A man stops me and pays a kopek for a glass of kvass. He downs the glassful and screws up his face. “Little boy! What kind of drink is this?”
I pay him no heed. Two more people are waiting to be served. One sips half a glass, the other a third of a glass. They pay, spit out the drink, and walk away. Another brings the glass to his lips and tastes it. He says it smells like soap and tastes salty. Another looks at the glass and returns it to me. “What is this?”
“It’s a drink, that’s what it is,” I say.
“A drink?” he exclaims. “That’s a stink, not a drink!”
Someone else tastes the drink and splashes it right in my face. In a minute a whole circle of men, women, and children surround me, all yammering, gesticulating, fuming. A Russian policeman comes by and, seeing the angry crowd, asks what is going on. They tell him. He peers into my jug and asks for a sample. I pour him a glass of kvass. He drinks it down and spits it out, becoming enraged.
“Where did you get this slop?” he demands.
“It’s from a book,” I say to him, “my brother’s business. My brother made it himself.”
“Who is your brother?” he asks me.
“My brother Elyahu.”
“Who is this Elyahu?”
“Speak not, foolish youth, concerning thy brother!” Several Jews speak in a mixture of Hebrew and English designed to baffle the policeman’s understanding. The crowd becomes unruly, noisy, about to riot. New people arrive on the scene. The Russian policeman takes me by the hand and is about to haul me and my drink right over to the station. The shouting becomes louder—“An orphan! A poor orphan!” I hear from all sides. I’m in a tight spot. I look at the crowd surrounding me. “Jews, have pity!” I exclaim.
They try to bribe the policeman, but he refuses. An old Jew with shifty eyes cries out to me in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish, “Motl! Pull thy hand away from the Russian policeman and take to thy heels as fast as thou canst!”
I tear away and run full speed home.
Half-dead, I burst into my house.
“Where’s the jug?” my brother Elyahu asks.
“At the police station!” I answer, and run into my mother’s arms, in tears.
VIII
WE FLOOD THE WORLD WITH INK
A.
Oh, am I a fool! Because I’ve sold soapy, spoiled kvass, I thought surely the police would behead me! But in the end nothing happened. My fears were groundless. “Didn’t Yente sell tallow for goose fat? And didn’t Gedalye the butcher feed the whole town for an entire year with unkosher meat?” That’s how our neighbor Pessi consoles my mother. My mother! She takes everything to heart. That’s why I love my brother Elyahu. He doesn’t think worse of himself because we were burned by the kvass. As long as he has the book, he’s happy, the book he bought for a ruble, called From One Ruble — A Hundred! He sits and learns it by heart. By now he knows almost all the recipes, how to make ink, how to make shoe wax, and how to get rid of mice, cockroaches, and other vermin.
Now he decides to make ink. Ink, he says, is a good product. Everyone has to write. He asks Yudl the writing teacher how much he spent on ink. “A fortune!” he says.
Yudl teaches writing to about sixty girls. Boys don’t study with him. They’re afraid of him. He spanks them or strikes them over their hands with a ruler. You can’t hit girls, and you certainly can’t spank them. I wish I was born a girl. I wouldn’t have to pray every day. I’m sick of it — every day the same thing. And I wouldn’t have to go to Hebrew school. Now I go there half a day. What I learn, you can put on the head of a pin, but of slaps there are more than enough. You think the slaps come from the rebbe? No, they come from his wife, the rebbetzin. What business is it of hers that I feed the cat? You should see her cat — God’s pity on it! She’s always hungry. She mews quietly to herself, whining like a human being, forgive the comparison. It can tear your heart out! They have not one drop of pity. If she so much as goes over to sniff someone, they scream at her, “Scat!” and she scurries off in a shot. They don’t let her get away with anything. Once she was lost for a few days. I thought she was dead for sure. But it turned out she had had kittens. But I must return to my brother Elyahu’s ink.
B.
My brother Elyahu says the world isn’t what it used to be. Once upon a time, to make ink you had to buy black walnuts, chop them up, cook them on the fire for who knew how long, and then pour in some copper water; and to make the ink shiny, you had to add sugar — a big fuss! Today, he says, it’s as easy as pie! You buy special powders and a bottle of glycerin at the apothecary, mix them with water, boil it on the fire — presto! Ink. So says my brother Elyahu.
He goes off to the apothecary and brings back a bag of the special powders and a large bottle of glycerin. Then he locks himself up in my mother’s room and does something — what, I don’t know. It’s a secret. With him everything is a secret. When he needs the pestle from the mortar, he calls my mother over and whispers, “Mama! The pestle from the mortar!” He mixes the powders and the glycerin in a very large pot, a new one he bought. He shoves the pot into the oven and whispers to my mother to lock the door.
We can’t imagine what’s going on. My mother glances at the oven every minute, scared it will explode. Then we roll in a kvass jug. Carefully we remove the pot from the oven and pour the mixture into the jug. Then we pour water in until the jug is filled a little more than halfway.
My brother Elyahu says, “Enough!” and consults the book From One Ruble — A Hundred! In a whisper he asks for a pen and a sheet of white paper. “These are the ones we write petitions with,” he whispers in my mother’s ear. He dips the pen into the jug and writes something on the white sheet of paper with a swirl and a flourish. He shows the writing first to my mother, then to my sister-in-law Bruche.
Both look at it and say to him, “It writes!”
They get back to work. After pouring in a few more pails of water, my brother Elyahu raises his hand and says, “Enough!” Again he dips the pen into the jug, again he writes something on the paper, and again shows the writing to my mother and my sister-in-law Bruche.
Again they both look at the paper and say, “It writes!”
This they do several times until the jug is full to the brim. There is no room for any more water. Then my brother Elyahu raises his hand and says, “Enough!” and the four of us sit down to supper.
C.
After supper we busy ourselves pouring the ink into bottles. My brother Elyahu has collected bottles from all over, all kinds of bottles and flasks, big and little, beer bottles, wine bottles, kvass bottles, whiskey bottles, and just plain bottles. He has also bought up old corks to save money. He bought a new funnel and an old quart measure with which to pour the ink from the jug into the bottles. Here he again whispers into my mother’s ear to lock the door. Then the four of us get down to work.
The work is divided evenly. My sister-in-law Bruche rinses out the bottles and hands them to my mother. My mother examines each bottle and then gives them over to me. I place the funnel in each one and hold it there with one hand and the bottle with the other. And my brother Elyahu has only one job: to pour the ink from the jug into the quart measure and then into the funnel and the bottles. The work is enjoyable and pleasant. The only problem is the ink. It stains your fingers, your hands, your nose, your whole face. Both of us, I and my brother Elyahu, look as black as devils. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my mother laugh. And you can imagine my sister-in-law Bruche — she almost splits her sides laughing. My brother Elyahu hates when someone laughs at him. He gets angry at my sister-in-law Bruche and demands to know why she’s laughing. That makes her laugh even harder. He gets even angrier, and she laughs all the more. The laughter keeps coming, in uncontrollable spasms! My mother finally begs her to stop and tells us to go wash up. But my brother Elyahu doesn’t have time. The last thing on his mind is washing. All he thinks of is filling the bottles.