It went on like that. In the end Moyshe lined them all up, took the binding of a prayer book, and whacked them one by one. “I’ll teach you little bastards to make fun of an orphan,” he said. “The devil take whoever brought you into this world!”
I’m not making up a word. He made them all pay for it. They took their licks because of me.
What luck I’m an orphan!
WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME?
Can you guess where Paradise is? I’ll bet you can’t. And do you know why not? Because it’s a different place for everyone. My mother thinks it’s where my father is. She says that’s where the good souls go when they die. And the proof is that if he’s not in Paradise, where else can he be? Why else was he made to suffer so much in this world? That’s what she says, my mother, wiping her eyes.
Ask my friends, though, and they’ll tell you that Paradise is a mountain of crystal as high as the sky. Boys run free as the wind there, never go to school, take baths of milk, and eat honey by the fistful. And listen to this: I know a bookbinder who thinks Paradise is the bathhouse! I swear, that’s what I heard our neighbor Moyshe say. It’s enough to drive you crazy — especially if like me you think Paradise is Dr. Menashe’s garden.
You’ve never seen such a garden in your life. Not only is it the only garden on our street, and even the only garden in our town, it’s the only garden of its kind in the world. There’s never been another like it and never will be. I just don’t know what to describe for you first: Dr. Menashe’s garden or Dr. Menashe and his wife. I’d better begin with the two of them. After all, it’s their garden.
Menashe walks around with a cape all the time, the same as Dr. Blackwhiskers. He has one big eye and one small one and a crooked mouth. I mean, one side of his mouth is longer than the other. It was blown out of shape by the wind. That’s what Dr. Menashe says. It beats me how he can be right. Any wind that could do such a thing would have blown my head off long ago.
Most likely, it’s just a habit. For example, I have a friend, Berl, who’s in the habit of squinting all the time. And I have another friend, Velvl, who always sounds like he’s slurping soup. There’s nothing you can’t get used to if you set your mind to it. And even if Dr. Menashe has a crooked mouth, he’s still the best doctor around. He doesn’t put on airs like the other doctors but comes lickety-split when he’s called. And he makes his own medicines instead of writing out those weird prescriptions. Not long ago (I must have spent too much time in the river) I came down with such a case of the aches-and-shakes that my mother went running to get him. He took one look at me and said with that crooked mouth:
“There’s no need to worry. It’s nothing serious. The little rascal’s caught a cold in his lungs.”
And with that he took a blue flask from his pocket and tapped something white into six packets of paper. It was a powder, he said, and I should take my first dose right away. I crumpled the packet in my hand, turning it this way and that. Something told me it would taste awfully bitter. Don’t think it didn’t. There’s bitter and there’s bitter, and if you’ve never made your own chewing gum from the bark of a young tree you’ll never know what that powder was like. There must be a law that the more powdery anything is, the bitterer it tastes. God himself couldn’t have done anything about it. It tasted like death.
Dr. Menashe said I should take a dose every two hours. He might as well have told me to drink bile. As soon as my mother went to tell my brother, I dumped the other five doses in the tub and filled the packets with flour. My mother had a time of it running to Pesye’s every two hours to look at the clock. After each dose she said I was looking better. By the last I was in perfect health.
“Now that’s what I call a doctor!” my mother said. She kept me home from school for a day and gave me sweet tea and white bread.
“There’s not a doctor can hold a candle to Menashe, God bless him! He has powders that could bring a dead man back to life.”
So my mother told everyone, wiping her eyes as usual.
Dr. Menashe’s wife is known as “the Doct’ress.” Everyone tells you to steer clear of her. That’s because she’s mean. She has a face like a man’s, a voice like a man’s, and boots like a man’s. Whatever she says sounds cross. You can guess what people think of her. She’s never in her life given a hungry man a slice of bread, even though her house is full of food. There are jams and jellies from last summer, and from the summer before that, and from ten summers before that. What does she need them all for? Go ask her! That’s how she is. Some people are hopeless.
Every summer the Doct’ress makes more jam. I suppose you think she cooks it over a coal or wood fire. Not in your life! She uses weeds, pine cones, dead leaves. There’s enough smoke to choke the whole street. If you ever come our way on a summer day and smell an awful stink, don’t worry — the town’s not burning down. It’s just the Doct’ress making jam. She makes it from the fruit in her garden. I told you I’d get around to the garden.
What grows there? Apples and pears and cherries and plums and sour cherries and raspberries and currants and peaches and gooseberries and blackberries and huckleberries and whortleberries and you name it. Even grapes for Rosh Hashanah. If you want a new fruit to bless the new year with, you have to buy your grapes from the Doct’ress. Sure, you can find them in Cracow and Lemberg too, if you look hard enough. But they’ll be sour. That’s why the Doct’ress gets such a good price for them.
She makes money from everything, even her sunflowers. God help the person who asks permission to pick one! You’d have an easier time pulling teeth. And I’m not even talking about her apples, pears, cherries, and plums. That’s taking your life in your hands.
I know that garden like a Jew knows his prayers. I know every tree and what grows on it and if this year’s crop is better than last year’s. You’re wondering how? Believe me, I’ve never set foot in it. How could I when it’s surrounded by a high fence with monster stakes? Worse yet, there’s a dog inside. I mean, he’s more like a wolf. He’s on a long leash, the big brute, and just try getting past him — just let him think you’re thinking of trying — and he’ll rip and tear at you like the very devil. So how do I know what’s in that garden? That’s the next thing I’m going to tell you.
If you don’t know Mendl the slaughterer, you certainly don’t know where his house is. It’s next to Menashe’s and looks down on his garden. You can see the whole garden from Mendl’s roof. The trick is getting up there.
It’s a cinch for me. Mendl’s house is next to our own and not as high. Shinny up to our attic (I’ll show you how to do it without a ladder), stick your foot out the window, and you’re already on Mendl’s roof. You can lie there as long as you like on your back or on your stomach. Just don’t try standing, because someone might see you and wonder what you’re doing. The best time is before sunset, between the afternoon and evening prayers, when I’m supposed to be in synagogue. I tell you, that garden is a Paradise! Adam and Eve’s had nothing on it.
When summer comes and the trees blossom with white feathers, you can bet your boots there’ll be green raspberries. They’re the first fruit to watch out for. Some folks wait for them to get ripe. That’s plain dumb. Take it from me, they’re better green. You say they’re sour? They pucker your mouth? Big deal! Sour food is good for the heart and your mouth’s no problem. Just rub the inside of it with salt and keep it open for half an hour and you’re ready for more green raspberries.