C.
Berreh the shoemaker is also here. This is the Berreh whose mice my brother Elyahu once tried to drive away. If you recall, Berreh likes to exaggerate, to think up things that aren’t true and never were true. In other words, he’s a liar. Here they call it a bluffer. He works as a shoemaker as he did at home. He tells stories about his work that even if a third of it were true, it would still be good. He says he is the greatest shoemaker in America. His shoes, he says, are known all across the country. He swears that the president himself has ordered a pair of boots from him. My brother Elyahu says that story is as true as the one Berreh the shoemaker once told us about the mice eating his cat.
D.
Who else shall I tell you about? Reb Yossi the rich man, who all of us wished we had a third of his wealth, is also in America, but he isn’t rich anymore. What happened? It was the pogrom that did him in. He personally didn’t suffer that much from the pogrom, but thieves cleaned him out, smashed his furniture, ripped apart the bedding, stole merchandise from his shop. But they did not beat him or his family, because they were all hiding in the cellar for three days and nights. They almost died of hunger. And to make matters worse, all his debtors went bankrupt, and he went bankrupt too. Who would have foreseen that a respectable man like Reb Yossi would have to pack up and escape from Kasrilevka?
He fled in the middle of the night. And where to? To America. Do you remember how his son Cross-Eyed Henich laughed at me for going to America? Now he’s wandering the streets. He runs away when he catches sight of me. To this day he can’t bring himself to speak to me. My friend Mendl says he’s got to blacken Henich’s other eye. He hates when somebody acts superior or is conceited.
E.
Best of all, Menashe the doctor and his wife are also here. I’m sure you remember their garden full of berries, pears, grapes, and fruit. That has all gone up in smoke and fire. The pogromchiks burned their house down together with the garden, destroyed it all right down to the ground. You wouldn’t recognize the two of them. They’ve both turned gray and old. He pushes a pushcart with apples and oranges, and she peddles Wissotzky’s tea. “God help us,” my mother says with tears in her eyes, “that it had to come to this.”
“Serves them right!” says my brother Elyahu, and I agree with him. Serves them both right! She was a witch, begrudging a poor man a rotten apple that fell from the tree. She thinks I forgot that incident when they caught me picking apples from her garden. I’ll remember it as long as I live!
F.
During the time we were making our way through country after country, at home the pogrom was destroying the shops and burning down the homes of our Kasrilevka Jews. Most likely the old house we sold to Zili the tailor was also burned down — Zili is now here too, still working as a tailor. The difference is that there he was his own boss and here in America he works for someone else. Off and on he works as an apprentice pants presser, or he operates a sewing machine. He says he earns his seven or eight dollars a week, which would not be enough for him to manage on. His three girls bring in three times as much as he does making shirts.
G.
Except for our friend Pinni’s family, most of Kasrilevka is now in America, and most likely the rest are getting ready to come as well. Pinni’s father Hersh-Leib the mechanic and his uncle Shneur the watchmaker write to Pinni that they would have left long ago but didn’t have the means. They ask Pinni to send them ship tickets. We’re saving every penny, and when we collect a few dollars to put down a deposit, we’ll send them the tickets. With God’s help, they’ll certainly pay us back, because they’re not coming with unskilled hands. Hersh-Leib the mechanic writes that he has invented a new kind of stove that requires much less wood, hardly any at all. How can this be? That’s his secret. And Shneur the watchmaker has invented a clock whose wonders all of America will come running to see. What kind of clock is it? Just listen to what they write Pinni from home.
H.
The clock itself is an ordinary wall clock with an ordinary face. But if you look closely at the face, you’ll see drawn on it the sun, the moon, and twelve stars. During the day you’ll see the sun, and at night, the moon and stars. That’s not all — just wait. Every time the clock chimes twelve, a little door opens right in front of your eyes, and out comes an officer with a sword followed by twelve soldier-musicians. The officer waves a sword, and the twelve soldiers play a march and then disappear. The door shuts, and it’s over! Don’t you think someone can make a lot of money with this kind of clock in America? Pinni’s uncle has spent many years working on this clock. It was almost ready, but during the pogrom it was broken to bits. But it doesn’t matter. The secret of the clock remains in his head, and when he gets to America, it will be, as they say here, all right.
I.
And how we’re making a living, I still haven’t said. I’ll leave that for tomorrow.
XII
WE’RE MAKING A LIVING
A.
My brother Elyahu is the first one to start making a living. And whom does he have to thank? My mother. Every Shabbes she prays at the Kasrilevka synagogue, where she meets people. She became acquainted with the president’s wife, a fine woman who is fond of my mother because my mother always knows on what page in the prayer book the cantor is singing. Bruche says the local women don’t know anything about praying. She says the only reason they go to shul at all is to show off their diamonds. “Begging your pardon, but they are fat cows,” she says, “and don’t know a cross from an aleph. All they do is stuff their mouths and gossip.” My mother interrupts her, “My dear daughter, this too is gossip.” Bruche justifies herself by saying she is permitted because she is saying this to her own family, not to strangers. But let’s get back to the president’s wife and her husband.
B.
Have you ever heard of the Hebrew National Sausage Company? They sell Jewish kosher sausages, dried stuffed derma, roasted tongue, and smoked meats. On every corner of the city they have stores where people come to buy kosher sausages. If you’re hungry and have time, you order hot little sausages right out of the pot, and you eat them with horseradish or mustard, whichever you prefer. If you aren’t short of money, you can order another portion. I and my friend Mendl once put away three portions and felt we could eat another two, but we ran out of money. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about.