My brother Elyahu is already a grown-up, or she wouldn’t be asking his opinion. He strokes his bare, not-yet-bearded face as if he already had a beard and speaks like an adult. “Whatever you say, so long as he doesn’t get into trouble.”
And so I’ll stay with our neighbor for the time being, but on condition I don’t get into trouble. To them, whatever you do is called getting into trouble! Tying a piece of paper onto the cat’s tail so she’ll run in circles, to them is getting into trouble. Running a stick across the priest’s grating in the courtyard to attract all the dogs, to them is getting into trouble. Pulling out the stopper of Leibke the water-carrier’s barrel so half the water runs out, to them is getting into trouble.
“You’re lucky you’re an orphan,” Leibke the water-carrier says to me, “or else I’d break your bones! You better believe me!”
I really believe him. I know he won’t touch me now because I am an orphan.
I have it good — I am an orphan.
D.
Our neighbor Pessi, you should pardon me, told a big lie. She said twelve were eating at her table, but according to my count, I’m the fourteenth. It appears she forgot to include among the eaters Boruch the blind uncle. And maybe she didn’t include him because he’s so old and has no teeth. I won’t argue. He can’t chew, but he can swallow like a goose, and he grabs. Everybody grabs. The way they grab is out of the ordinary. I grab too. They hit me. They kick me under the table, and more than all of them, Vashti hits me. Vashti is a terror. His name is Hershl, but since he has a birthmark on his forehead, he is called Vashti. I haven’t the faintest idea why. They all have nicknames like Barrel, Tomcat, Buffalo, Stork, Stutterer, Give-Me-More, and Smear-with-Butter.
You can be sure every nickname has a reason. Pinni is called Barrel because he is fat and round like a barrel. Velvl is dark-skinned, so he is called Tomcat. Chaim looks like a buffalo, so he is called Buffalo. Mendl has a pointy nose, so he is called Stork. Feitl is named Stutterer because he can’t speak right. Berl is a big nosher. If you give him a piece of bread with chicken fat, he says, “Give me more.” Zorach got a bad name, Smear-with-Butter, for something that’s not his fault. His mother may be to blame because she neglected to wash his greasy hair during childhood. Then again, maybe she isn’t to blame at all. I’m not going to argue, let alone fight over it!
In short, it’s a household in which everyone has a nickname. Even the cat, just a dumb animal, surely innocent, is called Feige-Leah the Beadle’s Wife. Do you know why? It’s because she’s fat like Feige-Leah, Nachman the beadle’s wife. Can you imagine how many slaps they caught for naming a cat after a person? It did no good. Once you give someone a nickname, it sticks!
E.
They gave me a nickname too. Try and guess: Lips (Motl-with-the-Lips). It seems they don’t like my lips. They say I make noise with them when I eat. I would very much like to see anyone eat and not make noise with his lips! I’m not among those oversensitive people who hate to be criticized, but I really hate this nickname! I don’t understand why. But because I hate it, they taunt me with it all the time. You’ve never seen such nasty creatures! At first I was called Motl-with-the-Lips, then it was shortened to With-the-Lips, and later it became The Lips, and finally Lips.
“Lips! Where have you been?”
“Lips! Wipe your nose!”
It infuriates me, really hurts my feelings and makes me cry. Their father Moishe the bookbinder once saw me crying and asked me, “Why are you crying?”
I told him, “Why shouldn’t I cry when my name is Motl and they call me Lips!”
“Who?”
“Vashti.”
He turned to punish Vashti, but Vashti said, “It’s not me, it’s Barrel.”
He went to punish Barrel, and Barrel said, “It’s not me, it’s Tomcat.”
So it went from one to the other — a tale without end! Moishe the bookbinder thought it over, laid them down one at a time, and spanked them all with the cover of a prayer book.
“Good-for-nothings!” he said to them. “I’ll teach you to tease an orphan!”
That’s the way it goes! Everyone stands up for me. Everyone, everyone takes my part.
I have it good — I am an orphan.
III
WHAT’S TO BECOME OF ME?
A.
Guess where paradise is. You can’t in a million years. Do you know why? Because it is in a different place for everyone. My mother says that paradise is where my father is. That’s where you’ll find all the poor worthy souls who suffered on earth. Because they didn’t have a good life on earth, they deserve a place in paradise. That is as clear as day. And my father is the best evidence. Where else could he be if not in paradise? Didn’t he suffer enough on this earth? So says my mother, wiping her eyes as she usually does when she speaks of my father.
But if you ask my friends, they’ll tell you that paradise is found somewhere on a mountain of pure crystal, as high as the sky, where boys do whatever they please. They don’t go to school, but all day they bathe in milk and eat honey by the fistful. Are you ready for this one? Along comes this Jew and says that true paradise is in the bathhouse on Fridays. I heard it myself from our neighbor’s husband Moishe the bookbinder, so you can believe me. Is there an end to these stories?
If you ask me, I’d say that paradise is Menashe the doctor’s garden. As long as you’ve lived, you’ve never seen a garden like that. It is the most beautiful garden, not only on our street, not only in our town, but in the whole world. There isn’t another garden like it — there never was and never will be! Everyone will tell you that.
What do you want me to describe first — Menashe the doctor and his wife, or shall I first describe paradise, I mean their garden? Let me tell you first about Menashe and his wife. The owners should get the first introduction.
B.
Winter and summer Menashe the doctor wears a high collar, copying the swarthy doctor who visited my father. Menashe has one eye smaller than the other, and his mouth seems to twist to the side, not a little but quite a lot. As he tells it, a draft caused it. I can’t understand how a whole mouth can get twisted to the side by a draft. How many drafts, big and little, have I lived through in my life! My whole head would by now be twisted around to my back. I figure it’s really out of habit; it’s how you get used to holding your mouth. Take my friend Berl, who blinks his eyes. Another friend, Velvl, sounds as if he’s slurping noodles and soup when he talks. Everything is a habit. Even though his mouth is twisted to the side, still and all Menashe does better than any other doctor. First of all, he isn’t full of himself like other doctors. When you call him, he comes running immediately all sweated up.
And second of all, it isn’t his way to write prescriptions. He makes the medicines himself. Once I had a sticking pain, a chill, and the shivers, and my mother ran right over and brought home Menashe the doctor. He examined me and told her with his twisted mouth, “You don’t need to worry. It’s nothing at all. The little scamp caught a cold in his lung.”
And with these words he took out of his pocket a blue bottle and poured white powder into six pieces of paper. One powder he told me to take right away. I turned and twisted all around — my heart told me it would be bitter as death. And it was. I was right! There’s nothing more bitter. Have you ever tasted the fresh bark from a young tree? That’s how his powder tasted. Just remember — if it’s a powder, it has to be bitter. My thrashing around didn’t help me one bit. I swallowed the powder and thought I was going to die. He told my mother to give me the other five powders every two hours. He really thought he had found a willing taker of bitter medicine! When my mother turned around for a minute to tell my brother Elyahu I was sick, I poured all five powders into the trash and later replaced them all with flour.