Best of all is the konneh. Do you know what that is? It’s the horse market, where they buy and sell horses. Here you can see all kinds of horses, along with gypsies, Jews, peasants, and gentry. The noise is not to be described — you can go deaf. The gypsies curse, the Jews clap their hands together, the rich folks crack their whips, and the horses run back and forth at top speed. I love to watch the horses running, especially the colts! I would give my life for a colt! I love everything smalclass="underline" puppies, kittens. You know, I even like small cucumbers, young little potatoes, onions, garlic. I like everything small — except piglets. I hate even small-size grown-up pigs.
Let me return to the horses. They run. The colts run after them. I run after the colts. We all run. At running I’m a whiz. I’ve got very light feet, and I go barefoot. I wear a light shirt, a pair of short trousers, and a cotton arbe kanfes, an undergarment with four corner tassels that no Jew can be without. When I run downhill, the tassels loosen in the wind, and I imagine I have wings and am flying.
“Motl! God be with you! Stop a minute!” shouts Pessi’s husband Moishe the bookbinder. He’s heading home from the fair with a pack of paper. I am afraid he’ll tattle on me to my mother, and then my brother Elyahu will yell at me. I stop running and walk slowly to my neighbor’s husband with lowered eyes.
He puts down the pack of paper, wipes the sweat with the hem of his shirt, and gives me a sermon. “How is a young orphan boy not ashamed to be hanging around gypsies and running wild with all the horses? Especially on this day! Your brother’s wedding ceremony is starting very soon, do you know that? Go home!”
D.
“Where have you been? God help you!” My mother claps her hands together and looks over my torn pants, my bloodied feet, and my flaming, flushed face. Long live Moishe the bookbinder — he didn’t breathe a word to her! My mother washes me off and puts a pair of new pants and a little cap on me for the wedding. The pants are made of some I-don’t-know-what fabric. When you take them off, they stand up on their own, and when you walk, they screech — strange pants!
“If you tear these pants, it’ll be the end of the world!” my mother says, and I agree. But these pants can’t be torn unless you break them. The little cap is great, with a shiny black visor. If it stops shining, you spit on it, and it gets shiny again. My mother glows with pride and tears roll down her wrinkled cheeks. She’s eager for me to be a success at the wedding. She says to the groom, “Elyahu! What do you think? He won’t put me to shame, will he? He’s dressed, kayn eyn horeh, like a prince.”
My brother Elyahu looks me over, strokes his little beard, and his eyes stop at my feet. He sees that the “prince” is barefoot. My mother sees it too but pretends not to. She’s wearing an odd yellow dress that I’ve never seen on her. It’s too big for her — I swear I once saw it on our neighbor Pessi. But she’s also wearing a brand-new silk head scarf that still has the original folds. The color of the head scarf is difficult to describe. It might be white, or yellow, or rose — it depends on the time of day. During the day it’s light rose, but in the evening it looks yellowish, and at night — white. Early in the morning it seems greenish, and sometimes if you look very hard it appears to be a light-rose-blue-dark-green-ash-gray. You can’t find fault with that head scarf — it’s a rarity. But it looks odd on my mother, very odd. Somehow it doesn’t fit her face. The head scarf is one thing and her face is another. A woman’s head scarf is like a man’s hat. The hat and the face must match and look as if they go together.
My brother Elyahu’s hat looks like it belongs on his head. His sidelocks are now shaved clean off. He’s put on a white shirt with a hard collar and turned-up ends. His expensive new white and red tie has green and blue polka dots! The shiny, squeaky boots he bought have very high heels so he’ll look taller. But they’ll do him no good — he’s still too short. But he is not as short as his bride is large and tall, built more like a man. Her face is ruddy and pockmarked. Her voice sounds like a man’s. I’m speaking of Yoneh the baker’s daughter. Her name is Bruche.
It’s a pleasure to see the couple under the wedding canopy, but I don’t have that much time to look at them. I’m busy. I have to look at the musicians, and not so much at the musicians as at their instruments, especially the contrabass and the kettledrum — two beautiful instruments! The problem is, I can’t get close enough to try them. Right away the musicians slap my hand or twist my ear. They go out of their minds if you so much as touch their instrument with the tip of a finger! They’re afraid you might break it! Ah, if my mother were a good mother, she’d let me become a musician, but that’s not what she wants for me. Not because she’s bad but because the world won’t allow Peysi the cantor’s son to be a musician. Neither a musician nor a workingman. They’ve already discussed what’s to become of me more than once — my mother, my brother Elyahu, our neighbor Pessi, and her husband Moishe the bookbinder. Moishe wants to take me on and teach me his trade, but Pessi won’t allow it. She says that Peysi the cantor, may he rest in peace, did not deserve to have his son become a workingman.
I get off track and forget about the wedding. Long after the ceremony, people are getting ready to eat. The women and the young girls are dancing a quadrille. I move into the middle with my stiff trousers. The dancers pick me up and toss me from one to the other like a ball.
“Who is this pain in the neck?” one says. “Some shlimazel!” says another.
Pessi sees this and shouts in a voice already hoarse, “Are you crazy or out of your minds, or sick in the head? This is the groom’s little brother!”
Aha! That hits home. They set me down at the table on the bride’s side. And do you know who they seat me next to? If you had eighteen heads, you could not guess! They seat me with the bride’s little sister, Yoneh the baker’s younger daughter, whose name is Alteh. She’s only a year older than I am, and she wears two braids tied together with ribbons like a braided bagel. Alteh and I eat from one plate not far from the newlyweds. My brother Elyahu signals with a look that I should sit like a mensch, use a fork, chew my food, and blow my nose. I tell you, I’m not enjoying this meal. I hate being looked at. On top of all that, just my luck, here comes our neighbor Pessi.
“May you have a long life!” she shouts to my mother. “Just look over here! Why shouldn’t there be another wedding? A match made in heaven!”
At this, Yoneh the baker appears, dressed in his holiday best, and he and Pessi decide that Alteh and I will one day be bride and groom. He laughs with only half a mouth, which means his upper lip is laughing and his lower one is crying. The whole crowd turns its attention to us. Alteh and I look down under the table and choke with laughter. In order not to explode, I hold my nose and blow up like a balloon. In a second the balloon will burst, and there will be the devil to pay. Luckily the musicians strike up a lively tune, a vollach. The crowd quiets down. I raise my head and see my mother in her queer yellow dress and silk head scarf. She is doing what she always does — crying! Do you think she will ever stop crying?
V
I HAVE A GOOD-PAYING JOB
A.