“How about that! God’s wonders!” I said. “Quite a fine boy. If God would add to the shirt he was wearing over his trousers and his long hair a harmonica or a dog to follow him, he would really be quite a sight!” I tried to settle the score with her, as well as with him, by letting out my bitter heart at her — poor thing. And her response? Nothing! And Esther spoke not—she pretended not to understand what I was saying. I talked about Fefferl, and she talked about the well-being of the community, the workers, and other such things. “What do I care,” I said, “about the well-being of your community and your workers if you keep it all a secret? There is a proverb: Where there are secrets, there is thievery. So tell me straight out — where did Fefferl go, and why?”
“I’ll tell you anything,” she said, “but not that. Better not to ask. Believe me,” she said, “in time you will know everything. God willing, you will soon hear much good news!”
“Amen, let us hope so,” I said. “From your lips to God’s ears! May our enemies,” I said, “have as much good health as I understand what is happening with you and what this game is about!”
“That,” she said, “is the trouble. You won’t understand.”
“Tell me, is it so complicated? It seems to me that with God’s help, I understand far more complicated things.”
“It’s not something you can understand with your mind alone. This is something you must feel, feel with your heart,” Hodl said to me, her face shining and her eyes glowing. These daughters of mine, I tell you, when they get involved in something, it is with body and soul and heart!
I can tell you, a week and two and three and four and five and six and seven passed, and there was neither voice nor money—no letter, no news. “Fefferl is gone!” I said, and glanced at my Hodl. Her poor face was drained of color. She kept doing small chores around the house, trying to forget her great sorrow, but never once did she mention his name, as if Fefferl had never existed!
But one day I came home and found my Hodl walking around with eyes swollen from weeping. Not long before a shlimazel with long hair had come and taken her aside and had whispered something to her. Aha! I thought, it was that young fellow who rejected his parents and who wore his shirt over his trousers. So now I called my Hodl out into the yard and confronted her: “You must tell me, daughter, do you have news from him?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he, your husband?”
“He is far away,” she said.
“What is he doing?”
“He’s in prison!”
“He’s in prison?”
“He’s in prison.”
“Where is he in prison? Why is he in prison?”
She looked me straight in the eyes and remained silent.
“Tell me, my daughter, I assume it is not for theft. I don’t understand. If he isn’t a thief or a swindler, why is he in prison, for what good reason?”
She was silent. And Esther spoke not. She said not a word.
“If you don’t want to speak,” I said, “you don’t have to. He’s your headache, not mine. Serves him right!” But inside my heart was breaking for her. I am, after all, a father, as they say in the prayers: Like as a father pitieth his children—a father remains a father.
Well, it was the evening of Hoshana Raba, the last day of Succos. On holidays it’s a custom of mine to rest, and my horse also rests, as it says in the Torah: Neither thou nor thine ox nor thine ass—you and your wife and your horse. Also at that time of year in Boiberik there was almost nothing to do. One blow of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur and off they all ran, the dachniks, like mice during a famine, and Boiberik was emptied out. At those times I like to sit on my stoop in front of my house. For me it’s the best time of the year. The days are rare gifts. The sun isn’t as hot as an oven but warms you gently, delightfully. The woods are still green, the pines give off their pungent tar aroma, and the woods look like they’re dressed for the holidays, like God’s succah. Right here, I thought, is where God celebrates Succos, not in town where it is noisy with people running around, panting for breath, chasing after a crust of bread, and all you hear is money, money, money!
I have not yet talked about the nights of Hoshana Raba. They are like paradise. The sky is dark blue, and the stars twinkle, shimmer, shine, and blink like human eyes. And sometimes a star shoots through the sky like an arrow, leaving behind a momentary green trail. It is a falling star — someone’s luck has fallen. As many stars as there are, that is how many Jewish fates there are. May it not be my bad luck, I thought, and Hodl came to mind. In the last few days she seemed to revive, to become livelier — her face changed. Someone had brought her a letter from him, her shlimazel. I really wanted to know what he was writing, but I didn’t want to ask. If she wouldn’t talk, I wouldn’t talk. Sha! Tevye is not a woman. Tevye has time.
As I was thinking about Hodl, along she came. She sat down next to me on the stoop, looked to all sides, and said to me quietly: “Listen to me, Papa. I have something to tell you. I must say goodbye to you now — forever.”
She said it so quietly, I could barely hear her. I will never forget the way she looked at me. I thought she meant she was going to drown herself. Why? Recently, may it not happen to anyone, a girl living not far from us fell in love with a village Gentile, and because of him — well, you know what happened. On account of that her mother became sick and died, and her father let his business go and became a pauper. The village Gentile thought it over and decided to go off with someone else. The girl then went to the river, threw herself in, and drowned herself.
“What do you mean?” I said. “You are saying goodbye to me forever?” And I looked down so she would not see my stricken face.
“It means,” she said, “I am going away tomorrow, very early, and we will never see each other. . never again.”
Ah, she was not thinking of harming herself — my heart was eased. It could have been worse, but it could also have been better. “Whereto,” I said, “if I may have the honor of knowing?”
“I am going to him.”
“To him? Where is he now?”
“For the time being,” she said, “he is in prison, but soon they will be sending him away.”
“Are you going to say goodbye to him?” I was playing dumb.
“No, I am going to follow him there.”
“There? Where is that? What do they call the place?”
“We don’t know exactly what it’s called, but it’s far away, terribly far, and the way is dangerous.”
She seemed to be speaking with pride, as if he had done some great deed for which he deserved a medal made from a pound of iron! What could I say? Most fathers would have scolded her, slapped her, punished her, or they would have imagined all the worst that could happen to her. But Tevye is not a woman. I am of the opinion that anger is the work of the devil. And so I replied as usual with a commentary: “I see, my daughter, that you have made your decision. As it says in the Holy Torah, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother. Because of Fefferl you are abandoning your parents and going off to a place you don’t know, somewhere — as I once read in a storybook — over a desert beyond the frozen sea, where Alexander of Macedonia sailed and was lost on a distant island among wild savages.”
I said it half-jokingly, half in anger, as my heart was breaking. But Tevye is not a woman, Tevye kept it inside himself.