for example: chicken, kitchen, sugar, mister, butcher, bridge. What those words meant he wouldn’t say.

“When we get there,” Pinni says, “we’ll find out for ourselves what they mean.” He dismisses the tailor with a wave of the hand and steps aside, as if to say, You might as well listen to a dog bark.

E.

Don’t you think it happens exactly as the Heissen tailor predicted? Not a hair’s difference! Once we’ve passed through the seven stages of hell administered by the doctors, they ask us who we have in America. My mother steps forward. “Better ask who we don’t have here,” she says, and gets ready to name all our friends and relatives. It’s a pleasure to look at her now that they’ve let her through with her weepy eyes. She’s no longer a young woman, but she’s still charming. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my mother glow as she does now.

But my brother Elyahu won’t let her speak — the addresses, he says, are written on a piece of paper. Then Pinni interrupts and says they’re asking for names, not addresses. Bruche cuts him off, saying that for all intents and purposes Pinni has no one in America. All the friends and relatives are ours. Pinni gets exasperated. “How are Fat Pessi and her husband Moishe the bookbinder more your friends than mine?” he says. Bruche says Pessi can go to hell — when she speaks of relatives, she means her father Yoneh the baker. Maybe my brother Elyahu is right — they aren’t asking about friends but about relatives. And a to-do begins about their addresses.

F.

For reading the list of their addresses aloud, understandably, Pinni is the most qualified of us all. He takes the paper from my brother Elyahu, brings it up close to the tip of his nose, and reads the addresses with the same singsong that you use at wedding ceremonies. But no one understands what he’s saying. Every word comes out wrong. My brother Elyahu tears the paper with the addresses from his hands and gives it to an official.

The official says two words: “All right.”

We don’t know what that means. The Heissen tailor says he knows what it means. Those two words, when spoken together, he says, mean that things will go as we wish.

Then the officials collect our coins and send off two telegrams, one to Moishe the bookbinder and his wife Fat Pessi, the other to Yoneh the baker. In the meantime we treat ourselves to a meal. It isn’t that good. The little bit of tea they serve, Bruche says, you could cut with a knife. But the meal doesn’t cost us anything. On Ellis Island everything is free. Having satisfied our hunger, we settle in to wait for our friends and families.

G.

Waiting is easier said than done. Our eyes almost creep out of our heads before we see a familiar face. The first to arrive are our neighbors Fat Pessi and her husband Moishe the bookbinder. We don’t actually see them — we are, as you remember, confined. We’re informed that a fat woman and her husband have come to see us. We realize it must be Pessi and her Moishe. They’re not allowed to see us but are being held in the examination room, which upsets us very much.

Someone advises us to tip the guards at the door, and maybe they’ll allow them to visit, even if from a distance. But our friend Pinni says that America is not Russia — in America you don’t bribe.

Our Heissen tailor, who pops up everywhere, pops up now and says it’s the same the whole world over: “Gold and silver make bastards legal.”

Pinni is speechless.

H.

Naturally the Heissen tailor is right. For a quarter, we can see our neighbor Pessi through the bars. Her red face and triple chins are sweating as she smiles at us from afar. My mother nods at her as both shed tears. From behind her broad back her husband Moishe peeks out, no longer wearing a Russian hat, as at home, but an American cap. Then in a moment Yoneh with his angry eyes appears. He’s hardly changed at all, except for his beard— oy vey! What’s happened to this beard! His wife of the fur cape also comes. We want to greet them, to hug and kiss them, to ask them how they are and what’s new in the world. How’s life here in America? For my part, I’m dying to know where Vashti is. And how is Bruche’s little sister Alteh? And how are the rest of the gang? But what can we do? We can’t budge. We’re locked up. We can only see through the bars. We’re like prisoners or convicts, or beasts.

I.

It’s a pity — our poor friend Pinni can’t look us straight in the eyes. He’s ashamed for America. You could swear it’s his own America and that he’s responsible for what happens here. He develops a hatred for Ellis Island and makes fun of it by calling it Ellie’s Island. This hurts my brother Elyahu’s feelings, because his name sounds like Ellie. This leads to the usual quarrel. Bruche intrudes, this time taking Pinni’s side, citing a proverb: “Don’t kick a dog when he’s down.” What can she mean by that?

A.

As if we don’t have enough of our own troubles, God has ordained that we share other people’s troubles on Ellis Island. As if my mother’s tears flowing since my father’s death aren’t enough, she now has to shed tears over others’ misfortunes. Almost every minute God presents her with a new tragedy. My mother takes everything to heart. She wrings her hands, hides her face, and cries quietly.

“You sin, Mama!” my brother Elyahu says to her, and I think he’s right. What does she have to cry about? We aren’t dragging ourselves around the world anymore. We’ve survived the voyage across the ocean, thank God. We’re almost in America. Another hour, another two hours, and we’ll be free. But how can a person not cry when surrounding him is so much misfortune, so many reasons for tears, for a sea of tears?

To convey to you all the misfortunes we’ve seen on Ellis Island, I’d have to sit down with you for a day and a night and talk and talk and talk.

B.

What will you say to this story? A father and mother and their four children were detained, not able to go back, not able to come here. During the examination a twelve-year-old daughter of theirs could not count backward. The official asked her how old she was, and she said, “Twelve years old.” They asked her further, “How old were you a year ago at this time?” She didn’t know. They said, “Count from one to twelve.” She did. Then they told her to count from twelve backward to one. She couldn’t. If they had asked me to do that, it would have been easy — no problem! They decide they cannot allow the girl to come to America.

To witness the agony of those parents and the misery of that child, you’d have to be made of stone. When Mother even catches sight of them, she breaks into tears. Bruche and Teibl can’t keep from crying either. Now ask yourself, what will happen to the parents and to the other children?

C.

Or how do you like this story? A woman has been traveling with us named Tzivyeh. Her husband left her long ago. She sent out letters all over and received news that her husband was in Cincinnati, a city in America. So now she’s going there to catch him. The “old sea dog” I told you about advised her to find some man in New York who would say he is her husband, and she would be allowed in. The Heissen tailor got mixed up in it too. The old sea dog tried to get a close friend to claim he was her husband. Finally the officials realized it was all a sham. The man was married and had nothing to do with the abandoned wife. Oh my, what went on then! All of Ellis Island went into an uproar.