“But how have I offended you?” my mother asks.
“Who says I’m offended?” says Riveleh.
“Then why did you say there’s no comparison?” my mother asks.
“Because,” Riveleh says. “I’m talking about my chemise and you come along with your stolen linens.”
“I suppose you think I stole them myself.”
“How should I know? I never slept on them.”
And around it went again. Who needs tickets for the theater?
Big Motl and I stayed up half the night rehearsing our play. It was Big Motl’s idea. “You’ll be your mother and I’ll be Riveleh,” he said. “I’ll be gruff and you’ll whine.”
We dressed for the parts. Big Motl put on a wig and I wore a kerchief. We sent invitations to Mendl and Alte and Goldeleh and all the other boys and girls in our gang. Act I went like this.
Little Motl (whining): Oy, in-law! Imagine if I talked as much about my stolen linens as you do about your chemise!
Big Motl (gruffly): As if there’s any comparison!
Little Motclass="underline" I suppose you think I stole them myself.
Big Motclass="underline" How should I know? I never slept on them.
Little Motclass="underline" In-law! What kind of talk is that?
Big Motclass="underline" As you say good morning to me, so I’ll say good evening to you.
Little Motclass="underline" But how have I offended you?
Big Motclass="underline" Who says I’m offended?
Little Motclass="underline" Then why did you say there’s no comparison?
Big Motclass="underline" Because I’m talking about my chemise and you come along with your stolen linens.
Little Motclass="underline" I suppose you think I stole them myself.
Big Motclass="underline" How should I know? I never slept on them …
Go guess that just as Big Motl said “slept on them” the door would open and in would walk Brokheh and Riveleh and Yoyneh the bagel maker with all his sons and my mother and Elye and Pinye and Taybl and Beeber with his yellow teeth and still more people — a regular mob! That rat Brokheh had brought the whole world to string me up. But the whole world didn’t have to. Elye did it himself. He gave me such a box on the ear that I woke up hearing bells the next morning.
“The two Motls must be separated,” Brokheh declared. Make no mistake about it, Elye warned me: he would beat me like an egg white if he caught me with Big Motl again. But if you’re waiting to hear what that feels like, you’ve forgotten that there are mothers who would sooner lose both bad eyes than see their son treated like an egg white.
My mother’s eyes aren’t getting any better. That means things are getting worse. A million dollars couldn’t buy her passage to America.
It’s time to leave Antwerp. The doctors here are a lowdown bunch. They look at your eyes and go berserk if they find one little trachoma. They haven’t a drop of pity. We’ll have to get to America some other way. The question is how.
There are plenty of possibilities. But we’re running out of cash. A lot has gone to the doctors and Beeber — all on account of my mother’s eyes. I’ve talked it over with Elye and Pinye. “Let’s go to London,” they say.
I’d rather go to America. Pesye and her gang must have arrived there long ago. I’ll bet they’re already making a living. Bumpy must be walking around with his hands in his pockets, as happy as a nutcracker. Yoyneh, Riveleh, and their kids, including my fiancée Alte, decided not to wait for us either. They’ve sailed to America too.
Was that a day! We didn’t let my mother go to the ship because she was sure to cry her eyes out. A lot of good that did! It just made her cry harder. We were robbing her of her only pleasure, she said. Crying is the one thing that does her good.
No one was even listening.
Do you know who’s glad that Yoyneh the bagel maker’s family is gone? You’ll never guess. Goldeleh! She nearly jumped for joy when she heard the news. That’s because she doesn’t like Alte. She said, her face burning like an oven: “I don’t want to see your red-braided bride again! She’s stuck-up.”
“Since when are Alte’s braids red?” I said. “They’re brown.”
That just made her angrier. She burst into tears and shouted: “They’re red! Red! Red!”
When Goldeleh loses her temper, watch out! Usually she’s sweet as sugar. I feel like a brother to her. She tells me how hard she works to pay for her room and board. She cleans the rooms in her hotel, feeds the chickens, and puts the landlord’s twins to bed. (First his wife couldn’t have children, now she has two.) Every day she goes to the doctor. He treats her eyes with the same calamine he gives everyone.
“If only I had my own. I’d see my mama and papa again.”
It breaks my heart to see the tears in her infected eyes. I tell her: “You know what, Goldeleh? When I get to America and make a living, I’ll send you calamine from there.”
“You will? Swear to me by all that’s holy!”
I swear to her. If all goes well and I make a living, I’ll send the calamine.
It’s final. We’re sailing for London on Saturday. We’re already preparing for the trip. My mother, Brokheh, and Taybl have been going from hotel to hotel, saying good-bye to the emigrants. They’ve had some heart-to-heart talks.
Compared to some people, we’re not doing badly. You wouldn’t believe the down-and-outers we’ve come across or how they envy us. To listen to them talk, they all were once rich, lived in the lap of luxury, fed every beggar in the neighborhood, and married their sons and daughters to the upper crust. Now they’re a sorry bunch of drifters, every one of them.
I’m sick and tired of their stories. Once, if I heard about a pogrom, I listened to every word. Today I run the other way. I’d rather hear something funny. There just isn’t anyone to tell it. The last person was that bull artist Beeber. He’s in America now.
“Lying his head off,” Pinye says.
“Don’t worry,” says Elye. “He won’t get away with it. Americans don’t like types like that. A liar is worse than a pork eater there.”
So Elye says. “What makes you so sure?” Brokheh asks. That’s when the shouting match begins. Pinye sides with Elye and Taybl sides with Brokheh. Whatever the two men say, the two women say the opposite.
The Men: America is a land of unvarnished truth!
The Women: America is a land of barefaced lies!
The Men: America stands for truth, honesty, and compassion!
The Women: America stands for theft, murder, and skulduggery!
It’s a good thing my mother is around. “Children,” she says, “we’re still in Antwerp. Why fight over America?”
She’s right. We’re in Antwerp. Not for long, though. In a few days we’ll be in London. Everyone is moving on, all the emigrants, the whole gang.
How will Antwerp manage without us?
SO LONG, ANTWERP!
No place has been as hard to leave as Antwerp. It’s not so much the city as the people. I mean it’s not the people either, it’s the emigrants — especially my gang of friends. Some have left before us. Bumpy, Alte, and Big Motl are all making a living in America by now. Only Goldeleh and Mendl (Brokheh calls him “the wild pony”) are still here. Who will Ezrah have to help when we’re all gone?
I’ll miss Antwerp. It’s a swell city. Everyone here deals in diamonds. They carry them around in their pockets. Everyone cuts them, faces them, polishes them. Some of our gang have decided to stay on and become diamond cutters. They wouldn’t go to America for the world. They want to make a cutter of me, too. My brother Elye thinks it’s good work. So does Pinye. If they were younger, they say, they’d learn it themselves.
Brokheh laughs at them. She says diamonds are for wearing, not for cutting. Taybl agrees. She’d love to own a diamond herself. She spends her days looking at the shop windows and saying how the stones are cheap as dirt. That’s all she and Brokheh talk about. They’re so diamond crazy they see diamonds in their dreams. Pinye thinks it’s a big joke. He thinks all jewelry is. So is anyone who cares about it. You can bet he’s written a poem. It goes: