They rushed through their prayers and hurried out with me on their heels. “Well?” I asked. “Shhh!” they said. “Not here in the street! You don’t know this blamed town. Keep following us. We’ll settle things at home and have a bite to eat.” And with that Hook Nose makes a sign to Shifty Eye and Shifty Eye vanishes and leaves me alone in the dark alleys with Hook Nose. I walked behind him until we got there.
The room we entered was small, dark, and smoky. Flies crawled on the walls and ceiling; a lamp with a paper shade painted with faded flowers hung above a table covered by a red cloth. By the stove stood a small, grease-stained woman, looking pale and frightened. She gave Hook Nose a questioning look. “Food!” he said, walking by her. In no time there were rolls, appetizers, and a bottle of brandy on the table. Soon Shifty Eye arrived. Waddling behind him was a three-hundred-pound behemoth with a big blue nose, two hairy mitts for hands, and the strangest legs you ever saw. They started out huge and grew so thin toward the bottom that you wondered how they could hold him.
This was the Moldavian gentleman, who spied the brandy bottle and let out a great rumble from his stomach that sounded like: “Otse dobre dilo!” And so we each had a swallow of brandy (the gentleman had two) and chatted about the grain crop until Shifty Eye turned to me and whispered: “The man is loaded! He has 10,000 bushels of wheat, to say nothing of oats. Don’t be misled by how shabbily he’s dressed. He’s a terrible skinflint.” Meanwhile, Hook Nose is advising the gentleman to keep his wheat in storage until winter when prices will rise. “Otse dobre dilo!” says the gentleman, emptying more glasses between mouthfuls of food, which he’s putting away as though there’s no tomorrow. He blows his nose and lets out a big burp and when he’s finished Hook Nose says: “Now we can get down to business!”
Well, I sat that Moldavian gentleman down in a corner and gave him such a spiel that I can’t tell you where it came from. I explained how important it was to have life ensurance. It didn’t matter, I said, if you were as rich as Rothschild. In fact, the richer you were, the more you needed ensurance, because an old age lived in poverty was harder on a rich man. A beggar, I said, was used to it, but a rich man would rather die first. “Otse dobre dilo!” says the gentleman, passing more wind like a bellows. I was still working up a full head of steam when Hook Nose interrupts, using Hebrew words the gentleman can’t follow. “That’s enough dabern!” he says. “Go get some niyor and ksive what you have to!” So Shifty Eye brings a pen and paper and I write out a policy for the gentleman to sign. He looks at it, he does, and breaks into such a sweat that he can barely write his name. Then I take him to the doctor for a checkup, receive a first payment, write out a receipt, and the deal is done.
Back I go to my inn in fine fettle and order a meal. “So what’s new?” asks the innkeeper when he sees me. “What should be new?” I say. “I understand you deserve to be congratulated,” says the innkeeper. “What for?” I ask. “For selling a policy,” he says. “What policy is that?” I ask, playing innocent. “The one you sold to the Christian,” he says. “What Christian is that?” I ask. “The fat landowner,” he says. “But how do you know,” I ask, “that I sold a policy to a Christian landowner?” “What I know,” says the innkeeper, “is that he’s a landowner as much as you are.” “Then what is he?” I ask. “The bogeyman,” says the innkeeper, laughing right in my face. I turned pale, sat down, and begged him to explain what he meant. How did he know what I had been up to?
Well, he finally realized I knew nothing, felt sorry for me, took me to the next room, and told me things about my two associates that made my hair stand on end. They were, it seemed, common swindlers; a worse pair of rascals couldn’t be found. “They’ve broken enough laws,” said the innkeeper, “to be sent a long way up the river. It’s their good luck that they always find someone else to take the rap. Your rich Moldavian is a bum, a rip-snorting, God-awful drunk, not the man in whose name you wrote the policy. If he’s not already pushing up daisies, you can bet he soon will be. Do you get the picture?”
I nearly passed out when I heard that. A lot of good my new clothes would do me if I had to wear them to prison! I ran to the station as fast as my legs could carry me, hoping not to bump into my two friends. May they rot in hell with their Moldavian gentleman, and their lousy town, and their blasted Bessarabia, and their damned Acquitable, and the whole bloody business of death ensurance! Surely God can provide better livelihoods. I only pray I reach my destination safely — and since I have a long way to go, I’ll be brief. God willing, I’ll write more from Hamburg. Meanwhile, may He grant you health and success. Say hello to the children, bless them. God keep them healthy and strong until we meet again in better times. My fondest greetings to your parents and to everyone.
Your husband,
Menakhem-Mendl
P.S. I forgot to tell you where I’m going. I’m off to America, my dear wife! And not just me. A whole crowd is traveling with me. That is, each of us is heading for Hamburg and from there to America. Why America? Because they say it’s the place for Jews. The streets, they say, are paved with gold and money is dished out by the plateful. Why, a day’s work is worth a whole dollar there! And the Jews, they say, are lapping up the cream. Everyone says that in America, God willing, I’ll be a big hit. The whole world is going because there’s no future here, you can’t do business any more. And if everyone is doing it, why not me? What’s there to lose? I only hope you don’t have too a hard time of it, my dear, or think too badly of me. I swear always to remember you and the children, God bless them. I’ll work day and night, nothing will get in my way. And if the Lord lends a hand and I do well (and I’m as sure to as day follows night!) I’ll buy tickets for you all and send for you. You’ll live like a princess there — you’ll have nothing but the best — I won’t let a hair fall from your head. Upon my word, it’s time you saw a bit of the world too! Just don’t worry or take it to heart, for there’s a great God above looking after us.
Yours etc.
Motl, the Cantor’s Son
Part One
THE CALF AND I
I’ll bet you anything no one felt as good in the warm, bright days after Passover as me and the neighbors’ calf Menye. By me I mean Motl, Peysi the cantor’s son. Menye was the name I gave the calf.
Together we basked in the first rays of the sun, which only warmed up after Passover. Together we sniffed the new blades of green grass kicking off their blanket of snow. Together we sprang from our own dark holes to welcome each sweet, bright spring day — me, Motl, from a cold, wet house that smelled of sourdough and medicine, and Menye from a dirty stall that smelled worse, a miserable hutch with crooked walls that let in the snow in winter and the rain in summer.
Let loose in God’s world, we said our thank-you’s to Nature. I stretched both arms high, opened my mouth wide, and took such a gulp of fresh, warm air that I felt myself growing taller, shooting up and up into the deep blue skullcap of the sky with its wispy clouds and birds that flashed by and were gone with a twitter and a zoom. Without thinking I broke into a song finer than any prayer of my father’s. It had no words — no notes — no melody. It was as natural as a waterfall or the sound of the waves, a song of songs, a heavenly rhapsody: