My brother Elyahu stops at the last recipe. By making a drink, you can earn even more than a hundred rubles a month — that’s what it explicitly says in the book. And you don’t have to mess with ink or shoe wax or with mice or cockroaches. The question is only which drink to make. For liqueurs and brandy you need Rothschild’s fortune, and for lemonade and soda water you need some kind of gadget that costs who knows how much! So one drink remains: kvass! Kvass is cheap to make and is much in demand, especially in hot summers like this one. Boruch the kvass-maker, you must know, became a rich man. He makes bottled kvass, and it’s known everywhere. It shoots out of the bottles like a cannon. What makes it shoot out? No one knows — that’s Boruch’s secret. He adds something that makes it shoot out. Some say it’s raisins. Some say it’s hops. Come summer, he has more business than he can handle. That’s how much money he earns!
The kvass my brother Elyahu concocts according to the recipe is not bottled kvass, and it doesn’t shoot out. Ours is a different kind of drink. How it’s made, I cannot tell you. My brother Elyahu doesn’t let anyone near while he’s making it. Only when he pours the water in are we allowed to look. But to do the serious part, he locks himself in my mother’s room. Not I, not my mother, not my sister-in-law Bruche — no one has the privilege of witnessing it. But if you promise you’ll keep it a secret, I’ll tell you what’s in that drink, because I’ve seen what he prepares beforehand — lemon peel, honey, and something they call cream of tartar, which is as sour as vinegar. The rest — water. Water is the main ingredient. The more water, the more kvass. The ingredients are all mixed together thoroughly with an ordinary stick — that’s what it says in the book — and the drink is ready. Then you pour it into a large jug and throw in a chunk of ice. Ice is the most important thing! Without ice it isn’t worth drinking. I once tasted a little kvass without ice, and I thought it was the end of my life!
C.
Once the first batch of kvass is ready, I’m the one to peddle it on the street. Who else but me? For my brother Elyahu, it wouldn’t be proper. After all, he’s a married man. My mother — certainly not. We’d never allow our mother to go with a jug through the marketplace crying, “Kvass! Kvass! People, kvass!” All agree it has to be my job. I think so too. I’m thrilled to hear the news. My brother Elyahu teaches me what to do. I have to hold the jug by a cord in one hand and the glass in the other hand. To get people to stop, I have to sing in a loud voice:
I’ve already told you that I have a nice soprano voice, inherited from my father, of blessed memory. I sing out loud and clear, turning the words inside out:
I don’t know whether they like my singing so much or the drink is so good or the day is so hot, but I sell out the first jug in half an hour and come home with almost three-quarters of a ruble. My brother Elyahu gives the money to our mother and refills my jug. If I can run that circuit five or six times a day, he says, we’ll earn exactly one hundred rubles a month. Deduct, if you please, the four Sabbaths in the month, and you’ll see how much the drink costs us to make and what kind of a percentage we earn from it. The drink costs us very little — one can say, almost nothing. All the money goes for ice, so we have to sell the first jugful fast so we can use the block of ice for a second jug and a third and so on. I move fast with the drink, really run with it, while crowds of Jewish and Gentile boys tag after me. They mimic my singing, but I pay them no heed. My aim is to empty the jug as quickly as possible so I can run home for another one.
I don’t know how much I made that first day. I only know that my brother Elyahu, my sister-in-law Bruche, and my mother really praise me. For supper I’m served a piece each of cantaloupe and watermelon and two prunes and, of course, kvass. We all drink kvass like water. Before I go to sleep on my place on the floor, my mother asks me if my legs ache. My brother Elyahu laughs at her and says I’m the kind of boy whom nothing ever bothers.
“Absolutely!” I say. “If you need proof, I’ll go out right now with the jug in the middle of the night.”
All three laugh at my cleverness. But in my mother’s eyes I see tears welling. Well, that’s an old story — a mother has to cry! Do all mothers cry as much as my mother does?
D.
We are, kayn eyn horeh, on a lucky streak. Each day is hotter than the one before. They are scorchers! People are passing out from the heat, children are dropping like flies. If not for that glass of kvass, they would burn up. I’m returning with the jug, without exaggeration, ten times a day! My brother Elyahu squints into the jug with one eye and says it’s almost empty. Then he hits on an idea and pours in a few more pails of water. I had this idea even before he did. I must confess to you that I did some mischief a few times.
Almost every day I drop into our neighbor Pessi’s and let her sample a glass of our very own drink. I give her husband Moishe the bookbinder two glasses. He’s a fine fellow. Each child also gets a glass. Let them all know what a good drink we make! The uncle gets a glassful — a pity on him, he’s blind! All my friends get some kvass, free of charge, without paying a kopek! But in order to make up for the loss, I add water. For each glass of kvass I give away free, I add two glasses of water. We do the same at home. After my brother Elyahu drinks a glass of kvass, he immediately pours in water. He’s right — it’s a shame to waste even a kopek. My sister-in-law Bruche drinks a few glasses (she’s crazy about my brother Elyahu’s kvass!) and replaces them with water. If my mother feels like a glass of kvass (she has to be asked — she won’t take any herself!) — fill it up with water!
Anyhow, not a drop is wasted, and we’re taking in good money, kayn eyn horeh. My mother pays bills and redeems some necessary items from the pawnshop, like bedding. A table and a bench appear in the house. For Shabbes we have fish, meat, and white challah. They promise me that, God willing, for the holidays I’ll have a new pair of shoes. I’m sure no one in the world can be as happy as I am!
E.
Be a prophet and know that a tragedy will befall us, and that our drink will become unfit to drink, good only to be poured onto the slop pile. I’m lucky not to have been dragged off to the police station. Listen to this story!
One day I wander over to our neighbor with my jug of kvass. Everyone starts drinking it, I among them. I figure I’m down twelve or thirteen glasses and go to the place for water. But instead of finding the water barrel, I apparently go to the tub where the laundry is washed. I pour fifteen or twenty glasses of soapy water into my jug and go merrily on my way down the street singing a new song that I myself made up: